Power Play (45 page)

The specialist equipment, personally owned, was packed down separately . . . that’s wet suits, diving tanks, air lines, goggles, and those big SEAL-grade flippers, which can propel an operator like Barnaby Wilkes through the water like a pent-up porpoise.

In the final days of training, Mack’s senior men tried to assimilate the precise conditions they would meet as they drifted in toward the Russian freighter. But the difficulty was height. They had diagrams of the ship’s interior, adapted from the priceless world almanac of ocean warfare,
Jane’s Fighting Ships
. But they were uncertain about the precise distance above the water the
Koryak
’s stern rails would be. And the heaving surface of the Pacific was, at best, capricious.

The equation also involved the height of the Irish ship they would be aboard. Mack had put the entire Department of Naval Intelligence on the case, trying to ascertain whether the
Koryak
would be slightly above, or below, the high side of the heeled-over Irish patrol boat. But he doubted they could finalize any of these stats until they moved to the eastern end of Donegal Bay.

 

SEAL Team 10 flew to Ireland on March 10 in their regular turboprop aircraft, the giant C-13O Hercules freighter. The navy had already drop-shipped twenty-four American-built vehicles from the port of Southampton in southern England to Dublin—a dozen Jeeps, four trucks, four vans, and four staff cars.

All of them had been driven across Ireland to the Donegal area, where
an Irish body shop and repair service had worked for five nights, under the strictest cover, repainting and disguising anything that might suggest American military. The SUVs were all black with Irish license plates and insignia. The rest were resprayed in a variety of colors—silver, white, and blue—again with Irish plates.

Four vans drove down to Shannon Airport to await the arrival of the SEAL Hercules and then to transport all the gear back to Donegal. The SEALs themselves were traveling north in a luxury white Volvo bus, said to be the last word in “executive travel.”

SEAL Team 10 drove down to the new complex just before lunch. Mack was tempted to take Lieutenant Commander Malone and drive over to the St. Ernan’s House hotel for lunch. But he decided he had better get his team squared away as soon as possible. There were now four houses available, all of them renovated for the Irish government. This took care of the senior sixteen of the SEALs.

Brand new and constructed a couple of hundred yards along the shore, the first new accommodation block provided individual rooms for up to forty SEALs. It was set back but with views across the bay and contained a recreation room and large communal bathrooms on each of its two floors. The marine security guard was already ensconced in here. A separate “chow hall” had been built right behind the main jetty and was fully staffed by Irish caterers, with all supplies provided from the Bruckless village store.

The commanding officer of NAVFAC Donegal was Lieutenant Commander James Mills, who had flown in from Norfolk, Virginia, on short notice and was now resident in the newly renovated house vacated by Mr. and Mrs. Ronan O’Callaghan. But the bucolic view from their house was not what it once was.

Since the barges carrying the steel piles and sheet “walls” were already in place, the jetty construction corporation, under the auspices of Harris Pye of Dublin, had decided to build immediately the second jetty, 125 feet offshore from the new construction’s seaward side, thus creating the narrow channel between the concrete jetties, which everyone wanted.

This entire area could be covered, and the holes for the roof girders were already in place. The result was one of the fastest covered docks ever built. Even before the completion of the floating dry dock, Harris Pye was constructing the side structures and the steel roof.

It was complete by mid-March. In under five months, a safe US Naval harbor had been built on the shores of Donegal, and there was no way any Russian satellite could peer down from space and ascertain what the Americans were doing. The deep water washed in so close to this part of the shore, it was unlikely they would ever see a prowling US submarine in the area.

US underwater boats could get within twelve hundred yards of the dock without surfacing and then make another four hundred yards at periscope depth. Which meant that even if the US submarines came in at only five knots, no Russian satellite had more than a six-minute window to hit a photographic target on which they had never been focused.

Mack Bedford could not believe his eyes at the transformation of this place since the first day of October. He could never claim it was made more beautiful, and in fact it was infinitely less beautiful, but there was a strong, functional aura about it.

