Into the fire, p.18
Into the Fire, page 18
“Major, we have IDed these as Shershen-class torpedo boats. If they come within twenty-five miles of the Yeonpyeong Island group, lethal force is authorized by the commander, Seventh Fleet. If they get that close, sink ’em.”
Duncan repeated the order and the authorization and added, “If they reach the twenty-five-nautical-mile mark, we will make the drop.” Then he stepped back to his controller.
“You get that, Allison?”
“Yes, sir. If those boats get within twenty-five miles from the island, we go to war.”
They said very little as they watched the two craft continue south in the Yellow Sea. It took them just over twenty minutes to reach the twenty-five-mile range. The major continued to study the ghostly IR video presentation for a few more seconds, and then said, “You are cleared hot. Drop authorization is granted; weapons free.”
“Roger that, sir, weapons free.”
The lieutenant slewed a cursor slaved to an airborne laser on the Global Hawk onto the lead craft. She quickly received a tone from the warheads of the specially modified Hellfire missiles. Both missiles indicated their eagerness to seek out any target illuminated by the laser. The designers of the Hellfire assumed the target would be a tank or a bunker or a structure. But the Hellfires themselves didn’t really care. For them it was all about the reflected energy from a laser beam. A moment later, one Hellfire dropped from the left under-wing pylon of the Global Hawk and began its descent. Two seconds later, a second Hellfire left the right pylon, following its brother down. Each in turn fired its rocket motor. The 2.6-second burn time accelerated the missiles to Mach 1.4. The young lieutenant kept the laser cursor on the lead enemy craft. It took close to twenty-five seconds for the first missile to travel the ten miles from the Global Hawk to the first patrol craft. She placed the laser well abaft of the bow so the warhead struck just forward of amidships. With the flair of the initial strike, the controller immediately slewed her laser designator back to the second boat, again just forward of amidships. The second Hellfire obediently turned for the second boat.
* * *
Aboard the two Shershen-class boats, there was none of the orderly exchange that had taken place at the Nellis control facility or the Seventh Fleet headquarters. It was a sledgehammer blow. One Hellfire took the lead boat in the pilothouse, killing the helmsman instantly. The patrol-boat skipper and the lee helmsmen were instantly blinded by the flash and had their eardrums imploded by the concussion. Both were rendered unconscious and shredded by shrapnel carried through from the roof. Both would live, but both would carry visible scars for the rest of their lives. The Hellfire is an antiarmor weapon, so most of the force of the explosion is linear and carried through the main deck to the keel, where most of the force of the warhead was absorbed by an auxiliary generator. This bought them time. The men in the troop compartment were shaken but unhurt and began an orderly evacuation of the sinking boat.
The second Hellfire struck just behind the pilothouse in the troop compartment of the second boat. One soldier was decapitated and another had his arm severed at the shoulder. The expended warhead passed through to the keel, where it opened a gaping hole in the craft. There was no orderly evacuation here. Following the flash of the impact, blind and wounded soldiers began to grope their way across the blood-slick deck for the escape hatches. In the ensuing panic, only a few made it out. As the second Shershen boat sank, clawing and screaming soldiers clogged the way out, dooming those behind them
* * *
“Nicely done, Lieutenant,” the major said. “Very nicely done.”
The second lieutenant and her major, along with those at Seventh Fleet and NSA, watched as several life rafts were inflated and a great many blurred figures scrambled into them—far more figures than were needed to man two fifty-year-old torpedo boats. The two boats were packed with a commando force, the remnants of which were now slowly making their way back to the north. One of the boats sank immediately while the other remained afloat for another hour, then it, too, was gone.
“Well, Allison, how do you feel about your first two kills?”
She thought about this a moment. It was not, she thought, all that different from her training—it was still a video game, and she said as much.
“Well, maybe,” Duncan replied, “but you don’t get a DFC for playing video games.”
A Distinguished Flying Cross, she mused. She shook her head, Only in this woman’s Air Force. Then she took her Global Hawk back up to Haeju Bay and began to search the area for more surface contacts.
