by Cliff Happy
It took him less than thirty seconds to access data from the other monitoring stations and triangulate their readings to the epicenter of the seismic event. He felt the color drain from his face when the location was confirmed. There was no fault line in the remote mountain region of Hamgyong Province, North Korea.
He recalled a similar event in 2009, almost at the same location when North Korea conducted their last nuclear weapons test. Dutifully, he picked up a telephone that connected him with the USGS main office in the United States to inform his superiors about the event. Not that his information would be news to anyone in Washington, or any other nation’s capital city. His computer had already sent the information to the world that North Korea had just tested yet another nuclear device in violation of the world community’s demand to stand down their nuclear program.
Meir couldn’t help wonder if his scheduled flight out of the region in three days, was three days too long.
Chapter Forty Nine
Wardroom, USS Seawolf
Kristen had slept right through her alarm and might very well still have been asleep if Gibbs hadn’t awakened her two hours after her alarm had first tried to. She’d just managed to make it down to the torpedo room in time to recover the two LMRS drones after the Seawolf had returned to collect them.
Now, with the information downloaded from the drones, she was seated in the wardroom preparing to assist Fitzgerald, the mine warfare expert, with the briefing for the SEALs on a possible route through the minefield. Kristen was present simply to handle the data and perhaps answer a question regarding the drones.
The four SEALs going ashore in the mini submarine were seated at the table and none of them looked too happy about the situation. The leader of the remaining four was a Chief Petty Officer named Grogan and he reminded Kristen of boot leather. Nothing about him appeared remotely friendly. His flaming red hair was long and he had a thick, bushy mustache. His green eyes seemed to say “don’t screw with me” at just a glance. Then there was the tall, athletic, bronze-Adonis team corpsman, Petty Officer Robert “Doc” Hoover.
Hoover looked like he’d grown up on the beaches of California surfing and chasing girls. But his intense blue eyes were sharp, and he moved with a quiet confidence that came with having faced intense combat and survived. Another SEAL named Alvarez was a former gang banger with tattoos all over his arms. He would drive the submarine. Finally, there was the broad-chested “Trip” Hamilton. Hamilton reminded Kristen of a bridge pylon—short and with a body that would intimidate a professional wrestler. Hamilton was the one who unnerved her the most. He looked like someone who enjoyed fighting and considered killing just one of the fringe benefits of being a SEAL.
She was thankful her experience with the four of them would be limited to a single briefing and then watching them sail away. After the previous evening on the bridge during the storm, the last thing she wanted in her life was any more excitement.
“The channel averages about one hundred yards wide,” Fitzgerald explained as he pointed at it on the map projected onto the screen. He then proceeded to point out latitude and longitude coordinates of the various turns in the channel. “Once in the channel, if you follow your waypoints programmed into your GPS receiver, you should have no problem,” Fitzgerald told the four tough-looking commandos.
Kristen thought Fitzgerald’s comment was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. Trying to navigate a submarine through the minefield at night was borderline insanity at best and could hardly be considered “No problem.” From the expressions on the faces of the four SEALs, they thought the same.
“What is it, Spike?” Brodie asked COB, who was seated by the SEALs and clearly not liking what he was seeing.
“The channel is barely two hundred meters at the widest point, Skipper,” he pointed out, “and significantly tighter in some places.” He then looked questioningly at the group of SEALs, “Can you fellows navigate the SDV through something so narrow?”
“We should be able to manage it as long as the data is accurate,” Grogan replied. Besides being the new man in charge of the dwindling number of SEALs on board, he was also the navigator for the SDV.
Fitzgerald answered immediately, taking the opportunity to protect himself in the event something went wrong, “I cannot speak to the accuracy of these figures, since I wasn’t responsible for gathering them.” The SEALs exchanged tense glances; Fitzgerald’s comments were hardly inspiring confidence.
“That’s not a very comforting answer, Mister Fitzgerald,” Brodie pointed out, clearly picking up the vibe the SEALs were putting out.
