by David Poyer
He hoped Oberg didn’t take too long.
A week ago he’d been sitting in his office. The Navy’s riverine force, small boats to take wars up rivers and inland, had been disbanded after Vietnam. But somebody on the E ring wanted the manual dusted off. It looked okay tactically, but he’d tabbed on scores of yellow stickies where new equipment and new surveillance and targeting capabilities might require updates.
Was the Navy getting serious about brown water operations again? It did occasionally. The Civil War, World War II, Vietnam. But in the intervals, the blue water strategists, the big-ship advocates, let everything learned at such expense wither away. Monitors, for example, had had to be reinvented to cover troop landings in the Mekong Delta.
He hefted the manual, tossed it on his desk and stretched, frowning. And as usual, after not updating it for twenty years, they wanted the rewrite by next month. Usually when you got an order like that you turned to and did the best you could. But it shouldn’t be done that way. They should set up a development schedule. Run a CPX, a command post exercise, using the old procedures. Use the lessons learned to design a live joint exercise—Army craft from Fort Story, Marines from Little Creek, Air Force surveillance, Coast Guard shallow-drafts for inshore work. No service operated alone anymore. Maybe he could work an exercise in as part of the workup for a deploying amphibious group. That way they wouldn’t need a major chunk of funding. It was always hard to push cooked spaghetti up a ladder, which was what trying to implement any kind of change from the bottom was like in the Navy.
On the other hand, he wasn’t exactly on the bottom anymore. And that was TAG’s business, to develop new tactics.
He pulled his keyboard toward him and booted up Word.
He was midstream in a memo when it occurred to him that maybe he could work through Blair. Riverine had always been low-tech, but maybe she knew of something that would make it high-tech. The easiest way to advance a project these days was to make part of it involve buying huge numbers of computers. That was the Navy’s definition of stunning innovation—buying more computers.
“Or are you getting cynical?” he muttered.
His phone rang. “Lenson,” he grunted, phone in the crook of his shoulder, still typing.
“Dan? Oh, you’re here. Step in a minute?”
His CO didn’t seem to be ambitious for flag, which made him easier than most O-6s to get along with. Dan front and centered on the desk. “You called me in, sir?”
Mullaly leaned back. “Close the door, Dan. And sit down. What are you working on now?”
“The riverine manual, sir.”
“Almost done?”
“Well, sir, it’s been twenty years since it was revised. And with the new emphasis on littoral operations in the CNO Guidance, the time’s right to update. Only I think it needs more attention.”
As he explained Mullaly looked thoughtful. “Maybe so, maybe so. I might be able to find a hundred thousand for that. And we could get our reserve unit to run the exercise. Can you give me a memo?”
“On my screen, Captain.”
“Okay, new subject. Just got a call. Your Philippine mission’s approved. The orders are on their way by courier.”
He took a second to re orient. Then felt his hands go numb. “We’re talking—this is the hijack, right? On the freighter? For the Shkval?”
“A covert operation. In every meaning of the term. Including the legal one. Covert, clandestine, and deniable.”
“Covert,” Dan repeated. He was getting that old sinking feeling. He stirred, suddenly feeling trapped in the chair’s padded embrace. “Uh, sir, I’m still not totally up to speed on the terminology. I understand what ‘covert’ means. But what do you mean by ‘clandestine’ and ‘deniable’?”
“I’ll give you the official definition. A ‘clandestine’ action is one sponsored so the operation itself is secret and concealed. A ‘covert’ action conceals the identity of the sponsor. So it could be clandestine but not covert, or covert but not clandestine. But in this case, of course, it’ll be both.”
“And ‘deniable’?”
“That means you’ll have orders, but they’ll never leave my safe.”
“Unless we get into trouble?”
“Dan. There’s no way the Navy could ever be connected with what essentially’s an act of piracy.” Mullaly gave him a moment, then added, “So, we all clear?”
“Not quite, Captain. What I’m hearing is that if things go to shit, we’re out there in the wind.”
