Sword Point

Chapter 5

The gentle sway of the C-130 transport and the steady drone of its engines had managed to lull many of the sixty-five men of A Company, 2nd Battalion of the 517th Airborne, to sleep. The excitement and fear that had gripped them at Ras Banas as they made final preparations and during the early part of the flight had given way to sleep. Word that they were finally going to leave had been greeted with great excitement by some of the men, who, after eight days in the Egyptian desert, were glad to be going somewhere else and gave little thought to the fact that they were going to another desert. The idea that they were going into combat was treated with a similar cavalier attitude. Most believed the rumors that the Iranians would not resist them once the Americans had landed. After all, the Americans were coming over there to fight the Russians. It would be stupid to try to fight both the U.S. and the USSR. Any American could understand that.

Captain Evans drifted back and forth between consciousness and sleep. Their eight days at Ras Banas had been demanding ones but profitable. The men had learned a great deal while they were there and had had an opportunity to get used to the desert. He shuddered to think what would have happened if they had been dropped straight into Iran. As it was, he was concerned that his men were still not prepared for the task ahead.

Too many had the idea that the Iranians would welcome them with open arms, as liberators. The President's message, read before their departure from

Egypt, had not helped. Phrases like "going forth in the name of freedom and justice" and "seeking out and punishing aggression wherever it rears its head" obscured the cold hard fact that they were being sent into a country populated by a hostile race in order to fight someone else. Evans leaned over and looked down the line of men as they slumped in the nylon seats, overburdened with equipment and overwhelmed by exhaustion. For a moment he wondered how many of them would be alive that night.

A buzz drew his attention to the transport's crew chief, who was seated next to him. The crew chief reached up and grabbed a phone handset.

Before he put the handset back, Evans knew what the message had been.

It was time.

The crew chief leaned over and told Evans they were ten minutes out.

Both he and Evans unsnapped their seat belts and stood up. The men also sensed what was going on and began to stir, waking those who were still in a deep sleep. At the top of his lungs, Evans called out, "Ten minutes."

As if on cue, the ramp behind Evans began to open, letting in the cold night air, known to the paratroopers as "the Hawk." The blast of air and the buildup of adrenaline one experiences before a jump washed away the cobwebs in the minds of the men who had just woken. They needed that. It was critical that everyone have a clear mind. They began to psych themselves up for the coming ordeal. For some, the awful reality of what was about to happen hit home. They were going, they were really going. As they looked down the line of men toward the gaping hole at the rear of the aircraft, some wondered whether they could really do it.

On signal from the pilot, Evans, extending his arms in an exaggerated raising motion, yelled, "Outboard personnel, stand up."

The men along the side of the aircraft struggled to stand, fighting the weight and confinement of their equipment and the swaying of the transport.

Instinctively, they reached up and grabbed the thin wire cable that ran the length of the transport above the aisle between the seats. Once up, they turned and faced to the rear.

Evans repeated his motions and yelled, "Inboard personnel, stand up."

The men in the seats arranged down the center of the transport stood up, taking their places between the men already standing. There were now two lines, called "sticks," facing to the rear.

Next Evans raised his hands above his head, formed them into hooks and moved them up and down while he yelled, "Hook up." Each man grabbed the metal static line hook attached to the reserve parachute hanging on the front of his web gear and fastened it to the cable he was holding on to.

Once on the cable, he snapped the small gate shut and gave the static line a tug to ensure that it was hooked up.

When the men were settled, Evans brought one hand up, formed an O with his hand and moved the hand away from him as he ordered, "Check static line."

Each man, starting where the static-line hook hung from the cable, ran his free hand down along his gear, touching snaps and links to ensure that all were closed and secured. When he finished his own gear, he checked the parachute of the man to his front that could not be reached by the wearer.

When the men had settled, Evans pointed down the line and yelled, "Sound off for equipment check."

Starting from the front of the transport, or the rear of the stick, the first man slapped the butt of the man to his front and yelled, "OK."

Each of the others, in turn, slapped the butt of the man to his front, yelling, "OK." When the last man facing Evans had been slapped, he looked at Evans, pointed to him and yelled, "All OK." They were ready.

Thetwo-minute warning flashed. Evans looked down the line of his men one more time, then turned to face the rear of the aircraft. He was the stick leader and, as such, would be the first to go. As the statue known as "Iron Mike," which stood before Building 4, Infantry Hall, at Fort Benning, implored, he would lead his men into combat.

