“No shit. Not with all those fucking antennas. Y’ever try to knock down an antenna?”
“It ain’t easy.”
“Excuse me, Master Chief,” Harch said. “Did you have something to contribute?”
“Just eager to hear the plan, sir,” Teddy said. “But I gotta say, I’m concerned about the force balance.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I briefed three concepts of operation to the ops-o, then Commander L. Then the sub’s CO… but he’s not a happy camper about how close in we’re asking him to go. He thought we’d be thirty miles out, riding the buses in… but here’s the plan.”
Harch stroked his mustache, talking to the screen. “We swim in submerged. I considered the rafts, but there’s probably tactical radar protecting such a high-value target. As we proceed to target, a combined Tomahawk and standoff weapons strike will hit the airfield and the naval facility. Another salvo of precision-guided munitions will hit the repair shops and fuel bunkers.
“All in all, they’ll lay down thirty tons of ordnance. Ten minutes later, we hit the beach at two points. Timing will be critical.”
“No fucking shit,” Swager muttered, elbowing Oberg.
The next slide showed two points of entry. Pretty much as Teddy’d already figured, one was at the causeway, the other at Rocky’s northern beach.
Teddy leaned back, fingering his chin. Thinking again of Makin Atoll. You had only two choices in assaulting a beach. Pick hydrography with a shallow gradient… like Tarawa, where the enemy, if he was sighted in, could cut you to pieces as you waded ashore. Or a steep gradient, where the surf could tear you up almost as bad. Carlson’s guys had come in over the open beach, and lost most of their weapons and gear in the surf.
Why not just chute in, do a HALO drop? But no, the radars made that impossible. No drop plane would get within a hundred miles before the Sukhois were on it.
Harch said, “Okay, we drilled with the Packages. I had one guy”—he glanced at Teddy—“ask me if they were radioactive. Well, they’re not. And they’re not bombs, either. If we had to just take out a sigint station, there are easier ways to do it than send us in.” He gave it a beat, then said, “The Packages are EMP devices. They contain explosives, yeah, but the purpose isn’t blast or fragmentation. They produce a super-powerful electromagnetic pulse. Enough to fry every radar and computer in a thousand-yard radius.”
Harch edged past the table to the screen and pointed. “The first team, Echo One, lands here and moves out to the causeway. They set up a blocking position, isolating the island. The movement team, Echo Two, lands fifteen minutes later. Exiting the beach, they head for the center of the island via this forested corridor.” He circled a dark area on the slide. “It’s mixed scrub, dune, and marsh; note what looks like a sewage pond to the northwest. Covert, in the dark, we should be able to traverse it without detection. At the centroid of the island, we emplace the Packages, on top of separate sand hills. The elevation will increase the effective radius of the pulse. Hit the timers, then link up.”
The lieutenant pointed to Swager, who turned the screen off. “Give me the stick back. Okay, that’s the plan. Maximum diversion. Minimum exposure. A lot of enemy, yeah, but if we do it right, nobody’ll notice us. They’ll be watching the fireworks down by the harbor. Both teams leapfrog back and retract from the north beach. Drägers and scooters. If we get contact, hose ’em down and withdraw. We’ll have the F470s standing by, in case we need to take off wounded.” The F470s were rigid-hulled inflatables, with inflation tanks and submersible outboards.
Teddy couldn’t help shaking his head. Only slightly, but Harch caught it and frowned. “Obie? Are we not happy?”
“I’d rather not say, sir.”
“Go ahead, Master Chief. If you have a better plan, I’m all ears.”
Teddy considered not saying anything. Then thought: Fuck that. “Well, sir, this might work against untrained troops. Militia. Draftees. But the first thing a sharp security force will do is look in the opposite direction from the first assault. Bomb the south coast, they’ll look north. I’ll also goddamn betcha that overhead doesn’t show mines, wire, and listening devices on that northern beach, considering how golden an asset this is supposed to be.”
He gave it a beat, then added, “Sir.”
Harch’s face hardened. “We discussed that at length, when we were going through the COAs. The first ordnance laid down on the south island will take out the marine barracks. In the middle of the night, that will cut down the number of effectives. The blocking force on the causeway will confine the remainder to the main island. Team Two should have a clear run.”
Teddy found himself on his feet. He nodded toward the screen. “Granted, the strike will take out some of them, but how about the rest? They can flank the causeway. It looks shallow in there. Are we going in at low tide? Do they actually need the causeway? Are there boats?”
Swager nudged him. Mud Cat was shaking his head too. What the fuck? But he wasn’t done. “And, what about our QRF? It’s gonna be, what, two hundred miles away? And how’s E&E going to work, on an atoll that small? It just seems like—”
Harch held up a palm. “All we have to do is block, insert, and activate. A good mission doesn’t make a ripple. If there should be trouble with elements on the north island, we cause maximum damage and extract. You’re right, there’s not much escape and evasion possible on an island that size. We’ll have a Predator on call, and RHIBs holding five miles offshore. If we have wounded, need boats, the backup team inflates ’em, starts the motors, and runs in to the beach. Better?”
Teddy understood he’d been dismissed. He started to protest, then caught the glares of the younger men. Was he getting antsy? They were fucking SEALs, after all. The force ratios would always be against them. The QRFs were always going to be remote, the E&E plan hinky. What was the SEAL Creed… I voluntarily accept the inherent hazards of my profession.
“Any other questions, comments? All right then.” Harch nodded curtly. “Dismissed.”
“Attention on deck,” Swager yelled. The men got to their feet again. Teddy turned away, headed back for the chief’s quarters, where he was hot-bunked with a machinist’s mate.
But Harch turned back, at the door. “Master Chief?”
Teddy wheeled round. “Sir?”
Harch jerked his head. “My stateroom. Now.”
The junior officer staterooms were the size of porta-potties. When Harch slammed the door and pointed to a bunk, Teddy had a moment of claustrophobia. The lieutenant took the single chair. Air-conditioning whooshed from a diffuser. Something whined on the far side of the bulkhead, stopped, whined again. “We got a problem, Master Chief?” the lieutenant opened. “You need to torque your shit together. Especially in front of the team.”
Teddy grinned. “My shit’s torqued tight, L-T. No problems on my end.”
“You got a great record, Obie. A top-drawer operator. But sometimes I feel this pushback. Like maybe you resent I made it, and you didn’t.”
Actually, they’d offered him a commission after the White Mountains, but Teddy had turned it down. He decided to play it conciliatory. “Sorry if I give that impression, sir. I just want to make sure we’re not sticking our dicks in any blenders. Which it sounds like we’re getting ready to do.”
“Well… maybe.” Harch stared at his desk safe for a second, then coughed into his fist. “This is my first mission as a zero. Maybe I should confide in you more. And, I guess, you need to know this. In case I take a hit, or whatever… But nobody else does. Hoo-ah?”