Dragon Sim-13

4

Colonel Hossey read the warning order as it rolled out of the terminal, then looked over at Hooker. "Is this for real?"

Hooker shrugged. "As far as I know it is." He grabbed the paper. "I'll give it to Captain Mitchell."

Hossey took it out of the sergeant major's hands. "I'll do it."

Since DET-K was smaller than a normal Special Forces battalion, Hossey's FOB was also smaller. He had himself, Sergeant Major Hooker, and only three other enlisted men to run the shift work. Mitchell, as the S-3, would normally have been in charge of the operations center. Now that Mitchell was back with the team, Hossey had taken over that job himself. For the duration of this mission he would let his executive officer command the other four teams in DET-K who were doing normal training back in Yongsan. His top priority lay here, especially if this mission turned out to be real.

Hossey took the warning order and left the operations center, going into the isolation area. The team had already set up tables, chairs, and map boards. They were all staring at him expectantly as he walked to the front of the room. He beckoned to Captain Mitchell and Riley.

"I've got your warning order." He handed it to Mitchell, who read it and handed it to Riley without comment.

Riley looked at the two officers. "Where did this target come from?"

"That pipeline is one of the targets from the Typhoon oplan," Hossey explained. "It's a strategic target that plays an important role in China's economy. You have the map sheets you need from the war plan files."

Mitchell reread the paper and calculated. "This doesn't give us much time. We've got to give them an initial concept of operations by tonight. Plus we have only two days on the ground. That's cutting it real close."

Hossey agreed. "Once you take a look at the target, work out how much time you'll need and I'll send a request to the SFOB for an extension."

Riley asked the question that was uppermost in his mind. "Is this real or an exercise?"

Hossey sighed. It was the same thing he had asked Hooker. "The code word for the alert was real. I imagine we'll find out after the briefback whether this is real or not. At the very least, the infiltration itself can't start without another final authorization code word. I very much doubt that we'll see that."

Mitchell considered all that. He turned to the rest of the team members, who were engaged in various activities getting the room ready for work. "Everyone grab a seat."

He waited while the men sat down. Mitchell had always been the one to coordinate the overall isolation effort; Riley spread his expertise among the other team members and did the tactical plan. It was time to get things on track.

"All right. Listen up. We've been tasked with a direct action mission into China to destroy an oil pipeline, with a down time of at least seven days." He waited a few seconds to let that sink in. He could see questions start to take form on some of his men's faces and decided to forestall that for now.

"I know you're wondering if this is the real thing or just an exercise. I don't have the answer to that and neither does anyone else here. I want you all to work under the assumption that this is a live mission. That's the way we've always done it in the past, and I see no reason to change now.

"We also don't have much time. I'm going to request an additional day of isolation and another twenty-four hours on the ground. Right now we're scheduled to briefback Monday night and infiltrate Tuesday night. We're supposed to be exfiltrated on Thursday night. We've got a four-hour target window on the sixth. You know that's damn tight, even if we infil and exfil almost right on top of the target. We'll be lucky to get twenty-four hours' surveillance before having to do the hit. Despite my asking for more time, I want you to proceed under the assumption that we won't get any more."

Mitchell looked at the message again. "We also have to give a tentative concept of operations by 2100 tonight." He turned to Riley. "See if you agree with me on this. I feel that our priorities should be as follows: First we need to decide how we're going to hit the target. I want you to work with Hoffman and Smitty on that. Once you come up with where exactly we're going to attack, I'll get with you and we'll work out some infiltration drop zones and exfiltration pickup zones.

As you all can guess, we're going in by Talon and coming out by helicopter."

Riley nodded his approval. Mitchell turned to the other members of the team and ticked off their tasks one by one in order of priority. By the time he was done the team was ready to get to work.

General Sanders watched as Olson worked with his staff. The data link had been established with the FOB at Osan Air Force Base in Korea and the initial mission warning order had been forwarded. Sanders knew from the one previous Strams exercise they had run with Special Forces that it was now a question of waiting until the team and aircrew started sending back their tentative concept of operations. Once Meng got that, he could start working out the rest of the simulation for the actual execution. The computer was already set with the enemy situation, the target, and all the other known factors. The team's plan was the only missing ingredient.

In the meantime, it appeared that General Olson was going to occupy his staff's time by checking all details, to be sure they didn't have any screwups on this end. He'd just quizzed his operations officer, Colonel Moore, on the security of the mission. He also wanted to know whether it might be a problem that Eighth Army and 6th Air Force in Japan were being cut out of the operation — or, on the other hand, what would happen if they found out about the mission. It was obvious to Sanders that General Olson hadn't spent much time on operational planning prior to this exercise. That was typical of high-ranking staffs and officers and one of the reasons that these Strams were run. It was often the first taste of an operational mission for these people.

