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Berthing at the Truman Annex was a novel experience for Kauai—they usually moored half a mile to the northeast at the Coast Guard Sector at Trumbo Point. However, they carried the Director of JIATF-South himself, and his office was here, so the accommodation was made. At least, that was the story. One of the most secret pre-mission briefings in history was about to occur, involving various Kauai crew members and the JIATF-South staff, among others. Proper operations security argued against a lot of traveling back and forth.
Once Pennington was piped ashore, Kauai started the regular activities for a mid-patrol in-port period. Ben cleared paperwork and personnel issues and met and settled the first of their guests, army Major Shane Roberts, the combat surgeon, and his team of two surgical nurses and their equipment. They showed no concern about Kauai’s messdeck’s close quarters as the operating room’s venue. Ben suspected, correctly, that they had seen much worse in Southwest Asia. He left them in the capable hands of Bryant, who was a former army combat medic himself.
Drake supervised the topping off of the cutter’s diesel fuel and water supplies, then moved on to the special mission preparations Sam had ordered. The Squid launcher unit, useless for the task to come, was detached and stored ashore for their return in a few days. The gasoline for the RHIB, stored on deck in a jettisonable fifty-five-gallon drum to reduce the risk of an internal fire, was also put ashore. Sam did not expect any small boat operations, and the gasoline was a dangerous source of fire and illumination if hit by hostile gunfire. Guerrero supervised the replacement of the twenty-five-millimeter ammunition they had expended at AUTEC and the rest of their solid rounds with high-explosive shells. These were more suitable for suppressing the small arms and rocket-firing opposition they expected to encounter. Along with the Kauai’s two junior seamen, Bondurant and Lee managed the special towing hawser’s on-load and layout for the mission.
By 11:30, the preparations were complete, and the crew took a breather. This was accompanied by a surprise as a taxi pulled up to Kauai’s berth and deposited Seaman Juan Lopez, freshly graduated from the Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist School in Charleston, South Carolina. Lopez was a solid hand before he left, and Sam and Ben were delighted to have him back aboard for the challenging mission. Ben led the greetings. “Glad to see you back, Lope, but I think you might regret not hanging around for the graduation blow-out.”
“Sir, you don’t think I’m going to be OK sitting around drinking beer while you guys are headed into action?”
Sam’s face froze in a half-smile. “What makes you think that?”
“Captain, I’ve seen the towing hawser. You’ve also offloaded that net cannon and the gasoline—no reason to do that before a normal patrol. Finally, you’ve pulled in here instead of Trumbo Point, where we always stage. Something very unusual is going on here.”
Sam looked at Ben. “I guess we should have pulled in and out in the dark. I’ll keep that in mind for the next one.” He looked back at Lopez and smiled. “I can’t confirm or deny anything, but do me a favor and keep it to yourself for now. We’ll give everybody the full story once we’re underway.”
Lopez smiled and saluted. “Aye, aye, sir!” After the officers returned the salute, he picked up his bags and headed inside the boat.
Sam looked at Ben and shook his head. “Operations Security. It’s not the leaks; it’s the signs that get you. Well, can’t be helped now.”
“Yes, sir,” Ben replied. “I just got a call from the JIATF office. Final planning conference in the secure conference room at 13:00, sir.”
“So much for beers over at Sloppy Joe’s,” Sam said with a smile. “I can’t wait to hear what you and Hoppy have in store for us.”
The Briefing Room at JIATF-South was not large—even a planning session as restricted as this one created quite a crowd. Sam, Ben, and Hopkins were sitting together on one side of the room. Also present were the navy lieutenant leading the SEAL team effort, a DEA representative, and two air force captains, one an electronic warfare specialist and the other a meteorologist. Simmons arrived to take his seat with one minute to go, receiving a friendly nod from Ben, icy glares from Sam and Hopkins, and studied indifference from the remaining attendees.
