Ghost Force am-9

by Patrick Robinson

  Douglas, a former Team Leader with the Sandhurst Mountaineering Club, had once climbed Mont Blanc in the French Alps, and he knew about these matters. He worked his way along the rock face looking for a gully or an outcrop he could go for.

  That took him about a half hour, and then he set off with his bodyguard, using crampons when necessary, hammering the little steel footholds into the rock as quietly as he could. It took him another forty minutes to reach a point some eighty feet above his team.

  The bodyguard, carrying two hundred-foot climbing ropes, made them both fast to a jutting rock. One rope was for safety; each man would tie it around his waist and shoulders and would be hauled up by the Captain as he climbed.

  The ropes dropped silently down the cliff face, and the operation took an hour, at the end of which Douglas Jarvis and his seven-man team were established on this thirty-five-yard-long, deep ledge, which at one point seemed to burrow back ten feet into the cliff.

  The ledge faced the wind, which was bad, but it looked a lot easier to climb onward and upward, which was good. They would not need the ropes on the three-hundred-foot ascent to the summit. And Captain Jarvis whispered carefully that everyone should eat something, have some water, and rest until 0200, when four of them would continue up to the peak and check the place out.

  By 0300 their guesswork was confirmed. There were four Argentine military tents inside the hollow, but, so far as Douglas could see, no one was awake. He and his men were facedown behind a clump of windswept bracken peering through night glasses. There were signs of a fire, but the place was quiet.

  The SAS men strained their ears, listening for a sound, any sound, from a guard, a lookout, anyone. But there was nothing. The Argentine troops had decided, not unreasonably, their chances of being disturbed up here were zero. It had taken, after all, two helicopters to get up here in the first place, and it would take at least two more to airlift the guns, missile batteries, and radar installations into position later today.

  There was, of course, no earthly point in Captain Jarvis and his men taking the place out at this stage. That would have caused an island-wide manhunt, which might have seen everyone shot or captured. And anyway, the men and missiles would immediately have been replaced, just as soon as the Argentinians had blasted to oblivion the SAS aerie on the cliff…probably with a couple of missiles from that frigate that patrolled the northern part of Falkland Sound.

  No. Captain Jarvis and his boys had to sit tight and observe, and they already had critical information. The Argentine troops had established a position at the top of Fanning Head. And they would transmit that information one hour from now, direct to the Ark Royal, encrypted, from right here on their secret rain-swept ledge below the summit.

  Meanwhile, Sergeant Clifton's team was walking, with extreme caution. They carefully tramped away from the shoreline and down the valley behind Port San Carlos. Two hours after they had disembarked the Zodiac, they reached the narrow river that rushed from its source on the 2,000-foot-high Mount Usborne and was still rushing when they arrived on its banks.

  Jack Clifton's map showed a bridge a half mile downstream, and they crossed there, preferring the detour to getting soaked and frozen. They continued along the valley toward the distant peaks of Usborne and the Wickham Heights, the last of which they would have to cross, probably two days from now, in order to advance downward toward the Mount Pleasant Airfield. That way they could establish a hide from which they could see everything happening at this newest Argentinian air base.

  For the same reasons that restricted Captain Jarvis, they were not allowed to blow it up. Which to any member of the Special Forces is tantamount to telling him breathing had just been forbidden.

  Around the same time Sergeant Clifton and his troops crossed the river, Captain Hacking had concluded a long sweep around East Falkland and was feeling his way through thirty-five fathoms of rock-strewn inshore waters on the way in to Lafonia. There was a southern branch of the ninety-foot-deep channel that ran up to Choiseul Sound, and this would drive Ambush to the surface, since no submarine CO likes to have less than ten feet below the keel.

  The third group, who would prepare the landing beaches, had selected a tiny inlet on the east side of Lively Sound, named presumably for the crashing waves that thundered in from the South Atlantic in winter.

  Well, it was not quite winter yet, and the sheltered waters of Seal Cove looked inviting to the men of the Special Boat Service. The submarine came to the surface south of the headland, and the two Zodiacs proceeded to make a two-mile run around the shoreline and dropped the men off on the north shore of the cove. This avoided the problem of crossing the river.

