Commander-In-Chief (47 page)

T
he USS
James Greer
(DDG-102) wasn’t looking for attention; in fact, the captain of the guided missile destroyer, Commander Scott Hagen, would have given a month’s pay to be lurking silently anywhere else in the Baltic but dead solid center, surrounded by civilian vessels, the aircraft of half a dozen nations, and even the rented helicopters of a dozen of the world’s biggest news outlets.

But they were here, finishing their fourth day at the scene of the crash of Swedish Airlines Flight 44, and the big powerful destroyer retrieving wreckage in the center of a very crowded sea had made one hell of an impressive shot for the video crews.

This would have been bad enough for Hagen, a realization of his worst fear of losing the element of surprise in an ocean full of very real threats, but now the officers’ mess of his ship had been turned into an impromptu location to hold a press conference. Right now twenty reporters, photographers, and audio technicians were crammed tight, while three young sonar technicians, two male and one female, sat wide-eyed and uncomfortable at a table.

Three sailors—a petty officer 2nd class, a petty officer 1st class, and a senior STGC—had used a laptop computer and the ship’s towed array sonar to create a “Black Box Detector” to search the deep water for the flight data recorder of SA44. They did this by taking the acoustic signature created by the black box’s “ping” and sending it out to the towed array of the
James Greer,
telling it, in effect, to ignore every boat, fish, whale, and other sound in the sea, and to search for the telltale noise.

It had taken two days of running patterns in the area, but the box had been found. A research vessel that had been working at the site of a World War II plane wreck off the coast of Finland had joined the hunt, and they used their submersible to bring up the flight data recorder, allowing the other salvage equipment on station to concentrate on the recovery of larger pieces of wreckage.

And now the sailors involved in the successful search for the crucial equipment had their twenty-minute press conference to bask in their success to the world media, although all three of them looked like they’d rather be anywhere else in the world than here under the lights, carefully fielding questions without revealing one word of classified intelligence, all while their captain looked on from out in the passageway.

And if the three sonar technicians weren’t exactly enjoying the moment, Commander Hagen was even more uncomfortable. He’d had to close off sections of his ship and position guards at doors in the bulkheads and hatches on the deck where they needed to be extra careful some intrepid reporter didn’t try to leave the pack, and he had to watch his three young sailors to make sure they didn’t drift into the no-man’s-land of classified information; hard to do when they had zero experience giving briefings to the media.

But the Navy had ordered the event and the crew was doing
their best to comply, while Commander Hagen just kept looking at his watch, wishing this day would end as soon as possible.

The worst part of all this wasn’t the exposure, or the risk of losing a reporter down a ladderway, or the effort that had gone into finding the black box, taking his men and women away from their main mission here in the Baltic.

No, it was the bodies that bothered Hagen the most now, and it was the bodies that would stay with him the longest. The
Greer
had recovered thirty-one intact bodies or body parts in the past week, even though that had not been their main task here. Time and time again, reports from lookouts indicated floating debris in the water that appeared to be human remains, and while many times they would send out launches to discover clothing, suitcases, or colorful seats from the aircraft, thirty-one times his sailors had to retrieve the dead. Men, women, children . . . unidentifiable human remains.

Hagen knew this mission was important, he knew his boat was the right tool for the job, but the truth was . . . he hated this shit.

A tap on his shoulder pulled him back to the moment, and he turned to find his XO standing with a blue folder in his hands and a serious look on his face. He leaned over to his captain. “Message from the CNO, sir.”

Hagen hadn’t expected anything from the chief of naval operations, so he followed Lieutenant Commander Kincaid back to his own stateroom. Here he quickly opened the folder and began reading.

After a full minute he looked up at his XO. “A Russian Kilo has hit a Maltese-flagged freighter, possibly traveling in Russian waters off Kaliningrad.”

“
Hit
it, sir?”

“Torpedoed. Sunk.”

“Holy shit! On purpose?”

Hagen stared back at his second-in-command without comment. The XO held his hands up.

“Sorry, sir. You don’t accidentally fire a torpedo. I just . . .
Why?
”

“Not a clue. We are to make best possible speed for Lithuanian waters. It’s a presence mission at the moment. Further orders to follow.”

The XO said, “They have two Kilos in their Baltic Fleet, sir. I recommend we get the UH-60 Romeos far out ahead of us looking for them, erring on the side of caution.”

“I agree. There is no reason for either of those Kilos to head as far north as Lithuania, but there was no reason for them to sink a Maltese oil-products tanker, either. Let’s find them before they find us.”

Hagen looked down the passageway at the media presence. “Phil, enough of the dog-and-pony show. I want those folks out of here, clear off the deck, within ten minutes. We’ve got work to do.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

•   •   •

T
hirty minutes later the
James Greer
had begun its transit of the Baltic Sea, but no message had been given over the 1-MC public address system as to their new mission.

