by DJ Scott
Wallace broke into the soft background noise of quiet conversations. “Let’s get started. Ted, are we ready to go?”
General Theodore Roosevelt Lennox was present for the first time in over a week, replacing Captain Washington, who was now deployed with the command group.
“Mr. President, the elements of Task Force 58 are in position. Nothing’s occurred that makes us believe this Abdullah Nazer, or anyone else in Yemen, knows what’s coming. The Abraham Lincoln strike group has been pulled east overnight and is now positioned to provide additional air support. They’ve been temporarily designated Task Force 58.3. Our Marines are on deck in helicopters or in vehicles on the landing craft and ready to go. We’re just waiting for your go ahead.” Lennox looked expectantly at the President.
“Thank you General.” Wallace turned to Baker. “Sonny, just how sure are we that when we get there we’ll find those nukes?”
Baker stifled a groan. Now that the operation was actually ready to go, Wallace was getting nervous and repeatedly asked for more and more assurance of success. “Sir, you’ve seen all the data I have. It’s very strong. We have solid satellite surveillance showing those shipping containers being trucked east, then north, to the small town of Arad. Last night you felt quite confident after seeing the data obtained by the SEALS.” Two days before a dozen men from SEAL Team 4 had been infiltrated north of Arad into a blocking position to prevent further movement of the warheads to the north. They had sent a small battery-powered drone fitted with a lightweight neutron detector on a single pass over the suspect warehouse.
“Sonny,” said Karen Hiller, “the President knows what he saw last night. He wants to know what you think now . . . today . . . right this minute!”
Wallace seemed taken aback with his Chief of Staff’s outburst, but agreed with her sentiment. He simply looked at Sonny Baker with raised eyebrows, as if to say, “Well?”
Baker cleared his throat then stood to give himself a bit more gravitas. “The nukes are there Mr. President. Every shred of evidence supports that conclusion and that’s what I believe.”
“So you think we should launch the operation?”
“Yes sir, I do.” Baker knew this question was for the purpose of putting him the on record. But there was obviously no choice; so there was no point in being evasive.
“Are all six warheads in that warehouse?”
This was the question Baker was hoping to avoid. There was strong evidence that there was more than one and probably more than three. It was impossible to say, however, that all six nuclear weapons were there. But he had to be upfront with the President. This was just too important. “We hope so, but there is no way to be sure.”
“We all hope so Sonny. One more question. I know it’s the one nobody wants to ask, but as Commander-in-Chief, I have to. Can they use one of those nukes against our people?”
Sonny Baker glanced around the room. Although the question was not specifically directed at him, everyone was looking in his direction and nobody else seemed about to answer. Depending on how the operation went, Baker’s entire career in public service might be judged on what he said in the next minute.
“Mr. President, that’s really two questions. First, can they? We don’t think so. Mr. Suarez and his NEST colleagues don’t think there’s been enough time to fabricate the PAL. Without that they can’t arm the weapons. Second, would they even if they could? CIA analysis of Abdullah Nazer shows him to be shrewd and calculating, but not a psychopath. Such an act would certainly end in his death and the destruction of his little empire. No, sir. We don’t think he’s a nuclear suicide bomber.”
Brendan Wallace took a deep breath and looked at the video screens, one of which was a live feed from the flight deck of the Essex. The huge helicopters and the men and women crammed aboard added to the sense that everyone was waiting for his decision.
“All right, do it,” he said. “Remember, though, that the United States is not declaring war on Yemen or on this little rump state run by Nazer. Our mission is to get in, get the nukes, and get back out. Minimum casualties on both sides. After we have those nukes, I’ll decide how to deal with Nazer.”
“You know where to find me.” With that Brendan Wallace stood, turned, and followed closely by Karen Hiller, left the Situation Room.
