Direct Action

8

“I’m sorry, sir, but this sucks,” Razor Roselli raged. “I mean, this really blows. It’s going to take the whole platoon to pack the demo and do the shooting on this op. The fucking target is in the center of a town right smack in the middle of Indian Country where everyone and his fucking dog packs an AK or an RPG, and they all sleep with one eye open because the Israelis fly in and snatch Hezbollah chiefs whenever they can. Now maybe, just maybe, I can infiltrate a platoon through the fucking town and the checkpoints and the barking dogs and get them to the target. As far as getting them the fuck out and home in one piece, I have no fucking clue.”

“Razor, shut up,” Master Chief MacKenzie ordered. “You’re making my ears hurt. Everyone gets your point. But since the reason we’re here is to see if we can do the job, let’s get on with it.”

Unlike many officers, whose reaction would have been utter horror, Murdock liked what he was hearing. SEALs had died in Vietnam, Grenada, and Panama because they were so motivated and anxious to accomplish the missions that they ignored the fact that the missions were flawed and the op plans sucked. It had almost happened to him a couple of times, and it wasn’t going to again. He was glad his chiefs had that mind-set too.

Murdock was also silently patting himself on the back for including George MacKenzie in the planning group. He, Mac, Roselli, Kos Kosciuszko, and Ed DeWitt were sitting in a secure planning room amid stacks of maps, papers, intelligence files, and satellite photographs. Some of it was on computer, such as all the SEAL mission planning checklists, and SOCRATES, the Special Operations Command Research, Analysis, and Threat Evaluation System. Unfortunately, SOPARS II, a computer system which would have automated the whole pre-mission planning process by combining digital maps, virtual-technology terrain models, building blueprints, all the planning checklists, and everything else you needed in a single desktop PC, had been cancelled due to funding constraints.

It wasn’t that there was no money, just that all the services preferred to step back and let USSOCOM fund projects like that out of its own hide; then they’d swoop in and reap the benefits. USSOCOM was currently having to pay for very expensive helicopter programs, and feeling the pinch.

DeWitt chimed in. “Let’s do this by the book. Start on actions at the objective and work backward from there to how we’re going to get in and get out. Work from general to specific.”

“Mister DeWitt is right,” said Kos Kosciuszko. “The only way we’ll knock the problem is by blocking it out piece by piece. If the planning’s done right, there’s no such thing as a target that can’t be taken down.”

Murdock thought they were on track. Surprisingly enough, SEALs frequently paid less attention to planning and rehearsal than they needed to. The culprits were usually officers, who thought that because they’d graduated from BUD/S, they were so big, so tough, and so bad that they could just strap on their six-shooters and take out anyone without even trying. But as a wise old chief had told an aggressive young Ensign Murdock years before, the SEAL Budweiser badge might be pretty but it didn’t make you bulletproof.

And whenever time was short and he was tempted to half-ass some small detail of his planning, Murdock remembered the time he’d gotten tapped as a junior evaluator on a Marine Corps Expeditionary Unit Special Operations Exercise. The MEUs went out to sea on six-month deployments, and a SEAL platoon was always part of the amphibious squadron. This platoon had been led by two lieutenants, which sometimes happened. For the exercise they were going to conduct a HBVSS, or Helicopter Visit, Board, Search-and-Seizure, of a suspected hostile merchant ship, something that had been done every day during the Gulf War. The two lieutenants showed up at the planning conference without their chief, and in full view of all the Marines started arguing like a couple of little children over who was going to carry the SATCOM radio. It went on for a while, along the lines of, “I carried it last time.”

“No, you didn’t, I carried it last time.”