“Not if we could help you, pick you up—that’s not what I mean. There’d be forces on tap. Secure comms throughout. But if the cover blew off—no.”
Dan came to a seam in the logic and cleared his throat. “I get that, sir. But another question. My team. They’d just be following my orders, right? They wouldn’t know whether I was off on my own, doing something out of bounds.”
“Well—not necessarily.”
“Will they see these orders?”
“No.”
“Then as far as they know, there are orders. Even if later, the government announces there never were any.”
Mullaly touched his fingers together. “I follow you. In that case, yes, I could probably cover them. As far as any court-martial proceedings, their pensions, insurance and so forth.”
Dan added the unspoken part of this chain of reasoning: But not you. “Well, sir, all that aside, and I have more questions along those lines, let’s slow down a minute. On the action itself. I passed along that idea mainly because Teddy Oberg surfaced it. I don’t believe I actually recommended we pursue it.”
“True. You didn’t. I didn’t, either. You don’t ‘recommend’ things like that. You just put them in a list of options and pass it along. But Higher likes it.”
“Uh, what other options did we pass along?”
“Basically it was do this action, or torpedo or otherwise sink the freighter, or wait for the spooks to come up with something better than what they tried in Moscow.”
“Which could take a while.”
“Longer than whoever’s driving this train can wait,” Mullaly said. “They ran several iterations of the sink-the-freighter idea, but it always came out with too many worst-cases.”
Dan could see that. “Uh, do we know specifically who Higher is?”
Mullaly hesitated. “It’s SecDef level.”
“The SecDef, sir? Or just his office?”
“Well, I assume it’ll be his signature on it. What’s the difference?”
He let that go for now. “Do they actually understand what we’d have to do, sir? We’re talking about seizing a ship on the high seas. Then scuttling it. I don’t have a problem with seizing these weapons. The fewer of these things some people have the safer we all are, themselves included. But the team would be at risk. And as you say, if the news the Navy was in that business got out—”
Mullaly pointed a finger. “Mind if I talk? Commander?”
“Sorry, Captain.”
“I’m sensing an argumentative mood, but I’m not sure I see the reason for it, frankly. Your people can be tasked with covert missions, when required. We agreed on that?”
“Yes, sir. That was made clear when you gave me Team Charlie.”
“Well, that’s what you’re being ordered to carry out.”
Dan sat gripping the armrests. Finally he got out, “Sir, I know I’m not responding with much enthusiasm. But I can’t pretend to be gung-ho about this. It’s illegal, and it could be very dangerous for my people.”
“Really? You’ve made a career out of crossing the line. In ways that, frankly, a lot of senior people didn’t think was warranted by your orders. True or false?”
“Those were situations where there was no other choice.”
“You had another choice: obey your orders.”
“When they were stupid orders? Not to be non-Joint, sir, but that sounds like Armythink to me. I thought the Navy had a different tradition. Right back to Nelson and his bli
nd eye.”
“You’re not Nelson,” Mullaly said. “But my point was, you’ve crossed the line before. This time, you’re going to do it to carry out an officially assigned mission.”
Dan tried to think it through. This was no time to get angry. No time for emotion. He reached for that clear cold detachment he sometimes reached in extremis, and maybe got a little of it. Because he’d made it his business to carefully read the regulations and rules of engagement that covered what Team Charlie could and could not do. Unlike the movies, you didn’t get orders for a secret operation on a self-destructing tape. He’d read National Security Decision Directive 286, and the requirements for covert action notification and approval by Congress. “Well, sir, I’ll look forward to reading those orders. When they come in. Did the oversight committee get prior notice?”
“You’re better off if they don’t. Sensitive contacts have been made, with groups we’re not officially speaking to. The fewer people know, the less chance of leaks while you’re in the field.”
“But that’s part of the oversight process.”
“By law. Correct. And those entities will be informed in the proper manner. Which is all they’re entitled to, and all you need to know.” Mullaly pushed back his chair and got up; Dan rose, too. His CO nodded, his manner cooler than when Dan had come in. “The courier will be here this afternoon. Start setting up your transportation and getting your guys notified. Remind them: close hold. As far as their families are concerned, this is just another SATYRE exercise.”