General Ted Lennox looked at Sonny Baker who nodded. The General picked up one of the secure lines, this one to the National Military Command Center. In a moment the duty officer came on the line. Lennox identified himself and said, “Send the following order to Task Force 58, all elements, info CENTCOM: “Execute Ocean Reach, repeat Execute Ocean Reach.” He took his seat, turned to the National Security Advisor, and asked, “Sonny, can you get us some coffee?”
Chapter 30
September 13, 2017 0320Z (0620 AST)
USS Essex, 18 miles southeast of Qishn, Yemen
Rear Admiral Nathan Tucker looked across the expansive flight deck of the USS Essex. Six massive CH-53E Sea Stallions, each loaded with forty-four Marines, communications gear, and ammunition were ready to go. Tucker was impressed that Colonel Mark, the regimental commander, was leaving with the first wave to establish his command post just south of the target at Arad. There was some risk in this, but in Tucker’s experience, Marines were most effectively led from the front. He had not been able to spend much time with Mark, one of the many liabilities of an operation put together on the fly, but he seemed like an officer motivated more by duty than by ambition, the primary quality he sought in subordinates. The fact that in civilian life he was the senior operations manager for a major airline, who dealt every day with an operation consisting of thousands of moving parts, was also a plus.
Tucker, himself, was no stranger to complex amphibious operations. He was selected for this job specifically because he had put together the Qeshm Island landing. Although the operation had suffered serious and controversial setbacks, everyone involved felt Tucker had performed brilliantly. Feeling there wasn’t much left for him to do, or to prove, he decided after Qeshm to apply for retirement. He was on terminal leave enjoying an afternoon of reef fishing at his home in Key West when General Ted Lennox called personally to ask if he would plan and command one final, very secret, operation. Knowing he could not really refuse, he was after all not actually retired; he did ask the Chairman for one concession. “No politicians, no trips to D.C., and I choose my own staff.” Lennox decided to grant the Admiral’s request. It was exactly what he wanted every day, he just couldn’t have it.
Despite its wealth of material support, Ocean Reach was still a complex, fast-moving plan. It was technically not an assault; it was an amphibious raid. The plan was to deploy the 1st Battalion, the 1/28, just south of Arad where they would block movement to the south. They would then deploy two companies into the town to secure the nukes. Division MPs would maintain order and secure the streets around the warehouse. When the engineers, who would land on the beach with their heavy equipment, joined them, they would load the warheads and then transport them back to the Ashland. The third company would be held in reserve.
The 2/28 would deploy a company east and west of Arad both to prevent the Yemenis from moving the weapons and to prevent any hostile reinforcements from arriving. The SEALS held a position just north of the town near a short bridge and were prepared to blow the bridge, if necessary, to block movement north. The only place known to have none of Nazer’s forces was north of Arad so the SEALS would not be reinforced. They had the option of being retrieved by helicopter, taking their desert ‘dune buggies’ south to the landing craft, or if necessary they could exfiltrate across the desert into Oman. The 3/28 would similarly block the coast road east and west with a company held in reserve at the landing beach.
The fact that the plan called for all Marines to be in position within two hours of launching the mission worried him. In principle, though, he had everything required to make it work. Each
of the big amphibious ships, the Essex and the Iwo Jima, had six huge CH-53E helicopters and three LCACs, high speed landing craft capable to cruising across the sea at over thirty knots. The Ashland, designated to receive the nukes, had two more assigned specifically to the engineers. That was a lot of lift capacity, and Ocean Reach would need all of it.
Just then he was handed a single message sheet with one line on it. “Execute Ocean Reach.” It was dated September 13, two days after the infamous date in 2001 that had begun sixteen years of almost continuous warfare in this part of the world. He said a silent prayer that this September day would have a far better outcome for America than its predecessor.
Tucker scanned the tactical displays. Unconcerned that the Yemenis would detect their radar emissions, the task force sensors reached out in a relentless search for potential threats. Seeing none, he nodded to Captain Neill Washington, now designated his operations officer. “We’re go.”