“Sir, I’m sorry. But the information provided by the drones is only as good as the operator,” he replied, taking a direct swipe at Kristen.
Kristen was an expert at hiding her thoughts, and her face stayed impassive while she listened to Fitzgerald question her competence. Her contempt for him knew no bounds, but her facial expressions stayed impassive.
“Oh, that’s fucking terrific,” Trip Hamilton offered as he rolled his eyes.
Grogan looked across the table at Kristen. She’d seen him in the torpedo room with his men every time she’d been working on the drones. He’d also been there when they’d dragged Vance’s dead body off her. “Lieutenant Whitaker, isn’t it?” he asked, making sure he had her name right.
Kristen looked him in the eye, ignoring Fitzgerald, “Yes. It is, Chief.”
“You handled the drones, right?” he asked her as he pointed a meaty finger in her direction. She noticed he was missing a portion of his right earlobe.
“I did, yes,” Kristen answered, well aware what question he was about to ask her. She’d known it was coming the moment she told Brodie she could handle the drones nearly a week earlier.
“Then you tell me the confidence you have in its accuracy. Because if it isn’t accurate, there is no way me and my boys are getting wet anytime soon,” he said bluntly.
Kristen glanced at Martin who had his head down and was finding something to do on the computer. Every eye was now on her, something she hated. Kristen knew this was no game, and she couldn’t afford to be flippant. If she told them the information was good and something went wrong, then these four men would probably be killed before they realized she’d made a mistake. It was an uncomfortable position to hold the lives of others in her hand, and she glanced down the table at Brodie who—as captain—had to know exactly what she was feeling.
Over the past month, Kristen had begun to have some kind of understanding just how hard it had to be commanding the Seawolf with so many lives relying on his every decision. Like most people, she’d never considered the burdens of command. Now, as she looked to him hoping for some sign of his thoughts, she saw his face was completely unreadable—an iron mask of calm. She looked back at Grogan, hoping to hide the self-doubt that she felt ruled her day-to-day actions and said, “I’d bet my life on it, Chief.”
There was a few seconds pause as he decided whether or not he would trust her. Then, having made up his mind, he looked back at Brodie. “That’s good enough for me, Captain.”
Fitzgerald had been using a retractable metal pointer to help with his briefing, and he now closed it with a loud snapping sound. “That’s about all I have,” he said simply, never mentioning the minefield itself or the types of mines in the field.
“That’s it?” Grogan asked with a hint of disbelief.
Alvarez chimed in, “What types of mines are in the field? I mean, I’m the poor sap driving the goddamn SDV, and it would be nice to know if we have to worry about free-floating mines, magnetic mines, contact mines…”
Fitzgerald shifted slightly and glanced at Kristen who was looking across the table top. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead and was doing her best not to say what she truly thought of Fitzgerald. The SEALs were preparing to risk their lives, and he was giving them nothing.
“Well, uh…” he stuttered, “...it is a fairly standard field with moored mines set at…uh… various depths.
” Fitzgerald flipped through the thick report Kristen and Martin had prepared for him. The report detailed the density of the field, the mine types, and depths.
Kristen was now fairly certain Fitzgerald had only glanced at it. He was what the Navy called a careerist. Tall, broad-shouldered, with sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and a lantern jaw, Fitzgerald seemed the quintessential example of what a Navy officer should look like. But after working with Fitzgerald at Corpus Christi, she knew he was a fraud. He’d fooled his superiors by riding on the backs of his people and taking credit for the work of others. He was an opportunist of the worst sort.
The four SEALs were clearly growing disgusted. Trip Hamilton leaned back in his chair, tossed his pencil on the table, and folded his massive arms across his chest. “Oh, this is just fucking terrific,” he said apparently not caring that he was swearing at a commissioned officer.
“Button it, Trip,” Grogan said easily but looked down the table at Brodie. “Captain, we need a little bit more than this.”
