Dragon Sim-13

10

Jean Long slid her night-vision goggles down on her helmet, twisting the on switch when they were in place. She adjusted the focus of each eyepiece separately, looking around the darkened flight line to make sure they were set correctly. Satisfied, she peered underneath the bottom edge of the goggles at the dimly lit instrument panel and checked the gauges. All good to go.

The 309th Battalion was presently out in the field on maneuvers about forty kilometers from Camp Page, due to return the next day. Jean had flown back to Page from the field site three hours ago on a parts run. In the back of the helicopter a mechanic was sitting with the critical parts they needed to fix one of the battalion's aircraft.

As she watched the engine rpm's increase on the gauge, she briefly thought about her husband. She hadn't heard anything from him since he'd been alerted. She felt bad that she hadn't gotten out of bed to say good-bye when he left, but she knew he understood. She was just grateful he was on staff now and wouldn't be doing anything dangerous. He'd joked with her, shortly after moving up to the S-3 shop, that the most dangerous thing he did there was staple together oporders.

With sufficient engine power, Jean lifted collective and pushed forward on the cyclic. The Blackhawk shuddered, then lifted. Jean turned the aircraft to the southeast and accelerated, thoughts of her husband forgotten as she concentrated on the job at hand.

On the bridge of the Rathburne Comdr. Rich Lemester shifted his weight nervously as he looked over the shoulder of his chief radar operator. His ship was threading a needle and Lemester didn't like the eyehole. To the north, the radar blipped the outline of the southern tip of Sakhalin Island, only twenty-one miles away. To the south he didn't need radar to tell him where the land was — lights on Hokkaido Island could easily be seen twinkling in the dark. Those two pieces of land on either side squarely placed the Rathburne in La Perouse Strait, separating Japan and the Soviet Union. Cruising at twenty knots, Lemester knew they had another hour before they'd break out into the Sea of Japan.

Lemester was uncomfortable with the whole situation. His orders had told him where he was to go, what he was to do, and how long he would be doing it, but they had not answered the nagging question of why. The Rathburne was sailing into a Soviet bathtub and, like any sane U.S. naval officer, he didn't like it. While the rest of Rathburne's battle group was sailing southeast around Japan to the waters off South Korea to participate in naval exercises, he'd been ordered to break off on this course two days ago. Following his orders he had gone in the opposite direction, northeast around Japan.

For ultimate destination all he had been given was a set of coordinates, 132 degrees longitude and 42 degrees latitude. The Rathburne was to stay within a one-kilometer circle of that point on the ocean. It was most unusual — Lemester had never done or heard of anything like this.

Be there, and be prepared to land and refuel two helicopters between 1500Z on the eighth and 1500Z on the tenth, the orders read. When Lemester had radioed his battle group commander to ask for more information, he was told that there wasn't any more. When he'd protested about sitting still, surrounded to the north and east by Soviet territorial waters and to the southeast by the North Koreans, who were known not to be friendly to American ships, his commander had been unsympathetic, informing Lemester that he didn't know what was going on either, but that these orders had come from very high. The commander's bottom line had been blunt: Get moving.

Outstanding, thought Lemester as he watched the water flow by on either side. I'm going to go sit there, surrounded by Soviet territorial waters on two sides, North Koreans on the third, no room to maneuver, and wait for some helicopters. Obviously he wasn't cleared to know what the helicopters were doing. Just refuel them and do whatever else the pilots ask.

Lemester turned his gaze to the north. He knew that his ship had already been picked up by shore-based radar on Sakhalin Island and pretty soon he could expect to be shadowed, at least electronically. Once he reached his destination and started circling in place, he had a feeling that the Rathburne might get a visitor or two, curious about what the hell they were doing. He'd rather have Soviet visitors than North Korean. Pueblo II was a nightmare Lemester could live without.

Riley returned from the meeting with the target surveillance just as Lalli burst out the 2300 Zulu send. Riley checked in with the captain. It had been a long night for all of them, ever since Trapp had woken them up after hearing the shots. Just before Riley left to link up with Chong and Hoffman, they'd finally received a radio call from Comsky and Trapp. The two had reached the pickup zone a little less than an hour after leaving the objective rally point. Comsky had worked on O'Shaugnesy for almost three hours and then radioed a brief summary of his condition, trying to stay on the air as little as possible.

