Specter (25 page)

Click-
clunk
.

“This is just east of the castle. . . the castle is out of the picture, down here. Woods. Steep slopes. These objects here... and here. . . and here are probably small bunkers. Since the sixteenth-century Ottomans didn't go in for such things, we can assume they were late additions.” A polite ripple of laughter ran through the audience. “We can also assume that the castle's present tenants are expecting any assault to be made down off the mountain, through these woods, and across this crest, rather than up from the lake.”

And that, Murdock thought, as he sat in a folding metal chair with arms and legs crossed, was a damned good assumption. Getting into that lake would take some damned world-class parachutist skills. Getting up to the castle out of the lake afterward would require world-class mountaineers ... or mountain goats.

Well, SEALs could handle all of that, and more.

Click-
clunk
.

“Ah. This is one of my favorites. We're looking straight down into the courtyard here. It's a stone-floored, walled-in area approximately one hundred twenty meters north to south, forty meters east to west. This is the gate, in the northwest wall, and this is the bridge across the canyon right outside the wall. These, as you can see, are trucks, Soviet-style jeeps, and private automobiles. If you look close, you can see that, yes, we
can
read license plate numbers from orbit.”

That raised another laugh.

“There are some interesting features about this one. Look over here, in this little cul-de-sac around behind the stables. It's hard to make out without enhancement, but bear with me. This, right here, is the top of a man's hat, an officer's billed cap. These are his shoulders. . . arms ... The way he's standing, we think he must be facing the wall while he takes a leak. Notice the shoulder boards here. . . and here. Now, these aren't in color and our resolving power falls short of what we'd need to make out details of a uniform, but very few of the militias or the shooters of groups like the EMA go in for shoulder boards, or anything like a real uniform. Most of them wear hand-me-downs, old Soviet-issue, and shoulder boards are a pain so they're usually the first to go when things get ragged. What we think we have here is an officer, possibly in the Macedonian Army, but much more likely he's JNA. If so, that would tend to confirm the idea that we may be up against Serbian regulars here, who've infiltrated into Macedonia as part of this, this rather fantastic plot. . . .”

The lecture droned on. Murdock paid attention with a part of his mind, but all of the hard decisions had already been made. The five of them, him, Ed, Mac, Kos, and Captain Coburn, had worked out a rough operations plan after lunch yesterday, then fleshed it out with some of the boys in Battle Ops afterward. The plan had been approved by Tarrant, who'd passed it on to Washington with his own recommendation.

Details, countless details, remained to be hashed out, but it had looked like this one was going to be a go. Then the hold order had been flashed from Washington, and everything was left hanging in the air.

Planning had proceeded, however, with the assumption that a go order would be forthcoming. That final seal of approval from Fort Fudge, as the Pentagon was sometimes known, was always the real chain-jerker. People on the front line, from Admiral Tarrant down to the newest swabbie recruit in the carrier's snipe gang, tended to work well as a team. They knew their jobs and they knew their responsibilities, and they'd been trained to carry them out with a minimum of supervision from on high. It was the REMFing munchkins and bean-counters and shit-for-brains pencil-pushers in Washington that scared Murdock.

And the
President
...

The current Administration was not known for its love of the military, nor for its clear-cut and unambiguous decisions regarding foreign policy and U.S. military intervention overseas. There'd been considerable speculation aboard the
Jefferson
about which way the White House was going to jump on this one. Murdock had kept his thoughts on the matter to himself and advised others who'd tried to draw him out to do the same. A good soldier follows orders, stays out of politics, and respects the office of his commander in chief even if he doesn't care for the man sitting in the Oval Office at the moment. . . .

None of which meant that Murdock couldn't entertain some pretty serious private reservations.

At least the delay allowed the SEALs to pack in one good night's sleep, and it gave them the chance to go over their equipment thoroughly. In the meantime,
Jefferson
had taken up her assigned position at the mouth of the Adriatic, a featureless point in the water nicknamed “Gyro Station.” The name had originally been pronounced like the Greek word for the lamb and pita bread sandwich,
yee-ro.
Before long, though, popular usage and the realization that the word wouldn't carry well over radio had devolved it to gyro, as in a ship's gyroscopic navigation.

