Into the fire, p.9
Into the Fire, page 9
“Hard to tell. With the North Koreans, you never know whether they’re getting ready for war or just posturing to blackmail the international community into giving them more food and fuel. But for all that movement, there’s been very little communications activity.”
Since one of the major responsibilities of the Seventh Fleet was the defense of the Korean Peninsula, all intelligence regarding North and South Korea was to be routed to the Seventh Fleet staff. The intel now being processed came from a variety of electronic intercepts, satellite data, and open-source media collected by the NSA, CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Eighth Army G-2 section at Yongsan Garrison, and Seventh Air Force Intelligence S-2 at Osan Air Base. The information flow was comprehensive and continuous, but it contained none of what Op-Center had passed to the Pentagon, nor any of their early assessment of the mounting danger. Most of what Risseeau and O’Gara were seeing was classified secret traffic but carried the routine routing of “monitor for future developments.” Whatever was brewing would have a direct bearing on a great number of American service personnel. There were some twenty thousand troops in the Eighth Army and eight thousand airmen in the Seventh Air Force.
“So, Senior Chief, what about these three corvettes that seem to be operating along the approaches to the Han River and off Inchon?” Risseeau had pulled up a chart on the big desktop flat screen that showed Seoul, Inchon, and some forty miles west-southwest into the Yellow Sea. “Here’s where they were last evening, and here’s where they are now. They seem to be moving in some sort of an extended formation, close in but still in international waters.”
O’Gara studied the presentation for several minutes. “Your guess is as good as mine, sir, but, best I can tell, they seem to be conducting some sort of mine-laying exercise. It’d make sense as we’re conducting a MINEX with the South Koreans just west of them. But I’ve never seen them operating this close to shore. It’s probably nothing, sir, but we’re not going to get much more out of these satellite passes. If we really want to know what they’re up to, we’re going to have to request a low-level reconnaissance pass.”
“You mean from the Reagan air wing?”
“Tell you what, sir,” he said with a grin. “Why don’t we just pass this requirement over to the Seventh Air Force in Osan. Get a couple of those Air Force flyboys off the golf course and have them do the flyover. Give them a little honest work for a change.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE YELLOW SEA
November 12, 2230 Korea Standard Time
Milwaukee and Defender continued to operate in the mine-exercise area, deploying their gear throughout the night. They were mine hunting, not mine clearing. Defender was equipped with embedded high-frequency, high-resolution, target-classification sonars. Milwaukee was similarly outfitted with the equipment that comprised its MCM module. They were basically mapping the bottom of this portion of the Yellow Sea and cataloging minelike objects. Defender was a bit more proficient at the task since this was its sole mission. The data collected by each vessel was transmitted, collated, and displayed on a bottom-contour flat-screen image. A team of analysts on both ships worked to sift through the information to identify and classify what might be a mine and what might be man-made junk or natural rock formations.
Every few hours, Kate Bigelow made the trek from the bridge back to the mission control center—what she had grown up in her career calling the combat direction center—which contained both her ship’s-company control team and the specialized team of operators who came aboard to control and monitor the gear that was part of their mine-countermeasure module. There, she was briefed by Lieutenant Ashburn or one of his leading petty officers. She timed these visits carefully, wanting both to be informed and to show a command interest in their progress, but not wanting to be disruptive. The work was going well despite the weather. A front had just blown in from the East China Sea, reducing the visibility to a half mile. There was a heavy overcast and a strong promise of fog. The sea state was moderate with waves three to four feet, but, with a steady ten-knot wind from the southeast, it was bound to get worse. Unless it got really bad, the weather just made their work uncomfortable, not impossible. Like modern-day farmers, they tilled their field, in this case the sea bottom, with the precision afforded them by an extremely accurate GPS running fix. Anything they found and marked on their bottom topographies, they could return and find at a later date.
