Dragon Sim-13

3

Brigadier General Sutton looked over the group of men arrayed in front of him. USSOCOM hadn't brought very many people to run this exercise, he thought to himself. During some joint exercises, Tunnel 3 had been packed with up to forty various commanders and staff personnel, all of them tripping over each other. For Dragon Sim-13, the Tunnel looked almost empty, with just five people from the command at MacDill Air Force Base seated in front of him. The man in overall charge was the deputy commander for USSOCOM, Major General Olson. It was to him that Sutton addressed his inbriefing. "Good morning, General. Welcome to Dragon Sim-13. Before we get started with the briefing that describes what you will be doing over the course of the next week, I'd like to introduce the members of my staff."

Sutton pointed out his people as they were introduced. "Although I'm the head of Strams, as we call the project here, the real brain behind this setup is Doctor Meng. He is also the program chief of the first shift." Meng inclined his head at the guests. "The man in charge of handling all your communications and message traffic is Major Tresome. He's also the second-shift communications chief. Our second-shift program chief is Doctor Wilson. The first-shift communications chief is Master Sergeant Burns.

"As you can tell, very few people are involved in the running of this exercise. There are two major reasons for this." Sutton gestured at the electronic billboard behind him and then at the computer consoles. "The first is that the majority of the exercise is automated and we simply don't need that many people. The second is due to the fact that we are using real war-plan oplans — every mission is highly classified. The fewer people involved the better."

Sutton looked down and slid his notes for the formal inbriefing to the top of the podium. "Gentlemen, you all have copies of USSOCOM contingency oplan Typhoon 17-A. That is the oplan we will be using for Dragon Sim-13."

Sutton looked up at General Olson. "Sir, perhaps you could explain to us, so we're all on the same sheet of music, the significance behind this operational plan and why your staff developed it."

General Olson was a heavyset air force general with a ruddy complexion. He shifted in his seat as he handed off the question. "I'd like my operations man here to answer that. Colonel Moore?"

An army colonel with a Special Forces combat patch on his right shoulder fielded the inquiry. "I'm the assistant operations officer at USSOCOM. Our Typhoon series oplans are contingency and wartime missions for our Special Operations Forces in the Pacific targeted against China. Every special ops unit in the Pacific has various wartime missions allocated to them. The alpha at the end of this oplan signifies that the unit is army. The seventeen means that it is the seventeenth mission assigned to army special operations in the Pacific."

They all watched as Moore got up, walked over to the electronic map, and pointed. "We have a limited number of Special Operations Forces permanently stationed in the Pacific. The air force has the 1st Special Operations Squadron at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, which consists of four MC-13 °Combat Talon aircraft.

"As far as navy goes, they have a Special Warfare Group of SEALs dedicated to the theater. The army has the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group headquartered in Okinawa and the Special Forces Detachment-Korea, also known as DET-K, up here in Seoul.

"This mission, 17-A, is for a unit from DET-K. It was initially designed as a team's wartime mission in the event of all-out war between the United States and China. The way we come up with these missions is to give general taskings to the subordinate units and then ask them to develop missions they feel are within their capabilities. In this instance the general guidance was to inflict damage on the Chinese war-fighting ability by attacking their petroleum industry."

Moore seemed ready to continue, but Sutton held up a hand. "I think that's all we need for now. In this scenario, we're using the wartime mission as a Command Authority surgical strike to retaliate against the Chinese government. The political reasons for such a strike are not important, since we are merely testing the ability to command and control such a mission. In doing so we will also get a good idea of the feasibility of the mission. That data will be in our files. In case there is ever a need to consider any of these missions, the data will be available for study."

Sutton consulted his notes again. "I want to run through the tentative schedule and rules for the exercise so we can get started on time. The evaluated exercise formally begins today at 1200 Zulu. By the way, all times from here on will be in Zulu, or Greenwich mean time. That will help prevent any confusion with the various time zones we'll be working with. All your message traffic will go through the computer. The blank square in the lower right corner of the electronic map is where all the traffic going in and out will be displayed."