Moore was reassuring his boss. "It's not a problem, sir. We're authorized to run these types of missions without the various services' intermediate headquarters being involved. The chain of command runs directly from the National Command Authority, through us, to the FOB, to the employed elements. It's been streamlined that way as a result of the after-action reports from the Iranian hostage mission.

We've cut out all the levels that could interfere with or confuse the flow of information.

"The only people who are in on this, besides us here, are the alerted team and aircrew of the Talon in isolation over at Osan. The airplane is presently in a secure hangar out of view. We've got some worker bees involved for the intelligence, communications, and logistics support over there, but they've been told only enough so they can do their job. The other military elements, such as the exfiltration aircraft, will know only enough to be able to accomplish what's needed. It's under wraps, sir."

Olson nodded. "It had better stay that way. And not just because part of our success in the simulation rests on keeping this secure. If it gets out that we're running a simulation exercise to plan an actual attack into Chinese territory, it would cause a scandal that would be the end of me, and you also. Give me an update on the plan as it stands now."

"OK, sir." Colonel Moore leafed through the printouts of the messages from Osan. "The team's been in isolation since 2000 Zulu, or five tomorrow morning their time. We sent the warning order at 2100 Zulu. They haven't had enough time to do much, other than try to digest the intelligence we're feeding them. NSA has provided some great imagery of the entire length of the pipeline, which we're also forwarding. We're going to let the team pick the actual target spot based on the intelligence and target vulnerability."

Olson interrupted. "What about aircraft range limitations?"

Moore let the air operations man on the USSOCOM staff, Lieutenant Colonel Bishop, handle that. "Sir, there's no problem going in. The Talon has the range and then some to make the entire length of that pipe and back out. The problem will be the exfil helicopters' range. I'll see what they send us for exfil location and work something out. I have a few ideas as to how I can expand the range of the Blackhawks if I have to."

Olson nodded and signaled for Moore to continue.

"I'll be able to give you an update at our 0700 staff meeting tomorrow morning. I should have more information from the FOB by then. The time line is pretty compressed, but I think the team can get in a good plan under the wire."

Olson continued, returning to the issue of security. "Let's war-game this a little. What about the simulated mission? What if we get word that something's happened to the team and they're compromised once they've supposedly gone in?"

Colonel Moore fielded that question also. "The team and all their gear will be entirely sterile. They'll be drawing it from actual war stockage over there. There's not much we can do to stop them from talking if they're captured. I think there really isn't a high probability of that. It's much more likely that they'd get in a firefight and killed, if compromised on the ground. Other than the bodies, the Chinese won't have much to go on.

"I'm actually more concerned about the aircraft we'll be using to go in and out. We can always deny the team if they're caught. We'll look stupid, and people will know, but it won't be as bad as if we get a plane or chopper shot down over Chinese territory and they can parade the wreckage and crew." Sanders knew that everyone in the room would recognize the picture Moore was painting. Desert One all over again.

Olson pointed a thick finger at his subordinate. "That's the last thing we want to happen, Bill. Desert One was a mess. If something comes up and things get hairy, I'll abort before that happens."

Colonel Bishop added his thoughts on that. "Well, sir, you can do that going in, but it might be difficult once that team jumps out of the Talon. The only way we can pick them up is by helicopter. Like I said earlier, I'll be able to work out the details of that once I find out where they want to be picked up. Right now I'm planning to use two MH-60 helicopters out of the flight platoon of the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa. They've been alerted and are forward deploying up to Misawa Air Force Base in northern Japan later today. The MH-60s are specially modified UH-60 Blackhawks. Those aircraft can be traced back to the United States if they go down intact, although the Chinese do have some regular UH-60s that Sikorsky sold them last year under a military aid contract."

Olson was getting into the play of things. "Couldn't we, for the sake of this problem, pretend we're using civilian helicopters, which couldn't be traced back?"

Sanders frowned at that suggestion, but before he had a chance to reply, Bishop shot down that idea. "No, sir. Not if we're going to be realistic. The exfiltration has got to be flown at night for security reasons, and it's going to be a long flight. You need a lot of special equipment to be able to do that. Forward-looking infrared radar, night-vision devices, and so on. With the rush we're in now, we wouldn't have the time to modify a civilian bird and get it over there. Also, the pilots are trained on that type of aircraft and we wouldn't be able to get them qualified on a civilian aircraft in time."

Sanders thought it was time to clear the air. General Olson was running into the same problem almost all the other commanders hit during the initial stage of a Strams exercise — the inability to separate what was real from what wasn't real on the other end, the tendency to want to play it as an exercise rather than as the real thing. "Sir, you need to treat everything involved in this mission as the real thing. Right now everything is the real thing. There is actually an FOB at Osan with a team in isolation. There is actually a Combat Talon sitting in that hangar. As far as those people are concerned, this is a real mission. You can't try to pretend or use something that doesn't exist."

