“Nope.” Woods transmitted, “Sidewalk 71, Watchmaker 08, read you loud and clear.” He looked at Zev. “What exactly is your prob—”
The radio spoke in his ear again. “Watchmaker, state your posit.”
Woods turned to Zev. “What’s our distance and direction from Alamut?”
“We are 265 for five thousand three hundred meters. But you must not transmit this on a radio.”
“I’ve got to give them our position!”
“You think they don’t speak English? They’ll know where we are!”
“These are Americans.”
“You think the Assassins don’t know what your rescue frequency is?”
Woods couldn’t believe that they could have someone inbound and this Israeli was seriously not going to let him give them information. He regarded Zev with new skepticism, suddenly realizing he didn’t know whether Zev was an Israeli or not. He didn’t know anything about him at all. Zev might be one of them, there only to lure in the SAR attempt just to shoot them down and give them more hostages and problems. He could be one of their guards, an outpost to find people just like him. He looked at Zev’s large sniper-like rifle skeptically. What if he did what Zev didn’t want him to do? He thought of the Beretta in his survival vest and reached for it, holding it in his right hand with the radio in his left.
“What are you doing?” Zev asked, amazed.
“I want to be ready if they sneak up on us,” Woods replied.
“You Americans,” Zev said.
“Wink, you still got the authentication table?”
“Yeah,” Wink replied immediately. “In my G-suit pocket.”
“Give it to me,” Woods said.
Wink pulled open the flap and reached inside his shirt pocket. It was empty. He checked his leg pocket. It too was empty. “It’s gone.”
Zev asked Wink, “Did you have a radio too?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is it?”
“Lost it. I tried to talk to Big on the way down in the chute, but the landing jarred it out of my hand.”
Zev started walking again. He had heard enough. He spoke to Woods angrily. “How do you know the Assassins aren’t using his radio to talk to you? Or even the Iranians? They could be one hundred feet from us right now! You behave like a Boy Scout…” he grumbled.
Woods didn’t know what to do. If it was the SAR team, and he didn’t identify himself, it would cost them their only chance to get out of Iran. If it was the Assassins with Wink’s radio, they were dead. He lifted the radio to his mouth and pushed the transmit button. “We are 265 for 5,000 meters from Whiskey.”
“Roger. Copy. Nice to hear from you. Any injuries?”
“Negative. Minor knee damage to one.”
“Are you both ready to go?”
“Affirmative. There are three of us.”
A pause. “Roger. Who’s the third?”
“We’ll tell you when you get here.”
“You number one alphabetically?”
“Negative. Number two.”
“Stand by.” There was a long pause while Woods, Wink, and Zev walked quickly around a series of small rocks. “Number two, state the name of your first dog.”
Woods grinned. “BJ.”
“Roger. Authenticated. ETA 5 minutes. Move to a good LZ.”
Woods’s relief was instant and complete. “Roger! We’re on the move. Be advised, there’s at least one and maybe two ZSU-23s nearby.”
“Roger. Copy.”
Woods stuck the radio into the chest pocket of his flight suit and zipped it closed until only the antenna and cord for the earpiece stuck out. The radio was slightly heavy against his chest. “It’s them. No doubt about it. They used the SAR authentication,” Woods said. “We’ve got to get to where we can be picked up.”
“How authenticate?” Zev asked warily.
“Name of my first dog.”
“You don’t think the Assassins could have thought of that?”
“No, I don’t,” Woods replied, “because I made up the question on my SAR card that they’re reading from. If they’d asked any other question I would have known it was a setup.”
“This way,” Zev whispered, heading up the rocky hill and slightly away from Alamut.
The pilot of the AC-130U felt his gut tighten as they approached the target. They had fifteen minutes to suppress any air defense in the area, but one in particular was of such great concern to him that he had almost vetoed the operation. He had read the report of the SA-6 radar lighting up the F-14s before the lead was shot down. The wingman had reported a clear indication of an SA-6. Clear, he had said. But no lock-on, no fire control radar, just the SA-6 in the search mode. Odd. Then they revised their approach to go in lower, and they got hit by a ZSU. No SAM site on the imagery, but that didn’t surprise him. The SA-6 was every bit as mobile as the ZSU-23. Good camouflage could beat good imagery. The SA-6 might still be there. Or, as the latest intelligence insisted, it was a new tactic of the ZSUs. Carry an SA-6 search radar, all the planes will panic and get down on the deck to avoid the SAM envelope, and fly right into the ZSU’s waiting bullets. That’s what was said to have happened to the F-14s. He didn’t buy it. At least not at first. American intelligence claimed to have HUMINT — human intelligence — that confirmed that. Still. If they were wrong, and there was an SA-6 site nearby, this mission might be about to lose some very nice people and a very expensive airplane.
He glanced at the IR screen, then the ALLTV screen, the all-light television that could see just about anything in all light conditions. Nothing. “Any ESM?” he called on the ICS to the EWO, the Electronic Warfare Officer.
“Negative. Nothing, yet.”
He spoke to the crew over the ICS. “We’re approaching the target. Everybody ready?”
“All ready,” came the reply.
The Spooky flew at fifteen thousand feet directly over the small mountain where Woods and the others stood. As soon as they were on the other side of the mountain the ZSU saw them. Its radar instantly started doing the calculations necessary to shoot down the huge target in the dark.
“I’ve got an SA-6 radar!” the EWO shouted. “I’ve got a ZSU radar!” he yelled even louder.
The sensor operators in the back of the Spooky checked the direction of the strobe for the two radars. They were coming from the same place. The ALLTV operator zoomed in that direction and saw the wheeled, lightly armored ZSU, its four barrels distinct in the contrast. “Good picture of the ZSU,” he called calmly.
At the right seat in the Battle Management Center in the back of the Spooky, the Fire Control Officer watched the television picture. He had seen enough. “Keep looking for the crew. We’ve got a target,” he said, selecting the 105-millimeter gun for the first salvo. He checked the status of the gun and it was ready. The airman had loaded the fifty-pound shell into the side-pointing gun long before. All three guns were pointed at the ZSU. He fired the 105-millimeter howitzer cannon and the four-plus-inch round blasted out of the plane down toward the ZSU faster than the speed of sound. The Fire Control Officer then selected the 40-millimeter cannon and began firing down the same track. The crosshairs on the ALLTV were locked on to the ZSU. The cannon screamed as its nearly two-inch-wide bullets ripped downhill at the ZSU. They watched the first 105 shell hit the ground slightly above the ZSU. Suddenly on the ALLTV they saw the tracers from the ZSU’s 23-millimeter four-barrel cannon coming back at them, screaming uphill faster than the speed of sound.