The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One (17 page)

              “We might be able to get some satchel charges close enough to blast holes that we could shoot through,” McNamara suggested.

              “The back-blast and over-pressure blow us to pieces along with the guards.” Carter said, shaking his head.

              “Perhaps an SPM-21 using diamond tipped armor piercing ammunition would be able to penetrate the armor and kill more reliably. Precision rifle fire from SPM-21 could destroy the guns turrets as well,” Williams said, referring to the preferred heavy caliber sniper rifle of the FIRE teams. “With the sights set for thermal imaging each guard could be targeted individually”

              “SPM-21s would definitely do the job,” Carter agreed. “But even Roth wouldn’t be able to hit all four guards fast enough so that none of them get to that button.”

              “What if we used two or three SPM-21s?” McNamara asked.

              “That would work,” Carter said. “We’ll keep that as an option, but I really don’t want us packing a lot of those big bastards around if we don’t have to.”

              Carter thought for moment. “What if used an IMS-7?” he asked.

              “Missiles,” McNamara asked; “indoors?”

              “Why not,” Carter replied. "We’ll already be carrying IMS-7s in case we run in to Mark-23 powered armor. We’ll just take a few more. The IMS-7 has no back blast and the warhead is directional. We can us armor piercing, secondary effect warheads. They will punch through the armor and detonate inside the booth; spraying shrapnel everywhere. The guards will be dead in less than a second. We can use IMS-7s on the turrets as well.”

              McNamara smiled. “I like it.”

              “Inelegant, but efficient,” Williams observed.

              Carter nodded. “My grandfather was a master carpenter. He used to warn me against over thinking everything. He used to say that ‘sometimes you just have to use bigger hammer.”

              “Wise man; your grandpa,” McNamara commented.

              “Go draw as many IMS-7s as you can from the armory.” Carter ordered. “We’ll start running more sims in an hour. Give the team a break until then. I have to go placate the brass.”

              He shook his head. “We’ve been rehearsing for a week after two weeks of planning. We go in twelve days and I have to waste time briefing a bunch of staff officers. Why the hell do they care about the tactical details? They aren’t coming with us.”              

              “You have to brief them on the assault plan so they know what parts they can take credit for.” McNamara quipped.

              Carter chuckled. “And so they know who to blame if the whole operation goes to shit.”

              McNamara laughed as well. “Now you get the idea, Boss,”

              “Go get that ordinance,” Carter said. “I’ll go see how much sunshine I can blow up the combined asses of the powers-that-be.”

                 [][][]

              General Hicks met Carter at entrance to the headquarter building. “So, you’re going to meet with the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff in full battle dress are you?” Hicks asked Carter as he approached.

              “I am unless you order me not to, Sir. I don’t have time to change and clean up, and then get back to battle dress again.” Carter answered. “This briefing is waste of time I don’t have.” The two men presented their credentials to the guards at the door and began the lengthy security screening.

              “The Chiefs want to be in the loop, no one’s going to second guess you’re planning,” Hicks assured Carter.

              “Then all they need was my written action plan,” Carter said.

              “They’ve all read it,” Hicks said. “They just want to hear it from you. Try not to look so annoyed.”

              After navigating the security gauntlet, the two officers arrived in the bases Strategic Operations Center. It was now even more crowded and active than it had been on Carter’s last visit. More work stations had been added and a there were two more large electronic map displays on the walls. The Joint Chiefs of Staff sat at the conference table while their sizable entourages buzzed around the room like crazed bees. Carter approached the officers at the table and reported formally.

              “Did we take you out of the field Colonel?” Admiral Collier asked, panning his eyes over Carter’s weapon and armor laden form and his camouflage painted face.

              “The teams were running missions simulations, Sir.” Carter replied.

              “How are they going?” The Admiral asked.

              Carter squared his shoulders. “We’re working out the kinks, Sir.”

              “You’ve met Generals, Simms, Casner, Billings and Khazanov?”

              “Yes, Sir,” Carter said.

              Carter had met Khazanov, in her capacity as commanding General of the Free Nationalist Forces on the day before Red Team’s paragenes had been activated. Casner and Billings were the Chiefs of staff for the Air Force and Marine Corps respectively, and had been present when he had been awarded his Distinguished Service Cross. Simms had once been Carter’s commanding officer during his early days in the Special Forces.

              Simms was wiry, grim-faced man in his late fifties. His eyes were bright, but had acquired a perpetually hard, pitiless look. His hair was thinning and gray but it was clear that he kept himself fit. He came around the table to greet Carter. His handshake was strong and sincere. “Good to see you again Colonel. We miss you back at Bragg.”

              “Thank you, Sir. Those were good times,” Carter said. “For the most part,” he added.

              Carter looked into a shadowed corner of the room. “Hello Colonel Pope; I see you brought a guest,” he said. Pope and another man, who would have been concealed from normal human eyes, came out of the shadows. Carter recognized the second man as Arthur Pope: Colonel Pope’s father and the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

              The elder Pope was shorter than his son, but had the same ‘mushy’ look about him. His eyes showed intelligence along with an attitude of superiority and malevolence. He wore an expensive, well-tailored suit, with a black silk tie. Apparently, Carter thought, Under Secretaries of Defense weren’t expected to sacrifice comfort like average citizens were. Carter locked eyes with the politician and, in that moment, the two men became enemies. A contest of wills had begun.

              “I think we should get started,” Hicks said. “Colonel Carter, you’ll find that the Sergeant has all of your visual aids ready.”