* * *
If there was one boat in the undersea fleet of the U.S. Navy that was said to have been snake bit, it was USS Greenville (SSN-722). She was a Los Angeles–class nuclear attack submarine and just shy of her twenty-first birthday. But the boat had packed a great deal of misfortune and controversy into those twenty-one years. In February of 2001, she was operating off Oahu with several reporters on board. In an emergency surfacing demonstration, the sub had come up under the Japanese fishing boat the Ehime Maru, sinking the vessel and killing nine of the crew, a crew that included four teenagers. Then, scarcely six months later, Greenville found herself aground while entering port on the island of Saipan. The damage to her rudder and propulsion intakes, while minor, required the boat to be dry-docked. Only six months later, the submarine collided with USS Ogden, a Navy amphibious ship, during a personnel transfer in the Gulf of Aden. The collision resulted in a rent in the side of the Ogden, spilling thousands of gallons of fuel into the Gulf. Since that time, Grenville had served without mishap and with distinction, earning high marks for readiness and tactical proficiency. But no matter; the boat was considered something of a Jonah by submariners around the fleet.
Greenville was returning home to Pearl Harbor following a ninety-day patrol. The crew was homesick, and the boat was ready for an in-port restricted availability and some minor but much-needed maintenance. They were west of Japan when the boat came to periscope depth and slowed to lift its communications mast. It was only near the surface for a few minutes to collect the burst transmission that contained several days of message traffic. Amid the many routine and a few priority messages, there was one that trumped all others.
TOP SECRET: FLASH PRECEDENCE
From: Commander, Submarine Force Pacific
To: USS Greenville
Subj: Operation Immediate
You are hereby directed to make for the White Beach Naval Facility on Okinawa at best speed, repeat best speed, for a classified mission tasking. There you are to remain submerged offshore and await further orders. Following an acknowledgment of these orders, observe communications blackout.
TOP SECRET: FLASH PRECEDENCE
Commander Allen Baumstark was attending to paperwork in his small stateroom, anticipating hearing from his wife in the “famlygram” that accompanied these normally routine communications downloads. This one would be loaded with family news for the homeward-bound crew. He was in tune with his boat and had already felt her return to cruise depth and accelerate to her transit speed of twenty knots. Suddenly, his lead comm tech burst in.
“Excuse the interruption, sir, but you better look at this,” he said, and handed him a hard copy of the transmission.
Baumstark studied it for a moment. “Christ on a crutch. What now?” After a moment’s reflection, he took the handset from the wall-mounted communications box and cranked the small handle. It was already set for the control room.
“This is control.”
“Control. This is the captain. Return to periscope depth and prepare to raise the comm mast for an outgoing transmission.”
“Uh, aye, aye, Captain.”
He scratched out a brief cryptic reply.
TOP SECRET: FLASH PRECEDENCE
FROM: USS Greenville
To: COMSUBPAC
Subj: Receipt of OP-IMMEDIATE
Am in receipt of your last and making best speed as directed. Baumstark.
TOP SECRET: FLASH PRECEDENCE
He handed the message to the tech, then called him back and added a line to the message he had written, “Please advise Greenville wives and families as situation allows.”
He again called the control room and told his officer of the deck to pass word to the executive officer, the chief engineer, the navigator, and the COB (chief of the boat—pronounced “cob,” as in “corncob”) to meet him in the wardroom. Unlike the wardroom on Milwaukee, Greenville’s wardroom was more like a stockbroker’s cubicle. By the time Baumstark had finished briefing his key senior leaders on what little he knew, Greenville would be on a course of 250 at two hundred feet at a speed well in excess of thirty knots. That alone made them uncomfortable. Submariners are listeners. They rely on their ability to hear in the same way that blind animals rely on smell. At this speed, they were deaf, but at this speed, they would be off the White Beach Naval Facility in eighteen hours.
“I know this is going to be difficult for the crew,” Baumstark concluded, “but we wouldn’t be tasked like this if it wasn’t important.”
