“We don’t want to mess with success,” Stroh said with a smile.
Then Gene Berlinger, the CIA Director of Special Operations, spoke his first words of the afternoon. “We have already assembled an operational plan for Lieutenant Murdock’s platoon.”
Probably something the CIA paramilitary guys had put together, Murdock thought. Some of them were former SEALS, but even so, they weren’t out operating every day the way he and 3rd Platoon were. “I’ll be glad to take a look at it, sir,” Murdock replied. “But I would only be comfortable executing my own plan.”
“Your comfort, Lieutenant, is not a consideration in the execution of this mission.”
So now the games had begun. Murdock had had some experience with this sort of thing. Special Operations command staff officers, generally Army types, thought you should sit in the corner sucking your thumb while they put together a plan worthy of Alexander the Great. Then they’d pat you on the ass, send you out to execute, and blame you when it fucked up.
Blake Murdock had been required to jump through his ass due to inadequate planning too many times in his career. He wasn’t afraid of assholes in suits. He was a little afraid of a career-ending fitness report, because he really liked being a SEAL. But he was absolutely terrified of getting his whole platoon wiped out.
“With respect, Sir,” said Murdock. “If I’m the one who’s going into Lebanon, it’ll have to be to execute my plan. Not the plan of anyone who isn’t coming along. If that doesn’t fit in with your plans, then you need to find someone else.”
“You seem so reluctant,” said Berlinger. “Perhaps we should.”
Whitbread of Covert Action Staff, a separate department in the CIA, seemed amused by the whole scene. Commander Masciarelli looked utterly horrified. Commodore Harkins sat impassively, waiting to see which side of the net the ball would land on. But Admiral Raymond had a “that’s my boy” expression on his face.
“I want him to be cautious,” Admiral Raymond growled. “Especially with this mission. I don’t want someone who’s just going to buckle up his chin strap and go out and get a bunch of my SEALs killed. Lieutenant Murdock is absolutely right. He’s more than proved that he can both plan and operate. And he’s not going anywhere near Lebanon until he tells me he can get the job done. Since we’ve already decided that he will do the mission …” At this the admiral paused, and when no one in the room contradicted him, he went on. “Before anyone gets bent out of shape, let’s allow him to put together a plan and brief it back to us.”
No one objected to that, especially since the admiral, and by implication Murdock, had now assumed full responsibility for the operation. Everyone else’s ass was fully covered.
“Blake,” the admiral ordered, “get to work. Don Stroh will give you whatever you need to get started.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” said Murdock. “All I need right now is permission to bring my second in command and platoon chiefs in on this. And also the Team Command Master Chief.”
“That’s unacceptable,” said Berlinger.
“Not counting staff jobs and a tour I did at BUD/S, I have about five years of Special Operations experience in the field,” said Murdock. “My two chiefs have a combined total of thirty-one. The Master Chief has nearly that much himself.”
That had always been Murdock’s gripe. The chiefs were what made the teams, and compared to their experience officers were just a bunch of amateurs. Yet officers always thought they knew best.
Now Whitbread, the director of Covert Action staff, spoke his first word. “Granted.”
The meeting broke up, and the admiral brought Murdock over to a quiet corner. “What do you really think about this, Blake?” he asked.
Sometimes when the brass did that, they were really asking you to tell them what they wanted to hear. But this wasn’t one of those situations.
“I’ll tell you the truth, sir. I don’t have a good feeling about it. I know what I can do. I can go in and take out the key players if someone can target them for me. I may be able to blow the warehouse. But as far as guaranteeing what’s going to be destroyed in it, you know I can’t do that. At this stage of the game I don’t even know if I can get all the way in to the target, do the job, and then get out.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” the admiral replied, obviously hearkening back to his days in Vietnam. “If you had a couple of fighter squadrons putting close air behind you as you exfiltrated Baalbek, that would be one thing. But you won’t have that, or fire support of any kind.”
“Sir, if it can be done, I’ll do it. I just don’t know if it can be done without either an F117 or an entire Ranger battalion.”
“Blake, this is a hairy one, but it has to be done. And for a lot of reasons, we have to do it. And we can’t fail. You do it your way, and if anyone screws with you or tries to force you into anything, I want you to sit right down on your ass and not move until you get on a secure phone with me. That’s an order, you understand?”
Now Murdock really felt like killing someone for the man. “Yes, sir.”
8
“I’m sorry, sir, but this sucks,” Razor Roselli raged. “I mean, this really blows. It’s going to take the whole platoon to pack the demo and do the shooting on this op. The fucking target is in the center of a town right smack in the middle of Indian Country where everyone and his fucking dog packs an AK or an RPG, and they all sleep with one eye open because the Israelis fly in and snatch Hezbollah chiefs whenever they can. Now maybe, just maybe, I can infiltrate a platoon through the fucking town and the checkpoints and the barking dogs and get them to the target. As far as getting them the fuck out and home in one piece, I have no fucking clue.”
“Razor, shut up,” Master Chief MacKenzie ordered. “You’re making my ears hurt. Everyone gets your point. But since the reason we’re here is to see if we can do the job, let’s get on with it.”
Unlike many officers, whose reaction would have been utter horror, Murdock liked what he was hearing. SEALs had died in Vietnam, Grenada, and Panama because they were so motivated and anxious to accomplish the missions that they ignored the fact that the missions were flawed and the op plans sucked. It had almost happened to him a couple of times, and it wasn’t going to again. He was glad his chiefs had that mind-set too.
Murdock was also silently patting himself on the back for including George MacKenzie in the planning group. He, Mac, Roselli, Kos Kosciuszko, and Ed DeWitt were sitting in a secure planning room amid stacks of maps, papers, intelligence files, and satellite photographs. Some of it was on computer, such as all the SEAL mission planning checklists, and SOCRATES, the Special Operations Command Research, Analysis, and Threat Evaluation System. Unfortunately, SOPARS II, a computer system which would have automated the whole pre-mission planning process by combining digital maps, virtual-technology terrain models, building blueprints, all the planning checklists, and everything else you needed in a single desktop PC, had been cancelled due to funding constraints.
It wasn’t that there was no money, just that all the services preferred to step back and let USSOCOM fund projects like that out of its own hide; then they’d swoop in and reap the benefits. USSOCOM was currently having to pay for very expensive helicopter programs, and feeling the pinch.
DeWitt chimed in. “Let’s do this by the book. Start on actions at the objective and work backward from there to how we’re going to get in and get out. Work from general to specific.”