The Delta Solution

by Patrick Robinson

  Wolde stood up and shouldered his AK-47. Then he walked a half block south to the home of Commodore Elmi Ahmed. Ismael asked him to bring his rifle because the two of them were going for a little stroll.

  Together they walked up to the Salat stronghold and along the western wall, looking for the stranger. They stared along the north wall, and Ahmed waved to one of the guards. But there was no sign of the intruder, who could have been on the other two sides, out of their viewpoint.

  “We should go back the other way,” said Wolde. But then Elmi spotted a single figure walking away to the north across the scrubland. And, perhaps a half mile further on, there were two others. Far away, on the dusty horizon, Elmi could also see a parked vehicle, too far away to identify.

  “Now, who are those people?” asked Wolde. “And what are they doing out there? There’s not a building for miles.”

  “Perhaps just passing through, seeing the sights,” suggested Elmi.

  “Perhaps,” replied Wolde, “but I think when we find a stranger walking in and out of town, examining the walls of our garrison with millions and millions of dollars inside, we should issue a military alert. At least inform the guards.”

  “I agree with that,” said Elmi. They walked back to the main gate and whacked the door with a rifle butt, twice and then three times, the code for entry. The door was opened by Elmi’s cousin, a huge black tribesman named Yanni who had accompanied them on a couple of missions.

  He saluted both men and welcomed them with an enormous smile. Sensing the concerned look worn by Ismael Wolde, the local hero, he took them straight to the ops center, where they found the garrison CO discussing the appearance of the water boys and the number of gallons they had taken without saying a word to anyone. Yanni’s boss had estimated fifteen cans, each holding four-and-a-half gallons, standard Russian military issue. That was almost seventy gallons.

  He saluted the senior-ranking Somali Marine and listened carefully to his observations. At the conclusion of Wolde’s informal report, he said, “Sir, seventy gallons may mean a group of forty to sixty people. It is possible the jackals of al-Qaeda may be preparing an attack.

  “I see no reason to go out there and alert them to our strength. But tonight I will double the guard on the north wall. Every gun in the garrison will be primed. And I will inform Mr. Salat of my decisions. If you approve, of course.”

  “Excellent,” replied Wolde. “It may be nothing. But the coincidences are there. And I think Mr. Salat should alert Colonel Zeppi because he’ll make sure the whole town is aware of possible danger.”

  Thus it was that two very different fighting forces, stationed 9,000 miles apart, had effectively declared war on tiny Haradheere. One of them would attack that night. The other was starting the fourth day of intensive training in the massive sprawl of the 5,000-acre San Diego Naval Base.

  The Delta Platoon had, so far, been in a submarine dry dock for the duration. Commander Bedford had located a sub up on the blocks, secured port and starboard by three one-foot-thick holding beams, set at right angles to the ship, stopping her from toppling sideways one way or the other. The beams were approximately thirty feet off the floor of the dock, and all day, every day, the personnel of Delta Force, including Mack himself, hurled their grappling irons up and over those beams.

  Attached were knotted ropes, which provided easy footholds but made them heavier. Mack’s maestros slowly became world experts in the deadly cunning and stealth required to toss those grapplers over a given target with minimum noise and zero chance of missing. Also, every member of the platoon could scoot up those ropes and straddle the beams without missing a beat. That was the easy part.

  That morning they were leaving the three-hundred-acre submarine area and going out to sea, taking off in Zodiacs from one of San Diego’s vast line of thirteen warship piers and tracking a guided missile destroyer out and under the bridge and then around the North Island Navy Air Station. Many of Mack’s men found this especially agreeable since throughout their working lives they had been made to run around it. Seven miles.

  The destroyer, by special request, would be travelling slowly, and throughout its journey to the open sea, Mack’s SEALs would be alongside in the high-powered rubber inflatables, throwing the grapplers and trying to become expert at hooking the climbing ropes onto a moving target.

  Within a few days, they would head into open water, where it was rougher and much more difficult to land the grapplers over the rails of a moving ship. It was hard enough swinging out of the Zodiac against the warship’s hull, just a few inches above the waterline. But it was another matter when the ship was moving.