From his position, he could see the light gray of the Persian Gulf change to blackness as the transports crossed the coast of Iran five hundred feet below them. Behind the C-130 he was in, Evans could see several other transports. They were flying a tight formation, the tightest he had ever seen. At least the battalion would be together when they jumped.

Suddenly, Evans saw flashes on the ground and then several streams of red that streaked up, reaching for the transport. He felt himself go numb with fear. Tracers. They were being fired upon by antiaircraft guns.

Never before had he felt so helpless and exposed. The aluminum skin of the transport would not stop even the smallest round if it was hit.

There was nothing he and his men could do but stand there and wait until they were over their objective and it was time to jump. He felt a sudden urge to run out onto the ramp and jump. The sooner he was out of the aircraft, the sooner he would be on the ground, where at least one could hide or, better yet, fight back. Standing there, in a transport, he and his men could do nothing but get hit.

He watched the tracers continue to race up in wild and random patterns.

The urge to escape was replaced by a fear that when the time came he would not be able to go out onto the ramp and jump. With a great deal of effort, he turned and looked at his men. Blank expressions and the smell of urine and loose bowels made Evans conscious that the men behind him shared the same thoughts and fears. He wondered whether he was the source of the smell.

A brilliant flash caused him to jerk his head back to the open rear. To his horror, he saw the wing of one of the transports behind them snap off in great ball of fire. The transport had been hit. It rolled over to the side that the wing had come off and started to go down.

Paratroopers began to jump from the rear of the transport, but the sudden explosion, the turning to the side, the low altitude and the steep angle of descent prevented many from escaping. The impact of the stricken transport was spectacular and terrible. Half a hundred paratroopers, America's elite, men who had trained long and hard for battle, had died in a flash without ever having a chance to fight.

The green light, the signal to go, wrenched Evans' thoughts away from the tragedy he had just witnessed. Without thinking, he yelled, "Go!" and ran off the ramp. As he felt himself fall away from the transport, he wondered whether anyone had followed him. No time to worry about that now. He was ready. He was confident. In a few minutes he would be doing what he had spent years training and preparing himself for: leading men into combat.

Evans tucked his chin into his chest, held his arms tight against his sides, his hands resting on the side of his reserve chute, and waited for his main chute to deploy.

The body of Captain John Evans was traveling close to one hundred miles an hour when it smashed onto the concrete runway of the Bandar Abbas airfield.

In the rush of events, Evans had forgotten to hook up his own static line before jumping.

The jerk of the static line going taut was followed by the shock of the canopy opening. Instinctively, Lieutenant Cerro looked up and at the same time reached to grab the parachute's risers. With a quick circular motion, he checked his canopy and suspension lines. All was in order. Next he reached down and unsnapped his equipment bag and let it fall. When it had reached the end of its suspension line, it gave Cerro a slight tug. He prepared for landing. From an altitude of five hundred feet, a paratrooper has only little more than a minute from exit to impact with the ground when the chute deploys properly.

Only when he had completed his preparations for landing did he notice the tracers rushing up from below him. He looked down into darkness that was punctured by muzzle flashes and explosions. Paratroopers are taught not to look down. As one nears the ground, he experiences ground rush, the sensation of seeing the ground appear to rise; this causes an instinctive tension as the body prepares itself for the shock of impact. Paratroopers are supposed to look out to the horizon and relax, prepared to allow their bodies to collapse in an orderly fashion. Cerro, however, had never been able to do that in training.

As a consequence, he always hit hard. His first combat jump was no different.

Cerro landed. Instead of turning and rolling onto the ground on his side and his back, he hit feet, butt and head in rapid succession, which knocked the wind out of him. After coming to rest, he lay for a long time, unable to move, struggling to get himself together as the sound of battle began to grow around him. The tug of his canopy, now reinflated by the wind, motivated him to get moving. Reaching up to the quick-release button located at the center of his chest, he pulled the safety clip, turned the large button and hit it with his fist, so that the harness popped open.

Sitting up, he began to gather his gear from the tangle of webbing, bags and parachute around him. A hand on his shoulder caused him to jump.

Whipping around, he found himself face to face with one of his men, who said, "The sarge sent me to get you."

For a moment, Cerro was speechless. Then he yelled at the soldier,

"Jesus!

Don't ever do that again, Stevens! You scared the shit out of me."

"I'm sorry, Loot. But Sarge wanted me to see if you was alive."

Cerro continued to police his gear while he hit Stevens with a stream of questions, the first one being how they had found him. Answering without hesitation, Stevens told Cerro that that was easy, since Sarge-Sergeant First Class Arnold, the platoon sergeant-had seen Cerro hit the ground like a sack of potatoes and had known right away who it was.

