Z: The Final Countdown

by Bob Mayer

  The American spoke for the first time, also in Portuguese, which surprised Ku but explained the fulsome way Gungue had just spoken about him. “Sergeant Ku, you will be working with Operational Detachment three one four.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ku said, for lack of anything else to say. He had no idea what an operational detachment was, or what the numbers represented. He also wondered why he was being sent to the Americans. Gungue didn’t have a clue whether Ku was experienced or not. Obviously the major didn’t want to spare any of his own men.

  “You will be the unit’s interpreter and guide,” Major Gungue said.

  “Guide?” Ku asked.

  Gungue smiled and now that smile made Ku nervous. He’d seen that look before on officers’ faces, and it usually spelled trouble. The major walked over to the map pinned to the wall. “The Americans are going to clear this area of rebels. You must show them around.” Gungue’s hand swept across the northeast part of the country on the map. Ku knew next to nothing about the area. How could he? It was rebel territory. He felt trapped, knowing there was no way out of this assignment.

  Then Ku thought about the heavily armed helicopter he had just seen flying away, the American helicopter. They had hundreds of those, from what he heard. Maybe this was not going to be as bad as it looked.

  “The team will be here on Saturday,” the American major said. “Do you have any questions?”

  Ku had hundreds of questions, but he could tell by the look that Major Gungue gave him that it was best to keep his mouth shut. He found it strange that the American would ask such a question. Officers usually did not answer questions of sergeants in the Angolan army. Maybe the Americans were different, Ku thought. He eyed the combat vest the white man was wearing: top-notch equipment. If all the soldiers coming had such gear... Ku’s head swam with the possibilities, not in terms of combat potential but in terms of the black market.

  “No, sir. I have no questions.”

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 11 June

  “We are very pleased to have you here, Ms. Young, and to have you work with us.” The 3d Special Forces Group commander, Colonel Burrows, walked around his desk and extended a hand.

  “I’m pleased to be here,” Conner Young replied, taking the hand.

  To her left, the large young man in uniform snapped to attention. “I’m Captain Kanalo, sir. I’m Ms. Young’s escort from the Department of the Army public affairs.”

  Burrows acknowledged the captain’s presence with a hearty handshake, but his attention was focused on the lone woman in the room. To Conner’s right, Dave Riley went unnoticed as Colonel Burrows introduced the other members of his primary staff to her. The Conner effect was in full force, Riley thought.

  “This is Mr. Riley, my assistant,” Conner said, breaking up the group in front of Colonel Burrows’s large desk.

  Burrows nodded. “Mr. Riley.”

  Riley forced himself not to snap to attention and salute. He simply nodded back. “Colonel.” He felt uncomfortable. His years in the service had instilled in him many habits that the past couple as a civilian had not quite erased. It felt strange to be around men in starched camouflage fatigues while wearing khaki pants and an open-collar, short-sleeve shirt.

  Riley could read the cloth markings sewn on the men’s fatigues: Combat Infantry Badges (CIBs), jump wings, Ranger and Special Forces tabs, scuba badges, and others. From his own personal history, he knew what was needed to earn each of those, and thus he knew a little about each of the men in the room.

  He wondered what they knew about him. He had never served with any of the officers present and for that, in a way, he was grateful. He preferred not to have anyone take interest in him. Of course on this job, that wasn’t so hard. One thing he had learned in the past six months while working with Conner was that he could be wearing a clown’s costume and doing backflips and most men would not notice him if he was in the same room with her.

  “You had no trouble finding us?” Burrows asked.

  The 3d Group headquarters was away from the hustle and bustle of the main post at Fort Bragg. It was set in the midst of a grove of pine trees off Yadkin Road on the edge of the reservation. Special Forces had been started on Smoke Bomb Hill on the main reservation, but as the years had gone by and the forces modernized, both the 3d and 7th Special Forces Groups along with the brand new Army Special Operations Command had moved over to this area of the post. In his last assignment, Riley had worked with the Special Forces Training Group just down the road and had seen the construction begun on these buildings, so it had not been a problem to find them.

  The facility consisted of a group headquarters, three battalion headquarters, barracks for the unmarried soldiers, an isolation facility for mission preparation, and space for team rooms. It was a long cry from the old World War II “temporary” barracks that had housed Special Forces at Fort Bragg for forty years.

  Riley didn’t like the new buildings. They seemed too impersonal. The old white-sided buildings on Smoke Bomb Hill had history hanging over them like a fog. One could almost imagine one of the first members of Special Forces walking about and working there. These glass-and-brick pieces of architecture seemed more fit for the MTV generation. Riley smiled at that thought. He still thought of himself as a twenty-something soldier, and he had to remember that he was much closer to the forty-something, nearing-retirement age he had thought was so old when he’d first come on active duty.

  Conner shook her head. “No, none at all. My cameraman is taking some background shots outside. The compound here is most impressive. Captain Kanalo told me that would be no problem.”

  “No, that’s not a problem.” Burrows gestured toward the door. “Well, let’s go down to the conference room and we’ll get you up to speed on what’s going on.”