Ben understood why Sam, Hopkins, and Drake disliked Simmons. In their minds, he was a reckless fool who put himself and Ben in a situation that required Sam to break all the rules and risk his command to save their lives. But this was one of the very few issues on which Ben and his shipmates parted company. He didn’t know if it was the one-on-one time he had had with the DIA officer, that they had stood, or rather, kneeled shoulder-to-shoulder through that shootout, or the genuine possibility the man could end up being a quasi-brother-in-law. Ben liked Peter Simmons and enjoyed talking with him, even if they didn’t see eye-to-eye on what the agent casually referred to as “Risk Management.”
The door opened, and the navy lieutenant called out, “Attention on deck!” as Pennington entered the room. Everyone came to their feet, and the military attendees stood at attention as Pennington took the podium.
“Carry on. Be seated, please,” Pennington said. After they all sat down, he continued, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are here to set up a mission of extreme importance. I will express my regrets that some details are so sensitive they will need to be withheld, and I ask for your patience. There is to be no outside discussion of what we say here, and I remind you all that you signed a non-disclosure memo.
“Bottom line up front: there is a weapon of mass destruction mounted on the commercial vessel Carlos Rojas moored in the harbor of Barbello, Honduras, and under control of the Salinas drug cartel. To our knowledge, they are unaware of what they have. A second criminal organization is moving to seize the Carlos Rojas and its cargo within three days. We will prevent that, and because the vessel is within the sovereign territory of a foreign nation, we will go in covertly, with a dangerously light footprint. These are top-level decisions and not open to discussion. Your purpose here is to complete a plan of action to execute those decisions. Now, before I yield the floor, does anyone have questions?”
“Sir.” Sam stood.
“Yes, Lieutenant Powell?”
“I respectfully request an explicit statement of our rules of engagement, Admiral.”
Pennington smiled. “Yes, I thought you would.” His smile disappeared as he looked around the room. “This is a national defense mission, and you will employ whatever deadly force is needed without warning to overcome any resistance.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sam said and then sat.
“Any other questions? Very well. Dr. Simmons, you have the floor.” He left the podium and took a seat in the front row beside one of the air force captains.
Simmons stood, took the podium, and said, “Thank you, Admiral. Ladies and gentlemen, as the admiral has said, there is a WMD capability on the Carlos Rojas that, if copied and distributed, could cause mass casualties, if not global nuclear war. Our primary goal will be to board and seize the Carlos Rojas, remove her from the harbor, and sink her in deep water. Once aboard, I and another operative will rig everything we can find related to the weapons for destruction with thermite charges. We will wait to activate those charges until just before the Carlos Rojas’s scuttling if our extraction of the vessel is successful. In the event of a successful counterattack, we will activate the charges at once. Does anyone have questions?” Many of the participants exchanged looks, but none had questions. “Thank you. I believe you are next, Lieutenant Powell.” He sat down.
Sam stood and took the podium while Ben and Hopkins stood alongside. “Admiral, ladies and gentlemen, I’m CO of the Coast Guard Cutter Kauai, for those who don’t know me. We have modified her from the original Island Class design to diesel-electric-battery propulsion, allowing near-silent operations for brief periods. We will use this capability to enter the harbor undetected, lay alongside the Carlos Rojas, and put over a boarding party who will unmoor and rig her for towing. My XO, Lieutenant Junior Grade Wyporek, will lead the boarding party and command Carlos Rojas during the egress. Kauai will tow her clear of the harbor using battery power to avoid detection. We will switch to diesel power when clear and continue the tow, or escort, if the Carlos Rojas’s engines prove serviceable, to the five hundred-fathom line of the Cayman Trench. There, we will evacuate all aboard using our RHIB, then sink her using explosive charges. If they detect us, we will light off our diesels and use twenty-five-millimeter and fifty-caliber machine gun fire to enable our escape, if possible. If not, we will delay the counterattack long enough for Dr. Simmons to destroy the weapons and associated materials.
