by Oliver North
The task was so daunting that Newman had simply decided to stay at Andrews and save himself the time of the commute to and from Falls Church. After the Wednesday night meeting with Harrod and WHCA's installation of equipment in the Special Projects Office, Newman had returned home to his empty house, grabbed his own “flyaway kit,” and headed back to Andrews.
It was after midnight when he arrived at the Air Force base main gate, and this time he drove his own car all the way around the base, up to the chain-link fence in the woods bearing the white sign with black letters: AREA 35 - RESTRICTED. He moved into the spartan room next to Weiskopf's in the one-story brick billet and had just laid down on the steel military cot to catch a few hours sleep when he remembered that he had forgotten to leave a note for his wife.
He got up, grabbed the mobile phone out of his kit, and called home to leave a message on their home answering machine. After telling the machine where he was and of his plans to stay at Andrews until Friday, he also left his new office telephone number in Washington at the OEOB. Then surprisingly, even to him, Newman concluded his message with a change of tone in his voice, from the businesslike update on his plans to a softer, more intimate voice. “Hey, babe … I miss you. I'm really looking forward to seeing you soon. I love you, 'bye.”
Each evening he'd check in with Harrod and his teammates at his office in the White House. In less than forty-eight hours, Coombs had built a detailed, thirty-day training plan that had the unit practicing everything from High Altitude-High Opening (HA-HO) parachute jumps over the forests of North Carolina and West Virginia, to rubber boat drills in the frigid waters of Onslow Beach at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. But his training schedule had one gaping hole in it. He had reserved the final week of the month-long program for getting the unit acclimated to wherever they would be conducting their first operation. And until the UN made up its collective mind about who their first target would be, he didn't know whether to book the unit for its final week of training at the NATO cold-weather site in Narvik, Norway; the Royal Marines Jungle Warfare Training Center in Malaysia; or the British SAS Desert Warfare Operations site in Oman. Just in case, he also informed the Naval Undersea Warfare Center on Coronado Island off the coast of San Diego that they might have thirty-eight unexpected guests for the last week of December through the first week of January.
Newman had put Robertson to work on finding an aircraft that was both big enough to haul the unit and their gear and could pass for something less military than a C-130 or a C-17. The Brits offered a Nimrod long-range patrol aircraft that had been repainted to look like a civilian airliner, and Robertson had put it down on his list as a possibility, but he wanted something that really could pass for a civilian aircraft. If the ISEG had to deploy in a hurry to some hostile location like Mogadishu, Somalia, nobody wanted their presence to be announced by arriving in a military transport. Then, late Thursday night, the Air Force captain found what they needed. In the Civil Reserve Air Fleet “boneyard” inventory—the list of aircraft out in Yuma, Arizona, waiting for a major mobilization—Robertson found an MD-80 that had been converted from passenger aircraft service to a “Nightingale” flying hospital. Once the plane had an appropriate paint job and tail number, no one would be able to tell from the outside that the plane was anything but a civilian airliner. Best of all, the MD-80 had a rear exit hatch. The tail cone, below the rear-mounted twin engines and the vertical stabilizer, could be jettisoned and the hatch opened to serve as a parachute exit. He issued instructions to have the CRAF aircraft inspected by maintenance experts from his old squadron and, if it passed muster, have it put back in service and flown to Atlanta for repainting as an Aer Lingus cargo aircraft on charter to the UN.
McDade, serving as the unit's intelligence and communications officers rolled into one, had been busy as well. On Thursday morning, he had gone to WHCA and, using their “Presidential Priority 1” authority, had placed an order with the Defense Communications Agency and the National Security Agency for every piece of communications equipment that the ISET team commanders envisioned that they might need, anywhere in the world. Included in his wish list were EncryptionLok-3s—two for each ISET, two for the ISEG headquarters element, and one each for use by Newman and the three officers in the Special Projects Office. McDade was amazed late that afternoon when he was already summoned to the WHCA office on the fifth floor of the OEOB to sign for a vanload of equipment. He did so and promptly dispatched the truck to Andrews Air Force Base to turn the equipment over to the ISEG. As soon as the truck left, he called Newman to tell him it was on the way.