And they were finding mines. Each hour Milwaukee sent a status report on confirmed exercise mines found or objects classified as minelike to Commodore Park on his flagship. Park acknowledged the reports but seemed more intent on the formation and station keeping of his South Korean ships. Just after midnight, Jack O’Connor found his captain on the bridge. She was well bundled and sitting in her bridge chair. Her eyes were closed, and she was on the edge of sleep when O’Connor moved to her side holding his iPad. Before he could speak, her eyes snapped open.
“What you got, XO?”
“I’m not sure, but it can’t be anything good.” O’Connor knew Bigelow liked to be briefed by her officers. Rather than handing her the iPad, he continued, “Seventh Fleet is telling us there are three North Korean corvettes now between us and the approaches to the Han River and Inchon, and they seem to be conducting some sort of a mine-laying exercise. That, plus two of their frigates—their only two operational frigates—have just sortied from Haeju. One of our low-orbit radar surveillance satellites caught them in Haeju Bay heading for the northern Yellow Sea at about twenty hundred—some five hours ago.”
“Where are they now?”
“They don’t know. We’ll not have another satellite pass until about zero eight hundred. A section of F-16s are being scrambled out of Osan at first light to check out the three corvettes.”
Bigelow held out her hand, and he passed her the iPad. She studied it for several minutes.
“Want to call off the MINEX?” O’Connor asked. Bigelow didn’t answer, still studying the message. After a minute, she looked up.
“Not yet. See this is passed to Commodore Park immediately. And get me a rundown of whatever we have aboard in the way of intel on the capabilities of both the corvettes and the frigates. I want to know how fast they are and how they’re armed. See that information is passed around to the department heads and is a pass-down item for senior watch standers.”
“Aye, aye, Captain, right away,” he said, and he left the bridge.
Kate Bigelow sat lost in thought for several minutes. The captain of Defender would have this same information as well, and she would want his opinion on these developments. It seemed there was just too much activity on the part of the North Koreans and too little intelligence coming in from communications intercepts and electronic sources about just what they were up to. Though she was well bundled against the cold sea air, the hair on the back of her neck was starting to bristle, and she was getting goose bumps. She reached over to the IVOX and punched in the button for the mission control center.
“MCC, bridge.”
“MCC, aye, ma’am,” came the reply from a watch stander who recognized her voice.
“Is Lieutenant Ashburn there?”
“Roger, ma’am, wait one.”
A moment later, “Ashburn here, Skipper.”
“You saw the last from Seventh Fleet?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t like it. There’s a lot we don’t know, and we’ve got a ton of gear over the side. If something comes our way, there’s not much we can do right now.”
There’s probably not a lot we can do about it anyway, Bigelow thought. “How long will it take to bring everything aboard and get it secured?”
Ashburn paused, and then said, “Maybe ninety minutes.”
“Okay, let’s keep hunting, but I want all gear aboard and stowed by first light.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Kate then called the skipper of Defender and told him what she intended. He agreed with her course of action and said he’d have his gear aboard and stowed by dawn as well. Bigelow then called Commodore Park to keep him informed. He did not agree with her assessment or her decision. In his limited English, he ordered her to continue with the exercise—that no North Korean vessel would dare interfere with South Korean vessels in international waters. She tactfully reminded him the North Koreans had done just that, and fairly recently, but he was adamant. The MINEX would continue. After she broke the connection, she pondered his order to continue mine hunting. But he doesn’t have his movements severely restricted by gear in the water and a crew working in worsening weather. O’Connor was back on the bridge and had heard the exchange between Bigelow and their commodore.
“So what do we do, Captain? Continue on?”
“I think not,” she replied. “Get a message out to Seventh Fleet and info the Reagan strike group and Defender. I will be suspending both ships’ participation in the mine exercise until the intentions of the North Koreans become clear.”
“Uh, Captain, if this turns out to be just more posturing by the North, you’re going to get a reprimand for going against the orders of Commodore Park.”