Murdock had been appalled. Then the Marines broke in and asked the SEALs how they wanted the Cobra helicopter gunships to deploy. What did they mean? the SEALs asked. Well, the Marines explained, after the SEALs fast-roped onto the deck, did they want the Cobras in a racetrack pattern around the ship, or hovering near the bow to cover the bridge with their 20mm cannon? Oh, came the response. After they’d gotten that straightened out, the Marines asked the SEALs what they planned to do. Head for the bridge, came the reply of the two John Waynes. Okay, said the Marines, but how are you going to get there? What ladderways will you use? What if they’re blocked? Will you breach them or go around? All absolutely elementary stuff. Duh, responded the SEAL lieutenants.

Murdock had felt like slapping the shit out of them. It was okay for SEALs to have a reputation as prima donnas. They were. But not as idiots and non-professionals. He’d never forgotten it, and after that he never went anywhere or did anything without first consulting a chief or a leading petty officer.

“Okay,” said DeWitt. “What about a standoff attack with a couple of mortars?” It never made any sense to walk all the way up to the target if you could stand back and shoot it up from a distance.

“Not sure enough,” said Razor Roselli. “We might damage the place, but we’d never know how well we really did. And no way could we come back and do it again if we didn’t do it right the first time.”

Murdock was measuring a Lebanon map with a ruler. “We’d need at least a 120mm mortar and a shitload of ammo, and that’s a lot to be dragging around the Bekaa Valley at night.”

“A few fast-attack vehicles and the mortars on trailers,” DeWitt responded.

“There’s no ground high enough in a ten-thousand-meter circle around Baalbek where we could observe and adjust the rounds on target,” said Murdock. “We’d use up all the ammo and never hit the warehouse. And like Razor says, even if we hit it we wouldn’t know how much damage we did.”

“We’ve got to get all the way in to the objective,” Roselli insisted. “Okay, we tiptoe in. Now, if we’re not compromised on the way in and the guard force has its head up its ass and somehow we manage to get into the warehouse, we’re not going to have a lot of free time to plant charges. And if we can’t place the charges in the right spots, we’ve got to pack in a lot more explosives. Which is even more trouble.”

“You know what this really looks like,” said DeWitt. “A destruction raid mission for a whole Ranger battalion.”

“I already brought that up,” said Murdock. “It didn’t fly.” At that point Murdock called a lunch break, which for one and all meant throwing on shorts and a T-shirt and trying to get rid of their frustrations with a solid hour-and-a-half workout.

When they got back to the planning room, Murdock said to MacKenzie, “Okay, Master Chief, you were wearing that happy face all during PT, and it wasn’t just the extra atomic sit-ups you made Ed do for missing the count. What did you come up with?”

“We have to do a pseudo operation,” said MacKenzie.

“Meaning?” asked Ed DeWitt.

“Meaning we dress up like the bad guys and drive right up to the front door. Like how the Israelis drove a duplicate of Idi Amin’s Mercedes right up to the terminal at Entebbe. Like the Vietnam SEALs dressed their point men in black pajamas, coolie hats, and AK47’s to give them a little edge.”

“By George,” exclaimed Kos Kosciuszko. “I think he’s got it.”

“So we dress up like Syrian commandos?” asked DeWitt. “Or Hezbollah?”

“Neither,” said Murdock, really warming to the idea. “You don’t dress like someone they’re going to want to stop and chitchat with. You dress like someone who makes them shit their pants and wave you right through.”

“Syrian Presidential Guard,” said Kos Kosciuszko.

“A big limo,” DeWitt burst out. “And a couple of vehicles filled with Presidential Guards. Jeeps, land rovers, Russian Zils, whatever they use. Something we can fly in by helo.”

“Tinted windows on the limo,” said Kosciuszko. “Syrian flags on the bumpers. You don’t know who’s inside, but it’s got to be someone you don’t want to fuck with. That’s the great thing about dictatorships.”

Once the initial excitement passed, Razor Roselli, the wet blanket, weighed in. “That might get us into town without compromise,” he conceded. “But we’ve still got to set charges and get out. And the problem with dressing up like Syrians and then having to deal with Syrians is like the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. They dressed up like Americans and caused a lot of confusion, but they nearly all got bagged because at close range they couldn’t pass.”

