by Dick Couch
Sonny checked with each SEAL to confirm what weapon he would be carrying and began to set out ammunition, grenades, and special weapons systems accordingly. Since on this mission he would be engaged in room clearing rather than fire support, he would carry the lighter M46, a belt-fed .556 submachine gun. As the squad member tasked with air-operations responsibility, he would also see that the parachutes were laid out and inspected along with the gear bags they would use in the jump. Ray, as the primary communicator, began work on the comm plan with primary and alternative frequencies. He would work closely with Lieutenant Engel to manage the on-call support assets and to monitor the command-and-control net. He also set up the tactical SEAL net, which would drive the flow of the operation on the ground. Part of Ray’s job would be to ensure that each multiband inter-squad team radio was inspected, encrypted, mated to a fresh battery pack, and fully tested. They would not have a dedicated sniper overwatch team for this mission, but Weimy would carry a suppressed Mk12, a sniperized version of the M4 assault rifle that was sniper-accurate for the ranges they’d be working. He, too, could be tasked with room-clearing duties, and the Mk12, if a little long, would still serve in that role. But his primary job would be to kill quietly at a distance. There was little for Mikey to do, as each SEAL medical kit was up to date, as was his own squad medical bag, but he knew he would be responsible for tending to Morales and getting her ready for travel. He haunted the senior chief and Lieutenant Lyons for any updates on her condition. A.J. was the squad point man. His job would be to take the team from the insertion point to the target and from the target to the extraction point. Although the waypoints to the target and the extraction lanes would be GPS-driven coordinates and azimuths, he also needed to be able to find his way by compass and pace count should their GPS fail. For most of the afternoon, A.J. pored over maps and imagery to establish insertion points, extraction sites, and alternative extraction sites.
Nolan and Engel spent the balance of the afternoon reading intelligence reports and looking at imagery of the target. They focused on developing the plan of attack and the all-important actions on target. They’d done this many times before in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the sandbox they had two very distinct advantages. First, they were blessed with good intelligence on the opposition and precise, state-of-the-art targeting imagery. Second, there was always an overwhelming quick-reaction force on standby if they got into trouble. On this mission, they had sketchy intelligence on the bad guys and the target area, and if they ran into problems, their contingencies were limited. They grabbed a quick MRE and worked into the evening. By 2200, they had constructed a reasonably accurate sand-table terrain model of the target encampment and what they hoped was the building where Morales was being held. Nolan stood back to inspect their work.
Kallto “It’s not great, Boss, but it’s probably as close as we’re going to get.”
“I agree,” Engel replied. “You never know enough, but in this case I’d sure like to know a helluva lot more.”
Nolan shrugged. “In the end, it all comes down to the basics—the element of surprise and violence of action. If we get that, then we’ll get this done.”
“And God help us if for some reason they know we’re coming.”
“Amen to that. You ready for operational briefing?”
“As ready as I can be. Let’s do it.”
Fifteen minutes later, the squad was assembled in the TOC. The senior chief and Lieutenant Lyons updated them on the intel picture. Then each member of the squad gave a short briefing on his area of responsibility. Engel then gathered them around the terrain model and walked them through their actions on target—what they planned for actions on target. After a short rehearsal behind the warehouse using an old shed as a target building, they began to gear up for the mission. At midnight, an MC-130H landed at the remote airstrip and paused to receive the squad of heavily armed SEALs. As they moved out onto the tarmac, Lieutenant Lyons stepped from the shadows.
“Guys, I’ll not be here when you get back, but I wanted to thank you for what you’re about to do. Good hunting and Godspeed.”
The SEALs clambered aboard yet another C-130 airframe, but this one was different. It was an MC-130H Combat Talon II—a special-operations, deep-penetration bird. At more than three times the cost of a C-130H or one of the later variants, the Combat Talon had an electronic suite that allowed it to “feel” its way through commercial and military radar coverage to stealthily deliver its cargo. But for the guys in the back, the cargo, there was little discernable difference; it was still a 130. For this clandestine pickup, there was the noise of the aircraft coming and going, but no lights. It was a black operation—literally. As they gained altitude, Mikey, who was seated next to Engel, leaned close and shouted in his ear.
