The warrior code, p.14
The Warrior Code, page 14
part #2 of Seal Strike Series
Chuck struggled all through high school against the idea of following his father into the army, but halfway through college he found himself adrift with no purpose or meaning in his life.
The entire country was angry about the attacks in New York and the Pentagon, and war fever was still in the air. America wanted payback, and he was ready to serve, serve the way his father and his grandfather before him had served, in uniform.
Chuck’s thoughts were interrupted by a sharp bang near the rear of the vehicle. A second later, another sharp bang occurred, this time under the hood. The small explosion had buckled the hood, and Chuck stared at the sight of the bent metal in confusion. What could have possibly caused that? A split second later, he realized he’d lost steering control.
Chuck frantically and fruitlessly tried to turn the car to the right to contour with the looming bend to the right in the narrow mountain road ahead. It was pointless.
The car was unresponsive. His last memories were of his wife’s face next to him, her hand grabbing his arm, and the screaming of his frightened children in the back seat as the car hit and then jumped the low concrete retaining wall at seventy miles per hour.
It took four hours for the first rescue teams to arrive. The smoke from the shattered car was at first thought to be a rancher burning off scrub brush, so no one investigated. Then a private pilot flying over the crash site on his way to a refueling stop radioed that he spotted a car flipped on its top, on fire and smoking furiously at the bottom of a cliff.
With the pilot’s report in hand, the rescue team made their way to the place where the car had busted through the low retaining wall. They were specially trained to conduct difficult mountain rescue operations such as this.
A small crowd of police and firemen stood at the roadside containment wall, staring down at the now smoldering wreckage. It took twenty minutes for the first member of the rescue team to safely maneuver down to the car.
“Hey, guys, my first assessment as to the cause of this accident is inconclusive. The vehicle is too damaged to determine whether they were pushed off the road by impact with a second vehicle or just lost control.”
One of the on-site investigating officers quickly wrote down the rescue worker’s initial assessment. The tags had been traced to a Charles Alexander, an active duty army officer. Something was vaguely familiar about the name. He asked the rescue leader next to him about survivors.
“Hey, Bob! What’s the situation regarding casualties?”
There was a long pause before Bob answered, his voice choking with emotion. “It appears to be a family. One adult male aged thirty-five to forty, one adult female same age range, and two children. One is a boy and the other is a girl. Best guess is elementary school age. All four are deceased.”
The group on the road stopped talking when they heard the last sentence of the report. This was now a body recovery mission. After what seemed like ten minutes, one of the police officers cleared his throat.
“You know what, Phil? This guy’s last name sounds familiar,” he said, turning to the police officer next to him.
“Hmm, Alexander . . .” the other policeman responded. “Let me see. Yeah, I’ve heard that name recently, too. Isn’t there some army big wig in the news with the same last name?”
Both police officers shrugged their shoulders. It would take a week or so before forensics determined the cause of the crash was two small, radio-fired explosive devices attached to the car.
The Pentagon–Washington, DC
The air force intelligence officer stepped into the room and placed a blue folder on the chairman’s desk. The nation’s senior military officer nodded. “Thank you, Johnson,” he said without looking up. He waved his hand, dismissing the junior officer.
The chairman opened the folder and began speed-reading the incident reports. They didn’t add much to what he’d already learned watching CNN. The report was full of facts and timelines summarizing eyewitness accounts and providing an analysis of previous day’s events.
Domestic terrorist acts? For what purpose? Why kill two innocent families on either side of the country? He scanned the FBI white paper outlining their assessment. The FBI determined the deaths were part of a vendetta, a sophisticated pair of professional assassinations.
Somebody had marked General Alexander’s family for death. The FBI noted at the end of its white paper that they were scouring the country for leads.
The final piece of the report was a CIA commentary on the possible motivations for the kidnapping in Colombia. They noted and dismissed political motives, financial motives, and normal cartel gangland-style reasons for the kidnapping.
The chairman’s eyes were drawn to the fourth point on the list of probable causes. They surmised the general was being extorted for intelligence reasons. The death of his family was retaliation or intimidation, depending on if he’d been willing to share secrets or not.
The chairman wasn’t buying any of their ideas. Why eliminate family members at the same time? You lose all the leverage they represent alive. It didn’t make sense. That is, unless the FBI’s viewpoint was correct.
It was an old-style, Colombian vendetta. A righting of wrongs to recover lost honor. The hostages weren’t taken for ransom or to satisfy a shortfall in guerilla financing. These latest actions were personal and motivated by hate; they were deeply specific.
The chairman hit the intercom button. “Hey, Sam,” he barked. “Yes, sir!” responded the aide.
“Could you come in here? I have a task for you.” The chairman wanted to know more about the man indicated as the fourth probable cause in the FBI report. He wanted to have all his ducks in a row before speaking to the president. “Also make sure we are looking for any remaining members of General Alexander’s family. We need to take them into protective custody as soon as possible.”