Washington spoke quickly to several sailors manning their small operations center. Immediately, the order was passed to Air Operations, the well deck where the LCACs waited, and to the other ships of Task Force 58.
Just below him the Air Boss of the Essex picked up his radio handset and bellowed, “Okay, gents; let’s start ‘em up.” Turbines whined and the massive rotor blades began to turn.
Showtime.
Chapter 31
September 11, 2017 0322Z (0622 AST)
USS Essex, 18 miles south of Qishn, Yemen
Hip to hip and kneecap to kneecap Mike McGregor sat among the tightly packed Marines of the leading element of the 1/28. As he listened to the turbines of the forward CH-53E winding up, he pulled a pair of foam earplugs from a small plastic container clipped to his body armor and screwed them in. He looked at the Marines near him and pointed to their ears.
The two corpsmen accompanying him, HM2 Courtney Kales and HM2 Brad Greene, already had theirs in place. He gave them both a thumbs up. Greene, a streetwise firefighter/paramedic and adrenaline junkie who reminded McGregor of himself ten years ago, grinned broadly and returned the gesture. Kales, highly skilled, but with only hospital experience and no previous deployments, smiled weakly and nodded. Thanks to the new combatant status for medical personnel, each carried an M-4 rifle—an updated version of the venerable M-16—muzzle down, but were burdened with only three extra magazines compared to the twelve carried by each Marine. The battalion surgeons, at the direction of Colonel Mark, still carried the M-9 Beretta. This was all right with McGregor, who carried his in an old fashioned shoulder holster on the left side of his body armor. He knew that by time the doctors had to start shooting, there would be plenty of rifles available.
The Marines, who a few minutes ago were smiling and joking, now had their game faces on.
Two days before, they had finally been briefed on their mission. McGregor had the small satisfaction of knowing that the prediction he’d related to Kelli Moore had been amazingly accurate. He wished he could have seen her face when they brought up the nukes.
The briefing had taken place on the hanger deck of the Essex. Six Russian warheads. When the briefer said that, he had everyone’s full attention—except McGregor’s. He had rubbed the scar below his right eye. Another high priority, top secret mission.
Colonel Aaron Mark and Lieutenant Colonel Jeremiah Walsh, seated at the forward end of the same CH-53E, weren’t thinking about anything but the business at hand. Each man was reviewing the operation order, which if printed, would have run over two-hundred pages. There were no printed pages, however. Each had a tablet computer which was built at a secure facility run by the NSA. Inside its Kevlar and titanium case was highly encrypted satellite communication, massive databases, and unique security feature—a single incorrect password entry would ignite a ten gram thermite charge that would destroy the entire unit in seconds.
Both officers knew that the next few hours would define their entire Marine Corps careers. Typically, the Marine Corps Reserve was deployed in company-sized units to augment active duty battalions. With the new system of alert regiments, though, they knew an assignment like Ocean Reach was possible, at least in principle. Now here it was, and the stakes were as high as for any mission ever. For both of them, failure was simply not an option.
The big Sea Stallion rose from the deck, hovered briefly, then made a broad turn around the stern before heading north. Colonel Mark got a quick glimpse of the ship through the pilot’s windscreen. He saw the second helicopter in line just rising from the deck and then, as they passed the stern, saw a massive LCAC pulling out of the well deck and into the pale blue of the Arabian Sea.
As they began to head north towards Yemen, he returned to reviewing the available maps, satellite photos, and intelligence reports on Abdullah Nazer and his military forces. Mark normally liked brevity in his intelligence reports, but what he got from both CIA and Naval Intelligence for this operation was too damn brief. They reported only that Nazer controlled a small, but well-trained, army that was augmented by Saudi ‘volunteers’. The estimates of its size, about ten thousand, came with a large margin of error. With just over a million people in an area of 88,000 square miles, Nazer’s little empire consisted of mostly empty desert. Specific information about forces in Arad was maddeningly vague.
