FLASHBACK
Fleet Marine Force, Western Pacific
Amphibious Assault Ship USS Belleau Wood
MAG-13 / 3rd MAW
VMA-214 - Black Sheep Squadron
21 October 1985, 0745 hours
“Attention on deck!”
A brisk rustle was followed by a resounding thump as twelve young men in olive-drab flight suits leaped from their seats and stood ramrod straight in a single beat.
“As you were,” came the gruff response from the stern-looking, gray-haired two-star general as he strode purposefully into the room. Major General Marcus Cliff, USMC was in his mid-fifties. Silvery gray hair, shaved almost to the scalp, shimmered against his dark brown skin. After more than thirty years commanding Marines in combat, he was still a man to be reckoned with. Powerful, thickly veined arms bulged at the seams of his khaki short-sleeved uniform shirt. His hard features were accentuated by cold green eyes that shimmered with a fierce electricity. A ragged looking, rope-like scar ran from just below his chin around the right side of his neck and down into his collar, a souvenir from a Viet Cong hand grenade that had nearly ended his life twenty years earlier. General Cliff moved and spoke with a natural authority that made the young warriors in his command simultaneously admire the man and fear him. They would all willingly follow him into the jaws of death, and he knew it. He was responsible for the lives of thousands of Marines and sailors in this fleet, a heavy responsibility that he took very seriously.
“Sit down, Marines,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice that resonated against the steel walls of the small briefing room. “Sit.”
The group of young men sat down on command and waited in silence for their commander to speak.
“We have a mission into which you will be heading in just a few short minutes. Your jets are being prepped as we speak. I cannot tell you all the details of the why, but the pertinent facts are as follows: The Soviets are moving against several of our operatives in Burma in an attempt to retrieve a bit of information they seem to have lost. You are to divert their air cover from the area and ensure our boys get some breathing room. Intelligence tells us that there is a squadron of MiGs pumping their way down from Afghanistan through Chinese and Indian airspace to the Burma jungles right now in search of their missing package. You men are to intercept them and turn them back before they reach our operatives. This is a vital mission, Marines. Contact is authorized. Let me repeat that, contact is authorized. Shoot to kill. The Soviets will not hesitate to do the same. There will be some air combat today if they resist, as I suspect they will. Bravo Group, you will be launching immediately after this briefing. Alpha Group, you are in reserve. Be prepped and ready. You will be airborne in the region, but holding off in case Bravo needs backup. Gentlemen, you must keep these MiGs occupied at all times until they turn back or meet their fiery end. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir!” The pilots replied with loud enthusiasm.
“Colonel Mixton will give you the details and flight coordinates now. Make me proud, Teufelshunde! Oohrah!”
“Aye aye, sir! Oorah!” The men boomed in perfect unison. They rose from their chairs as the general moved back from the podium. Colonel Mixton stepped forward to complete the briefing.
“Thank you, General Cliff,” said the colonel.
The general stepped from the podium and passed through the group, slapping the shoulders of his Marines as he passed them.
“Captain Alexander,” he called to a young officer in the back row, “follow me to my office. I need to talk to you, son.”
“Aye, aye, General,” he replied.
The tall, thin, dark-haired young captain went out of the room behind the general and followed him down the narrow corridor of the ship to a small hatch on the starboard bulkhead.
“Come in here.”
He led the captain in to the room that served as both his office and his private quarters. It was a square room about twelve feet by twelve feet. A bunk hung on a hinge from the back wall, covered by a thin mattress. Captain Karl Alexander noted that it was the same style of bed that the junior officers and the enlisted men used. A desk stood against the wall in one corner. Several storage lockers and file cabinets lined the wall opposite the bed and a small conference table with four chairs sat near the center of the room. General Cliff led the captain over to the table. He waved a thick, calloused hand over a scattering of pictures and a map that lay on the table’s wooden surface.
“Captain Alexander, you will be on a different mission than the others. I understand you are quite adept at rather tricky vertical landings.” The general turned and looked the young man directly in the eyes, as if interrogating him. “Is this true?”
“Yes, sir, at least in the training we have done. I have not had to do it in actual combat though, sir.”
“You will be doing it in a live environment today. You will not be waiting back with Alpha Group, Captain. You will be flying in-country to a different destination and taking a direct role in the actual ground mission. You will take off immediately after Bravo Group has left. Take a look at this map.”
The older man turned to the wooden table. He placed his palms on the elevated lip that ran around its rim to stop whatever was on its surface from sliding off when the ship rolled on ocean swells. It never ceased to amaze Karl that the ocean could make even a ship as large as the USS Belleau Wood rock on its waves.
The map displayed the coast of Burma, near the borders of Bangladesh and India. Just north of the coast line a series of small red and blue dots had been drawn with colored felt tip marker inside a set of three concentric circles. The outermost circle covered the vast majority of the nation of Burma. Lines went back from the red and blue dots linking them to lists of grid coordinates and times written in black ink to one side of the map. The most recent times on the map were within the hour. The center of the innermost circle had a single black dot. No lines were drawn to it.
“That black dot represents a very important package being carried by a team of Delta Force operatives. At least, that is the site where we last knew it was, about forty minutes ago. The red dots are Soviet Spetsnaz troops that have been seen by our recon units in the field and by hourly satellite imagery. The blue dots are Mujahideen fighters that have been witnessed in the area as well.
“Both of those groups want to retrieve the package. Our team on the ground has been able to keep it from them so far, but as you can see from this map, the numerous bad guys are closing in. As of this data, both sets of opposing forces were still in the second circle here,” he outlined that circle on the map with his hand, “more than twenty kilometers out from our troops as of last contact. We don’t know their exact numbers, but there are probably at least platoon-strength elements on either side. Most likely, it is about dozen Russians and thirty or more Mujahideen.”