The chairman’s aide listened carefully before responding. He pressed the intercom button. “Understood. I’m on it, sir!”
The chairman leaned back in his chair. He hated this office. The walls were covered with memorabilia from his long career. Awards, plaques, gifts, and of course lots and lots of pictures of the chairman when he was a warrior. The man in those photos stared back at him, mocking him.
His office had the air of a fucking museum. It gave him the feeling that he’d died and someone had set up a place where others could visit and learn something about the man who had once been the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was ceremonial, tradition; he got all that, hated it just the same.
If he had his way, right now he’d be in a desk smack dab right in the center of the operations and plans division of the Pentagon, where all the hubbub and activity occurred. Where brilliant young officers and enlisted men studied thick intelligence reports and embassy briefings trying to determine what the United States should do next. That’s where he wanted to be, instead of being here, behind an ornate desk, waiting, always waiting.
The chairman put his hands behind his head and rocked gently back and forth. If the FBI’s man was the culprit here, if this Chavez was responsible, then he needed confirmation and quickly. If it wasn’t him, he needed to find who was murdering families, Americans on American soil.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Republic of Panama
The hangar was buzzing with activity. In the few short hours it required for Matt and his team to work the mission puzzle, more technicians and intelligence people had flowed into the large space. Matt pushed back from the table and stood up, stretching. He needed a break.
He heard the other two SEALs get up behind him. Oby and Boone followed him out of the confines of the secure cargo container and into the open hangar. As requested by Matt earlier, the mission support team had pulled the identified list of equipment from a second navy C-9 that landed and set it all up near the secure container.
The equipment was laid out on folding tables, two tables per man. One contained their weapons, their load-bearing vests, personal equipment such as hand-held radios, escape and evasion kits, flares, GPS navigation, night-vision goggles, camouflage face paint, water, and food.
The second table held each man’s German LAR Five, closed-circuit scuba system. The LAR Five was a small, chest-mounted oxygen re-breather. It was capable of keeping a SEAL alive underwater for up to three hours, without emitting any telltale bubbles.
The second table also held a life jacket, fins with oversized pockets for their jungle boots, a face-mask, and aviator gloves with the fingers cut off. A weight belt completed the list.
A few feet away from the equipment staging area sat a sixteen-foot-long dugout canoe, a gift from Lane. After Boone’s fruitless attempt to woo the attractive Army intelligence officer, he got to the point and asked about indigenous Colombian watercraft.
Two hours later, she knew the answer and had procured a local Panamanian version of the native canoes that they would find moving up and down the Ariari River in Colombia.
The long canoe was called a cayuca by the Panamanians. It was carved from the trunk of a single tree, a tree with special properties. When this type of wood was carved and shaped, it was dry and easy to form. Once it was placed in water, the wood swelled up, closing the millions of tiny holes in the material. It created a well-sealed, leak-proof boat.
The vessel was just long enough to handle the three men, all the equipment the SEALs would be carrying, and the thirty-five horsepower outboard engine they needed to propel themselves down the river.
The engine cover was dinged up and dirty. Purchased locally, it supported the visual and audio profile you’d expect to see and hear if a poor fisherman was navigating the Ariari. Rather than using a brand-new motor, Matt was banking on the idea that the locals on the river wouldn’t pay attention to a sputtering old workhorse pushing a canoe downstream.
An American military-issued and maintained outboard engine would run flawlessly, humming, purring even as it effortlessly pushed the canoe down the waterway. This very signature likely would alert everybody on the river that a government boat was nearby, and they’d scramble to create some distance.
The locals also would pass the word along, using messengers and maybe even radios. Eventually, the FARC would be made aware of their presence. Matt was pretty sure they wouldn’t run. The guerillas would come looking for the invaders and strike.
Matt watched as Oby took the time to check the outboard engine thoroughly, running it in a fifty-five-gallon drum filled with water. He knew a lot about engines, engines of all types. His dad had owned a couple of gas stations that catered to small repair, state inspections and the like.
He worked his way through high school fixing car engines, lawn mowers, just about anything that generated power. Oby stepped back and surveyed the machine sitting in the drum. Other than a little wear and tear and a dented prop, it was good to go.
While Oby finished up with the engine, Matt and Boone turned their attention to the Panamanian cayuca. It sat on top of a conventional boat trailer, trucked from the place of purchase all the way to the airport hangar. It was a solid piece of work, Matt observed.
He ran his hand along the side, marveling at the simplicity of the boat. Hand carved by a fisherman, these boats might perform their tasks for several generations if cared for properly. Boone started on one side, inspecting every square inch, Matt did the same starting on the opposite side. They met at the stern. He had a frown on his face
“What’s the problem?” Matt inquired.
“The transom is cracked. We need to add a wood plank to make it sturdy. I assume that won’t mess things up as far as the profile, correct?”
Matt looked at the transom. Boone was right; the place where the outboard attached to the canoe was worn out and cracked. It might be fine for another twenty trips or it might break in half during the mission.