Sutton paused as Olson raised a hand. "You mean there's no way we can talk directly to the units?"

Sutton shook his head. "Not verbally. There are two reasons we run it this way. First, it is more secure because we are able to automatically encrypt and decrypt the message traffic. You will find, if you ever operate out of the Pentagon's Emergency Operations Center, that it works in the same way. There is the capability to talk voice in an emergency, but almost all traffic is handled through the keyboard.

"The second reason is that the computer in some cases will be making the responses for your subordinate and higher elements. For example, you will be receiving some input from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as your link to the National Command Authority. Naturally, we don't have the chairman standing by. The computer will simulate his responses and input along with that of other people and units."

Sutton turned to the map board. "In addition to the…"

In the back of the room, Meng tuned out the droning of Sutton's voice. He'd heard it all before. Grown men playing games. He looked at his watch. Almost 7:30. He slipped out of Tunnel 3 to catch the latest news on the TV.

About ten soldiers were scattered about talking quietly in the bar area of the Page II All-Ranks Club. Mitchell looked around as he grabbed a bar stool. It was early yet for a Friday night. Mitchell knew most GIs went downtown to one of the five Korean clubs clustered around the post's main gate; these places offered bar girls and livelier entertainment.

He looked with irritation at his watch. Jean was really late tonight. He'd gone over to the hangar to see her as soon as he'd arrived at seven. She'd still been in her office, working on paperwork that she hadn't been able to get to in a day full of flying. She promised him she'd make it to the club by eight. Mitchell had dumped his overnight bag in the small room on the end of a Korean war-vintage Quonset hut that served as Jean's quarters and then come over to the club to wait for her.

He nodded as a warrant officer from his wife's unit came in and took the stool next to him. Chief Warrant Officer Third Class Colin Lassiter was his wife's main assistant in making sure the flow of aircraft went smoothly. Her company, D Company, 309th Aviation, was responsible for fixing all the helicopters in the battalion — a total of almost fifty aircraft.

Lassiter shook his head at Mitchell. "Captain Long working late again, sir?"

Mitchell nodded glumly. "She was supposed to be here at eight."

Lassiter ordered them both a beer. "I'm sure glad she's in command here. Things have gotten a lot better since she took over. We used to be totally screwed up. Now we're only half screwed up."

Mitchell was relieved to see Jean walk into the bar, still in uniform. She smiled as she saw him and strode over. "Hey, babe. Sorry I'm late."

He was still irritated. "Yeah, sure. Want a beer?"

She looked at her watch. "No, I've got to fly tomorrow morning." She turned to the warrant officer. "Keeping my husband out of trouble, Colin?"

"Yes, ma'am. You know me."

She laughed. "Yeah, I do. That's why I asked." She turned back to her husband. "I'm starved. Let's eat."

Mitchell slid off his bar stool and, saying good night to Lassiter, followed his wife to the other end of the club where the dining room was located. It was five minutes before the kitchen closed but the Korean waitress was more than happy to persuade the cook to scrape together something for her favorite captain and her husband. Mitchell was always impressed by how his wife could make people like her. A sense of humor was a valuable tool, he knew, but one he didn't have a good handle on. His wife was usually smiling and could laugh at anything. In the army this sometimes irritated people, who thought she might be laughing at them. It was the same mistake he had made when he'd first met her at Fort Bragg.

As they waited for the meal, they filled each other in on events of the past week. Mitchell let his wife do most of the talking, because he could sense she was upset about something. It took her a few minutes, but she finally got around to it. She reached into one of the numerous pockets on her flight suit, pulled out a photograph, and passed it across the table. "Someone in my company found that posted on the bulletin board at flight operations."

Mitchell checked out the picture. It showed his wife drinking out of a large tankard in front of a bunch of men. Someone had scrawled across the bottom: MUST BE HARD TRYING TO BE A MAN. "When was this taken?" he asked.

"During my hail to the battalion six weeks ago. They fill that tankard with beer and you have to drink all of it."

Mitchell looked at his wife. "You drank all of it?"

She nodded. "It was only four beers. I had to do it. It's the tradition for a new officer."