  They moved down the carpeted hallway to a large room with a wood table as a centerpiece. The Special Forces crest was carved into the middle of the table, and the walls of the room were crowded with various plaques and photographs from the military elite of other countries around the world—places 3d Group teams had visited or hosted visits from.

  Riley noticed that they had reserved one seat for Conner next to the group commander, one farther down the table for Captain Kanalo, and none for him at the main table as the staff filled in the rest of the leather chairs. He took a hard plastic chair along the back wall along with a few captains and a couple of NCOs.

  Colonel Burrows didn’t sit down right away. “As you know, Third Group has been tasked to support Operation Restore Life. An essential part, if I might say so. I will let my operations officer, Lieutenant Colonel Waller, brief you on the details of our tasking.” With that, Burrows settled down in his seat and a gray-haired officer took his place.

  The lights dimmed and Waller began speaking, remote in his hand. A slide came on the screen built into the wall. “On the twenty-third of May, 1997, this headquarters received a Special Operations Command mission letter. The Third Special Forces Group was ordered in this letter to support Operation Restore Life in Angola. Our specific mission guidance has two phases.” Waller used a laser pointer on the wire diagram as he spoke.

  MISSION GUIDANCE: OPERATION RESTORE LIFE PHASE I: ESTABLISH ONE SFOB AT LUANDA PHASE II: ESTABLISH AS MANY AOBs TO SUPPORT MISSION IN COUNTRY AS MISSION PLANNING DETERMINES.

  “What these two phases mean is that we must deploy our group headquarters to establish a Special Forces forward operating base, SFOB, at the capital city of Luanda. That FOB must be prepared to send out our company headquarters, augmented, to establish advance operating bases, AOBs, at sites to be determined by the SFOB commander, Colonel Burrows, to support assigned missions.”

  “Excuse me a second,” Burrows interrupted. He turned to Conner. “I hope all these terms aren’t a bit overwhelming. Are they?”

  “Not at all,” Conner said. Riley could see the flash of white teeth as she graced the commander with a smile. If only Burrows knew what she knew, Riley thought. He won
dered how long she was going to wait before bursting Burrows’s bubble.

  “Go ahead,” Burrows indicated.

  A new slide came up. Waller was indeed keeping it at a base level as he continued. “The Third Special Forces Group consists of a group headquarters, a headquarters and headquarters company, a support company and three Special Forces battalions.

  “For this mission,” Waller said, “we have formed a task force out of the group assets to conduct the mission: Task Force Angel.”

  Riley winced. He wondered who made up these names. He could well imagine the reaction of the actual men on the teams to being part of a task force with such a name.

  “Angel consists of the Group headquarters augmented by the First Battalion staff at the SFOB. The three AOBs, the three line company headquarters from First Battalion, are augmented by personnel from C Company, Second Battalion. And fifteen operational detachment alphas, or ODAs, commonly called A-teams, will be doing the on-the-ground work.

  “The SFOB will be established in the capital city of Angola, adjacent to the Joint Task Force headquarters. Each of the AOB titles tells you the town where they will be established.”

  Waller paused. “Would you like me to give the background information on the situation in Angola and the strategic-level concept of operations?”

  “I understand most of what is happening,” Conner replied in a quiet voice. “Perhaps a brief summary from your perspective would be helpful, though.”

  Waller nodded. “I’m sure you know that this is to be a humanitarian mission into Angola with the dual goals of ending the decades-long civil war there and relieving the chronic famine that the country experiences. Basically you might call it an attempt at nation building.

  “This attempt, though, is to be different from previous similar attempts, such as the failed one into Somalia several years back. Although the United Nations is sponsoring the mission, command of forces on the ground is to remain with participating countries. Because of that, Angola has been cut in half in operational terms.”

  A map of Angola came up on the screen. A red line ran across the middle of the country, splitting it into two almost equal portions, north and south.

  “The United States Joint Task Force—JTF—area of operations is the northern half of the country. The southern half—and another difference in this operation—belongs to a Pan-African force spearheaded by the South African Defense Forces. The UN has issued the mandate. It is up to us and the Pan-African forces to enforce the mandate in the manner we see as best accomplishing that.”

  A new slide came up. “In support of United States missions in the northern half of the country, Third Group has three initial operational tasks: (a) conduct reconnaissance and targeting in advance of regular forces; (b) provide liaison with Angolan army forces; (c) conduct special operations as dictated by Joint Task Force commander.

  “We have already deployed advance elements of our SFOB to Luanda, and they are in place and operational. The rest of the Group Staff, and you with us, will deploy on Friday. Two of the three AOBs are also in place, and the third is currently en route. Our first operational detachments deploy later this week to conduct reconnaissance missions and initial coordination with the Angolan armed forces.”

  Riley rubbed his chin in the back of the room. There was a lot that wasn’t being said. Tasking C left a lot of possibilities open. One mission that Riley knew the group had to have under the broad title of “Special Operations” was E & E—escape and evasion for downed pilots. The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was off the coast of Angola and air force units were at a Namibian airfield to the south of the country, all prepared to carry out a “no-fly” order in support of Operation Restore Life. Some of the teams of 3d Group were going to be out there in the hinterland prepared to pick up any downed pilots. The rebel forces did have access to ground-to-air missile systems and a fledgling air force, so there were bound to be some shoot-downs.