When Cerro was ready, he got up and told Stevens to lead off to where the platoon was. The two of them, crouching low, ran along the edge of the concrete runway, which Cerro had landed next to. All Cerro could think about was how lucky he had been to hit the dirt instead of the concrete. That would have really hurt.

Cerro's thoughts were jarred back to the present when a large-caliber antiaircraft gun four hundred meters to their front cut loose with a burst.

As soon as he saw the muzzle flash and the stream of tracers rip through the darkness, he dropped to the ground. Stevens, however, continued on until he noticed that his lieutenant wasn't following. He stopped and called back in a nonchalant manner, "It's OK, Loot. That gun don't know where we are. Come on. Only a few more feet." Cerro looked up. Stevens was really beginning to bug him.

As the two continued running, Cerro became aware of a staggered line of men to his left lying in the prone position and facing out away from the runway. It was his platoon. Stevens hailed for Arnold, who called to them to come over to his location. They veered slightly and ran in that direction.

Arnold was in a shallow ditch beside the runway with four other men.

"Damn, Lieutenant, I'm glad to see you made it. Have you seen Captain Evans?"

"Sergeant Arnold, until Stevens came up, I didn't see anyone. How many men have we got and have you seen the XO?"

First Lieutenant Griffit, the XO, answered. He was one of the other men in the ditch. "Hank, as soon as you can, get your platoon moving.

We need to get the perimeter out as far as possible before the second drop comes in.

The 3rd Platoon is immediately to your right and will begin its move once you go. The 1st Platoon is further down, getting into a position from where they can knock out an SU-23 dug in a couple of hundred meters down the line." The XO indicated the direction from which Cerro had seen the antiaircraft gun fire. The XO continued, "The gun crew doesn't know exactly where we are yet, so keep low. The 1st Platoon should be taking it out soon. Stay on the radio. I'll be with the 3rd Platoon in the center. You got any questions?"

As soon as Cerro shook his head in response, the XO got up and ran along the edge of the runway toward the 3rd Platoon, followed by two radiomen.

Cerro watched for a moment, then turned to Arnold. "OK, Sergeant Arnold, we ready to go?"

Arnold answered, "Affirmative," and was beginning to move out of the ditch when Cerro stopped him.

"Before we move out," Cerro asked, "could you tell me exactly where the hell we are and where we're going

The long column of Soviet tanks was easy for the Iranians to track. The dust cloud it produced hung in the still early-morning air like a sail.

In a few moments the lead tanks of its advance guard company would be within the kill zone of the Iranian tanks. The tanks of the Soviet combat patrol had been allowed to pass and were already three kilometers farther south. The Soviets suspected nothing. The surprise would be complete.

The Iranian company commander had ordered his tanks not to fire until instructed to do so. The forty-odd M-60A 1 and Centurion tanks that made up the composite battalion was the last major force that stood between godless

Communists and the holy city of Qom. The Iranian company commander put his binoculars down and looked at the line of tanks tucked into the wadi to his right. Not only were they obsolete in comparison with the Soviet T-80s they were about to face, half of them were missing some part or another of their fire-control system. Years of hard use and lack of repair parts had taken their toll. It would be an uneven contest, despite the element of surprise and the sun to their backs.

Defeat of the first Soviet column would only mean that another, larger force would come forward. Once the Iranian tanks of the battalion were gone, there would be no more. Winning or losing, however, did not matter to the company commander. He and his men would die in a just cause in the name of Allah. His only regret was that they were fighting the Lesser Satan. How much better it would have been were it Americans who were about to die.

The company commander turned toward the advancing Soviets. They continued to come on fast, comfortable in the knowledge that their combat patrol was out front and had thus far been unmolested. Now only seconds separated them from death, a just and deserved death.

At a range of five hundred meters, the Iranians opened fire. At such a short distance there is little need for sophisticated fire controls.

Nor does special armor protect as well. The Iranians' fire discipline and accuracy were shockingly good. The first volley carried away half of the lead Soviet company. The impact of armor-piercing rounds on the T-80s was followed by catastrophic explosions as on-board ammo detonated and tore the Soviet tanks apart. Those tanks that survived the initial volley shared the others' fate within ten seconds without having been able to take any effective countermeasures.

The commander of the second Soviet company, finding himself in the open, had only a split second to decide whether to attack or to fire smoke and turn away, covering his withdrawal with the tanks' own smoke generators.