“Our intelligence from the DEA agent on the scene is that the Salinas gang has a large stockpile of small arms and RPGs. We can assume that these will be available at the fortified position on the point of land defining the entrance and on small boats. My chief concern in terms of a firefight is the KPV our overflights observed on that promontory. They’d be pretty lucky to tag us in a vulnerable spot with an RPG from five hundred yards, but they have a good chance of roughing us up with the KPV. Therefore, we’ll be throwing everything we have at it if it comes to a fight.” The presence of the Russian KPV heavy machine gun had been terrible news. It fired 14.5mm armor-piercing rounds that could punch through Kauai’s light plating even from a quarter-mile away. There were worried looks and murmurs around the room before Sam continued. “I’ll pause for questions before yielding to Chief Petty Officer Hopkins, who will brief the approach and egress.”
There were no questions, and Hopkins replaced Sam at the podium and activated a projection showing Barbello harbor beside an overhead diagram of a ship. “Admiral, everyone, there is a single, narrow channel leading into the harbor just beyond this point of land to the north and shoals and islets to the south,” she said, pointing at the display. “Moonset is at 00:56 local time, and we plan to pass through ‘the gate,’ as we call it, at 01:10. Once inside, as you can see, we have a large area of good water we can use to set up the approach. The Carlos Rojas is moored heading north along the quay as shown here, and we will approach from the southeast. As soon as we touch, Mr. Wyporek’s boarding party and the DIA men will cross over. We will stay alongside until the towing hawser is passed and rigged to the vessel’s anchor windlass here on the bow.” She pointed at a co-projected diagram of the Carlos Rojas. “When Mr. Wyporek signals the vessel is unmoored, we will tow her eastward, through the gate, and then turn north once we are out of weapons range of this point.” She pointed at the small point of land making up the northern side of the gate. “We estimate twenty minutes in the ingress, fifteen to rig the tow and unmoor the vessel, and forty-five to fifty-five minutes to clear the gate. We will keep a short tow inside the harbor for better navigational control and keep us in range to provide suppressive fire on that point, if needed.” She looked at Pennington. “Any questions, Admiral?”
“None, thank you, Chief.”
As Hopkins stepped aside and Ben took the podium. “Admiral, ladies and gentlemen, I will board the Carlos Rojas with three other men. We will be occupied with the towing hawser until we rig it. It weighs over ten pounds per linear foot and will need all of us to lift it to and through the bullnose in the bow. As soon as we rig the tow, I will lead a seaman along the ship’s port side and throw off any mooring line or shore tie we encounter, leaving a man on the bow to stand by the hawser. Once the moorings are clear, we will move to the Bridge and stay there throughout the exfil. We will be armed with carbines and suppressed pistols for self-defense, but we will be occupied and unable to aid in Carlos Rojas’s seizure. Once the tow is stabilized, we can contribute to the vessel’s defense, but I must stay on the Bridge. Do you have questions, Admiral?”
“No, thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Sir. Anyone else? OK, Lieutenant Davis?” Kauai’s personnel sat as Davis, the navy SEAL officer, stood and took the podium.
“Admiral, ladies, and gentlemen, I have a nine-man detachment loading up at Virginia Beach as we speak. They will fly to Barbello and execute a jump into the water west of the island at 01:45 tomorrow morning. They will rendezvous with the DEA man on the scene and execute a covert reconnaissance of the harbor facilities and opposing forces over the day and evening. At or around 00:45 on the 6th, they will take the Carlos Rojas by force, secure the vessel and the adjoining quay, and await Kauai’s arrival. My men will signal the Rivet Joint aircraft when the target has been secured. If practicable, they will sabotage the power to the lighting on the quay in the ship’s vicinity. That one they must play by ear—if they can’t make it look like an ordinary failure, it may tip off the enemy to the assault later. After departing the quay, they will rig explosive charges at key points in the hull to ensure the ship’s rapid scuttling. They will then prepare fortified positions along the port side in case there is a firefight on the way out. Do you have questions, Admiral?”
“No questions, thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Sir,” he said, sitting down.
“Captain Landry?” Pennington said.