  It was very dark on the beach, and raining, and there was a large amount of equipment to unload. In addition, three inflatable dinghies had been towed behind, and a pile of heavy wooden paddles. Lt. Perry, who led the group, had determined back in England they would almost certainly have to cross Choiseul Sound alone, since it would be madness to land on the "Argentinian side" in the dead of night, possibly running into an armed patrol.

  "We need light rowing boats to cross that channel in the dark," he had said. "Because if we land blind, and run into a patrol, we may as well have not bothered."

  Thus they arrived in Seal Cove in the dead of night, certain in their minds they were safe here, and that recces to the far shore two and a half miles away should be carried out in light rowing boats. Just so long as the weather remained merely awful instead of highly dangerous.

  They hauled the dinghies up on to the beach and dragged their equipment with them. The boats were light but made heavier by their firm wooden decking. However, they had no engines, and four canvas handles. Teams of four each carried one boat across the hard rocky ground, searching for a sheltered spot for their hide, which must be established by dawn.

  Twice during the first twenty minutes of their short journey they saw military aircraft coming in low over Lafonia heading northeast, which gave everyone a precise idea of the location of the airfield. Maps and charts are good. The real thing is always, somehow, better.

  The land was flat here and there was little vegetation, but there were various outcrops of rocks at the landward end of the beach. One of these was not quite a cave, but there were four huge boulders that formed only a very narrow opening to the sky, eight feet above the ground.

  It was not perfect because it was not big enough for the men and the boats, but it was a lot better than open ground. So they moved in with a couple of shovels, hauled out various scattered rocks and pebbles, unloaded waterproof ground sheets and sleeping bags, stacking the boats at the entrance with the third one turned upside down on top of the other two.

  The dinghy's gray underside blended in with the boulders. At least in Lt. Perry's narrow-beam torchlight it did. And the young Team Leader decided they would risk lighting the Primus, brew some tea and soup, and conduct a patrol at 0100, to ensure their first ops area was deserted.

  Their biggest problem was they had to operate in both directions, because they had to establish the first landing beach on the southern side of the five-mile-wide Lafonia Peninsula, somewhere in Low Bay, remote from Argentine defenses. And then establish a second beachhead across Choiseul Sound, much closer to the action, from where the British troops could launch their main attack on the airfield, Argentine garrison, and the harbor.

  The launching point for this principal assault could not be the landing place for the amphibians, which had to arrive in secrecy, on an obscure stretch of coastline. But Lt. Perry and his men knew what was required, and they knew the dimensions of the various terrains they were looking for.

  As Admiral Arnold Morgan had thoughtfully forecast in faraway Washington the previous week, Britain's Special Forces were in. And not one member of the now-massive Argentinian invading force had the slightest idea they were there.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The three British Special Forces recce teams were not merely surprised by the level of Arg
entina's naval and military buildup on the Falkland Islands. They were uniquely stunned. None of them had ever seen anything quite like this.

  Veterans of two wars, in the Persian Gulf and Iraq, they thought they'd seen it all. But this was incredible. Clinging to the cold, wet rock face of Fanning Head, Captain Jarvis's men had watched the Argentinians airlift not only multiple-launch missile systems but heavy 155mm howitzers.

  All of them were ferried from the supply ships coming in at night to Mare Harbor, and then transported by helicopter across the mountains to the summit of the towering headland where Douglas Jarvis and his men lay hidden.

  Any ships trying to make passage through the narrows into Falkland Sound were on a suicide mission once this lot was in place at the top of the cliff.

  Sergeant Clifton and his boys arrived in the southern foothills of Wickham Heights shortly after midnight on Sunday night. They completed their forty-five-mile trek in a total of twenty-five walking hours. Below them, Mount Pleasant Airfield was well lit and extremely busy. All through the night they had both seen and heard military aircraft arriving and taking off.

