Chapter 58
OASIS ONE, SAUDI ARABIA
NEVER gets old, does it?”
Scott Coleman did his best not to jump.
Elvis for instance.
A half a second ago, Coleman had been surveying the flight line alone.
Now the Army commando was standing at his shoulder.
“No, it doesn’t,” Coleman said. “Something about the quiet just before the storm I guess.”
Coleman didn’t need to check his watch to know that the storm was coming.
Though the flight line was shrouded in darkness, he could hear the soft words spoken by the crew chiefs and pilots while they pre-flighted their aircraft.
The tandem-rotor Chinook helicopters had always seemed the epitome of ugly to him.
The aircraft’s bulbous nose and jutting, stinger-like refueling probe gave it a vaguely insect-esque appearance from the front, while its wide body and unglamorous fuselage brought to mind a boxcar when viewed from the sides or rear.
Absent the Black Hawk helicopter’s sleek lines or the menace projected by the rocket pods and Gatling gun hanging from the AH-6 Little Bird’s hardpoints, the Chinook was utilitarian in contrast.
More flying school bus than special operations transport aircraft.
But looks could be deceiving.
That flying school bus could carry thirty fully kitted assaulters to their objective faster than most attack helicopters were capable of flying.
The Chinook’s powerful turboshaft engines gave the aircraft the ability to insert special operators almost anywhere on the planet, from mountain peaks to river valleys.
Tonight, the silent behemoths would hurtle across the desert at barely one hundred feet above the sand in order to stay below the Iraqi antiaircraft radar sets that would be sweeping the night sky in search of targets.
And that was the easy part of the operation.
A pool of red light spilled across the lead aircraft’s forward rotor as someone in a flight suit inspected the transmission with their headlamp.
Coleman watched the aviator work for a moment before turning his attention back to his companion.
Flying machines and the magic that kept them in the air were beyond his expertise.
The men they would be ferrying into battle were not.
“How ya feeling, Elvis?” Coleman said.
“Ready to get after it,” Elvis said.
To his surprise, Coleman had begun to take the Delta Force commando into his confidence to a greater and greater degree as the planning and preparation for the audacious operation progressed.
This had started from a sense of practicality, since Elvis was serving as the liaison between SEAL Team 6 and the Delta Force troop that would be providing long-range reconnaissance, but had progressed into something more personal in the ensuing days.
As a non-SEAL, Elvis offered a unique perspective of the operation.
His observations were absent any prejudice or inadvertent bias that came with the SEAL Team 6 planners.
He had no reputation within the teams to uphold, and his career would not be affected by the mission’s success or failure.
When asked, he told Coleman what he thought with the honest but blunt feedback cultivated among special operators, but he kept these observations private.
Coleman had every confidence in the men he was leading and believed them to be the best naval commandos the world had to offer, but he also welcomed Elvis’s perspective.
The Delta Force operator would shoot him straight and he existed outside of the collective SEAL Team 6 bubble.
Elvis told Coleman what he believed, not what he thought the CO wanted to hear.
Turning from the flight line to the man standing beside him, Coleman posed the million-dollar question. “What do you think of the operation?”
Instead of answering, Elvis fished a can of Copenhagen from his pocket, removed a pinch of tobacco, and stuck it between his lip and gum.
He offered the can to Coleman, who shook his head.
Like most special operators, he’d spent much of his younger years using the product to combat fatigue and boredom.
Now that he was trying to quit, he thought that the stuff might be more addictive than heroin.
The silence built as Elvis situated the tobacco and then spit a brown-tinged stream of saliva onto the gravel.
“Here’s what I think,” he said, presumably after the first hit of nicotine lit up his brain.
“The operation’s solid. Actions on the objective during yesterday’s rehearsal were the best I’ve seen yet.
Your boys are locked and cocked. Coms with my Unit folks are green and they’ve chosen good hide sites.
The aviators seem dialed in, and the ingress and egress plans are solid.
From a tactical perspective, I wouldn’t change a thing. ”
Coleman agreed with Elvis’s assessment wholeheartedly, but he knew from the man’s tone he wasn’t done yet.
Rather than force the issue, Coleman nodded and settled in to wait.
Elvis would get to where he was going eventually.
Besides, the Delta commando was right about what he’d said earlier.
Living in the quiet before the operational storm never did get old, and once the mission kicked off, there wasn’t likely to be anything resembling calm for quite some time.
But that wasn’t the only reason.
If he were being honest, Coleman would have to admit that his days as a commando were drawing to a close.
He’d had one hell of a career, but he’d already got the unofficial signal that he wasn’t going to make admiral.
The competition was too stiff, and though the Navy did their best to pretend it wasn’t so, frogmen were always going to be at a disadvantage in a service full of ship drivers.
This night was special, not just because of the audacious mission his SEALs were about to undertake, but because his days of audacious missions were almost over.
“It’s the agency side of things,” Elvis said, bringing Coleman’s musings to an end. “What if their asset doesn’t deliver?”
“You mean like if he’s a double agent?” Coleman said.
Elvis shrugged. “Or he loses his COVCOM device, or gets compromised, or maybe just decides he doesn’t give a shit anymore. The reason doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is that there’s a hell of a lot riding on just one asset’s say-so. Why would we put all our eggs in one basket?”
Coleman shrugged. “Been wondering the same thing. This guy must be one hell of an asset. You know the saying theirs not to reason why?”
“Sure. ‘Charge of the Light Brigade.’ If memory serves, not questioning why didn’t work out well for those guys.”
Coleman grinned. “The only thing worse than serving with an Army commando is serving with an educated Army commando. I’m not saying we don’t question the intelligence, but at the end of the day, if JSOC gives us the green light, I’m going.”
“And if the intelligence is wrong?”
“Then we’ll be in for one hell of a fight.”