Brodie nodded his head in understanding and looked back up at Fitzgerald. “Thank you, Mister Fitzgerald,” he snapped, politeness barely containing his own annoyance. “Please take a seat.”
“But, I wasn’t finished, sir,” Fitzgerald replied as he paused, fumbling with the report in his hands.
“Yes, you are,” Graves said pointedly. “Sit down, Mister.”
Kristen heard the anger in her XO’s voice. She recalled that he’d been a SEAL once himself, and he probably had a better idea of just what the four men across from her were getting into than anyone else on board. “Lieutenant?” Graves asked as she turned to see him looking at her. “I still have some questions about the minefield. Can you give us a quick rundown?”
Brodie nodded his agreement. The SEALs, all of whom were looking none too anxious to attempt the mission after what Fitzgerald had given them, turned and looked at her like a group of angry jurors. Kristen suppressed the desire to duck under the table. Hamilton’s stare alone looked sufficient enough to kill small animals, and the others weren’t much better.
“Gentlemen,” she said, keeping her seat, “the minefield is a mixed-density, irregular-pattern field,” she stated without emotion, correcting Fitzgerald with her first sentence. “The mines we have identified are all either Cold War-era types made in Russia or cheap copies produced in North Korea.” She then directed their attention to the printed handouts they’d all been given but Fitzgerald had never referred to.
“The majority of the mines in the field are of the UDM and MDM series of bottom mines with multichannel exploders. They will detonate if they detect the normal physical fields of any vessel to include magnetic induction, acoustic, hydrodynamic, electrical, etc…” She then stated simply, “Any of these mines are sufficient to severely damage any large warship and would certainly be catastrophic for you and your SDV. However, the good news is we found no evidence of any of these mines drifting free. They are all moored at varying depths ranging from ten feet below the surface to fifty feet deep.”
Trip Hamilton sat back up and was once again taking notes. Kristen took this as a positive sign, and the other SEALs weren’t glowering at her any more. Realizing she was giving them what they needed to hear, she continued. “However,” Kristen warned, “eight percent of the field appears to be of the PMK series of mines. These mines are basically homing torpedoes moored to the bottom. Once they detect a submarine or ship in their area, they disengage from their mooring system and go active. These, like all the mines in the field, would be sufficient to destroy your SDV,” she said honestly, sugar coating nothing.
Kristen didn’t know what it was like to be a SEAL trying to navigate through a narrow channel and then sneaking ashore onto a hostile shore, and she hoped she never would. The mere idea of going into North Korea sounded preposterous to her, and she was certain she’d have made a terrible commando. But, if she ever were nuts enough to be one, she would want those people briefing her to speak honestly about the threats she’d be up against.
Martin brought up a murky image of what such a mine looked like while secured to the sea floor. Kristen stood and stepped up to the SMART Board, drawing everyone’s attention to the lumps on the screen. “All of the mines we’ve talked about appear to be securely moored with no rogues floating about, but…” she pointed out a slight mound on the sea floor, “…we also found a small percentage of these mines right here.”
“It looks like the sea floor,” Hoover, the SEAL’s corpsman, offered, stating the obvious.
“That’s because it is,” she said simply. “These are a variant of the standard PMK torpedo mine. These mines are designed to sink to the bottom where, after a few days, they’re covered with a thin layer of silt. The mine then lies on the bottom virtually invisible until it detects the physical presence of a ship and activates.”
“Fuck me,” Hamilton hissed. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
“I’m afraid it is about to get worse,” Kristen admitted, trying to keep her tone professional. “We detected only about a dozen of these mines, but they are extremely hard to locate, and I cannot say with one hundred percent assurance there aren’t any of these mines lying in the bottom of the channel.”
“But you said you’d bet your life on the channel being clear,” Grogan reminded her pointedly.