Sanders pointed at the map and message screen. "You're receiving traffic from both the Command Authority and the FOB. You need to treat both as real. Everything between here and the FOB is hard copy in message format just as it would be if this were real."

Olson frowned. The whole thing was confusing. "Well, what about the other direction? I've got some questions for the Command Authority that I need answered. How do I go about that?"

Sanders pointed at the commo gear. "Like you would if this were real. Send a message like you were inbriefed to."

Olson gestured for Colonel Moore. He outlined the message he wanted sent. "I'm kind of unclear on the operational chain of this thing. I know from the oplan that the chairman gives the final go the night the plane takes off to send in the team, but what about after that? Does he want to give a final go to the team on the ground just prior to the target window? Does he want me to make all further decisions, especially concerning aborting, or does he want me to bounce them up to him?"

Moore took a few minutes to put the questions into the format and then fed it into the terminal. A few minutes later the message board lit up and the printer chattered out a hard copy of the reply.

There was a pause as everyone read the message. Sanders looked to the back of the room where Meng was seated. This was Olson's first taste of what the computer could do.

Olson stared at the board in amazement. The machine's use of his first name had been as startling as the message itself. It was as if the chairman had actually written the message. The whole thing was much more realistic to him now. He turned to Sanders. "That was the computer answering me, pretending to be General Porter?"

For the first time, Doctor Meng spoke up from the back of the room. "No, General. As far as you are concerned, that was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff himself answering you. If you remember that, it will make this week much easier for all of us."

It took Riley and the engineers less than two hours to come up with the actual point of attack on the pipeline. Using 1:64,000 scale maps of the pipeline area, and satellite imagery sent from Fort Meade, Riley had sat down with Hoffman and Smith and quickly traced the pipeline, looking over the whole length for possible target locations.

It didn't take them long to come up with the most promising target. They'd been instructed to put the pipeline out of operation for a minimum of a week; therefore, blowing a section would be insufficient. According to the intelligence, the Chinese maintained an adequate repair capability. Taking down a hundred-foot section would only put the pipe out of operation for forty-eight hours. Riley knew that something more vital to the pipe's operation had to be attacked. He asked Hoffman and Smith to search for a node critical to the operation of the pipe.

They had briefly considered destroying a pump station, but Riley had discarded that idea. Pump stations were staggered along the entire length to help maintain and regulate the flow of oil. Although pump stations were critical to the successful functioning of the pipe, intelligence indicated that they were also manned by a platoon-sized reaction force. The last thing Team 3 wanted to do, in Riley's opinion, was get into a battle. They wanted to do their job and get out without making any contact.

It was Hoffman who found the answer. The pipe crossed the Sungari River, more than nine hundred kilometers from the pipe's terminus on the Yellow Sea at the port of Qinhuangdao. The imagery blowup disclosed that the pipe was suspended by cables from pylons anchored on either shore. There were six cables, each two and a half inches in diameter. Cutting them would be a relatively simple operation for the team. Severing all six cables simultaneously would release the support for the suspended section of pipe, which, weighed down by the oil inside, would crash into the river. To repair the crossing would require extensive engineering work, including bringing a barge upriver. Hoffman conservatively estimated a down time of three weeks. That definitely met the requirements for the mission.

The tricky part, Riley mused as he looked at the satellite blowup of the river crossing, was getting into the compound that enclosed the pylon. Whoever had designed security for the pipe had also known that this river crossing was a critical point that needed extra attention. The pylons on either shore were surrounded by a fence topped with barb wire. The fence enclosed a rectangular area approximately 150 meters by 250 meters.

Hoffman, using a stereoscope on the satellite imagery, was able to make out other unwelcome features. He discovered at least three remotely controlled cameras deployed in the compound. Riley assumed that the cameras were monitored at the nearest pump station, which was pump station 5, only fourteen kilometers to the northwest. According to their intelligence, the remote-control cameras were probably part of the Scoot system sale a British firm had negotiated with the Chinese government a few years previously. The cameras were supposed to have been used in Beijing for traffic control. Apparently the government had decided to use them for other, more important, functions, one of which was guarding this pipeline.

Hoffman could also make out what appeared to be an inner fence consisting of three strands of wire, spaced barely four inches inside the main fence. Cross-referencing with other similar security setups, he deduced that this inner fence was an alarm system, called a T field.

The T-field fence was sensitive to any cutting or tampering with the outer fence, including someone trying to climb it. They were beginning to appreciate the importance of this pipeline to the Chinese based solely on the security dedicated to it.

Keeping that in mind, Riley warned Hoffman and Smith to assume also that the inside of the compound was mined. To reach the berm anchoring the cables, they would have to be prepared to breach a mine field. Once the team got on the ground and put surveillance on the target, they could probably verify if it was mined or not, but Riley intended to worst-case the scenario. It was better to have the equipment and not have to use it, than to not be prepared. Additionally, Riley felt that they had to figure there were regular army patrols along the service road of the pipeline and possibly even overflights by helicopters. It was a military axiom that an obstacle was not an obstacle unless checked and observed at least part of the time.

