Into the fire, p.17
Into the Fire, page 17
“I understand, Admiral. My immediate concern is the artillery. If you could do something to get them to stop the shelling, that would help a great deal. Or there may be no pawn for you or anyone else to worry about.”
“Understood, Captain, and be assured we’ll do our best. Bennett, out.”
After the fleet commander rang off, Senior Chief O’Gara came back on, and they agreed to an hourly comm check and status update. As she lowered the Iridium phone, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. While briefing the admiral and being questioned by his staff, she had remained poised and professional. It had been a struggle, but she had done it. Now, in a barely audible voice, she let out a long string of nautical profanity and four-letter words like the sailor she was.
“Beg pardon, ma’am?”
It was the roving sentry making his rounds. He had just rounded the corner of the building. He was armed with a 9 mm sidearm and an M14 rifle. He was a seaman and, Bigelow guessed, no more than nineteen.
“Nothing, Seaman Bedford, just talking to myself. Carry on.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” and he moved past her.
When she returned to the southern entrance of the building, she saw Master Chief Crabtree toiling up the shallow rise with two cases of bottled water under each arm. He set the water by the door and turned to her.
“Captain, we’ve made our final sweep of the ship and accounted for everyone, including Lieutenant Ashburn. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Skipper, but he was killed when that last round hit the bow of the ship. We found him at the base of the ladder coming down from MCC. He must have fallen when the shell hit. His neck was broken. I’m sorry, ma’am.”
She nodded imperceptibly, suddenly struck by the terrible unreality of it all. The fight with the frigates, the missile strike, the grounding, the artillery, and then this godforsaken place. And now I’ve lost my best officer. What next?
An artillery round landed a hundred yards to the north on the ridge of the island but close enough for them to feel the shock wave.
“Uh, Skipper, it’s probably a good idea for you to get inside.” When she made no move, he said, “Ma’am, let’s go inside.”
“Good idea, Master Chief. Go make your full report to the XO, then tell him I’d like to have a word with him.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
* * *
That there were no U.S. ships or aircraft that could enter the area was not quite true. A single Predator drone flying out of Yakota Air Base in Japan had just taken station over the Yeonpyeong Island group. It would shortly be joined by another Predator, and, within hours, a Global Hawk drone flying out of Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. All were armed with Hellfire missiles.
* * *
Wham!
Aaron Bleich burst into Chase Williams’s office unannounced, with Roger McCord in tow. Williams had the door to his office half-open, and Bleich rushed in so quickly he slammed the back of the door against the office wall. That brought Anne Sullivan from her adjacent office.
“Aaron? Roger?” Williams said, looking up from his chair.
“Boss, I’ve got it. I’ve got it!”
“Got what, Aaron?” Williams asked, motioning for them to sit at the small table next to his desk. As they sat, McCord put his hand on Bleich’s arm, encouraging him to slow down and repeat what he had told him moments earlier.
Bleich exhaled deeply and then began. “Well, boss, I know you usually want me to just tell you what time it is, but this time I think I need to build you a watch.”
“Should I send out for pizza?” Williams asked.
“I don’t think it will be that complicated,” McCord replied. “Aaron and his team have been in overdrive since you asked us to find out why North Korea tried to capture Milwaukee’s crew, and I think he’s run it to ground.”
“Good, I’m listening.”
“It’s like this sir,” Bleich began. “I knew we’d have to collate raw data from multiple sources to get to the bottom of this. But at the end of the day, it was basically a process of elimination in narrowing the field to just a discrete number of sources. We suspected a massive energy-for-arms deal that was cooking between China and North Korea, even though they tried to keep it a secret. There were these talks between Chinese and North Korean delegations in Beijing and just too much activity going on in Korea Bay, the Bohai Sea, and the Yellow Sea. The real puzzler was the number of Chinese survey ships crisscrossing the area and operating in marginal weather conditions. We asked ourselves, Why? In addition to that, we know how hierarchical the North Koreans are, so we put a special focus on communications going into and coming out of Pyongyang. Then there was the military buildup along the DMZ and, of course, the movement of naval forces we briefed you about before Milwaukee was attacked. And then…”
Bleich was building Williams a watch, and McCord could see the frustration beginning to eke across his face. “Aaron, I think you’ve set it up for the director beautifully. Now tell him about General Lee.”
