Darke Mission

by Scott Caladon

  Commander O’Neill was part of the west coast SEALs team, the Naval Special Warfare Group 1. The decision had been made that two five man teams would be the operational minimum to steal and operate a Borei class submarine. A larger operational group may have been desirable but for SEALs the more the merrier didn’t really apply. The key for O’Neill was the composition of the teams. A Borei class submarine would normally have a crew of a hundred or so, maybe nearly half of which were officers. If you stripped out the cooks, the medics, the scientists and the politicos then you were down to around forty. A further ten or so could be lost if you excluded first time submariners, effectively trainees, and a further ten if you took out sailors who were essentially back-up for key positions, e.g. missile launch. That would leave around twenty as the bare essentials for manning and driving the submarine. After much discussion with his colleagues at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, O’Neill concluded that around ten suitably skilled SEALs could do the job of twenty Russian submariners. He also concluded that he would select his guys from SEAL Teams 5 and 7, both teams had six platoons, a worldwide mandate, were based in Coronado and had the diversity of talent needed for this operation.

  Considering the task ahead, Mark O’Neill was quite relaxed in his quarters at the base. He was checking files, backgrounds, assessments and skill sets of the available for selection SEAL team members. He knew many of them first hand. One of them, Billy Smith – he got a lot of stick for his name even though he couldn’t act and wasn’t black. His ears did stick out a wee bit though. He was with O’Neill when they killed the pirates who hijacked the Maersk Alabama in April 2009. From a floating submersible off the coast of Somalia, Billy had taken out one of the three pirates with a single sniper shot to the head. Though this wasn’t meant to be a shooting mission, Billy was in the team. O’Neill, who was no mean sniper himself, probably could not have hit such a small target while bobbing about on the ocean.

  As he was mulling over all the other potential team members, he was sifting through his brain cells for what was really needed on this mission. O’Neill had not gone to university, but he was no dummy, having an IQ of over 140 and scoring in the nation’s top five percentile in his SATs. His family were relatively low income for those living in California, his father had a career-ending accident being involved in a car crash, and his mother did a wonderful job bringing up him and his sister. Back on point, O’Neill concluded that after the usual suspects, i.e. submariners, radar operators, skilled shooters, one medic, and an explosives expert it would be necessary to have someone who could speak either Russian or Korean. Preferably both, however unlikely that was.

  As he was mentally juggling with the permutations, his tablet beeped, indicating that he had received a secure email. Commander O’Neill opened his mail, it was from the NGA.

  Commander O’Neill,

  Request that officers Reynolds and Eagles are included in your team for Operation Philidor Defence. If you wish to discuss this please contact me directly.

  Regards,

  Henry Michieta

  Section Chief

  Geospatial Analysis

  Mark O’Neill read the short email again. Now those two ladies were smart and they were feisty, especially Reynolds if he recalled accurately, but no fucking way Jose was his initial thought. By law, women could not join the Navy SEALs so the mere thought of having those two cuties, albeit CIA trained, splashing about in the Sea of Japan, with ten testosterone filled SEALs, was a total non-starter. What was Michieta thinking, the moron. In any event what could they do? They were analytical officers not field operatives. There would be no need for analysis of satellite images as, hopefully, they’d be underwater and steering the sub to a destination as yet undecided. Jesus. Preparing for this mission was tough enough without that kind of distraction. Commander O’Neill was contemplating not even replying to Michieta, when his tablet beeped again.

  Sorry Commander, I was interrupted before I could complete my mail.

  Reynolds can speak and read Korean and Eagles emigrated to the United States, aged 10, from Russia and remains fluent in her native tongue. They want to be included, as to how is entirely up to you.

  Mark O’Neill put his head in his hands. There was no one in SEALs Team 5 or 7 who could speak or read Korean and the only two fluent Russian linguists were already on a mission in Eastern Europe and could not be recalled. Either or both languages may be essential to interpret any operating instructions, especially since the SEALs would only be a skeleton crew. This wasn’t happening, no way, the two NGA officers looked about the same age as his little sister for god’s sake. They were talented alright and they were pretty, he thought, especially Carolyn Reynolds. These aesthetic visions needed ejecting pronto from his head. It was not happening. What if they were killed or captured? He’d need to tell their families, their photos would be all over the media. It had disaster written all over it. No, no, no, no, quadruple fucking no, he concluded. No girls on tour.