Riley was impressed with the quality of the satellite imagery they were getting from the NSA. It was top of the line, a vast improvement over what they normally received for training exercises through the Department of Defense. The NSA imagery looked as though the pictures had been taken with a zoom lens from an aircraft at three hundred feet. On a plywood board in the isolation area, Hoffman and Smith put together a 1:25 scale satellite imagery mosaic of the compound.

Stretching his shoulders, Riley took a break from working on the target. He knew that Mitchell was checking on the progress of the other team members, but he wanted to make sure that everything was going all right. As Riley moved about the isolation area, Hooker brought in another batch of messages with information from the FOB.

In his whole career Riley had never seen anything like this setup. Despite its efficiency, it made him a little nervous. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare all this data, and Riley doubted very much that this whole operation was being conducted just to test the reaction of one Special Forces team. He wondered if they were the only mission being mounted or if other forces were in action aimed against China.

Riley watched as Hooker dumped the messages into the in box that Comsky lorded over. The junior medic went through the papers, dutifully logging in each entry, then breaking them down into piles for the various team members who needed to see them. Since the initial mission tasking, the team had been overloaded with information. The hardest part of this phase of isolation was separating what was relevant and what wasn't: making intelligence out of information.

Olinski and Reese were working on the enemy situation in the vicinity of the target, poring through classified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Security Agency (NSA) to determine the potential enemy threat.

One of the hardest jobs fell to Trapp. With Paul Lalli, the junior communications sergeant, and Chong, Trapp had begun the task of devising an escape and evasion (E & E) plan. One of the tenets of Special Forces planning was to always have a "go-to-shit" plan, in case the planned exfiltration became unfeasible or something else went wrong. Riley felt comfortable knowing that Trapp was working the E & E plan; whatever the warrant officer came up with would be the best possible strategy.

The senior communications sergeant, Walt O'Shaugnesy, was working with the communications man from the FOB staff to coordinate the satellite communications that the team would use as their electronic lifeline back to the forward operating base. O'Shaugnesy and the FOB man were checking times, message formats, codes to be used, and equipment. Riley watched the two for a few minutes as they worked.

O'Shaugnesy looked as Irish as his name. He had short, sandy hair and a ruddy complexion. He was slightly overweight and Riley was always after him to lose his spare tire and cut back on his off-duty drinking. The bottom line for Riley was whether someone could operate in the field, and O'Shaugnesy could. As long as O'Shaugnesy could perform out in the woods, Riley tolerated the weight and the drinking. But it had been made clear to O'Shaugnesy that if he ever showed up drunk for duty, Riley would have his ass. So far there had never been a problem.

The junior communications sergeant, Paul Lalli, was O'Shaugnesy's drinking buddy, but he was the physical opposite. Lalli was thin and had always pushed Captain Mitchell hard during the team's weekly ten-kilometer physical training runs. Lalli maintained the radios and other communications gear with a jealous passion that Riley liked. Lalli considered the team radios "his gear" and allowed only O'Shaugnesy to "borrow" them. The team normally used the PRC70 radio, which worked in both the FM and high-frequency (HF) ranges. For this mission, though, they would use the PSC3 radio, a satellite communications radio. This arrangement suited Riley, because satellite communications were more secure and reliable than high frequency. Unfortunately for the commo men, the PSC3 was no lighter than the PRC70. The bulky, twenty-three-pound radio added noticeable weight to the commo men's rucks.

Riley wandered over to where Pete Devito, the senior medic, was poring over an area study of China. This was Devito's first step in producing a medical profile of the mission and target area to ensure that each man carried the proper medical equipment for the dangers most likely to be faced. With all the other gear that needed to be carried, Devito and Comsky could not take the entire contents of their M-3 medical kits. Based on his best guess of the potential injuries and wounds, Devito would begin paring down the kits to a manageable size, bringing only the medical supplies and equipment he judged to be most critical.

Completing his circuit, Riley ended up at the table where Mitchell was comparing the maps with the satellite imagery, searching for a drop zone for the infiltration. "Got anything good yet?"

"I think so. Since we're pushed for time we're going to have to go in as close as possible. Plus we want to move around as little as possible for better security." Mitchell stabbed a finger down on the map. "What do you think?"

Riley looked at the indicated point. He started to nod his head slowly as the significance of the drop zone Mitchell had picked sank in. "I like it. Great idea." Mitchell's finger rested on a small patch of blue on the otherwise predominantly green map sheet. The blue represented a small lake, about three kilometers from the target site.

