“Missiles. He’s still flush with the Scuds and can fire them from mobile units. Which means he can drive them right up to his borders and have a much greater range for them than we figured.”
“So the Scuds are the key. Destroy them and you checkmate his gas.”
“For a while. We know he has artillery he can use the gas with. That limits his range, but with the right wind, this stuff can be deadly.”
“It’s a nerve gas, so it bursts out of the shell or missile and clouds across a populated area, killing everything that breathes it?”
“Now you’re getting the idea.”
“How can we destroy the stuff?”
“You ever seen one of the cloud bombs we have?”
“No.”
“It’s a combustible liquid chemical, and when released, it vaporizes and forms a huge cloud, maybe a quarter of a mile wide. That is ignited, and the whole quarter of a mile explodes with a fury that hell would like to get the franchise for. This could be burned or exploded something like that.”
“You’re telling me that this nerve gas will burn? Be damned. You want us to be the trigger?”
“No. We need an accounting.”
“We going to be counting warheads and missiles and canisters that hold the deadly shit?”
“That’s what we’re thinking right now. Unless you have a better plan. The situation is, we must make sure that we get all of the gas. It’s manufactured at this plant; the shells and missile heads are assembled there. They have had accidents. Once two years ago, twenty men died when a tiny leak developed in one artillery shell. The shell was containerized and buried at once.”
“Gas masks for the tender twelve?”
“Yes, two, actually. We have a new one that will filter out particles down to microns smaller than ever before. This mask has worked in every test it’s been given. Using animals, of course. Then you’ll have a regular-issue gas mask that is pretty damn good.”
“What kind of security does the place have?”
“Doesn’t need much. It’s in the middle of the desert, a hundred miles from the closest village or oasis. There are twelve buildings in the complex, and on last count, about three hundred military guards. No wall, no electric fence, no guard towers. They tried not to make it look like a military location.”
“How many workers at the plant?”
“The work is done. Now it’s just a maintenance crew and specialists in case something goes wrong. Not more than twenty-five men.”
“So all we have to do is knock down three hundred troops, then outwit twenty-five maintenance men who are undoubtedly armed with Uzis or Kalashnikovs, and then go in and count beans.”
“Roughly put, yes. We plan a small surprise for the troops. There will be a helicopter landing of a hundred Marines twenty miles from the target. They won’t make a secret of the landing. They will be moving slowly toward the target. This should bring out most of the troops guarding the missile site and factory.”
“So, say we can get inside and put down the locals, then count the beans and radio out our totals, how do we burn up the gas?”
“You don’t.”
Murdock did a double take. “What the hell you mean, we don’t burn up the gas? Why else would we go in there?”
“To count the beans. We have to know that everything they have is in that one complex.”
“So, we pull out, you use one of those big gas cloud bombs and hope to hell you burn up everything.”
“That’s what we’re hoping.”
“Bullshit,” Murdock said. He stood and faced the CIA man. “You know that won’t generate enough heat to blast open those missile heads or the 105 artillery shells, and whatever else he has loaded with your ectoprocy. You’ll get some of it but not all of it. All Saddam has to do is come in, salvage, put the warheads on new missiles, and he’s ready to go.”
Stroh looked at him with eyes as cold as Murdock had ever seen.
“So, you know that won’t work; you won’t do it. Which leaves only one sure way to do the job. A way that the U.S. hasn’t used in fifty-five years.”
“That’s enough. You don’t have a need to know.”
Murdock laughed. “Oh, hell, yes. You send us in there, into the fucking lion’s mouth, and tell us to pull his teeth and then get out and you don’t even tell us that the lion isn’t even sedated. You think I’m stupid, Stroh?”
“No.”
“You’re talking like it. The only way to burn up all that shit in the desert and be sure it’s gone is with a nuclear weapon. A small yield, maybe only five thousand kilotons. Just enough to vaporize everything in that complex and for five miles around. That keeps the three hundred Iraqi troops in the clear. Of course, the twenty or thirty maintenance men are still inside when you pull the cork.”
“Thirty men dead is a small price to pay to keep an estimated ten million from being gassed to death.”
“If it came to that.”
“If Saddam goes down, it will come to that. Already, his advances are stalling. They have overextended their supply lines, and they’re running out of gas, food, and ammunition.”
“So when will his retreat start?”
“We figure in two more days, the tide will turn and the Syrians, with U.S. airpower help, will start driving Saddam back toward the border.”
“And then Saddam will wipe out Damascus, Syria, for a start, and maybe Haifa for good measure.”
“All of this is off the record, Murdock. You didn’t hear me say a damn thing about any nuclear weapon.”
“Hey, when it happens, it will be an accident in a secret site where Saddam was building nuclear weapons. An easy out. So we didn’t throw in a bomb after all.”
“Your men aren’t to know.”
“Oh, yeah, we get away in a chopper and a fucking mushroom cloud boils up behind us and I tell them, ‘Damn, just a lucky accident.’ ”
“A warning, Murdock. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who says a word about this to anyone else, will suffer a serious and fatal accident. This isn’t one we can fuck around with.”
“The nuke is the only way?”
