More than courage Read online

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  of establishing a more amiable relationship did not prevent the two from working together professionally. But it did create unnecessary friction. Like the fine grains of sand that he could taste with each bit of food and feel every time he blinked his eyes, Burman's manner was irritating and wearing. All Aveno could do was to endure, just as he endured the harsh and uncompromising desert. The same could be true for the rest of Team Kilo. For better or worse the fourteen men had to keep functioning and surviving until such time as the Fates smiled upon them and their circumstances changed.

  Arlington, Virginia

  11:45 LOCAL (15:45 ZULU)

  Pushing away from his desk, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Delmont studied the document he had been working on for the majority of the morning. It wasn't a particularly long piece of correspondence.

  In fact it was less than.a page in length. Nor was it of any great importance. If it had been, it would have been long gone rather than undergoing revision after revision after revision.

  The particular version Delmont was currently working on was by his count number eleven. While excessive even by Pentagon standards, it was far from being a record. Within the army's Directorate of Special Operations that dubious honor belonged to another single-page response concerning training ammunition for an exercise being conducted with navy SEALs. It had been bounced back and forth sixteen times between the action officer and the director, Brigadier General James Palmer, who finally put his stamp of approval on a letter that was not all that different from the initial draft. Though Delmont was confident that his letter was not going to surpass that mark, he had little doubt that it would once more find its way back to his desk, scarred by red marks annotating corrections and changes made by Palmer that did nothing to alter its content. This practice had nothing to do with any issues Palmer had with the letter's style, grammar, or content. It was simply his way of putting off dealing with an issue that he was not quite ready to address.

  Ordinarily Delmont didn't mind this sort of busywork. Having spent more than eighteen years chugging along his chosen 28

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  career track, he understood that every senior officer had his own peculiar idiosyncrasies that subordinates had little choice but to live with. Palmer was no different. Demanding and uncompromising, the general was the sort of man one didn't try to put something over on. Those who did were never afforded a second opportunity to repeat that mistake. For officers that Palmer deemed worthy to serve him, the general went to great pains to ensure that their time on the Department of the Army staff was educational and professionally rewarding. So long as he kept his mouth shut, did what was expected of him, and played Palmer's brand of hardball, Delmont knew that he would depart from the Puzzle Palace on the Potomac, as the Pentagon was known, with an outstanding evaluation and his choice of assignments.

  Still, those distant rewards were of little consolation to him at the moment. Unable to concentrate on the task at hand, Delmont leaned back in his seat and glanced at the row of clocks arrayed along one wall of the outer office that he shared with half a dozen other action officers. Because American forces operated all over the world with various contingents in one time zone supporting others in different time zones, all directives and operational orders issued by the Department of Defense used Zulu time, or Greenwich mean time. To assist the action officers who generated those directives and orders, each clock displayed the current time in a different part of the world. He looked at the one labeled Charlie, which meant it was the third time zone east of Greenwich.

  It was almost twenty hundred hours in Syria. RT Kilo would be on the move by now, he thought. While he was sitting in an office that was a stone's throw away from the nation's capital, wordsmithing a letter that was of little consequence, soldiers who had earned the right to wear the same black-and-yellow shoulder patch of the army's Special Forces that adorned the sleeve of his uniform were making their way across the Syrian desert. Closing his eyes, Delmont could easily picture what the commander of RT

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  Kilo was seeing at that moment. He even imagined he could taste the fine sand that tended to hang suspended like a mist in the blacked-out interior of the team leader's humvee as it bounced across the uneven desert.

  Delmont knew all there was to know about Recon Team Kilo.

  In a locked safe, which only he and three other officers had the combination to, were files on every aspect of Operation Razorback, a black operation whose aim was to locate sites where special weapons that had once belonged to Iraq were being stored.

  The mission that was about to kick off half a world away was typical of those assigned to the recon teams that represented Razorback's cutting edge. The intelligence summary that had initiated this night's mission identified fhe approximate location of a Syria surface-to-air missile launcher protecting a facility that was believed to be a chemical warfare lab that had once been part of Saddam Hussein's mighty arsenal. Had the analysts at Langley been sure of this there would have been no need to send RT Kilo to ferret out the lab's location. Aircraft alone would have been able to do the job. But the lab, if it were truly there, was tucked away in a small village made up of a few hundred families and protected by a small garrison and an ADA battery. Had that battery not let fly with a pair of missiles at an American drone en route to check out another site, no one would have even associated this collection of hovels with anything of military value.

  The practice of tucking important military facilities in out-oftheway locations was something the Syrians had adopted from their Iraqi cousins. Not only did the tight-knit nature of a small community make it all but impossible for Israeli agents to slip in unnoticed, it served to force both America and Israel to spread its intelligence-gathering assets out over a larger area. Adding to the problems faced by the American intelligence analysis and targeting officers was the quaint custom of placing high-value targets right next to sites that were normally immune from attack, such as schools, hospitals, and mosques. That the same international law 30

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  that placed a taboo on hitting such structures also prohibited a warring party from placing military facilities in or near protected locations was freely ignored by a government that did not have to labor under the same high level of public opinion and moral sanctions that the Americans were obliged to.

