by Robert Lance
“You didn’t get squat. Do your job, and maybe I won’t have to countermand your orders. This is high stakes poker, gentlemen. The way it stands, we get to do this over again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The White House at 6 P.M. was normally the time reserved for the president to finish his daily routine, kiss his wife, and have a quick dinner before resuming the nation’s business into the late hours. The president was in the situation room drumming his fingers impatiently. He was with his National Security Advisor, waiting for the Secretary of Defense and Peter Bolin, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He said aloud, “I’m allowed to be late for meetings, but my staff isn’t. What’s the hold-up?”
“Mr. president, we didn’t expect you to want to watch the actual operation. We thought we could verbally summarize it and go forward.”
“No. No. This I want to see for myself. I’ve been getting raked, and I don’t want to make a statement based on verbal bullshit. There’s too much of that going around Washington these days.” He went back to drumming his fingers on the arm of his empire chair.
The two truants showed and made their eloquent excuses while the president waved them to shut up. The D/DIA, Peter Bolin said, “To save time we can edit out some of the footage—.”
“No, don’t do that. If those brave Americans put their life on the line to save this country from a disaster, I’ve got the time to watch them do it. Roll the film.”
The ‘flick’ started from the time the MP-5 scope devices started upon landing on Mischief Island. The men watched four screens simultaneously of the incursion. Peter Bolin provided a narrative where he thought appropriate. When the serial number on Perry’s device was on screen the president said, “Stop right there. What do you think Ambassador Yo Lin Fu is going to do when I show him this? Call him up and tell him to get over here.”
“You sent him home.”
“Yes I did. Those markings. Are they bullet proof?”
“We’re sure. Manufactured in 2006, entered service at Yulin in 2007 and showed up in Peking during the Red Banner Parade in 2011.”
“And this is for sure a nuclear missile launcher?”
“It is a Dong Fang 21-D launcher capable of carrying conventional or nuclear payloads. They are deployed as a part of the Chinese nuclear defense arsenal.”
“Continue,” the president said. He watched until the last screen went blank. The lights came up, and he tapped the wings of his chair and said, “That was better than watching ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ which is one of my favorites. Wait and see. Someday their going to make this into a movie. I’m telling you they will. What about our heroes? Aren’t they fabulous? I want you to promote them, every one of them. Give them a sign up bonus or whatever it is.”
“We made a few promotions already.”
“Do it again. When they get back, you bring them straight here. I want to shake their hands.”
The National Security Advisor cleared his throat and asked, “Why didn’t we see any missiles? Did I not hear Peter say the missiles could carry conventional payloads?” He croaked again. “There isn’t proof that China has violated any international nuclear agreements here.”
Bolin said, “There’s enough to prove the intention if they so choose.”
The president countered, “The Chinese will say they’re deploying conventional weapons to protect their claim to the islands. I will make them show and tell. They’ll have to back off.”
“If they don’t, you’ll be pressed to take provocative actions that could escalate into a much bigger mess. The international press will eat you alive if you’re wrong.”
The president frowned. “You’re saying we need to have proof that the clever bastards have Nuclear tipped warheads…on missiles…in the Spratly Islands?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
The president rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said, “Get one.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The maiden voyage of the stealth Ghost into combat was a stunning leap into the next generation of intelligence gathering. Alamo made the most of it during the debrief. He was eloquent in his praise of the geeks that had transformed the hopper into real-time actionable intelligence. The wombats, whose eyes never saw the light of day, were dazzled in the sunshine of Alamo’s praise. Not mentioned were his dubious decisions and the advisory to abort. He dismissed the SEALs failure to get inside two of the barns as a missed opportunity. Still, there was one sticking point he wanted to address
His cold stare met Heather’s pretense of indifference, and he pointedly said, “In the future all intel advisories or alerts will remain within this complex. Our actions in the field do not get broadcast to the world. Violate this order; expect to face a court martial.” He skimmed the silent faces. Satisfied, he said, “We’ll await further tasking, but I suspect we’re going to repeat this mission. Good job everyone.”
Gates whispered into Perrotte’s ear. “What advisory and alerts is he talking about?” Ted let his eyes drift. Domino seemed unaffected, too unaffected. Heather’s body language said it all. He answered Gates. “We missed something, and it’s between LT and Alamo.”
There was a cardinal rule that latent developments on any op were shared with the team leader immediately. Failure to do so was cause for an insurrection.
“Fuckin’ find out, Perrotte.” Gates withheld the anger welling up. He whispered again, “We’re having our own private talk show about this, or we’re standing down.”
The briefing was over, and people were milling around. Ted noticed that Heather had disappeared, and he guessed she had retreated to the kitchen. He made a bee line to her, grabbed her wrist and pulled her aside. “What did you do? What was Alamo talking about?”
She was completely caught off guard. “I sent an advisory. Didn’t you get it?”
“What are you talking about?” he was almost shouting.
“We did a risk evaluation, and I advised Alamo that the landing should’ve been aborted. There were just too many factors that fell outside of the box. I was surprised you went ahead with the mission.”
Ted exploded. “Since when did you start telling me or Alamo how to run an op?”