Lieutenant Damon Hart, a thirty-year-old undersea-warfare weapons officer, noticed the change in the ship’s engines, even down in his officers’ quarters, several decks below the bridge. It was almost noon, but Hart had just climbed out of his bunk.

He had been working “five and dimes” all week. Five hours on shift, then ten hours off. He’d been on duty throughout the nighttime hours; he ate alone in the mess before climbing into his bunk to catch a few hours.

Now he was rested, but still coming out of his sleep. As he rubbed his eyes and sat down at the tiny desk he shared with another lieutenant, Hart heard running out in the passageway. He looked up at his door as it flew open.

One of his roommates, a communications officer named Tim Matsui, all but shouted, “Weps, you are not going to believe this!”

Because Hart was a weapons officer, everyone on the boat called him Weps, even the captain.

Hart yawned. “Dude, I know. It’s Wednesday. Slider day. I can’t wait.” Wednesdays were especially big draws in the mess. The cook’s cheddar cheese sliders were legendary.

The communications officer shook his head, a look on his face Hart had never seen from the man.

“It’s not slider day?” Hart asked.

Matsui sat down on the bunk next to Hart. “A Kilo torpedoed an oil tanker off the coast of Kaliningrad at oh seven hundred. Left it just a smoking oil slick.”

Hart blinked hard in astonishment. “No shit? Are they sure?”

“A Polish corvette was close by, it picked up the torpedo signature before it even hit the ship. ID’d it as a Fifty-three, Sixty-five.
Had
to have been one of the Russian Kilos. It was in international waters, no question about it. We’re heading to Lithuania to protect shipping at the border with Kaliningrad, and we might be sent into international waters to hunt the Kilo.”

Hart had trained for this each and every day for the nine years he’d been in the Navy. But it occurred to him now that he never really expected it to happen.

Matsui said, “Did you hear what I just said? Looks like shit is about to get real.”

Hart still found it hard to believe for a second they were going
to actually start hunting a Russian sub. He thought they’d probably just flex their muscle in the area. Almost to himself, he said, “I can kill a Kilo.”

It was an affirmation, but his roommate responded.

“You’re damn right you can, Weps! You didn’t get all those badges and shit for eating sliders.”

The captain came over the 1-MC moments later, relaying his orders to move his ship toward Lithuania. He ended his briefing to the crew with a warning about operational security.

“We are on commo lockdown as of right now. No information out to anyone about our location, our destination, or our mission. No one is to use social media at all for anything. Remember . . . Loose tweets sink fleets.”

T
he Situation Room conference room was full. Cabinet-level national security officials ringed the table, and behind them their aides and other military officers lined the walls. Another six men and women stood in the corners.

Jack Ryan looked around at the crowd and thought he should be the President who finally had this room redesigned. It wasn’t that the world’s problems had grown past the ability of the physical dimensions of the room to deal with them since the Situation Room had been built in 1961; it was rather that the amount of information pouring into the room in times of crisis had become harder to manage. It took more people, more experts in more disciplines, more monitors, and more room for visual aids than did similar crises just twenty or thirty years ago.

Ryan had thirty people in front of him, and he felt like a quarterback of a too-large and too-unwieldy football team trying to play on a field that was way too small.

It was a stifling feeling.

SecDef Bob Burgess had the floor now, and he was on Ryan’s
direct left, speaking to the President, but careful to be loud enough to be heard all over the room. “The Russians are claiming the tanker sailed into Kaliningrad waters and refused to respond to radio hailing.”

Ryan looked at the map on the monitor on the other side of the room. It was the only monitor he could see with the crowd against the walls. “What do the Russians say they thought the tanker’s intentions were?”

“Terrorism. They are claiming they felt this was another attack on Russian forces in Kaliningrad, just like the attack in Vilnius.”

“That’s asinine.”

Mary Pat said, “It’s for domestic consumption. Volodin’s about to go to war, he knows it, and he is hammering home the same nationalistic ‘We’re all under attack’ line to his people he’s been using for the past year. But now he’s bolstering this assertion by claiming his people are literally under attack.”

Burgess said, “Following your instructions, I’ve already directed the chief of naval operations to move the nearest surface assets toward Lithuania. First to arrive will be the
James Greer
, a guided missile destroyer.”

Ryan said, “I saw the
Greer
on CNN this morning. It’s helping with the SA44 crash.”

“It was. It’s already left the crash site, and now it’s moving as fast as possible into position. It will be on station by seven this evening. The captain is awaiting orders. He knows he’ll either protect Lithuanian waters or play a more active role in international waters.”

Ryan nodded. He knew that decision was up to him, ultimately, but he wasn’t going to be rushed into it.