Instinctively he attacked, ordering an action left. This maneuver, executed with speed and precision, turned the Soviet tanks onto a collision course with the unseen assailant. The gunners and the tank commanders searched for targets but were blinded by the sun now peeking over the horizon. The Iranians brought all their firepower to bear on the desperate charge, with telling effect. Though it cost the Iranians two tanks lost to return fire, the entire second Soviet tank company was smashed. In a space of two minutes, twenty Soviet tanks and the sixty men who manned them were gone.

The 3rd Battalion had been moving all night without letup, resulting in dulled senses and slow reactions. Only the sharp crack of tank cannons in the distance and the near-panicked radio reports of an armored counterattack roused Major Vorishnov from his trancelike state. The battalion commander ordered the battalion to swing left off the road and deploy into columns of companies. Rather than head straight down the road and become involved in the kill zone where the 1st Battalion was, they were going to move east, then turn south, seeking the flank of the Iranians.

The 2nd Battalion, which was following the 3rd, would do likewise, but they would go a little farther east before turning south. In this way, if the 3rd Battalion did not find the flank or the rear of the Iranian position, the 2nd Battalion would.

Vorishnov followed closely behind the battalion commander's tank, all the while listening to reports, orders and calls for artillery fire as the regimental staff strove to organize the 68th Tank Regiment's attack. All was going well until the 2nd Battalion reported that it had run into a mine field and was being hit by tank and artillery fire.

Vorishnov stood upright in the BTR-60 with his head protruding out of the hatch. To the east he could see black pillars of smoke rising from tanks that had been hit and destroyed.

In a flash Vorishnov realized that the Iranians had anticipated just such a maneuver and had laid a second trap for the follow-on force. Now the 3rd Battalion was also moving into one. Vorishnov yelled into the radio handset to his commander that they were rolling into a trap. The battalion commander, thinking the same thing, ordered the battalion to move onto line and assume hasty defensive positions. He then switched to the regimental radio and told the regimental commander what was happening and what the 3rd Battalion was doing. The regimental commander, angry at first, ordered the 3rd Battalion to continue the attack, then quickly countermanded that order as the 2nd Battalion's situation became clearer. The wisdom of not pushing his only uncommitted battalion headlong into another fire sack suddenly dawned upon him, to Vorishnov's relief.

This reprieve, however, was only momentary. Seeing the tanks of the 3rd Battalion go to ground, the Iranian tankers facing them began to engage them in a long-range gunnery duel. At ranges of fifteen hundred to two thousand meters, the contest was uneven, with the Soviets having the upper hand. The Iranian tanks had 105mm. main guns, and mechanical range finders, and were not protected by special armor, while the Soviet T-80s had 125mm. smooth-bore guns, laser range finders, and special armor. As an Iranian tank fired, Soviet platoon leaders, under the direction of their company commanders, would direct the fire of all their tanks against that single Iranian tank. The platoon would fire until the targeted Iranian tank began to burn. When finished with one target, the platoon leader would search for the telltale blast and dust produced by the firing of another Iranian tank's main gun and repeat the process.

While this methodical destruction was going on, those Soviet tanks with mine rollers and plows moved forward. When the battalion commander sensed a slackening of Iranian fire, he ordered the lead company to advance behind them while the remaining two companies continued the long-range gunnery battle. Slowly the mine-clearing tanks moved forward, with two other tanks close behind. Every time a mine was run over, the thunderous explosion shook the roller or plow tank and caused it to slow or stop momentarily.

Once the crew had sufficiently collected their wits, the tank would move forward again until it hit the next mine.

The Soviets' effort to breach the mine field caused the Iranians to redouble their own efforts against the mine rollers and plows. Hits were scored, but for the most part without effect. The T-80s' special armor easily absorbed the 105mm. rounds and allowed the rollers and the plows to continue their job. The only result of the Iranians' efforts was to give away their positions to the over watching Soviet tanks. By the time the mine field was breached, the Iranian positions were silent. On order the 3rd Battalion moved through the mine field and formed into battle line as it moved against the Iranian positions. The black pillars of smoke from the burning diesel and rubber of destroyed Iranian tanks served to keep the attackers oriented on their objective.

Vorishnov looked at his watch. In less than thirty minutes the regiment had gone from the brink of defeat to a smashing victory, a victory made possible by the 3rd Battalion. With a little luck, they would go through the Iranian position and be able to continue on to Tehran.