The bottom line of Comsky's report was that O'Shaugnesy had lost a lot of blood. There wasn't anything they could do other than run a transfusion, which Comsky wanted to avoid unless absolutely necessary. O'Shaugnesy was stable, but that could change. Comsky had pumped the wounded man full of antibiotics but wasn't too optimistic about the chances of preventing infection. Some of the wounds were deep.

The best medicine for O'Shaugnesy would be to get him on the birds tonight and into a hospital.

In the 2300 Zulu send, the captain had written the following:

Denser was O'Shaugnesy's code name. Riley knew that message would cause a bit of an uproar at the forward operating base. They'd say the same thing he and the captain had said the previous night: a bear?

Well, that's the way it goes, Riley thought angrily. He could sense a depression settling over the team. With O'Shaugnesy hurt, the team's mood was low.

As soon as it got dark, they'd pull out of the ORP and link up with the target surveillance. Hopefully all the talking on the FM radio hadn't been picked up.

Hooker looked up from the message. "A bear? What the hell did they do, try and pet it?"

Hossey was upset. One of his men was hurt. Mitchell having written serious meant that O'Shaugnesy was really messed up. Hossey didn't know how it happened and it really didn't matter. What was important now was that they get them out tonight. He told Hooker as much.

Hooker held up his hands in defense. "Hey, sir. I care as much as you do about this. I'll contact the SFOB and make sure both birds have the blood on board. We've got his type from the isolation information. The weather looks good for the exfil flight. Let's hope nothing else goes wrong. This thing has been screwed up from the start."

Olinski wearily watched the sun come up and start chasing away the night's chill. His uniform was covered with dried blood. Comsky came by and squatted down next to him.

"How's he doing, Doc?"

Comsky stretched his arms and back. "He's screwed up bad. If he isn't in a hospital in forty-eight hours, he's going to be in real bad shape. You did good last night, stopping the bleeding. If he'd lost any more, we'd be burying him right now. What the hell happened?"

Olinski wasn't sure himself. Going over the ground in the morning light, they'd found a few clues. "The bear must have smelled the food we ate last night, or maybe it just scented us and was curious. I don't think it would have attacked. But O'Shaugnesy must have been startled. He got off two shots on semi from his sub. I figure he shot the bear and all the 9mm did was piss off the bear and make it go after him.

"It took all nine of my shotgun rounds to put it down. And every other round in my gun is a solid slug. That thing took four 12-gauge slugs and five double-aught."

Olinski looked over at the bear carcass and shuddered. It was a big one. It had stood over six feet tall on its hind legs.

O'Shaugnesy had caught a few pellets from Olinski's first shot, but Olinski figured if he hadn't shot when he did, the bear would have finished tearing O'Shaugnesy apart. By the time Reese got out of his bivy sack, Olinski had managed to put the thing down with his last round. Otherwise the carcass would have had a hundred rounds of 5.56mm from Reese's SAW in it too.

Meng was napping in his office when his computer chimed, waking him up. He snapped alert and keyed in his personal access code. He stared in disbelief at the latest message from the FOB.

For the first time, Meng wasn't really sure about the decision he had made. He realized with a sudden chill that he had never stopped to consider there were real men at the other end of the terminal, men who could lose their lives. He had been so used to playing the game here in Tunnel 3 that none of it seemed real. Punching keyboards and reading computer screens was a strong insulation from reality.

Meng knew the seriousness of his actions and was prepared to face the consequences — probably the end of his career. Theoretically, he had known quite well that there was a chance that members of the team would be killed or injured — after all, he was the one who had written the Dragon program.

Was it worth a human life to send a message to the Old Men? Meng shook his head angrily, dismissing that question — many lives had already been lost, his son's among them. They were a small price to pay for freedom for a nation. The small chance that this mission might seriously shake up the Chinese government and cause change was worth everything.

Meng looked at the clock. Less than nineteen hours to go until the team hit the target. That is if they hit the target now, Meng suddenly realized. He tapped into his keyboard. First he wrote out a message to the helicopter crews at the launch site at Misawa Air Force Base, telling them to take the blood. Then he wrote one to the FOB.

