He hit the ground and rolled to a halt. The heavy equipment was being released above, and the Rangers were already clearing the area for its landing.
It was an hour later — amazing time really — before everything was organized and the Rangers were ready to set out. They had come down a good thirty miles from San Sebastian to insure against being spotted in the air. Dogan wasn’t expecting Mandala to be watching for them anyway; he had no reason to. There was no way anyone should have known the specifics of his private endgame.
The problem at this point was travel. The Iranian rescue had failed due to a combination of bad weather and equipment breakdown. Weather was not a factor here but walking the thirty miles was unthinkable given the time frame, which meant the transports had to hold up. And if the operation was to be a complete success, the trucks toting artillery and antiaircraft guns had to make it as well. The Rangers couldn’t afford to let even one of Mandala’s planes or its contents slip from their grasp.
Nor could they afford to alert Mandala to their presence at any time prior to the direct assault. Mandala would certainly have guards posted on the hillsides surrounding the town, and the Rangers’ heavy equipment could be spotted easily from a distance of a half mile or so. It was Dogan who suggested what eventually became the unit’s working plan, and now as they headed for San Sebastian under a hot and heavy sun he could only hope things would go as expected.
It took ninety minutes to reach the town’s outskirts. At that time they abandoned their transports and covered the rest of the ground on foot. They made their approach to San Sebastian from three different angles, much of the last eighth mile with their bellies to the ground. All three divisions stopped perhaps fifty yards from where Mandala’s first guards had been spotted. Dogan nodded to the bearded Ranger commander and started off alone, crawling on his stomach toward one of the hillsides overlooking the town.
Since his job was to infiltrate the enemy and destroy the planes along with Mandala, no assault could begin before he made a careful inspection of the area. Once satisfied, he would signal the Ranger commander and the next phase of the operation would begin. Dogan crept through the dirt and burned-out debris, almost to the first line of Mandala’s defenses. Fortunately, the guards were spread out with far too much distance between them. And they each wore a different uniform, which provided Dogan with the final shadow of his plan.
He crawled closer and closer until he could almost smell the boots of an approaching guard. The man’s eyes were locked on the town instead of the surrounding area. A lucky break. When the guard passed him, Dogan yanked his feet out hard and without any hesitation snapped the man’s neck. Then he took the dead man’s place.
Dogan pulled a pair of binoculars from the pack he wore over his shoulder and held them to his eyes. With a slight shudder he realized this was how it had all begun when Lubeck had occupied a similar position overlooking the town more than two weeks ago. He pushed that thought back and turned the focusing wheel, pretending to first look out over the wide expanse of land where the Rangers were pressed to the ground. Even with the binoculars he couldn’t see them. Amazing. He turned the binoculars on the town beneath him.
Mandala’s troops were everywhere, especially concentrated in an area north of the burned-out town where a makeshift airstrip had been constructed and a dozen small planes had lined up one after the other. No, Dogan realized, they weren’t planes but small jets capable of carrying the fungus infinitely farther and faster than their counterparts in Keysar Flats. A dozen would be all it would take to do the job nicely, assuming refueling stops had been arranged, and Dogan was sure they had.
He shifted his binoculars toward the dead fields. More of the troops were at work there, handling shovels instead of guns. Silver canisters perhaps two feet long were being lifted from the ground and handed to men passing by in jeeps. No wonder Mandala had left guards behind in San Sebastian. His hidden canisters had to be protected from anyone who ventured too close. He must have buried them before the genetically advanced seeds had been planted, the precise agenda of his plan clear even then. The fields were an ideal resting place for his canisters, for who would ever expect him to burn the ground resting over them?
Dogan focused his binoculars next on the formidable arsenal, which included small tanks, small artillery lodged behind sandbags, and several machine-gun nests. The ground had been set up as if Mandala expected an attack, and Dogan had to give him credit for taking such elaborate precautions.
Satisfied that he knew the layout, Dogan pressed a button on his belt-held communicator, giving the Ranger commander the GO signal.
Two minutes later, two jets dropped out of the sky, belching white exhaust no more than a thousand feet over the town. Men began scampering frantically about, eyes locked on what looked like small missiles sliding toward the ground. The missiles burst upon impact and huge swells of thick, gray smoke stretched outward.
Dogan started down the hill, tripping and stumbling, panic on his features. He passed into the gray smoke and felt his eyes burning. The charging Rangers would have donned gas masks to protect themselves. But since Dogan had to pass through Mandala’s lines to reach the airstrip, he had to appear to belong among his troops. That meant no mask for him. In addition to providing camouflage for the Rangers’ charge, the smoke had the same effect as tear gas on the nose, eyes, and mouth. Dogan was coughing and wheezing horribly as he struggled forward in the direction of the jets.
Behind him the sound of gunfire was beginning. The Rangers would spare nothing in taking the town now. The advantage was clearly theirs, and they weren’t about to squander it. Mandala’s heavy guns and tanks pounded away, though, taking few casualties but slowing the Rangers’ rush. Their own artillery weapons were motoring into position now, ready to shoot down fleeing planes.
Dogan rushed through the lines, staying low and shielding his mouth as floods of Mandala’s troops charged by him. His nose felt as if he had sniffed ammonia and his eyes poured hot tears that obscured his vision. He kept moving as the gunfire behind him intensified, indicating the first wave of Rangers had reached the town and were engaging Mandala’s troops directly. Dogan quickened his pace.
The Mac-10 was held tight in his hand now and he had fitted the Heckler and Koch P-9 snugly on his hip. His weighted-down pack still slowed him slightly. The Rangers were using a funnel strategy, assaulting Mandala’s men from two sides and the front simultaneously, moving constantly inward to pin them into the smallest possible area. Dogan made for the runway as fast as he could, knowing that the line would be pushed back upon him before long.
The airstrip was located at the very edge of San Sebastian and the gas thinned as he got closer to it, allowing his eyes to clear slightly. The rapid gunfire, shouts, and screams were still behind him. He had turned all his attention forward just as a series of bullets hit the ground at his feet. He dove to the side, rolling with the Mac-10 blazing in the direction the shots had come from. Dogan rolled further, behind a parked jeep, and looked up to see a pair of machine-gun nests resting just off the side of the airstrip, guarding the small jets while men worked feverishly to finish the loading process. Already pilots were struggling with the controls, readying the jets for takeoff. The Rangers would be breaking through the enemy lines within minutes but that was too long and Dogan did not trust the accuracy of antiaircraft fire. The planes had to be stopped now.