“Don’t worry about the crew, Skipper,” the XO replied. “They know it has to be some kind of real-world mission tasking. You can count on them.”
“Think it has to do with this business with North Korea?” asked the navigator.
“Perhaps,” Baumstark replied, “but we’re headed for Okinawa, not the Yellow Sea.”
“Any idea why they might want us?” the chief engineer asked.
“Haven’t a clue. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.” But he did know, or at least he thought he might. “Thanks. I’ll let you return to your duties. When I know something, you’ll know something.” But at this speed there was no chance of any contact with the outside world. “COB, you want to stay back for a moment?” The COB had been on board longer than anyone else and knew more about Greenville than any member of her crew, including her captain.
“Sir?” He was a master chief petty officer and had spent more than fourteen years of his twenty-six-year Navy career underwater.
“You thinking what I’m thinking, COB?”
“I think so, Skipper. Could be that we were just the closest boat, but I don’t think so.” Both of them knew Greenville was one of the few Los Angeles fast-attack boats that had carried the ASDS. “We got nothing to do for a few hours. Let me get together with a few of the old hands and we’ll start thinking about this—just in case.”
* * *
The Globemaster chased the sun across the Pacific but could not catch it. It landed a few hours after dark, as planned, and was directed to a section of tarmac adjacent to the hangar occupied by the JSOC flyaway element. Brian Dawson waited with Lieutenant Denver while the big cargo plane taxied to where they stood watching. Denver had shed the blue jeans and sweatshirt and was now in fresh desert-pattern fatigues, cap, and bloused boots.
“How many SEALs will be with the minisub?” Dawson asked.
“Just two.”
“Just two?” Dawson echoed.
“My guys will see to getting the ASDS deplaned and over to pierside. And about half of them will go aboard to serve as deck crew for the launch and recovery of the boat. But the two who will see to the actual operation of the ASDS are very special SEALs.”
“Tell me more,” Dawson prompted.
“Master Chief Harlan Mecoy has been at the team for more than twelve years, and he knows just about everything there is to know about the ASDS. He’s the corporate knowledge. He will supervise the launch and recovery of the boat. Once away from the parent sub, he will then serve as navigator and copilot for the boat. He will basically be in charge of the operation start to finish. In short, he’s the best there is. We call him the mechanic because he will direct the preparation, loading, launch, and recovery of the ASDS.”
“Your pilot is Lieutenant Bill Naylor. Billy has only been with SDV One for two years, but he’s the best there is at what he does. Nobody can drive an SDV or an ASDS better than him.” Denver had come to know Brian Dawson and knew of his Special Forces background. “Think of all the helicopter pilots you’ve known at the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Can you name one or two MH-60 pilots you would ask for by name if you had to go in on a really hairy mission?” Dawson nodded. “Well, at SDV Team One, Billy Naylor is that pilot.”
The aircraft was met by the entire Okinawa detachment of SDV Team 1. The SEALs and their support technicians swarmed aboard the C-17 and set about the business of easing the ASDS from the fuselage of the big aircraft and preparing it for land travel. Mecoy and Naylor made their way over to where Dawson and Denver waited. Introductions were made, and they all retired to the hangar. There they were joined by Jesse Carpenter, Hector Rodriguez, and Major Mike Volner. Over coffee and a detailed chart of Kujido Island, they went over the operation—as Dawson and Rodriguez envisioned it and as Mecoy and Naylor would have to execute it. Mike Volner and Jesse Carpenter figured into the scheme, but it was all about the ability of the ASDS and its operators to make it happen.
“So that’s how we see it unfolding,” Dawson concluded, “but the question is, Can you execute it? Is this doable, and can you do it?”
All eyes were now on Master Chief Harlan Mecoy. He permitted himself a small smile and took a sip of coffee.