Mitchell didn't think much of the tradition. "That's a real professional unit you're in."

"Hey, it was only in fun. I thought it was kind of humorous."

Mitchell stabbed his finger at the printing. "Who the hell wrote this at the bottom?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Someone from my company saw it on the board at flight ops and took it down and brought it to me."

Mitchell was pissed. The resentment that was continually directed toward his wife for being in the army grated on his nerves. He hated it when someone tried to hurt her. It made him want to find whoever had done it and hurt them. Not a very mature reaction, he knew. Jean could, and wanted to, fight her own battles. And she was good at it. She'd held her own for nine years. All she wanted from him was comfort and support.

"What are you going to do about it?"

She put the picture away. "I'm going to talk to the captain in charge over at flight ops. Even if he doesn't know who put it up, if he saw it there he should have taken it down. Then I'm going to talk to my colonel and show it to him."

"Why do people do things like that?"

Jean shook her head. "I'm the only female pilot in this battalion. I think it threatens the men to have me here. They think they're less of a man because a woman can do the same job." She slumped back in her chair exhausted. "I don't know. I just get tired of this shit. If someone has a problem with me I'd rather they come and talk to me rather than do childish stuff like this. This is such bullshit. I just want to do my job."

Mitchell tried to lighten the mood. "They won't face you because they're not man enough. Hell, even I don't like getting in an argument with you and I'm married to you. You always win." He slid his seat toward his wife and put his arm around her. "Listen, sweety-pie, don't let these idiots get to you." He hugged her tight.

The duty officer for the 1st Special Operations Squadron (1st SOS) looked up as the secure SATCOM terminal machine in the corner hummed with an incoming message. He put down his book and went over to the machine. After five seconds, the humming stopped and the message was spit out. The man's eyes widened as he read the message.

The duty officer grabbed the phone and punched in the number for the commander's quarters. Damn, he thought. 1500 Zulu. That wasn't much time to preflight and get a crew together.

Hossey pulled into the parking lot of the Eighth Army Headquarters on north post less than fifteen minutes after getting the phone call from the duty officer about the Flash message. Hossey showed his ID card to the guard and wound his way through the building until he got to the duty office. The major there checked his ID card again. Satisfied that Hossey was who he claimed to be, the major handed over a sheet of paper.

Hossey put on his reading glasses and perused the contents.

Hossey took a minute to consider the message. It was an alert and the Typhoon 17-A referenced the war plan. Hossey couldn't remember exactly which mission it was, but he knew the target was China.

Had to be either the nuclear power plant or the pipeline, but he couldn't remember which. More importantly, he wondered if this was real or a training exercise. The River Thunder authorization code was the real one, but Hossey could see little reason why they would be running a Typhoon mission for real. The ongoing events in China were certainly serious but seemed more a political than a military problem. He decided after a few moments of consideration that it was most likely a training exercise to test their ability to react, while at the same time giving the politicians a military option for a show of force.

Using the duty officer's phone, he started dialing. As the phone began to ring on the other end, he shook his head. A great time to call an alert — Saturday night on a payday weekend. Most every soldier would be off post in Itaewon getting drunk and chasing women. He was surprised when the receiver was lifted.

"Riley here."

"Dave, this is Colonel Hossey. This is an alert. Get your team together and meet me at the compound."

"All right, sir. I'm going to have to go downtown to track most of them down. When do you need everyone?"

Hossey checked his watch and subtracted the drive down to Osan. He added in the number of bars in Itaewon. "Try to get as many as you can by 0100. I'll have Hooker run the rest down as they come in. I'll meet you at the compound at 0200."

"Roger that, sir."

A thought struck Hossey. "You have any idea where Hooker might be right now?"

"Probably at the NCO club, sir. He usually gets fired up there and then heads downtown around midnight."

"Thanks. Out here." Hossey put down the phone and headed for his car to drive to the NCO club.

On the other end of the line, Dave Riley replaced the receiver. He quickly dialed the phone number of the one team member who didn't live in the barracks. Then he went out into the hallway and pounded on the doors of those who did. The only one to answer his door was Olinski.

