Executive orders - Tom Clancy [567]
They do have us outnumbered, Nick. That does give them a certain degree of strategic flexibility. Sir, I see a lot of fuel trucks in these photos, the American general noted.
They stopped at the Kuwait border the last time because they were out of fuel, the Saudi commander reminded them.
The Saudi army-actually called their National Guard-comprised five heavy brigades, almost all of it American equipment. Three were deployed south of Kuwait, with one at Ras al Khafji, site of the only invasion of the Kingdom, but right on the water, and nobody expected an attack from the sea. It was not unusual for soldiers to prepare to fight the last war, the American remembered.
For his part, Eddington remembered a quote from Napoleon. When shown a defense plan that had troops evenly spaced on the French border, he'd asked the officer if the idea was to prevent smuggling. That defensive concept had been given the patina of legitimacy by NATO's doctrine of forward defense on the inner German border, but it had never been tested, and if there were ever a place to trade space for time, it was the Saudi desert. Eddington kept his mouth shut on that one. He was junior to Diggs, and the Saudis seemed quite possessive about their territory, as most people were. He and Diggs shared a look. As the 10th Cav was the theater reserve for the Kuwaitis, so the 11th would perform the same function for the Saudis. That might change when his Guardsmen mounted their tracks at Dhahran, but for the moment this deployment would have to do.
One big problem with the situation was the command relationship in place. Diggs was a one-star-one hell of a good one, Eddington knew, but just a brigadier. Had CENTCOM been able to fly over, he would have had the rank status to make firmer suggestions to the Saudis. Evidently, Colonel Magruder of the Buffalo Cav had done something like that, but Diggs's position was just a little ticklish.
Well, we'll have a couple of days, anyway. The American general turned. Get additional recon assets in place. If those six divisions fart, I want to know what they had for dinner.
We'll have Predators going up at sunset, the intel colonel promised.
Eddington walked outside to light a cigar. He needn't have troubled himself, he realized after a few puffs. The Saudis all smoked.
Well, Nick? Diggs asked, joining him.
Beer'd be nice.
Just empty calories, the general observed.
Four-to-one odds, and they have the initiative. That's if my people get their gear in time. This could get right interesting, Diggs. Another puff. Their deployments suck. A phrase acquired from his students, his senior thought. By the way, what are we calling this?
BUFORD, Operation BUFORD. Pick a moniker for your brigade, Nick?
How's Wolfpack grab you? It's the wrong school, but Tarheel just doesn't sound right. This damned thing's going pretty fast, General.
One lesson the other side must have learned from the last one: don't give us time to build our forces up.
True. Well, I have to see after my people.
Use my chopper, Diggs told him. I'll be here a while.
Yes, sir. Eddington turned, saluted, and started walking off. Then he turned. Diggs?
Yes?
Maybe we're not as well-trained as Hamm and his boys, but we'll get it done, y'hear? He saluted again, tossed his cigar, and walked off to the Blackhawk.
NOTHING MOVES AS quietly as a ship. An automobile moving at this speed, a fraction below thirty miles per hour, made noise one could hear for hundreds of yards on a silent night, but for a ship it was the high-frequency swish of steel hull cutting through what were at the moment calm seas, and that didn't carry very far at all. Those aboard could feel the vibrations of the engine, or hear the deep sucking breath of the turbine engines, but that was all, and those sounds scarcely carried a hundred yards across the water at night. Just the swish, and behind every ship was a foaming wake, a ghostly shade of green in the water from tiny organisms upset by the pressure wave of their passage, and phosphorescing as some sort of