Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit tcml-4

by Tom Clancy

  A VMA-231 AV-8B Plus Harrier II Over the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Bushehr, Iran, 0230 Hours, December 28th, 2006

  From the cockpit of Spade-1, Major Terry "Pirate" Kidd could see almost everything happening below through his night-vision goggles and the multi-function display of his FLIR targeting pod. He was flying at 12,000 ft/3,667.7 m. as lead ship of a two Harrier flight assigned to cover Chilly Dog against interference by Iranian forces. Each aircraft carried pairs of Sidewinder and AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, two CBU-87 cluster bombs, a pair of AGM-65G Maverick air-to-ground missiles, and a GAU-12 25mm gun pod. He had listened to Spade-3 and -4 taking out the defense platforms with their HARMs, and was now using his APG-65 radar to track the movements of the HMM-263 helicopters.

  As he and his wingman orbited back to the west, he saw the LCACs unloading vehicles and other equipment at the dock, and he smiled as Lieutenant Colonel Shaw called in the success code for capturing the Iranian nuclear weapons and personnel. All that was left was to take care of the reactor itself, and then to get everyone back out into international waters. Thus far, Chilly Dog had gone perfectly, with only two Marines from Charlie Company suffering minor wounds from stray Iranian fire at the power plant.

  Then it happened. One of the AH-1 W attack helicopters came too close to the Iranian garrison compound, and a trio of shoulder-fired SA-16 missiles lanced out towards the Cobra. The helicopter evaded two of the missiles through a combination of maneuver and decoy flares, but the last missile hit home on the tail boom. Though it was heavily damaged, the pilot managed to get it to the ground, but not before he and the gunner both suffered sprained backs and ankles. They managed to crawl away from the wreckage (which, thankfully, didn't burn), calling on their rescue radios for a TRAP mission. Pirate immediately called for the standby TRAP team: a CH-53E and two Harriers. The TRAP team Marines were standing by on the hangar deck ready to go, and Colonel Newman in the LFOC indicated that they would be on station in twenty minutes. Until then, Pirate and Spade-2 would provide cover for the two downed Marines.

  The first problem was to suppress the continuing ground fire from the Iranian compound. Kidd locked up his FLIR onto an air conditioning unit on the top of the nearest barracks and slaved his radar to provide a good delivery solution. He ordered his wingman in Spade-2 to hit the other end of the compound, and they dove on the complex, releasing their CBU-87s. Kidd tried to put out of his mind that he had probably just killed a hundred or more Iranian soldiers. Combat was like that. In the end, what kept him focused was the fact that he was doing it for two brother Marines who were down and hurt. His mind clearer, he turned the Harrier flight around in a wide starboard turn, and headed back to the crash site.

  Reactor Control Room, Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran, 0250 Hours, December 28th, 2006

  The last act of the Chilly Dog assault plan was "safeing" the reactor plant. This meant finding a way to rapidly shut down the plant, and then to make it incapable of producing plutonium. The solution had been found in an IAEA report on a Czech nuclear plant that was a near twin of the Bushehr facility.

  When you perform an emergency shutdown of a nuclear pile, called a SCRAM, there is a lot of latent heat left in the reactor. Even with the cooling pumps working full speed, the IAEA specialists figured that it would take three to four days for the plant to go "cold" to the point where it could be completely shut down. Destroying the huge water-cooling towers was out of the question. Damaging the control rod assembly was also ruled out, since it would require opening the radioactive reactor pressure vessel. The experts therefore decided that the safest course of action would be to eliminate the ability to restart the reactor by taking out the control rod electronics and consoles, once the reactor had been SCRAMed and backup generators started to maintain the cooling pumps' vital flow of water. This would require access to the main control room of the plant, and that was easier said than done.

