Ground Ops Action Packed Techno Thriller (3/3)

CHAPTER 8 WHAT IF THE ENEMY HAS SOMETHING WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT?

Scene 88 The Pre-Strike Briefing, General Lowell Ueberroth, General Daniel Danziger, and Colonel Henry Winston Wingate

Scene 89 The Intel Flight to Al Basrah. Beam Weapon? or No Beam Weapon?

Scene 90 What Do You Make Of The Blip On The Radar Screen?

Scene 91 Cowboy Heaven, Howell! Just Like Back In The Nam!

Scene 92 Andy, Moses, And, Joe, Fax A Picture to Stanley Craypool

Scene 93 Stanley Receives the Fax From Andy, Moses, And Joe

Scene 94 Billy Hollenbeck Thinks Combat Is Cowboy Heaven!

Scene 95 Lieutenant General Danziger Takes Lieutenant Colonel Bill Norman Off Flying Status

CHAPTER 9 AN IRAQI PATRIOT TAKES MATTERS INTO HIS OWN HANDS

Scene 96 It Must Be An Eye For An Eye! It Must Be!

Scene 97 The Iraqi Militia Swears Revenge On The Infidels!

Scene 98 Bloody Ambush At The Speed Bump Check Stop

Scene 99 Latrece Argyle Man’s the Radio

Scene 100 Sarah Thomas and Billy Hollenbeck Picnic at the Front Gate

CHAPTER 10 SOME MISSIONS STAY CLASSIFIED FOREVER

Scene 101 Morris Tietelbaum Prepares To Punch a Hole in the Iraqi Line in the Sand

Scene 102 INTEL at CENTCOM Hands Professor Tietelbaum A Set of ‘Rules Of Engagement’

Scene 103 A Republican Guard Staff Sergeant on Sentry Duty Hears Something in the Night Skies Overhead

Scene 104 Craypool and Tietelbaum Collaborate On A Ballistic Missile Calculation

Scene 105 A Republican Guard Staff Sergeant on Sentry Duty Hears and Sees Something in the Night Skies Overhead

Scene 106 Hell Fire Missiles off Tietelbaum’s Remotely Piloted Vehicle Impact Their Target

Scene 107 Master Sergeant Mohammed Manujan Gets His Men Out Of Bed!

Scene 108 Tietelbaum Lands His Remotely Piloted Vehicle

Scene 109 Manujan’s Men Leave Ash Shabakah for Salman in a Blood Lust!

Scene 110 Colonel Morgan’s Men Engage Manujan’s Republican Guard Contingent in ‘Enfilade’

Scene 111 The Assault Team Makes Ready near Ash Shabakah

Scene 112 Silver Springs Maryland. Stanley Craypool Takes a Long Distance Call from Andy Howell

CHAPTER 11 TIME TO WRAP THINGS UP AND HEAD FOR HOME

Scene 113 Moses Anderson Falls under the Spell of a Refugee

Scene 114 Moses Anderson Sends His Wife Linda A Facsimile

Scene 115 Moses Anderson Takes a Meeting with A Hospital Administrator And, Miss Euphrates Karaman

Scene 116 The War Is Over! Andy And Karen Howell Have A Baby Girl!

Scene 117 1 March, 1991, Moses Anderson Has Some Important Papers To Shuffle

Scene 118 Miss Euphrates Karaman Arrives In the United States

Scene 119 The Doctors Transfer Colonel Beauregard ‘Bo’ Morgan to the Diabetes Ward

Scene 120 Colonel Morgan and His Wife Receive a Contingent of Youthful Visitors

Scene 121 Roxanne La Fontaine Has an Unexpected Male Visitor

Scene 122 Do You Call A United States Senator Mister or Honorable?

Scene 123 A Baptism and a Daffodil for Baby Alicia Lynn Howell

CHAPTER 8 WHAT IF THE ENEMY HAS SOMETHING WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT?

An HH - 60 Pave Hawk Helicopter Lifting Off After Dark

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Scene 88 The Pre-Strike Briefing, General Lowell Ueberroth, General Daniel Danziger, and Colonel Henry Winston Wingate

Location: Camp Nevada command tent, just to the south east of Rafha, Saudi Arabia

It takes roughly three hundred and fifty men to staff a Helicopter Squadron in a Marine Corps Expeditionary Unit. Thus, the command tent is a little top heavy with officers to the exclusion of enlisted men for the morning pre-strike briefing. Word has been circulating for the last few days about a stealthy reconnaissance mission to a locale north west of the Al Basrah International Airport. Something to do with electronics intelligence, something, something, maybe, maybe, even the Iraqi’s have a secret weapon. Consequently, all the men in the tent have their muscles flushed bright red with adrenaline, they are eager to volunteer.