Bigelow shrugged. “It will in all probability be just posturing on their part, Jack, but it’s my call. The safety of the ship and the crew comes first. It could be different in time of war, but not now, not for an exercise. We’ll not go back to hunting mines until this gets sorted out.”
“What do we tell the commodore?”
Bigelow smiled. “I’ll deal with that when the gear is aboard. Now, get that message out.”
She watched O’Connor leave the bridge, back through the pilothouse on his way to radio. Then she frowned. Is he ready to command this ship—and make the right decisions once I step down? She put that thought out of her mind for the moment—but knew she would need to return to it in time. Then she eased herself from the chair and elected to go back to the MCC.
Behind her, just after she’d stepped from the bridge, the JOOD said, “Captain’s off the bridge.”
* * *
While Milwaukee and Defender were thrashing about in the early-morning hours in the Yellow Sea, Chase Williams was having lunch at his desk the day before. Shortly after Dawson, Rodriguez, and Volner and his JSOC team headed toward Okinawa, Williams and Sullivan adjusted their watch teams to accommodate the time difference between Washington, D.C., and the Korean Peninsula. Korea was fourteen time zones away—and on the other side of the international date line—from Washington. It was important that Op-Center’s watch teams were mindful of this difference and manned appropriately at the right times. Williams was looking ahead, anticipating Op-Center’s next actions, when there was a loud, insistent knock on his door. He didn’t need to look up to see who was there.
“Come in, Aaron!” Williams said as he rolled the last bite of his sandwich in a napkin and pushed it aside. He looked up and could see Bleich was alarmed. “Talk to me,” he continued as he motioned for him to sit down.
“It’s the North Koreans,” Bleich began without preamble, and then quickly added, “I just briefed Roger, and he told me to come see you immediately.”
“Good,” Williams replied, smiling. My Geek Tank leader is a quick study, Williams thought. I never thought I’d count on someone this young for so much.
“First, their comm channels were strangely quiet,” Bleich continued. “Now they’re extremely active, especially the chatter coming from their naval headquarters. What bothers me is they have an unusual number of their larger warships at sea. The strength of their navy is their fleet of patrol boats and their submarines. The patrol boats are crude and dated, but they’re simple to operate, and they have a lot of them. Their subs are coastal boats with limited range but well suited to coastal maritime defense.” Williams had spent over three decades in the U.S. Navy, had risen to four-star rank, and he knew all this, but he declined to interrupt his Geek Tank leader. “The threat posed by their patrol boats is their surface-to-surface missile capability. They’re designed to engage and sink other surface craft. The same with their subs and their torpedoes. But they’re all in port. Now they have the best of their corvettes and frigates at sea. Except for the Silkworm-type surface-to-surface missiles carried by their frigates, these are gunships. They’re a threat to no one, but…”
“To no one,” Williams interjected, “but a lightly armed mine-hunting flotilla.”
“Exactly,” Bleich replied. “If I had to bet, the North is plotting something that has to do with American and South Korean minesweepers. And given all the land-based military movement, it’s something big. My guess is the North is going to move against the ships of that mine exercise, either as a primary objective or as a diversion for some ground action along the DMZ.”
“And if the ships are the target,” Williams asked, “what’s your best guess of what they might be up to?”
“Well, if they just wanted to sink one or two of those ships, they’d have a lot better luck with their missile-patrol boats or one of their submarines. I think they want to make a capture at sea and take some hostages—a ship or some sailors, or both.”
“The Pueblo again?”
“Just conjecture, boss, but that would be my guess.”
Williams considered this. Op-Center did not fight engagements at sea, but it did plan for the odd contingency and operate where major-military action was deemed inappropriate or unwise.
“Are Brian and Hector on the ground yet?”
“As of about fifteen minutes ago.”