He nodded again; Dan stood by the door. But for some reason he didn’t want to leave, as if leaving meant it would all happen, and if he stayed, maybe it wouldn’t. “I’d feel better if we had some sort of cover story. Just in case it really does go wrong.”
“My advice is, don’t waste time worrying about it,” Mullaly told him. “You’re just going to have to hang your butt over the edge. As you’ve done before. Now put that riverine shit on the back burner and get your team ready to go.”
Crouched, letting his eyes adapt to the dim beneath the trees, Oberg bent to check the Glock in his leg sheath. The knife, not the pistol—a heavy-duty thin-blade he’d used in Iraq to cut truck tires off their rims. It was sturdy and lightweight, and he could sharpen it with a file. Then he straightened, and followed Sosukan’s black tee. He kept his gaze moving between the trees, probing the shadows. He didn’t trust this guy, and wasn’t sure he trusted the people who’d sent him to them.
The Filipino was MNLF. And the Moro National Liberation Front was supposed to have made a truce, or at least a temporary cease-fire, with the Manila government. So far, so good. But when an insurgent group compromised, it had a way of splintering. An op was only as good as its intel, but on this one, they didn’t have Team intel.
He trusted the people who’d passed him to Abu Pula. They said he’d been on the right side in Af ghan i stan, against the Soviets. But the contact had gone through several hands since, ending with this goofy-looking kid. Who didn’t impress him a hell of a lot, although he did know how to navigate jungle. The Chrono Crusade tee slipped through the dim like a dancer jerking to unheard music.
Hard to tell when your visibility was about twelve feet, but he’d thought the road had been running along the side of a ridge. This seemed to be proved true when fifty yards on from where they’d left the cars the ground plunged away into green like deep water. The rotting wet leaves of the jungle floor suddenly changed into a mud-slope. First he went down on his ass, then Kaulukukui rocketed by like he was on a toboggan. Sosukan watched them shoot past, eyes unreadable behind the reflectives, like some cracker prison guard.
At the bottom of the ravine huge dead boles lay rotting, interlaced over a motionless stream. Enormous live trees with gnarled, twisted buttress roots made their progress even more difficult. Some looked like they were covered in ghillie suits, the kind snipers wore. Thick vines snaked down from above to seek the soil. With the interlocking triple-canopy over them it was like navigating the bottom of a long dark tunnel. The Filipino gave the ghillie trees a wide berth, as if they were poisonous. The fallen ones he ducked beneath, weaving and scrambling. Within minutes they were dripping with sweat, itching, and burning with stings and bites. He felt like he was fighting off narcolepsy. Also nervous: some of the rebel groups paid the bills with kidnapping. He wished he’d come armed. Still, you could do a lot with a good knife. He pulled out his GPS to check that it was working.
Sosukan took it out of his hands. Oberg was so astonished that at first he didn’t react. Then he grabbed him and bent his wrist back. The kid dropped it, then stood there smirking, rubbing his wrist, but not going anywhere.
The Hawaiian came up. “What’s going on?” Kaulukukui said.
“Bastard took my GPS. I got it back. But now he’s not going anywhere.”
“He’s got you by the balls, Obie. Better go along. Unless you want me to fuck him up?”
He didn’t think that’d be productive, to show up at the rebel camp with a terrorized guide. He turned his head, spat, and handed it over. The kid grinned. He held it up, flourishing it like a trophy; opened it, removed the batteries; dropped them and the device into his pocket. Still without a word, he turned and headed off again, ducking and wriggling through vines and creeper that looked impenetrable. Oberg looked after him, frowning. There wasn’t a path or any blazings he could see.
Kaulukukui plucked at his cheek, then held up a tiny green worm. “Careful of these guys. I run into them before out here. They burrow in. And don’t let them get anywhere near your eyes.” He flicked it into his mouth. “Tasty, though.”
“Thanks, Sumo Man.”