“Right, I was coming to that. Well, it’s like this, boss. The head of the North Korean delegation in those talks I told you about, a General Lee, is actually a pretty junior guy. Yet he was brought back to Pyongyang and given a medal by Kim Jong-un. The fact he got a medal was all in the open media, although the North Koreans were opaque as to why. But after that happened, I decided to focus on what Lee was doing after he returned…”
“Suspect none of that was open-media-source stuff,” Williams interjected.
“No, and that kind of gets into building the actual watch parts. But Lee made a number of calls and had an active e-mail exchange going with several senior members of the KPA. Again, as a junior guy he was not privy to a lot of high-level deliberations, but I guess he was just curious. He reached out to senior officers he knew to try to get to the bottom of what the supreme leader had said to him when he gave him his medal…”
“Which was?” Williams pressed.
“I’ve been able to hack some of Lee’s e-mails and cell-phone calls. After giving him his medal, Kim said words to the effect of ‘owning’ Korea Bay and the Yellow Sea and about ‘fateful days’ being ahead.”
“Isn’t that just typical North Korean bluster?” Williams asked.
“It would be, sir, except in one of his conversations Lee told a senior colleague there was a major caveat in the deal he had worked out with the Chinese. Before the deal went into effect and they got some modern military hardware we know they coveted, North Korea had to guarantee they had the sole right to exploit those energy resources on the seabed. And I think I’m a bit out of my wheelhouse right here, so I’ll let Roger take over for a minute.”
“Boss, you know from your Navy experience the United States guards its rights of freedom of navigation as zealously as we do just about any rights, save basic human rights. You probably participated in freedom-of-navigation ops during your seagoing days…” Williams nodded, so McCord continued. “You also know that the issue of who owns what in the Yellow Sea is about as confused as it gets anywhere at sea. I’m sure you recall all the controversy and churn over the Northern Limit Line, the Inter-Korean Military Demarcation Line, and all those unresolved issues left over from the Korean War.”
“I do recall them, and not fondly.”
“Rich Middleton and I checked with our contacts at State and DoD, and we did our homework. The North Koreans have a problem delivering clear title to the waters where those oil and gas reserves seem to be located. And now they’re using the threat of war and American hostages to try and gain concessions, especially from us and from the South Koreans. Aaron’s work all but proves it.” McCord now turned to Bleich. “Aaron, you want to pick it up from here?”
“Well, it’s like Roger said, boss. It seems pretty clear that North Korea’s political leaders, all the way up to Kim, thought this would be an easy win for them, especially given the kind of concessions the United States has made in the past on things like their developing nuclear power. If they could capture the crew of the Milwaukee, they reasoned the United States might deal mineral rights to the seabed under Korea Bay and the northern part of the Yellow Sea to get our people back.”
Williams paused to consider this. “Aaron, first of all, great job in tracking this down. Roger, now that we know all this, what do you think the North Koreans’ next move is going to be?”
“I think it means, given the stakes involved, North Korea is going to pull out all the stops to get that crew on the island any way they can. They’re in deep, and Pyongyang is in all likelihood prepared to go in deeper.”