* * *
Even though their G-5 had to make a fueling stop in Alaska, they set down at Kadena thirty minutes ahead of the C-17 carrying Mike Volner and his JSOC team. The big Globemaster III had twice made rendezvous for aerial refueling, but it was much slower than the Gulfstream. Per the request from Op-Center, the two aircraft were directed to a small hangar on a remote part of the airfield. Once the aircraft were parked, Brian Dawson, Hector Rodriguez, their Geek Tank analyst, and the twelve-man JSOC contingent, with their five-man support team, unloaded their gear into the small hangar and made themselves at home. This included a small but capable communications suite, cots, a field kitchen, and a generous variety of operational gear. They were a self-contained element, prepared to do just about anything and to wait for as long as it took.
As the last of the gear was unloaded, a blue Chevy Suburban pulled up to the hangar. It was 0300. The base was quiet except for the whine of the jet engine run-ups coming from a maintenance hangar across the field. The front passenger door opened, and an aide leaped out to open the rear door for the base commander. He was dressed in long-sleeved Air Force fatigues with bloused boots. There were silver eagles perched on his collar points as well as on his utility cap. He looked at the C-17, an aircraft that came and went daily from Kadena, and the Gulfstream, which was a rarity. He made no move toward the hangar but waited by the car. His was a courtesy call, but it was also a curiosity call. Brian Dawson was alerted to the Suburban’s arrival by the sentry posted at the door. He walked over to the Suburban.
“Good morning, Colonel. My name is Brian Dawson, and I’m the element leader of this contingent.”
“Colonel Bost here, Dawson,” the colonel said neutrally. “Welcome to Kadena.”
Dawson stepped away from the Suburban, motioning Bost to follow.
“Colonel,” Dawson said in a quiet voice, “we are a special-operations contingency force that reports to an organization called Op-Center that answers directly to the president. I’m sure you’ve been given our clearance and operational mandate.” Bost nodded. “There’s something brewing in the Yellow Sea that may or may not come to a head and may or may not require our attention. In all probability, we’ll just sit here for seventy-two hours or so, pack up, and then go home. If we get tasked, it could be anytime, day or night, and then we will move quickly. That’s about all I can tell you. We’re completely self-contained, and we should be out of your hair one way or another within just a few days.”
Bost again nodded. “Thank you for that. My aide will give you an on-base contact number that’s good twenty-four/seven. If you need anything, just call that number. And if there are any problems, have them call me.” He offered his hand, which Dawson took. “Otherwise, good luck.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Moments later, the Suburban and the colonel were gone. If he resented their presence or felt neglected because he had been told so little, he had the good sense or good manners not to show it.
When he reentered the hangar, Dawson was met by his staff analyst, who also served as a communicator. “Sir, I have a real-time, secure voice link established with Op-Center. It’s a lot clearer than the Iridium satellite phone.”
Jesse Carpenter was the Geek Tank’s utility infielder. He was not a programmer, but he could set up and manage a computer network, and he knew just about all there was to know about military and corporate communications. He also had a good grasp of military intelligence and intelligence analysis. Carpenter had a degree in mathematics from the University of Phoenix online, as well as a master’s degree. He was a self-starter and prided himself on being such. Bleich had hired him away from NSA, where he was considered a rising star. Jesse Carpenter was thirty-five, five ten, a hundred and sixty pounds, and extremely fit. As an enlisted soldier, he had served with the Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment and the Fifth Special Forces Group, where he qualified as an 18-Delta medical sergeant and an 18-Echo communications sergeant. Hector Rodriguez said he was as useful as a Leatherman tool and as handy as a pair of pants.
“Sir,” Carpenter continued, “I’ve got us set up over in the corner of the hangar, where there’s a little privacy. I’ve tested the comm link. We’re up, fully operational, and Mr. Williams would like you to call him as soon as it’s convenient.”
“Thanks, Jesse. Great work.” I know the boss knew what he was doing sending us downrange just in case, Dawson found himself thinking, and I’ve got good men here with me trained and ready to go on hot standby. But for the life of me I can’t conjure up a scenario where they’d be able to get their guns in the fight.