              Carter nodded to the young, female technical sergeant. “Yes, Sir,” he said.

              A map of the Belgium and French coasts appeared on the room’s largest monitor. “Four FIRE teams will be inserted into Europe over a period six days. Team Alpha will execute a High Altitude Low Opening parachute drop ten kilometers off of the Belgian coast and, using closed circuit diving gear, swim to shore near the port of Blankenberge. From there, we’ll proceed to a prearranged meeting with Captain Anthony Renner of the Seventh Special Forces Group and his team. Captain Renner has been training, and working with the Belgium underground for two years. His underground cell will provide us with shelter and support until its time hit the Central Command.”

              Admiral Collier interrupted Carter with a raised hand. “Colonel, I’ve looked at you written operations plan. You’ll be making this jump at zero-three hundred on the morning of May the twelfth. Is that correct? “

              Carter was impassive. “Yes Sir, it is.”

              Collier tilted his head. “I’m and old sailor Colonel,” he said. “I looked at the tidal data for you operations area. If you jump as planned you’ll be swimming against a pretty strong tide. I know your people are paranormals, but can you really make a nighttime, HALO-SCUBA jump, swim ten kilometers against the tide, and then make a forced march to meet the underground?”

              “Yes, Sir,” Carter said. “We made a similar jump supporting the attack that retook Seattle. We’ve found that the enemy doesn’t patrol the shoreline as heavily when the tide is going out.”

              “Very well,” Collier relented.

              Carter continued. “Team Bravo will make a HALO insertion into the Arden Forest the night of May tenth. They will also make contact with a local underground cell.”

              “You have a team making a tree jump on purpose?” General Simms asked. “Tree jumping is a mega-bitch.”

              “Yes, Sir,” Carter said, “but, as the operation folder you were all provided with indicates, any fields or pastures large enough to accommodate a parachute drop are either regularly patrolled or are under constant electronic surveillance in order to prevent the underground from being resupplied or otherwise supported by air.”

              “O.K. Colonel,” Simms said. “Keep going.”

              “Team Echo will insert by small boasts launched from a submarine, land on the French coast near the port of Dieppe the night of May eleventh, and make contact with an underground cell. From there, they will go to a staging area near Brussels in vehicles provided by the underground.”

              “Team Foxtrot will be landed in submarine launched Mohawk stealth helicopters in the southern Netherlands, meet their underground hosts, and move into Brussels in locally appropriated vehicles. Teams Charlie and Delta have been tasked with destroying the secondary target in the Ural Mountains. I will cover that aspect of the operation later.”

              Carter continued. “All teams for the Brussels assault will be in place by the morning of May the sixteenth. They will have no contact with each other until ten minutes before the assault begins. Because of the lack of satellite communications, at zero three ten Zulu time, an Air Force
Raveneye
electronic warfare aircraft will overfly Western Europe at an altitude of one hundred and twenty thousand feet. The Raveneye will be flying on course that will arch to the north. This course will provide a fifty-five minute window when it will be able relay signals between the teams in the Urals and Brussels as well as to our forward base in Iceland and the invasion fleet. This will allow the teams to launch coordinated assaults and alert the higher command that the assaults have begun. If everything is on schedule, the assaults will begin at zero three-thirty Zulu.”

              “Also at zero three-thirty Zulu teams Delta and Charlie, after having executed separate helicopter insertions, will attack the backup facility in the Urals. Team Delta will assault the command bunker and neutralize it. Team Charlie will destroy the anti-aircraft weapons surrounding the bunker and hold the perimeter so that both teams can be extracted by helicopter when their mission is accomplished.”

              General Billings had just taken a long drink from a huge mug of coffee. “What’s your plan for assaulting the command center in Brussels?” he asked; his round, humorless face held cold eyes that fixed on Carter.

              “None, Sir,” Carter replied. “As indicated in my written operations plan, any direct assault on the command complex itself would be suicide. It is surrounded by three concentric synthetic granite walls that are forty meters high and five meters thick. The spaces between the walls are mined. The mine fields are one hundred meters wide and every inch of that space is swept my computer controlled twenty-millimeter automatic cannons that have interlocking fields of fire. There is a battalion the First Earth Guards garrisoned there, and a company from that garrison is equipped Mark-23 powered armor. There is also a battalion of secret police there to keep watch over the civilian workers. Additionally, there are nine military bases within fifty kilometers of Brussels. Alert forces from those bases could respond to an attack in Brussels in less a half an hour. I wouldn’t conduct a frontal assault on the central command facility if I had a mechanized infantry division.” 

              “Then what is your plan?” Billings pressed.

              Carter gestured toward a point on the map display. "The intelligence I was given indicates that the senior officers assigned to the Central Command are quartered in this building; a little under one kilometer from the command complex. Intelligence says that there is an underground tunnel connecting the officer’s quarters to the command complex. The tunnel was intended to allow the officers to commute to and from the command complex during aerial attack or in case civil unrest in Brussels made it unsafe to commute on the surface. While the officer’s housing is heavily secured; it is a much softer target than the command complex itself. The tunnel has never been used for anything but drills, but is still being maintained.”

              “Team Alpha,” Carter continued, ”will take the officer’s quarters, neutralized the guards and officers there, access the tunnel and, after being joined by the other assault teams, move through it and assault the command complex from within.”

              “You are planning to kill the senior officers?” Billings asked.

              “Yes, Sir,” Carter replied.

              Billings continued his questioning. “Isn’t that a distraction from the mission?”