He drew his finger around the inner most circle. “Once they get within the inside circle here, they will be less than five kilometers from the package and time will start to run very short for us being able to get that thing out of there.”
Captain Alexander nodded his understanding as he formulated a picture of the fast-moving scene on the ground.
“Captain, I need you to land in the jungle near that black dot, retrieve the package and get back here with it and yourself both in one piece.”
“Aye, aye sir,” replied the captain. “If I may ask, though, is there a landing zone prepped in there? It looks pretty hilly on the map, lots of steep edges.”
The older man looked at him and said, “That’s why I asked about your landing skills, Alexander. The Delta Force guys down there said that they will make sure there is a good LZ cleared for you, but it is going to be just barely large enough for your Harrier. It’s only going to be about sixty feet long and forty feet wide. They told us it is mostly level, but,” the general pointed to some hilly terrain noted on the map, “you need to be aware there is a crosswind coming through these mountains just to the northeast of the site. It won’t be a walk in the park.”
“I understand, sir,” Karl said as he carefully studied the map. He glanced over to the stack of satellite imagery pictures near the map. They showed a heavily covered, triple-canopy jungle. The close-ups showed trees that looked as much as one hundred meters high in places. A plush carpet of thick green brush covered every surface. Even if they cleared an area twice as big as he needed for the plane, he might not see it with all of that foliage.
He asked, “Just where is the landing going to be, sir?”
The general handed him a paper with grid numbers written on it then pointed to a mountainous spot on the map. “Right there, son.” His finger touched a set of thin black and red elevation rings that seemed very close together, indicating a steep incline. They were about a kilometer southwest of the black dot, on the opposite side of a mountain.
“Right on the side of that mountain.” He tapped the map with the tip of his thick index finger. “There is a spot that, according to the men there, used to be some kind of ancient monastery with a flat stone courtyard. They are working on clearing the brush out now so you can land and get out easily. The spot will be marked with two infrared beacons that will be placed on the northeast and southwest corners.”
Karl’s mind worked over the information as it was coming in. This was definitely not like any kind of training mission he had done. His eyes moved over to another stack of pictures spread out on the opposite corner of the table. They showed the faces of several men, some Caucasian and some Arabic-looking.
“Are these men people I need to be aware of, sir?” he asked.
“In your case, for what your task on this mission is, no, at least, not them particularly. These,” General Cliff picked up the pictures of the white men, “are Russian FSB and KGB agents known to be working in the area. You will probably not see them, but their troops, a company of Soviet Special Forces Spetsnaz and Naval Infantry Commandos, are all over the place scouring the jungle for our package. The others are some rogue Mujahideen fighters who seem to have developed a rather keen interest in the package to further their own agenda. Be advised that if those guys, either group, gets anywhere close to that package there may be ground fire, especially as you try to take off.”
The captain looked at the pictures. The men in them had hard, even hateful faces. Most were Arabic-looking with dark beards. Two were of Central Asian lineage. Their looks betrayed a combined genetic heritage of Caucasian, Middle Eastern and Asian. None were smiling, their expressions void of friendly emotion.
“I thought the Mujahideen were on our side. Aren’t we helping them beat the Soviets?”
“We are.” General Cliff paused, running his hand over the bristling silver stubble on his round head. “But some of them don’t appreciate our aid as much as others do.”
The general took a single picture from the stack and showed it to the captain.
“This one, for instance, is a young man who would prefer not to have our help at all. He is the disenfranchised son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian family, the bin Ladens. He’s a young millionaire, not much older than you, named Osama. He absolutely despises everything outside of Islam and hates Americans with a passion unequaled by his peers. He’s a bit crazy, and most of the other Mujahideen don’t like him either. But he has developed a strong following among the wilder fringe of Jihadists and has plenty cash to finance his own war against the world. He’s been seen in the area within the past two days. Be aware of this guy and his followers. They are ruthless murderers. It is just as important to keep this package away from him as the Russians—maybe more important.”
“Sir?” Karl asked.
“Yes, Captain?”
“What is in this package?”
“Bad stuff. It is a recipe for several different variations of extremely toxic chemicals, some new form of VX-like gas. It’s a highly contagious virus or bacteria those Soviet bastards developed, the kind of stuff that’ll slowly melt the flesh off people, but leave them alive for a while to suffer and pass it on to others. This is really nasty material, and absolutely imperative to get it away from those folks. The scientist who made the potion was killed trying to escape from the Russians, but his assistant was able to get the recipe to our agents.”
“I understand, sir. I’ll do everything I can.”
“I know you will, Captain. That’s why I asked you to do this. You will go by your call sign on this mission, Eagle One. Upon landing, you will be met by Team Vulture; they will get the package to you as soon as you hit the deck. If all goes well, it should be an in and out mission and you will probably be back here for lunch. You will have a full tank of gas as well as extra wing tanks, but only limited armament to save on weight. Bravo should keep the MiGs busy enough to give you a clear trail in and out. The Burmese government, through a general named Bang Kao, has cleared your flight to pass through their ground radar screen. They don’t want this thing in their territory either. You will be challenged when you enter their radar coverage and are to respond with your call sign and tail numbers.
“Bravo should be taking off in about fifteen minutes. You will go ten minutes after their last planes are airborne and then Alpha will be up fifteen minutes after that. God be with you son. Semper Fi.”
Captain Alexander stepped back and snapped to attention. “Semper Fi, sir.”
It was 0815 hours. The rolling of the waves gently rocked the ship, breaking rhythmically against the hull of the USS Belleau Wood in a foamy white spray as the fleet cruised through the Indian Ocean into the brilliant red and orange rays of the morning sunrise as the hemisphere slowly yawned awake.