“All these years, we’ve been waiting on a mission for the ASDS. And all these years, I thought it would be some secret harbor penetration or sneaking a squad of SEALs into a denied area and waiting offshore while they scrambled over the beach to execute an important covert operation. And now that it’s finally here, it’s a lifeboat mission. But saving those American lives is probably more important than anything else I may have had in mind. Getting in close enough with the parent sub may present problems, but I don’t see any problem with making the operational runs, do you, Lieutenant?”
“If we can get the boat prepped and the big sub can get us on station,” Naylor replied, “I can fly the mission.”
“So to answer your question, sir, it’s doable, and we can do it. But the successful execution is all in the details. Keep in mind this is a complex prototype system and we have to anticipate the operational and mechanical problems that are sure to arise. And we have a ton of work to get done if we’re going to get aboard the parent sub and away from the pier before the sun comes up and Chinese satellites are overhead.” The master chief took out a notebook and began working his way through a series of details that included the slow, sixteen-mile journey from Kadena to the pier at White Beach, the mobile crane services on the pier that could handle a sixty-ton submersible, and the estimated time of arrival of Greenville. After another fifteen minutes of discussion, they broke from the meeting. There was indeed much for all of them to do before sunrise.
“Major, let’s take a walk outside for a few minutes,” Dawson said as he and Volner left the others.
* * *
Commander Kate Bigelow had been sleeping fitfully on a mattress pad brought from the ship when she was suddenly fully awake. She pulled on a layer of foul-weather gear that by now was exceedingly ripe. Something wasn’t right, and she instantly knew what it was. The shelling that had been with them since they abandoned Milwaukee had suddenly stopped. That was certainly a welcome change but somehow ominous in its sudden cessation, like a two-day storm that had suddenly blown itself out. She was grateful for the reprieve but wondered when it would begin again. Or was the quiet a prelude to some form of waterborne or aerial attack? Nonetheless, she was aware of the break in the shelling within only minutes of the last round dropping. She immediately sought out Master Chief Crabtree. Like her, he wondered if the break in the barrage might signal an attack from a North Korean army contingent. To her relief, Crabtree had just doubled the roving patrols about the cannery complex, not that they could do much if there was such a move against them. It would be dawn in a few hours, so they made a slow circuit of the interior of the building while most of the crew slept. The crew had segregated themselves into small enclaves that reflected their watch sections aboard ship. They had fallen into something of a schedule that, while not shipboard routine, was of some comfort to those who had grown used to daily military procedures.
Just after dark the previous evening, the master chief and a work party had returned to the ship on yet another scavenging mission.
“Skipper, there’s not much left that is of any use to us. Of course, it would be helpful if we knew how long we’d be here. Food is not an issue, given our stock of MREs and the canned goods we’ve taken out of the galley. In about another three days or so, fresh water will start to be a problem. To stay ahead of it, and as long as the artillery holds off, I’ll send a working party back out to replenish our empty containers each evening. Our freshwater holding tanks are down to about a third—that is, those that weren’t damaged by gunfire. I’ve been rotating the personnel in the working parties. I give them each a few minutes to go to their personal lockers and get what they might need ashore. And, uh, Skipper, we’ve moved our dead shipmates into the cold-stores locker. It’s … it’s not a pretty sight, them stacked in there like that. For now, it’s cool if not cold, but there’s not much else we can do.”
“No, there isn’t,” Bigelow replied. She was silent for a moment, then said, “What about that other portable generator?”
“It’s ashore and we’re holding it as a backup. Fuel is an issue, so we’re only using one. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but we’ve got fuel for about another four days, and then that’s it. No more power.”
“Thanks, Master Chief.” He turned to go, but she called him back. “What’s she look like? I haven’t wanted to be away from here and the radio. How’s Milwaukee holding up?”
“Well, ma’am, she looks to have been hit several more times. There’s been no more fire, but the damage from the missile hit is pretty apparent. It’s, well, it’s a sad sight. She’s got a twenty-degree starboard list and is well down by the stern. Skipper, Milwaukee is the crew here in this concrete bunker; it’s no longer that hulk out on the beach.”