Burgess said, “And there is news from DIA regarding the three generals we mentioned. Two from the Western Military District, and one in the Southern Military District.”

Ryan said, “You told me DIA felt confident these men would be present in theater before an attack on Lithuania.”

“Correct, and we’ve pinpointed all three. One of the generals is in Belarus, and one is in Kaliningrad.”

“Where’s the third?”

“He was in Belarus until the day before yesterday, then he left.”

“Where is he now?”

“Believe it or not, he’s in Odessa on vacation.”

“Vacation?”

“He’s at a new resort hotel set up for military officers. There was a story about it on TV this morning on Channel Seven. He and a few other top military guys were mentioned.”

At first glance, this made no sense to Ryan. “What would his role be in the invasion?”

“Heavy artillery. That’s what he’s been involved with in all the other fights.”

Jack smiled slowly now. It wasn’t a look of happiness, just marveling at the situation.

“What is it?” Adler asked.

“This general . . . he’s their Patton.”

Burgess understood immediately. “A misdirection.”

“Sorry,” Scott Adler said. “Patton?”

Ryan filled him in. “Before the D-Day invasion, the Germans were keeping an eye on one man. America’s most audacious general. They took it as a given that he would be involved with the invasion.

“Eisenhower understood this, so he sent George Patton up to the north of England, gave him a phantom army, used him as a complete misdirection. He wasn’t involved in D-Day, because Ike determined he could serve best by turning the enemy’s eyes away from the real attack.”

Ryan said, “This Russian general is going to have capable senior
staff under him who can do his job. The Russians send him off to ‘club mil’ in Odessa, make a big show about the fact he is nowhere near the theater, so we think nothing is about to happen.”

Scott Adler understood the deeper ramifications of this news. He said, “In the past few weeks they’ve done everything in their power to telegraph the fact they were coming over the border. Now, suddenly, they apply some trickery.” He didn’t ask why, because he knew why. “The invasion is decided. The West caved like they thought we would, so they are going forward.”

Jack Ryan agreed. “They
have
to go forward. They want us to let our guard down for a day or two while this old goat is sunning himself on the beach, which means that’s when they’ll come.”

Burgess said, “I’ll alert our ambassador to NATO. He can push again for a deployment.”

“No,” countered Ryan quickly. “NATO will only deploy when it’s too late. That ship has sailed. They will only act, if at all, when the Article Five violation is well under way.”

Adler asked, “What do you want to do?”

“We are going to deploy the Black Sea Rotational Force into Lithuania.” He turned to Burgess. “They need to be moving ten minutes ago. Also get the Marine units from Spain on the way, and give the regiment at Camp Lejeune the green light. You said they could be in Lithuania in ten days. That clock is now ticking.”

Burgess turned to an aide, a uniformed colonel with a nameplate that read
BROWN
. “Brownie, go.” Burgess turned back to Ryan. “The MEU training in the North Sea?”

Ryan nodded. “Push them to the east—toward the Baltic Sea. Obviously we’ve got some Russian subs to kill before I put two thousand American Marines in Russian waters. But it will take them days to get there.” He turned to the secretary of the Navy. “You need to make sure our ships looking for those subs have everything
they need. If you want me on the phone with Sweden or Poland, or . . . or anybody, to pull more assistance from foreign nations, you just say the word.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

“And Bob.” He looked back to Burgess.

“Sir?”

“Keep an eye on this general in Odessa. If you remember, Patton wasn’t involved in D-Day, but he sure as hell was involved a few months later, killing Germans at the Battle of the Bulge.”

“I take your meaning, Mr. President.”

•   •   •

T
he deployment of the Black Sea Rotational Force had been discussed for days, so when the orders came down through the Marine Corps Commandant to MARFOREUR, the Marine Forces Europe, at its HQ in Germany, the lieutenant colonel in charge of the BSRF, only had to give the “Go” order.

Lieutenant Colonel Rich Belanger was the battalion commander for the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division. Known as the Darkhorse Battalion, 3/5 had spent the last fifteen years fighting counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East. At forty-seven, Belanger was a quarter-century older than the majority of his men. Defending his nation for so long would give him a different perspective from that of his younger men in most situations, but now his age had a special relevance. Back when Belanger was a young “butter bar” lieutenant, he spent virtually all his time getting drilled in the ins and outs of Soviet doctrine and Eastern Bloc military hardware. In the late eighties there was no secret who the principal enemy of the United States was, and where a potential war would likely be fought.

But for the young men in his battalion now, the world looked
very different. Belanger’s Marines with battle experience had learned the savageries of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, yet it was an altogether different kind of enemy, terrain, and warfare from what they would experience here in Central Europe if the Russians invaded a NATO country.