Reports showed that Nazer had a number of old Soviet era BTR-60 armored vehicles and one battalion of modern T-72 main battle tanks. The tanks, and the bulk of his troops, were fortunately located on the western side of his territory facing his old Yemeni comrades. There were a dozen attack helicopters of several types located at al-Mukalla, with estimates that about half were flyable at any time. The small navy, also at Mukalla, consisted of five old Osa Class missile boats and a single relatively modern Italian-built Maestrale class frigate. This was located more than two-hundred-fifty kilometers away south of Socotra Island and was reported to be on patrol against Somali pirates. If necessary, it could be dealt with by Carter, which remained on station halfway between Socotra and the landing beaches.
The original plan had been for drone surveillance to update the status of Nazer’s forces, and in particular those in position to attack the beachhead or those around their target at Arad. This was vetoed by the White House for fear that evidence of intelligence gathering, especially near Arad, might lead to the weapons being moved prematurely. Satellite imaging was useful, but intermittent sandstorms had left a number of holes in what they knew.
The six helicopters from Essex had now formed up in two groups of three and crossed the coast east of the small town of Qishn about ten minutes later. They proceeded northeast to the road that led to Arad, and ten minutes after that they passed over the knife-edge east-west ridgeline, with its wide highway cut surrounded by boulders large and small. Several of the flight crews remarked on how many thousands of tons of rock had been blasted away to permit the passage of this remote road. One pilot noted the unusual width of the cut, far wider than the road required and was reminded that the road would be followed by an oil pipeline. Most of the aviators also noted the unusual half-moon bite in the ridgeline to the east and one took the trouble to consult his map.
“Simpson’s Notch,” he said. “I wonder who Simpson was?”
No one aboard had a clue.
It wasn’t long before the sweeping curve of the Wadi Dhahawn and the town of Arad became visible. Their destination was a broad plateau on the south side of the Wadi Dhahawn where the road crossed a bridge, or more accurately a causeway, about a hundred-fifty meters long. The wadi was only six or seven meters deep at most, but the south side was too steep for vehicles and tough to ascend even on foot, so Arad was dependent on the bridge for its commercial life.
Each crew chief signaled one minute to their passengers and prepared to lower the rear ramp. Rifles were turned muzzle up, and rounds locked and loaded. The plateau was large enough to land all the CH-53s simultaneously so each slowed, flared, and touched dow
n. Ramps were dropped and the lead element of the 1st Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment stormed out to establish a defensive perimeter. A second flight was due in less than an hour, and the Marines landing by LCAC were expected in two to three hours. Being Marines, however, meant they didn’t expect things to go as expected, so they also unloaded ammunition, water, cases of rations, medical supplies, and four M224A1 60 mm mortars.
A platoon immediately ran across the bridge and secured the north side. They were quickly reinforced, and within ten minutes of landing both ends of the bridge were secure.
Chapter 32
September 13, 2017 0530Z (0930 MST)
Gadzhiyevo, Russia
Captain Second Rank Anatoly Grishkov picked up the phone in his office. “Grishkov.”
“We have new orders.”
He was too stunned to speak, but it didn’t matter, since his uncle had already hung up.
The phrase, ‘we have new orders’ was a warning both men had agreed to shortly after the disappearance of the warheads. It meant that not only had the FSB learned of the missing warheads and the GRU investigation, but were also prepared to move against the Admiral and himself. The call required an immediate response any time of day.
He left the headquarters building of the Second Submarine Division, telling the two sailors in the outer office that he would return within an hour, and he walked up the street towards his uncle’s office, where he was greeted at the door of the building by Captain First Class Piotr Kulakov.
As he followed the grim-faced Kulakov towards the Admiral’s office, the elder Grishkov hurried around a corner carrying a small duffel. Kulakov took his bag without a word. “It is time to go,” his uncle said. “Right now. We will take my official vehicle.”