"What's up, Top?"

"An alert. We need to go downtown and find the guys. I already got a hold of Chong at his yobo's place. He's on his way to the team room. I told him to get our team and isolation gear ready to go."

Riley waited while Olinski threw on a shirt, then they headed for the gate. Riley led the way as he broke into a trot. He knew he could try for a cab, but the chance of getting one of the post-run cabs at this hour on a Saturday night was slim. The same was true for getting a Korean cab right outside the gate. They'd get to Itaewon quicker on foot than by standing around waiting for a taxi. Besides, Riley hated waiting.

With Olinski trailing behind him, Riley turned right on the main Korean street that separated North and South Post Yongsan. After a quarter mile, the cinder-block walls on either side that guarded the military post disappeared, and they arrived at a major four-way intersection. On the other side of the intersection, bright lights indicated the beginning of the Itaewon district. During the day, Itaewon was the mecca for shoppers in Seoul. The many stores and sidewalk vendors catered to both local and foreign browsers. At night, the district transformed itself into Western-style nightlife. Dozens of nightclubs blasted music into the streets, and the twenty-block area was garishly lit by hundreds of neon signs. Clusters of bar girls lurked inside most of those bars, waiting to fall on GIs with money in their pockets. Riley knew which of the clubs his team members frequented. He decided to start on the main street and then work his way south.

The crew was scraped together from whoever could be found on base. The 1st Special Operations Squadron didn't normally keep an alert crew. There hadn't been a need for one, since Talon missions usually required a few days of planning and advance notice. One of the hastily gathered-in crew members, Maj. Ed Kent, blinked as a pair of headlights turned in his direction. He opened the glass door to the base operations building and dragged his deployment flight bag outside. An air force station wagon pulled up next to him and a burly black enlisted man got out. "You the new EW officer?"

Kent nodded as he threw the bag in the backseat. "Major Kent." "I'm Master Technical Sergeant Young. I'm the loadmaster for the aircraft you'll be flying on. You must be new. I've never seen you before. You can hop in the car with me and I'll take you over."

Kent got in the passenger side and Young started the car rolling slowly along the flight line. "I just got in country a couple of days ago."

Young looked him over. "How much time in Talons you got?"

Kent shook his head. "I just graduated from the electronics warfare school for them at Hurlburt. I was the EW man on an F-111 before this. You know what this is all about?"

"I don't know what the hell is going on, but it sure got the colonel hopping mad. Lieutenant Colonel Riggins, that is," Young explained. "He's the pilot for our bird. They're preflighting right now. He had to replace the copilot too, cause his usual had a few too many at the o club this evening." He glanced over at Kent. "There a fire we got to put out or something? We don't see too many two-hour notices for a deployment unless someone's shooting at somebody somewhere."

Kent didn't know either. "All I know is, I've got to go with you all. I don't even know where we're going."

"Uh-huh," Young noted. "This is it here," he said as he pulled up to a pickup truck with two air police in it. Young showed his ID and Kent followed suit. The police waved them on. "You see that red line we just crossed?"

Kent looked back at the lit tarmac where the pickup was parked. "Yes."

"We call that the line of death. If someone who isn't authorized crosses that line, those MPs will draw down on them. You're in a secure area of the flight line now." He pulled up next to an aircraft. "And this is my baby." Kent got out of the car and looked over the aircraft.

Kent knew the capabilities of the MC-130E, designated as the Combat Talon, from his classes and training at the home of the 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida. The basic design was that of a Lockheed C-130. Using that airframe, the air force had built a plane unique in the world.

Seeing the fuselage in the harsh spotlights, Kent could note some of the more obvious external modifications. The nose of the airplane had a large bulbous protrusion under the cockpit that normal C-130s didn't possess; that bulb housed many of the additional navigational devices the airplane employed. Also in front, two "whiskers" scissored out from the point of the nose, forming an inverted v along the direction of flight. The whiskers were for the Fulton Recovery System, designed to retrieve either personnel or equipment from the ground. A balloon was used to stretch a cable up from the ground. The pilot flew the plane right into the cable and the whiskers snatched it between them. From the edge of the whiskers, a steel cable with wire cutters extended to the tips of the wings. This cable was protection in case the pilot missed; it would prevent the balloon cable from fouling the props.