  It was this state of affairs that had led to the creation of Operation Razorback and the recon teams such as RT Kilo. Without an effective network of dissidents within Syria, the United States and Great Britain had to use its own people to do the things that intelligence platforms in outer space, or aircraft zipping by at six hundred miles an hour at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet could not do. Operation Razorback was a dangerous job, one that nearly everyone in Washington, D.C., wished they did not have to do, but the alternative, doing nothing, was even worse.

  Though he had not been in on the initial planning of Razorback and had no input concerning day-to-day taskings of the recon teams that made up the ground component of Razorback, Delmont was responsible for monitoring their activities and providing daily briefings to his superiors and selected senior officers.

  Most of his peers and the other military and civilian staff within the Directorate of Special Operations knew nothing about Razorback.

  So it was impossible for them to appreciate the anger that would suddenly well up in him whenever the recon team currently deployed in Syria was in the midst of an active tasking while he was chained to a desk ten thousand miles away.

  When Delmont felt this frustration and anger building he sought escape by putting himself in the place of the current team commander. With the same thoroughness that he had once used himself when he had been a spry young captain commanding an A team, Delmont would consider the requirements of the mission he had briefed that day in the close, quiet confines of General Palmer's office. Putting himself in the team commander's place, Delmont wo
uld plan every aspect of that day's missions. In doing so he skipped no steps. Everything from preparing the team to how he would execute the mission was considered. In this way, no

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  matter where he was during the day or what he was doing, the labors of the recon teams were never far from Delmont's mind.

  "Hey, Bobby, you gonna go out and run or join the rest of us forlorn galley slaves for lunch?"

  With the suddenness of a thunderclap the voice of Lieutenant Colonel Thad Calvert broke the trance Delmont had drifted into.

  Turning, Delmont looked up at Calvert, who had managed to wander into his cubicle without his noticing.

  Seeing that there was an open document displayed on the monitor of Delmont's computer, Calvert grunted. "Must be something mighty important there, bucko."

  Embarrassed at being caught in the midst of a daydream, Delmont waved dismissively. "Oh, that. No, not really. Just busywork."

  Glancing at the edited version of the document Delmont was working on and recognizing the markings, Calvert laughed. "I see that General Palmer is once more trying to prove that the pen is mightier than the sword, capable of laying low the best of the best."

  Though he normally enjoyed his friend's dry humor, Delmont found it difficult to muster up a weak smile in response.

  "So GI, which is it going to be?" Calvert continued. "Enjoy a fine gourmet meal at the cafeteria or pound your poor body into the ground?"

  Knowing that he would be unable pick up his imaginary mission where he had left off now that he had been interrupted, yet in no mood to socialize, Delmont shook his head. "I think I'll run today."

  "Okay. Your call. See ya later."

  When Calvert was gone Delmont hit the save key before closmg the letter that refused to go away. When he was unable to mentally play out a mission that was in progress, losing himself in a long and strenuous session of physical activity was the next best 32

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  thing. Neither form of escapism did much to allay his feelings of uselessness and guilt that he harbored at times like this. He knew it was foolish and counterproductive to feel that way. The majority of his duties were necessary even if they paled in significance compared to those being executed by the soldiers of Recon Team Kilo. That he happened to be on the DA staff when America's war on terrorism was in full swing was little more than bad luck. Only keeping his mouth shut and soldiering on to the best of his abilities in his current assignment ensured that he would once more be assigned to a posting where he would be free to sally forth into battle and ply his stock-in-trade. Until that day arrived, all he could do was cope and hope.

  Reaching under his desk, Delmont pulled out his gym bag and made for the door, stopping to let the secretary know where he was going and when he would be back. The Department of Defense civilian employee nodded without taking her eyes off the letter she was working on.

  I

  Syria

  20:35 LOCAL (16:35 ZULU)

  Having served in southwest Asia as a junior officer during the First Gulf War Lieutenant Colonel Delmont's fertile imagination was capable of conjuring up sensations and images that were surprisingly close to those the commanding officer of RT Kilo was experiencing.

  The same could not be said of Burman's leadership. The methodology he followed while preparing his command for a foray, his planning, the manner in which he organized his command, and the way he actually led his men in the course of an operation bore no resemblance to the meticulous techniques Delmont thought of as necessary and universal. Burman was like so many young officers in the field. He saw little need to slavishly adhere to a set process time and time again. In his opinion his men were professionals, experienced soldiers who allowed him to dispense with those elements of the army's standard troop-leading procedures that he deemed unnecessary and a waste of time.

