On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1) (5 page)

              “Your team will need to take everything that you would use on a five man team, to include small arms, sniper rifles, explosives, communications, and medical.  You’ll also need to take additional ammunition for all weapons systems as normal.  I’ll send down a list of the small arms and equipment that they were asking about.  Once you get to your location, you’ll be read on to a special access program, and when you get back,” Major Salk was smiling at Mike’s growing consternation, “you’ll never tell anybody what you did.”

              Mike asked, “Is this some kind of special mission to kill somebody, or go deep cover and kill somebody.”  Mike was stretching out his words, implying
“was there something else he may need to know.”

              Major Salk enjoyed his confusion for a little while before letting him off the hook.  “Well Mike, I can’t tell you everything, and, to be honest, I don’t know.  I just know that you’re not deploying outside the United States, you’re to palletize all of your equipment.  You’ll be flying by C-12 to Malmstrom Air Force Base.  And, you’ll be gone a total of three weeks, flying to your destination on Monday, and then flying back in time to start training with your team.”             

              Mike waited to see if there was anything else, then shrugged, “Okay, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but mine is not to reason why . . .” He left the words hang.  There was no reply.

              Major Salk sat back, and motioned with his hands, palms up.  “I wish I could tell you more, but that is all I know.  You’ll be fully briefed once you get to your destination.”

              Mike nodded, “March to the sound of the guns.”

              Major Salk agreed, “Exactly.  I’ll email the particulars to you, so that your team can get the equipment palletized and ready to go.  We have the orders from SOCOM, and I’ll include those as well on the email.  Since you aren’t going outside the United States, you won’t need passports or any cover identities.”

              Major Salk leaned forward and held out his hand, signifying that the quick briefing was over.  “I’m sorry about the ultra sound, but Jo should understand.” 

“Understand my ass,”
Mike thought.  Mike stood and gripped the outstretched hand.  “Sir, please give Rose our best when you see her.  Also, if you could get us the address to the funeral home, the team would like to send flowers.  Jo and I would like to send flowers.”

              “Thanks, Mike, I’ll let her know that you and Jo were thinking about her.  And, I’ll make sure that you get the address when I get there.”

              “If you need somebody to check on the house while you’re gone, Jo and I can stop by over the weekend,” Mike said.

              “No, that’s okay, we won’t be gone long.  The funeral is this weekend, and we should be back home by next Tuesday, so I don’t see a problem with that.  If we get stuck there, we may give Jo a call to go by.”

              “Alright, but if you need anything, just give a call,” Mike replied.

              “Thanks, Mike, I appreciate it.”

              Mike walked out of Major Salk’s office, and nodded at SSG Cooper as he left.

              “Remember,
dodge
, and seek
cover
. 
Then
you return fire.”  Mike put emphasis on dodge, cover, and then just to get one more dig at SSG Cooper.

              SSG Cooper laughed, “Screw you asshole.”

              “That’s Chief Warrant asshole, thank you very much.”

              Mike ducked out of the office before SSG Cooper could throw something at him.  Mike walked by First Sergeant Grant, who was looking at one of the TVs that had news on at all times.

              “How’s it going, Top?” Mike asked.

              The First Sergeant stopped dead in his tracks, looked at Mike, and said, “One coke addled jackass and the whole world stops turning.”

              Mike nodded in sympathy.  “Assholes have a tendency to do that, especially when they have a nuclear bomb.”

              The First Sergeant shook his head and walked down the hall.  Mike could sympathize.  He and his team had multiple headaches whenever the Iranian President came for a visit to Venezuela.  It was looking more and more like Iran was willing to use proxies to attack the United States.

              Mike thought about the new mission. 
“Jo is going to be pissed,”
he thought.  She wanted Mike there for the ultra sound.  Mike wanted to be there for the ultra sound.  He just hoped she wouldn’t take it out on him.