“Good idea and no, it’s not going to change the look of the boat in the dark. Let’s get one of the logistics support guys over here to measure it and then go find what we need. Meanwhile, let’s get back to the tables where the rest of the gear is staged. We need to conduct a complete inventory first, then function check everything, down to the sharpness of our knives.”
“Roger that, chief!” Boone popped off, a big smirk showing he was joking.
Matt began to take the bait then stopped himself. “Okay, okay. You’re right. I need to get out of the weeds and focus on something I can do well rather than do your job.”
Boone didn’t say anything. Instead, he walked to the corner of the hangar where the support guys had set up their little home away from home. Matt watched him for a moment, then ran through his mental checklist.
Time felt heavy, a crushing reality that was there waiting for him whenever he paused long enough to think. Senior Chief Auger must be feeling the same way, wherever he was.
Half an hour later, the three SEALs stood together by their tables. They first checked their personal loadout, then the assigned mission gear. Finally, they buddy checked each other’s stuff until everything was locked down, mission-ready. Then they dive checked the re-breathers with Oby acting as the dive supervisor.
After thirty minutes, the rigs were good to go. This process was tradition and a lesson learned going all the way back to World War Two. It helped them find the little things that they might miss themselves, especially when the adrenalin was pumping and they were operating on little sleep.
If they discovered an issue, then the discrepancy was corrected on the spot. A little bit of tape there to cover up a shiny spot, some spray paint here, tighten up something that might rattle and cause noise.
Each little adjustment gave the three men the personal reassurance that their equipment and their buddies’ equipment was ready to do the job. It was a proven pre-mission ritual.
Once the gear inspection was completed, Matt called them over to where a dry erase board was set up outside the secure container. There were four folding chairs staged in front of the board, where two of the men sat while each, in turn, stood at the board and ran down his part of the mission plan.
At any time, any of them could object to a procedure or argue with an intelligence assumption. They were a team of warrior equals, and each man knew the score.
Boone was responsible for navigation down the river and movement in and around the target area. He also was responsible for creating a coordination grid to use as an overlay on the target area.
The grid marked off a general area using an alphanumeric system. Letters down the left side, numbers across the top. Cardinal references such as south and north were difficult to determine at a glance and even more difficult to confirm while moving in the deep jungle or running around a target. Even a SEAL couldn’t fight while holding a compass to his face.
By using the improvised grid, the three SEALs would be able to reference an object or an activity by calling out the grid reference just like the game, bingo. It was a very quick down and dirty way for people who were not in the same location to identify objects rapidly.
The coordinating data would be passed on to the assets supporting them, so that they also could pinpoint targets or the location of the recon team on the ground quickly and accurately. The air support was used to seeing this method on SEAL operations. They like the simplicity of the trick. It made directing air-to-ground supporting fire easy.
Oby was responsible for the reconnaissance and surveillance phase of the operation. He briefed Matt and Boone on how he wanted to conduct the initial recon when they found the target site.
Oby went over every detail of how he was going to set up the first surveillance hide. He explained how the observation shifts would rotate every two hours. One man would watch, one man would guard, and one man would sleep.
The last thing Oby covered was the surveillance logbook, something all qualified snipers were familiar with.
“Why the hell do we have to use the logbook?” growled Boone. “I don’t care about sniper SOPs! Why can’t we just write down what we see like we usually do?”
Matt could see that the lack of sleep and intense planning effort was wearing them all down. Time to step in. “We’re using the sniper log because I told Oby to do so. It’s the best format we have to capture everything and anything. We’ll use it for the continuous reports we’ll be sending back.”
Matt’s tone startled Boone. “Okay, sir, you don’t have to get your panties in a bunch!” Boone waved at Oby. “Go on, brother SEAL, do continue!”
Oby smiled. “Happy to! Our surveillance logbook will be maintained, showing the time, place, activity, and impact of every event as it occurs in the target area. While we may not think all the information is important, during the post-mission debriefing intelligence professionals can pour over the logbook and match its data with that of other reports they have on the target. It has to be neat and accurate. That’s all, boss!” Oby sat down.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Matt was the last one to brief. He began by covering the command and control aspects of the mission. He emphasized the communications plan, starting with hand and arm signals while on patrol and finishing with the satellite radio they would use to communicate with the operations center. Matt was pretty sure this function would be performed by an aircraft orbiting somewhere near, but not too near the camp.
Matt also detailed the radio frequencies, call signs, code words, and the use of fire support if and when they needed it. Then he moved on to discuss how they were going to load the canoe into the helicopter.
“We have two primary and secondary extraction plans. One for us alone, if we don’t link up with other friendlies; and the second plan is for when we leave with the rescue force.”
Matt spent the next twenty minutes pouring over the details. In a way, having only three SEALs made it much easier to plan. They didn’t have to explain a lot of things to each other and they didn’t have to invent SOPs unique to the mission.
They’d worked together before and knew how each other thought and moved. There were no doubts about their individual skills as SEALs and no doubt of each man’s courage under fire.