In the center of the whiskers, the balloon cable was clamped, then the speed of the aircraft drew the cable up along the belly of the plane. Hanging off the open ramp in the back, another clamp caught the cable and rotated it onto a winch inside the aircraft. Once the winch was activated, the cable was pulled into the aircraft, reeling in whatever had been on the ground

As he ran his eyes back along the craft, Kent noted the extra fuel pods slung under the wings, which increased the aircraft's range. In the rear, he could see Young ground-guiding the driver of a forklift, maneuvering a pallet into the back of the aircraft. Kent wandered around the back.

The rear of the aircraft opened up to allow such cargo to be put in and also for paradrops of personnel or equipment. The back split, with the bottom half coming down to form a ramp and the top half disappearing into the fuselage of the aircraft beneath the massive tail.

Young had positioned the pallet over the ramp. Using hand gestures, the loadmaster had the driver lower the pallet until it sat on a set of rollers. After the forklift driver backed off, Kent hopped up and helped Young roll the pallet into the main body of the aircraft.

The interior of the Combat Talon was the same size as a regular C-130 except that the front half of the cargo area was taken up with the banks of electronic equipment that were Kent's domain. Along with an assistant, Kent operated equipment that allowed them to detect enemy radar systems, a key factor in enabling the aircraft to penetrate hostile airspace without being detected. Another critical component to that ability was the navigational systems the pilots used to fly the aircraft. A precision ground-mapping radar laid out the terrain ahead, allowing the pilots to monitor the plane's location and anticipate upcoming obstacles as the aircraft hugged the ground to avoid radar. Cameras on the nose of the aircraft fed information back to a low-level light display in the cockpit, enabling the pilots to fly at night almost as if it were daylight.

Young was strapping down the pallet when several people climbed up into the aircraft through the front left crew door. Kent followed them up the short ladder that led into the cockpit.

He introduced himself to the airplane commander. "I'm your new EW chief, Ed Kent."

The pilot didn't seem too cheerful. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Riggins. This is Major Bailey, the copilot. The navigator is still doing final flight planning over at base ops. You should meet Captain Bradley, the junior electronics warfare officer, in the back just before takeoff. You gentlemen might as well head on back and get comfortable. We've got a long flight on up to Korea."

Riley had tracked down most of the team. He had them start loading out their gear into the two-and-a-half-ton truck that Sergeant Major Hooker had commandeered. Then he went in search of Colonel Hossey. He found the Old Man in his office.

"You got everyone, Dave?"

"No, sir. Comsky and Lalli are still missing, but I left Devito downtown looking for them. I think he'll find them unless they've already hooked up with a couple of bar girls and are spending the night somewhere."

Hossey nodded. He handed over the message that had started the alert.

Riley frowned as he read it. "What the hell is Typhoon 17 Alpha, sir?"

Hossey pulled out a folder with Top Secret stamped on it. "Part of our war plan. It's a direct action mission into China."

Riley considered that. "Is this for real?"

"I don't know," Hossey shrugged. "The authorization code is real. The oplan is real. My best guess is that it's just a readiness exercise, but I don't want to take any chances. By the way, on this operation USSOCOM cuts Eighth Army and our army SOCOM out of the chain of command."

Riley was confused. "Can they do that, sir?"

"Yes. On strategic missions we're the regional reaction force. We work directly for the National Command Authority under those circumstances. You guys on the teams haven't been involved in it yet.

It's just been me and the S-3 shop war-gaming and working out proposed missions like this one for various scenarios we've been sent by the USSOCOM's G-3 section." Hossey handed Riley the mission folder. "But you're going to be involved now.

"I say you because, as you've already guessed, I've picked you to be team sergeant for this deal." Lieutenant Colonel Hossey peered closely at Riley to see if his announcement got any reaction.

