Operation Golden Dawn

by George Wallace

  “To timeline this out, the squad topside goes ashore in about two hours. They get their targeting done tomorrow night and get their sniper teams in position. We conduct the strike the next night. Does that timetable work out?” He showed his rough draft plan to the other two officers.

  Roland looked at the plan and replied, “We can make it work. First, we need to get the new intel and re-tasking to the people topside. Next, there won’t be enough time for them to complete this mission and then to recover them for the strike. We will have to leave them on the island for the duration. Not a problem; they have the equipment and supplies for that. It means that the strike team will just be the ten of us still onboard. We’ll carry the C-4 and the rest of the weapons ashore in those two RHIBs down in the torpedo room.”

  Roland turned to Hunter with a frown. “The tough question is how do we extract both squads and thirty hostages. You have to assume that we will be under fire. To extract to SAN FRANCISCO would be very risky. It would take at least three round trips for each RHIB. Probably a minimum of two hours if SAN FRANCISCO was close in and surfaced.”

  Hunter answered, “Good question. You’re right about extracting to SAN FRANCISCO. I’m thinking of a couple of OSPREY’s with a squad of Marine Force Recon for the extraction. That is the only thing from the ESSEX ARG with the legs to get here in time.”

  “That works,” replied LT Roland, exhaling deeply.

  Hunter concluded the meeting, “Good. Now we have a lot of work to do. Lieutenant, get your guys topside briefed on the new mission. Use the signal ejector method of delivery if you need to get anything hard copy to them, flashing light for everything else. I don’t want to use a voice radio this close to shore. XO, get a message ready to send to the ARG commander and the Marine Expeditionary Force commander. Tell them what you need. If you have any problems, get SUBPAC involved. He can raise it to the necessary level to get what we need. Send it as soon as we are back out in deep water.” Hunter glanced up at the clock. “We’re getting close to the drop off point. I’ll be on the conn.”

  After the two officers left his stateroom, Hunter turned to the large safe above his desk and quickly spun the dial. Swinging the heavy steel door open, he confronted the smaller inner safe. Opening this safe, he removed a manila envelope. The envelope was sealed with heavy library tape and prominently marked in two inch high red letters, “Top Secret Golden Dawn, CO Eyes Only, Open Only Upon Instruction From COMSUBPAC.” In the corners were additional instructions indicating that this document required special handling and was exempt from declassification.

  Slitting open the envelope, Hunter removed the three-page document it contained. As he read, his face became ashen as the color drained out and his breath came in short gasps.

  "Oh, my God. I can’t believe that someone even thought of this, let alone planned for it,” he gasped.

  The Appendix provided a contingency plan if the SAN FRANCISCO failed her mission. A B-2 Stealth Bomber would depart Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska at 1600Z on 22 June. In its belly would be two armed nuclear air launched cruise missiles. It would fly over 9,000 miles and arrive at its launch point at 0800Z on 23 June. Its mission would be to conduct a nuclear strike against Nusa Funata.

  They had until 0800Z on 23 June to destroy the facilities on Nusa Funata or they would have front row seats to watch the first use of nuclear weapons in over half a century.

  It was suddenly apparent that their time was limited by more than the delivery schedule of the smallpox. They had to destroy the facility and the existing stores of the contagion with enough time to report before the nuclear missiles could be launched. Once the missiles were in the air, they could not be called back. The knot in his stomach got very much tighter.

  21 Jun 2000, 0416LT (20 Jun, 2116Z)

  “Skipper, request that you come to radio when you get a second,” Chief Jones asked over the MJ sound powered telephone.

  “On my way,” Hunter answered.

  Entering the combined radio/ESM space, the Commander found several of his electronics technicians huddled around the AN/WLR-8 intercept receiver and an attached tape deck. While Chief Jones was carefully adjusting the digital tuner and watching the waveform of the incoming signal, the others were listening to an intercepted conversation. The voices had a tinny, not quite natural quality to them. It appeared to be little more than two soldiers idly conversing to kill the endless boredom of a long night’s guard duty. Nothing important was being said, only a rambling discussion of life on the island. The discussion was in English, which had become the common language among terrorists, given their polyglot of mother tongues. One of them had a distinct Eastern European accent while the other had a Middle Eastern one.

