1500 ZULU 06 JUNE TO INTERDICT DAQING-FUSHUN PIPELINE
3. CRITICAL TIMES/ INITIAL CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS TO
THIS HEADQUARTERS NLT 1200 ZULU 03 JUNE/
MUST INCLUDE INFIL/EXFIL LOCATIONS/ INTERDICTION
POINT
FINAL BRIEFBACK 1000 ZULU 05 JUNE
4. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS/
A/ STATEMENT OF REQUIREMENTS/ STOP FLOW OF OIL FOR
MINIMUM II REPEAT 7/ DAYS B/ EXFILTRATION/ 2 MH-60/ 2000 ZULU 08 JUNE CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
Riley looked at the two officers. "Where did this target come from?"
"That pipeline is one of the targets from the Typhoon oplan," Hossey explained. "It's a strategic target that plays an important role in China's economy. You have the map sheets you need from the war plan files."
Mitchell reread the paper and calculated. "This doesn't give us much time. We've got to give them an initial concept of operations by tonight. Plus we have only two days on the ground. That's cutting it real close."
Hossey agreed. "Once you take a look at the target, work out how much time you'll need and I'll send a request to the SFOB for an extension."
Riley asked the question that was uppermost in his mind. "Is this real or an exercise?"
Hossey sighed. It was the same thing he had asked Hooker. "The code word for the alert was real. I imagine we'll find out after the briefback whether this is real or not. At the very least, the infiltration itself can't start without another final authorization code word. I very much doubt that we'll see that."
Mitchell considered all that. He turned to the rest of the team members, who were engaged in various activities getting the room ready for work. "Everyone grab a seat."
He waited while the men sat down. Mitchell had always been the one to coordinate the overall isolation effort; Riley spread his expertise among the other team members and did the tactical plan. It was time to get things on track.
"All right. Listen up. We've been tasked with a direct action mission into China to destroy an oil pipeline, with a down time of at least seven days." He waited a few seconds to let that sink in. He could see questions start to take form on some of his men's faces and decided to forestall that for now.
"I know you're wondering if this is the real thing or just an exercise. I don't have the answer to that and neither does anyone else here. I want you all to work under the assumption that this is a live mission. That's the way we've always done it in the past, and I see no reason to change now.
"We also don't have much time. I'm going to request an additional day of isolation and another twenty-four hours on the ground. Right now we're scheduled to briefback Monday night and infiltrate Tuesday night. We're supposed to be exfiltrated on Thursday night. We've got a four-hour target window on the sixth. You know that's damn tight, even if we infil and exfil almost right on top of the target. We'll be lucky to get twenty-four hours' surveillance before having to do the hit. Despite my asking for more time, I want you to proceed under the assumption that we won't get any more."
Mitchell looked at the message again. "We also have to give a tentative concept of operations by 2100 tonight." He turned to Riley. "See if you agree with me on this. I feel that our priorities should be as follows: First we need to decide how we're going to hit the target. I want you to work with Hoffman and Smitty on that. Once you come up with where exactly we're going to attack, I'll get with you and we'll work out some infiltration drop zones and exfiltration pickup zones.
As you all can guess, we're going in by Talon and coming out by helicopter."
Riley nodded his approval. Mitchell turned to the other members of the team and ticked off their tasks one by one in order of priority. By the time he was done the team was ready to get to work.
General Sanders watched as Olson worked with his staff. The data link had been established with the FOB at Osan Air Force Base in Korea and the initial mission warning order had been forwarded. Sanders knew from the one previous Strams exercise they had run with Special Forces that it was now a question of waiting until the team and aircrew started sending back their tentative concept of operations. Once Meng got that, he could start working out the rest of the simulation for the actual execution. The computer was already set with the enemy situation, the target, and all the other known factors. The team's plan was the only missing ingredient.
In the meantime, it appeared that General Olson was going to occupy his staff's time by checking all details, to be sure they didn't have any screwups on this end. He'd just quizzed his operations officer, Colonel Moore, on the security of the mission. He also wanted to know whether it might be a problem that Eighth Army and 6th Air Force in Japan were being cut out of the operation — or, on the other hand, what would happen if they found out about the mission. It was obvious to Sanders that General Olson hadn't spent much time on operational planning prior to this exercise. That was typical of high-ranking staffs and officers and one of the reasons that these Strams were run. It was often the first taste of an operational mission for these people.
Moore was reassuring his boss. "It's not a problem, sir. We're authorized to run these types of missions without the various services' intermediate headquarters being involved. The chain of command runs directly from the National Command Authority, through us, to the FOB, to the employed elements. It's been streamlined that way as a result of the after-action reports from the Iranian hostage mission.
We've cut out all the levels that could interfere with or confuse the flow of information.
"The only people who are in on this, besides us here, are the alerted team and aircrew of the Talon in isolation over at Osan. The airplane is presently in a secure hangar out of view. We've got some worker bees involved for the intelligence, communications, and logistics support over there, but they've been told only enough so they can do their job. The other military elements, such as the exfiltration aircraft, will know only enough to be able to accomplish what's needed. It's under wraps, sir."
Olson nodded. "It had better stay that way. And not just because part of our success in the simulation rests on keeping this secure. If it gets out that we're running a simulation exercise to plan an actual attack into Chinese territory, it would cause a scandal that would be the end of me, and you also. Give me an update on the plan as it stands now."
"OK, sir." Colonel Moore leafed through the printouts of the messages from Osan. "The team's been in isolation since 2000 Zulu, or five tomorrow morning their time. We sent the warning order at 2100 Zulu. They haven't had enough time to do much, other than try to digest the intelligence we're feeding them. NSA has provided some great imagery of the entire length of the pipeline, which we're also forwarding. We're going to let the team pick the actual target spot based on the intelligence and target vulnerability."
Olson interrupted. "What about aircraft range limitations?"
Moore let the air operations man on the USSOCOM staff, Lieutenant Colonel Bishop, handle that. "Sir, there's no problem going in. The Talon has the range and then some to make the entire length of that pipe and back out. The problem will be the exfil helicopters' range. I'll see what they send us for exfil location and work something out. I have a few ideas as to how I can expand the range of the Blackhawks if I have to."
Olson nodded and signaled for Moore to continue.
"I'll be able to give you an update at our 0700 staff meeting tomorrow morning. I should have more information from the FOB by then. The time line is pretty compressed, but I think the team can get in a good plan under the wire."
Olson continued, returning to the issue of security. "Let's war-game this a little. What about the simulated mission? What if we get word that something's happened to the team and they're compromised once they've supposedly gone in?"