The more Riley thought about the team leader's choice, the more he liked it. There were many advantages to jumping into a water rather than a land drop zone. The first one that came to Riley's mind was ease of finding the drop zone. He knew that for the infil they'd be jumping "blind" from the Combat Talon. A blind jump entailed no spotting by a jumpmaster because there would be no ground marking from a reception party; instead, they would rely on air force navigation to release them over the right spot. The navigator of the Talon had met with them earlier this morning, and had told them he could give them only a 90 percent probability of getting the team within two kilometers of a proposed land drop zone.

Using a large body of water greatly increased the chances of hitting the right location for two reasons: First, the MC-130 Talon navigated by reflected radar images. The smooth, flat surface of the lake would give an excellent radar image to the Talon's navigator, allowing him to zero in on it, as opposed to a land drop zone, which would give off the same image as the surrounding terrain. Second, Riley, as jumpmaster, would now be able to do some spotting from the aircraft; the team wouldn't jump unless he was positive that the plane was over the lake. From bitter experience, Riley knew that there were few things worse than landing not knowing where you were.

Riley thought about another aspect: The water drop zone would be more secure. There was much less chance of running into unfriendlies on a lake late at night than in an open field. Open fields usually had houses next to them. Riley looked over the operational area (OA) on the map. There didn't appear to be any open fields suitable for a drop zone within five kilometers of the target anyway. A second aspect of security was that the parachutes could be hidden by simply sinking them in the lake, precluding a repeat of the great digging exercise they had just conducted.

Riley felt very comfortable with Mitchell's choice. "What about exfil? Had any time to look at that?"

Mitchell scratched his jaw. "Well, Dave, that's another story. There are several places we can use for PZs. That's not a problem. What worries me, though, is that the warning order said we were going to have two MH-60s take us out. Now, I may not be the brightest guy in the world, but I do know a little about the Blackhawk. Jean is rated on that aircraft and I know from her that it doesn't have the range, even with external tanks, to make it from here to the target area and back. Not even close. I'm curious how they think they're going to do this, and who's flying the mission. Especially considering our track record in training with helicopter exfils."

"I couldn't agree more. I'd like to meet the pilots before we go. Makes it a little more personal for them if they see who their passengers are beforehand. And it will make me feel better to look into their eyeballs."

Mitchell smiled. "Yeah. I understand. Some of those fly-boys are too high up in the clouds and need to come down to earth. I'll hit the colonel up and see if I can't get us a meet with someone who can talk to us about exfil. Hopefully we'll get an answer on that today, along with the request for more time."

Lieutenant Colonel Bishop was the duty officer on the night shift for the USSOCOM SFOB exercise staff. He read the message from the FOB requesting an additional twenty-four hours in isolation and another twenty-four on the ground to surveil the target. He considered waking the general, who was sleeping in the billet area in Tunnel 1, to get his opinion, then decided against it.

Bishop looked at the calendar on his desk. If he OK'd this request, the whole exercise would last forty-eight hours longer than it was presently scheduled for. Bishop had no desire to be away from home an extra two days for the sake of a game. Then, he reasoned, Olson would have to relay the request and the "computer chief of staff would probably disapprove it anyway. Bishop sat down at the keyboard and typed out a denial.

Riley and Mitchell were both unhappy with the short amount of time the team would have on the ground prior to the target hit. Twenty-four hours of surveillance was not sufficient to establish a valid pattern of guard patrols and other security measures. Despite that, Riley had expected the denial from SFOB. This whole operation was so tightly organized that he had doubted there would be any latitude built in.

Something even more important was bothering him. He grabbed Mitchell and took him out into the corridor, where they couldn't be overheard.

"What's the matter, Dave? Worried about the time line?" Riley shook his head. "Not really. It's tight, but we can do it. What's bugging me is whether this is real or not. The whole thing is kind of crazy, don't you think?"

Mitchell obviously felt the same way. "Yeah, it is strange. I've got a lot of questions about this whole setup. My primary concern, if this isn't just an exercise, is why the hell we're doing this. I mean, what's the purpose? As far as I know we aren't at war with China and they haven't done anything against the United States to warrant such an action by us."

Mitchell had keyed in on just what had been bugging Riley. The whole operation had the ring of an exercise about it. But it had a disturbing hint of reality too. The intelligence and imagery were top-notch, much better than what they normally received for training missions. The presence of the MC-130 aircraft in the hangar on the base said that it was very likely they were going to go somewhere at the end of isolation. From their meeting earlier in the day with the Talon crew, Riley and Mitchell knew that the aircrew was really planning an infiltration into China.

The air force navigator and the pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Riggins, had been happy with the choice of drop zone when Mitchell pointed it out to them. It would be easier than land for them to find. The crew of the Talon had not been told the reason the team was jumping into China; they just knew they had to get the team there. In another part of the building, in their isolation area, the aircrew was working just as hard as Team 3, plotting possible routes and examining the potential air defense threats along the way.