Lieutenant General Lowell Ueberroth, USA, Commander of all the Ranger Units in the Army’s Special Operations Command flew in this morning from Riyadh by transport helicopter. It was a mini-media event in the sand dunes off Saudi Arabian highway 30. Complete with a Humvee ride from the Rafha airport to the front flaps of the Command Tent, and a round of handshakes with Lieutenant General Daniel Danziger, USMC, and Colonel Henry Winston Wingate of the Central Intelligence Agency. As soon as the handshakes are seen to at the tent stakes outside the tent, Sergeant Major Del Campo calls the men inside the tent to attention.

General’s Ueberroth, Danziger, and Colonel Wingate, stride into the tent dressed in fresh starched and pressed chocolate chip fatigues. As his aide, Major David Kitchens, USA, passes a file folder into the hands of General Ueberroth, Del Campo shouts ‘At Ease’ and the men in the tent take their seats. General Lowell Ueberroth waits patiently a few moments while Sergeant Major Del Campo, with the help of Major Kitchens, brings an easel forward. There is a blow up map of Iraq taped to the rough edged corrugated cardboard sheet resting against the scantling boards of the easel.

With the General standing there in front of the men, his sleeves rolled up above his elbows, an aluminum pointer spread out between both hands, and the heels of his boots in the parade rest position, Del Campo throws his shoulders out- and booms.

Gentlemen! … General Lowell Ueberroth, Commander, United States Army Rangers!

As Del Campo walks off stage, the Army General begins his narration.

Gentlemen, and ladies, in forty eight hours a team of six helicopters. Four of my Apaches and two Huey’s out of the 14th Marine Expeditionary Unit are going to cross into Iraqi airspace and make their way to Kill Box eighteen.

With that preamble, General Ueberroth turns to the map of Iraq on the easel at his right hand and taps on the southeastern city of Al Basrah with the shiny tip of his aluminum pointer. Then he swivels back to make eye contact with the men dressed in fatigues and standing under canvas.

There is a telephone microwave relay tower some ten kilometers north west of the Az Zubayr oil fields, due west of the Al Basrah International Airport.

"We absolutely have to get in there and take a look around!"

Ueberroth’s pause is the cue for Major David Kitchens to pass three black and white photographs into his hands. The General holds the top photograph up next to his head. The marines in the first row can make out a dark object with sharp outlines resting at an oblique angle in what appears to be a sand dune.

Aerial reconnaissance photograph. says the General in a flat voice.

Twenty four hours after this hunk of whatever it is appeared on the sand. The Iraqi’s turned on their over the horizon radars and started squinting south towards Kuwait! The radars switched on Sunday, July 29th 1990!

Now the General passes the photos back to Major Kitchens, who, in turn, offers them to the eager hands of the men in the first row. When Major Kitchens steps back, the General starts in again on his narrative.

Last week a Combat Ranger Team went in under cover of darkness and came out with a set of close ups.

Major Kitchens passes another set of black and whites into the waiting hands of the General. The General holds these in front of his chest. The men in the first row can make out some kind of an armored vehicle photographed by flashlight.

The hunk of whatever turns out to be a Soviet made, BRDM-2. A lightly armored four wheel four wheel drive amphibious recon vehicle.

Now the General points to a tangled lump of metal some distance away from the body of the Soviet vehicle with his right index finger.

This mess here is the turret. Blown up. Thrown off a good twenty feet.

Now the problem here is- a cannon shell can damage an armored car in this manner.

And a flame thrower can burn off paint and start a gas tank fire.

Now Ueberroth pulls up some close up photographs of the utterly destroyed vehicle. While glancing down at the photos in front of his chest he taps at certain features lightly.

See here! …. And Here?! …. That’s steel armor plate melted like a birthday candle!

What kind of a weapon melts steel plate like it was candle wax?!

Lieutenant General Lowell Ueberroth, USA, steps forward and hands the photos taken by his rangers to the marines in the first row of his audience. Then he turns to his right to come face to face with Lieutenant General Daniel Danziger, USMC.

General Danziger, Sir, if you would please! says the Army to the Marine Corps General waiting patiently in the wings. Daniel Danziger moves front and center and Lowell Ueberroth backs up to a point next to the easel. Danziger stands in front of the men with his shoulders back and his hands cupped easily at his sides.

The pictures you have in your hands made their way from Riyadh back to the pentagon.