  However, if they were to become proficient at boarding a ship going 12 knots, they needed to practice every hour available to them. And there would be no variation from every page of SEAL ethos they had ever learned: We train and train and train, until nothing can withstand our onslaught on a chosen target.

  In the four decades since the SEALs had been inaugurated, you could count on the fingers of one hand how many times this approach had failed. And Mack’s boys were good. They bore no resemblance to ordinary men.

  They had their setbacks, mostly due to misjudgments and overconfidence, especially when moving at high speed. Guys did fall into the ocean, a few from high up the ship’s hull. But there were highly trained US Naval personnel waiting in small boats to haul them out, ensuring they never strayed or were swept into the surging wake above the ship’s huge propellers.

  On one occasion Mack himself dived at the grappling rope, missed, slid down, and miraculously grabbed the end of the line as he crashed right under the water with full pack and rifle. Next thing anyone saw was the sight of Mack scrambling out of the Pacific Ocean without missing a beat and hauling himself up the rope, all the way to the rails next to the destroyer’s helo pad on the stern.

  It was an outrageous display of strength, born of error but sustained with granite discipline and a will of steel. No one laughed, but a few shook their heads in disbelief that anyone could possibly make such a recovery. And as if to remind them of what was expected, the half-frozen Mack refused to change into dry clothes for the rest of the day.

  “Battlefield conditions at all times,” he said. “I don’t guess the fucking pirates are going to provide us with fresh underwear if we screw it up,” he told them. “We’re training to kick some very serious ass. Never forget that, and behave accordingly.”

  Everyone in the group he called “my guys” would have walked through fire for Mack Bedford. Thereafter no one took the opportunity to change clothes after a ducking. If the boss could stand it, they all could.

  When the platoon finally went into combat, they would almost certainly go in wearing their frogmen suits. But the commander preferred to train in “cammies” and boots, which made it appreciably more difficult, especially in the ocean. The objective was always the same: that training should make combat seem easier.

  The only member of the group consistently in his frog gear and big flippers was Petty Officer Barney Wilkes, the world-class swimmer, who acted as permanent swim-buddy to any member of the squad who fell in, instantly going over the side to stay with the SEAL until he was pulled out by the navy staff.

  Barney missed some rope time in the beginning because he was always in the ocean. Navy SEAL philosophy—no man is ever left alone—was observed even in classified training sessions. If a man went over the side or fell off the hull of a ship, he would be joined immediately by the top swimmer in the group.

  Day after day they went at it, learning the techniques, hurling the grapplers, clinging, climbing, boarding. And as they trained, the clumsiness vanished and the teamwork became flawless. Mack’s guys could approach, hurl, climb, and board approximately four times faster than they could on the first day. Helmsmen hardly needed to slow the boats. Those hooks were up and over in the split second that the target was close enough.

  No one hesitated. They were out and climbing before the Zodiacs were in p
rime position. In the beginning there was a tirade of yelling, cursing, laughing, and falling, with guys swinging on the sides of ships, trying to balance. Not any more. Now the training hits were carried out immaculately, in silence, with the SEALs up and climbing aboard with lightning speed.

  Any boat sentry would have to be looking straight at them to detect the SEAL invasion, and in that case the sentry would most certainly be shot with a silenced rifle, probably by the Tar Heel Barney, who was always the last man to leave the attack boat, whichever team he was in.

  The rumors about Delta Platoon reverberated around the largest navy base on the West Coast. Everyone knew they were there, everyone saw them go out and return, but no one knew quite what they were doing. Even when it rained and squalls swept down San Diego Bay, those SEALs were out there, by day and often by night, all night.

  A few destroyer captains had been informed of the special training and instructed to cooperate with any request from Commander Bedford. However, even they were not briefed on the SEALs’ ultimate mission. A few guessed, but no one spoke. Delta proceeded under the highest classification. It was so secretive they hardly dared speak to each other, certainly not to their families.