Riggins had told them that the Talon would fly to the target following the terrain at 250 feet above ground level and at 250 knots. (Riley had been on that type of gut-wrenching flight before, and he planned on not having anything in his stomach prior to takeoff.) One minute out from the drop zone, the plane would slow down to a safe jump speed of 125 knots and the ramp would be opened. Thirty seconds from the drop zone the plane would climb to 500 feet, which was the minimum safe jump altitude. The pilot had insisted that this was his maximum altitude, based on the radar threat in the area. At 500 feet, Riley knew that they would not even bother wearing reserve parachutes. If the main didn't deploy, the jumper wouldn't have time to pull his reserve anyway. Immediately after the last jumper was out, the plane would close the ramp, go back down to 250 feet, and head for home.

Mitchell voiced a new concern. "What about the weapons and other gear? That worries me."

They both knew that Sergeant Major Hooker had gone up to Yongsan to draw sterile equipment from the detachment's war stockage. The authorization had come direct from the SFOB. Hooker was also drawing live ammunition and explosives. They had never seen that done before.

Riley took a deep breath to clear himself of all these worries. "I don't know if this thing is real or not, Mitch. Most likely it's just an exercise, but we need to make sure everyone treats it like it's real."

Mitchell nodded his agreement to that philosophy. "Let's stay on top of everyone and make sure they do their best."

They both looked up as Hossey came down the hallway. "What are you two plotting?"

Riley held up his hands. "Nothing, sir. Just needed to clear our heads."

Hossey held out a sheet of paper. "You'll get a briefing on the helicopters, but it won't be from the pilots. They're over in Japan right now, and the powers-that-be have decided not to fly the pilots over here for security reasons. Some staff officer from the helicopter unit flying will be here at 1000 tomorrow morning."

Mitchell nodded. "Sounds good, sir."

Riley said nothing. What were the helicopters doing in Japan? As far as he knew, the target was northwest of where they were and Japan was east. Hopefully they'd find out tomorrow.

Meng scrolled the message traffic on his screen in Tunnel 1 and perused it while he sipped his first cup of tea for the day. When he came across it, he printed out a copy of the concept of the operation, which had come in from the FOB only an hour ago. With that in hand, he could start the final programming for the exercise. It was simply a matter of filling in the blanks. He would take the team's plan and flowchart it against the various possibilities that could occur. The computer would rate the paths in terms of probability. Meng knew that he couldn't cover everything, but the success of the Strams program rested on its ability to present a statistically significant percentage of possibilities in a realistic manner.

Just prior to the team's departure for infiltration, Meng would control the exercise by cutting the real commo link with the FOB and substituting a simulated FOB link to the computer. The computer would then play out the team and FOB conducting the mission. When Meng switched from real to computer link, the people in Korea would have completed the exercise. Right now, Meng planned on notifying the FOB of mission completion just before the aircraft took off for infiltration. That would allow him to pick up any last-minute changes that the team or aircrew might make. The purpose of the exercise was to test the command structure at Fort Meade, not the team or aircraft in the field.

Meng took the concept with him and went back to his office in time to catch the 8:00 a.m. news. The exercise was forgotten as the TV screen caught his attention. A reporter was standing on the edge of a massive crowd near Tiananmen Square. Night had descended in China, but the Goddess of Democracy was well lit in the background.

"Early this morning, crowds estimated to be in the tens of thousands surged onto the streets of Beijing and turned back an army column attempting to reach the center of the city. Approximately two thousand troops attempted to pass along Changan Avenue, a main east-west street in Beijing, in a show of popular support. Workers joined the students in preventing passage of the soldiers.

"The incident that precipitated the troop movement occurred last night when a police van struck four bicyclists, killing two and seriously injuring the other two. Rumor has it that this was a deliberate act. When the troops attempted to pass, the largest crowd we have seen here in more than a week took to the streets. There have been reports of tear gas being fired near the Communist party headquarters, but I have seen no signs of violence here at Tiananmen Square. The rumors are that the troops were coming to seize the square back from the students."

The anchorman in Atlanta cut in.

"Jim, did you actually see the troops?"

"Yes. They were dressed in white undershirts with khaki uniform pants, and were unarmed. They didn't seem comfortable with what they were doing. When confronted by the students and workers they appeared disoriented. I saw soldiers simply sit down on the curb along the road and talk with the students, who exhorted them not to use violence since they were from the People's Army and the students were the voice of the people."

"Jim, what effect do you think this latest turn of events will have on the government?"

"That's uncertain at this time. There is the possibility it might help the more conciliative attempts of Mister Zhao by discrediting Prime Minister Li Peng's hard-line approach to the student protest. It appears from today's actions that the army is unwilling to follow a hard-line approach."

The scene shifted back to Atlanta. 'That was Jim Thomas in Beijing. On another front the Soviet Congress accused Andrei Sakharov of slandering his homeland and…"

Meng turned off the set. He knew quite a bit about the Chinese Army from his research for the Dragon Sims and from his personal experience. The fact that soldiers had seemed sympathetic to the students made him feel hopeful, but Meng also knew that the leaders of the army probably didn't share this sentiment.