Riley had already figured that one out when he'd noticed that none of the other teams had been alerted. Riley had done many strange things in Special Forces (SF). He'd take this one step at a time. "And the rest of the team, sir? How do you want to work that?"

The twelve-man Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA), or A Team, was the core of Special Forces. Colonel Hossey had five teams in DET-K to choose from. None of the teams was up to authorized strength with twelve bodies, so whenever a mission requiring a full team came down, they pulled members off other teams to fill up the deploying one. Riley knew that Hossey had a couple of options. He could cannibalize all the teams in DET-K to pick the twelve best soldiers, or he could simply fill out Riley's team with two more bodies.

"Well, Dave, I thought I would humbly ask your opinion, seeing as you're the one who's going to have to live with it. I think you know my opinion on composite teams. I didn't like them in Vietnam and now that I'm in command, I'd prefer not to do that now. Plus, I don't have the time or the inclination to be pulling everyone in. I didn't want to alert the other teams because of security."

Riley and Hossey had discussed the concept of composite teams several times in the past. Hossey felt that esprit and cohesiveness, buzzwords that he truly believed in, were more important than having twelve outstanding individuals. Riley agreed with him. Twelve good people who could work together as a team would beat twelve outstanding individuals every time.

Hossey continued. "Now don't get a swelled head, but I happen to think that, besides you being the best team sergeant in this unit, Team 3 is also the best team. But you still need an executive officer and another weapons man to fill you out. Also, if you'd like to replace anybody on the team, we can work something out. What about your junior medic, Comsky? He seems a little slow at times."

Riley smiled. "Comsky's all right, sir. He's a good medic. He isn't any Einstein, but I've got Hoffman to fill that role for me. As far as executive officer goes, I'd like to take Jim Trapp with me. We've worked together some other places and he knows his stuff. For junior weapons man I'd like Pete Reese from Team 1. He was a machine gunner in the Ranger battalion before he came to SF and jumped into Grenada, so at least he's had somebody shoot at him before. He's one of the best with automatic weapons I've seen in a while."

Riley waited as Hossey considered his choices. He mentally reviewed the qualifications of the two men he had picked. Chief Warrant Officer Trapp was probably the best warrant officer in DET-K. Ever since Special Forces had allowed senior noncommissioned officers to get warrant commissions and become detachment executive officers, that position had become an important one. Before that it had been just a nominal job given to new lieutenants in Special Forces, so they could get some experience before becoming detachment commanders. Now lieutenants weren't allowed into Special Forces and warrants filled the executive officer slot.

Trapp had been a sergeant first class before getting his warrant. He was the only executive officer in the unit with Vietnam experience. Trapp had spent two years in Southeast Asia as a young sergeant in Special Forces. He'd gotten out of the army when he returned to the States, but, bored with civilian life, he'd come back in ten years ago. Despite his age, Trapp was in superb physical condition, constantly working out.

The weapons man, Reese, was a good choice also. He was a rotund man who hid surprising strength behind an appearance of being overweight. Despite his size, Reese consistently scored a maximum score on the army's physical fitness test, as did most of the members of DET-K. In his off-duty time, Reese competed in Eighth Army power-lifting competitions. Riley had seen him wield an M60 machine gun at a qualification range and had been impressed with the ease with which the young staff sergeant handled the twenty-two-pound gun. With the addition of these two men, Team 3 would be at full strength.

Hossey appeared to have made up his mind. "OK, I'll talk to their team leaders tomorrow. You go ahead and track them down now. Tell them that as of this minute they're yours. You'd better get your people moving to be ready to go into isolation — it's supposed to start at 0500 at our Osan isolation facility. You need to at least be ready to receive the warning order by then. Sergeant Major Hooker is coordinating your vehicle and the iso area down there."

Hossey sensed Riley had something else on his mind. "What's the matter? I know this whole thing seems strange, but we're going to have to wait for the warning order in isolation before we find out what's really going on."

Riley wasn't sure how to broach the subject. "It's not that, sir. I know this whole thing seems funny. It's about your asking if I wanted to replace someone."