  Chief Jones looked up from the receiver and saw the Commander standing behind him. “Here Skipper, listen to this,” he said, turning to the tape deck. “We picked this up a few minutes ago. Same two that are still talking. Their communications security really sucks. Must think they are safe with a simple commercial streaming encryption algorithm. Took us about five minutes to crack it. Thought you would want to hear it right away.”

  Putting on the head set, Hunter could hear the two terrorists talking. The first few minutes appeared to be a precursor to the meaningless conversation that they were currently listening to. Suddenly the Commander’s ears perked up.

  Terrorist number one was talking. “Did you hear what happened to Mjecka after the Major found out that he tried to rape that American girl? The Major gave him to Dr. Aswal to experiment with. I hear Dr Aswal put him in one of those glass cells and sprayed in some of the new smallpox NX. He was dead in twenty-four hours. The screaming was horrible. The body wasn’t even recognizable as human.

  Terrorist number two chimed in, “I hear that there is no cure. If you get it, you die. I sure will be happy when that stuff is gone off the island. Any word on when the ship will be here?”

  “What I hear is that it arrives tomorrow night. Hope we don’t get assigned to load it. The farther I stay away from that stuff, the better.”

  Chief Jones reached over and turned off the player. “Skipper, that’s the part that I wanted you to hear unless you want to hear more barracks rumors.”

  The Commander put down the headset and digested what he had just heard. This verified both the presence of the smallpox and the delivery schedule. And it looked like it was going to be transported by ship.

  How was he going to deal with this information getting out among the crew? Although submariners are renowned for their silence outside the pressure hull, there is very little secrecy among the crew. The best that he could hope for was to warn the electronics technicians and hope that they at least passed the level of concern along when they inevitably talked with their crewmates.

  He turned to the four people assembled there and said, “Guys, what you heard here didn’t happen. This does not go beyond here. This is extremely sensitive and highly classified. Understand?”

  They had all routinely been involved in working with information that was classified at a much higher level than Top Secret and fully understood the implications of the Captain’s words. They all nodded affirmatively.

  21

  21 Jun 2000, 0430LT (20 Jun, 2130Z)

  This was the blackest part of the night, that time just before dawn. The sun was still well below the horizon, not even a faint glow to the East. The moon had set hours ago. The night darkened into near total blackness as they came under cloud cover that obscured even the faint starlight.

  The island was darker even than the night. A looming, haunting presence. It was difficult to shake the feeling of dread that grew as the team approached the beach. They could just barely make out the white surf line against the black volcanic sand. The fetid smell of rotting vegetation drifted out to greet them.

  The long tow was at an end. After the excitement and exertion of the lockout and the periscope snag, the squad was attempting to get what rest they could in the cramped and uncomfortable infl
atable boats. In the manner of battle-hardened warriors, they were resting to store energy because they knew that they would soon need every bit of it. Their survival and the mission success depended on it. A microsecond delay caused by fatigue could be the vital difference between success and failure; between life and death.

  The comforting presence of the two periscopes disappeared below the surface.

  “All right, start paddling. This is a little too far out to swim in yet,” Chief Boatswain Mate Sergiavich hissed, his gravelly voice barely above a whisper. “And keep the noise down. Sound travels forever over water this quiet.”

  Silently the two CRRCs full of deadly professional killers approached the black sand shore. When they were 500 yards from the beach, the SEALs rolled into the tepid water. The last man in each CRRC pulled lanyards, dumping the CO2 from the floatation tubes. The now useless, weighted boats slid quickly beneath the surface; settling on the bottom some 200 feet below.

  The SEALs descended below the surface themselves, but only a few feet. Their Draeger LAR V re-breather systems fed them pure oxygen and, most importantly, didn’t leave the telltale stream of bubbles inherent to scuba regulators. Grabbing their wrist compasses, they swam on until the bottom came up to meet them.

