Call to Treason

THIRTY-FOUR

Two-star Marine General Jack Breen was listening to his voice mail when a name from the past appeared. Breen smiled. He remembered the name, all right. He remembered the day he first heard the name. It was February 18, 1991.

And he sure as hell remembered where he was when he first heard the name.

Their initial meeting was the result of a very unusual multiservice action in the first Iraq war. Then-Colonel Breen was the commander of a ten-man SWEAT “hogs” unit — Special Warfare, Elite Advance Troops. The men had been air-dropped into Iraq six days in advance of the planned main Marine invasion. An Iraqi transmission tower was located in a mountain four thousand feet northeast of the city of Ad Najaf. Breen’s mission was to set up a satellite interface that would intercept Iraqi communications. Before the 2nd Marine Division moved in, Central Command wanted to know in which villages or underground tunnels enemy troops might be hidden. Those sites would be bombed ahead of time or avoided, if possible.

The SWEAT unit found one of those enemy bands. Or rather, the Iraqi band found them.

It happened in the foothills, at midnight, shortly after the Marines had landed. It was a cool night, in the mid-fifties, with a dry wind blowing down from the mountaintop. Because of the wind howling through their helmets, it was difficult to hear but not to see. All of the men were wearing khaki-and-green mountain camouflage uniforms and night-vision goggles. Four Marines were on parachute detail, burying the shrouds. The other six had formed a perimeter secure line. The PSL, which was actually a circle, sought to establish the outward parameters of the safe zone. They had landed on a gently sloping hill, with clear visibility below and short bluffs and boulders above. The high sites would need to be examined and secured before the group could proceed. Their target was on the opposite side of the mountain. Access was along a narrow dirt path, two thousand feet up, which girdled the peak. Satellite reconnaissance had revealed a cave toward the end of the route, near the tower. The men had until sunrise to reach it. The plan was to wait there until dark, then go out and set up the compact satellite dish. When the men were finished, they would retrace their steps, radio their base in Kuwait, and wait for an Apache to extract them.

The plan was changed by the United States Air Force.

The men had secured the area by 0027 hours. They were able to walk up the peak rather than climb, and moved in a relatively tight formation known as the flying geese. The point man of the wedge watched the ground for mines, the next two watched the terrain ahead, the next two watched the sides, and the next pair kept an eye on the skies. The two who followed covered the group, and the last man hung back to protect their flank. If they were attacked, they would drop and crawl in opposite directions to widen the wedge. It would be easier for the enemy to pick them off if they stayed in their close ascent phalanx.

The hogs were on the dirt path when Breen heard a whistle. It sounded like the wind. In fact, the noise was coming from a Sukhoi Su-7, a single-seat ground attack aircraft that was a standard tactical fighter-bomber in the Soviet Air Force for nearly forty years. Saddam had thirty of them in his air force, each armed with two 30 mm NR-30 guns, seventy rounds per gun. Pylons under the wings carried two 742 kg or two 495 kg bombs or rocket pods.

This particular aircraft had been on patrol in what would later be known as the southern no-fly zone. The fighter was screaming toward the ground, illuminated by its own flames after taking a hit from a United States Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle. The F-15E had been searching for mobile Scud missile launchers and had not been informed about the Marine presence. Breen ordered the hogs to drop and cover, which was all they could do before the fireball ripped into the mountainside. It impacted well north of the Marines, about a quarter of a mile, but it sent flaming debris and rock in their path. Worse, the crash was sure to attract Iraqi troops.

Breen sent two men ahead to check the route, to see if there was some way to get around the wreckage. There was, but they would have to go back down the mountain and around the base. According to the topographic map, that would take them twice as long. They would be moving around in daylight.

Breen decided to try to complete the mission.

The mountain was steep in their present location, so they backtracked a half mile to a point where the map said they could walk down. Breen double-timed the unit, keeping the wedge formation as they descended. They slowed as they reached the base of the foothills, partly to conserve energy and partly to watch for shepherds or farmers who might be up early. Unfortunately, they were stopped by something they did not anticipate: the hogs found the mobile Scud for which the F-15E had been searching. It was sitting under an outcropping of rock, about three hundred yards below them. The tractor was hidden beneath a camouflage tarp. Iraqi soldiers were busy covering it with brush before sunrise.