The pentagon people are certain no weapon in our inventory. No known weapon in the Iraqi inventory. Can melt plates of steel with that much intensity.

That’s fact one.

Another piece of the puzzle is that Saddam Hussein has an overbuilt power grid. No nation on earth can bring as much electrical energy to bear on any one location at any one point in time.

That’s fact two.

I could cite more data points. But the science and math of the issues are simply not for discussion under canvas.

General Danziger sees he has the complete attention of his audience. He lets some of the air out of his lungs and clasps his right hand in his left in front of his belt buckle. Now his voice takes on a nearly paternal tone.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to hunch out we have to punch through a perimeter defense to roll the armadillo up all the way to Baghdad.

That’s the problem. Saddam Hussein would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb, not to expect Apache gunships chopping his radars off at the knees on a dark starlight night.

Common sense. You don’t get that everywhere. Common sense says Hussein must have a secret weapon.

General Danziger needs some time to collect his thoughts and reign in his emotions so he paces left and right excitedly in front of his men.

Let’s start off by granting the Iraqi’s a beam weapon. A death ray gun.

A weapon like that has to have energy to feed it. There has to be some way of either hiding it or moving it around. … SCUD missile launchers, for example, Hussein keeps shifting them all over the sand so we can’t find them.

Daniel Danziger turns to his right and says.

Colonel Morgan! Colonel Beauregard ‘Bo’ Morgan, USMC, is ready, waiting, and, eager. He marches to a point at the General’s right hand side and turns to face the men. There is a color photograph in his hands which he holds up at chest height.

Smart money says the BRDM got burned to a crisp by a beam weapon.

You can’t get something for nothing. So we doubt mobile beam weapons. An alternator simply can’t turn out the juice.

Now Morgan taps with his finger at the picture of a microwave telephone relay tower, located somewhere in the arid south west of the United States.

Saddam Hussein has microwave telephone relay towers like we do. But somebody noticed his towers run ten feet taller and are about five miles closer in to one another.

Best bet is a beam weapon hidden in the horns of these towers.

Colonel Morgan’s fingertip goes to the wedge shaped cone at the top of the tower. Then he grins and says proudly.

Original plans had Apache gunships taking out radar towers before the ground assault.

Now the priority is- - prove or disprove a beam weapon in this tower antenna.

A beam weapon, properly placed, accurately targeted, could knock rotary wings out of the sky like a two by four on top of butterflies.

Colonel Morgan stands there enjoying the polite silence. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind but that this mission will engender a long line of volunteers.

Without another word the Commander of the Readiness Detachment which was absorbed by the 14th MEU for the duration of the Desert Shield Desert Storm conflict, steps forward and hands the color photos to the men in the first row. Then he steps back and announces.

Let’s wrap it up with a few comments from Colonel Wingate! … Colonel Wingate, sir!

The African American Colonel Henry Winston Wingate, Commander of the Action Officer’s Unit in The Central Intelligence Agency, is in his sixth decade. Consequently, he moves to center stage with just as much presence, but not quite all the energy of the officers preceding.

Lance Corporal Billy Hollenbeck and African American Private First Class Daunte Williams stand far in the rear of the tent, with their backs to the canvas wall. As the African American Colonel, Henry Wingate makes his way to the center of the stage. Daunte smiles proudly and then elbows Billy Hollenbeck in the ribs.

He’s way up in the C.I.A., Billy! says Private First Class Williams.

Billy Hollenbeck opens his mouth to reply but before he can say anything, Colonel Wingate’s resonant baritone makes its way to the rear of the tent.

August 19th, 1942, gentlemen! … August 19th 1942 the Allies raided the French port city of Dieppe!

Over six thousand infantry men with tanks and air cover crossed the English Channel in light ships and stormed the French towns of Dieppe, and Puys, and Pourville!

On paper the goal of the mission was to hold Dieppe in preparation for a cross channel mass attack! … Give our Russian Allies the second front they so sorely needed!

In the newspapers the attack was a failure! … The media reported a complete rout after nine hours of fighting with sixty-five percent casualties on our side! … We lost over one hundred airplanes to a German loss of less than fifty!

Colonel Wingate lets the air out of his lungs and stands there with the look of a grizzly bear.

For decades after the war official histories wrote off the Raid at Dieppe as a complete and utter failure! … But there was a deeper truth! … A secret agenda! … The men who died and were wounded at Dieppe, and Puys, and Pourville, helped win the war!

The Colonel raises his fist above his head and shakes it to and fro.