The new harbor launch, a huge, red-and-black, disguised SEAL inflatable flown from Norfolk and trucked from Shannon, rode easily on her lines out between the jetties. Only the presence of two barges, anchored inshore and loaded with pilings and sheet steel to strengthen the foreshore, betrayed there was still work in progress along this once pristine land.

There was also shipping activity in Irish waters. The seventeen-hundred-ton
LÉ Róisín,
a lightly gunned Irish Navy coastal patrol ship, was currently buffeting her way through long, breaking seas off County Derry, past the Giant’s Causeway, on the far northeastern corner of Ireland. At a steady fourteen knots, she was about halfway around the 260-mile north route from Dublin and was expected to dock on the brand-new main jetty, under the roof, in US NAVFAC Donegal, at around nine o’clock this evening.

The
Róisín
was the ship SEAL Team 10 would use to stop and then capture the Russian Navy’s
Koryak,
as soon as clearance came through. At present she carried a crew of forty-four, six officers, but many of these were gunnery men, and personnel who were required only if a naval action was fought. This would be novel, since Ireland had never in its history fought such an engagement, at least not since they saw off a couple of Viking raiders in the Middle Ages.

With the arrival of their ship so imminent, Mack Bedford decided upon a thorough briefing of his full team starting in the afternoon. And
there, in the accommodation block’s recreation room, he assembled his forty personnel to explain the rudiments of the plan and why it was considered necessary.

They listened in silence as he unfolded the long saga of the forthcoming attack on the main building at Fort Meade. Several of them looked very surprised. It’s hard to accept the grim reality of the Russian mind-set until it’s made clear, chapter and verse, what they really stand for.

Mack told them about the spy who’d given his life for this mission. He told them how accurate Nikolai’s data had been and how he had carried out this high-level spying task, with no consideration for his own safety, but out of concern for his own people, and the dangerous, impossible path down which Nikita Markova was leading them.

He described how Nikolai had been gunned down by the Russian Secret Service. And how the Mossad had done so much to reveal Russian intentions. He told Team 10 how Nikolai Chirkov’s information had been pinpoint accurate at almost every turn in the road. And he told them how they, Team 10 alone, had been selected to smash Markova’s plan.

He then explained the need for total secrecy and that the Russian freighter would be carrying the full complement of equipment for the attack on Fort Meade. But it must be taken out without anyone ever knowing, because it was critical the president of the United States must not be implicated.

Mack worked from a wide blackboard at the far end of the room, demonstrating how the Irish ship with the full team embarked would be fitted with an enormous flooding tank that would tilt them to almost forty degrees. At that moment they understood for the first time why they had trained as they had, off San Diego.

The
Róisín
was to act as if she were sinking, wallowing in the water, imploring someone to help them. Under international maritime law, any approaching ship, military or merchant, is obliged to steam immediately to the rescue. The Russians would have no choice, once they had received the SOS from the
Róisín
.

The SEAL ship would drift slowly in and wait for lines to be secured. They would immediately attack, capture the ship, and, with the aid of the crane fixed to their foredeck, lift two heavy lead boxes out of the
Koryak
’s hold, because in there were four nuclear warheads, photographed by the US satellite KH-11 several weeks ago.

The attack would be conducted on the precise lines they had practiced so many times off San Diego.

“How big’s the
Koryak
?” asked one SEAL.

“Five thousand tons,” replied Mack. “I am hoping it will feel exactly the same as that banana boat we worked with.

“Only one thing’s changed. I have given a lot of thought to the advantages of a daytime attack, but I’ve concluded that it’s better for us to attack at night, to achieve surprise. I am still open to suggestions from senior men, but I was swayed by the difficulty of (a) appearing to be in genuine distress in broad daylight and (b) trying to conceal our key groups of assault troops on the decks as we make our approach.

“I understand it would be much easier to see where the hell we’re going in the daylight. But I am always drawn to the issue of the surprise attack. And it’s much easier to achieve that at night. I think we’ll get aboard more quickly and safely in the dark, and that gives us a great chance of imposing ourselves from the outset. Remember, the Russians will think they are just moving in to assist some sinking Irish boat when, suddenly, in the pitch-dark, they find themselves in the middle of a sea battle.