Since one of the major responsibilities of the Seventh Fleet was the defense of the Korean Peninsula, all intelligence regarding North and South Korea was to be routed to the Seventh Fleet staff. The intel now being processed came from a variety of electronic intercepts, satellite data, and open-source media collected by the NSA, CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Eighth Army G-2 section at Yongsan Garrison, and Seventh Air Force Intelligence S-2 at Osan Air Base. The information flow was comprehensive and continuous, but it contained none of what Op-Center had passed to the Pentagon, nor any of their early assessment of the mounting danger. Most of what Risseeau and O’Gara were seeing was classified secret traffic but carried the routine routing of “monitor for future developments.” Whatever was brewing would have a direct bearing on a great number of American service personnel. There were some twenty thousand troops in the Eighth Army and eight thousand airmen in the Seventh Air Force.
“So, Senior Chief, what about these three corvettes that seem to be operating along the approaches to the Han River and off Inchon?” Risseeau had pulled up a chart on the big desktop flat screen that showed Seoul, Inchon, and some forty miles west-southwest into the Yellow Sea. “Here’s where they were last evening, and here’s where they are now. They seem to be moving in some sort of an extended formation, close in but still in international waters.”
O’Gara studied the presentation for several minutes. “Your guess is as good as mine, sir, but, best I can tell, they seem to be conducting some sort of mine-laying exercise. It’d make sense as we’re conducting a MINEX with the South Koreans just west of them. But I’ve never seen them operating this close to shore. It’s probably nothing, sir, but we’re not going to get much more out of these satellite passes. If we really want to know what they’re up to, we’re going to have to request a low-level reconnaissance pass.”
“You mean from the Reagan air wing?”
“Tell you what, sir,” he said with a grin. “Why don’t we just pass this requirement over to the Seventh Air Force in Osan. Get a couple of those Air Force flyboys off the golf course and have them do the flyover. Give them a little honest work for a change.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE YELLOW SEA
November 12, 2230 Korea Standard Time
Milwaukee and Defender continued to operate in the mine-exercise area, deploying their gear throughout the night. They were mine hunting, not mine clearing. Defender was equipped with embedded high-frequency, high-resolution, target-classification sonars. Milwaukee was similarly outfitted with the equipment that comprised its MCM module. They were basically mapping the bottom of this portion of the Yellow Sea and cataloging minelike objects. Defender was a bit more proficient at the task since this was its sole mission. The data collected by each vessel was transmitted, collated, and displayed on a bottom-contour flat-screen image. A team of analysts on both ships worked to sift through the information to identify and classify what might be a mine and what might be man-made junk or natural rock formations.
Every few hours, Kate Bigelow made the trek from the bridge back to the mission control center—what she had grown up in her career calling the combat direction center—which contained both her ship’s-company control team and the specialized team of operators who came aboard to control and monitor the gear that was part of their mine-countermeasure module. There, she was briefed by Lieutenant Ashburn or one of his leading petty officers. She timed these visits carefully, wanting both to be informed and to show a command interest in their progress, but not wanting to be disruptive. The work was going well despite the weather. A front had just blown in from the East China Sea, reducing the visibility to a half mile. There was a heavy overcast and a strong promise of fog. The sea state was moderate with waves three to four feet, but, with a steady ten-knot wind from the southeast, it was bound to get worse. Unless it got really bad, the weather just made their work uncomfortable, not impossible. Like modern-day farmers, they tilled their field, in this case the sea bottom, with the precision afforded them by an extremely accurate GPS running fix. Anything they found and marked on their bottom topographies, they could return and find at a later date.
