“Tell us about UAV limitations,” Serena reiterated, trying to remain on point.
“Well mostly they’re slow, compared to a jet fighter, and vulnerable to attack by a manned aircraft.”
“That’s what we need to understand. How do you counter that?”
“We can fly high over the battle space and loiter for long periods of time. We don’t put a pilot at risk over hostile territory. We can watch a terrorist’s house, or camp, and watch for a known terrorist to be there, and civilians to not be there, thereby minimizing collateral damage. Even when we take out one, or more, really bad guys, if we accidentally kill a wife, or child, we take a lot of heat.”
“We understand the good points. What vulnerabilities can we exploit?”
“Command and control can be a challenge. We’re most effective when we have a man on the ground who can direct our operations from on site, but having a man with the necessary Comms in place, in hostile territory, is a luxury we seldom have. Another beauty of using a UAV, besides not losing pilots, is not having to have boots on the ground. . . except for a ground observer, maybe a Seal like yourself.”
“Can we jam a UAVs command and control?”
“You could if you know their frequencies, and have enough transmit power to override their control signals. I haven’t had the luxury of experimenting with that option, so I don’t know. Do you know the control frequencies and have jamming transmitters?”
“No, sir.”
“Depending on the sophistication of the vehicle you’re after, it could have a preprogrammed route, and not depend on external command and control. It may also have terrain following capability.”
“I see,” replied Ian. “Do you have any other advice for us?”
“No. But good luck. Let me know how it all turns out . . . if you can.” Barrows stood. “I must get back to work.”
“Thank you, sir,” Serena said.
Once they were out of Barrows’ earshot, Ian said, “Barrows really didn’t want to talk about his Predator’s vulnerabilities, did he?”
“No, they’re his pride and joy. You don’t badmouth your own babies.”
Thirty One
After a meat and potatoes dinner in the mess hall, Serena received another secure satellite call from Desiree.
“Do you have an update for me?”
“I do. My contact in the Shanghai port authority informed me that the yacht, Rising Sun, motored by Wusong’s piers a half hour ago. Alicia pointed a satellite at our estimate of its location and I was able to locate it. I can only get spotty coverage at best due to 70% cloud cover, but I can give you our best estimate of its current location, course and speed.”
Serena pulled her iPad mini from her flight suit pocket, and said, “I’m ready.”
“We last held them at 31 degrees 30-minutes north latitude, 122-degrees east longitude covering ground at about 15 knots on a heading of 45 degrees. The yacht doesn’t give off any heat signature we can use, and they’ve turned off all their phones and radios. We will continue to monitor its track. There are several candidate freighters, if the plan is to transfer over to a freighter for the drone launch, so we’ll continue to look for a probable intersect solution as the yacht gets closer to North Korea.”
“Excellent report, Desiree.”
“Thank you. FYI, Alicia is getting some well-deserved shuteye, and will be back shortly. I will update every hour as things unfold.”
“Thank you, Desiree. I’ll send you a visual location to fill in your track as soon as I can. Try to narrow down the possible freighters, their flags, cargo, destinations, and so forth. As long as we can keep the attack under close scrutiny, we can let it run its course, but if things go awry we may have to brute force abort it, so stay on top of things.”
“I will.”
Serena laid out her marked up chart on the P-3C’s navigation table, and drew a projected course from Shanghai to just above the 38th parallel, near Wonsan, on North Korea’s eastern coast. She used a minimum average of ten knots, and a maximum average of twenty knots sailing speed, and estimated an arrival time to launch point of between 42 and 84 hours.
She boxed in her best guess as to where the yacht would be, given her course and speed estimates, and addressed the P-3C navigator, Lieutenant Green, “I think our target will operate within this search box. Right now, I estimate the target to be in the smaller area outlined in blue pencil.”
“Yes, ma’am. We’ll run our first search pattern on the smaller area.”
Thirty Two
Jacques thought, it must be nice to be rich, as he rolled down the sheets on the pillow topped comfort bed in the stateroom he had been assigned. He turned out the main light and left the night light burning. He hoped he could fall asleep quickly. He was exhausted, and the thought of having to launch a Sarin loaded drone against the good people of South Korea for a bunch of terrorists sickened him, but he had to do the best job he could to infiltrate himself into the elite of the Select. He hoped that an American, or ROK, pilot would be able to shoot down the drone before it could do any damage. Jacques knew he was probably the best pilot of drone, or fighter plane, alive, but he could not flub the drone flight in any way. The Select have to be convinced that no one else could have done a better job of flying the drone, and that the failure of the attack, if there was a failure, was due to reasons other than Jacques’ piloting skills, or intentions.
The cabin door opened. Jacques looked across the semi-dark stateroom. He saw Louise in outline walking toward his bunk. She dropped her nightgown to the deck, pulled back the sheet, climbed into the bed and snuggled up to him. Her long lean body was warm to the touch. She reached out and held his face while she gave him a long seductive kiss on the lips.
Jacques kissed her back. He had been under terrific stress these past few days and Louise was ready to relieve some of the stress she had caused. Jacques considered what he must do for the safety of the world and gave in to her erotic desires. She was a very different person in bed than she was in the work environment. At work she was to the point, no nonsense, strong, focused, and aloof, but in bed she was a needy, submissive female looking for love.
