Sword Point Read Online Free Page B

last two hours were still there, in the same positions they had assumed when they relieved their comrades. One was leaning up against the side of the building, arms folded and rifle slung over his shoulder. The second was sitting in a chair at the pole barrier with his rifle across his lap and his head hanging. Kurpov was sure they were asleep. He looked up from his binoculars back to the BMPs moving into position. They were ready. A quick glance at his watch showed there were only two minutes left. He turned his body toward the BMPs in the wadi. With a red-filtered flashlight, Kurpov signaled to the commander of the BMPs-two short flashes, which meant that the Iranians did not appear to be alert. The commander waved back in acknowledgment.
    His role finished for the moment, Kurpov looked beyond the BMPs in the wadi, toward the east. Although he couldn’t see a thing, he knew that there were over twelve thousand men and thousands of tracked and wheeled vehicles hidden in wadis and behind sand dunes, ready to rush forward into enemy territory. Just as the sun began to peek over the eastern horizon, the chatter of three machine guns, followed by the boom of a BMP’s 73mm. main gun, split the dawn silence. Kurpov swung back around and looked toward the border post in time to see the first 73mm. round hit the building. He put the binoculars up to his eyes and searched for the two border guards who had been on duty. A bright-red splotch was on the wall of the building where the one guard had been leaning. The guard who had been in the chair at the pole barrier had been knocked over backward and was sprawled across the road. Other Iranians began to rush out of the building, only to be cut down in a hail of machine-gun fire.
    The four BMPs in the wadi revved their engine and rolled out onto either side of the road. Once on line, they began to fire their machine guns.
    Though not as accurate as the BMPs that were firing from the stationary positions, they appeared to be more threatening as they moved forward.
    Two more Iranians came out of the building-now enveloped in flames-with their hands up. But their gestures were ignored as all seven BMPs turned their machine guns on them.
    Kurpov let his binoculars drop slowly. For a moment, he took in the whole scene before him. The BMPs were now passing the burning building. As they went by, the two nearest the building turned their turrets toward it and sprayed it with machine-gun fire. The bodies of a dozen Iranians lay strewn about, cut down before they had had a chance to fire a single round.
    So, this is war. Kurpov held that thought as he scrambled down the sand dune to his BRDM reconnaissance vehicle.
    Headquarters, 2nd Brigade, 25th Armored Division, Fort Hood, Texas 0730 Hours, 25 May (1330 Hours, 25 May, GMT ) The conference room was slowly filling with commanders and staff officers of the St. with Brigade, so called be cause of the stand its heraldic predecessor had made at Saint-with, Belgium, against overwhelming odds during
    World War II. The brigade executive officer stood at the front of the room giving last-minute directions to the enlisted men setting up the room, while mentally taking note of who was still missing from the orders group.
    As his eyes swept the room, they stopped when he came to the brigade assistant intelligence officer off to the side, going over briefing notes.
    The intelligence officer, or S-2, could not be contacted, off camping somewhere. Ordinarily this situation would have been chalked up to poor timing or bad luck and left to the assistant to handle. But both the brigade commander and the executive officer had serious reservations about the ability of this assistant S-2, First Lieutenant Matthews-who not only was new to the staff, recently transferred from the 10th Corps G-2 section, but was the first female officer to serve on the brigade staff.
    Despite years of equal-opportunity training and the slow evolutionary change of the character of the