              Mike continued on to the team room.  Rob, Tom and Mickey were now stripping weapons and cleaning them.  Tom was inspecting all of the weapons to ensure that all the parts were in working order.  He was the armorer for the team.  If he found a problem that he wasn’t able to fix with a spare part, he would take the weapon down to the gunsmiths in the basement to get it fixed.  He was also a gunsmith, but regulation required him to use the squadron gunsmiths.  The team was working through all the weapons for the team.

              Everett was in his office working on evaluation reports that were due to the First Sergeant before Friday.  The First Sergeant had to review them before Captain Bostak signed them when he got back from leave.

              Mike went to his computer, logged on, and read the warning order for the mission next week.  Major Salk was not kidding when he said there really was not much information in the warning order, or WARNO.  It just detailed the equipment needed, the information needed to get the pallet on the correct C-12 over at Peterson Air Force Base, and the manifest for his team.  Not much to look at.  Mike was surprised by the amount of weapons and ammunition that was required.  Major Salkwas correct about the requirements for Top Secret and Department of Energy security clearances, and an infantry background.  It was no wonder that his team had gotten this mission.  Strangely, it seemed tailor made for them. 

              He locked the computer, stood up and walked into the main room.  Mickey, Rob, and Tom were working on weapons maintenance now.  Mike started to pick up one of the weapons. 

Tom stopped him with a motion from his hand and said, “Nope, that’s the finished group.  The ‘uther uns are the ones you want.”  Tom’s Tennessee country roots showed with the pronunciation of ‘other ones’ as ‘uther uns.’

Mike grabbed an M4, picked a chair at the table, and started field stripping the weapon to check it for any dirt build up.  There were several gun cleaning kits and bore snakes on the table, to be used on any offending dirt or dust that was found.  There was very little dust and no dirt at all.  Mike expected no less.  The weapons were cleaned before the team went into Red status three months prior. 

“So what was up with the XO?” Rob asked.

“The XO has a mission for us,” Mike replied.

Mickey piped up, “Yeah, who do we get to kill?  Is it Mexico, Venezuela, or Paraguay?”

Mike shook his head, smiling, “None of the above.”

They looked at him, expectant.

“We have a mission in the United States.  It requires five guys with TS and DOE clearances, and Infantry backgrounds,” Mike stated.

“Is that it?  What about weapon systems, communications, targets?” Rob asked.

“Well, all of it, or, all of it for five guys.  We just have to have all of our equipment palletized, then they put us on a C-12, and we fly off to Malmstrom Air Force Base.  Once we land, they brief us, read us into a SAP, and then we’re on mission for three weeks, and we fly back,” Mike replied.

“No papers, passports, operations orders . . . ,” Tom trailed off.

“Nope, none of that.  We stay in country.  We don’t even need our regular passports.”

Everett stepped out of his office, “But we’re going to bring them, correct?”

“Hell yeah,” Mike replied.  “Just ‘cause the brass doesn’t think it’s necessary, doesn’t make it so.  Plus, something may happen that pulls us off of this job and shifts us back to our primary mission.”

Mickey spoke, “Good call, I agree.”

Tom nodded, “Better to have it, and not need it . . .,” he started.

“. . . Than to need it and not have it,” Rob finished.

“So what do you need from us, boss man?” Everett asked.

Mike replied, “Well, I have the list of everything that we need.  It’s all weapon systems and supplies.  Just make sure that we have two medic bags, and you have go bags packed, with civilian clothes, and some tactical clothes.  It is a three week trip, with travel, so plan for twenty-one days.  I don’t want to smell Mickey’s dirty underwear on day three. “

Mickey snorted in amusement at the comment.

Rob looked at Mickey in all seriousness, “Dude, he ain’t kidding.  I don’t know what you eat, but the gas you pass makes me want to vomit.”

Mickey’s smile broadened, “Pure protein supplements, my friend.”

