The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

teams on patrol were in constant radio contact and regularly practiced
mutual-support maneuvers.
Half of each duty section walked, while the other half moved about slowly and
menacingly in American-built HMMWVs. Essentially an oversized jeep, each
'hummer' had at least a pintel-mounted machine-gun, and some had six-barreled
miniguns, plus Kevlar armor to protect the crews against the casual enemy. At
the commanding note of their horns, everyone cleared a path.
At the command post were several armored fighting vehicles – English-built
armored cars that could just barely navigate the streets of the ancient city.
Always on duty at the post was a platoon-sized unit commanded by a captain. This
was the emergency-response team. They were armed with heavy weapons, like the
Swedish Carl Gustav M-2 recoilless, just the right thing for knocking a hole in
any building. Supporting them was an engineer section with copious quantities of
high explosives; the 'sappers' ostentatiously practiced by knocking down those
settlements which Israel had agreed to abandon. In fact, the entire regiment
practiced its combat skills at those sites, and people were allowed to observe
from a few hundred meters away in what was rapidly becoming a genuine tourist
attraction. Already, Arab merchants were producing T-shirts with logos like
ROBOSOLDIER! for anyone who cared to buy them. The commercial sense of the
merchants was not unrewarded.
The Swiss guards did not smile, nor did they speak to the casual interrogator, a
facility that came easily to them. journalists were encouraged to meet with the
commanding officer, Colonel Jacques Schwindler, and were occasionally allowed to
speak with lower ranks in barracks or at training exercises, but never on the
street. Some contact with the locals was inevitable, of course.
The soldiers were learning rudimentary Arabic, and English sufficed for everyone
else. They occasionally issued traffic citations, though this was mainly a
function of the local civil police force that was still forming up – with
support from the Israelis who were phasing out of the function. More rarely a
Swiss guard would step into a street fight or other disturbance. Most often the
mere sight of a five-man team would reduce people to respectful silence and
docile civility. The mission of the Swiss was intimidation, and it didn't
require many days for people to appreciate how good they were at it. At the same
time their operations depended most of all on something other than the physical.
On the right shoulder of each uniform was a patch. It was in the shape of a
shield. The centerpiece was the white cross on red background of the Swiss, to
demonstrate the origin of the soldiers. Around it were the Star and Crescent of
Islam, the six-pointed Judaic Star of David, and the Christian Cross. There were
three versions of the patch, so that each religious emblem had an equal chance
of being on top. It was publicly known that the patches were distributed at
random, and the symbology indicated that the Swiss flag protected them all
equally.
The soldiers deferred always to religious leaders. Colonel Schwindler met daily
with the religious troika which governed the city. It was believed that they
alone made policy, but Schwindler was a clever, thoughtful man, whose
suggestions from the first had carried great weight with the Imam, the Rabbi,
and the Patriarch. Schwindler had also traveled to the capitals of every Middle