  They then followed the bottom until Boats, in the lead, had his head just above the surface. He was at the surf line, just a few yards from dry sand, an almost invisible black head amongst the crashing waves. He spent almost half an hour there, scanning carefully for any sign that they had a reception committee. The remainder of the team stayed fully submerged, lying flat on the bottom, awaiting his signal to either cross the beach or scurry back out to sea.

  20 Jun 2000, 1100LT (2200Z)

  Commodore Calucci was in a quandary. His normal weekly staff meeting was set for noon. Yet she called just minutes ago to say that her classes had been canceled for the rest of the day and she was hot to see him.

  What was a red-blooded guy to do? The staff meeting would last for hours. That fat bore of a Chief Staff Officer would argue every last detail of every agenda item. But he couldn’t just miss it without raising suspicion. His irritability was reaching entirely new heights.

  His yeoman knocked on the office door and stepped inside, “You wife is calling on line two, sir.”

  He picked up the receiver. “Yes, dear. What do you want?”

  He held the phone away from his ear as she yammered. Her incessant jabbering drove him insane. What had he ever seen in her? True, her father had been an admiral when they met. That had been useful, at least until the old goat retired. Now she was of no use to him.

  Then his ear picked up words that registered on his cortex when nothing else had. “I need you to come home and talk to your son. He skipped school to surf, again.”

  He answered, “Dear, I’ll be home as soon as I can. I have a lot of things that need to be wrapped up here before I can leave.”

  He replaced the receiver back on the hook and grabbed his hat as he walked out the door. “Yeoman, I’ll be out the rest of the day. Family emergency. Tell the Chief Staff Officer to call me on the cell phone if anything is really important.”

  He jumped in the Porsche, revved the engine and headed out the North Gate and sped on to the Nimitz Highway. The run to her apartment in Pearl City was only ten minutes. He had the whole afternoon with her. The wife and that brat of a son could wait.

  21 Jun 2000, 0600LT (20 Jun, 2300Z)

  Boats lay in the surf line watching. Nothing moved ashore. Just the normal jungle sounds. He was so familiar with them that they were comforting. Not the slightest sign that anyone was expecting their arrival. No movement in the trees, betraying an ambush. He raised his hand slightly and waved the all clear signal.

  In a carefully orchestrated and practiced maneuver, one black-clad team member scurried across the sand and into the tree line while being covered by team members crouching in the surf.

  The sun peeked over the horizon as the last of the squad crossed the sand, carefully erasing any traces of their passage. In the growing light, they buried their swimming gear in shallow holes scooped out of the sand. Shouldering their combat equipment, the team moved inland to find a place to hide for the day.

  They slipped through the heavy coastal mangrove swamp undergrowth. Several groups of patrolling soldiers passed them by without ever seeing the moving green shadows. The SEALs heard the nervous chatter and smelled strong pungent smell of tobacco smoke from the passing guards long before the guards were even near.

  These were not highly trained combat soldiers. Even so, they could be very dangerous. They were anxious about something and were nervously patrolling. The squad would have to be extremely cautious not to accidentally encounter a random patrol or to leave telltale traces that would betray their presence.

  Avoiding the few built up trails, the SEALs slithered through the swamp. They soon learned why the Nusa Funata mangrove swamps had a reputation for being impenetrable. Wading in brackish water, frequently up to their necks, they struggled silently inland, toward higher ground. The tangle of mangrove roots constantly blocked their progress. The slippery, thick volcanic mud sucked them down. Hordes of biting and stinging insects voraciously attacked any exposed flesh.

  They frequently spied snakes either slithering through the tree branches or swimming in the brown water. Boats hated snakes. He had hated them ever since the encounter with a fer-de-lance in Costa Rica during an exercise early in his career. He had nearly died and his left leg still bore the scars from the necrotic actions of the venom. Nusa Funata was home to Sea Kraits, Taipans, Deaths Adders, Tiger Snakes and a host of others, some yet to be named. This was not a hospitable place.