While the Americans were familiar with the EncryptionLok-3s, the British SAS troopers were not, and they were fascinated. The device, no bigger than a TV remote, could be plugged into any communications gear—radio, telephone, computer, wireless, satellite phone, video—and have the communications traffic transmitted between two devices completely and permanently encrypted. Weiskopf's executive officer, or “Number Two” as the Brits said, was SAS Captain Bruno Macklin. His assessment of the EL-3's ability to be plugged into anything from a phone to a computer signal pretty much summed up the British operators' appraisal: “Bloody well amazing, it is. Sure hope the bad boys don't get their hands on one of these.”
Once they were comfortable with the operation of the devices, Newman instructed their use for all communications pertaining to ISEG operations or activities to ensure that no adversary could intercept and decode their communications.
“This is critical,” he told them. “If you discipline yourselves to use the EL-3 for all your communications, you can avoid compromising a mission.”
By working almost nonstop for three days, Newman, Weiskopf, Coombs, McDade, and Robertson had developed detailed plans for how the ISEG would work once a mission assignment came down from the UN. The concept was as simple as it was audacious, and it was constructed with input from all involved, particularly the highly experienced Delta, SEAL, and SAS senior noncommissioned officers. Sergeant Major Gabbard reduced it to a single page on his laptop computer:
CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS
1. WHEN THE UN DESIGNATES A TARGET FOR SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT, THE ISET APPROPRIATE TO THE REGION WILL BE DESIGNATED AS THE PRIMARY TEAM TO CARRY OUT THE MISSION.
2. ONE OF THE FOUR REMAINING ISETS SHALL SERVE AS A QUICK REACTION FORCE (QRF) FOR THE PRIMARY TEAM.
3. ONE OF THE THREE REMAINING ISETS SHALL SERVE AS AN ADVANCE PARTY FOR THE OPERATION.
4. THE ADVANCE PARTY SHALL IDENTIFY, ESTABLISH, AND SECURE A COVERT ADVANCED OPERATIONS BASE (AOB) FOR THE OPERATION AS PROXIMATE AS POSSIBLE TO THE OBJECTIVE.
5. THE TWO REMAINING ISETS SHALL PROVIDE COUN-TERSURVEILLANCE, SECURITY FOR THE AOB, AND PROTECTION FOR THE ISEG COMMAND ELEMENT.
6. ONCE THE ADVANCE PARTY HAS IDENTIFIED AND SECURED THE AOB, THE REMAINDER OF THE ISEG SHALL DEPLOY TO THE AOB TO PROVIDE INTELLIGENCE, LOGISTICS, MEDEVAC, AND COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT TO THE PRIMARY TEAM AND THE QRF.
7. UPON COMPLETION OF AN OPERATION, THE QRF WILL ASSIST IN EXTRACTING THE PRIMARY TEAM FROM THE AREA OF OPERATIONS.
8. IN THE EVENT THAT THE ISEG HQ ORDERS AN EMERGENCY TERMINATION (E/T) FOR AN OPERATION, ALL ISEG PERSONNEL WILL EXFILTRATE TO A PRIMARY OR SECONDARY RENDEZVOUS POINT (RP) DESIGNATED BY THE ISEG HQ.
9. IF THE ISEG ORDERS THE EMERGENCY TERMINATION OF A MISSION, IT SHALL BE THE MISSION OF THE ADVANCE PARTY ISET TO SANITIZE THE AOB.
10. ALL COMMUNICATIONS WITH AND AMONG DEPLOYED ISEG UNITS SHALL BE SECURED BY USE OF THE ENCRYP-TIONLOK-3 DEVICE.
Newman Home
________________________________________
Falls Church, VA
Friday, 2 December 1994
2033 Hours, Local
Rachel Newman fumbled with the key to what she and her husband called the “side door” of their home in Falls Church. She felt a sense of relief that she was finally here. She unlocked the door, disarmed the alarm system, pulled her wheel-on luggage through the kitchen into the hall, and groped for
the light switch.