  After the boarding phase, they would move immediately to advanced helicopter attack operations—the technique of bringing in a big doublerotored troop carrier under the cover of a gunship swooping low, with fixed machine guns blazing—a form of air-to-ship assault generally believed to be unstoppable. Especially when conducted by this crowd.

  Meanwhile they kept right on hurling and climbing, scaling the hulls of the Pacific fleet, twice as fast as climbing the wall at the Coronado O-Course. And all of them were outstanding at that.

  SHEIKH SHARIF HAD DECIDED on a night attack on Haradheere. His battle plan was detailed. Immediately after dark, he sent his two mortar teams forward to a position 1,000 yards from the north wall of the Salat redoubt. Up front he placed two forward observation officers with cell phones, men who would call back the range once the mortar bombs, each weighing 7.5 pounds, had launched and landed, probably too far, beyond the garrison.

  The remaining members of the force were fanned out in formation, flat on their stomachs, and ordered to advance with all speed on that north wall once the mortars had found their range and softened up the target, exploding in Salat’s courtyard.

  Working in the dark, the mortar teams had a difficult task. Their medium-range Russian weapons had a simple but sensitive mechanism consisting of a barrel that could be raised and lowered by a bracket fixed to its tripod. Thus if the first bomb sailed clean over the town, the forward observation men would call back, “Overshot three hundred yards. Raise the barrel!”

  The next shot would blast higher and steeper, and the bomb would hopefully travel less far and possibly land on-target. But even with very skilled men, it might take two or three tries. Sheikh Sharif’s men were not very skilled, and when they finally unleashed their opening mortar shot, they nearly blew themselves up.

  The time was 8:00 p.m. Inside the redoubt, Salat’s machine gunners had their Russian-made night glasses trained on the scrubland north of the wall. Mustapha and Abdul, Yemen-born members of the al-Qaeda assault force, had the mortar barrel in position aimed straight at the garrison. Too low. A lot too low.

  Sheikh Sharif yelled into his cell phone, “BEGIN THE ATTACK!” Mustapha shoved the shell into the barrel but forgot the speed with which the device explodes the moment the shell strikes the firing pin, which is, in effect the base of the barrel.

  The Russian bomb launched out of the barrel with a blast and a whoooosh! It shot past Mustapha’s head, singeing his hair and missing his face by about two inches, and rocketed fast and low straight at the garrison wall. Abdul nearly fainted with fright, hearing Mustapha’s yell of terror.

  The guards saw the bomb coming as it screamed through the night, flew overhead, over the garrison, over the town, and landed in the sand dunes, close to its maximum range of almost two miles.

  Down in the sand, two hundred yards north of the wall, Sharif’s forward observation man shouted into his phone: “Too far, hundreds of yards too far. RAISE THE BARREL! GET A HIGHER ELEVATION! DON’T FIRE AGAIN UNTIL YOU’VE DONE IT.”

  By now, al-Qaeda’s mortar-two was ready to go, but the barrel was raised very high and when it fired, the shell blew about 1,000 feet into the air and exploded in the desert, less than one hundred yards from the observation men, who were slashed with flying sand and gravel.

  Up on the wall, the pirate helmsman, Abadula Sofian, ducked when the first mortar bomb ripped through the night air but was up and looking when the second one blasted skyward. His big twenty-pound Russian PK machine gun fired at the rate of 650 rounds per minute. Box-fed, 6.72 millimeter caliber. Range: 1,500 meters.

  Abadula opened fire with short bursts straight at the point he thought the second mortar was sited. The bullets ripped past the al-Qaeda bombers lying flat in the sand. Two other Salat machine gunners also opened fire, and the ground was raked with deadly 6.72-millimeter shells.

  Mustapha had never been this scared. Lying next to the Russian weapon, he knew it would betray his position if he dared fire it again. Mustapha fled, running through the desert, right into the guns of his own force, who, deciding he must be a crazed tribesman, opened fire and killed him stone dead.

