The man directly in front of Chong reached down, opened his fly, and sighed as he began to urinate. When he was done he turned and caught up with his comrade on the far side. They continued their inspection. After completing the circumference of the compound, they returned to the jeep. All three climbed in and the jeep drove off.
Chong slowly relaxed. He pulled out his notebook to enter the incident in his surveillance notes. After two attempts he realized he couldn't write because his hands were shaking so hard.
The sun was low in the western sky. Riley lay next to his ruck on the edge of the seven-man encampment and peered out into the darkening forest. He'd already been on security for forty-five minutes. Before Mitchell turned in to get a few hours of needed sleep, he had given Riley the encoded message for the next send. He got up and took the message to Lalli.
The commo man was leaning back against his ruck, already hooking up his equipment.
"How's the leg?"
Lalli looked up at his team sergeant. "Pretty good, Top. Comsky had to resew it, because all the stitches pulled out on the walk here, but it's doing OK now. Devito gave me a whole bunch of antibiotics to swallow. I'm trying not to move it too much. I'll be all right."
"Think you'll have any trouble making it to the pickup zone?"
"No, shouldn't be a problem. What about at the target? You want me to take O'Shaugnesy's place, right?"
"Yep. Take it easy and get some rest after this send."
Riley left him and went over to the northwestern side of the camp, which was his security responsibility. Devito was awake ten meters away on the southeastern side. They were keeping up two men at a time for security, leaving Lalli out of the rotation so he could make all the radio contacts.
Riley started war-gaming again in his mind, trying to look ahead for possible problems. The exfil still worried him, but there wasn't a thing he could do about those logistics. There was an added problem with the exfil that had not come up during the briefback. Depending on how quickly the Chinese reacted after the pipe was blown, the airspace on the way out could become very dangerous. Additionally, they still had to go over either North Korean or Soviet terrain to make it to the ocean. If the Chinese called a military alert along the border after the attack, it could set off a corresponding alert with the Koreans or the Russians. Neither would look kindly upon a helicopter coming out of Chinese airspace and violating its borders.
That was one of the main reasons Riley had kept to a minimum the time between the actual attack and the pickup at the PZ. The less time between the two, the less time the enemy would have to react.
Hossey considered his situation. They'd received a "roger" from the team, reference the first message fifteen minutes ago. Everything seemed to be secure on that end. The only thing left for him to worry about was the exfiltration the next night. So far that was looking good, except for one potential problem.
The debriefing of the MC-130 crew after their return had brought out the information about the radar in the vicinity of Vladivostok— the radar that had caused them to switch on their spider leg and hit the drop zone ten minutes early. Hossey had relayed that information to the SFOB with an advisory that this same radar might affect the exfil helicopters. Following the debrief, the Talon crew was catching a few hours of sleep, then would fly back to the Philippines later in the day, with strict instructions not to discuss the mission they had just participated in.
Other than the intruding radar, Hossey was relatively satisfied. The message traffic from the SFOB was back up to normal and it was just a matter of waiting.
Meng pondered the issue of the radar mentioned in the FOB's message. He had no idea whether or not it would be able to pick up the inbound helicopters. He looked around Tunnel 3. The men who would have the answers were seated down below him. Meng was considering how he could ask them, when the answer suddenly came to him. His fingers flew over his keyboard and he pressed the enter key.
In the front of the room on the message board a new communication from the FOB appeared. The SFOB staff watched it carefully. Since the initial confirmation of the ANGLER report on the team's infiltration, things had slowed down.
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
TO: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM/ MSG 52
FROM: FOB K-l
REF: MCI30 DEBRIEF
1. TALON CREW INDICATED RADAR SOURCE
VICINITY 132 DEGREES LONG/ 42 DEGREES 40 MINUTES LAT/ POSSIBLE RADAR MAY AFFECT EXFIL AIRCRAFT/
2. WAVELENGTH OF RADAR INDICATES MOST LIKELY POT DRUM TYPE/
3. TALON DEPARTED 0900 ZULU TO RETURN TO HOME BASE
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
Meng smiled to himself as Olson reacted to the message by ordering his air operations officer and intelligence officer to get on top of the situation and brief him in one hour. The air operations officer ordered imagery of the area while the intelligence officer started scouring his data, searching for Soviet ships that carried the Pot Drum-type radar along with information on the radar capabilities.
Meng settled back to wait. He'd let the SFOB do their job.
O'Shaugnesy had the radio set up and pointing at the designated satellite. At exactly 1200Z he heard the hiss of the burst through his headphones, and the DMDG indicated message successfully received. He turned off the PSC3 radio. O'Shaugnesy hand-copied the unintelligible letters flowing across the screen of the DMDG. He handed the encrypted message to Olinski, who was pulling security, and then crawled back into his bivy sack for a few hours of sleep before it was his turn at security and surveillance.
Olinski pulled his poncho liner over his head and, using a red-lens flashlight, copied the message onto his one-time pad. Below the letters on the pad, he slowly broke out the message.
ZEROTW OMSGRO GERZER TWOXXC ONFIRM
PZXXXP ZXXYOU RSHOSS EYXXDR ATTSXX
Olinski hated reading messages in their six-digit blocks. This one told him nothing new. The forward operating base rogered the team's second send, and this was the second one the FOB had sent. No change in weather, and the FOB wanted a confirmation on the location of the pickup zone. The captain should confirm pickup zone Drable on his next send, since Olinski hadn't gotten back to him, either over the PRC68 FM radio, or in person, with a negative report. Mitchell was probably reading this message right now.
Turning off his light, Olinski put his SPAS 12 shotgun across his knees and leaned back against his ruck. He scanned the open area encompassing the pickup zone. Odds are that nothing will happen here, Olinski thought. But then he had heard a helicopter earlier in the day. Since this area had so few open fields, there was always the possibility that the Chinese might use this one for something — practice landings maybe. A slim possibility, but that's why they were here.
In the dark of the night Olinski watched the stars appear. This is beautiful country, he thought. Relatively uninhabited, at least in this area. Plenty of game, and miles of unspoiled wilderness. Too bad this is the only way you could come visit — with the United States Air Force travel service, he chuckled.