“I agree with your assessment. Well done, again. Now, I’ve got to get a note off to the Oval Office. Stay on top of this, Aaron.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
FORD ISLAND NAVAL AIR FACILITY
November 13, 1430 Hawaiian-Aleutian Standard Time
Captain Ben Crowley had taken the C-17 Globemaster III to the end of the runway and spun it around in a tight pirouette. Then he reversed the thrusters of the four Pratt & Whitney PW2040 engines to back the aircraft up to where his wheels were on the very edge of the tarmac. He was going to need every inch of the 4,000-foot runway and every knot of the westerly 17-knot wind coming in off the Pacific. Fully loaded with 171,000 pounds of cargo and 180,000 pounds of fuel, the Globemaster needed 7,800 feet of runway to take off. But it was not fully loaded. The Advanced SEAL Delivery System and associated gear and personnel in the cargo bay weighed 125,000 pounds, and they carried but 20,000 pounds of fuel, enough to get them airborne and to cruise altitude, where a KC-135 flying fuel bowser was waiting for them. Still, Crowley knew he had a 215-ton aircraft and only 4,000 feet of runway to get it off the ground. Both he and his copilot again went through their preflight checklists. They were as ready as they could be.
“Ford Island tower, this is Air Force seven-two-six heavy. Request permission to take off.”
The response was immediate. “Roger, seven-two-six, you are cleared for takeoff. Good luck.”
Yeah, right, Crowley thought. He looked over and nodded to his copilot, who then advanced the four throttles to their stops. When the four Pratt & Whitneys were shrieking at full power, he released the brakes, and they began their roll. Both pilots’ eyes flicked between the airspeed indicator and at the shrinking length of runway before them. With seven hundred feet of hardstand left, he picked up the nose and felt the aircraft shudder and hesitate, and then they were airborne. His copilot immediately took in the gear, and they watched the airspeed indicator creep ahead as they began to climb away from Oahu. It was not until they were well out over water that they began to bring in the flaps.
“Piece of cake,” the copilot said over the cockpit intercom, trying to sound casual and almost succeeding.
Yeah, right.
The ASDS was a sixty-five-foot-long, sixty-ton dry submarine that was crewed by a pilot and a navigator. It was designed to be carried piggyback on a Los Angeles–class or Virginia-class submarine to the operational area. From there, it was to be launched from its mother sub with sixteen fully loaded Navy SEALs. It had a speed of eight knots and a range of 125 nautical miles. The original program called for six of these craft. Because of technical issues and massive cost overruns, the program was canceled. Only two of the craft were built and one of those sank in deep-ocean waters during sea trials. This left only one such boat, the one that was now winging its way west in the belly of the Globemaster.
The ASDS took up almost all the cargo space of the big transport. Just forward of the bow of the craft were assorted flyaway boxes of test equipment, service modules, and spares. Two men strapped into bench seats on one side of the fuselage were conspicuous in that they weren’t attired in blue coverall flight suits like the rest of the crew. Both wore desert-pattern fatigues and bloused boots. One wore lieutenant’s bars on his collar points, and the other a fouled anchor and stars of a master chief petty officer. Both had SEAL tridents over the name tags above their left jacket pockets.
They were an odd pair. The master chief was big and bald with a salt-and-pepper push-broom mustache. He had a shuffling, bearlike appearance and did in fact move about with a slight limp. As a first class petty officer, he had been one of the first Navy SEALs into Afghanistan after 9/11. During a firefight near Kandahar, he was shot multiple times through the legs. The engagement left him semicrippled and facing separation from the Navy when he managed to talk himself into a tour of duty with the SEAL delivery team. There, he learned the intricacies of underwater operations and the subsystems of the team’s submersibles. He quickly made himself indispensable. And while he could no longer keep up with a SEAL squad on land, he now moved like a ballerina underwater. The underwater choreography required to launch and recover SEALs from a submerged submarine was now what he did, and he did it well.
Except for the SEAL trident on his chest, the lieutenant would never be taken for a Navy SEAL. He was of average height, slightly built, and had almost feminine features. In the rigorous basic SEAL training, he managed to survive because he was a good swimmer and an outstanding runner, having placed in the top ten in the NCAA cross-county finals. His first active deployment in 2009 as an assistant SEAL platoon officer did not go well. He was well liked by everyone, but he was tentative and ineffective as a combat leader. So he was assigned to SDV Team 1, where he was then sent to the required advanced diver schools and, after that, into SDV pilot training. Some people are born to fly, and this lieutenant would have been one of them. He found his stride as an SDV pilot. The intuitive nature of navigating in a dark, liquid vacuum and balancing the delicate buoyance systems of a minisubmersible came easily to him. He was a natural. Just as the master chief was the best systems man at SDV Team 1, this lieutenant was far and away the best pilot. At the team, they were known as the pilot and the mechanic.