“Hey, Boss, me and the other guys have been talking. When we get back to Coronado, we’re gonna get that guy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy that gave you that fucked-up haircut.”
Across the bay of the 130 and to either side, broad white smiles cut the blackened faces of the squad SEALs. A short time later, the drop aircraft approached the target at twenty-two thousand feet, well above an altitude where some notice might be taken on the ground. The ramp/door combination ground open and the heavily laden SEALs shuffled to the rear, bunching up on the ramp. The smiles were gone; now was the time for business. The red lights on either side of the ramp winked out and were replaced by green lights. The SEAL squad tumbled from the rear of the 130 as a single mass.
* * *
As the SEALs tumbled into space over Costa Rica, two Sikorsky CH-53E “Super Stallion” Marine Corps helicopters sat turning on the massive flight deck of the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHA-6). The “Bonnie Dick,” as she was known in the fleet and by those who served on her, was a U.S. Navy big-deck amphibious ship steaming fifty miles off the coast of Costa Rica—forty-one thousand tons of versatile U.S. Navy expeditionary muscle. The Bonnie Dick had an impressive array of defensive armaments, as well as a wing of AV-8B Harrier II attack jets, a fleet of assault helicopters, and close to two thousand marines. The downdraft from the Super Stallion’s seven-bladed rotors washed the ship’s flight deck with gale-force winds as the bird’s pilots performed their final prelaunch checks.
“Tower, Bulldog Six-One and flight, ready to lift.”
“Bulldog Six-One and wing, cleared to lift, winds eighteen knots on the nose and stay with me on this net.”
“Roger, Tower.”
With that, both birds lifted gently from the deck. The intensity of their downwash increased to hurricane force as they pulled into a hover.
The Bulldog wingman, Bulldog Six-Three, dipped his nose and thundered straight ahead into the blackness, the helo’s rotating red anticollision beacons and tiny red, green, and white position lights providing the only light, save that of a full complement of stars overhead. Bulldog Six-One, the lead helo, slid smartly to the Bonhomme Richard’s port side and remained in a hover, sixty feet above the black ocean below. Once in a stable hover, the big helo began to drift back to the port stern quarter of the Bonnie Dick.
As Bulldog Six-Three turned lazy circles directly above the ship and Six-One hovered, one of the two Special Operations Craft-Riverine, or SOC-R for short, was positioned on the aft portion of the Bonhomme Richard’s flight deck. The flight-deck drill this night was to hang a thirty-six-foot, fourteen-thousand-pound combat craft from each helo. Inside each bird, a five-man boat crew from Special Boat Team 22 looked on anxiously. For these highly trained Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen, or SWCCs, this was high drama—and more than a little nerve-racking. All they could do was watch as the twenty-ton helicopter hovered over the beloved boat.
Bulldog Six-One’s pilot carefully lowered his hover to just ten feet over the first SOC-R combat craft. A flight-deck crewman in his yellow flotation vest and flight-deck helmet reached up with a long pole and attached the steel cable from the SOC-R’s boat harness to the large car
go hook on the underside of the Super Stallion. Once complete, the landing signals officer standing directly in front of Bulldog Six-One raised his spread arms up and up again, signaling the pilot to lift his hover and accept his burden. Gradually, the Super Stallion took tension on the four-point sling, and the SOC-R was airborne.
The Bulldog lead pilot, moving more carefully now that he had his cargo slung underneath and making small cockpit corrections, dipped the nose of the Super Stallion as he began Kn a he to creep forward. Once through translational lift, he increased speed to ninety knots and took up position on the Bonhomme Richard’s starboard side, orbiting in circles five hundred feet above the black ocean. The Super Stallion and the SOC-R now moved as one.
With Bulldog Six-One’s pickup complete, Bulldog Six-Three’s pilot spiraled down from five hundred feet and followed the ship’s wake until he was at Bonnie Dick’s fantail. He then eased over and above the second SOC-R boat. The pilots and crewman on the deck completed the same maneuver as with the lead bird. Bulldog Six-Three, mission ready and transitioning to forward flight, eased away from the Bonhomme Richard’s port side. Thanks to the skill of the Marine pilots, the delicate maneuver had taken less than fifteen minutes.
