In fact, he arrived at 1300, and John Bergstrom was glad to see him. The colonel’s reputation had not been sullied among the military, only among certain left-wing politicians and their followers, usually referred to, affectionately, by Arnold Morgan as “the goddamned know-nothings.”
“Glad to see you, Frank. How you been?”
“You ever done a couple of days solid with Admiral Morgan in his lair?”
John Bergstrom chuckled. “Coupla times. He’s something, isn’t he?”
“Well, aside from the fact that he misses nothing, out-thinks everyone, doesn’t need sleep, forgets to eat, forgets to go home, yells at people, and is probably the rudest man ever to work in the White House, except for Lyndon Johnson forty years ago…well, it was a breeze.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“Everything.”
“Frank, I am glad to have you aboard. If the admiral hadn’t recruited you, I’d have gone myself. It’s gotta be one hell of a dangerous mission, especially if the guys have to fight their way out and we have to get ’em off the beaches. That’s likely to be one helluva job.”
“I know it. What time are we leaving?”
“Takeoff at sixteen hundred from North Island. Using a big Galaxy on its way to DG. There’s a few things you and I should go over right now: the list of gear, lines of communication, procedures if we have to abort, details of your principal commanders, makeup of the reconnaissance team, all of which I’ll spell out for you. We’ve done our preparations on that. I have a file on it.”
“Okay, John. All we need now is to find out what we’re attacking, and where the recon goes in.…I just hope the water’s not too shallow. The new ASDVs have a good long range, but I doubt SUBPAC wants its ships on the surface if it can be avoided.”
“They sure don’t, Frank. But as you know, this mission carries with it some spectacular baggage. And if it’s humanly possible, we have to get it done. Meantime, I’ve asked your recon team leader to come in and meet you in the next few minutes.”
“Great, John. Who is he?”
Too late. The door opened and through it walked a legendary SEAL, Lt. Commander Russell Bennett, senior BUD/S instructor at Coronado, veteran team leader of a diabolical attack on the Iranian submarines in Bandar Abbas four years previous, veteran of the Gulf War, veteran member of the SEAL team that memorably blew the engine of General Noriega’s presidential yacht 100 feet into the air above Balboa Harbor. “Mark one-thirty-eight demo charges, right on the shaft,” reported SEAL Bennett.
He was 38 now, but still harder and fitter than the iron men he trained. A graduate of the Naval Academy, leading classman in the BUD/S course when he first came to Coronado, Rusty Bennett was the son of a Maine lobsterman, and as such brought certain skills to his chosen profession. He was a superb navigator, he could swim through ice-cold seas, and he could operate as efficiently underwater as he could on land. He was a man of medium height with dark red hair, dark blue eyes, a big well-trimmed mustache, and forearms and wrists made of cast steel. He was an expert on explosives, and one of the best climbers ever to wear the golden Trident. Mountains, trees, the smooth steel plates of any ship, Rusty could find a way to ascend. Any enemy who happened to spot him making an attack was probably looking at the last few seconds of his life.
He was precisely the kind of man the high command of the SEALs selects for the job of platoon leader. And this was the man John Bergstrom had chosen to take the SEALs in to recon the place where the American crew were held captive. Like Rick Hunter, Rusty had been off active operational duty since his last mission, but Admiral Morgan had stressed that he wanted the best, and no one would dispute the best was Lt. Commander Rusty Bennett.
And now Rusty stuck out his right hand in greeting to Colonel Frank Hart. “Good to meet you, sir. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Most people have,” replied the colonel, smiling wryly. “But not all of it good.”
“I got better sources than most people, sir,” replied the SEAL. “What I heard was good.”
Each man had a handshake like a mechanical digger, and John Bergstrom swore that the floor shuddered as Bennett and Hart grinned and made a silent, white-knuckled military bond, which announced, one to the other, that they were partners in an exercise each of them knew was fraught with danger. There are no civilian handshakes quite like that.
“As you know, Lieutenant Commander,” said Admiral Bergstrom, “Colonel Hart has been appointed at the highest level to take command of this operation. He has recently arrived here from the White House, where he has been working with Admiral Arnold Morgan, trying to get this thing on a fast track. However, we are working under the minor handicap of not yet knowing what our target is.”
“Sir, I have not yet been briefed at all. I was told you were going to speak to me personally, which I think is why I’m here.”
“Yes, of course. However, you do have a long plane ride with Colonel Hart in front of you, which will give everyone time to fill in the gaps. Meanwhile, I must stress the high degree of classification this operation has. And if you would both be seated, I will inform you where we stand.”
“Yessir,” replied the SEAL.
“You may have read in the newspapers last weekend a story about our attack submarine Seawolf?”
“Yessir, I did. The one that broke down or something. They’re fixing it up somewhere in China, right?”
“Absolutely. Except it didn’t break down. It got tangled up in a Chinese destroyer’s towed array, and the bastards grabbed it and towed it back to Canton.”
“Jesus.”
“They incarcerated the crew, put ’em in jail in Canton, and have now moved them to an unknown jail. Admiral Morgan and I both believe they will torture the crew, in search of high-tech information.”
“Are you kidding me?” Rusty Bennett was incredulous.
“Rusty, we know how anxious they are to steal every secret they can from us, involving both ICBM and attack submarines. They’ve spent millions of dollars and dozens of years doing it. And now they actually have America’s top attack submarine captive in Canton, and more than a hundred American experts to help them finalize their blueprints. Admiral Morgan and I think they will stop at nothing to force that information out of them…and it gets worse.”
“Not much, I hope.”
“A lot…the Executive Officer of Seawolf is Linus Clarke, the President’s only son.”
Rusty Bennett hissed his inward breath through his front teeth. “Holy shit!” he said. “You mean Linus is in a Chinese slammer?”
“I do.”
“What are the colonel and I supposed to do about it?”
“In short, get him, and all the others, out.”
“Who, me?” said Lt. Commander Bennett hopelessly, in an exact parody of the phrase Colonel Hart himself had used three days previous.
“Well, not all on your own. You will undertake this operation in partnership with Colonel Hart and the overall team leader, Lieutenant Commander Rick Hunter, backed up by the most massive resources the U.S. Armed Forces have ever brought to bear on any peacetime mission in the entire history of Special Forces. There will be a total of sixty-four SEALs involved. You have been designated team leader of the recon force, the first men in from one of our nuclear submarines. Try to be quiet and not to kill too many Chinese guards, because if you get caught, it’s all over.”