Once safely airborne, the lieutenant took out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the master chief. He took it without looking and stuffed it into the pocket of his blouse.
“Thank you, sir. Told you we would make it.”
The lieutenant shrugged. “It was still an even-money bet. But how would you have paid off if we’d crashed?”
“We’d have at least made it to the water and crashed at sea. And you know full well master chiefs walk on water. I’d have carried you ashore and paid up.”
The lieutenant pursed his lips as he considered this logic. “But of course,” and they settled into a companionable silence, save for the whine of the engines, as the big cargo plane clawed for altitude and its rendezvous with the tanker.
The original manning of the ASDS called for two pilots. One was to be a Navy submarine-qualified officer and the other a Navy SEAL. Now that there was but one boat, the driving chores would be handled by these two SEALs. This lieutenant and this master chief were the most experienced ASDS pilots in the Navy. Basically, they were the only ASDS pilots in the Navy. They were both competent with the Mark 8 boats, but they represented the corporate knowledge when it came to the larger and more complex operations of the advanced SEAL delivery system. It would require other SEALs and technicians to marry the ASDS to its parent sub and a crew of SEALs and divers to launch and retrieve the craft. The personnel for those duties could be drawn from the SDV Team 1 platoon on Okinawa.
After refueling and reaching a cruise altitude of 42,000 feet and a cruising speed of 450 knots, one of the aircrew came to the two Navy men and offered them each a box lunch. The lieutenant accepted his, while the master chief waved the airman off. And while the lieutenant picked through an assortment of dried chicken wings, a hard-boiled egg, a bologna sandwich, and a small bag of chips, the master chief took a Philly cheesesteak from an insulated carry-on bag. It was smothered with Dijon mustard, horseradish sauce, and grilled onions. The smell filled the bay of the Globemaster. He tucked into it with relish. A half hour later, they were both sound asleep.
* * *
While the two SEALs slept, it was early evening and all was quiet at a small command module at Nellis Air Force Base just outside Las Vegas. That was about to change. A young second lieutenant recently out of the Air Force Academy was monitoring the approaches to the North Korean naval facility at Haeju from an altitude of 58,000 feet. Actually, that was her vantage point, not her physical location. She was the Global Hawk’s controller, seated comfortably in an air-conditioned space while the outside temperature still hovered in the mid-eighties. It was still dark in the Yellow Sea, and there were multiple layers of clouds between the Global Hawk and the surface of the ocean. It was a dirty night on the water, one that made those who wished to remain undetected safe. Yet with her forward-looking infrared sensor pod, the young lieutenant watched as two patrol vessels emerged from the naval port and made their way into Haeju Bay. On reaching the mouth of the bay, they turned south and came up to forty knots. They were now clearly headed for the Yeonpyeong Island group some forty-five miles away. She was not the only one who saw this. Analysts in the intelligence section at Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka and at the National Security Agency were privy to the download from the Global Hawk. She signaled for her supervisor.
“What’ve you got, Allison?”
“Major, it looks like two patrol craft have just sortied from the Haeju Naval Base. My bird is in position and armed. I’m ready to drop on your authorization.”
“All right, stand by and continue tracking.”
The major turned to a bank of phones at his watch station. He was about to pick up the handset that was a dedicated secure link to Seventh Fleet, but it rang before he could reach it.
“Nellis control, Major Duncan, speaking.”
“Major, this is Commander Rich Sargent at Seventh Fleet Operations. Through your Global Hawk downlink, we’re seeing two patrol craft from Haeju entering the northern Yellow Sea. You have them?”
“Roger that, Commander. We have them, and our bird is armed.” Duncan knew he hadn’t the authority to hit these boats, but the man on the phone did. “What are your instructions?”