“I did, and I still would,” she told him. “Your SDV is specifically designed for covert insertion of your men. As such, it has a small signature in the water and is basically a stealth submarine, demagnetized. Its electric motor is virtually silent, much quieter than any regular vessel. This channel is used by North Korean patrol craft much louder than the SDV, and they would have already activated any mine in the channel. Therefore, I’m certain if you stay in the channel, you’ll be clear of the danger.”
Grogan appeared satisfied, and the skepticism Fitzgerald had planted in the minds of the SEALs abated. Kristen couldn’t decide if Fitzgerald had intentionally placed doubt in their minds regarding the information from the drones to sabotage the mission, or if he’d simply been incompetent. Her briefing finished, she turned back toward Brodie. “That’s all I have, Captain,” she concluded. “Are there any questions?”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Brodie replied, not looking up at her and instead turning his attention to Grogan and his men, “Chief?”
Grogan glanced at his men. None of them looked excited about this mission. They’d lost two of their team before they’d even started their insertion, and Kristen could see Grogan was hesitant. “I’m not certain, Captain. I wish Mister Cheng was here,” he offered.
Kristen could see they were still not anxious to go. She couldn’t blame them. The mission sounded like certain suicide to her. But Brodie was less sympathetic. “He’s not,” Brodie said bluntly. “You’re in charge now.” Brodie let his words sink in for a few seconds, and those familiar with him heard the calm, diplomatic tone he always used when making a point. “You’ve lost two men, one dead and another fighting for his life on the Abe Lincoln,” Brodie continued. “But the fact remains, you have an operation to complete, and we don’t call off missions simply because of casualties.”
“Yes, sir,” Grogan nodded in agreement. “But, I’d like another day or two to study on it.”
Kristen thought this a reasonable request, so she was surprised when Brodie coldly shook his head, his eyes showing no sympathy or compassion for the concerns Grogan and his men had. “You will insert tonight,” Brodie said without a hint of consideration or remorse. He sounded as cold as ice. In fact, she barely recognized his tone.
The wardroom became deathly silent, and no one moved for several seconds. The SEALs were each looking at Brodie, and Kristen could see by their expressions they weren’t happy with a submarine captain sounding so dictatorial. Grogan shifted slightly in his seat. “Captain, my men and I need—”
“No delays,” Brodie cut him off coldly. “You go tonight.”
There was another pregna
nt pause as the gravity of what Brodie was ordering sunk in. He sounded cold, ruthless, and totally without concern for the safety of Grogan and his men. Brodie leaned forward slightly, as if preparing for a fight and not afraid of these men simply because they killed people for a living. “This isn’t some two bit scientist you’re snatching,” Brodie reminded them. “This is Doctor Dar-Hyun Choi, lead designer for the DPRKs strategic rocket program.” Brodie jerked a thumb toward the bow of the Seawolf. “And in case it’s escaped your notice, we’re carrying two TLAM-Ns, and have orders in hand to initiate a nuclear strike if we receive word the DPRK is fueling a rocket possibly containing a nuclear warhead. We need to get this man out so we can question him and learn whether or not they even have the capability to launch such a warhead. Because if they do, then World War III is a button push away, and it’s my finger on the friggin’ switch.” Brodie had raised his voice slightly, clearly showing the strain of being responsible for such a catastrophic event.
“But, if in the off chance, Dr. Dar-Hyun can convince us they don’t have the capability to launch a nuclear weapon at Tokyo or say Los Angeles, then the National Command Authority can breathe a little easier, and I’ll finally be able to get some sleep.” Brodie concluded, “So, like it or not, want to or not, you and your men are going in tonight because we cannot afford to wait until it is more convenient, or you feel more agreeable to the idea.” Brodie paused for a brief moment to let his words sink in. “Are you reading me, Chief?”
He was looking the four men in the eye and telling them to go and die if necessary, and he would accept no argument or discussion on the matter. Kristen couldn’t help wonder if she could have made a similar call if she were in his position. Everyone knew he was making the right decision, but it couldn’t have been an easy one.