"Yes?"

"Well, sir… I'd like to trade off Captain Peterson. It's not that I've got anything against him. Well, sir, it's just that… well, you know. He's new and he doesn't know our standard operating procedures and all that."

Hossey shook his head. "I knew there was something we were forgetting. Where the hell is the young captain? I haven't seen him around."

Riley hung his head. "I forgot to call him, sir."

"Shit!" Hossey exploded, and then saw the humor in the situation. "Don't tell me you forgot. You didn't alert him on purpose." Riley could see that Hossey was at least considering his proposal.

The colonel countered Riley's earlier explanation. "Trapp and Reese won't know your SOPs either. You've got to give me a better reason than that."

Riley sighed. He should have known that Hossey wasn't going to let him off that easily. "OK, sir. The bottom line is that he's not that good right now. Maybe with some team time behind him he'll come around. Now that's only my opinion, and I'm only a lowly E-7 and all that, but—" He stopped at the colonel's snort of derision. "Anyway, even though I don't know what this is we're going on, I don't want to go with someone who doesn't understand the situation. Why are you briefing me instead of him? Why didn't you notice he was missing until I brought it up? It's because you know as well as I do that in Special Forces the person who can get the job done best is the one who should do it. At least that's the way it should be. Captain Peterson doesn't know that yet, and if this is a live mission, it isn't the time for him to be learning."

Riley would not have talked this way to any other battalion commander he'd ever had. But he trusted Colonel Hossey. Riley had served under him when the colonel was only a major during a six-month mobile training team mission to Thailand in 1982. They had developed a mutual trust there that had carried over the years.

"I understand that, Dave. I hate to ask, because I already know the answer, but who do you want to go with you as detachment commander?"

"Let me have Captain Mitchell back, sir. Just for this mission. With him there'd be a real commander on the ground to handle things, and I could do my job right, without having to do the commander's too. We did OK in Australia on the joint mission with the SAS there, as you might remember. Also, if he's up to speed on this USSOCOM planning you and he have been doing, he'd be a valuable asset."

Mitchell had been a team leader longer than any other captain in DET-K, until finally Hossey had had to move him. He had made Mitchell his battalion operations officer just two months ago, and he hated like hell to give him up now. But he had an uneasy feeling about this whole mission. He'd seen a lot of weird things in twenty-one years in the army, twelve of which had been in Special Forces. But he'd never seen a situation quite like this. China was hot right now. Hossey was smart enough to know that the situation in Beijing was not likely to end in victory for the democratic movements. He also read the daily classified intelligence bulletins that described troop movements in the country.

Despite his "just an exercise" theory, there was always the chance that this was the real thing. That meant this was probably not something to hedge on. Hossey felt that he needed to give it his best shot, even though it would hurt his headquarters to lose Mitchell as operations officer.

Hossey conceded. "All right. You call him. Anyway, ever since I moved him off the team he's been moping around my headquarters. This ought to bring a smile to his face. Now let me go make all these changes and place a few phone calls to Osan to get things ready down there."

The ringing of the phone woke Mitchell out of a sound sleep.

"It's for you," he mumbled to his wife, who was cuddled up next to him on a single-sized army-issue bed. "Probably one of your soldiers got in a fight downtown and is in the lockup," he added as she groggily got up and padded across the small room to the phone near the door.

"Three three oh two, this line unsecure. Captain Long speaking."

She put the phone down on the cabinet and returned to the bed. "It's for you, wise guy."

Mitchell cursed as he got out of bed and grabbed the phone. "What?"

"Hey, bud. Get your butt on down here to the team room and start working for a living."

Mitchell immediately recognized Riley's voice.

"Hey listen, Dave, don't screw with me, OK? It's two in the morning if you haven't noticed. Are you out drunk with the guys?"

"Listen, Mitch, I'm not bullshitting you. I just talked to the Old Man. It's an alert and you're back in charge of the team for this one. The colonel's in his office right now if you want to call him and check. But hurry up, 'cause we got to get moving for isolation. This one's got a short fuse."

