That’s where Paul White and MADCAP MAGICIAN came in.
The radar operator aboard PATRIOT read off his position, altitude, surveillance track, date-time group of the surveillance run, and his equipment status-all in encoded format, even on the secure anti-eavesdrop channel-then continued: “Nearest vessel of interest is off your port beam, range three point one nautical miles, possible ELINT vessel. Numerous smaller vessels all quadrants appear to be at anchor, adrift, or moored to navigation aids, none considered a mission risk. Largest vessel in projected flight path confirmed identity as ferry Baltic Star. Additional vessel, the LoPresti, west-northwest of your position, is scheduled to rendezvous with you in approximately twelve hours. He is just leaving port at this time.”
White muttered a curt “Copy.”
The ELINT (electronic intelligence) vessel, a Soviet-CIS Gagarin-class research ship about the same size as the Valley Mistress, was a serious threat to this mission. Primarily used for spacecraft tracking and recovery, it was crammed full of communications and radar gear. Based in St. Petersburg, it had been on its way to the Atlantic when it had slowed and begun shadowing the American vessel in the Baltic, using its radar to constantly monitor the skies and seas around the Mistress. White thought that the CIS spy ship would go away after they had made their schedule port call in Tallinn, Estonia, but it had not. Then, after their inspection by Estonian customs officials in Tallinn — many of whom, White was sure, were former KGB agents — he thought the spy ship would definitely leave. Again, it had not, although it was no longer scanning them with radar. The Mistress had moved back into the Baltic, headed toward its next port of call in Norway, and the Gagarin-class research ship was right on his tail.
It was wrong, but probably prudent, to always believe that your cover was blown. The Gagarin-class vessel was not now using its radar, but it had lots of other sophisticated sensors — infrared, laser, low-light TV, super-sensitive optical, and plain old trained “weather-eye” crewmen — with which to watch over the Mistress. Or it could be just hanging out, tracking its own satellites, conducting training missions, anything. White’s mission was too important to scrub, so some chances had to be taken.
The report from PATRIOT continued: “Possible military rotary-wing aircraft will be within ten miles of target vicinity at feet-dry. Subject aircraft has been observed orbiting the vicinity since sunset. Analysis indicates the target may have been compromised. Recommend postponement additional twenty-four hours. Radar downlink to follow. PATRIOT standing by. Out.”
Well, things did not look good. A spy ship nearby, and now a military chopper in the target area. “Looks like we’ve been blown,” Knowlton said. “We don’t have a choice but to bug out.”
“Shit,” White muttered. “You’re probably right.” But Knowlton knew White had no intention of leaving. White turned to Marchetti and said, “Let’s start putting a little distance between us and that Gagarin, Joe. Try to get us over his radar horizon.”
“It’ll look suspicious.
“We already look suspicious,” White said. “I’m going down to Intel. Keep an eye on things up here,” he ordered Knowlton, then hurried off the bridge.
The confusing status of White’s HUMINT (human intelligence) target underscored the dangerous situation that now existed in the region. Even though the Baltic states had been independent for quite a long time, all still had foreign troops on their soil. Worse, those troops had a continuing identity crisis of their own. They had gone from being Soviet Red Army troops to Union of Sovereign Socialist Republic troops to Union Treaty troops to Commonwealth of Independent States troops, all in the space of a few months. Now most of those troops didn’t even belong to the Commonwealth. The Soviet troops of Byelorussian heritage in the Baltic states pledged allegiance to Belarus, while the Russian troops pledged loyalty to the Russian Federation, and Lithuanian troops supported Lithuania.
Aggravating this identity problem was the status of the many former Soviet military installations and other important government facilities in the Baltic states. Lithuania had twenty such installations, ranging from radar sites to research laboratories to fighter and bomber bases. The land belonged to Lithuania — that was clear. The structures, equipment, and products within these facilities belonged to the Commonwealth of Independent States, subject to transfer negotiations between Minsk, the capital of the CIS, and Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. But occupying some of these bases were Soviet scientists and engineers, some of whom never agreed to or wanted a new commonwealth to upset their system of rank and privileges assured them under the old Soviet system. Some facilities were under the control of former KGB officers who still wielded considerable power. Other facilities were guarded by heavily armed troops who were loyal to who was the richest, the most powerful, or the most influential at the moment-the KGB, the CIS, Belarus, or themselves.
The main objective of CIA operations in the Baltics was to study the complicated, potentially disastrous mixture being brewed here in Lithuania. The best way to do that was to cultivate HUMINT resources. In a poor, unorganized land such as this, the CIA found lots of willing informants. But it wasn’t long before the CIA needed help in order to successfully run all their informants, so they had called on MADCAP MAGICIAN.
Since the Valley Mistress was a real, privately-owned salvage vessel, subject to searches by all seagoing navies when not operating on behalf of the U.S. Navy, she could not have normal intelligence sections in her — no Commonwealth or non-aligned nation would allow such a vessel in its territorial waters. But White devised a system to solve that problem. The Mistress’s specially designed cargo containers (MISCOs) could be shipped like any other container or easily transferred by the Mistress’s big crane between vessels while under way. The containers were completely self-enclosed, with all necessary subsystems installed, and were fully functional once ship’s power was applied. The Valley Mistress’s six MISCOs were strapped down to the middeck area abaft the crane. Three belonged to the CV-22 aircraft’s maintenance and support crew, one was a heavy-weapons armory for the CV-22 and the assault crew, and two made up the mission command center, or Intel, which contained all of the classified radar, communications, and intelligence-gathering equipment necessary to run the mission and communicate with U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters in Florida. All six MISCOs could be slid overboard in case of an unexpected boarding or attack, and self-destruct charges and incendiaries would ensure complete destruction of most of the incriminating evidence.
The CV-22 PAVE HAMMER aircraft itself was the newest addition to the Air Force Special Operations Command arsenal. This unusual tilt-rotor aircraft had the ability to take off and land vertically like a helicopter, but then fly like a conventional turboprop airplane. It had twice the range, speed, and payload capability of a helicopter, but had all the advantages of vertical flight. It carried a crew of three — pilot, copilot, and engineer/loadmaster plus a combat crew of eight soldiers, and was armed with one 20-millimeter Hughes Chain Gun on one outrigger pod and one twelve-round Stinger missile pod on another; both pods were steerable by either the pilot or copilot with helmet-pointing fire-control systems. The CV-22 PAVE HAMMER folded itself into a compact 58-foot by 18-foot by 18-foot unit that fit perfectly into the DSRV chamber on the Valley Mistress.