The house was chilly—a sign that her husband had not been here in awhile. She turned up the thermostat and was glad to hear the furnace start up right away. She browsed through the mail that she had brought in with her—only junk mail and a few bills. Rachel put the mail on the kitchen counter with the pile of unopened mail that Peter had left. Then she pushed the Play switch on the answering machine and turned up the volume before heading toward the bedroom to unpack her things. “You have four messages,” the machine announced in its crisp, artificial voice. “First message, Tuesday, 10:34 P.M.” The voice was Rachel's: “Hi, it's me. I'm at the airport. Just got in and have to turn around on a flight to London tomorrow night. I'm staying at the Airport Marriott tonight so don't wait up. I'll probably be up for another hour or so. Give me a call if you get home before then.” The machine beeped and went on to the second message. This time it was Peter: “Uh, hi Rachel, it's me. I just finished up my first day of orientation, and I'm heading home. It's about midnight, and I have to leave home really early, so I won't wake you. I'll bring you up to date on everything when I see you.” Click, and beep. The third message was from Rachel, calling Wednesday afternoon to remind Peter of her flight to London and her return Friday night.
Rachel was hanging up her clean clothes when the fourth message started. “Hi, it's me. I forgot to leave you a note when I zipped in and out of the house tonight. I heard your call on the machine saying you'd be heading for London. But in case your flight's canceled, just wanted you to know where I am. Uh, actually, I'm staying at Andrews until Friday night when the folks I'm working with head back to where they are based. Use my cell phone number if you need to reach me.” In his usual, businesslike way he continued, giving her the office number for his new job. “But I probably won't be at that number until Monday,” he added. Then he paused, and the tone of his voice changed to one that was at once more friendly and somehow vulnerable. “Hey, babe … I miss you. I'm really looking forward to seeing you soon … I love you, 'bye.”
Rachel was both startled and pleased at the intimacy of his voice. It had been a long time since he had sounded so open and romantic. She went to the machine and pushed the Rewind switch and played the end of the message again.
Amazing. She wondered if there really might be some hope for their marriage after all. She was filled with guilt for cheating on him. Rachel also realized that she was too tired and emotionally drained to think much more about it right now. She finished unpacking and undressing, tossed her dirty laundry in the hamper of the master bathroom, and donned a clean, terrycloth robe.
The furnace still had not warmed the house. Shivering, she decided to take a hot shower. After a minute or two of waiting for the water to heat, she eased out of her robe and into the large, glass-walled shower.
Rachel took her time showering. She scrubbed off her makeup, letting the steam and hot water melt the cramps in her neck and shoulders.
She didn't hear the door open and close downstairs.
From the bedroom, Peter Newman had an unfettered view into the shower of the master bath. He stood for a moment, gazing at his wife, transfixed by her beauty. She still had not seen him. Peter undressed quickly and strode toward the shower.
As she was rinsing her hair, Rachel felt a cool blast of air when the shower door opened. Then two arms grabbed her and she jumped, screaming.
“Hey, babe … easy … It's just me.” He laughed.
“P. J.! You scared me! I didn't hear you come in.”
Peter smiled and kissed his wife. “I must have been just a few minutes behind you,” he said. “I saw how beautiful you were in the shower, and you looked so inviting that I thought I'd join in.”
“We haven't taken a shower together in a long time,” Rachel observed.
“We haven't done much of anything together in a long time,” Pete replied.
Both Peter and Rachel lay in the quiet of the night, sleepily savoring their recent pleasure. They drew instinctively closer to each other for warmth, warding off the chill of the night. Rachel drifted off to sleep with the bittersweet memory of Peter's kisses and the realization of how much she had missed them.
But Peter was still wide awake. He lay there as a recurring fear gnawed at him—fear that had eaten at him quietly for months now welled up as anger.
He suspected Rachel was having an affair. It surely wouldn't surprise him if she was, nor could he really blame her. He knew that he had not been all she wanted or expected in a husband. Plus, the demands of his career were often contrary to the needs of his marriage. He could almost understand why she might be drawn into an affair with someone else. They had had many serious arguments over these matters over the years, and finding resolution for the two of them often seemed to be hopeless.
He wondered if he should confront her. He decided not to. He had enough of his own problems to work out right now before bringing someone else into the picture.
Office of the National Security Advisor
________________________________________
The White
House Washington, D.C.