“Bulldog Six-One and flight, you are cleared to switch control frequency; come up 262.5 megahertz and have a safe flight.”
“Bulldog Six-One, roger,” the lead pilot replied as he flew straight ahead, still at five hundred feet. Within a minute Bulldog Six-Three was formed up in loose cruise formation on Six-One’s starboard side as the two Super Stallions turned gently east toward the west coast of Costa Rica.
Forty-five minutes later, the two CH-53Es thundered over the treetops of the lush Costa Rican jungle, their slung matte gray SOC-R boats conforming to their every move. They remained just above the treetops to avoid any commercial radar detection, and they showed no lights. The Marine pilots, relying on their Helicopter Night Vision Systems, their GPS navigation systems, and hours upon hours of night-flight training, made their way precisely toward their insertion point with no ground reference points or electronic emissions.
The two Super Stallions slowed as they found the river, Bulldog Six-Three pulling into loose trail behind his leader. Established in a hover over the wide river, the Super Stallion’s pilots gently lowered the SOC-R boats into the water. As they did, each boat’s five SWCCs, with a great deal of relief, clambered down rope ladders into their boats. Once waterborne, they were back in their element.
The “boat guys,” as their SEAL brethren called them, traced their roots back to the U.S. Navy torpedo boats of World War II. The SWCCs, called “swicks,” could take the SEALs where deep draft Navy ships couldn’t—into shallow water and far up rivers like this one. The SOC-Rs drew just twenty-four inches. Their mission this night wasn’t to deliver the SEALs to the fight; it would be to extract them.
The coxswains gave their respective Super Stallions a thumbs-up, and the bird’s pilots cut the umbilical holding the boats underneath them. Their mission complete, the CH-53Es turned west toward the blue water and their home plate, the Bonnie Dick. The boat crews immediately began to prepare their craft for high-speed travel into harm’s way. The well-tested engines roared to life at the touch of the ignition. The coxswains then pointed their bows upriver, the engines at an impatient idle and the two Hamilton waterjets holding each craft steady against the gentle current. Each boat leader, a Navy chief petty officer, took charge of his boat and directed his small crew to “armor up.” The SOC-R carried a formidable arsenal of .50-caliber machine guns, 40mm grenade la Kmm hisunchers, and 7.62mm mini-guns.
Chief Ricardo Bautista—the officer in charge, or OIC, of the lead, or One Boat—quietly barked orders to his crew. The noise of the departing helicopters marked their presence, but no use letting those who might be listening know there were North Americans on the river.
“You know the drill, Wilson. I want the .50-cals fore and aft, and the mini-guns port and starboard.”
“Got it, Chief.”
“Bachmann, have the grenade launchers at the ready in case we need them.”
“Roger that, Chief.”
There was a flurry of activity as both crews removed the weapons systems from their tied-down, stored positions and mounted them on their craft’s gunwales and fixed stanchions. Heavy cans of ammunition were broken out and made ready. Neither boat showed a light as the crews went about their business in total darkness. There was the occasional flicker of a well-hooded red penlight. The swicks knew their boats, and they knew their systems. On the lead SOC-R, each crewman reported when he was up and ready. It was much the same on the Two Boat.
Bautista watched from his coxswain’s flat, missing nothing. When all was ready, he pulled himself up to his full five feet eight and turned to the others. “Okay, guys, bring it in.” His four swicks collapsed in around the helm. “Now, listen up. We got SEALs on the ground in bad-guy territory. Our job is to extract them safely, and the recent intel says there’s a good chance it’ll be a hot extraction. Everyone, stay focused and stay professional. Call out your targets; do it just like you trained. There’ll be bad guys out there as well as our SEAL brothers. Make damn sure of your targets, then bring the pain. Got it?”
Bautista’s crew nodded in unison. They got it.
“Two Boat, One Boat, over,” Bautista said into his encrypted lip mic.
“Two Boat here, manned and ready, over.”
“Roger, Two. Standby to get underway, One out.”