The flash of impacting artillery followed by the crashing of the explosion reminded Second Lieutenant Cerro of a thunderstorm. In the distance, it had been mildly interesting to watch; as he and his men climbed closer, excitement built up. Cerro wondered how effective the artillery was. Sergeant Arnold didn't think the 105 howitzers would do much good against well-prepared positions that the Iranians, no doubt, had on the mountaintop.

Cerro paused for a moment to catch his breath, looking up the steep mountainside. If nothing else, the artillery was at least proving to be a convenient aid to navigation. So long as the artillery went in, Cerro knew where to head.

The first two days in Iran had been hard. The 17th Airborne Division had managed to secure the airfield and the naval base and port facilities there. Organized resistance had collapsed, but there were still a great many groups of anywhere from four to ten Iranians wandering around, setting up ambushes or holding key positions throughout the town and the surrounding countryside. Each group had to be found, pinned and taken out.

One of Second Lieutenant Cerro's men had made the casual observation that someone must have issued to every male born in Iran a rifle and forty rounds of ammunition.

The process was simple but nerveracking, especially the first part, finding them. Sometimes the point man was able to detect telltale signs of an ambush or a hidden position. The Iranians, though brave, were not professionals, leaving loose dirt or exposing dirt of a different color near their dug-in positions, using the wrong type of vegetation or simply not covering up their weapons or themselves. Other times, the first hint of trouble was a burst of automatic rifle fire or the explosion of a grenade.

When that happened, the men would automatically begin to fire in whichever direction their rifles happened to be pointed. Cerro had the damnedest time getting them to stop and trying to figure out what was really happening.

Once the enemy had been located, part of the platoon would deploy and lay down a base of fire to pin the enemy and cover the movement of the platoon's maneuver element. It was the job of the maneuver element to find an exposed flank or surround the Iranians while the rest of the platoon covered the movement with fire. When the Iranians were trapped, everyone would cut loose until the last Iranian had surrendered or died. Most Iranians preferred the latter. Now that the airfield had been secured, the Sheridan armored assault vehicles arrived and simplified the process with their 152mm. main guns and their machine guns. The paratroopers used the Sheridan like a mobile pillbox to destroy Iranian positions. If a pocket of resistance was hit and there was a Sheridan nearby, someone would summon it. Often all that was needed to break resistance was a burst of machine-gun fire and a menacing maneuver by the ugly tracked vehicle. When true diehards were encountered, a high-explosive round from the main gun quickly decided the issue.

When word came that the battalion was to move up to seize a place called Kuh-e Genu, the men welcomed the opportunity to end the deadly cat-and-mouse game they had been playing with the small groups of Iranian fanatics. Their enthusiasm evaporated, however, when they found out that Kuh-e Genu was the name of the mountain that rose to nearly twenty-four hundred feet above them. Genu dominated the entire area. Until it was secured, it posed a threat to air and port operations in and around Bandar Abbas. The task of seizing the mountain was made even more difficult by the fact that helicopters were not yet available for an air assault operation against the mountaintop. The entire operation would have to be conducted on foot. On the afternoon of 7 June, the battalion moved forward to climb Kuh-e Genu and begin the process of expanding the airhead.

The halting and frustrating progress that had characterized the first days of the invasion had given way to rapid and unrestricted advances wherever the 28th Combined Arms Army went. After the tank battle north of Mianeh, the greatest delay the army had experienced had been a monumental traffic jam in the town of Mianeh as the two divisions advancing from the west ran into the two advancing from the north.

After days of frustrations and delays, no one expected the Iranians to collapse as completely as they did. Plans for organizing the pursuit of shattered Iranian forces were therefore incomplete when the units of the 28th CAA were ordered to execute them.

The 68th Tank Regiment, though badly mauled during the tank battle on 6 June, was the vanguard for the army simply because it was the first unit through the town and didn't stop. The regiment, initially shaken and gun-shy after that battle, overcame their caution and rushed forward with few reservations. All were determined to be the first to reach Tehran and have the honor of parading down the broad avenue to the former Royal Palace of the Shah. Despite the heat, the lack of sleep, the irregular meals and the incessant dust, the men were, for the moment, happy to be moving forward at full speed.

Major Vorishnov, working with the regimental staff, had the task of ensuring that his battalion, the lead battalion, kept moving. Although he was the first officer of the battalion and usually concerned himself with only operational matters, the task of securing fuel, food and other necessary items to keep the drive going was beyond the capability of the battalion's supply officer. In addition, Vorishnov's rank helped, on occasion, to overcome bureaucratic inertia. When his rank failed to impress the rear-echelon supply people Vorishnov had no qualms about using his vast size and a not-too-subtle hint of violence to get what he wanted. After watching men fight and die to make the breakthrough possible, he was not about to let a pencil-pushing supply officer stop his battalion. They would reach Tehran ahead of everyone else, procedures be damned.