There was a traditional Chinese saying that if the people want the leaders to notice, then they must do something difficult. Obviously, Meng thought, the students' hunger strike had not been difficult enough.

Meng sighed and looked at the clocks on his wall that designated the time zones for various major cities in the world. It was 9 o'clock at night in Beijing. There would be no more news until tomorrow.

The picture of the woman and child drew his attention. She was dead now. He'd received word of that four years ago. The boy was now a young man — a student at the University of Beijing. In his heart Meng hoped his son was one of the protesters gathered in the square, but that same hope was overshadowed by fear. Meng closed his eyes briefly, forcing his mind to shift from the square, thousands of miles away, back to reality here, or rather this simulation of a reality that would probably never be used. He turned back to his work desks.

As Meng started working on the concept of operations, the first thing that caught his eye was the water drop zone. Meng smiled thinly— a major sign of emotion for him. The Special Forces men were very clever. He estimated that that choice dramatically increased their odds of surviving the infiltration. His initial program had indicated a 26 percent chance that the team would be compromised on infiltration, either by the aircraft being discovered or the team being caught on the drop zone. Off the top of his head, Meng figured that that was now down to probably no more than 15 percent. This whole mission was looking more feasible.

Mitchell decided it was time for everyone to get some sleep. They'd been working nonstop all day, and sleep was important if they were going to continue to function at a high level of proficiency. He went to the podium in the front of the isolation workroom and got everyone's attention.

"Listen up. Everybody grab a chair." He waited until the team had settled in, facing him. "I want to do a little summarizing of what we got done today, and then I want everyone to rack out. Tomorrow's another day. You all have done a good job so far."

He turned to Riley. "Anything new on the tactical plan?"

Riley shook his head. "Not much has changed since we had the last team brief on the concept of operations three hours ago. We're still working on breaching the compound and taking out the security systems. Infil is as you briefed it earlier. Tomorrow I should be able to tell you how we're actually going to hit the target."

Mitchell nodded. He indicated another team member. "Pete, anything you need to tell us from your medical survey?"

Devito, the senior medic, stood up. "I've ordered the medical supplies that each man will carry. I also want everyone to leave their vest survival kits with me prior to going to bed and I'll make sure they're up to date." Devito sat down.

Mitchell moved on. "O'Shaugnesy, how's the commo going?"

"Good, sir. I've got our onetime pads and I've coordinated with the FOB on send and receive times."

Mitchell pointed at the two radios resting on the commo man's work desk. "I want you to give everyone a class tomorrow on the PSC3. I know that most of us have seen it before, but I for one could use a refresher on how to set it up and use it."

O'Shaugnesy nodded. "OK, sir. They're real easy to work. I won't need more than forty-five minutes to run you all through."

Mitchell penciled in the class on the team's isolation schedule, posted on the wall behind him. "All right. We'll do it at 1300 tomorrow." He moved on to the next specialty, which for this mission was the most important. "Dan, have you got your charges all calculated?"

Hoffman stood up. "Yes, sir. At least the ones for the actual target— you know, blowing the wires. We're still working on some other ones we might need to breach the fence and the mine field."

"I want you to be able to give a class to everyone, late tomorrow afternoon, on how to prime and emplace those charges. Will you be able to do it by then?"

"Yes, sir. No problem."

Mitchell addressed the rest of the room. "I want everyone to be able to use the radio and rig the charges. If just one of us makes it to the target, I want that person to be able to blow it." He glanced around the room. He hated holding long meetings and he could tell that everyone was tired. "That's all I've got for tonight, unless someone has a question or something they want to add."

Riley scratched his head. "One thing I would like to know is why we're hitting this pipeline. How important is it? Maybe that will give us an idea of why we're planning to do this."

Mitchell knew a little about the pipeline's significance from his initial work as the S-3 on the Typhoon oplan, but he wanted to let someone with more knowledge answer. "Dan, you've been working on this pipeline all day. What can you tell us about it?"

Hoffman pushed his thick glasses farther up on his nose and pulled a piece of yellow scratch-pad paper from the cargo pocket of his fatigue pants. "Well, sir, I think that someone did a damn good job in picking this pipeline as a strategic target, both for economic and psychological reasons. If you wanted to pick a target out of all of China to hurt them in both those areas, I really doubt that you could come up with a better one than this. Other than maybe the locks and dams that help control the Yellow River, but that's a target that fifty A teams couldn't hit.

"The Daqing-Fushun pipeline carries oil from the Daqing oil field to the port of, hell I can't pronounce it." Hoffman struggled with the name until Chong interrupted. "Spell it please."

"Q-i-n-h-u-a-n-g-d-a-o."

Chong pronounced it correctly for Hoffman, who continued. "Anyway, it runs from Daqing to the port Chong just named. That section alone is 1,150 kilometers long and was operational in 1974. In '75, they extended that pipe to run all the way to Beijing. Another portion coming out of the same trunk line branches off to North Korea."

