At exactly 1900Z O'Shaugnesy pushed the send on the DMDG and the encoded message was burst-transmitted in less than one second. O'Shaugnesy then broke down the equipment and repacked it.
Acknowledgment of the message would come at the team's first scheduled receive in three hours. The whole communication setup between the team and the FOB was a series of scheduled receives and sends. There was no such thing as getting on the radio and carrying on a conversation, or bursting messages back and forth. The necessity to encode and burst made that impossible. This built-in delay in acknowledgment of information could cause problems. For those not used to the delays of Special Forces long-range communication, Mitchell knew that the process was frustrating.
Hossey quickly wrote out the letters as the encoded message worked its way across the display on the DMDG. When it got to the end, he
took out his onetime pad and copied the groups onto the first page. Using the trigraph, he broke the message out. He sighed with relief as he saw the legible words. Everything was good to go so far.
Hossey then transcribed the ANGLER into the terminal for transmission to the SFOB.
It was just an hour and a half prior to first light when Chong stepped out of the woods and saw the pipeline ten feet in front of him. The long silver pipe stretched as far as he could see in either direction. He halted the team and went back to consult with the captain and Riley.
The first glimpse of the pipeline was impressive. The team had studied pictures and knew the dimensions, but the shiny four-foot-diameter pipe, standing three feet above the ground, was much more striking when actually faced. This large pipe stretching for miles on end, from the oil fields in the north down to Beijing, indicated the price the Chinese placed on their black gold. Every thirty feet, the pipe was held up by two stanchions that had conductors on them to prevent the pipe from freezing in the harsh winter. The forest was cut back ten feet on either side of the pipe.
The team quickly crossed underneath the metal snake. Trapp, as last man across, checked to make sure they hadn't left a noticeable trail. As soon as the entire team was in the woods on the far side, Mitchell gave a last briefing to Olinski.
"Monitor all our broadcasts from the forward operating base so you know as much as we do. Every hour turn on your FM radio for any messages we might send. We'll be monitoring for any you might have. If you need to come back and link up with us at the objective rally point, we'll use our link-up SOP along the pipe here, to the south, on the west side. Any questions?"
Olinski didn't mind being reminded of things he already knew. It never hurt to be sure. "No, sir. Good luck."
"Good luck to you, Ski." Olinski, Reese, and O'Shaugnesy faded into the dark woods as they headed west.
Chong led the remaining members of the team on a course paralleling the pipeline forty meters in the forest. The absence of a service road on this side of the pipe told him that they had run into the pipe south of the point where the service road zigged off to the west, heading toward its bridge over the Sungari. Team 3 followed the pipe for four hundred meters, then turned farther west into the woods. They went less than half a kilometer into the dark forest and halted. Mitchell signaled for the men to drop their rucksacks. Team 3 had arrived at the objective rally point. This was to be their home for the next couple of days, until the actual target hit.
Mitchell, Riley, Chong, and Hoffman, after noting the location of the ORP, moved off to take a look at the target. Chong and Hoffman carried their rucksacks, since they would be staying at the target to do surveillance. The five members of the team remaining at the ORP broke out their bivy sacks, and, with two men providing security, the rest tried to get some sleep.
Chong led the three men cautiously along the tree line paralleling the pipe. The first indication that they were close to the target came from the glow of lights ahead. Riley remembered Hoffman briefing that the compound most likely had high-power lights on top of the pylon to enable the surveillance cameras to see at night. The tree line drew back and they had their first glimpse of the target.
Meng knew that Wilson would be here soon to take over. So far everything was going well on both sides of Meng's computer operation. The staff in the SFOB was caught up in the simulation they were playing; the ANGLER from the real FOB had told Meng that in the Far East the mission was proceeding without a hitch.
Meng shifted the FOB communications to his office and locked out the master console from his FOB program. He had just finished when Wilson strode up the center aisle of Tunnel 3.
"Everything going all right?"
Meng nodded. 'The team has infiltrated. The refuel ship is on course and on time. The exfil helicopters are ready."
Wilson took Meng's place. "Anything I need to know about?" Meng shook his head. "No. I'll be in my office resting if you need me.
Riley and Mitchell returned to the ORP, having left Chong and Hoffman at Dagger pulling surveillance. Their initial daylight look at the compound had confirmed everything the satellite imagery had told them: three cameras, an eight-foot fence topped with barbwire, and an inner T-field fence. It didn't appear to Riley that the compound was mined, but unless the surveillance could confirm that, they must assume that it was.
Chong and Hoffman would remain hidden near the target, switching on and off — one resting, the other pulling surveillance. Tomorrow morning, at 0600 local, Mitchell would send Smith and Riley up to confer with Hoffman to see if the plan had to be modified in any way, and to pick up the surveillance team's notes on security patrols and any other pertinent information.
Riley checked in with Lalli to see if he'd copied the transmission that should have been received an hour ago.
"Copied it five-by-five, Top. No problem. Here's the message, hot off the DMDG."
Riley took it over and handed it to Mitchell. While the captain decoded the message, Riley brewed up a cup of coffee for them, using his canteen cup and a heat tab.
Although they were only five hundred meters from the pipeline and six hundred meters from the service road, Riley felt they might as well have been miles from both. The vegetation was so thick they could hardly see twenty-five meters. The team's biggest concern was to prevent any loud noises. The odds were miniscule, in Riley's opinion, that someone would come wandering through the swamp and find the objective rally point. He had yet to see any sign of man, other than the pipe, in the immediate area.
The surveillance teams at the pipeline and pickup zone were in greater danger of being spotted. Both surveillance teams were emplaced well back in tree lines, and both had a small camouflage net they would string up and peer through to further conceal their positions.
Riley felt uneasy with his team broken into three segments, but that was an operational necessity. The day and a half of waiting would be nerve-racking. Hopefully they could catch up on their sleep. Smith also had to do final preparation of the charges. With communications working well, all they needed now was a little bit of luck and things should go fine.
It took Mitchell only five minutes to break the message out. "Nothing exciting here."
Riley took the decrypted message from the captain and read it: