Ghost Force (41 page)

Dallas MacPherson, always prepared with a dash of old Southern charm, stepped forward and shook the hand of Commander Hunter. “Death to the gauchos, right, sir? I been reading all about ’em. Battered the Brits and stole the oil, right?”

“That’s correct. But we’re not going down there to kill ’em all. We’re just going to blow a few things up, get their attention, catch ’em off guard.”

“Hey, as I remember, you and I are pretty good at that.”

“As I remember, Dallas, we’re not too bad. Not too bad at all.”

Lt. Commander MacPherson was now the principal explosives expert on the base. A wide-shouldered career officer from South Carolina, he had started his military studies at the great Southern academy, the Citadel, but moved after just a couple of semesters to Annapolis. He made gunnery and missile officer in an Arleigh-Burke destroyer before he was twenty-five.

As careers go, that came under the heading of meteoric. But it was nowhere near good enough for Dallas. He immediately requested a transfer to the U.S. Navy SEALs, and finished a sensational third out of around a hundred in the BUD/S indoctrination course.

A lot of people were amazed at such a performance by a very young surface ship missile officer. Dallas, however, remarked that he thought he’d been stitched up. Opinion on his future was fractured into two quite definite camps. One group was convinced he would ultimately take over the chair presently occupied by Admiral Bergstrom. The other believed he was more likely to end up with a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Commander Hunter had always been in the first group, but did not entirely discount the possibility of the second. Dallas MacPherson was as tough as hell and as brave as a lion. But it was his brains that Commander Hunter admired. And after the death-defying mission in Burma, he had developed an unshakeable respect for the wisecracking, fast-thinking SEAL, whose expertise would, he knew, be critical to the mission in the South Atlantic.

The supremely athletic Chief Petty Officer Mike Hook was also an explosives expert. He came from Kentucky, like Rick, and would act as number two to Lt. Commander MacPherson, in charge of the timing and fuses. They had worked together causing probably the biggest explosion ever seen in the Burmese jungle, petrifying the natives, and shuddering the entire delta of the Bassein River.

Chief Hook stepped forward and offered his hand to his old commanding officer. “Look forward to it,” he told the racehorse breeder from his home state. “You got any idea what we’re gonna hit?”

“Couple airfields, few fighter-bombers,” replied the Commander. “Kids’ stuff to guys like us.”

“How do we get in?” asked the Chief.

“Submarine, then inflatables.”

“How do we get out?”

“Damn fast,” interjected Dallas.

Admiral Bergstrom stepped in. “Okay, men,” he said, “let’s sit down right here and have some lunch, then we’ll retire to one of the ops rooms, meet our colleagues, and get down to details. For the purpose of the next hour I’d like to restrict ourselves to basics…the insert…the objectives…the rescue…the mission…and the exit, okay?”

The three SEALs nodded. The Admiral pressed a bell, and an orderly entered the room with plates of salad and warm crusty bread. Then he asked each man how he would like his steak cooked.”

“Jeez,” said Dallas MacPherson. “I knew that word
rescue
was significant. This has to be real important. Medium rare, please.”

“Don’t worry, old buddy,” replied Commander Hunter. “They’re not even captives yet.”

“You mean the Brits have left some Special Forces in there, and we gotta get ’em out?” asked Dallas, with truly astonishing perception.

“Now how the hell would you draw such an outlandish conclusion?” asked the Admiral, quietly.

“Well, we’re sure as hell not going to rescue any Argentinians,” he replied. “The Brits have surrendered the islands. The population is coming to terms with their new rulers, and I guess they’re back in their homes and farms. And you said ‘rescue,’ that means the Brits have left something behind. And that leaves only one option—their recce team, which somehow got stranded, out of the mainstream, and is still in there, out of contact and refusing to surrender with the rest of the troops since no one knows where the hell they are. Probably SAS. Right?”

Bergstrom’s chair, no doubt
, thought Rick Hunter.

And the Admiral himself, as if by telepathy, smiled, and said “Thank you, Dallas. You don’t mind if I keep this chair warm for a few months, do you?”

Lt. Commander MacPherson grinned. He was well used to being a couple of jumps ahead, and he knew he had a long way to go to make Rear Admiral. But he saw himself walking with kings, rather than courtiers, and was accustomed to achieving his objectives.

“No problem, sir,” he replied. “Just trying to cast a ray of light on the strategic picture.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Commander Hunter. “Shut up, Dallas. We all recognize your brilliance.”

“You mean we really are going in after a marooned SAS team?”

“Among other things, yes,” said Admiral Bergstrom. “But you need to be very careful. For obvious reasons, Hereford dare not risk locating them with a cell phone call. Because if the Args picked it up, Captain Jarvis and his team would be hunted down by sheer weight of numbers. But I have their call sign on satellite radio, and I think that’s the way to go when you make contact.”

All three of the combat SEALs nodded in agreement. And just then
the steaks came in, which kept everyone, even Dallas MacPherson, more or less quiet for a few minutes.

Lunch, as deemed by the Admiral, was restricted to the broad brushstrokes…the final preparations…the ocean drop to the submarine…the arrival of the gear, by parachute, and the number of men who would conduct the opening attack.

In Rick Hunter’s view, they should consider the SAS team intact in body, mind, food supplies, and weaponry. “According to your brief, Admiral,” he said, “They inserted the Falklands on Friday night, April eighth. They conducted a classified mission in the small hours of Saturday morning, April sixteenth, and according to Hereford were not located, nor even detected.

“The Brits surrendered six hours later that same morning. It’s now Friday, April twenty-second, so the guys have been on the run for six days, probably living off the land, hiding out, and eking out their supplies. The place is awash with unpolluted fresh water, and it houses several billion sources of roast lamb. I think we should treat Captain Jarvis and his men as fully operational.”

Admiral Bergstrom nodded in agreement. “I think that’s a very good point, Rick,” he said. “We’re not putting sixteen men into that part of the mission to make an evacuation of eight walking wounded. No one’s wounded. No one’s even been spotted. We’re really seconding their eight-man team to ours. And that means Rick’s assault group should make contact as soon as they land.”

“Sir, if I might refine that,” said Rick. “I think we should conduct our first objective as soon as we go in. That airfield in the north. I’d need only eight men, and from there we could link up with Captain Jarvis, after we find him, and proceed to our next mission, all sixteen of us.”

Again the Admiral nodded in agreement, and said, “Okay. I think that’s sound. Let’s finish lunch right away and move out to an ops room where there’s a big computer screen. It’s hopeless trying to work out a plan on a pile of remote islands without big accurate charts. Basement situation room. Block D. We can walk.”

Twenty minutes later, they filed into the white concrete-walled ops room where Rick Hunter had three times sat before, plotting death, doom, and destruction upon the enemies of the United States.

The four men were the first to arrive, and Commander Hunter automatically fired up the huge wall computer—SEALs never switch on computers, they fire ’em up, just as they wrap dark green scarves around their heads going into combat, like red Indians, and refer to them as their “drive-on rags.”

Rick hit a few buttons and a detailed chart of the Falkland Islands illuminated almost the entire wall, in color, with ocean depths, tidal directions and heights, navigation routes, guides, cans, lights, lighthouses and shoals, sandbanks, rocks, wrecks and oil rigs. On land it showed accurate contours of mountains, a few roads, townships, sheep stations, airports, harbors, and government buildings. All updated whenever possible by the Pentagon.

The SEALs gravitated toward it like a flight of homing pigeons…
Christ, it’s pretty damn shallow in there…how big’s this damn place? Which side are we landing? Anyone know which area the SAS guys are in? Any warships in the north? Is that a garrison on top of this darn great headland?

The questions came raining in. No SEAL team ever has quite enough information. They wanted to know everything.
Is this a gate? Does it squeak? Who lives in this farmhouse? Will there be a moon? If it rains, what’s the ground like in here? Do we have details on Argentinian patrols? Are they out looking for Captain Jarvis?

“Gentlemen,” said Admiral Bergstrom, “I think we should establish our strategy and size of force immediately. Commander Hunter and I are agreed that the submarine will deliver his eight-man team to this area, two miles north of the headland west of Goat Hill…right here…there’s a hundred feet depth through here…and the inflatables can run you straight through this gap, the Tamar Pass. You’ll launch your attack across the strait and return the same way.

“Team Two is the underwater assault group that will hit the Argentine warships in Mare Harbor. According to our satellites, the Args often have two destroyers plus two frigates in there. They patrol in the day and return at night. That’s when we hit ’em, okay? That team will comprise eight swimmers, with four backup…landing right here from inflatables in East Cove…then it’s an overland approach, and an underwater, delayed-time hit. Escape from East Cove to the submarine.”

“The question I have is this, are we capable of knocking out the Mount Pleasant air base, which is thick with Argentinian troops? And I should record, my instinct is no.”

“What’s the size of the garrison, sir?”

“There may be up to three thousand troops on the ground, plus maybe fifteen attack helicopter gunships, fifty-plus armored vehicles, and vast supplies of ordnance. They also have some heavy artillery and missile launchers in place, but that will not affect us.”

“Jesus,” said Rick, “that’s not really our game, is it? We can’t send a dozen guys in to take down an army, sitting in the middle of an occupied island, with helicopters, rockets, and missiles at their disposal. I guess we might blast a few aircraft out on the perimeter, but I don’t think that’s a good use of our time and skills.”

“I agree with you,” replied the Admiral. “I’m just looking for feedback.”

“The real problem is,” said Dallas, “the first minute they even suspect we’re there, we’re likely to be real dead real quick. There’s too many of them, packing too much firepower. Mount Pleasant sounds like a job for an army, possibly a navy, never mind an air force. It’s not really for a dozen wild men with black faces and bowie knives.”

“He’s right,” said Commander Hunter. “Pebble Island is our kind of territory. So is the lightly guarded, unsuspecting Mare Harbor. They’re places where we have a real good shot at success. I can’t see getting mixed up in the current headquarters of the Argentinian armed forces. Matter of fact, I think the place for us is the Rio Grande air base on the mainland. No one would dream we would turn up there, and it won’t be heavily guarded.

“I think we should hit Pebble, locate Jarvis, pick up the SAS, and head straight down to the Magellan Strait, and I’ll take an eight-man recce team in to have a good look at the Rio Grande area. Meanwhile, the rest of the guys can land on the Chile side of the border and prepare for the hit on the base.

“We should let Mount Pleasant go about its business, because if we want to bring the Argentinians to heel, victory lies in Rio Grande, where they have more than a hundred aircraft. Hit that lot and they’ll agree to anything.”

“As ever, Commander Hunter, I agree with your assessment,” said
John Bergstrom. “And my update from Washington this morning was very encouraging. The President of Chile has agreed to give us every support, from his airfields and military bases, and from his communications network.

“It’s funny, the Args and the Chileans are near neighbors with much in common, but there’s never been much love lost between them. They helped the Brits last time and they’ll help us this time.”

“How many guys will you need for the main attack on Rio Grande?” asked Dallas.

“Probably forty.”

“But we only have twenty.”

“Correct,” said Admiral Bergstrom. “But we’ll send down another twenty to our forward base in readiness for the attack.”

“Forward base?” asked Dallas. “Where’s that?”

“Chile. We’ve been granted takeoff and landing facilities at the Chilean naval airfield in Punta Arenas. Heard that this morning from Admiral Morgan, while your boss was hurling himself into the stratosphere.”

“So we all join the submarine,” said Commander Hunter. “Then my group leaves for Pebble Island in two inflatables, while the submarine continues on to land the underwater guys on East Cove for the Mare Harbor attack. Then my group finds Douglas Jarvis and his team, and we make our way to a rendezvous with the submarine, and haul the inflatables inboard again…if there’s time.”