Riley interrupted. "How much of that will be affected if we take it down at the point we plan on hitting?"

Hoffman walked over to the map. "We're taking down the main line prior to any branching. That means that the lines to Beijing and to North Korea will both go dry along with the one to the port." He ran his finger up the pipeline to its starting point.

"The Daqing oil field accounts for anywhere from one third to one half of all oil production in China. We're talking about at least an approximately million-barrel-a-day operation. That oil is not only critical to China's own industry, but they also export some of it. As best as I can make out from the data, one percent of Japan's oil imports comes from China, almost all of that out of the Daqing field."

"Wait a second," Mitchell halted Hoffman. "What effect will that have on Japan if we dry that up for a couple of weeks?"

"I don't know, sir. Hard to estimate. It's only one percent, but when you're talking the magnitude of the amount of oil Japan imports, that's quite a bit. I imagine they would be able to make up the loss by increasing their Middle East imports or their imports from other Asian sources. What I do know is that this will be a bad kick in the ass for the Chinese economy. Not only will they lose almost half their oil for the duration of the down time of the pipeline, but they'll lose valuable foreign currency that they need desperately."

Chief Trapp had obviously been doing his homework in the intelligence field, and he tried to put it into a clearer perspective. "They think so much of this oil field and pipe that they don't even put it on their maps. In other words, if we take this thing down, the leaders in China are going to sit up and notice."

Hoffman nodded his agreement. "This is a rough analogy, but it's almost as if some terrorist group attacked the Alaskan pipeline. It pumps more oil than the Daqing pipeline but contributes a much smaller percentage to our economy. Also, the U.S. economy is in a hell of a lot better shape than the Chinese economy. If we do this, it will hurt them bad where it counts — in the pocketbook."

Hoffman shifted from the economic aspect. "As important as the economic impact is, there is also a psychological one. The Daqing oil field was used extensively throughout the sixties and seventies as a model for the rest of the country." Hoffman grabbed one of the books he had been using for research. "Let me read you something to give you an idea of what I mean."

He flipped open to a marked spot. " 'Throughout the twenty years since liberation, and particularly during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Chinese oil workers have displayed the revolutionary spirit of hard struggle,' blah, blah, blah." He went down a few lines. " 'The workers of the Daqing Oilfield, which is the model for developing the oil industry by self-reliance and arduous struggle, have continued to display the revolutionary spirit they showed during the battle to open up the oilfield. They have striven to catch up with and surpass advanced world standards,' blah, blah, blah. Oh yeah. Here's the good part. 'Using the invincible Mao Tse-tung Thought as their weapon, they sharply criticized,' that refers to the workers," Hoffman threw in, " 'the poisonous influence of the counter-revolutionary revisionist line, as{From The Petroleum Industry of The People's Republic of China, H. C. Ling, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1975, pp. 166–168.} well, that's enough." Hoffman threw the book on the table. "Get the picture? This isn't just a pipeline. It's a symbol."

Mitchell looked over at Riley. He had a feeling that the team sergeant was thinking the same thing he was: If this target is that significant, maybe this is for real.

Colonel Bishop had been laboring over his charts ever since the initial concept of operations arrived. He was trying to figure out a way to get the exfil helicopters to the pickup zone that the team had designated and back out again. His main problem was fuel. The closest land base from which he could launch the aircraft was in either Korea or Japan. Right now he was thinking of using Misawa Air Force Base in Japan. For security reasons they were keeping the helicopters separate from the base where the team and infiltration aircraft were stationed. Misawa was the same distance as Osan, using the route from the Sea of Japan over either North Korea or Russia. Bishop had early on ruled out the route to the west of North Korea, shooting north up to the target. The Chinese air defense capabilities were much greater in that corridor. From Misawa, a straight shot to the PZ was 1,230 nautical miles one way. Even with the external tanks, the helicopters would still have only a total range of 1,090 nautical miles. Not even enough to make it one way.

Bishop was beginning to think that someone in his office had made a mistake in planning to use the Blackhawks. He usually assigned one of his young captains to work the supporting air annex to the contingency oplans. He couldn't believe that the captain had overlooked the range factor — the idiot should have realized that the Blackhawks couldn't reach any part of the pipeline and make it back with one load of gas.

Bishop considered the hand that his staff officer had dealt him. He thought about trying to get an air force HH-53 Pave Low out to Japan. The Pave Low had an inflight refuel capability, which would solve the fuel problem. Unfortunately, the Pave Lows were all stationed at Hurlburt Field in Florida, and he knew that it would cause quite a ruckus to get one loaded onto a C-5 transport and flown all the way to Japan. Besides, they'd already ordered the Blackhawks moved during the initial alert this morning.

Bishop scratched his head. There had to be a way out of this mess.