McDougal paused, looking at each of us in turn, letting the impact of his words sink in. Satisfied he had our attention, he continued.
“Everything he needs has collected in those containers. We know they will be imported from a dockyard on the Mediterranean, and moved by vehicle to the cave. Our assumption is that he’s hiding out there. Our plan is to sneak into a few of these containers and infiltrate the facility right under his nose.”
He clicked a stylus, connected to the computer, and the multitude of images shifted to satellite imagery of the port and immediate area.
“Here’s the plan. We infiltrate the cargo ship after hitching a ride on the HMS Triumph, one of Britain’s nuclear submarines in the area. We’ll rendezvous with them in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where they will take us the rest of the way. Once aboard the cargo ship, we’ll locate these containers and stuff ourselves into as few as possible. Then, we take a ride.”
He utilized his stylus again, enlarging the image to encompass the port and town, highlighting the predicted route in red. He then shifted the image to show just the town and the location of the cave.
“Once the trucks reach this position,” he pointed to an area just before the edge of town, “Lieutenant Strauss will disembark and take position within the town to provide sniper support. You up for this, Strauss?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied sternly.
“Brilliant. Hunter, you’re with the team. We’ll need more shooters inside for this one.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now. Our primary objective is to recover the high value target, Mushin Abdullah, if he’s there. When we see him, we try and take him, but if he turns out to be too much to handle, we take him out. Wang, you’re on hostage transportation. Keep him quiet, but keep him mobile, we may need to cut and run. If I give the order, take him out.”
“Not a problem, sir,” Wang said confidently.
“Okay. Bordeaux, once we’re out, we blow the entire place, Abdullah or no. Bring enough C-4 to bring down the house.”
“It’s what I do best, sir.”
“Cheers. Finally, we’ll have a little extra backup on this one. A few days ago, the CIA was gracious enough to store some extra equipment we may need in a safe house inside of town. They’ve also made contact with the local resistance. If things get hairy, and we need to hole up and wait for extraction, that’s where we’ll regroup.”
Well, that seemed odd. Why would we need additional supplies for a simple smash and grab mission? Worst case scenario is that we have to hump it back to the docks on foot, but that shouldn’t take more than a few hours.
I continued pondering until McDougal continued.
“Our contact’s name is Omar. He’ll be watching the docks upon our arrival and will signal us when he’s ready for our insertion. Again, if things go bad, we’ll have his local militia for backup, but we can’t rely on them. We’ll fall back to the equipment cache and call for extraction, but only as a last resort. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get in, plant the charges, secure the high value target, sneak out, and wait for the place to blow on a timed delay. I’m not holding my breath on that one, so prepare for the worst. We’ll be moving out at 1300. It’s now 0900, so get your gear, and get some rest, we’ll need to be sharp when we hit the port, sometime around midnight. Any final questions?”
I raised my hand. “Sir, rules of engagement?”
“The townspeople are harboring known terrorists. If they get in the way, take them out. Let God sort out the rest. Anything else?”
He glanced around the room one final time. Everyone was silent.
"All right, dismissed.”
***
A few hours later, the team assembled in the armory, the first time I had seen everyone congregated in the small room at one time. Each member of the team was going through their equipment, and checking their weapons. Wang with his UMP submachine gun, McDougal with a G36C assault rifle, Bordeaux with the Mk 48 Mod 0 version of the M249 SAW light machine gun, which fired the larger 7.62x51mm round, and Vincent had an M4 carbine. Santino had an HK416, similar to mine.
The HK416 had been designed by a Green Beret when the M4 was deemed “too unreliable” by military brass. One end result was a far more efficient and dependable rifle in the form of the Heckler amp; Koch 416. Any gun designed by those guys was good enough for me.
Strauss was preparing two weapons. A German made AMP Technical Services DSR-1 was her primary rifle. It was an efficient sniper rifle that fired the same large round as Bordeaux’s SAW, but while not as handy in a large scale firefight, it was obviously far more accurate. McDougal had informed her that a M107. 50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle, similar to the one she and I had trained with earlier, was waiting at the weapons cache.
I again wondered at the purpose of such a cache, especially one containing such a powerful rifle.
Whatever. Out of sight, out of mind. At least hopefully.
Her second weapon was a Belgium engineered FN P90 personnel defense weapon. Preferred by tank and helicopter operators, its compact bull pup design gave it the size of an UMP, but thanks to a more unique round, its firepower and range was far greater than its size suggested. Its fifty round magazine and anti-armor rounds made it a sniper’s perfect secondary weapon.
As for me, I already had my rifle secure and my wetsuit on, and was just completing preparations on my re-breather gear well ahead of everyone else.
The Draeger Mk V breathing apparatus has been standard issue for SEALs for over thirty years, its design and function so effective. Instead of regular scuba gear, where a wearer breathes from an isolated oxygen source, the Mk V recycles the air breathed. With it, I could remain submerged beneath an enemy dock for the better part of a day, as long as I kept my breathing under control. The new Mk VI, developed only a few years ago, merely needed to have its internals cleaned, as opposed to having them replaced, an operation one can do in the field.
As I waited, I made sure to avoid looking at Helena in her wetsuit, which was harder than it sounded. I’m fairly certain we were friends at this point, but I didn’t want to risk offending her again, as much as I wanted to in this case. The rest of the team was likewise averting their eyes. After all, women in the Special Forces were still a rather new concept, and ones wearing wetsuits were completely novel. I glanced at Santino beside me, who returned the look offering a knowing smile. There could be only one thing on his mind, and it had nothing to do with how he felt about Helena in her wetsuit.
The bastard.
Shaking my head, I returned to my preparations. I began packing my MOLLE rig into a water tight bag. Before packing my vest away, I noticed a new addition to the shoulder area. Prior to my transfer, my vest was designed as a sleeveless undershirt would look, but now it had shoulder pads that would extend just past my shoulders. The pads had six thin, rectangular, plastic pieces that ran horizontally along the width of the entire pad, overlapping one another slightly, and curving around my arms.
If I had to guess, I’d say the design was meant to imitate the lorica segmentata armor that Roman legionnaires, and Praetorians, would have worn. Prior to the first century A.D., legionaries wore chain mail type armor that was heavy, difficult to clean, and expensive to make. Around the time of Augustus, the lorica segmentata was pressed into service, which was far lighter, cheaper to make, more protective, and just as mobile as the chain mail. The armor was designed to flex and bend with the natural movements of the body, and the overlapping metal rectangles running horizontally down the chest and torso provided much better protection against arrows and glancing sword blows.