Harold Coyle by Sword Point

Author:Sword Point
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-12-09T17:20:56+00:00

Chapter 15

Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.

-GENERAL OMAR BRADLEY

Moscow, Headquarters, STAVKA 0845 Hours, 13 July (0545 Hours, 13

July,

GMT)

Deep in the bowels of the building that served as the Red Army's nerve center, a captain by the name of Dubask sat at a small desk overcrowded with papers and photos. He was hunched over, studying the latest glut of satellite photos. On one corner of the desk was a pile of photos awaiting his review. They had long since swamped the in box, flopping over onto his desk. He had little time to examine each in detail. For his task, however, he did not need much time. Unlike most of the other photo analysts in his section, Dubask was looking for a specific target. He could therefore ignore anything that did not fit his target criteria. He noted in very general terms items of interest he stumbled across, but left the detail analysis to someone else.

The target he was interested in seemed at first as though it would be simple to locate. He had to find a base camp with manufacturing facilities.

The KGB major who had briefed Dubask stressed continuously the importance of pinpointing this facility, though no reason was given.

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Nor was one expected. You did not ask questions unless you really had to.

The simple task, however, became frustrating. Dubask was amazed at the number of villages there were in the areas that were officially labeled uninhabited. It took him several days to confirm that most were in fact permanent settlements. His next problem was sorting out the roving bands of

Iranian partisans. Once the permanent settlements had been tagged, he concentrated on these groups. Clearing them from the clutter took over a week as Dubask tagged each group and checked for them over the next several days.

If they moved, he stopped worrying about that area and reduced his list of likely targets. He didn't even bother with the numerous photos showing small groups, some as small as ten people, wandering about the great expanses of

Iran. In Dubask's section, any group that numbered fewer than twenty-five people was considered tactically insignificant and was not reported. There was too much that needed to be reported to waste time on such a small number of people.

On this particular day Dubask came across two photos that caught his attention. The first was of an area in the Dasht-a Lut near a place called

Robat-a Abgram. Several days before, when an early-morning photo dated 9

July showed a number of trucks gathered there in a compound of several buildings, he had marked that area as one that needed to be watched.

The photos of 8 and 10 July had shown no vehicles present. Digging back, he found that in earlier analyses of the area he had discounted the compound as being a permanent settlement and had scratched it from his list. The unaccounted-for appearance of trucks, however, was out of the norm. He had not seen trucks at any of the other settlements, the Iranians having been reduced to animals and foot for transportation.

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