By now Mitchell knew that Riley was serious. He tried to get his alcohol-and sleep-fogged brain to wake up. "How the hell am I going to get from here down to Seoul at two in the morning?" He and his wife didn't have a car — they weren't allowed at ChunChon and Mitchell didn't need one at Yongsan. And the train had stopped running hours ago.

"I'll get the Old Man to call the MPs there and have them run you down in one of their cars."

"All right. I'll get my stuff and head over to the MP building. See you in a couple of hours." Mitchell looked across the darkened room at his wife, then went over and sat next to her on the bed. She was so tired that she had almost fallen back to sleep.

Mitchell shook her shoulder gently. "Hey, babe. It's an alert. I've got to go back down to Seoul."

Jean struggled to open her eyes. "Are you going to deploy?"

"I don't know. Go back to sleep. I'll give you a call when I find out what's going on." He got up and quickly dressed.

Jean wanted to get up and say good-bye, but she was completely exhausted from her eighty-hour work week. They'd both been through alerts like this many times before. "Take care," she whispered as her husband walked out the door.

Riley wandered around the isolation area. It was an old one-story building, barely big enough to isolate all five teams from DET-K at once. The building had no windows and was routinely swept for listening devices, since the North Koreans would have been very interested in hearing what went on inside. The facility was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Armed air police guards manned the one gate, admitting authorized personnel only. Once a team entered isolation, they had no outside contact until the mission was complete.

Team 3 had commandeered one room as their main work area. It already had blank map boards and tables in it. Another room, with twelve bunks, would be their sleeping area. Colonel Hossey and Hooker, along with three other personnel from the S-3 shop, worked out of the forward operating base operations center (OPCEN), which also held the SATCOM terminal and radio equipment.

A forward operating base, or FOB, was a Special Forces headquarters, usually at battalion level, which was designed to run up to eighteen A teams through isolation and then be headquarters and radio base station on missions. Since Team 3 was the only team this FOB was isolating, Colonel Hossey could give it more personal attention. The FOB's mission was to isolate the team while the team prepared for the mission. Then the FOB commander would listen to the team's briefback, where the detachment presented its plan for conducting the mission. The FOB commander then would either approve or disapprove the plan. If the plan was approved, the team was launched on the infiltration. The FOB's mission from then on was mainly to monitor the team's radio traffic. The FOB also was the link to higher headquarters, which was usually called a Special Forces Operating Base, or SFOB. For this mission, the USSOCOM element at Fort Meade would be their SFOB.

In the OPCEN Riley glanced up as someone opened the door. He smiled as he saw a bedraggled Captain Mitchell hauling his rucksack and duffel bag through the door. "Hey, partner, let me give you a hand."

Mitchell passed over his ruck. They threw the gear into the sleeping area and went back to the op center. Mitchell looked over the area. "Where's the team?"

Riley pointed at the door leading into the isolation work area. "I got them started getting the area ready. Comsky and Lalli got here just before you did. Hooker managed to track them down in Itaewon."

"What's the mission?"

Riley shook his head. "I don't know. All Colonel Hossey got was an alert notice from USSOCOM and a reference to Typhoon 17 Alpha."

Mitchell nodded. "That's the war plan against China. But did it say which part of the plan or give any sort of time line?"

"Nope. Just be ready to go at 0500. Which we are."

Mitchell thought the whole thing was unusual and didn't mind saying so. "Is this real or just an exercise? Do you have an offset area?" He paused as Hossey came in the door on the far side of the room and gestured for the two of them to come over. "Glad you could make it, Mitch."

"What's going on, sir?"

Hossey pointed at three locked one-drawer metal file cabinets stacked on a table. "Typhoon 17 Alpha." He handed over a set of keys for the locks. "You should have most of what you need for planning in there. I haven't received the warning order yet. It should be coming through. We just got commo set up with the SFOB. They say we'll get the warning order about 2100 Zulu. They're operating out of Fort Meade, for some reason, so we should be able to get some good intel from NSA if they're willing to get off their asses and walk next door. In the meantime you might as well hang up the maps and get started with the stuff in those files."