The air force electronics specialist got to her feet and took the podium. “Yes, sir. Admiral, Chief, and gentlemen, the Rivet Joint aircraft has been conducting electronic surveillance in international airspace just east of Barbello for the past two nights. We collected enough data to identify every emitter on the island and establish a pattern of life. We will revisit tonight to look for any changes. During the assault, the aircraft will carry Lieutenant Davis, who will oversee the ground forces until Kauai’s arrival. We can jam every communications device on that island. Still, I recommend holding off on that capability until the SEAL assault is underway to avoid premature disclosure. We will transmit updates on request starting at midnight on the 6th and stay thirty minutes after Kauai’s departure to watch for any pursuit.
“The downside is we have forecasted weather in the area that will negate the MQ-9—it can’t handle the wind shears at low level and won’t be of much use up high. So, no EO/IR or close support will be available. Do you have questions of me, Admiral?”
“No. Thank you, Captain.”
“You are welcome, sir. I will hand off to Captain Fergus for the weather brief.” The other air force captain stood, made his way to the podium, and switched the display to a meteorological map as Landry returned to her seat.
“Admiral, ladies, and gentlemen, as Captain Landry pointed out, we have a low-pressure area moving over the Northwestern Caribbean that will generate unstable air across the region. This pattern is very unusual for the season—it’s usually dry there. I am forecasting persistent scattered cumulonimbus cells throughout the area, moving east to west for the operational period’s duration, with lightning and locally heavy rain and wind. The storms’ scattered nature and general lack of prevailing winds should cause calm to light seas in the area. Are there questions?”
Sam stood. “Admiral, I have a question.” At Pennington’s nod, he continued. “Can we predict when a cell might come over the island, Captain?”
“Perhaps thirty to forty-five minutes beforehand, no earlier,” Fergus replied.
“What are you thinking, Lieutenant?” Pennington asked.
“Sir, these storms could help or hurt us. If I can ride in and out during one of them, that would be an immense advantage remaining covert, assuming we aren’t struck by lightning.” He paused as the attendees chuckled. “On the other hand, they might see us coming in with no rain and lightning strobing. I recommend we keep a little flexibility in the timetable in case we have an opportunity or hazard to deal with. Can you support that, Mr. Davis?”
“While I am in contact with the ground force, there should not be a problem.”
“Good,” Sam said and turned to Pennington. “Sir, with your permission, we’ll keep flexible in terms of the timetable.”
“Granted. That’s good thinking.” After Sam and Fergus sat, Pennington turned to Bartlett, the DEA man. “Agent Bartlett?”
Bartlett stood in place and said, “Thank you, Admiral. Folks, we have a man undercover on Barbello named Dominguez. He’s not deep in the gang, just posing as a mechanic among the day workers they employ. I expect to hear from him in a couple of hours for a regular check-in, during which I’ll brief him to expect the SEALs and prepare for their arrival. I want him to come off with your guys, Lieutenant,” he said to Davis. “Once you snatch that ship, there’s no way to predict the gang’s reaction, and I don’t want him around then.”
“We’ll get him off with us, sir,” Davis replied.
“Good. Now let me tell you about the Salinas gang. It’s more of a cult, with its own death-worship features that make MS-13, Al Qaeda, and ISIS look like a church choir by comparison. They recruit young boys from the barrios of Honduras and Guatemala and brainwash them with some truly vile initiation rituals or kill them in the process. Lieutenant Powell asked earlier about rules of engagement. If you encounter someone carrying a gun on Barbello, that is a Salinas soldier. He may be as young as fourteen, but rest assured, that meeting will end with one of you being killed. Make sure it’s him.” He paused to let that grim thought sink in before continuing. “Questions?” After waiting to scan all the participants, he said, “Thank you, Admiral,” then sat.
Pennington scanned the room. “Does anyone have anything to add?” After pausing briefly, he continued. “Folks, I think we have the best plan available under the circumstances. I want to emphasize that once on the scene, I expect you to evaluate the situation and adjust if needed according to your best judgment. Do what you think is necessary to carry out the primary mission and get your people home. You have my full trust and support, come what may. I will be in my office if any of you need me. I wish you good luck and a safe return.” As he rose, the other attendees came to their feet, with the military people coming to attention. “Carry on, thank you, everybody.” He then turned and left the room.