Hossey looked at the message from the SFOB with confusion. They were asking if the team was still mission capable. He looked up at Hooker.

"Don't these assholes think I would have told them if the team wasn't mission capable?"

Hooker shrugged. "Hey, sir. Remember you're dealing with staff wienies. They don't know what a team can or can't do."

Hossey considered the question seriously. Mission capable meant whether the team was capable of blowing the pipe. The team still had the explosives. They were within reach of the target. They had enough healthy bodies to do the mission.

He shook his head and tapped out a message to the SFOB, assuring them that the team was still able to conduct the mission — and reminding them about the blood.

Riley reviewed the situation. There had been no enemy activity in the area so far. If those FM transmissions or shots had been heard last night, they would have seen something by now. So our luck isn't all bad, he reflected. Although two injured, one seriously, without any enemy contact wasn't too good.

In the light of day, he looked around the small patrol base. With five men at the exfiltration pickup zone and the surveillance still at the target, only the remaining five team members were gathered here. Everyone was awake. Riley could feel the anxiety that permeated the camp. The accident with O'Shaugnesy had underscored the seriousness of the situation. They'd trained for years for something like this; now they were going to put it all on the line. It was difficult to train men to such a high level of preparedness, then keep them on a leash, waiting to go. Team 3 had been let off its leash.

When they got back, the men would never be able to tell anyone where they'd been or what they'd done on this mission. They would be provided with a cover story and would have to stick with it. O'Shaugnesy would be listed as having been injured during training. It sucked, Riley thought, but it was the way things had to be.

Riley imagined that the Department of Defense had a good cover story all prepared in case some of them didn't come back from this mission. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but your husband was killed during an aircraft crash over water and we haven't been able to recover the bodies." It had been done before and it would be done again.

Riley watched as Lalli limped about, setting up his radio to receive the next send. Riley went over to the captain and sat down on the ground next to him. "Hey, Mitch, we having fun yet? Aren't you glad I asked for you to go with us on this mission?"

Mitchell looked over at his team sergeant and grinned wryly. "Yeah, the old fun meter is all pegged out. Sure beats sitting up there in the S-3 shop fighting paperwork." The team leader turned serious. "I've been thinking about the helicopter lifts. We probably ought to rearrange the exfiltration aircraft loads based on the new situation. Here's the way I see it. Shift O'Shaugnesy forward to the first bird. Devito will be on board to take care of him. Then we'll move Lalli back to the second with us and Comsky can be in charge of him."

It hadn't occurred to Riley that both the team's communications men had been hurt. It made sense to put O'Shaugnesy on the first aircraft. They always tried to cross-load the team as much as possible, putting one man of each specialty on each aircraft just in case an aircraft crashed. The main reason for the shift was that if only one aircraft made it to the pickup zone, they definitely wanted O'Shaugnesy to be on it.

That made the first lift: Trapp in charge, O'Shaugnesy as commo man, Devito as medic, Reese as weapons, Smitty as engineer, and Olinski to round out the six. The second aircraft would have Riley and the captain, Comsky, Hoffman, Chong, and Lalli. Riley considered this mixture, using factors such as the weapons each man was carrying and his skills. Something else occurred to him. "Let's switch Lalli and Olinski. Any of us can handle the radio. O'Shaugnesy sure doesn't count as an effective commo man now anyway. If we get only one bird, then Lalli, who can't walk that well, will go out; Olinski, who can speak Russian, will stay with us. Hell, if we don't get two birds we might as well have Olinski. We can use him as an interpreter when we marry some local girls over the border and settle down in the area. Either that or Chong can take care of us here with his Chinese, 'cause it's a goddamn long walk if we can't fly."

Mitchell agreed to the change. "Good idea."

The captain reached into his ruck and pulled out a freeze-dried meal. "Breakfast for the day. Lunch and dinner also, if you want to get technical. Shall we dine? Or shall we see what wondrous news the FOB sends

us, prior to our repast?" Mitchell added, as he watched Lalli limp over with his sheet of paper.

Mitchell pulled his one-time pad and trigraph out of the cargo pocket of his pants. He started transcribing and decrypting.

