SSI COMPOUND
Steve Lee paced to the front of the briefing room, about-faced, and looked at his team.
“We’ve just received a warning order.”
The SSI operators exchanged querulous glances. Then everybody was speaking at once.
“But we’re a training team!”
“Whose orders?”
“Holy shit!”
The latter sentiment predominated.
Lee raised both hands, urging quiet. When the noise abated he glanced at J. J., who was particularly vocal against going operational again.
Bosco interjected, “Gunny Foyte said just the…”
“Yeah, where is he?” Nissen asked.
Lee was growing petulant. “As I was saying…” He allowed the sentiment to drag out, hanging suspended in the seemingly frigid air.
“As I was saying, we’re advised to start planning for an op. Gunny Foyte is on the horn to Arlington, though he may not get anybody with the time difference. Meanwhile, I’m going to meet with the embassy staff. But before any of you decide to go spastic, maybe you’d like to hear the details.”
The tone of Lee’s voice said as much as his words. After a pause he continued. “By ‘we’ I mean the Co-In battalion. Not necessarily us in this room.”
Johnson raised a hand. “Major, we were just discussing this sort of thing the other day. There’s hardly any junior officers up to speed as near as I can tell. So who’s going…”
“Nobody with SSI is required to do anything. Okay? Get that straight.” Lee lasered the room with his glare, obviously displeased with the response. “But Johnson is right. There’s not enough officers qualified to lead more than a couple of platoons right now. Evidently that’s partly due to some infighting to get assigned to an elite unit. But on the other hand, some experienced Chadians don’t want to join the Co-In force just because it’s considered elite. They’re worried it’ll draw attention from the president’s office and mark them as a potential threat.”
Breezy raised an eyebrow. “Man, talk about damned if you do…”
“Now listen up,” Lee resumed. “We’ve been asked to contribute a couple of French speakers to help out. Officially they’d be liaison. Unofficially, they’ll probably be acting platoon leaders. Otherwise we’ll hope for a couple of you to work with Chadian translators.”
Eyes turned toward Johnson and Joshua Wallender, the most competent French linguists. Chris Nissen was fluent in Arabic and conversant in French.
Sensing the mood in the room, Lee pushed ahead. “First, I’ll emphasize that if anybody volunteers for this op, they’ll be advising more than leading. Second, there’s a hefty combat bonus. That’s already been confirmed by the company. Third … well, we need you.”
“What’s the mission, Steve?” Bosco intentionally used Lee’s given name to inject a note of immediacy.
Lee turned to a map pinned to the wall behind him. “Up here along the Libyan border there’s some activity that interests this government and ours as well. It has to do with mining—that’s about all I can say right now, but more intel is coming. That’s been a hot area for years, going back to the seventies and eighties when Chad and Qadhafi were feuding.”
Wallender, who hardly ever spoke in meetings, leaned forward in his chair. “Major, let me ask something: why us? Why not a regular Army unit?”
“I was just coming to that, Josh. The reason is security. I’m given to understand that the Army units can’t be trusted because the rebels, or whomever, can buy almost any information they want. With corruption like it is in this country, that’s a real concern.”
Wallender sat back, clearly unsatisfied. “Well, what’s to say that none of our guys will sell out?”
“Nothing’s guaranteed,” Lee replied. “But think about it. Our battalion is separated here. There’s almost no outside contact, and we’ll lock down everything as soon as we know what’s up. Additionally, it’ll be a no-notice deployment as far as the troops are concerned. We’ll have at least a couple days to get ready, but they won’t know it. Far as they’re concerned, we’re doing inventory and training for rapid deployment.”
Nissen eyed the distance between N’Djamena and the border. “That’s a fur piece up there, Major. How do we get there?”
“We pre-position some trucks and vehicles, probably here, at Bardai.” He jabbed a finger on the map. “We fly there in two C-130s and we have some helos on standby. In fact, I’ve alerted Terry Keegan and a couple of his rotorheads. They’ll be ready to insert or extract on short notice.”
Wielding a pointer, Lee said, “There’s two possible fields west of the op area, both unpaved. Bardai is six thousand feet long, about a hundred miles from our objective, and Zouar is forty-seven hundred, even farther away. Another option is Ouinianga Kebir, down here a couple of hundred miles southeast of the area of interest.”