  * * *

  Commodore Woo-Jin Park hurried down the stairs from his office to the yard below. The three KAMAZ 5460 trucks now parked in the reserved area of his naval base were each with full trailers. A dark red jeep was stationary next to them and two plain-clothes men emerged from the car, an imitation of the real thing, produced by the Sungri Motor Plant in Tokchon.

  “Commodore Park,” began the taller of the two men. “I am Gok Han-Jik and this is Sunwoo Chung.”

  Commodore Park shook Gok’s hand and acknowledged Sunwoo who was standing a little further away.

  “I am a lieutenant commander in our glorious navy, Commodore Park, I report directly to Vice Admiral Goh. I am out of uniform today to attract less attention. Here are my papers.”

  Woo-Jin Park accepted Gok’s papers, at the same time thinking that in a naval base being out of uniform was more likely to attract attention than being in it. After inspecting his papers and gesturing to have a look at the speechless Sunwoo’s, Commodore Park was satisfied that they were who they said. Gok then handed Park further paperwork which turned out to be from Vice Admiral Goh explaining the contents of the trailers on the Russian built long haul trucks and Park’s role in supervising and managing their installation. Park knew he had to get a move on as Goh wanted to have the submarine fully prepared, sea-worthy and ready for action in less than two weeks. It was a tall order but Haeju had the manpower and Park had the dedication. As he was walking with his two uninvited guests towards the berthed Borei he was glad Vice Admiral Goh had trusted him with the knowledge of what the trucks were carrying. He was also glad that the still mute Sunwoo was apparently the man who knew what to do with the odd pieces of angular metal shapes that took up virtually all of one truck’s available space, because he sure didn’t.

  Sunwoo didn’t stay mute forever. By twilight he was barking orders at several of the Haeju yard’s painters and a different set of orders at their welders. He was a short man, 5ft 5in tall, rotund like a fat rodent with wisps of fading hair clinging to his head. He definitely wasn’t going to be on the cover of GQ in any of its guises. This didn’t bother Sunwoo anymore. He was in his late forties, never married, no children. He had an unhealthy interest in soft child pornography but never acted on his most base desires. When the sexual urge overcame him a quick call or visit to Pyongyang’s red light district did the trick. Compensating for his personal weakness and foibles, or so he told himself, was that he was a fine scientist. Not any run of the mill scientist but an engineering based scientist who was second in command of the KPN’s scientific division. His speciality was submarines and his jewel in the crown was disguising their presence. Stealth technology, the west called it; he was more used to the term low observable (LO) technology. His task now was to be as LO as you could go. Vice Admiral Goh wanted this submarine to be invisible.

  Sunwoo’s undergraduate studies had been at the People’s Friendship University of Russia, in Moscow. There he learned all of the basics of mechanical, electrical and aeronautic
al engineering, eventually earning a Bachelor’s degree, First Class, in Automation and Control of Technical Systems. He followed this up with a post graduate Doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT in Massachusetts, USA. Oh, how easy it was to get into America, a forged South Korean passport, letters of recommendation and he was in. Sunwoo loved his studies, all the information he gleaned from the Materials Science and Engineering optional course was sure coming in to play now. He hated the American people. They were loud, they were superficial, all American Idol and X-Factor reality shows, celebrity watchers. I mean, he thought, does anybody really care what Kim Kardashian wore last night or that Justin Bieber changed his hairstyle yet again? Nearly everyone he came across in Boston looked down on him, both literally and metaphorically, but his revenge on these slights was now underway.