Two hours after leaving the road, the jeeps, Lenson and Henrickson, Obie heard quiet voices. Sosukan dropped to a crouch beside a tree with yellow spikes growing out of the trunk, motioning for silence. The SEALs froze. The kid listened for a few minutes. Then angled left, around whoever it was, before coming back to his original bearing.
An hour later they came out into what was less a clearing than just a huddle of thatched huts at the lowest level of the jungle. By then Oberg had no idea where he was, and Kaulukukui looked just as lost. His legs ached from scrambling up and down the ravines, he’d scraped the shit out of his back when he went down, and he was muddy. Leeches squished in his boots, but it felt good getting out in the field.
Kids scrambled in from all sides, pointing and staring. Roosters strutted. Bowlegged, skinny, long-muzzled brown dogs slunk away. As they hiked past nipa-and-bamboo huts he started cataloguing weapons. A worn-looking carbine. An old Vietnam-style M16. Two Garands, rusty. The rest were shotguns and antique bolt actions that might even be Japanese. He didn’t see any grenades or RPGs, but you usually didn’t even when they had them; insurgent groups kept their heavy stuff hidden except when the photographers came calling, for the same reason he himself would be burying the satellite phone the team had been issued until it was time to leave. Any machine guns would be dug in; they’d probably walked right past them during the approach.
Sosukan led them to a central hut and for almost the first time spoke, calling out in what Teddy guessed was Tausug. A voice answered, and Sosukan waved them in, smiling at Teddy. Some time soon I’ll wipe that smirk off your face, he promised himself.
They arranged themselves around a smoky fire that made the heat twice as thick, but kept the gnats out. Blinking, he made out four guys across the flames. Weapons leaned against the woven bamboo walls. The men were all dark-haired, most with beards, but scraggly, spotty ones, like junior-high boys trying too soon. They wore a ragged assortment of what looked like Philippine Army camos and weirdly random civilian tees—one said “Ohio State National Championship Chess.” Some had black do-rags, others civilian ball hats worn backward hood-style. One sported a Che beret.
The Agency had briefed him. Rebels, of course, but they made their nut from kidnapping and quick raids. There was a connection between them and certain elements of the Army, some of whom
seemed to be trying to set them up as informers against the MNLF, and the provincial governor, who was playing a deeper game.
But he wasn’t interested in the politics. “Salaam aleikum,” he opened.
“As aleikum salaam.”
“Any of you guys speak English? Spanish?”
“We will speak English,” said one.
Oberg got out a bottle of Tanduay, the local rum, and offered it around. Politeness cost nothing, and people who owned little valued it most. They didn’t take any, which he found interesting. But they brought out cold tea and sweetened rice. They sipped and nibbled, using their hands.
Oberg glanced at Sumo. He looked comfortable, even somnolent, sitting big-thighed on the platform with eyes half closed. So far this was all SOP. Linking up with your hosts. Taking each other’s measure. Too bad they didn’t drink, it usually warmed things up. He took out a pack of cigars, a pack of cards. “Guys like a smoke? Play some poker?”
Two looked interested, but when the guy in the beret frowned Teddy saw who was boss. “We don’t smoke. Or drink. The Prophet forbids it.”
“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to go against the Prophet, peace be upon him.” He put away the tobacco, the cards, the rum. So much for warming things up.
Che Beret tilted forward. “It is said you want one of our boats. What for?”
Okay, they didn’t want to do the traditional getting-to-know-you stuff. “Training our operational people.”
“You are Americans? CIA?”
“You don’t need to know who we are. Do you?”
“You are right. We know. We have worked together before.”
Sumo said, “You actually have this boat?”
Che examined him. “You are very large. Where are you from?”
“Hawaii, man. So, the boat?”
“The boat, the boat. Friends have this boat.”
“Pirates?”
Che’s lazy shrug was all his question deserved, Teddy guessed. “Fishermen. Sometimes, smugglers. Why not? But everybody wants something in this life. You want a boat. The question is, what will you pay?”