Though
Jefferson
would be the mission's combat control center, the SEALs would actually deploy from a land base. The San Vito Dei Normanni Air Station, located a few miles from Brundisium close to the tip of the heel of Italy's boot, had been selected as their staging area. Support aircraft and some necessary last-minute gear were being flown down from Rhein-Main, in Germany.

In the meantime, the SEALs carried out their pre-mission chores aboard the carrier, waiting, wondering what the word from Washington was going to be. Under Mac's critical eye, each man packed his own ram-air parachute, a tradition that had been started some years ago in SEAL Six. There was less likelihood of a mistake that way, with each man relying on his own eyes and hands and brain instead of those of some anonymous rigger who was just doing his job. The SEALs were “just doing their job” as well, but in their line of work, the smallest mistake could kill them. They'd spent the entire day so far going over all their weapons as well, breaking them down, cleaning them, loading out magazines, checking for wear, and drawing fresh suppressors for their Smith & Wesson 9mm automatics. Radios, sat-comm gear, signaling devices, maps, compasses, climbing rope and harnesses, gloves, boots, night-vision goggles, flashlights, first-aid kits, load-bearing vests, everything right down to their sticks of camo paint and the plastic binder handcuffs each man would carry—everything was checked and double-checked, then carefully packed in rucks and stowed aboard the waiting COD aircraft.

They also studied. Floor plans of Gorazamak were faxed via satellite from Washington to the
Jefferson,
and every man went over each sheet, memorizing stairs and blind corners, corridors, rooms, and closets. There was no guarantee that the interior of the place would look anything like these maps, of course. They were based on blueprint specs from a British firm that had renovated Gorazamak fifteen years ago, and it was possible that there'd been numerous changes made since. But load-bearing walls would be the same, as would stairways, especially those of the castle's original stonework that remained. Though Gorazamak had been built as a sixteenth-century fortified outpost, it had been refurbished as a pasha's summer cottage on the lake during the nineteenth century, then renovated again as a small combination of museum and hotel when tourism had become more important to the area than rug caravans from Korce.

Now the tourists were gone. . . unless one wanted to count the SEALs that were already walking its corridors in their minds.

Murdock, meanwhile, along with DeWitt and the two senior chiefs, had continued with round after round of additional last-minute planning sessions in CVIC, as additional spy-sat photos were fed through from Washington. So far, there wasn't a lot on them that Murdock hadn't seen in the earlier shots.

Perhaps the oddest part about all of this was that Murdock had been sitting here for over an hour, leader of the SEAL team that would be the stars of this show, and no one had yet asked him anything about it. How he expected it to be, how he expected to be able to carry it out. He'd already accepted the mission and had contributed his part to the planning. It was up to others now to work out the support and logistical details, while he wondered how many more last-second changes might be implemented, changes that would affect him and his people as soon as they hit the ground.

“We're still working out the bugs in the pickup,” Lee was saying, and that snapped Murdock's full attention back to the briefing. The satellite photo on the screen was another view of the courtyard, the irregularly shaped pavement inside the castle's walls. “An hour ago, another plan update came through from Washington. They're recommending that a Ranger team be inserted to seize control of the airport at Ohrid, some twenty kilometers from the primary objective. The advantage, of course, is that we can fly in a Combat Talon and land it at the airfield, pack the hostages and our ground team aboard, and fly them right out under fighter cover from the
Jefferson.
The downside, of course, is that we'll need another twenty-four-to-forty-eight-hour delay to implement it.”

A chorus of groans ran through the compartment, followed by murmuring voices.

“They are also,” Lee continued, “asking for clarification on the insert. Their feeling is that a helicopter insertion would be more viable than a HAHO.”

The groans redoubled.

Admiral Tarrant stood up and strode toward the podium where Lee was standing. “As you were, people,” he said as the CVIC's lights came up. “As you were! I agree with your, ah, unemotional assessment of the situation, and I believe that Washington will have to agree too, given a little more time to consider all of the implications. The time element in this operation is too critical to permit further delay.” Tarrant scanned the audience, his eyes singling out Murdock. “Lieutenant Murdock? You and your people are going to be on point for this one. Do you have anything to add?”