  Just as the laws of physics dictate the design of a nuclear reactor core, regardless of the owner's ideology, the laws of small-arms fire and human psychology dictate the design of a reactor control complex. Security is a fundamental design criterion. To be certified as safe to operate, a reactor control complex must pass a rigorous security-threat evaluation, just as its overall design, systems redundancy, documentation, and operator training must be evaluated by appropriate experts. Over the years, a great deal of high-tech wizardry had been proposed for ensuring the safety of reactor controls against a well-armed and well-organized terrorist attack. Entry locks keyed to retinal patterns, fingerprints, or brain-wave spectrums of authorized personnel. Passageways that can be instantly filled with sticky foam, or debilitating gas.

  At Bushehr, though, physical security relied on the tried and true system of steel doors with firing ports, and men with automatic weapons behind them. These defenses were deployed in depth, with a labyrinth of right-angle turns that created "man-trap" corridors with kill zones swept by fire from two directions.

  But anything defended by men with guns can be taken by men with guns. The variables are hard to quantify, but they include training, small-unit cohesion, special weapons and tactics, and something indefinable that falls somewhere between uncommon valor and common craziness. The Marines of the 22nd MEU (SOC) had practiced this drill many times, often taking the role of the "aggressor" forces in exercises staged with the cooperation of the Department of Energy at a variety of active and decommissioned nuclear plants.

  The main outer gate resembled a bank vault door; indeed it had been installed by the same firm that supplied most of the vaults for the better-known Swiss banks. In initial planning for the mission, Major Shaw of VMA-231 had proposed cracking the gate with the formidable armor-piercing warheads of precision-guided Maverick missiles; but the problem of targeting in the confusion of the ground battle, the proximity of friendly troops, and the risk of collateral damage to the plant had ruled this out.

  In the end it came down to the practiced eye and hand of Lance Corporal Drew Richardson, an AT-4 missile gunner in the Heavy Weapons Platoon of Charlie Company. Repeated direct hits with shoulder-fired rockets left the massive steel door twisted and hanging from its hinges. Two Marines managed to loop a steel cable around the wreckage, and the powerful winch on an LAV combat engineer vehicle, landed by one of the LCACs, pulled it clear. Inside the door, the passageway made a right-angle turn, and the darkened corridor was under fire from both ends.

  The security team had ordered the control crew, including the foreign contract workers, behind an armored door, and prepared to defend the room against the Marines that they now knew were inside the perimeter of the power plant. They had given up trying to call for outside help long ago, the phone lines having been cut by the Force Reconnaissance teams and the airwaves jammed by a LAV electronic combat vehicle brought ashore by the LCACs. There was little they could do except defend the room to the death, which was exactly what they intended to do.

  The drill for the forced-entry team was not subtle. One man would toss smoke grenades around the corner, while a pair of AT-4 gunners, each wearing a respirator and lightweight FLIR goggles, rolled out onto the floor, firing into the next barrier. The team leader used a thermal viewer with a right-angle periscope to determine the results of each shot. This had to be repeated several times before the last guard posts were silenced and the final steel door to the reactor control room was breached with a demolition charge.

  The assault force poured through the opening, to take the control room crew into temporary custody. The night-duty crew inside the control room consisted of about a dozen technicians. Some had been deafened by the blast, and a few were cut by splinters, but they had had the sense to stay away from the door when they heard the first muffled explosions. As the Marines cautiously entered the room, they quickly secured the technicians, binding their wrists with plastic handcuffs, and separating the contract workers from the Iranians. The native technicians were trooped outside to a holding area, while the three foreigners were
kept in the room.

  Among them was Lev Davidovich Telfian, who had wisely donned earplugs and goggles before the engagement began. He had decided as soon as the first warning had sounded to lay low, taking no action that might be construed as favoring either side. While he hoped that the Marines would evacuate him, he feared that they might just as well leave him behind. He was relieved when the young lieutenant commanding the assault team came forward and greeted him personally with a warm handshake.