With that, Bautista slammed the SOC-R’s throttles forward, and the twin 440 Yanmar Diesels went from their idle grumble to a full-on roar. First one craft, then the other, leapt up on step and roared up the river at forty knots. The Two Boat followed a hundred meters behind the One, its crew undoubtedly motivated by a talk just like Bautista’s.
As the two boats sped upriver, their crews, all wearing the latest generation night-vision devices, scanned the shorelines, where the jungle ran right into the water. The river was flat-black under the stars and narrowed imperceptibly as they made their way upstream. Bautista wore a singular night-vision optic. This allowed him to see the dark ribbon of river ahead and to monitor the nav-aids on his console. His primary aid was an enhanced Garmin GPSMAP 720 Marine Navigator, not unlike those fo Kliknitund on mega-yachts. The river, the riverbanks, the Two Boat, and any above-water features were easily seen on the color monitor. Even without the night-vision ocular, he could find his way. Getting there was one thing; getting there at the right time was yet another. A hot extraction could be chancy, high-risk business.
They needed to be on time to recover their SEALs but not too early, as the SOC-R’s roaring engines could be heard for miles. Timing was everything, and in this case, “everything” meant life and death. His split concentration, half river and half electronics, was broken by Wilson on their tactical net.
“Shit, Chief, this jungle looks really thick, probably just like the jungle your pappy saw when he was driving Swift Boats in Vietnam.”
Wilson, Bautista said to himself. It was always Wilson. He was the crew clown—the two-boat section clown, actually. But Petty Officer Josh Wilson was a superb gunner and considered one of the best in Special Boat Team 22. So Bautista put up with him—even indulged him. The boy was a surgeon with a mini-gun.
“That was my grandpappy, Wilson. Now keep your eyes on your sector and your mind on your job.”
“No worries, Chief,” Wilson replied, stroking the barrel of his 7.62mm mini-gun.
“Bachmann, you awake?”
“Roger, Chief, right here.” The reliable Petty Officer Ted Bachmann was both awake and ready. He was the team’s electronics and communications specialist.
“Let’s get the Raven ready to launch.”
“Roger that, Chief.”
Bachmann had carefully assembled and tested the RQ-11 Raven drone. He had only to reach down into the bottom of the boat and carefully lift the little aircraft from its cradle. Less than three feet lo
ng and weighing only four pounds, the Raven was one of the better and more useful unmanned aerial systems. The SEALs and the Special Boat Teams depended on it for tactical surveillance and reconnaissance. The Raven’s digital data-link was capable of pushing streaming video of everything its sensors could see from just overhead to the bird’s ten-thousand-foot operational ceiling. This Raven variant has an extended-range capability that allowed it to stay aloft for close to three hours. It was a lot of capability in a small, portable, combat-ready package. And it was operator friendly. Both SEALs and swicks used it extensively.
“Ready, Chief.”
“Make it happen, Ted.” Bautista slowed the One Boat to twenty knots; the boat was faster than the bird.
Bachmann activated the Raven’s sensor package and checked to see that he had a presentation on his laptop computer. Then he switched on the battery-driven electronic motor and held the little drone over his head. Usually it was “thrown” into the air for a launching. This night, with the moveme Kth helnt of the boat, the Raven just floated up and away.
“Raven’s airborne, Chief,” Bachmann reported. “I have good copy on all sensors.”
“Good job. Keep it headed upriver and just ahead of us.” Bautista touched a key on the front of his body armor to shift frequency. “Two Boat, One here. Be advised our Raven is away. We’ll continue upriver at this speed. Estimate we’ll be at our initial layup position in fifteen mikes, over.”
“Ah, roger, One. Initial layup in fifteen minutes, Two out.”
Ten minutes later the two SOC-Rs cut their power and came off step. From there to their initial layup or standby position on the river, they would move at idle speed. At a predetermined 45-degree bend in the river, first one craft, then the other, folded itself i
nto the foliage on the left outside bend of the riverbank. They tied off on mangrove trees with quick-release mooring lines. Both boats shut down and waited in a deafening silence. Each had an unobstructed view up and down the river, and they were virtually invisible along the bank. Ten minutes later, the UHF SATCOM radio crackled to life in Bautista’s headset.