  The Haeju painters were coating a section of the metal plates with radar-absorbing materials. This worked by absorbing the radiated energy from a ground based or air based radar station; the heat is trapped in the material and not reflected back to the prying radar station. This form of stealth is not 100% efficient and in a submarine is only useful when it is surfaced. It would, nevertheless, certainly delay significantly enemy tracking of its location. A submarine’s degree of surface invisibility can also be enhanced by the shape of the craft needing camouflage. The Borei submarine they were working on was the archetypical submarine shape, mainly curves and bends. The most efficient way to reflect radar waves is to use orthogonal metal plates. The idea was to make a corner deflector comprising two or three plates, then experimenting with different angles such as in the American F-117 aircraft. Under Sunwoo’s instruction a series of these dihedral and trihedral plates were being assembled to be welded on to the submarine at the critical points and at a specific angle. Sunwoo’s metal construction was as aerodynamic (maybe aquadynamic was more appropriate) as practicable but the sub would lose a couple of knots of surface speed once they were attached.

  Much of the time, though, submarines are submerged, not surfaced, especially when they are in attack mode. This was not lost on Sunwoo. Enemy detection of a submerged submarine would be primarily through the activation of passive sonar arrays. It may seem like an afterthought but extensive rubber mountings on the inside and outside of the vessel’s frame had produced good test results in dampening the acoustics over and above what was already in place. The whole process seemed a bit Home Depot. It would have been ideal if our Russian friends had loaned us one of their new 5G stealth submarines, thought Sunwoo. These subs were being built from scratch using advanced special materials for the hull and building in deflector mechanisms and acoustic dampeners. Beggars can’t be choosers, rationalised Sunwoo. In any event by the time he was finished applying his knowledge, this particular submarine was going to be seriously difficult to detect by friend or foe.

  * * *

  “C’mon Henry,” pressed Carolyn Reynolds. “We really want to go. What about my fluency in Korean and Dannielle’s Russian? We were made for this and, in case you’ve forgotten, we were the ones who spotted the damned Borei!” Carolyn was visibly heated. She was standing, leaning on the back of a chair in Henry’s office, next to the seated Dannielle. “What did O’Neill say Henry?” demanded Carolyn.

  “You don’t want to know what he said, I assure you, but it boiled down to no, a big no,” replied Henry.

  “What did he say Henry?” added Dannielle, seated quietly and giving the big Maasai the look that said you know you’re going to tell me eventually so you may as well blab now.

  “Alright, he said no girls on tour,” blurted out and instantly regretted by the section chief.

  “What!” exclaimed Carolyn. “That fucking sexist jarhead.” She blamed her dad for the language but at this moment it was firmly aimed at Commander Mark O’Neill.

  “I think you’ll find, Cally, that fucking jarhead is a derogatory nickname for a marine not a Navy SEAL,” corrected Dannielle, pleased that she had prompted Henry Michieta to spill.

  “So what’s a SEAL’s nickname pray tell?” asked Carolyn in an unexpectedly calm tone.

  “I think frogmen or green faces was the norm in their early days,” offered up Henry.

  “OK,” said Carolyn. “Fucking Kermit features has no right to say no, let alone a big no with sexist remarks attached.” Officer Reynolds was back on the attack.

  “Dial it back Carolyn. He does have the right,” countered Henry softly. “He’s in charge of this mission and he gets to pick his team. You may not like it and you may need to lump it but there it is. You both did a great job spotting the Borei, bringing it to my attention and then briefing Associate Director Adams and colleagues on it. Be satisfied with that.”

  The stern look on Carolyn Reynolds’ face indicated that she was not satisfied. “Were there any non-SEAL combatants with Team 6 when they killed bin Laden?” asked Carolyn calmly enough.

  “No,” replied Henry firmly.

  “What about that woman CIA officer who spent half her career tracking down the son of a bitch?” responded Carolyn.

  “She wasn’t on the Geronimo mission, Cally,” interjected Dannielle. “As far as I know, she was close, following proceedings from their base in Afghanistan.”

  “Good,” stated Carolyn. “Henry, please tell Kermit that we’d like to be close, so that we can follow proceedings, maybe use our language skills, maybe keep the Neanderthal amphibian and his froglets out of trouble, maybe be fucking involved.”