  By now all forms of secrecy or clandestine attacks were history. The guards on the wall knew they were facing a major attack, and the Islamists in the sand knew they had been spotted. Elmi Ahmed, the ex–brigade commander in the war-torn suburbs of Mogadishu, was also on duty on the north wall but held his fire until he had a target.

  Moments later he had one. Abdul adjusted the range and slammed the next bomb down the barrel, hurling himself sideways as it hit home on the base firing pin. The missile blasted out on a much lower trajectory and dropped in the street, just outside the main gates to the compound, where it detonated with tremendous force.

  Abdul stayed low, and Elmi Ahmed let fly with a short volley and then two more. A bullet ricocheted off the mortar itself, but nothing hit Abdul. He answered his phone to the forward observation officer, who yelled: “GREAT SHOT! May have damaged the main gate. Raise the barrel one tick, and fire again.”

  Abdul, who had fought the Americans in the backstreets of Kabul, wriggled forward, made the adjustment, and shoved another bomb down the barrel. This one ripped through the night down a perfect line and landed in the courtyard of Salat’s garrison.

  Like most mortars, this was a high-explosive fragment round, which had greater lethality the harder the ground on which it landed. The interior of the courtyard was solid concrete, and Abdul’s mortar blew out the door to the accommodation block and injured three guards, one fatally.

  Elmi, up on the ramparts, was again faced with total darkness and like the experienced street fighter he was, he ceased fire and called to his colleagues to do the same. “We’ll see them soon enough,” he snapped. “And we may need every round we have. Don’t waste anything.”

  By now Sheikh Sharif’s second mortar team had recovered their composure and fired two more bombs in quick succession. One flew wide but another hit the compound and bounced off the office block next to Salat’s home, blasting two of his windows.

  Mohammed rushed out of the house, where he had been speaking on the phone to Admiral Wolde on duty on the west wall observation post. “Is everyone okay up there?” he called, and Abadula shouted back, “Okay, sir. Elmi just gave the order to take out the mortar nests at all costs.”

  “Good idea!” exclaimed Salat, but his voice was drowned by the sound of both heavy machine guns on the north wall opening up and once again raking the ground in the dark. Even as they did so, another bomb flew overhead and detonated in the street beyond the gates.

  Sheikh Sharif gathered his troops. The forward observation guys had informed him they had hit and damaged the garrison, but the defensive fire was intense from off the north wall. Sharif, however, understood th
at a ground attack was his only objective—to break into the compound, take control, and then find the pirates’ cash store. A standoff out here in the desert, firing long-range, was not an option.

  What Sharif did not know about siege warfare would have filled the Great Mosque of Damascus. He had no idea of the strength of his enemies; it could have been a couple of dozen men, or less. Equally it could have been two hundred trained machine gunners.

  In addition he hadn’t the slightest idea of their arsenal, whether they owned RPGs or even mortars of their own. Neither did he know if there were troops outside the compound who would be called into action.

  “CHARGE!” bellowed the Sheikh. “LET’S GO! RIGHT NOW. FORWARD, MY BRAVE BROTHERS OF ISLAM!”

  He ordered his vehicles to fall in behind and his force to divide, with thirty men charging straight forward, firing at will, carrying the light siege ladders. The rest were to make a wide swing on his left flank and come at the garrison on the eastern side. His storm troopers would open the gates once they had scaled the walls.

  Sharif’s forward commanders were told to make their assault fast but silent, and they ran through the sand and brush with their courage high. They uttered war whoops of encouragement and shouts of joy for the victory to come and sometimes broke brittle twigs as they pounded over the ground, all of which was sufficient to alert Elmi Ahmed that his enemy was on its way.

  “Stand firm,” he snapped. “Don’t fire until you can see something. And then fire at will. On my command.” There were now two heavy machine guns on the north wall, plus four other guards armed with the lighter, more manageable AK-47s. They had more ammunition than the Red Army and a mortar that Hamdan Ougoure was manhandling in the courtyard, loading it with an illuminating-round with its time fuse set to eject a parachute-suspended flare. Seconds passed and Ougoure rammed in the shell, which blew skyward at a steep angle, about four hundred yards out over the battleground.