“You have a better plan?”
“Stroh, you don’t need us in there. Just nuke it now and hope you get it all.”
“Won’t work. The President says you SEALs have another job. You have to make sure all of the personnel left in the complex are routed out and moved at least twenty miles away before the blast. We’ll have four choppers there to lift out up to eighty personnel. We pull any civilians off site and dump them out near a road.”
“So we’re baby-sitters, too, on this one? Bean counters and baby-sitters. What a great assignment.”
“You can tell your men you’re going in to neutralize the poison gas facility and get the guards out before the place is bombed off the map. You can’t tell them how. That’s all they need to know.”
Murdock slammed the flat of his palm against the bulkhead. “What you’re telling me is there is no chance I can say no to this assignment.”
“That’s what I’m saying. When it happens, there is a special bonus for your men. Everyone is advanced one grade in rank by presidential order. You realize what that’s going to mean to your men, to have a presidential order promotion in their permanent service file?”
“It ain’t no medal of honor.”
“But comes damn close. You can go to full commander, and the JG to full lieutenant.”
Murdock shook his head. “Not for me. I move up to full commander, they yank me out of the field so fast my silver leaves would curl up and fall off. I’ll stay put and take a commendation instead.”
“Done. Now get your ass in gear. We’ve set up the security on this as tight as next Thursday. Your point of departure will be Forward Logistical Temporary Base One. It’s about ten miles from the Iraqi border and about twice that far from the Syrian border. The spot is almost six hundred miles northwest of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I’d say just your usual weapons, maybe twice the ammo.
You’ll be riding both ways, so I’d think all of your men not in the hospital could make the trip.”
“I’ll decide that, Stroh. When do we get the COD off this floating vacation land?”
“Anytime after five o’clock, I mean 1700. That gives you almost five hours to get ready.”
Ten minutes later, Murdock called his thirteen men together in their assembly room and told them quickly what the mission was. He said they’d clear the complex, then haul ass in a chopper and the Air Force or the Navy would blast the place into rubble.
“Won’t that release the nerve gas?” Ching asked.
“Extensive tests have shown that this type of nerve gas will vaporize once released and then becomes flammable,” Murdock said. “It will explode like one of those gas cloud bombs the Air Force uses.” Murdock hoped they bought his explanation.
“You’ll get briefed again in the COD. We’ve got some traveling to do before first light tomorrow morning.”
Murdock made a sick bay call. The JG was better, but still not out of danger. He spoke little, and Murdock left feeling lousy. Adams was in good spirits, saying he knew his arm would heal perfectly and he’d be back in SEALs in six months.
Bill Bradford, with his stomach wound, looked the best of the three. He joked about his “no guts” operation and Murdock told him they were off on another joy ride.
“You’ll be on the next one, or one soon,” Murdock said. Then he hurried out to pull his gear together and move the men up to the plane. He’d worked it out with Senior Chief Dobler to take over the Bravo Squad for this assignment and the rest of their current deployment. Murdock didn’t know what he’d do about the JG once they returned to Coronado. He’d worry about that later. Right now, he had to go in and do a setup for an atomic bomb blast without getting any of his SEALs killed.
27
Forward Logistical Temporary Base
Northern Saudi Arabia
First Lieutenant Pete Van Dyke shook his head in amazement. He’d never seen so much activity in this corner of Saudi in his three days here. There was a line of six big CH- 47 Chinook double-rotor vertical assault choppers just beyond the six resident Cobras. They had landed an hour ago, and 200 Marines billowed out of the hatches of four of the birds and stretched their cramped muscles.
Five minutes later, the Marines were doing a fast double-time hike with weapons into the desert. They came back in fifteen minutes and ate box lunches they evidently had brought with them.
A different breed of fighting man came from the fifth Chinook. They wore cammies and a wild variety of headgear from stocking caps to bandannas or floppy hats. They all had a lean, hungry look and the dark eyes of men Van Dyke didn’t want to fool with. They stayed together, ate at the chow hall, and climbed back in their helo. Somebody said they were Navy SEALs. He watched them. He’d heard of some of the amazing things they did. He wondered why they were here.
He would find out. He and the other three Cobras had been ordered to fly cover and security for two Chinooks. They would fly into the desert and sit down. One Cobra would be in the air at all times for cover. When the SEALs were ready to return, they would cover them and give them ground support if they needed it in the return to the choppers. They were not told where they were flying or what the mission was. Tons of fuel, ammunition, and supplies had come in during the night by helicopter.
The Marines in their four helicopters had been gone two hours with two of the local Cobras for escort when the last two Chinooks lifted off. They were followed closely by four Cobras. Lieutenant Van Dyke led the gunships, putting one of his birds on each side of the big choppers and two above them.
He had no orders where to go or how long the flight would last. They slanted almost due east with a slight twist to the north. He had never flown into this space before. The big Chinook drivers seemed to know where they were going. He kept a tight rein on his Cobras, and they raced into the desert.
The Chinooks could do 150 mph with their load. The Cobras could beat that speed by 25 mph, which gave them a little maneuvering room.
Inside one of the Chinooks, Murdock talked to his men.