  There was also the possibility that 3d Group had some classified “special operations” tasked to it that they couldn’t show Conner. The one that came immediately to Riley’s mind, based on his study of the situation, was the capture or possible assassination of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. That action would go a long way toward ending the civil war with one fell swoop. After the way the warlord Aidid had embarrassed U.S. forces in Somalia, Riley had no doubt that the people in the Pentagon wanted to be better prepared this time around. While assassination as a tool of foreign policy was technically illegal, Riley was certain no tears would be shed if “someone” took out Savimbi at long range with a sniper rifle, so long as that “someone” was never identified.

  The history of the civil war in Angola was long and convoluted, and Riley had spent many hours studying it to grasp the changes that had led to the present situation. For most of the civil war, the United States had actually supported Savimbi and his rebel forces, both in the international political arena and with hundreds of millions of dollars of military equipment. The CIA was reported to have even supplied training for some of Savimbi’s troops. As was not unusual in the modern world, the United States was going up against a force it had once helped train and arm.

  It had taken Riley a little while to get the various groups straight in his mind. Savimbi led UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. The government party of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was the MPLA, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. As the names of both factions indicate, they had originally been formed in the sixties and fought against the Portuguese colonial government. In early 1975, after a military overthrow of the government in Lisbon, Angola was granted independence from Portugal.

  As usual, after independence is granted in a country, there was a battle between competing guerrilla forces to fill the power vacuum left by the withdrawal of the occupying power. In the struggle between the MPLA and UNITA for control of the country, the Cold War came to Angola. The Soviet Union supported the communist MPLA and the United States began sending money to UNITA. Not because it was a democratic movement (in fact, it was modeled along Red Chinese lines), but more because it opposed the communist MPLA. Riley knew that flawed logic well: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  Because the Soviets acted more quickly and with more money, advisers, and weapons, the MPLA took over the capital city of Luanda and announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of Angola on 11 November 1975.

  By January of the following year, with the aid of ten thousand Cuban troops and over $250 million in Soviet military aid, the MPLA emerged as the dominant military power.

  The U.S. supported UNITA with overt aid for a while, but the recent memory of the debacle in Vietnam caused a large outcry against any possibility of being drawn into another such conflict, which was what the war in Angola seemed about to turn into. As a result, the Clark Amendment was passed by the United States Congress, which ended all overt aid to UNITA. The MPLA was finally recognized by the OAU, the UN, Portugal, and over seventy other nations.

  UNITA and Jonas Savimbi did not disappear, however. They simply found another supporter closer to home who did not like the idea of a communist government in power in Luanda. With South African backing, Savimbi slowly began a guerrilla campaign against the government. The MPLA was experiencing much factional infighting throughout this process, which further contributed to the confusion. In 1979 President dos Santos of the MPLA came to power in Luanda and another factor came to play in the Angolan story—Namibia, a province of South Africa to the south.

  The South Africans in Namibia supported UNITA. The Cubans in Angola supported the MPLA. Both sides wanted the other to back off. Naturally, the South Africa government wasn’t too keen on this idea and in 1981 launched assaults over a hundred kilometers deep into Angola against MPLA bases that were said to be supporting Namibian guerrillas. A decade of war followed between UNITA and the MPLA, with hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides.

  Eventually, as the Cold War
wound down and changes occurred in South Africa, the external powers backed off, with the Cubans going home and the South Africans pulling back. But the Angolans themselves continued at each other’s throats, as they were already home and had no place to go. And there was still considerable covert foreign interest in Angola due to the natural resources the country possessed—primarily oil and diamonds.

  The story got even stranger, Riley knew. The international community, along with the UN, finally managed to get both sides to agree to a country-wide election in 1992. UNITA received 34 percent of the vote, while the MPLA took over 53 percent. Instead of standing by the results as he had promised, Savimbi took to the bush and continued his fight to militarily seize what had just been denied him by popular vote.

  The last U.S. administration had finally seen the light and reversed decades-long support for Savimbi and recognized the rightfully elected government in Luanda: the MPLA. Times had changed and the red threat was no longer an issue.

  Still, the fight had continued until late 1995, when Nelson Mandela had helped negotiate another cease-fire and apparent compromise between Savimbi and the ruling MPLA. Savimbi was given the second slot in the government in exchange for peace. The solution had worked for a while, but then last year, Savimbi had attempted a coup that had just barely failed. He had succeeded, however, in seizing half the country, including the critical diamond-mining region.

  Riley’s analysis of the military situation in the country was the same as most other military men’s: without outside influence, neither side was likely to win and the war was going to drag on, with the majority of casualties coming from disease and starvation among the civilian population. It was a disastrous recipe that the United Nations wanted to abort but had always lacked the willpower and firepower to do so, especially after what had happened in Somalia. It was only after South Africa and the Organization of African States, the OAS, had proposed this joint plan, with U.S. support pledged, that action had been agreed upon.