  The routine the drivers of Kilo's humvees had settled into was an example of why Burman was able to get away with issuing truncated orders. They knew their place in the order of march, the speed their tiny column should maintain during their movement to their assigned objective, and the necessity of maintaining a distance of one to two hundred meters between vehicles. Since none of these particulars had changed since they had crossed into Syria, Burman no longer mentioned them when he was issuing his operations order. He believed that to have done so time and time again would have been seen as an insult to Kilo's highly trained and well-seasoned professionals. The most the young Special 34

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  Forces officer said concerning these particulars was a short, crisp,

  "You all know the drill." This allowed him to move right to the operational matters that were particular to that night's mission.

  "The drill," as run by Kilo, bore no resemblance to what a Hollywood version would look like. RT Kilo did not charge off into the trackless wastelands wily-nilly at high speed. That would have been dangerous and quite foolish since the real desert held many a pitfall and irregularity just waiting to snarl the unwary and stupid.

  The most hazardous obstacles to cross-country navigation were the wadis, dry streambeds cut into the desert floor by the runoff from infrequent but violent rains. Wadis came in all shapes and sizes. Some were little more than shallow drainage ditches. Others could be quite massive, barriers that required long detours and careful navigation. Though it is never dry, the Grand Canyon in the American southwestern desert is an extreme example of a wadi.

  At times the actual texture of the desert itself creates difficulties.

  In some areas the surface is as hard as concrete and flat as a pancake, while the sand in other locales is as soft as that which you would use in a child's sandbox and as bottomless as the ocean. In the first few weeks of Kilo's deployment, it was not at all unusual for the driver of Kilo's lead vehicle to find his vehicle suddenly slowing down even as he subconsciously applied more and more foot to the accelerator in an effort to maintain a steady speed. If neither he nor the senior man riding up front in the passenger seat catch on quick enough, they soon find themselves grinding to a dead stop as the chassis of their humvee burrowes

  itself into the soft dirt, leaving its oversized wheels spinning about furiously in a vain effort to find traction in loose sand. On one occasion the lead vehicle had dug itself in so deep that it took the combined efforts of the other three humvees hooked up to each other end to end to extract the hapless vehicle. By drawing on the collective wisdom of past desert warriors and experiences like these, Burman developed the standard operating procedures that had become second nature to his drivers.

  The prescribed twenty miles per hour at which RT Kilo MORE THAN COURAGE

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  moved provided the drivers with greater response time when suddenly confronted by an unexpected obstacle. That pace also minimized the dust cloud generated by vehicular movement through the desert. While not completely eliminating the problem, this reduction in the team's signature diminished the possibility that an alert Syrian civilian would spot them on a clear, moonlit night.

  And even if he did, the steady, unhurried pace would convince the observer that the small convoy he was seeing was his own military.

  If the observer were a Syrian soldier, he would label Kilo's dust as nothing more than herders tending to their chores. Either way, unless the lead vehicle actually ran over a Syrian, odds were that Kilo would'be ignored.

  To keep their profile as low as possible, all of Kilo's moves were conducted at night and in total blackout. Even the blackout markers known as cat's eyes, designed to assist drivers in maintaining proper spacing, had been covered up, leaving no light outside of the vehicle visible to the unaided eye. Unfortunately, relying solely on night vision goggles could be a nerve-wracking experience for the drivers. While on the move they had to spend the entire night perched on the edge of their seats, hanging on to their steering wheels with white knuckles as they peered straight ahead into the darkness in an effort to catch a
n occasional glimpse of the vehicle in front of them, praying all the while that the humvee they were following hadn't come to a stop and was now stationary and hidden by its own dust. By dawn, the drivers would be exhausted by the stress this engendered.

  In many ways the dark confines of the team's humvees was as stressful for the passengers, crowded together for hours on end with little to do until they reached their objective. While Captain Burman expected the senior man in each vehicle to keep tabs on their exact location and the others onboard to stay focused on what they were about to do and maintain their vigilance in the event that something unexpected happened, the men of Kilo had been doing these sorts of missions for so long that sustained concentration was difficult. If the train-up time that preceded their 36

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  deployment overseas and the four weeks' acclimation and rehearsals they went through before crossing over into Syria were added to the six weeks they had spent deployed forward in that country, the members of Kilo had been together for nearly four months. Even while still in the States, they had spent more of their waking hours with each other than with their own families.

  This sort of closeness created a cohesion that was almost unprecedented in the modern American army. It also had the potential of working against them. Having exhausted their collective reservoir of jokes, stories, and tales early on, the members of Kilo had nothing new or interesting to discuss. By the end of their third week in Syria their conversations had become as barren as their trackless surroundings.

  When a conversation did bubble up it seldom lasted long.

  This was due to a serious dearth of meaningful issues worth discussing.

  Kilo had to maintain strict noise discipline during the day while hunkered down. Men who were not standing guard were sleeping. This sort of cycle limited the amount of news they received from the outside world. What they did hear came to them via the two personally owned short-wave radios that Bur man had permitted SFC Kannen and Sergeant O'Hara to bring along. When someone was listening in for news, they usually tuned to the BBC World Service, broadcasts that contained a great deal that was of little interest to Americans, such as cricket scores between the Indian and New Zealand national teams.