  Of course, no one knew yet what was actually incoming, nor indeed outgoing, but whatever it was, it was big. This was one of the busiest airports Jack Clifton had ever seen, and through the night glasses he could make out several parked military helicopters and a line of fighter aircraft, as well as several Army and Air Force trucks parked near the terminals. There seemed to be people everywhere.

  Down on the south shore of Choiseul Sound, Jim Perry's team had crossed the channel for the second time, rowing the little boats hard across the tide, hardly daring to take a rest in case they were swept off course.

  It was a tough pull, but they had discovered a lonely, uninhabited little island right on their route, and it made a useful stopping point just after the first mile, a place to get their breath back after pulling hard for twenty minutes.

  The final stretch lasted for around a half hour; they could of course have made it in one shot, but everyone agreed the stop-off, for just ten minutes, made an enormous difference. In fact, Jim Perry calculated it probably made no difference in terms of time spent rowing. The first half mile after the break was always the fastest.

  On the far shore they had a carefully selected landing point, a thousand-yard spit of rock and sand jutting out to the east, about four miles west of Mare Harbor, and 150 yards from the actual mainland. They made this their forward base, mostly because it seemed to have plant life, some high bracken and a few scattered gorse bushes. A cluster of thick tussock grass grew over some hefty boulders, and inside the thicket there was a place to hide the boats.

  Lt. Perry had personally hacked out a pathway into this unlikely undergrowth, and last night, Saturday, they had left four men out there with sleeping bags and ground sheets, to continue through the day monitoring Argentinian aircraft, both coming into and leaving Mount Pleasant Airfield. They had taken it in turns, two on duty, two off. And there was hardly a moment for twenty-four hours when they were not writing and recording. The verdict of trooper Fred Morton: the Args must have more fighter aircraft than the fucking Luftwaffe in 1941.

  As an assessment, that was a tad wild. But it revealed one thing of critical importance. The Argentinians really did have a formidable air attack capability, and they were most definitely planning to launch opening strikes against the Royal Navy from this stronghold on East Falkland.

  Worse yet, at first light Lt. Perry's spotters had made positive identification of three incoming Argentinian Skyhawk A4s, which can deliver thousand-pound bombs at very high speed. Once launched, nothing could stop the bombs, but everyone in the Navy and Royal Marines knew the now discontinued Harrier FA2 could have stopped the Skyhawks before they had a chance to launch their bombs.

  The SBS men were Marines, and in the back of their minds, every one of them knew they had somehow been let down by their government. Lt. Perry knew precisely why, but he never, of course, discussed it. Not in a theater of war. Especially when they were so isolated from the main force.

  0400, MONDAY, APRIL 11, 51.45S 56.40W

  SPEED 15, DEPTH 300, COURSE 180

  Viper K-157 was still in more than two hundred fathoms when she arrived on station fifty miles off the northern coast of East Falkland, her mighty nuclear-powered turbines still running sweetly after her 11,000-mile voyage from the frozen north.

  Captain Vanislav's orders, delivered from Admiral Rankov in person, were to patrol the waters east of the islands awaiting the arrival of the Royal Navy Task Force. He was then to track the carrier from a distance, and with the utmost stealth, stay in satellite communication with the Rio Grande air base, and sink the Ark Royal with torpedoes one hour after the Argentine air assault was launched.

  This of course would all have been much more difficult had the Task Force already arrived on station, but Captain Vanislav had given himself all the advantages of being in place first, in position, quietly awaiting the arrival of the enemy, transmitting nothing, moving slowly, betraying no sound, no radar paints in the dark underwater caverns of the South Atlantic.

  The Royal Navy Fleet would be on high alert and extremely sensitive, not to mention trigger-happy. The slightest mistake from the crew of Viper would probably cause the roof to fall in, and not just metaphorically. The Royal Navy antisubmarine capability was legendary.

  But now, in the small hours of this Monday morning, the Russian nuclear boat was in place, precisely where she wanted to be — in an area through which the British Task Force must pass if they were to fight this war.