“We are heading into Iraq now. We have about a hundred miles to go to the nerve gas center. You saw the Marines take off. By now, they should have landed and made so much noise that most of the military unit at the nerve gas site is on its way to confront the Marines. All are probably walking, so it should take some time. The Marines were supposed to land fifteen miles from the complex. That gives us time to get there, get inside, and do what we have to do. We expect some of the military to remain behind. We’ll take them out and herd the civilians into one area. Then we make a count. Hell, we don’t even know what we’re counting.”
“Sound like they just want us to clear the facility of all people, so nobody can say we killed a bunch of military or civilians when we bomb shit out of it.” That was Jaybird.
“Could be. At least we’ll have secure transport on the ground and enough tools to do the job. We herd the civilians out as soon as we can and take down any military. We’ll land two hundred yards from the main gate and get in that way, then we spread out in twos and take it down.”
“How much time do we have?” Senior Chief Dobler asked.
“Until dusk,” Murdock said. Then we have to be back in this bird. The civilians will go in the other one and any surplus in here. They can put fifty men in each Chinook.”
Holt came up with the SATCOM. “I made it through to the Marines, Skip. Some captain wants to talk.”
Murdock took the handset.
“SEALs here.”
“Yes, SEALs. We’ve landed and made our presence known. Our scouts tell me there are about two hundred men coming toward us on transport and walking. Are you down yet?”
“Close, Captain. We’ll keep you apprised. Let you know as soon as you can disengage. Then put your gunships on the Iraqis and get out of there.”
“That’s a roger, SEALs. Keep in touch.”
Murdock looked out the porthole and saw the ground coming up fast. He looked ahead as much as possible and saw a dozen buildings, all painted desert brown. Nice try.
The pilot asked Murdock where he wanted to be set down, and he told him as near the front gate as possible. It was a gate, with high poles and everything. A dirt road about fifty yards long led to the first building. He saw an Iraqi flag flying on a pole in front of the first building.
A minute later, the big bird hovered a moment, then settled to the ground and a crewman pushed open the side doors. The SEALs rushed out the door and ran toward the gate, through it, and straight at the first building.
There was no gunfire.
They hit the first building. Murdock rammed open the door and slanted inside. It was an administration office. Two men looked up in an area where two dozen could work. They were surprised and then worried. One held up his hands. Then the other one did. Ken Ching ran to them, led them outside the front door, and fastened plastic riot cuffs on their hands and feet.
The SEALs cleared the rest of the room, then started out the back door, when a shot jolted into the desert quietness. A slug buried itself in the doorjamb. Murdock jumped back. He pushed the panel open and stood to one side. Three rounds came through the opening. Murdock dropped flat to the floor and looked out at ground level. He saw the shooter, a soldier standing fifty feet away, in the open.
Murdock put a three-round burst into him and the man pawed at the air for a minute with one hand, then slumped sideways and fell to the ground, ramming his face into the sand. He didn’t move.
Lam checked the other direction from just over Murdock.
“Looks clear,” Lam said. He and Murdock darted through the door to a small shed behind the building. They peered around it and saw four soldiers down fifty yards.
“Do them,” Murdock said.
He and Lam shot at almost the same time. The four men hesitated. Two died before they could move; the third went down and crawled behind a vehicle. The fou
rth one sprinted into a building across a narrow street.
“Skip, we splitting up?” Senior Chief Dobler called.
“No. Too many of them so far. Let’s fan out and move down the street, clearing the buildings as we go. Civilians we take back to the front. Military we drive ahead of us.”
It worked on the first building. It was a supply structure. There were three civilians there, and they surrendered with no trouble. One even spoke English.
“Yes, welcome. Want to get away from this evil place. I will take my friends to the front building and wait. You must take us with you. There is much death in this place.”
Murdock waved them away.
The next building held rows of missiles and boxes of artillery shells. They all had painted red tips.
“Careful shooting in here,” Murdock said. “Looks like the finished product.”
They used one squad in this building and worked slowly between the missiles and the wooden boxes of shells. Ahead, somebody fired a handgun, but the round missed. Murdock sent Jaybird and three men around a stack of boxes and he went the other way. Nothing. Then two men with automatic rifles opened fire from a catwalk ten feet off the floor. Murdock felt a sting on his shoulder, dove behind some artillery round wooden boxes, and tried for some return fire.
Jaybird cut down both men from the other side. They fell off the small balcony and lay still.
“We going to count?” Jaybird called.
“Against what?” Murdock asked. “They didn’t give us a total we should get to. They don’t know how many units are here of shells or missiles. We might count the Scuds if we see them.”
They found no one in the next building. Murdock sent Senior Chief Dobler with Bravo Squad to clear the frame building across the narrow street. He and Alpha took the one just ahead.
As soon as they stepped into the structure, Murdock knew it was different. There was a strange feel. He saw no people, only large vats and pipes and series of low worktables with tubing to each one. The whole place seemed to be a death trap.
They started through the building when a single Arab with a full beard stepped out from behind some large, wooden boxes and yelled at them in Arabic. The man held a two-foot-long canister about six inches in diameter.
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