After Pennington departed, Sam turned to Ben and said, “Number One, I’ll leave you to link up with our DIA friend. Find out about this other guy he’s bringing along and what sort of handling arrangements they need for the thermite. The only thing I know about it is that I don’t want it anywhere inside the ship.”
“Yes, sir,” Ben responded. After Sam and Hopkins left, Ben walked over to Simmons. “Good to see you again, Pete.” He shook Simmons’s hand.
“Same here, Ben.” He glanced toward the door. “I perceive I’m still persona non grata among your shipmates?”
“I’m afraid so. Don’t worry; they won’t let it impede the mission.” When Simmons looked back in his direction, he continued. “I need to ask you who you are bringing along. We don’t have any bona fides on him.”
“You will shortly. His name is Billy, William Gerard. He was around during the Resolution op, but you guys didn’t meet up. He’s solid as they come.”
“Good to hear. So how did you get mixed up in this mess?”
“After Resolution, I went back to my actual job—poking the 252s in the eye. I found they were stirring up trouble in Colombia, grabbing up such large amounts of cocaine that their vendor was getting out of the box the government likes those people to stay inside. So, I called in Victoria the Data Jedi, re-tasked some satellite surveillance effort, and Voila! I have a nice, tight target package I can bring to the Colombians. They run a raid and end up clobbering the 252’s vendor. Good news, right?
“Well, because the Law of Unintended Consequences must be obeyed, this sent the local 252 knothead scurrying for another vendor. His choice of the Salinas mob would have been serendipitous had it not been for the fact the boat he lost to them was carrying a particularly nasty WMD. Said knothead legged it when he realized he was holding the bag for a colossal foul-up and came to Miami to turn himself in to the FBI. We spotted him at the airport, tailed him to his hotel, and grabbed him before he could get tangled up with Hoover’s boys.”
“Not exactly good form.”
“Perhaps not, but if he had turned himself into them, they’d still be processing the paperwork just to talk to him. Besides, TCOs like the 252s are in our lane, not FBI or CIA’s.”
“OK. One other question. I was a little surprised there was no discussion of protective equipment, you know, suits and respirators. Won’t we need that if this thing gets loose?”
Simmons frowned as he looked back. “You don’t want to be wearing that when we assault. You’d get tagged by even the dumbest Salinas goon because you’d never be able to see him or hear him. Besides, with this thing, all the MOPP gear and atropine in the world won’t help you. The good news is it will be quick—one whiff will stop your heart within five seconds.”
Ben swallowed hard. He had been worried about getting shot, but the possibility of dying from a chemical agent filled him with horror. He had a taste of being on the receiving end of a chemical attack at Resolution when he was hit with a paralytic agent employed by the 252s. Simmons had saved him with the antidote, but Ben still had nightmares from the experience. It was an effort to keep his voice steady.
“Right. We shove off at 18:00. I need you guys on board and settled in by 17:30, but don’t show up before 17:00. It will take time to prepare the ground with Sam.”
“Understood. See you at 17:00!”
“Can’t wait,” Ben said and turned to the door for the short walk back to Kauai. On the way, he came to terms with his fear. Dead is dead, whether it’s from a bullet or a gas. At least this one kills quickly.
Once in his room, he stared longingly at Victoria’s picture and considered calling her for one last chat before the mission, but it was too early in the day. She could not bring her cellphone into the office because of security concerns, and he didn’t want to put her on the spot by calling on her office line. Besides, the timing would trigger a lot of questions from her. He did not want to get her on the phone, upsetting her routine, and then dump a load of “sorry, can’t tell you” answers on her. Ben knew it was the right thing to do, but he was still down that it would be at least two, perhaps three, days before he could hear her voice again. He compromised and sent her a text message. “V, going offline for a few days, but thinking of U as always. Pls set aside Apr 12–16 for me. Can’t wait to see U again. B.” He then shut off the phone, locked it in his desk, and left for pre-sail preparations on the Bridge.