  Henry Michieta knew that it was in his best interests for a life of peace and quiet that he send Commander O’Neill another email.

  * * *

  Mark O’Neill had more or less settled on his team. In addition to Billy Smith, he had selected three others from Team 5. One underwater demolition expert, a definite veteran of thirty-six years old, Joe Franks. One lead driver/navigator, Tommy Fairclough, and one whose expertise was in maritime engineering, Barry Minchkin. As well as being lead on this mission, O’Neill was the leader of Team 5. SEAL Team 7 was headed by Lieutenant Evan Harris. In consultation with Harris, O’Neill had selected the three remaining members from Team 7, making nine in total. All SEAL team members were trained to a high level in the skills that could be needed on any clandestine mission they were asked to undertake. Team 7 had two very interesting and appropriate characters for Operation Philidor Defense, David McCoy and Yang Dingbang or Ding as he was called.

  McCoy was thirty years old, 6ft tall with short, wavy dark brown hair. He was a fitness freak and well known in the SEALs community as the best submarine pilot of his era. Much younger, he saw active submarine service in the Iraq war. Piloting the last of the Skate class mini subs he helped rescue nearly forty of his SEAL colleagues who had come under constant heavy fire from 300 embedded Iraqi soldiers with armoured vehicles near the Al Basrah oil platforms. The remainder of the SEALs squadron were relieved by 42 Commando of the British Royal Marines but McCoy’s skill under fire undoubtedly saved countless American lives. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.

  Yang Dingbang was a fourth generation American whose family had originally emigrated to New York from what was then Peking. Ding was around 5ft 9in, short black cropped hair and scored highly in nearly all his training courses. His forte was radar, having been clearly the best operator in his year. His other speciality was mixed martial arts and had he not made it as a SEAL his plan B was to enter the Ultimate Fighting Championship, middle weight class. Ding was a committed and loyal American and he thanked his country for the protection and standard of living that it had given his family, present and past.

  Commander O’Neill was satisfied with his team. He personally knew more than half of them and in Evan Harris he had a second in command whom he had the highest respect for. Team selected, now it was time for the mission brief. Gathered in meeting room two of the SEALs HQ, Mark O’Neill outlined the mission. There was initially a certain degree of bravado among the team. These were predominantly young men. Their civilian contemporaries spent m
uch of their time chasing girls, drinking beer and watching football. These SEALs thought it great that they were going to steal a North Korean-based Russian submarine. Franks and McCoy, being a bit older and wiser, dampened down the heist bombast.

  “Where exactly is this sub, Commander?” asked Joe Franks.

  “It’s Mark, no ranks needed here Joe,” started O’Neill, keen to keep the meeting relaxed, if a little less boisterous. “Our information is that it’s a Borei class Russian nuclear submarine, berthed at the Haeju naval base on the west coast of North Korea, about 100km south of Pyongyang.”

  “What’s the terrain like there and how is it protected?” asked McCoy.

  “The terrain is mainly plains, with a couple of mountains, nothing dramatic,” said O’Neill. “We’ve decided to come in from the sea, as there is less likelihood of meeting a sizeable military presence.”

  “Surely the submarine itself will be heavily protected?” McCoy responded.

  “It will be protected for sure,” agreed Evan Harris. “From our information though the North Koreans have no idea that we know the sub is there. Normally, any of their larger submarines would be berthed, serviced or repaired on the east coast at one of the more advanced bases like Wonsan. The satellite images provided by the NGA officers who initially spotted the Borei, indicate some type of covering over the sub, like a floating aircraft hangar. As far as the North Koreans are concerned, we haven’t a clue.”

  “As such, we are assuming that the military security around or even on the sub is light,” continued O’Neill. “For this same reason we are not deploying drones. You’ve been told why we are not going to destroy the sub and we also do not want to risk alerting the North Koreans by having a drone hum overhead taking photographs. The NGA and CIA are going to direct their satellite over for one more image before we head out, to give us the most up to date interpretation of the sub’s status.”