Wallender was clearly unhappy with the situation. “Either way, that’s a long haul to the target with much hope of surprise. Especially if we’re using Chadian aircraft.”
Lee grinned wolfishly. “We’re not. Uncle Sugar is sending three Hercs just for this mission. That includes a spare.”
“Major, I don’t know about the other guys but I’d sure like to know what’s up there that’s so important.”
Lee laid down his pointer and said one word. “Uranium.”
SSI OFFICES
Leopole found Derringer’s door ajar and recognized the “come in” signal. Nontheless, SSI’s foreign operations chief politely rapped twice with his knuckles.
“Admiral, we got trouble.”
Derringer looked up from his keyboard. “Well, that’s our middle name when it isn’t ‘Solutions.’ What is it, Frank?”
Leopole strode to the desk and laid an e-mail printout before Derringer. “Sandy just got this. She’s checking with State right now, but it looks as if our Chad team has been drafted into a clandestine op.”
Derringer adjusted his military-frame glasses and scanned the short message. Then he looked up. “Why didn’t we get a heads-up? Wasn’t there time to consult?”
“There was a phone recording from Gunny last night, saying to look for an e-mail. Ordinarily this would come from DoD or State via Marsh as chief operating officer, but he’s hobnobbing with a couple of undersecretaries at Rock Creek.” Leopole glanced at his watch. “By now I reckon they’re on the back nine.”
The CEO visualized the verdant lushness: narrow fairways flanked by dense trees. It called for serious risk assessment of a kind that Frank Leopole would never appreciate. To the former Marine officer, golf was a silly pastime lacking loud noise, recoil, and supersonic objects. Still, more serious business was conducted on manicured lawns—or in the clubhouse—than most D.C. denizens would ever admit.
Derringer swiveled in his chair, mulling over the prospects. “All right, Sandy’s next in line as foreign operations officer and she’d have to deal with this development anyway. But getting our people involved in a Chadian government contract didn’t just drop out of the sky. What’s behind it?”
Leopole slid into a chair, elbows on the desk. “I think I can read between the lines. You remember a few days ago that Steve sent us a summary of his discussion with the defense attaché? Major Roosevelt?”
“Yes, I saw it. But I didn’t follow the way they connected the dots. I mean, how’d they tumble to this French character’s likely involvement with uranium smuggling? Apparently nobody in the intel business saw the forest for the trees.”
“Admiral, I guess they just G-2’d it. Plain old good headwork with some help from Martha Whitney. After all, they’re right there with their boots on the ground. But they didn’t expect to have to act on it. Roosevelt apparently sent a memo up the food chain and somebody went Oscar Sierra. Like, ‘We gotta do something, now!’”
Derringer nodded, sorting out the prospects. “That makes sense, Frank. But wouldn’t it be logical to expect a query from Steve Lee? After all, he’s not going to act without consulting us.”
“We don’t even know if he’s been approached yet. In fact…”
Sandra Carmichael strode into the room, not bothering to knock. Derringer looked up. “Sandy, what’ve you got?”
Without formality, she replied, “Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on, sir. I hardly replied to State’s liaison office when this e-mail arrived from Steve. He confirms that his team has been asked by the embassy to participate in what he calls ‘an important but acceptably low-risk tactical operation.’ He’s already done some contingency planning and has alerted Terry Keegan, who’s inbound to take over a couple of helos. Steve expects to launch the op up on the Libyan border within seventy-two hours or so. That is, assuming we agree.”
Derringer rubbed his chin. “Very well. Tell Steve that I’ll call an emergency meeting of the board, NLT tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, he can continue his planning.”
Leopole stood up. “Sandy, I don’t understand something. Why do our guys and their partly trained outfit have to do this? There must be other units available.”
Carmichael’s blue eyes gleamed. “Go with your strength, Colonel.” She liked talking to the former leatherneck as one O-5 to another. “Actually, Steve alluded to OpSec concerns. I’m sure he’ll elaborate, but I suspect that operational security is a big factor, considering how corrupt things are in Chad.”
“Very well.” Derringer brought up his contacts file and scrolled toward the bottom. Under “Wilmont” he selected his associate’s cell and clicked on “call.” Looking up, he confided, “I just hope I can reach Marsh before they get to the clubhouse. He likes to stay late.”