He launched into a double bicep pump, followed up by extending his left arm and pointing his fingers away from his body in a classic body builder pose.  He turned and kissed his bicep.

“If you want quality, you eat quality.”

Rob grabbed his crotch, “I have something for you to chow on.”

Mickey shook his head with a sad look on his face, “Sorry brother, I need more than a light snack.”

Mike laughed, and cut off the next foray in the verbal brinksmanship, “I’ll email out the list, and I want everybody to review, to ensure that we have everything needed fortwenty-one days.  Tom, we don’t know the mission or target, but we have a list of weapons, ammunition, and we’re going to need flash bangs, thermite and fragmentation grenades.  Rob,” Mike turned to look at him, “make sure we have two claymores, and five sticks of C4, blasting caps, and det. cord for anything that may crop up.”

“It’s summer, so we don’t need any cold weather gear, but even in the summer, it can get cold at night in Montana, so full sleeping bags, and light cold weather gear.”

Everett spoke up.  “Brother, I never go on a trip without my full sleeping bag.  You never know when you’re going to risk hypothermia.”

Mike nodded, “We have a full pallet that we can load, so equipment and some snivel gear is appropriate, make sure you bring the cots, and a couple of boxes of MREs.  Who knows, we may get a chance to go to Yellowstone one night.”

Mickey looked up, “Man, I have never been there, and I always wanted to go.”

Tom asked, “So where the hell are we going?”

“Some Air Force base called Malmstrom,” Mike said.

“What the hell is there?”

“341
st
Space Command, I believe is the host unit for the base.”

“Are we doing an infiltration?” Everett asked.

Spec Ops units frequently did infiltration of military bases and secure areas to identify weaknesses in security.  This allowed the military base or secure facility security services the capability to review security procedures and revamp them if needed.

“I don’t know, Everett.  Usually that mission would require a few weeks to prep.  We aren’t getting enough lead time to go through the entire military decision making process.  No mention of going into isolation for mission prep, so I doubt it.”

Rob asked, “So what do you think this is about, Chief?”

Mike just shook his head.  “I really don’t know.  This doesn’t seem like an infiltration, security review, or any other mission I have been on, so I really don’t know what is going on.  What about you, Everett?”

Everett was just as stumped as Mike.  Between them they had 33 years of special operations experience.

“No, Chief, I can’t think of anything that might explain this.”

Mike shrugged, “March to the sound of the guns.”

The team nodded.

“Boss man, when do you want to get this done?” Everett asked.

“Well, I think we can continue doing our preventative maintenance on the weapons, then prep the ones we need for this mission.  I’ll get the paperwork started to get the munitions for the mission.  We need to prep supply so that they know we’llbe building the pallet tomorrow.I don’t want supply to bitch about being blindsided.  Then we can just move everything down in the morning and prep the pallet for the flight next Monday.  I’ll check with transportation to make sure they have us on the manifest going in the right direction.  And I think that will be it.”

Mike thought, and added, “Just make sure that you have your clothes and tactical gear packed for the pallet tomorrow so we can just get on the plane with just a carry-on bag each, and that will make life easier for all of us.  A few hours in the air, and hopefully we’ll find out what the hell this is all about.”

Mike went into the office and started the paperwork for the munitions required.  It was a tedious, but necessary part of the process.  The supply section, S4, was audited regularly to ensure that there was nothing missing and that all munitions were accounted for.  The last thing anybody in Special Operations Command wanted was their munitions sold on the black market, or worse, used to facilitate a coup in some third world hell hole, and then tracked back.  The paperwork was used to account for any munitions that were drawn from supply.  Even more paperwork was required if anything was ever used.  It had to be justified and accounted for, every single bullet, every ounce of explosive.  Mike laughed when he heard about black ops budgets that were ‘off the books’ on TV.  SOCOM, to include black ops, was Department of Defense, and DoD was a huge bureaucracy.  Bureaucracy lived on paperwork.  Nothing he had ever seen was off the books.