  AH-1W Crash Site South of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran, 0255 Hours, December 28th, 2006

  The two Cobra crewmen had taken cover behind a large rock, and were monitoring the status of the TRAP team's progress on their rescue radios. Colonel Newman was better than his word, and the big CH-53E with its security team arrived eighteen minutes after the emergency call. With two fresh Harriers flying top cover, the Super Stallion touched down, and a platoon of Marines fanned out to surround the site. While four Navy corpsmen saw to the injuries of the Cobra crewmen, four more Marines approached the wreck of the AH-1W, secured the classified and crypto components, and set demolition charges to ensure nothing useful to the Iranians was left behind. Five minutes later, mission accomplished, the CH-53E lifted off. The charges detonated, turning the wreck into a blazing fireball of jet fuel and ammunition.

  Reactor Control Room, Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran, 0310 Hours, December 28th, 2006

  The control room was becoming crowded with all the witnesses and the CNN camera crew. Colonel Newman had made it clear that this phase of Chilly Dog would be documented to the smallest detail. For Wendy Kwan, looking somewhat less than glamorous in a desert camouflage Kevlar helmet and battle-dress uniform, it was the most exhilarating and frightening experience of her life. She watched as the Marine technical team leader pressed the red SCRAM buttons for each reactor, setting off a chorus of alarms. Each move was supervised by Hans Ulrich, Professor Kennelly, and a Russian she did not know. After the alarms and warning indicators had been turned off, and the backup generators had automatically kicked in to keep the cooling circulation pumps running, the Marines went to work.

  They rapidly dismantled the control rod assembly panel, leaving only cable ends clipped off, their connectors removed for good measure. The racks of control electronics were given the same treatment and wheeled out of the room. Finally, a pair of Marines with sticky-foam guns arrived. They filled the control conduits to the reactors with the quick-setting foam, making it impossible to restore the plant's control circuits without extensive demolition work. When this was done, the room was evacuated, and it was time to go home. Ten minutes later, at the suggestion of Lieutenant Colonel Shaw, the Iranian technicians returned to the control room, taking over the job of monitoring coolant flow to the rapidly faltering reactor.

  LFOC, USS Bataan (LHD-5), 40 nm/73 km West of Bushehr, Iran, 0315 Hours, December 28th, 2006

  Criminals say that breaking into a bank is hard, but getting away is harder. It was now time for the 22nd MEU (SOC) to get the hell out of Iran. While they had done immense damage, their luck could not hold forever. Already there were seven casualties, and additional delay on the Iranian coast would only cause more. First to go were the LCACs, with their load of equipment from the plant and reprocessing facility, as well as the heavy vehicles and trucks. The partially assembled warheads followed in a pair of CH-53Es, along with the prisoners from the assembly room in MV-22Bs. Charlie Company in their rigid raiders left next, escorted by the three surviving Cobra gunships. A single CH-53E, covered by Major Kidd's two Harriers, moved around the battlefield, retrieving sniper and Force Reconnaissance teams. Captain Hansen and his AAAVs withdrew through the mud flats, to begin their high-speed swim back to Trenton (LPD-14). Last out was Lieutenant Colonel Shaw aboard Lieutenant Colonel Taskins's Osprey. Five minutes later, the only sounds to be heard at the Bushehr nuclear power plant were the hum of the backup generators and circulation pumps and the sputtering explosions of ammunition cooking off in the barracks across the road.