And they were finding mines. Each hour Milwaukee sent a status report on confirmed exercise mines found or objects classified as minelike to Commodore Park on his flagship. Park acknowledged the reports but seemed more intent on the formation and station keeping of his South Korean ships. Just after midnight, Jack O’Connor found his captain on the bridge. She was well bundled and sitting in her bridge chair. Her eyes were closed, and she was on the edge of sleep when O’Connor moved to her side holding his iPad. Before he could speak, her eyes snapped open.
“What you got, XO?”
“I’m not sure, but it can’t be anything good.” O’Connor knew Bigelow liked to be briefed by her officers. Rather than handing her the iPad, he continued, “Seventh Fleet is telling us there are three North Korean corvettes now between us and the approaches to the Han River and Inchon, and they seem to be conducting some sort of a mine-laying exercise. That, plus two of their frigates—their only two operational frigates—have just sortied from Haeju. One of our low-orbit radar surveillance satellites caught them in Haeju Bay heading for the northern Yellow Sea at about twenty hundred—some five hours ago.”
“Where are they now?”
“They don’t know. We’ll not have another satellite pass until about zero eight hundred. A section of F-16s are being scrambled out of Osan at first light to check out the three corvettes.”
Bigelow held out her hand, and he passed her the iPad. She studied it for several minutes.
“Want to call off the MINEX?” O’Connor asked. Bigelow didn’t answer, still studying the message. After a minute, she looked up.
“Not yet. See this is passed to Commodore Park immediately. And get me a rundown of whatever we have aboard in the way of intel on the capabilities of both the corvettes and the frigates. I want to know how fast they are and how they’re armed. See that information is passed around to the department heads and is a pass-down item for senior watch standers.”
“Aye, aye, Captain, right away,” he said, and he left the bridge.
Kate Bigelow sat lost in thought for several minutes. The captain of Defender would have this same information as well, and she would want his opinion on these developments. It seemed there was just too much activity on the part of the North Koreans and too little intelligence coming in from communications intercepts and electronic sources about just what they were up to. Though she was well bundled against the cold sea air, the hair on the back of her neck was starting to bristle, and she was getting goose bumps. She reached over to the IVOX and punched in the button for the mission control center.
“MCC, bridge.”
“MCC, aye, ma’am,” came the reply from a watch stander who recognized her voice.
“Is Lieutenant Ashburn there?”
“Roger, ma’am, wait one.”
A moment later, “Ashburn here, Skipper.”
“You saw the last from Seventh Fleet?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t like it. There’s a lot we don’t know, and we’ve got a ton of gear over the side. If something comes our way, there’s not much we can do right now.”
There’s probably not a lot we can do about it anyway, Bigelow thought. “How long will it take to bring everything aboard and get it secured?”
Ashburn paused, and then said, “Maybe ninety minutes.”
“Okay, let’s keep hunting, but I want all gear aboard and stowed by first light.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Kate then called the skipper of Defender and told him what she intended. He agreed with her course of action and said he’d have his gear aboard and stowed by dawn as well. Bigelow then called Commodore Park to keep him informed. He did not agree with her assessment or her decision. In his limited English, he ordered her to continue with the exercise—that no North Korean vessel would dare interfere with South Korean vessels in international waters. She tactfully reminded him the North Koreans had done just that, and fairly recently, but he was adamant. The MINEX would continue. After she broke the connection, she pondered his order to continue mine hunting. But he doesn’t have his movements severely restricted by gear in the water and a crew working in worsening weather. O’Connor was back on the bridge and had heard the exchange between Bigelow and their commodore.
“So what do we do, Captain? Continue on?”
“I think not,” she replied. “Get a message out to Seventh Fleet and info the Reagan strike group and Defender. I will be suspending both ships’ participation in the mine exercise until the intentions of the North Koreans become clear.”
“Uh, Captain, if this turns out to be just more posturing by the North, you’re going to get a reprimand for going against the orders of Commodore Park.”
