Colonel Moore fielded that question also. "The team and all their gear will be entirely sterile. They'll be drawing it from actual war stockage over there. There's not much we can do to stop them from talking if they're captured. I think there really isn't a high probability of that. It's much more likely that they'd get in a firefight and killed, if compromised on the ground. Other than the bodies, the Chinese won't have much to go on.
"I'm actually more concerned about the aircraft we'll be using to go in and out. We can always deny the team if they're caught. We'll look stupid, and people will know, but it won't be as bad as if we get a plane or chopper shot down over Chinese territory and they can parade the wreckage and crew." Sanders knew that everyone in the room would recognize the picture Moore was painting. Desert One all over again.
Olson pointed a thick finger at his subordinate. "That's the last thing we want to happen, Bill. Desert One was a mess. If something comes up and things get hairy, I'll abort before that happens."
Colonel Bishop added his thoughts on that. "Well, sir, you can do that going in, but it might be difficult once that team jumps out of the Talon. The only way we can pick them up is by helicopter. Like I said earlier, I'll be able to work out the details of that once I find out where they want to be picked up. Right now I'm planning to use two MH-60 helicopters out of the flight platoon of the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa. They've been alerted and are forward deploying up to Misawa Air Force Base in northern Japan later today. The MH-60s are specially modified UH-60 Blackhawks. Those aircraft can be traced back to the United States if they go down intact, although the Chinese do have some regular UH-60s that Sikorsky sold them last year under a military aid contract."
Olson was getting into the play of things. "Couldn't we, for the sake of this problem, pretend we're using civilian helicopters, which couldn't be traced back?"
Sanders frowned at that suggestion, but before he had a chance to reply, Bishop shot down that idea. "No, sir. Not if we're going to be realistic. The exfiltration has got to be flown at night for security reasons, and it's going to be a long flight. You need a lot of special equipment to be able to do that. Forward-looking infrared radar, night-vision devices, and so on. With the rush we're in now, we wouldn't have the time to modify a civilian bird and get it over there. Also, the pilots are trained on that type of aircraft and we wouldn't be able to get them qualified on a civilian aircraft in time."
Sanders thought it was time to clear the air. General Olson was running into the same problem almost all the other commanders hit during the initial stage of a Strams exercise — the inability to separate what was real from what wasn't real on the other end, the tendency to want to play it as an exercise rather than as the real thing. "Sir, you need to treat everything involved in this mission as the real thing. Right now everything is the real thing. There is actually an FOB at Osan with a team in isolation. There is actually a Combat Talon sitting in that hangar. As far as those people are concerned, this is a real mission. You can't try to pretend or use something that doesn't exist."
Sanders pointed at the map and message screen. "You're receiving traffic from both the Command Authority and the FOB. You need to treat both as real. Everything between here and the FOB is hard copy in message format just as it would be if this were real."
Olson frowned. The whole thing was confusing. "Well, what about the other direction? I've got some questions for the Command Authority that I need answered. How do I go about that?"
Sanders pointed at the commo gear. "Like you would if this were real. Send a message like you were inbriefed to."
Olson gestured for Colonel Moore. He outlined the message he wanted sent. "I'm kind of unclear on the operational chain of this thing. I know from the oplan that the chairman gives the final go the night the plane takes off to send in the team, but what about after that? Does he want to give a final go to the team on the ground just prior to the target window? Does he want me to make all further decisions, especially concerning aborting, or does he want me to bounce them up to him?"
Moore took a few minutes to put the questions into the format and then fed it into the terminal. A few minutes later the message board lit up and the printer chattered out a hard copy of the reply.
There was a pause as everyone read the message. Sanders looked to the back of the room where Meng was seated. This was Olson's first taste of what the computer could do.
PORTER HERE/
I WANT TO GIVE THE FINAL GO THROUGH YOU/ BOTH WEDNESDAY AND JUST BEFORE ACTUAL DESTRUCTION ON THE GROUND/ YOU MAKE THE REST OF THE DECISIONS PETE/ REMEMBER THAT IF IT CONCERNS A POSSIBLE COMPROMISE TO ABORT/1 WANT TO KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG/ END/
Olson stared at the board in amazement. The machine's use of his first name had been as startling as the message itself. It was as if the chairman had actually written the message. The whole thing was much more realistic to him now. He turned to Sanders. "That was the computer answering me, pretending to be General Porter?"
For the first time, Doctor Meng spoke up from the back of the room. "No, General. As far as you are concerned, that was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff himself answering you. If you remember that, it will make this week much easier for all of us."
It took Riley and the engineers less than two hours to come up with the actual point of attack on the pipeline. Using 1:64,000 scale maps of the pipeline area, and satellite imagery sent from Fort Meade, Riley had sat down with Hoffman and Smith and quickly traced the pipeline, looking over the whole length for possible target locations.
It didn't take them long to come up with the most promising target. They'd been instructed to put the pipeline out of operation for a minimum of a week; therefore, blowing a section would be insufficient. According to the intelligence, the Chinese maintained an adequate repair capability. Taking down a hundred-foot section would only put the pipe out of operation for forty-eight hours. Riley knew that something more vital to the pipe's operation had to be attacked. He asked Hoffman and Smith to search for a node critical to the operation of the pipe.
They had briefly considered destroying a pump station, but Riley had discarded that idea. Pump stations were staggered along the entire length to help maintain and regulate the flow of oil. Although pump stations were critical to the successful functioning of the pipe, intelligence indicated that they were also manned by a platoon-sized reaction force. The last thing Team 3 wanted to do, in Riley's opinion, was get into a battle. They wanted to do their job and get out without making any contact.
It was Hoffman who found the answer. The pipe crossed the Sungari River, more than nine hundred kilometers from the pipe's terminus on the Yellow Sea at the port of Qinhuangdao. The imagery blowup disclosed that the pipe was suspended by cables from pylons anchored on either shore. There were six cables, each two and a half inches in diameter. Cutting them would be a relatively simple operation for the team. Severing all six cables simultaneously would release the support for the suspended section of pipe, which, weighed down by the oil inside, would crash into the river. To repair the crossing would require extensive engineering work, including bringing a barge upriver. Hoffman conservatively estimated a down time of three weeks. That definitely met the requirements for the mission.
The tricky part, Riley mused as he looked at the satellite blowup of the river crossing, was getting into the compound that enclosed the pylon. Whoever had designed security for the pipe had also known that this river crossing was a critical point that needed extra attention. The pylons on either shore were surrounded by a fence topped with barb wire. The fence enclosed a rectangular area approximately 150 meters by 250 meters.