Jacques woke to an otherwise empty bed early the next morning. Louise had left in the night after satisfying her nocturnal neediness. He spent the day with Louise and Herman going over, and over, the complete flight plan until he could recite it from memory. Jacques still didn’t know how deep into the Select Louise and Herman were involved. He noted that the dinner at the Baron’s was the first time either of them had been to the Baron’s house as guests, but he suspected they were offspring of other Select senior members. They were aware of some of the Select’s goals and capabilities, but perhaps not all.
Jacques’ other hold card was Katherine’s interest, or feigned interest, in him personally. He did not mention his one-night tryst with Katherine to Louise. He assumed if she wanted to talk about it, she would bring it up. Maybe she was just looking for a little stress relief herself, and did not want to become romantically involved. Romantic involvement with both Louise and Katherine could become too complicated, even for Jacques.
Ian conducted a preflight check with the F-4. The waiting was difficult for Ian to bear. Ian didn’t have Jacques’ natural flying capability, but he was an excellent pilot, nonetheless. If it were possible for them to trade places, Jacques would have a better chance of shooting down the drone than Ian. From the intel passed back to them from Jacques through Moira, Serena’s assistant, Ian guessed that a reversal of roles would have been out of the question because Ian couldn’t have dropped out of his Seal duties for the weeks it took Jacques to infiltrate the Baron’s Select. Ian admitted to himself that he might not have passed the rigorous flight testing that Jacques was given to obtain the drone piloting job in the first place. Plus, Jacques’ lady killer good looks probably earned him top marks from Louise and Katherine.
Since Jacques couldn’t communicate the exact launch time and route of the drone f
rom the yacht, Ian had to rely on Serena and Desiree to make good guesses from their tracking of the yacht, and Desiree intercepting all of the Baron’s email, cell phone, land line and radio transmissions. The Baron had probably forbidden any communications from, or between, the yacht and the freighter until transfer time. Desiree was the most talented Intel officer Ian had ever met.
Desiree studied all the overhead images of the yacht’s track since it left port, and eliminated all the freighters and tankers in the area of interest that could not connect with the yacht given her estimate of yacht destination, course and speed. She was left with only a handful of possibilities. Finding the yacht in the vast ocean area was a challenge, the white sails were like a needle in a haystack among the white caps. Magnifying the images gave her a better shot at recognition, but increased the search time. Alicia joined in the search when her other duties allowed, but she had many management responsibilities at the Agency, so Crackerjack spent more and more of her time assisting Desiree.
Working at the end of Alicia’s conference table, Crackerjack said, “Miss Davis, I think I’ve found it!”
Desiree stepped over to where Crackerjack was pointing to a particular spot on the image and studied it with her magnifying glass. The white patch ran counter to the wavelets on the surface of the water. Looking straight down on the mast, Desiree made out the foresail and the topsail.
“Very good, Cassie, now search backward and forward in time, and estimate the yacht’s course and speed.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Please, just call me Desiree, or Miss Davis. I prefer Desiree. I’m no older than you.”
“Yes, Ma. . . I mean Miss Davis. I’m sorry, but you seem so assured and mature. And please call me Cassie. Only Alicia calls me Crackerjack.”
“Thank you, Cassie, I think.” Desiree compared the position of the yacht with the potential freighter and tanker connections, and determined there now were only two yacht-freighter connections that fit during the next satellite gap time.
Cassie called Desiree back to her screen, and said, “I found the same sail image on the previous satellite pass, and determined the yacht is following the Korean coastline from 100 nautical miles out, at an estimated 15 knots.
Desiree entered Cassie’s estimates into the geographical navigation program and determined that during the next satellite outage period at 3:10 A.M Korean time, only one freighter was in position, course and speed to allow a transfer of personnel from the yacht. Assuming the launch would take place during the satellite outage at. 11:10 P.M. that night, whoever was orchestrating this operation was organized and very knowledgeable about satellite coverage. She would pass these latest findings to Serena ASAP.
Serena’s aircrew didn’t question her motivation for flying with all the P-3’s external lights off, or taking the course, altitude and speed she requested. The co-pilot was taken aback though, when she asked, “Do you mind if I sit on your lap while we run this leg of the course, or use your seat for a while?”
The co-pilot, Lieutenant Shinn, wearing a large gold ring on his left hand ring finger, did not hesitate to relinquish his seat to Serena, who looked especially professional in her camouflage flight suit, and night and heat vision goggles. Serena looked like she would be more at home in a combat zone than on a P-3 surveillance flight.
“I’ll take this opportunity for a rest break, if it’s OK with you, Captain?”
Smirking for his co-pilot’s benefit, the pilot nodded his assent.
Serena settled into the co-pilot’s seat and adjusted her goggles for observation outside the windshield. She spotted a freighter with minimum maritime legal running lights cruising parallel to, and 100 miles off, the South Korean coast. The yacht would be up ahead.