Bigelow shrugged. “It will in all probability be just posturing on their part, Jack, but it’s my call. The safety of the ship and the crew comes first. It could be different in time of war, but not now, not for an exercise. We’ll not go back to hunting mines until this gets sorted out.”
“What do we tell the commodore?”
Bigelow smiled. “I’ll deal with that when the gear is aboard. Now, get that message out.”
She watched O’Connor leave the bridge, back through the pilothouse on his way to radio. Then she frowned. Is he ready to command this ship—and make the right decisions once I step down? She put that thought out of her mind for the moment—but knew she would need to return to it in time. Then she eased herself from the chair and elected to go back to the MCC.
Behind her, just after she’d stepped from the bridge, the JOOD said, “Captain’s off the bridge.”
* * *
While Milwaukee and Defender were thrashing about in the early-morning hours in the Yellow Sea, Chase Williams was having lunch at his desk the day before. Shortly after Dawson, Rodriguez, and Volner and his JSOC team headed toward Okinawa, Williams and Sullivan adjusted their watch teams to accommodate the time difference between Washington, D.C., and the Korean Peninsula. Korea was fourteen time zones away—and on the other side of the international date line—from Washington. It was important that Op-Center’s watch teams were mindful of this difference and manned appropriately at the right times. Williams was looking ahead, anticipating Op-Center’s next actions, when there was a loud, insistent knock on his door. He didn’t need to look up to see who was there.
“Come in, Aaron!” Williams said as he rolled the last bite of his sandwich in a napkin and pushed it aside. He looked up and could see Bleich was alarmed. “Talk to me,” he continued as he motioned for him to sit down.
“It’s the North Koreans,” Bleich began without preamble, and then quickly added, “I just briefed Roger, and he told me to come see you immediately.”
“Good,” Williams replied, smiling. My Geek Tank leader is a quick study, Williams thought. I never thought I’d count on someone this young for so much.
“First, their comm channels were strangely quiet,” Bleich continued. “Now they’re extremely active, especially the chatter coming from their naval headquarters. What bothers me is they have an unusual number of their larger warships at sea. The strength of their navy is their fleet of patrol boats and their submarines. The patrol boats are crude and dated, but they’re simple to operate, and they have a lot of them. Their subs are coastal boats with limited range but well suited to coastal maritime defense.” Williams had spent over three decades in the U.S. Navy, had risen to four-star rank, and he knew all this, but he declined to interrupt his Geek Tank leader. “The threat posed by their patrol boats is their surface-to-surface missile capability. They’re designed to engage and sink other surface craft. The same with their subs and their torpedoes. But they’re all in port. Now they have the best of their corvettes and frigates at sea. Except for the Silkworm-type surface-to-surface missiles carried by their frigates, these are gunships. They’re a threat to no one, but…”
“To no one,” Williams interjected, “but a lightly armed mine-hunting flotilla.”
“Exactly,” Bleich replied. “If I had to bet, the North is plotting something that has to do with American and South Korean minesweepers. And given all the land-based military movement, it’s something big. My guess is the North is going to move against the ships of that mine exercise, either as a primary objective or as a diversion for some ground action along the DMZ.”
“And if the ships are the target,” Williams asked, “what’s your best guess of what they might be up to?”
“Well, if they just wanted to sink one or two of those ships, they’d have a lot better luck with their missile-patrol boats or one of their submarines. I think they want to make a capture at sea and take some hostages—a ship or some sailors, or both.”
“The Pueblo again?”
“Just conjecture, boss, but that would be my guess.”
Williams considered this. Op-Center did not fight engagements at sea, but it did plan for the odd contingency and operate where major-military action was deemed inappropriate or unwise.
“Are Brian and Hector on the ground yet?”
“As of about fifteen minutes ago.”
