“Sixty-one, not including your people, seventy-five with. What’s the minimum number of bodies you figured you’d need to pull this off?” Brooke asked him.
“Fifty,” Morris said, “we figured fifty was the bare minimum to do it right, although miracles do happen. Personally I was hoping for triple digits. You know, the number of actual active IRA members in Ireland causing all those problems for the Brits, for decades, never really numbered more than a couple hundred. It really is the size of the fight in the dog. But….” He sighed. “Before I get into the details of the mission, I know I told you I wanted you to come in quiet, and I assume you did your best, but we still lost two squads on the way down. Franklin and Wolverine. We’re not sure what happened to Wolverine.”
“Chick was as hard as they come,” Hannibal told Morris flatly. “If Wolverine’s not here it’s because they’re all dead.”
It was far from the first time a squad had simply disappeared. Everyone assumed those squads had been killed in some ambush or betrayal involving the supporting citizenry, but no one knew for sure. While Ed supposed a few squads had simply dissolved and faded away, he thought destruction a far more likely option than capture. The hate was too strong with the No-quarter-asked-and-none-given dogsoldiers. Many, if not most (by this late date) of the Tab footsoldiers had been drafted. Every single dogsoldier, on the other hand, was a volunteer.
Morris dipped his head in acknowledgement. “We do know Franklin ran into a Kestrel.”
“Which they took out,” Ed felt obliged to add in their defense.
“Yes, they did,” the light colonel agreed, “and I know some other squads saw a little action on the way down. Kermit lost two to a sniper.” He nodded at Barker. “Theodore walked into a full patrol, and while normally fourteen enemy dead and six wounded with zero friendly casualties would be a cause for celebration, in this case it’s just more attention that we don’t need. And Flash decided to get into a goddamn running gun battle with a motorcycle gang. No friendly casualties, but still.”
Chan snorted. “BabyThor and his anger issues,” he said quietly, with a smile.
Morris shot them all a dark look. “This plan depends on you and your squads being able to get into position unnoticed. So at the risk of sounding insulting I want to repeat very carefully that fucking stealth and fucking surprise are fucking required for this fucking plan, which I and hundreds of other people worked on for over a fucking year, to work.” He stared at each of them in turn.
Ed blinked. Morris seemed pretty certain of those casualty numbers from Theodore’s ambush, numbers that seemed to include the damage done by Weasel’s booby trap, which Ed could only guess at. Which made him assume Uncle Charlie had an inside source. “Understood,” Ed said, on behalf of the group. The rest of them nodded.
“Those four squads yesterday are Alpha detachment, and their mission objective is code-named Freebird.” He pointed at a spot on the map. “They’ve got roughly the same distance to travel, but their route is a bit more difficult, so they’re already on the move. You five are Bravo, and your mission objective is code-named Nakatomi.” Ed looked at where the man’s finger touched the map of the city and a laugh erupted from him. Chan had a big smile on his face as well.
Morris frowned. “Okay,” the Lieutenant Colonel said, “what’s the deal? One of my people came up with that code name for your objective and I’ve been getting chuckles and smiles every time I say it. Why?”
“You don’t watch a lot of movies, do you?”
“I’ve been a little too busy the past few years to watch movies,” Morris said with a dirty look.
“Welcome to the party, pal,” Hannibal replied, and at that all the male squad leaders erupted in laughter.
“Die Hard, it’s a Die Hard reference,” Brooke said, giving everyone a dirty look. “You fucking guys, I swear.”
“Oh! Right, I get it now,” Morris said. “Okay, anyway, you’ll each have your own objectives, but the plan is for Alpha, if possible, to displace to your location after they’ve hit their target.” Morris began his actual briefing, pointing out where he needed each squad to be and the timetable for their movement after giving them a general overview of the plan, which was breathtakingly audacious. And dangerous. Barker let him go for five minutes, then held up a hand when he couldn’t take it anymore. Morris kept pointing here and there on his map, inside the Blue Zone, like it was a college campus.
“Not to shit in your sandwich,” Barker told the man, “but if we push that deep into the Blue, no matter how ninja fucking stealthy quiet you’d like us to be, there’s a good chance we’re going to be not just blown but chewed up and out of ammo and most likely hamburger in Toad treads by the time we even make it to that first pre-objective rally point. I don’t see how in the hell we’re going to have any element of surprise. There are people everywhere during the day, and soldiers posted all around twenty-four-seven.”
Morris looked at Barker, then at the rest of the squad leaders. His big smile was genuine. “Did I mention how I had people inside the city busting ass for over a year, working on this? Let me tell you what they’ve been doing. First, let me tell you how this started. You’d be amazed what you can still find online….”
Uncle Charlie had said that this mission had been in the works for a year, and as he started to go into detail with the squad leaders any doubt they’d had about his or the ARF’s commitment to this mission was put to rest. The amount of work that had been undertaken in the city, much less the hardware he revealed to the men and women, sold them on the plan.
The briefing, including every question the dogsoldiers could think to ask, took just over two hours. When it was finally over Morris looked at his watch.
“You need to be in place and ready to go hot at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow, and not one minute later. That gives you sixteen hours and change to brief your people, get them trained up on all of the new hardware you’re going to be using for the mission, and get in position. I know what your main gear concern will be and my people have been running yours through the deployment procedures using spent tubes while we’ve been here doing this brief, and they’ll continue to do so until you all can work this new gear in your sleep. Trust me, it’s pretty simple, these things are designed to be easy to use by stupid people in stressful situations.”
“From your lips to God’s ear,” Brooke told the man.
Morris smiled and nodded. “In a direct line your objective rally point is about five miles from here, but the route you’ve got to take is eight miles or so, some of it easy, some of it definitely not, with a fair amount probably downright miserable. I’m sure I’ll find out, as I’ll be coming with. While some of the gear you’ll need has been pre-positioned by our assets on the inside, you’ll be carrying most of it with you, which will slow you down. So as soon as you think you’re good to go on the new equipment, I suggest moving out.”
“We normally don’t move at night,” Barker reminded the man.
Morris nodded. “I know. Heat signature, and lack of night vision capability. I swear to God, I don’t know how you people do it.” He knew of at least one Special Forces mission that was called off simply because they lost their GPS signal, and these people were practically fighting with spears and torches. “But that’s not going to be as much of an issue this time, is it? And we don’t have much of a choice. However, their air capabilities have seriously degraded over the past few years. They’ve got no fixed-wing assets stationed here, and they haven’t had more than two helos up in the air after dark for routine patrol in six months. They just don’t have that many birds, and they’re hurting for spare parts, and as short as they are on parts they’re in even worse shape when it comes to fuel. My sources tell me they haven’t had more than a three-day fuel reserve in a year.” Morris had informed them that in addition to the sigint (signals intelligence) he’d been provided by the people monitoring the Tabs’ communication channels, he’d had the military base under near-constant physical surveillance for eight months from high-rise buildings surrounding the base, with his people logging troop numbers, armor assets, patrol schedules, and aircraft movements. That was just one of his big news items, and perhaps the least impressive. Even before he mentioned his “asset” on the inside it was clear he was getting intelligence from someone either in the Army or with access to their data. Maybe more than just one person.