“Please log the location, course and speed of the freighter below,” Serena ordered the Navigator.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
Serena studied out the freighter-yacht’s possible strategy. The freighter could slow prior to transferring Jacques from yacht to freighter, and pass slightly ahead of the yacht to allow for transferring back in the next 24 hours without creating a great deal of suspicion. So, their windows must be 3:10 A.M. to transfer to the freighter, set up until 11:00 P.M. that night, launch the drone at 11:10 P.M., and return back to the yacht at 3:10 A.M. the following morning.
Serena said, “Take us down to 2,000 feet and cruise at 25 miles per hour above stall speed on a course of 330 degrees.”
The pilot made the requested flight changes and steadied up, having already concluded that Serena was no ordinary woman in any sense of the word.
“Yes,” Serena almost shouted. Her night vision goggles bounced on her head. “Navigator, please note our position and time, and annotate it ‘target found.’” The yacht was also cruising with the minimum maritime legal running lights.
The navigator, Lieutenant Green, replied, “Yes, Ma’am. It’s OK to call you ma’am, isn’t it?”
“Please call me Serena, ma’am seems so old.”
“It does.” The navigator turned to mark his chart.
“We have to appear to be on a routine flight, but we need to verify we have the correct targets,” Serena explained. She asked the pilot, Lieutenant-Commander Hill, “Please do a 180 degree turn in another 15 minutes, and fly back over our two target positions, then we can head back to base.”
On the return flight Serena asked the navigator to mark the location of the freighter and the yacht, again. She relinquished the co-pilot’s seat back to Lieutenant Shinn.
As he retook his seat, the co-pilot said, “Nice goggles you have there, Miss Jones.”
Serena realized she may have stepped on the Lieutenant’s manhood by taking over his seat, so she ignored his possible double entendre sexist remark.
Smart aleck pilots were a dime a dozen to her. She knew it was difficult for them to be handsome, pilots, and humble at the same time. She had never known Jacques, who was more handsome and more talented than any other man she had ever met, to ever make a pass with a crude undertone. He was too much of a gentleman.
She wondered how Jacques was getting along with his two co-workers, Louise and Herman. The dossiers Desiree had worked up on the two of them were very impressive. They were offspring of very wealthy, and powerful families.
Louise Arnot, the blonde bombshell would be a handful for any man, except maybe Jacques. She had trained as an aeronautical engineer, served as one of the few female Luftwaffe pilots, and was hired as a trainer pilot for the Baron’s aeronautical company.
Herman Grumman, trained as an electrical engineer, had a pilot’s license, and was certified for aircraft with two engines, instruments, and instructor ratings. He could have qualified for his work at the Baron’s company on his own, but his family ties probably played an integral part in his employment.
Serena took her chart to the sonar operator’s table in the aft compartment. She laid the chart out and plotted the positions of the freighter and the yacht, calculated estimated courses and speeds and decided her guesses for the connections were correct. She needed to get back to Ian and lay out their plan to intercept the drone. She would also pass what she had learned back to Desiree at the NSA, so she could continue to assist as necessary.
Jacques, Louise, and Herman rode over from the yacht to the freighter in a small Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat [RHIB] piloted by a crewman from the freighter under cloudy skies in the dark of night. Louise and Herman had focused on their notes for the mission, but had otherwise been unusually quiet the whole day. Jacques had studied his notes until he could recite them from memory. The three of them clambered up the ladder at the side of the ship and were greeted by an Asian man who motioned for them to follow him.
Jacques knew that timing was everything for the success of their launch. They needed a period of no satellite coverage, and/or clouds to block satellite coverage. Their best launch practice times had been nineteen minutes, but those had been conducted from a hangar on land. The actual l
aunch was to be conducted on rails from the deck of a rolling ship.
They had the coming day to set up the command console, and to prepare the drone for launch as much as possible. The US surveillance satellite which dominated this area had two gaps in coverage each night. If they weren’t successful in launching during the first launch window, they had only one more opportunity before they had to return to the yacht. The freighter would slow down slightly to accommodate the first launch window, but could not deviate from its standard course and speed for a whole day more. They had to return back to the yacht without arousing any suspicion about their activities. Failure was not an option. The freighter crew would throw all of their launch equipment overboard, and return them back to the yacht as soon as their operation was complete.
Jacques went over the flight plan with Louise and Herman for the nth time.
Jacques would fly the aircraft from the freighter to the interior of North Korea under stealth conditions, Herman would then turn the stealth mode ‘off’ so it would be identified as emerging from North Korea, and turn south from deep within North Korea across the demilitarized zone, the 38th parallel and Panmunjom, and on to Seoul. If a patrol aircraft pursued the drone when it was within reach of its intended target, Herman would turn the stealth mode back ‘on.’ The goal was to hit the National Assembly building in Seoul with Sarin gas, but even the appearance of an attack on South Korea from North Korea would be considered a success, a grudging success, by the Baron.
After the worldwide furor created by the Sarin attack in Syria in 2012, any chemical or biological attack was considered a global concern. The Baron wanted to create a global concern, and as much chaos as possible, to the point of reignited open warfare between North and South Korea, if possible, thereby dragging the US and China, among others, into the fray.
The Noble Mercenary Page 27