* * *
Even though their G-5 had to make a fueling stop in Alaska, they set down at Kadena thirty minutes ahead of the C-17 carrying Mike Volner and his JSOC team. The big Globemaster III had twice made rendezvous for aerial refueling, but it was much slower than the Gulfstream. Per the request from Op-Center, the two aircraft were directed to a small hangar on a remote part of the airfield. Once the aircraft were parked, Brian Dawson, Hector Rodriguez, their Geek Tank analyst, and the twelve-man JSOC contingent, with their five-man support team, unloaded their gear into the small hangar and made themselves at home. This included a small but capable communications suite, cots, a field kitchen, and a generous variety of operational gear. They were a self-contained element, prepared to do just about anything and to wait for as long as it took.
As the last of the gear was unloaded, a blue Chevy Suburban pulled up to the hangar. It was 0300. The base was quiet except for the whine of the jet engine run-ups coming from a maintenance hangar across the field. The front passenger door opened, and an aide leaped out to open the rear door for the base commander. He was dressed in long-sleeved Air Force fatigues with bloused boots. There were silver eagles perched on his collar points as well as on his utility cap. He looked at the C-17, an aircraft that came and went daily from Kadena, and the Gulfstream, which was a rarity. He made no move toward the hangar but waited by the car. His was a courtesy call, but it was also a curiosity call. Brian Dawson was alerted to the Suburban’s arrival by the sentry posted at the door. He walked over to the Suburban.
“Good morning, Colonel. My name is Brian Dawson, and I’m the element leader of this contingent.”
“Colonel Bost here, Dawson,” the colonel said neutrally. “Welcome to Kadena.”
Dawson stepped away from the Suburban, motioning Bost to follow.
“Colonel,” Dawson said in a quiet voice, “we are a special-operations contingency force that reports to an organization called Op-Center that answers directly to the president. I’m sure you’ve been given our clearance and operational mandate.” Bost nodded. “There’s something brewing in the Yellow Sea that may or may not come to a head and may or may not require our attention. In all probability, we’ll just sit here for seventy-two hours or so, pack up, and then go home. If we get tasked, it could be anytime, day or night, and then we will move quickly. That’s about all I can tell you. We’re completely self-contained, and we should be out of your hair one way or another within just a few days.”
Bost again nodded. “Thank you for that. My aide will give you an on-base contact number that’s good twenty-four/seven. If you need anything, just call that number. And if there are any problems, have them call me.” He offered his hand, which Dawson took. “Otherwise, good luck.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Moments later, the Suburban and the colonel were gone. If he resented their presence or felt neglected because he had been told so little, he had the good sense or good manners not to show it.
When he reentered the hangar, Dawson was met by his staff analyst, who also served as a communicator. “Sir, I have a real-time, secure voice link established with Op-Center. It’s a lot clearer than the Iridium satellite phone.”
Jesse Carpenter was the Geek Tank’s utility infielder. He was not a programmer, but he could set up and manage a computer network, and he knew just about all there was to know about military and corporate communications. He also had a good grasp of military intelligence and intelligence analysis. Carpenter had a degree in mathematics from the University of Phoenix online, as well as a master’s degree. He was a self-starter and prided himself on being such. Bleich had hired him away from NSA, where he was considered a rising star. Jesse Carpenter was thirty-five, five ten, a hundred and sixty pounds, and extremely fit. As an enlisted soldier, he had served with the Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment and the Fifth Special Forces Group, where he qualified as an 18-Delta medical sergeant and an 18-Echo communications sergeant. Hector Rodriguez said he was as useful as a Leatherman tool and as handy as a pair of pants.
“Sir,” Carpenter continued, “I’ve got us set up over in the corner of the hangar, where there’s a little privacy. I’ve tested the comm link. We’re up, fully operational, and Mr. Williams would like you to call him as soon as it’s convenient.”
“Thanks, Jesse. Great work.” I know the boss knew what he was doing sending us downrange just in case, Dawson found himself thinking, and I’ve got good men here with me trained and ready to go on hot standby. But for the life of me I can’t conjure up a scenario where they’d be able to get their guns in the fight.
