He’d only just got there, about to sit down to a dinner of grilled crayfish, when he’d received the emergency alert. Not even one full afternoon of peace.
But Navarone understood the fact that he was a volunteer; he didn’t have to do it. He didn’t need to be on Force One; hell, he didn’t have to be on Team Six either. He could easily leave, set up his own private security firm, be at home eating crayfish gumbo whenever he wanted.
But that wasn’t the life he wanted, the life he needed. He had an innate desire to be the best, the leader in his field. It just so happened that his field was covert military operations, and the best unit in the world was Force One.
How could he say no?
He saw the other members of his team hit the tarmac, jumping off the truck that had brought them here.
Chad ‘Country’ Davis was a six foot two, two hundred and twenty pound Delta Force operative who looked like he ate babies for breakfast and then flossed his teeth with barbed wire. A veteran of the 82nd Airborne, the Rangers, and the US Army Special Forces before joining Delta, the man was as tough as old boot leather, the epitome of everything a commando was supposed to be; and yet Navarone also knew that he was a loving family man with a heart of gold. Whoever came across him over in China would never know that though, Navarone was sure. They would only see the Viking berserker, and it would likely be the last thing they ever saw.
Julie Barrington was the only female in the group, but she would be a tremendous asset. A long-time paramilitary officer with the CIA’s Special Activity Division, she was a unit leader for that organization’s elite Special Operations Group, and an expert with explosives and small-arms. Navarone had seen her on the range, and turned down her offer of a friendly shoot-off; there was no chance he could have won.
Sal Grayson was Air Force, a Pararescueman with the AF Special Operations Command. Among the best-trained troops in the entire US military, PJs — or ‘Para Jumpers’ — were taught how to infiltrate any type of enemy territory in order to save and rescue other military personnel. Navarone had the ultimate respect for Grayson — the man was able to put himself in the line of fire with the goal not to kill the enemy, but to rescue his brothers and sisters in arms. He would be the team medic, and Navarone could never hope for someone more experienced in combat trauma treatment.
The last person on the team was another Team Six man, Tim Collins. He was young compared to the rest of the group, but Navarone had worked with him many times in DEVGRU, and had found him to be talented and capable beyond his years. If Davis was the prototypical commando — big, strong and terrifying — then Collins was a schoolboy in comparison. But give him a sniper rifle, and he could hit some things Navarone couldn’t even see.
Navarone realized the group was top-heavy with SEALs — three out of the six of them — but he also understood that it was necessitated by the nature of their infiltration into Beijing, which Cole had explained to them in Forest Hills the day before.
They had travelled overnight after a full day of briefings at the Paradigm headquarters back in DC, and despite getting some sleep on the flight, Navarone stretched and yawned as he faced the lightening Pacific Ocean, the hazy red sun rising steadily behind him.
‘I hope you’re not tired, Navarone,’ Cole said, turning towards him with half a smile, ‘because you’re damn sure not going to be getting much rest before this thing is over.’
‘Don’t worry about me, sir,’ Navarone said with half a smile of his own. ‘I’m ready to shoot and scoot anytime you say so.’
‘Good,’ Cole said with a curt nod. ‘Then let’s get started.’
Cole had brought the team to Coronado for two main reasons. The first was to draw weapons and supplies. Water would feature heavily in their insertion, and the SEALs still had the best kit for such operations. The other reason was that it was home to the training wing for the SEAL Delivery Vehicle, the flooded mini-submarine they were going to use for part of their infiltration into Beijing.
The SDV was a key element of the SEAL teams, delivering a crew of two pilots and four passengers far further into an operational area than they would get by swimming alone. It was a large, electrically-propelled craft that looked not dissimilar to a torpedo. The two pilots, in full SCUBA gear, controlled the SDV from the semi-open front end, while the four passengers, also in SCUBA gear, travelled in the fully-flooded rear compartment.
Piloting the craft was a skilled job, and one that was only taught here in Coronado. That was why Collins was here, despite his relative inexperience — before joining DEVGRU, he had been an SDV pilot with SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One. Cole would be co-pilot for the insertion, and Navarone would stay in the back to keep an eye on the other three team members.
The day would be spent with basic familiarization for Davis, Barrington and Grayson, and a session of all-important re-familiarization for Cole, Navarone and Collins.
It didn’t trouble Cole unduly that they were openly here on the naval base, despite Force One’s covert status. It was a training center, and the people here were anyway used to covert ops; no questions would be asked, and no answers would be listened to even if they were. Boxes had been ticked in the right places all the way up to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and that was all anyone needed to know. As to what the six people were really up to, it was nobody’s business but theirs.
The idea for the insertion had come to Cole early on; there really hadn’t been any realistic alternative, he’d been forced to admit. Conventional means of infiltration such as parachute insertion were out of the question. There was no way that the airspace anywhere near Beijing could be penetrated without major reprisal. It might have been feasible to drop into the countryside somewhere well outside of the capital, but Chinese air defences were pretty decent even in the most uninhabited areas of the country nowadays — and even if successful, Cole and his team would then need to infiltrate possibly hundreds of miles overland, with all their equipment.
And so for the infiltration of Beijing, Cole knew he would have to go back to his SEAL roots — waterborne insertion.
He had called Olsen as soon as he’d had the idea — he needed to know if there was a submarine in-theater that could be used at short notice. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had snapped his fingers and Cole had gotten what he needed; right this minute, the Virginia-class attack sub, the USS Texas, was docked on the eastern side of Okinawa Island being fitted out to receive the SDV. Apparently it had been operating clandestinely around the East China Sea, probing the defences of the surveillance network which surrounded the crippled aircraft carrier. Cole wondered if the captain would be angry at being pulled off-task, or excited by the prospect of engaging in something rather more proactive. Cole supposed it would all depend on how much he had been told.
Cole watched his team mates as they filed onto the base and smiled; if anyone could get into Beijing and get the old government out to safety, it was them.
And, he had to admit, if anyone in the world was capable of killing General Wu, it was Cole himself.
Captain Hank Sherman smoked a cigarette impatiently, waiting on the harbor dock as the last bolts were secured to the specialist Dry Dock Shelter which was now fitted snugly on top of his submarine, right next to the conning tower.
A large metal canister, thirty-eight feet long and thirty tons in weight, it enabled a SEAL Delivery Vehicle to be transported to its theater of operations and then released clandestinely underwater to approach its target.