“Ted, I—”
“You up-linked it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, standard procedure.”
“You’re fucking with Alamo, and that could cost us one of our own. God damn you, Lieutenant.”
“I sent the advisory to you. I swear I did.”
“The fuck says you. Maybe you forgot to send it to Alamo. He’d never ignore a threat advisory. That’s so fuck your buddy and I know Alamo would never do what you’re accusing him of.”
Ted stormed off. Alamo had a slight smug smile as he watched the angry man traverse the room. It was his opportunity to zoom in. He quietly entered the kitchen, transformed into a plotting area. She was busy doing a take-off of newly collected data to a permanent plotting map for future operations. He tapped two of the techs assisting her and waved them out of the room. She felt a new presence, closely bent over her. She looked up suddenly, felt his hand on her back, and jumped. “Get away from me,” she growled.
He put his hands in the air in supplication, as if his attempt to fondle her was innocent. He said, “Peace offering. We need to talk.”
“Don’t come near me. I’ll scream.”
“Scream, squeal, whatever. Nobody is going to care. You’re just another SEAL SOW.” He was referring to a particular class of loose women that threw themselves at Navy SEALs. “You spread your legs for any man wearing a Budweiser trident…I said I was sorry for the other night.”
“You know better than that. You touch me, and I’ll kill you.”
“Hey, honey, you came on to me. Get over it.”
“You’re sick, Alamo. I was merely attempting to ramp down your rage. You really believe rape is simply rough sex?”
He snickered. “You got off. It’s how you like it, so don’t go around throwing the
rape card. I need to talk to you about something else.”
“What do you want, Alamo?”
“Congratulations Heather, you just got promoted to Lieutenant Commander. Isn’t that two years below the zone?” His smirk indicated something else was coming. He pointed his finger into her chest. “You wanna keep that new board, do your job. You wanna stay in the Navy, stay away from my SEALs.” He cupped her breast and laughed.
She reached back to slap him but his hand caught her wrist. “Heather, this is so unlike you? We had so much fun the last time we got together.”
“I’m warning you, Alamo.”
He winked at her. “We have a job to do, so we’ll call a truce until it gets done.”
“I’m moving out of the Blue Moon.”
“Oh, no. You’re under restriction, and I want to keep an eye on you.”
“I’m not spending another night up there. I don’t trust you.”
“How soon you forget. Remember all the times we made passionate love right here at the Blue Moon? Those were good times, Heather. Good times.”
“You’re sick. You always made it a survival exercise. I hate this place. I hate you.”
“Try this on for a survival test. If I catch Perrotte within a hundred yards of the Blue Moon, I’ll put a bullet in him. There are terrorists running amok in the area. You do know that, right?”
“That’s over. You saw to that, you bastard.” She couldn’t help but tear up. “Why don’t you rotate me out of here? Find a replacement.”
“Oh no. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get you under my chain of command? Do you? I thought we might get a second chance. Surely, you see how the stars line up. We could have seen our dream come true. Work together like we did in the beginning. But no, you’re fucking my best dive buddy.”
“You’re married and fucking everyone but your wife, who, by the way, Beth has a collection of SEAL pelts to cover Admiralty Hall.”
Alamo fanned like a cobra. He looked around before striking out. His fist was drawn when she said, “Go ahead and hit me. Kill me if you want, but you can’t complete this mission without me.”
He lowered his fist. There was more than an ounce of truth in what she said. She knew every detail of his master plan because she’d written every word of it. Operation Alamo was as much her plan as it was his. They both had one thing in common. They shared a deep expertise in the geopolitical balance of power in the Pacific Rim. When the Navy needed to trump out a semblance of smarts, Heather was their character witness. She was always in the wings, with the right sound bites at planning sessions, training exercises, conferences…battle plan simulations. Operation Alamo, written years ago and shelved, was still viable because she kept it updated and ready to implement.
“You want a truce? Stop interfering with my intelligence alerts and advisories. I read the log and the annotation. You intentionally went ahead with the landing and almost got caught.”
He snapped back at her. “It’s my sole discretion to act on your advisories.”
“And it’s my sole discretion to report them to higher headquarters, so when the president wants to know why you fucked up the mission, it won’t be your word against mine.”
“I see what you’re doing, Heather. You’re trying to make me look bad, undermining my command authority. You want to ruin me.”
“Tit for Tat, Alamo. This mission is your cup of blood. I’d like to see you drown in it, but I love my country strong enough to see it through. Stay away from me.”
He smiled and tried to charm her. “Your affair with Perrotte wasn’t a good idea. Admit it. You’re not cut out to be a SEAL wife. It didn’t work with me, and it won’t work with a loser like Perrotte.”
“You have a very low opinion of SEALs. It only takes a few assholes like you to make all of them look bad.” She seemed to soften her temper slightly. “You had a good SEAL wife and had your second chance all the way to a hundred chances and blew every one of them. It eats at you doesn’t it?”
“We were good together. Look where we are now. I’ve made some bad decisions and I’ve had to live—.”
“Beth Harper is one of those bad decisions you live with. You get what you deserve.”