“Good Lord. Ops is actually asking me what
I
think?”

The audience laughed. Murdock stood up and waited for the laughter to subside.

“So far as the infiltration goes, Admiral,” he said when the room was quiet again, “we don't have any choice. A helo insert at the castle is definitely out. If they put us down outside the walls, the bad guys know we're coming. If they put us inside the walls, well. . . there's not a lot of room in there. If the chopper was knocked down on the approach, it would completely block that courtyard, not to mention screwing up the assault team's schedule.

“As for the extraction, I don't much care how you get us out, just so long as you do. I would definitely argue against any more delay. The longer we wait, the tougher things are going to be for us on the ground. We've already seen signs that they've been moving in more troops from Ohrid. I think we've got to go tonight, or not at all.”

“Which extraction technique would you prefer. . . assuming, of course, that Washington gives us a vote?”

They'd been over this ground a good many times already. “I agree that the airport option offers the best safety if we can get the hostages to Ohrid. The trouble is, to get to the airfield we've got eighteen kilometers of narrow road, hemmed in between a lake and a mountain, followed by the city of Ohrid itself, then another two kilometers to the airport, and no alternate way of getting there. We know the opposition has a mechanized regiment in the area. Unless Washington's figuring on sending in half of the Army Special Forces to secure that road, I believe the risks of transporting the hostages over that route are unacceptable. There's the risk of ambush, either by troops already in place or by runners from the castle. There's also the danger of enemy air strikes, if any MiGs or Hips leak through our air cover. No offense, Captain Stramaglia, but your boys can't be everywhere at once.”

The audience laughed again, including the CAG.
Jefferson's
air wing would be tasked with assuring American control of the skies for this operation. . . but the best air superiority in the world couldn't guarantee protection from one or two hedge-hopping and determined enemy pilots. And Murdock had to consider
all
possibilities.

“So in my opinion, extraction both of the ground team and of the hostages has got to be from the castle. That has the advantage of giving my boys a defensible perimeter while we're waiting for the extraction aircraft, and better cover for the hostages.

“As for how we do it, well, we've discussed STABO, SPIE, and STAR extractions, but there are problems with all of those. If we use STAR, we can only take them out one or two at a time. If we use STABO or SPIE, we could get more people out faster, but the fact that the hostages aren't trained would almost certainly lead to people getting tangled up, and possibly hurt.”

He was discussing the three primary means of recovering people from the ground without having to land an aircraft, all of them first implemented in Vietnam. STAR—Surface To Air Recovery—was the well-known technique requiring the evacuee to wear a harness attached to a helium weather balloon, which was snagged in midair by a low-flying MC-130 Combat Talon transport. The Army's STABO and the Navy's SPIE were means of inserting or extracting personnel using special harnesses attached to lines dangled beneath a helicopter.

“Besides,” Murdock said with a grin, “none of those means of extraction is exactly in keeping with a congresswoman's sense of decorum and proper modesty.” Laughter . . . and a smattering of applause. Murdock decided not to add that a STAR recovery would almost certainly have to be reserved for any of the hostages who were seriously wounded while they were being rescued. That was a very real possibility that the mission planners had to always keep at the backs of their minds.

“Absolutely the best extraction technique will be to use helos, coming in and landing right there in the castle's parking lot. It looks like that courtyard is just big enough for one helo to touch down at a time, especially if we move the cars out of the way. One chopper could take all the hostages, and then a second can move in and pick up the team when the first one's clear. We can wait to call the choppers in until the entire area is secure, so they don't have to face a hot LZ, and we'll have that beach below the castle as a backup, if a pickup in the courtyard proves impractical. There would be the usual hazards of flying out through hostile territory, especially after everyone in Europe figures out what's going down, but a couple of Pave Low IIIs ought to be stealthy enough to sneak in and sneak out again without getting tagged. Especially if the Navy does their part in the EW department, and if we have decent air cover off the carrier.”