“Hoor-Six, this is Two-Niner.”
“Two-Niner, Six, go,” the commander took the radio.
“We have some movement, five miles north of our position. Two vehicles nosing around right on the horizon.”
“Roger, Two-Niner. Keep us informed. Out.” He turned to Berman. “Get going, Colonel. We have work to do here.”
THERE WAS A flanking screen. That would be the enemy II Corps, Colonel Hamm thought. His forward line of Kiowa scout helicopters was now watching it. The Kiowas–the military version of the Bell 206, the copter most often used in America for reporting on traffic congestion–specialized in hiding, most often behind hills and ridges, with just the top-mounted electronic periscope peering about the terrain while the pilot held his aircraft in hover, seeing but not seen, while the TV systems recorded the event, relaying their “take” back. Hamm had six of them up now, advance scouts for his 4th Squadron, ten miles in front of his ground elements, now lying still thirty miles southeast of KKMC.
While he watched his display in the Star Wars Track, technicians converted the information from the Kiowa scouts into data that could be displayed graphically and distributed to the fighting vehicles in his command. Next came data from the Predator drones. They were up, covering the roads and desert south of the captured city, with one drone over it. The streets, he saw, were full of fuel and supply trucks. It was a convenient place to hide them.
Most important, electronic sensors were now at work.
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The UIR forces were moving too fast to rely on radio silence. Commanders had to talk back and forth. Those sources were moving, but they were moving predictably now, talking almost all the time, as commanders told sub-units where to go and what to do, got information and reported it up the chain. He had two brigade CPs positively identified, and probably a divisional one, too.
Hamm changed display to get the larger picture. Two divisions were moving south from KKMC now. That would be the enemy I Corps, spread on a ten-mile frontage, two divisions moving abreast in columns of brigades, a tank brigade in front, mobile artillery right behind it. II Corps was moving to their left, spread thin to provide flank guard. Ill Corps appeared to be in reserve. The deployment was conventional and predictable. First contact with WOLFPACK would be in about an hour, and he would hold back until then, allowing I Corps to pass north to south, right to left along his front.
There hadn’t been time to prepare the battlefield properly. The Guard troops lacked a full engineer detachment and the antitank mines they might have strewn to dirty up the terrain. There hadn’t been time to prepare proper obstacles and traps. They’d scarcely been in place for ten hours, and the full brigade less than that. All they really had was a fire plan. WOLFPACK could shoot short wherever it wanted, but all deep fire had to be west of the road.
“Pretty good picture here, sir,” his S-2 intelligence officer said.
“Send it out.” And with that, every fighting vehicle in the Blackhorse had the same digital picture of the enemy that he had. Then Hamm lifted his radio.
“WoLFPACK-Six, this is BLACKHORSE-SIX.”
“This is WoLFpACK-Six-AcruAL. Thanks for the data feed, Colonel,” Eddington replied over the digital radio. Both units also knew where all the friendlies were. “I’d say initial contact in about an hour.”
“Ready to rock, Nick?” Hamm asked.
“Al, it’s all I can do to hold my boys back. We are locked and cocked,” the Guard commander assured him. “We have visual on their advance screen now.”
“You know the drill, Nick. Good luck.”
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“Blackhorse,” Eddington said in parting.
Hamm changed settings on his radio, calling BUFORD-Six.
“I have the picture, Al,” Marion Diggs assured him, a hundred miles back and not liking that fact one bit. He was sending men into battle by remote control, and that came hard to a new general officer.
“Okay, sir, we are fully in place. All they have to do is walk in the door.”
“Roger, BLACKHORSE. Standing by here. Out.”
The most important work was now being done by the Predators. The UAV operators, sited with Hamm’s intelligence section, circled their mini-aircraft higher to minimize the chance they might be spotted or heard. Cameras pointed down, counting and checking locations. The Immortals were on the enemy left, and the former Iraqi Guards Division on the right, west of the road. They were moving along steadily, battalions on line and tightly packed for maximum power and shock effect if they encountered opposition, ten miles behind their own reconnaissance screen. Behind the lead brigade was the divisional artillery. This force was divided in two, and as they watched in the intel track, one half halted, spread out, and set up to provide covering fire, while the other half took up and moved forward. Again, that was right out of the book. They would be in place for about ninety minutes. The Predators flew over the line of guns, marking their position from GPS signals. That data went down to the MLRS batteries. Two more Predators were sent along. These were dedicated to getting exact locations on enemy command vehicles.
“WELL, I’M NOT sure when this will go out,” Donner told the camera. “I’m here inside Bravo-Three-Two, number-two scout track in 3rd Platoon of B-Troop. We just got information on where the enemy is. He’s about twenty miles west of us right now. There are at least two divisions moving south on the road from King Khalid Military City. I know now that a brigade of the North Carolina National Guard is in a blocking position. They deployed with
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the 11th Cavalry Regiment because they were at the National Training Center for routine training.
“The mood here–well, how can I explain this? The troopers of the Blackhorse Regiment, they’re almost like doctors, strange as that may sound. These men are angry at what’s happened to their country, and I’ve talked to them about it, but right now, like doctors waiting for the ambulance to come into the emergency room. It’s quiet in the track. We just heard that we’ll be moving west in a few minutes to the jump-off point.
“I want to add a personal note. Not long ago, as you all know, I violated a rule of my profession. I did something wrong. I was misled, but the fault was mine. I learned earlier today that the President himself requested that I should come here–maybe to get me killed?” Donner ad-libbed in an obvious joke. “No, not that. This is the sort of situation that people in the news business live for. I am here where history may soon take place, surrounded by other Americans who have an important job to do, and however this turns out, this is where a reporter belongs. President Ryan, thank you for the chance.
“This is Tom Donner, southeast of KKMC, with B-Troop, 1st Squadron of the Blackhorse.” He lowered the mike. “Got that?”
“Yes, sir,” the Army spec-5 told him. The soldier said something into his own microphone. “Okay, that went up to the satellite, sir.”
“Good one, Tom,” the track commander said, lighting up a cigarette. “Come here. I’ll show you how this IVIS thing works and–” He stopped, holding his helmet with his hand to hear what was coming over the radio. “Start ‘er up, Stanley,” he told the driver. “It’s showtime.”
HELETTHEM come in. The man commanding the WOLF-PACK’S reconnaissance screen was a criminal-defense attorney by profession who’d actually graduated from West Point but later decided on a civilian career. He’d never quite lost the bug, as he thought of it, though he didn’t quite know why. Age forty-five now, he’d been in uniformed service of one sort or another for almost thirty
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years of drills and exhausting exercise and mind-numbing routine which took away from his time and his family. Now, in the front line of his recon force, he knew why.
The lead scout vehicles were two miles to his front. He estimated two platoons that he could see, a total often vehicles spread across three miles, moving three or four at a time in the darkness. Maybe they had low-light gear. He wasn’t sure of that, but had to assume that they did. On his thermal systems he could make them out as BRDM-2 scout cars, four-wheeled, equipped with a heavy machine gun or antitank missiles. He saw both versions, but he was especially looking for the one with four radio antennas. That would be the platoon or company commander’s vehicle . . .
“Antenna track direct front,” a Bradley commander called from four hundred meters to the colonel’s right. “Range two-kay meters, moving in now.”
The lawyer-officer lifted his head above the abbreviated ridge and scanned the field with his thermal viewer. Now was as good a time as any.
“HoorowL, this is Six, party in ten, I say again, party in ten seconds. Four-Three, stand by.”