On his way to the rear in search of fuel trucks that had failed to make it to the battalion the night before, Vorishnov stopped at the division command post. It wasn't much of a command post: several armored cars and personnel carriers, configured as mobile command vehicles, clustered together with canvas spread between them to provide shade for the working officers. The first officer of the division was glad to see Vorishnov. He was having trouble keeping track of the lead unit's progress and could not get accurate reports on the condition of the roads and bridges, what few there were, and other details of what lay ahead. The lead regiment was moving so fast that communications often failed. Therefore anyone coming from the front of the column was pumped for information.

In the course of their conversation, the division first officer made comment about the difficulties the American airborne division was experiencing in securing its airhead around Bandar Abbas. At first, Vorishnov didn't realize what the division officer was saying.

Vorishnov had never heard of Bandar Abbas and assumed it was in another Arab country.

Only when the division officer mentioned in a disgusted tone that all Soviet naval and air forces were ordered not to engage American forces going into Iran did Vorishnov make the connection.

Vorishnov stopped what he was doing, grabbed the division officer by the arm and asked him to repeat what he had just said. The division officer, taken aback, looked at him for a moment before he realized that word had never gotten down to him about the American intervention in Iran. Word traveled slowly in both directions.

The three men seated around the large table were not only from vastly different backgrounds, but figuratively speaking, from different ages.

The physicist, noticeably uncomfortable and jumpy, was from the late twentieth century. A man of the future. The Air Force colonel, equally uncomfortable but determined to hide it from the third man in the room, belonged to an age when honor and glory meant something.

The man at the head of the table, dressed in the garb of a mullah, was a product of the Middle Ages, in thought and deed.

The mullah leafed through a report on the table before him, then let the pages drop and stared at the physicist. "So, you are not ready, despite your promises.

The physicist jumped. "I… I never told you we were ready or gave a date when the device would be ready. I simply said that we had everything we needed and could, given time, put together a couple of devices. This is not easy. If the triggers are not set right, if the material is not of sufficient uniformity-"

The mullah pounded his fist on the table, cutting the physicist off.

"You have deceived us. A great deal of money and effort has gone into your project. You always reported that things were proceeding well and would be ready soon. For six years, you have said the same thing, over and over. Now is the moment of truth. The Council will not tolerate any more delays. The Lesser Satan is almost at the gates of this city. If he is not stopped here, Qom will fall to him. You will produce or pay with your life."

The physicist was now shaking and stammering. He tried to reply, but could not. The colonel, ever conscious of his delicate position, gambled and intervened on the physicist's behalf. "The doctor is right: While we do have all the parts, putting together a functional device is not easy. None of us has ever done so. If we make an error, just the slightest error, we lose everything. Besides, the time is not right."

The mullah, surprised at the show of support from the colonel, stared at him before asking him to explain why the time was not right.

The colonel explained. "We now have to face both Satans. The Soviets continue to advance and, no doubt, will go as far south as possible. They want the oil and the ports on the Persian Gulf. The Great Satan wants to stop them." The colonel stopped for a moment. He had the mullah's complete attention. "Eventually, they will meet in battle. When they do, there will be much confusion. Then, and only then, will be the right time to set off the device. In the heat of the moment and the confusion of battle, no one will be able to tell who, for sure, fired the device. Both, knowing that we do not have such a thing, will believe the other did it. As is their policy, they will retaliate in kind. In this way, with only a single device, we can serve Allah, His name be praised, and destroy not only the forces of the two Satans in our country but, Allah willing, their homelands too."

The colonel sat back in his chair and watched as the mullah thought over the argument just put forth. The colonel had used all the right words and had given the mullah something more than he could have hoped for-a means to strike at both of the godless infidels. In return, the colonel had, he hoped, bought a little more time for sanity to win out.

It was a desperate game the colonel was playing. But the stakes were high. Horribly high.

The mullah looked at him. "Your plan has merit. I will present it to the Council. In the meantime, remove everything you need for the device from Tehran to a safe place where you can continue your work. Destroy all evidence of your work and keep us informed of your progress and when you will be ready."

Without waiting for a response, the mullah stood up and left the room.

Both the physicist and the colonel sat there in silence for a moment, staring at each other, wondering what their next move would be and where the unfolding insanity would eventually end.