From the moment Belanger knew the storied Darkhorse Battalion would assume watch in the Black Sea Rotational Force, he’d gone to work on retraining and altering the mind-set of his Marines, impressing on them the different type of fighting they would do, because he alone appreciated what they were getting into.

Afghanistan sucked. The enemy was real and the threats were pervasive. That said,
nobody
in Afghanistan
ever
talked about enemy tanks, or worse, enemy air.

Here in Europe, with Russia as an adversary, tanks and air was pretty much all anyone talked about.

A different kind of enemy altogether.

An insurgent’s IED in Afghanistan could take out a squad, but a battery of Russian 2S19 artillery could take out a company.

As soon as he was given the heads-up that his force and his force alone might be heading into eastern Lithuania, Belanger did the unexpected. He spent almost all his time with his logistics and supply units, and left the finishing touches of precombat checks to his company commanders.

He gave his infantry leaders a detailed intent on what he wanted them to do, and trusted them to take care of business. Then he focused on freeing up the critical equipment he knew no one in EUCOM’s area of operations would be willing to part with.

He knew this coming fight demanded a lot more of the big stuff.

He ordered his logistics and supply officers to get every antitank weapon they could lay their hands on. He chastised the
logistics officer personally for his lack of audacity in the first twelve hours, put him on the shit list for taking his time, and told him he’d better get cracking and get creative immediately.

It worked.

One week later the Darkhorse had extra TOW missiles, extra Stingers, more machine-gun ammo, extra 120-millimeter and 81-millimeter high-explosive mortar rounds, and loads of smoke rounds. The logistics officer had somehow even teased out a stash of old Romanian land mines.

Lieutenant Colonel Rich Belanger’s logistics officer had spent virtually every moment of the past week “augmenting” his battalion, both officially, by obtaining additional tanks positioned in Stuttgart but unattached to NATO, and unofficially, by procuring everything from extra encrypted radios to bandages from wherever he and his staff could scrounge them. They even “borrowed” extra American Javelin antitank missiles that had been stored in U.S. Army forward munitions bunkers.

Belanger looked down the final list of all the goodies his logistics officer had brought him, then looked up from his desk with a smile.

“You need me to sign for all this, Captain?”

The captain shook his head. “Probably better if you didn’t.”

With a wink Belanger said, “I like your style. You’re off my shit list.”

Belanger knew he’d be getting some phone calls later, but he also knew it was easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.

•   •   •

W
hen the time finally came to pull the trigger to move into Lithuania, the Darkhorse Battalion moved faster and fatter than Belanger’s wildest dreams. Days earlier they relocated to
Poland, to within three hundred miles of their forward deployment positions, and this gave BSRF the option of “organic lift.” Belanger task-organized his battalion so they could arrive in the battle space ready to deploy and fight immediately if need be.

The battalion consisted of a headquarters and service company, a weapons company, and three rifle companies: India, Kilo, and Lima. Their tanks had been moved to the Polish border two days earlier, along with the vehicles attached to the Headquarters and Service Company, so it was only a three-hour drive to Vilnius.

A dozen tilt-rotor V-22 Ospreys and six C-130 Hercules cargo planes landed at airports in Vilnius, Paluknys, and Molėtai, beginning at midnight, with Harrier jets and Cobra helicopters flying combat air support during the lift to protect them if the Russians moved air over the border. Belanger didn’t know how long he’d have the air cover, but he appreciated it on the ingress, unsure what he would find when he got into position.

The remainder of the H&S Company, along with the beans, bullets, and Band-Aids, traveled in up-armored Humvees and seven-ton trucks from Poland. This ground force did not have a rifle company with them, but all Marine Corps units were trained to protect themselves, even the diesel mechanics and bulk-fuel operators who drove H&S’s trucks. The Corps believed every Marine was a rifleman first, and the truckers always thought of themselves as riflemen and machine gunners who also knew how to turn wrenches, and not the other way around.

Rich Belanger did not travel with his H&S company. He entered Lithuania on the third Osprey to pass into Lithuanian airspace, and he wore the same basic loadout as the rest of his men: an M4 carbine, eight thirty-round magazines, a Beretta M9 pistol, and body armor.

The security of this operation had been as solid as the military
could possibly make it, but there was no way to move twelve hundred Marines and their equipment into a nation the size of Lithuania, employing civilian airports, overflying cities, and rolling Humvees and tanks down the roads without the enemy getting wind of it. Belanger knew the Russians would be aware of this surprise deployment long before dawn rose over Moscow, and he wondered what this would mean for him and his men. Would the Sixth Army return to Russia from Belarus in the east, and go back to their barracks in Kaliningrad, or would the arrival of the Marines have the opposite effect, encouraging the Russians to attack when they would not have otherwise?