  Admiral Rankov had been specific…The British will not go west of the islands because that brings them within a much closer range of the Argentine air attack. They will stay east, as Admiral Woodward did last time. Position yourself in those eastern waters, stay quiet, and the Royal Navy will come to you. At the correct time, in the pandemonium of the air-sea battle, you will sink the Ark Royal. Then come home.

  Captain Vanislav knew what to do. What he did not know, however, was the precise position of Captain Simon Compton's Astute, now patrolling some fifteen miles out to the west. He assumed at least one Royal Navy SSN was quietly patrolling these waters somewhere. And he guessed correctly it would be moving very slowly, virtually silent.

  Astute's towed array was operational and she was listening for engine lines from an Argentinian submarine, as she had been for the past two days, and would continue to do until the Task Force arrived. Captain Hacking had Ambush doing precisely the same thing.

  But there were no Argentinian warships anywhere outside the close-in coastal waters around the Falklands, and out here, where the seas were mostly deserted, there was no trace of any intruder.

  At 0438, however, a decision was made in Viper that in retrospect might be judged as careless. Almost everyone on board knew there was still a slight noise in the indicator buoy stowage area, suggesting something was still loose, and had been all the way from the North Atlantic, where the buoy had broken loose.

  Captain Vanislav, in the middle of this dark, overcast night, elected to surface and have it fixed or removed. And Viper K-157 blew her ballast and came sliding up out of the deep. It looked smooth, it was smooth, but in the underwater caverns of the South Atlantic, the sound of the high-pressure air expelling the ballast was loud, extremely loud to a patrolling Royal Navy SSN.

  In HMS Astute, there was a glimmer of activity in the sonar room. Chief Petty Officer Roddy Matthews suddenly thought he may have heard a slight rise in the background noise…"Only a small increase in the level," he murmured. "Wait…it might have been rain, swishing on the surface. But I thought I heard something…give me a few minutes."

  The sonar operators froze. No one spoke, hearts momentarily paused. And three minutes later, at 0441, Chief Matthews spoke again…"I have a definite rise in the level…Christ! It sounds like a submarine blowing ballast…"

  At 0451 a lightning bolt went through the sonar room…there was now a note of urgenc
y in Chief Matthews's voice…Captain — sonar…I have definite sounds of a submarine surfacing…several miles away.

  Sonar — captain…I'll be right there.

  The CO literally ran into the room to be told immediately, "It's not very close, sir. But no one could miss it. That was a submarine surfacing."

  Three minutes later the trail went cold, and the sounds of the Russian submarine slipped away. It was the last time she would be detected in these waters, because in the next couple of hours Captain Vanislav would slow down to five or six knots, as instructed by Admiral Rankov. And then she would be as silent as Astute and Ambush. Or very nearly so.

  Captain Compton put a satellite signal on the net to the advancing Royal Navy fleet, directed to the Admiral's ops room in the Ark Royal. It read: 110458APR11: SSN Astute picked up unidentified submarine surfacing app. 51.50S 56.40W 0451 today. Estimate forty-five miles offshore. Request orders should possible Russian prowler stray again into Falklands battle zone. Compton, CO Astute.

  Admiral Holbrook relayed it on to the UK, Fleet Headquarters, Northwood. Admiral Palmer was in the situation room in conference with the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Rodney Jeffries, and the two men both gazed somewhat quizzically at the signal from the depths of the South Atlantic.

  "Possible Russian SSN? Christ, what's that about?" Admiral Palmer looked extremely disconcerted.

  "Well, before we give it serious thought, I think we should alert the Americans. They may know more than we do about a Russian prowler, and they may have an immediate answer."

  Sir Rodney nodded and handed the signal to a young Lieutenant and requested it go immediately to U.S. Naval Intelligence, Washington. Five minutes later it was circulated to Fort Meade, and four minutes after that, at 0430, the NSA duty officer called Lt. Commander Ramshawe at home.

  Jimmy was just out of the shower, intending to leave almost immediately for the office. With the Royal Navy about forty-eight hours from a head-on armed confrontation with the armed forces of Argentina, he and Admiral Morris were regularly meeting in the Director's office shortly after 0530.