Razor Roselli had never yet failed to amaze Murdock.

“It’s like North Korean Special Forces dressing up in South Korean uniforms and slipping over the DMZ,” Roselli went on. “They get caught as soon as they open their mouths, because every Korean can tell the difference between a Northerner and a Southerner.”

“Which means,” Kos translated, “that the uniforms might get us all the way up to the warehouse if we showed up at night. But even if the CIA gave us someone who could speak fluent Syrian Arabic, we ain’t getting invited inside without a lot of shooting.”

That brought them back to earth. Then DeWitt suggested, “Maybe if we bring along something to shoot our way into the warehouses Like a Russian BRDM scout car. The armor will stop small arms, and they pack a big-ass 14.5mm machine gun.”

We could ram our way right through the security.”

“I’m sure the CIA could come up with one or two for us,” said MacKenzie, giving DeWitt an approving nod.

Razor Roselli left the room and returned with the reference book Jane’s Armor and Armament. He flipped open to the Russian BRDM and said flatly, “it won’t fit inside either an MH53 Pave Low or an MH47 Chinook. You’d have to sling-load it under the helo, and I don’t know who we’d get to do a night low-level penetration with a slung load. Especially that kind of air defense threat.”

They all groaned, mainly because they knew he was right. Murdock gave them a break, and everyone went out for coffee or a soft drink …

Except Ed DeWitt. He grabbed the book and thumbed through it, stopping at the Equipment in Service section at the back. Under Syria, and Reconnaissance Vehicles, there was BRDM1, BRDM2, and Shorlands (IS). What the hell was that last one? He tore through the index and then the page, and had it laid out when the others returned to the room.

“It’s an armored car,” DeWitt told them. “British, made by Short Brothers of Belfast. Basically an armored Land Rover with a machine-gun turret. The Brits use them in Northern Ireland, the Syrians use them for internal security.” He shot a victorious look at Razor Roselli. “And it fits in an MH47. I checked the dimensions.”

“Shit hot, Ed,” said Murdock. There were approving noises from the rest. Except one.

“Look, sir, that’s great,” said Razor Roselli. “So we can get to the warehouse and ram our way in with an armored car. But we still have to plant the charges and get the fuck out!” He was almost shouting now.

“Goddammit, we’re a hell of a lot farther ahead than when we started this morning,” Kos Kosciuszko bellowed. “And for all your bitching you haven’t been any fucking help at all.”

Roselli stood up. Kosciuszko took the challenge and came up out of his chair.

“All right!” Murdock said sharply. “That’s it for today. Everyone get the fuck out and go home. I’ll sanitize the room.” Sometimes being a SEAL officer was like being a lion tamer. Except that being a SEAL officer was more dangerous than being a lion tamer. His SEALs all stood up and shuffled about nervously. “Get out,” said Murdock. “Go home, cool down, and be back here tomorrow morning ready to work. Don’t anyone say another fucking word.”

Razor Roselli seemed to want to say something to Murdock, but he turned and followed everyone out.

They all left except George MacKenzie. He helped Murdock collect all the scrap paper, shred it, and put it in a burn bag. All the other materials went into a file box for storage in the classified material vault overnight.

“Boss, we are on edge,” said MacKenzie. “Razor’s not pissing me off,” said Murdock. “He’s not Mr. Tact, but you have to have a devil’s advocate. If he wasn’t doing it, you or I would have to.”

“Razor is not why we’re on edge.”

“I know that, too. It’s because this is shaping up like a suicide mission,” said Murdock. He slammed the file box down onto the table. “But that’s bullshit! Yeah, as a straightforward infiltration and raid mission, done the way we’ve always done it, it doesn’t work. But we’re the goddamned unconventional warfare specialists. It’s time we started thinking unconventionally.”

“I’ll try, Boss,” MacKenzie said pleadingly. “I swear I will.” They both started laughing. “Buy you a beer?” said Murdock.

“No,” said MacKenzie. “I think I better buy you one.”