You see! … The Germans had their best radar unit encircled by pillboxes just behind the town of Dieppe! … True enough our men could not penetrate the wall of German machine gun fire! ... True enough over one thousand died!

But what the heroic English and Canadian soldiers did accomplish! … What they did do! … Was to cut the electrical power lines to the radar station!

Colonel Wingate pauses for a moment while he catches his breath.

With no electricity! … With their phone lines severed! … The Germans were forced to communicate over their radios!

What we learned from their radio transmissions proved life saving beyond calculation!

I tell you now, gentlemen. Lord Mountbatten said directly. And I quote. Every life lost at Dieppe saved eleven lives at the Normandy Landing, June 6th, 1944!

The tent goes completely silent. Everyone can see the genuine, emotion Colonel Wingate invests in one of the major uniformed intelligence gathering operations of the Second World War. The deep feelings he retains in his heart for his fallen comrades after all these years. It is a little like being in Church. Colonel Wingate’s eyes water up. He brings his fist to his lips and clears his throat in an effort to regain his composure. Last, he says.

There is no reason for even one man to die in the mission to Al Basrah.

But remember men. The truth of your situation. The mission to Al Basrah is no less a turning point, no less critical, than the raid at Dieppe some forty eight years ago!

You are dismissed!

Obediently, every man and woman in the command tent rises to his or her feet and stands at attention. Private First Class Daunte Williams turns to his friend Lance Corporal Billy Hollenbeck. With an ear to ear grin on his face Daunte says.

We’re getting in on this, Hollenbeck!

Billy nods and smiles but the smile on his lips is somewhat wry at the edges. He replies to his African American friend.

I like the part about mission critical and Dieppe, Daunte.

The part I don’t like is waiting around forty eight years to get the medal!

Scene 89 The Intel Flight to Al Basrah. Beam Weapon? or No Beam Weapon?

Location: Off a two lane highway just north of Al Waqba, Saudi Arabia

There are four Apache (AH 64A) Attack and two Huey (UH-1N) Light Lift Utility helicopters parked in a rude cluster. On the west side of the two-lane highway connecting the Saudi Arabian town of Al Waqba in the south, with the Iraqi town of Makhfar al Busayyah in the north. As it happens, these rotary wing craft are less than ten miles south of the hostile border with Iraq. Consequently, except for starlight and an occasional blink off the flashlights in the hands of the pilots, copilots / gunners, and crewmembers, the sixteen-man penetration team stands there in the soft sand in near total darkness.

The distance from the makeshift roadside heliport to the Iraqi city of Al Basrah is a good one hundred and fifty miles. Just at the end of the flight radius of both the Apache’s and the Huey’s. Accordingly, Moses Anderson stands in front of the air reconnaissance team in silence. Waiting patiently for the noise of the aviation gasoline refueling trucks and escort Humvee’s to recede into the darkness. When the grumbling noise of diesel engines fades away accompanied by blinking taillights as punctuation. Lieutenant Colonel Moses Anderson turns the beam of his flashlight onto an eight by ten inch photograph and says,

This is the best photograph we have of the suspect microwave telephone relay tower.

With that, the African American Action Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency hands out eight by ten inch portrait views taken from the ground, of a microwave tower with four horn antennas perched at the top. After a glance down at his personal copy of the photograph, he raises his head and remarks.

Coordinates on the tower are 47 degrees 15 minutes west and 30 degrees 31 minutes north- give or take.

At very best, the GPS units the Rangers have are accurate to about a hundred feet. So keep your eyes wide open and out the window. Just use your compass to find the fresh water reservoir.

Now Colonel Anderson holds the photo up in the air again next to his chest and points at the horns on the top of the tower with the beam of his flashlight.

Then dig this picture out and start looking!

Anderson lowers the picture to his side. He glances around at all the men in the team. Then he asks.

Any questions? Moses sees the men stand silent and resolute. The team dressed in flight suits, with flying helmets under their arms, and black canvas kit bags in their hands. He wheels around and says. Major Howell.

Andy Howell strides to the front as Moses fades back next to Major David Kitchens, USA. Andy carries a semi-automatic 9 millimeter pistol. His Browning Hi-Power, in a shoulder holster slung under his left arm. He looks fit and ready. Smiling he says,

If we find the tower. Colonel Morgan is gonna pop Huey One up to about sixty or seventy feet and then slide over till we’re right on top.

Andy cants his hands in the air to mimic the motion of a rotary wing crabbing its way on to the top of a destination point the size of a dime.

What happens then is- I rope down and see if I can get inside the antenna.

If I end up taking pictures. I’m gonna have to use a flash attachment.

"Your night vision goggles might