“I regret that—
“I’m sure you both do. Fuck both of you and stay out of my life, Alamo, or so help me God I’ll shoot you.”
He raised his hands again, as if to make peace. “I thought we could roll the clock back and try to look forward. I want to make up for…”
“For what you did to me last night? Good start, Alamo. That’s the clock I remember. You can mercy beg all you want. I have a man I love, and he’s the only thing that keeps me from going AWOL. Don’t waste another minute trying to destroy my career, because you’ve shown me how meaningless it is. I can’t even show my face among my peers and subordinates…Thanks to you.”
“That’s what your cheap little tryst cost you. Don’t blame me. You got what you asked for. Do it again, and you’ll both regret it. You wanna play games? You’re on, bitch.”
She took two aggressive steps forward, and he cuffed the side of her head, knocking her down. When she looked up, he was gone, but standing in the door frame was Master Chief Gregory. He helped her up and whispered in her ear. “This has to stop ma’am.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The intelligence gathered on the first mission kept the intel crew busy. The exchange of data between Fort Meade and Palawan asked more questions than there were answers. The analysts at both ends sorted by priority data to construct the next mission for the Ghost. Mischief Island was Mystery Island. Nothing fit. Nothing conformed. Where was the Chinese launch facility? Where were the launch pads? How many were there? More importantly, where were the missiles? What were the types of warheads? All of this had to be discovered before they could determine how far along the Chinese actually were to deploying an effective nuke grid in the South China Sea.
The math simply didn’t work out. There wasn’t enough square footage on the island to house and launch eight Dong Feng 21-D missiles. By reasonable deduction the conclusion was the missiles were located somewhere off the island. There was a long shot that the Chinese built storage lockers under the runway. That didn’t jive because the target of a first strike by an enemy would be the runway. Still, it was worth checking out.
The next mission objective was to capture optical and thermal images from an overhead view, but the weather needed to clear before they could launch Kitty. Ironically, they’d use the Chinese weather stations to find a clear window to launch.
The next mission launched the following day without a full complement of SEALs, but Fitzgerald volunteered as man-Friday. He wanted to learn everything he could about the weapons bay configurations. The mission was an observation and discovery task to unmask the military aspects of the island and surrounding waters. The info dump into the intel hopper would keep the analysts on Palawan busy.
Heather was working her shift and Carole’s. She left the operations center only when the Ghost was out. It gave her a couple hours to shower, change clothes, and power nap. More than anything, it gave her a break from Alamo. It would be a grueling schedule to keep her safe, and she’d have to live with it.
She was relieved to find Carole back at her duty station when the Ghost had recovered to the grotto mid-morning. Carole looked her over, not pleased with what she saw. It went beyond the bruises and exhaustion. Heather had a faltering look in her eyes, filled with doubt and sadness. Her bearing lacked confidence, and her usual luster was gone.
Carole had a boxer who had been knocked out in the tenth round on her hands. She guided Heather to the plotting room where they could talk privately. Heather resisted the gentle tug but was over powered by Carole. Heather said, “I have to do the intel work-up for the 1400 brief.”
“I’ve got this LT. You’re going to my room to get some sleep—”
“I can’t. Alamo expects—”
“Listen up. That mother fucke
r tried to kill me and Perrotte. I see what he did to you and don’t start with the I-fell-down bullshit.”
“You panicked, and it was an accident.”
“My ass. You weren’t there. Ask Perrotte. He knows. By the way, he’s an awesome dude, and he saved my life.”
“You’re over-reacting.”
“You’re under-reacting. Look at you. You’re scared shitless. He beat you up, didn’t he?”
“I’m just tired.”
“What do I have to do, knock you out? Go to my room. Tami made the bed, so get some real sleep.”
“What about—”
“Alamo? I’m not afraid of that crazy nut job. There’s a nine mil in the night stand drawer. Go on…I’ve got ya covered. We’ll talk later.”
Heather didn’t show for the 1400 Intel Brief, and Alamo was livid. He hadn’t seen her all day. She wasn’t in her room at the Blue Moon because he checked twice. She was hiding from him and derelict in her duties. He checked his watch. She was two minutes late.
He stepped out of the ops center and corralled the dwarf. “Send a couple of runners to find Lieutenant Commander Cummins. Turn the place upside down if you have to.” He stormed back into the ops center and spotted WO French standing at the front of the room, waiting to begin the intel brief.
“What’s this?” His voice betrayed the anger within him.
“Sir, it’s not a delegation of duties, and it’s in my job description to conduct the briefing. If you have no objections, I’ll begin. I have a lot to cover.”
He nodded and took a seat without further comment.
“We’ve collated what we collected yesterday and today. It gets stranger. I’ll start with the active defenses of the island. Mischief Island has land based cruise missiles. They have been masked to avoid SAT detection, and we wouldn’t have known of their existence if we didn’t have the ground penetrating radar images from yesterday. There are six launch sites armed with YF-10 cruise missiles with a range of six hundred kilometers. They are fire and forget with a conventional warhead to seriously damage a carrier or destroyer or any lesser ship within the radius of the target area.” She pointed to a blue circle around the island to visually demonstrate the effective range of a YF-10 cruise missile.