  Onward they labored, measuring their progress in scant feet. The heavy packs seemed to snag on every obstacle. Each step involved tripping over a submerged root. Bubbles of methane and hydrogen sulfide burst under their noses, kicked free by their passage. The humidity was cloying, the heat stifling. The fetid odor of rotting vegetation surrounded them like an annoying cloud. No gentle sea breeze could possibly penetrate that maze.

  21 Jun 2000, 1400LT (0700Z)

  After hours of exhausting slogging, the team finally reached semi-dry ground. The sun was already passed its zenith when they discovered a small hummock, providing good cover and reasonably visible approaches. Boats laid out the guard positions so all the approaches could be covered with a murderous crossfire if need be.

  While the men settled in to get what rest they could before the upcoming night’s activities, Jankowski set up to the SATCOM transceiver to communicate with Roland on SAN FRANCISCO. The communications were quick, concise and to the point. Just a report that they were safely ashore. No sign of detection. They would be in position tonight for their missions. The chosen approach route could not be reused. A more direct route was needed.

  As they settled down for a short rest, the sky opened with a late afternoon deluge. The downpour reduced visibility to inches and seeped into every seam of their raingear. The uncomfortable bivouac was all the SEALs could expect. They simply huddled a little deeper in the undergrowth, secure in the knowledge that the rain that made them uncomfortable also kept the guards from patrolling and drove away the bugs.

  21 Jun 2000, 1845LT (1145Z)

  All too soon, the day ended as the sun slipped behind the shoulder of Mount Guishu. It was time to move out again.

  Rain still dripped from the umbrella of leaves as Boats gathered his small group for a last review of the plan. Spreading out a small map of Nusa Funata, Boats deployed his men. "Jankowski, take Meyer and Cooke. Target the pier and warehouse complex and then the airfield. Stuart, you take Wood, Tagamond and Heigle. Find the hostages. First locate the factory cave. Then set up sniper hide holes to protect the hostages when the strike goes down. I'll take Johnson and Manuelo up Mount Guishu to find that missile and radar complex."

  The squads departed on their separate paths. Exhaustion was not an option for these men. Rest was something
for after the mission.

  Squad One slogged silently through the mangroves again. They headed West for about a mile until they came to the edge of the small bay. Staying hidden in the mangrove, they peered out across the black water. The darkened pier and warehouse area was clearly visible through their night vision goggles. The pier was empty but inside the warehouse were several pallets of silvery cylinders.

  Meyer tapped Jankowski on the shoulder and pointed. "There it is, just like that Aussie said. Looks like those super-hardened NBC canisters like Sadam used. It’ll take a direct hit to blast them." he whispered.

  They could see heavily armed men patrolling or standing guard around the complex. The gate through the high chain-link fence surrounding the facility was protected by a sand bagged heavy weapons bunker. The snout of an armored personnel carrier protruded out of the warehouse door, its machine cannon pointed down the pier in their direction.

  Jankowski raised a digital camera and took several pictures of the facility as Meyer took a GPS fix of their location. RM3 Cooke had set up the portable Satcom data link. Within minutes, the three had transmitted the visual and position data back to SAN FRANCISCO. Confirmation of receipt was immediate. Just as silently as they arrived, they slipped back into the swamp and headed toward the airfield.

  Boats, Johnson, and Manuelo headed North. They had to climb to the summit of Mount Guishu. After the first hour, the mangrove swamp gave way to a lush tropical rain forest. They climbed through groves thick with strangler figs enshrouding massive teak, meranti and ramin trees.

  In the shade of a particularly large meranti tree, they encountered the horrid smell and awesome beauty of an Amorphophallus Titantium, the Corpse Flower. At nearly a meter across and two meters tall, the short-lived blossom was the world’s largest orchid. The carrion-like smell attracted insects which, in turn, attracted a swarm of feeding fox bats. There wasn't a single sign that man ever walked here before.