Breen halted the unit. The men did not carry explosives, but they had M9 9 mm side arms and a single M249 light machine gun. They also had surprise. The hogs could probably take the Scud then slag it with fire in the fuel tank. However, the Iraqis might have time to call in backup. If the Marines were hunted, that could doom the primary mission, not to mention the team itself.

Reluctantly, Breen decided to continue with the original plan. However, he did break radio silence to call in the location of the Scud. Centcom agreed to hold off an attack until the hogs had time to get out of the area.

Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. The Iraqis had intercepted their signal. The Scud commander had no idea what had been said, but he had a good idea why it was said. He decided to relocate and called for air cover.

A joint dogfight, ground skirmish was not something Centcom wanted. It had the potential of becoming a flashpoint for the war before the coalition had a chance to put all its assets in place. Instead, the hogs were ordered to continue. The Scud would be dealt with by a mechanized army unit that was already in Iraq. The small tank group, nicknamed the Jolly Rodgers after their commander, was being prepositioned to help the 2nd Brigade move against the Iraqi 29th Mechanized Brigade’s security zone. They had the satellite uplink and artillery range that would enable them to target and take out the Scud.

Breen and his hogs moved on to their target. Everything went well until the return trip. The Marines reached the cave early in the afternoon and hunkered down until sunset. Then they moved to the communications tower, spliced in the satellite interceptor, and went back along the original route. They had to circle wide around the still-smouldering wreckage of the Su-7, but the Iraqis did not see them.

Unfortunately, a sudden sandstorm had grounded the Apache fleet. The hogs had two choices. They could stay in the foothills and wait for as long as it took for flying conditions to improve, or they could hitch a ride back with a tank that was going to lead part of the charge into Iraq as the hidden Jolly Rodgers advance team picked off advancing Iraqi armor.

Breen did not want to ride back with army personnel, but it had been an arduous trek, they were very low on supplies, and there was no telling how long the sandstorm would last. He put the safety of his team above pride. The Marines agreed to a nearby rendezvous point and left after sunset. They connected at midnight, forty-eight hours after jumping into Iraq.

The man who drove the hogs back was then-Colonel Mike Rodgers. The Marines rode on the outside of the M1A1 Abrams. The trip took six hours, and it was the bumpiest, dustiest journey Breen had ever experienced. The men alternately sat and lay belly down on the rear of the turret or on the forward armor, over the fuel tank. They each had a canteen and foil-wrapped turkey jerky to sustain them. Even worse than the ride, though, was the fact that Colonel Rodgers was an absolute gentleman. He did not rag on the Marines for accepting a lift from the army. In fact, he commended the hogs for sticking to their planned objective instead of going for the trophy Scud.

“You saved a lot of lives,” was Rodgers’s final comment.

When they reached the staging area in Saudi Arabia, a Marine troop transport truck was waiting to take them to their own home base. Colonel Rodgers walked them to the vehicle.

“I’ll see you when this is over,” Rodgers said, saluting the Marine and then clasping his hand. “Where can I reach you?”

“Pendleton,” Breen said. He grinned as his men climbed into the truck. “I’ll probably be with the base chiropractor getting my back realigned.”

It was then that Rodgers took his one and only jab at the Marines. “You semper fi guys are proud of your sea legs. I’ve always found a strong army ass to be much more valuable.”

“We’ll have to test that one day,” Breen said. “What about you? Where are you going?”

“I’ve been overseas half my life. I’d like to find something stateside.”

“Let me know where that is,” Breen told him. “When we get together, dinner’s on me.”

“Not dinner,” Rodgers told him. “Never dinner. I’m like Don Corleone. I hold out for favors.”

“You’ve got it,” Breen replied.

The men did get together after the war, right after Rodgers had accepted a deputy directorship at the newly formed Op-Center. They had a great night on the town in Washington with one of Rodgers’s new coworkers, Bob Herbert. Op-Center picked up the tab. Rodgers never called in his chit.

Until now.

The voice mail message did not tell Breen what Rodgers needed, only that he might require intelligence-gathering support in nearby San Diego. Whatever it was, Mike Rodgers would get it. And when this little adventure was all over, General Breen would provide Rodgers with something he had been waiting fifteen years to give him: a high-speed ride on the bumpiest, wettest motorized rubber raft he could find.