Saturday, 3 December 1994
O821 Hours, Local
As usual, Newman arrived early for his 0800 meeting. And, as usual, the National Security Advisor was late. The wait gave the Marine time to think about the events the night before, and he suddenly realized that he hadn't even told Rachel about his selection for promotion to lieutenant colonel.
Harrod came bustling in past Newman who was waiting in the outer office, and without so much as a hello, threw open the door to his inner sanctum, tossed his overcoat on a chair, and roared, “Martha, where's the coffee?”
The National Security Advisor's long-suffering assistant looked at Newman, made a face and rolled her eyes, and went to get Jabba the Hutt his first cup of caffeine. Newman took the cup he'd been drinking and the National Security Advisor's copy of the President's Daily Brief-—which was the CIA's overnight summary of what was happening in the world. Then he walked uninvited into Harrod's office.
“You're not cleared for that,” said Harrod, holding his hand out to take the document.
“Yes, I am, Dr. Harrod. I'm on the access list. So is my whole office,” replied Newman, handing over the red-white-and-blue—bordered document with the large notations, TOP SECRET: EYES ONLY FOR THE PRESIDENT.
Harrod ignored the rebuff, took the document, and reached to take the coffee cup that was being offered to him on a small tray by his secretary. “Have they gone back to Fort Bragg?” he asked without preamble.
“Yes, and we've devised a workable concept of operations that someone ought to take a look at to make sure we're planning this out the way you want.”
“I don't want a lot of paper floating around on this,” said Harrod, looking up from his coffee. “Where is this ‘concept of operations’ or whatever you call it?”
“Right here,” said Newman, removing from his suit-coat pocket the single-page document Sergeant Major Gabbard had printed out of his laptop the day before. He handed it to Harrod.
The National Security Advisor skimmed the page and looked up at Newman. “So, you plan to send all thirty-eight of them on the mission?”
“Yes. There has to be some way of supporting the seven-man team that actually does the mission. This is the only way we can do it—unless someone is willing to dedicate more assets to us for our missions.”
“That's out of the question. But this option may work. I want you to run this by General Komulakov,” said Harrod.
“Who?”
“Dimitri Komulakov. He's in charge of the UN side of this sanctions business. He's a deputy secretary general. I've set up an appointment for you to fly to New York on Monday to meet with him. He'll brief you on their part in this.”
Newman felt a little uneasy. Their part in this … he thought. How much of a part are they going to have in this operation? Yet he said nothing to Harrod.
“Now, when will they be ready to deploy?�
�� asked Harrod.
“You told us to be ready in thirty days. We've built a plan to do that, but it really isn't enough time. If we were doing a proper work-up for this kind of mission, we shouldn't commit them until March at the earliest. That would also create less of a problem with other units. We can't train just anywhere with this outfit. And if we start pushing other military commands around and bending their training schedules out of shape, there will be a fuss, and the ISEG will be liable to get more visibility than it should have.”
“Who's giving you a problem?” asked Harrod.
“Captain Coombs ran into some resistance when he was making plans for Fort Bragg, and he knows the people down there pretty well. They've already got the place booked with a SOCOM exercise for the next four weeks, so I thought—since we're still in the starting blocks—that we could release our guys for the Christmas holidays and pick up the schedule in January. And if we're going to go after Aidid first, we've got to get this group acclimated. Even this time of year, the temperature in Somalia is better than ninety degrees Fahrenheit every afternoon. I want to take them to the British base in Oman for at least a week, but I'd prefer a month. Unfortunately, the Brits are in a holiday stand-down through the end of the year.”
“What kind of a war is this?” Harrod bellowed. “These guys can always do their fun and games training nonsense. Do they want us to postpone all wars so they'll fit in with their training schedules?”
“No, sir, but I—” Newman started to say, but Harrod interrupted him.
“Well, never mind. Two weeks won't make or break our schedule. I'll call the Pentagon tomorrow and give Fort Bragg two weeks to get things straightened out. You make your plans to have your men at Bragg on the eighteenth, and get things moving. I want Aidid's head on a stick. You have no idea the humiliation he has caused this President. I'm counting on your team to get him. Have you got Oman confirmed following the training at Bragg?”