Mitchell handed the message to Riley. "The colonel wishes us well. We need to get organized to make the hit. We're going to have to make some adjustments with O'Shaugnesy down and Trapp and Comsky at the PZ."

Riley thought a minute. "All right. We've still got the surveillance in place. We've got O'Shaugnesy torn to pieces down at the pickup zone. Trapp and Comsky are also at the PZ, and they're two of the snipers we need to take the cameras out. We'll have to get them back up."

"Yeah," Mitchell agreed. "But I think Trapp will figure that out, don't you?"

Riley smiled. "Yeah, Jim's pretty sharp."

Olinski had set the radio for the 2400Z receive and then decrypted the message. He looked at it for a few seconds, then called Trapp over and handed it to him. "Blood will be on the birds."

"Comsky will be glad to hear that."

Trapp scratched his head as he worked the tactical situation. "Comsky and I are going to have to go back up there. We can wait for dark. I guess we ought to call the guys on the hour and make sure the plan's the same. Hey, Ape." Trapp called Comsky over. "Do you think you can leave O'Shaugnesy without a medic?"

Comsky considered. "Yeah, for a couple of hours. I've done all I can do for him. Ski here can do as much as I can at this point."

"Good, 'cause we got a hot date with a pipeline and I don't want to miss it."

Senior Lieutenant Chelyabinsk of the Soviet Navy ordered the speed of the Naryn diminished from the twenty-five knots she had been doing to five knots. With the change, the small patrol boat was barely making headway against the current that surged north out of the Sea of Japan toward the Tatar Strait.

Chelyabinsk was disappointed. He'd been enjoying his leisurely patrol along the coastline. The Naryn's usual job was to watch for smugglers running the coast from North Korea into the Soviet Union. As always, there were people on both sides of the border willing to make deals. Chelyabinsk usually stayed in tight along the shore, cruising in and out of the many rocky bays, searching for signs of criminal activity. But several hours previously, shore-based radar on Sakhalin Island had picked up the radar image of an American missile frigate of the Knox class moving through La Perouse Strait. A patrol plane out of Vladivostok had been sent to investigate and had found that the American ship had turned south, once it passed through the strait. They expected the ship to join the other American warships participating in the annual naval exercises with the South Koreans. Still, the operations officer of the Joint Naval Forces at Vladivostok had obviously decided that the American ship needed to be watched.

That had resulted in the order to the Naryn; they were to reduce speed so they would be in position to move out from the coast to investigate if needed. If the American ship stayed on course, the Naryn should pick it up on surface radar in a couple of hours.

The patrol plane was sent back to Vladivostok. Where else could the Americans go but south? Soon the American ship would come in range of the Naryn. It was not important enough to keep a plane circling for hours.

Riley tilted his head and listened. The beat of rotor blades sounded off to the east. He checked the surveillance notes. Pretty close. Yesterday it had come at 0300Z. Within an hour wasn't bad. The next time the Chinese helicopter came they'd be long gone.

Trapp had called at ten from the pickup zone and they'd briefly confirmed the message and the updated plan.

The mood was growing more tense at the rally point. Riley could feel it. Adrenaline was starting to flow. Hoffman and Smith were starting final preparation of the charges. Everyone was checking his weapons and cleaning them. Reloading magazines to make sure every round was properly seated. Repacking rucksacks and tying everything down. Hoffman and Smitty had run six lines of rope from rocks on the ground up to a nearby tree and were practicing placing their charges.

In isolation, Hoffman had come up with a simple device to speed up the emplacement process. Each charge was taped to a piece of rubber from an inner tube. The rubber was wrapped around the wire, holding the charge tight against the cable, and then fastened there by hooking the end of the rubber on a nail embedded in the plastique charge itself. It took less than three seconds per cable to attach the charges.

Riley reread the security notes and discussed them with Mitchell. Together, they decided on two slight modifications of the tactical plan. They'd have Hoffman and Smith blow the hole in the fence on the east side of the compound instead of the north. It appeared that the T-field fence system wasn't working over there. Every little bit of advantage would be needed. Additionally, they would not have to use the line charge to blow a path to the berm, because the landing of the helicopter inside the compound had confirmed that the ground was not mined.

Riley just hoped they'd receive the final go. He hated to think of the effect a no-go would have on the team.