  USS Bataan (LHD-5), 0415 Hours, December 28th, 2006

  The Air Boss spent a busy twenty minutes getting LCACs and aircraft aboard; the elevators had never been worked so hard in so short a time. First aboard were the Harriers, which were rapidly rearmed, refueled, and launched to provide combat air patrol (CAP) during the critical hours to come. The nuclear material was loaded into shielded containers and sealed for shipment. The prisoners were processed into three groups. The "special" tags were assigned to key leaders and technicians, who went straight to the ship's brig and a round-the-clock suicide watch. Minor personnel were restricted to a chain-link-fenced area in the hangar bay, until they could be returned to Iran through the Red Cross. Finally, there were evacuees like Lev Davidovich Telfian, who were given a ration of medical bourbon, a hot breakfast, and a stateroom to sleep off their adventures. He shared it with the Pakistani technician who had passed him the CD-ROM, and both slept well for the first time in months. For the Marines, Captain Rainbow had laid on a special meal of steak and eggs, followed by a quick cleaning and stowing of weapons before they hit their bunks. When Trenton rejoined the formation, the ARG and its escorts laid on 24 kt/44 kph, and headed for the Straits of Hormuz. There they would pick up a CAP of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets from Constellation, and would head out into the open ocean and Diego Garcia, where they would off-load their cargo and passengers.

  USS Constellation (CV-64) Battle Group, Arabian Sea, 0430 Hours, December 28th, 2006

  As things calmed down in the Persian Gulf, there was one final act to Chilly Dog. At 0430 hours, two Aegis cruisers and a pair of Spruance-class destroyers began to launch a strike by 124 BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles against the automobile factory at Bandar al Abbas and missile batteries in the Straits of Hormuz. After an overland flight from the Arabian Sea side of Iran, they leveled their targets, fully 88 % of the missiles striking their designated aim-points. With this, Chilly Dog came to an end. The political fallout around the world, though, would last for months.

  Joint Session of the U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C., January 18th, 2007

  The final words of the President's 2005 State of the Union Address were simple, as all good speeches should be. "Ladies and gentlemen, I summarize the results of the Bushehr Raid in this way. We have decisively ended a clear violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as a threat to the stability of Southwest Asia. Even more important, the individuals who perpetrated this violation are to be tried shortly for crimes against humanity. Already, we have seen the fall of the Islamic Revolutionary government in Iran and the beginning of a thaw between ourselves and the people of that troubled land. We offer the hand of friendship and commerce to the people of Iran, and the hope that the terrible fire that we have contained will never again raise its head in the Persian Gulf.

  "I also wish to thank the men and women who conducted this action. We live in a new millennium, and unless we choose different paths for ourselves and our world, the human race will not see another. Luckily, we have good people out there who stand on the walls, and guard them for us as we sleep. I never want to be without a military to watch over our interests, and protect them. God bless them, and God bless the United States of America!"

  Officers' Mess, USS Bataan (LHD-5), Western Mediterranean, January 18th, 2007

  Lev Davidovich Telfian watched the State of the Union address with a smile on his face, knowing that he had helped in bringing a happy end to this situation. He was still aboard the Bataan, where he would be safer until the memories of the Iranians were less fresh. Telfian had been thinking about what he wanted to do next, and he had several offers. One came from the IAEA to work on an inspection team in South America and Africa. Another one had been extended from the U.S., to work as a consultant for the Defense Nuclear Agency on counter-proliferation issues. Even the SVR was making him an offer, as an intelligence analyst at Moscow headquarters. That last one held few attractions for him. Perhaps the Americans. At least they were
working to take the damned bombs apart. After being so close to the nuclear genie for so long, perhaps it was time to try and force it back into the bottle.

  Operation Tropic Fury: The Liberation of Brunei, September 2008

  Limbang Valley, Brunei, September 2nd, 2008

  This morning, the Sultan of Brunei would dedicate a new clinic for the hill tribes of the upper Limbang Valley. The Royal helicopter, a luxurious Sikorsky S-76, snaked up the valley from the South China Sea toward the rain-forested mountains of northern Borneo. It was only a twenty-minute flight from the Palace, and the airspace over the entire district had been cleared of other traffic. Sometimes the Sultan, an enthusiastic and reasonably skilled pilot, liked to take the controls himself, but today he was content to sit back and browse through the electronic edition of the Wall Street Journal on his new Toshiba data pad. The lead story was, in fact, about his plan for partition and management of newly surveyed oil fields in the South China Sea.