“That surprise element is critical—it gains us the initiative. Tomorrow morning you’ll see two big searchlights being fixed onto the Irish boat’s upper works. As soon as we attack, those lights will switch on and blind anyone on the
Koryak
’s deck. We’ll have a man on each light, so we can get light where we need it and use it as a weapon when we don’t. Our marksmen will provide covering fire to the assault party, while we climb the hull, hopefully not too high.”

“You coming with us, sir, up the side of the ship?”

“Sure I am. If I’m not there, you might fall in the friggin’ Atlantic,” said Mack.

Everyone laughed, remembering that the guy who had asked the question had fallen straight into the water the first time they scaled the rusting old beam of the banana boat.

“We’ll have two fire teams, sited separately on the upper deck, where they will remain throughout the contact phase. They will each be armed with their M4s. But we cannot yet tell whether the marksmen will face a sparsely populated deck or a more substantial defense force. We’ll decide that on the night. Each fire team will hold one grenade launcher, and both teams will come under the command of Chief Sharp.”

The tall SEAL gunner from the Badlands of South Dakota gave a little half salute in confirmation.

“There will be two further four-man teams on the railings,” said Mack. “They come under the command of Chief Cannel, and in position throughout the approach phase. They will all be wearing long, hooded oilskin coats and be ready to help secure the boat alongside the Russian ship. Under those coats they will be in full combat gear, rifles slung around their necks. They should be ready to use those weapons the moment the situation warrants it.

“Should the opening assault force secure the Russian ship quickly, Chief Cannel’s men will withdraw into the shadows—his first team will remain on call as a reserve, to be used as and when required, or to provide medical support if needed.

“The remaining team will go below, change into their diving gear, and wait for the moment to go over the side, under the command of Lieutenant Barney Wilkes.

“Remember, no one’s going into the water before the Russian ship is secured and the nuclear material has been removed. Even then, the divers do not go in until the lines are off and the
Róisín
has retreated maybe thirty or forty yards.

“This is a vital safety measure. If there were any kind of accident, and the
Koryak
blew up, we do not want to be attached to her. Agreed?”

All forty SEALs signaled their mass approval, punctuated by a few
Hell, nos
, and a couple of
Fuck thats
.

Mack concluded his talk with two further warnings. The first was the importance of getting those four nuclear warheads off the Russian ship and onto the
Róisín.

“The NSA believes we’re gonna find ’em in two big metal boxes. I have pictures. But we cannot leave them aboard and then blow up the ship. If anyone found out we’d dumped a half-ton of uranium 235 in the middle of the Atlantic, there’d be all hell for young and old. Guys, we gotta find it and find it quick. I’ll show everyone the pictures later.”

“Sir?” asked one young SEAL. “Are you saying we hoist the boxes with the warheads inside or get the warheads out and leave the boxes behind?”

“That’s a good question, kid,” replied Mack. “Especially since I don’t know the answer. But I do think it will come down to weight. Those boxes are probably lead, or at least lead lined. And that stuff’s heavy.
Master Chief Brad Charlton will be in command in the
Koryak
’s hold, so he’ll decide.

“My own instinct is to get the warheads out. That way we can lift them over to the
Róisín
one at a time. If we leave them packed, the weight will double, maybe triple . . . We don’t want to break the fucking crane, right?”

Mack Bedford had a way with a phrase that always touched a laughter button with his men. Partly out of the oncoming stress, and partly out of genuine amusement, they gave him a spontaneous “
HOO-YAH, CAPTAIN MACK!”

Mack’s final point was equally serious—the problem of close-quarter fire inside the ship and the danger of engaging their own men by failing to recognize them in the dark. “That’s one reason you must maintain tight fire control at all times, because in this Russian ship, belowdecks, we’ll have a real problem with ricocheting bullets, so don’t loose off ten rounds when one will do it.