More Than Courage (42 page)

Still, as much as company commanders and squad leaders would have liked him to, Shaddock could not simply disappear 324

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during this crucial period. He had to be seen by his men. Even in the day of high-tech, precision-guided munitions, ground soldiers needed to be physically led into battle. All the computer chips in the world could not replace this function of the officer. Shaddock's men had grown used to seeing him in garrison and during every aspect of their training. Now as they prepared to venture into harm's way they needed to see him. Though many military men have tried over the centuries to do away with this symbolic practice, again and again combat commanders have found that there was no substitute in battle for the same sort of commanding and heroic figure that the Spartan King had immortalized at Thermopolae. Like Leonidas, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Shaddock was more than an officer in the United States Army. By virtue of his position he had become a talisman, a good luck charm that satisfied the primeval needs of the world's most sophisticated warriors. They might not understand the logic of their mission. They might not be motivated by old-fashioned patriotism. Yet there was not a soul among the soldiers of the 3rd of the 75th who did not feel a sense of loyalty to Harry Shaddock, a man who had become something between an icon and a father figure to men raised in a society in which manhood was sometimes viewed as a curse.

With no firm plan in mind Shaddock made his way from one unit assembly point to another, showing the flag while looking for something constructive to do. Like his company commanders he was responsible for overseeing the activities of his command as well as making himself available just in case some glitch cropped up at this late stage that required his personal intervention. Yet no matter how hard he searched for a situation that cried out for his attention he found no problems he needed to untangle. Nor did he come across any harried staff officer crying out for salvation.

Like Diogenes wandering through the darkness in search of an honest man, Shaddock was reduced to going from one group of soldiers to another in a vain quest to find fulfillment.

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In the midst of this meandering quest Shaddock came across the pair of lieutenant colonels who had attached themselves to the 3rd of the 75th during their tenure at Fort Irwin. From the looks on their faces he could tell that both Neil Kaplan and Robert Delmont desired a moment of his time. Raising his head and straightening himself up, Shaddock slipped into his battalion commander persona. "Well," he announced with far more enthusiasm than he felt, "in a few more hours we'll be ready to rock and roll."

At first neither Kaplan nor Delmont spoke as they exchanged nervous glances. Then, after taking a moment to screw up his courage, Delmont took the point. "In going over our orders assigning us to your battalion, Colonel Shaddock, both Colonel Kaplan and I have found that neither of us have been instructed as to when our responsibility to your unit is at an end."

Try as hard as he might, Shaddock found himself barely able to suppress the smirk that lit up his face. He knew what was coming and was not sure how he felt about it. Joyriding on a mission such as this was not at all uncommon. In fact, it was almost a game with rear-echelon types eager to prove something to themselves or punch their proverbial career ticket. Every professional soldier worth a damn seized upon every opportunity that came his way to go where the action was.

For the great majority of American soldiers this desire to stroll through the valley of death is not a manifestation of suicidal tendencies or a need to satisfy a sinister and savage bloodlust. Rather, the motivation that drives a professional officer to hitch on to a mission such as Fanfare even when they have no real role could be explained in one of two ways. More often than not there is an unfulfilled desire to practice all those skills that they had spent years learning and refining. To a professional soldier such as Robert Delmont, being a combat arms officer in a peacetime Army was akin to a major league ballplayer doomed to spend his entire career sitting on the bench without ever being afforded the opportunity to take the field. True, Delmont was a plans officer 326

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responsible for developing many real-world contingencies. In drafting Fanfare and providing staff oversight on behalf of his superior in Washington he had executed his assigned duties as laid out in his job description. But like most professional officers, he was a soldier first and foremost. And soldiers don't win battles by thinking about them. Nor do they derive job satisfaction from watching others go off to fight them.

A less acknowledged catalyst that compelled officers like Delmont and Kaplan to insert themselves into a situation in which they need not go was an unspoken desire to test their individual mettle. Time and time again professional soldiers reared in a peacetime army have risen through the ranks to a position of importance only to find that when they finally did face the ultimate test of battle, they came up lacking. Whether it was a dearth of the moral fiber necessary to wage war or a simple inability to subordinate personal fear, the reason did not matter. Failure by an officer to live up to expectations in combat translates into unnecessary deaths and ignoble defeat. While a good deal of blame for this shortcoming could be leveled at a system that rewards those who were most proficient at counting beans and keeping a clean motor pool rather than men who had a knack for breaking things, even the best scheme for officer selection and training could not predetermine who would buckle under the strain of combat and who would rise above the chaos to win great victories for his nation.

At the moment it didn't matter to Harry Shaddock what was driving this pair of lieutenant colonels to offer their services. As the commanding officer of a battalion about to engage in a high risk operation, what was important was whether either or both of these people could be of use to him while on the ground in Syria.

While he had no particular fondness for or loyalty to either, he at least owed them the courtesy of hearing them out. After making a show of looking at his watch, Shaddock folded his arms. "Okay, I'm game. Convince me of why either of you need to go."

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Glancing at each other, both Kaplan and Delmont paused as they tried to figure out who should take the lead. In the end Kaplan deferred to Delmont. "I have not received any new orders relieving me of my duties as liaison officer to your unit. So I am assuming that they remain in force."

Shaddock knew better than to ask Delmont if he had bothered to call his superior and ask him if it was his intention for Delmont to remain with the 3rd of the 75th throughout the entire operation. After all, if their roles were reversed he sure as hell would not have made that call. "I see. And you, Colonel Kaplan?"

"Well, sir," he blurted, "while it is true that your Alpha Com i

pany has achieved a degree of proficiency with the Land Warrior, you have no one within your battalion who has the expertise to troubleshoot any problems that may crop up during the course of operations.

"If that happens," Shaddock countered, "I doubt if we would have time to sort things out."

j:

"But if I or my NCOIC aren't around, there won't be any

: chance at all, will there? Besides, who will do systems and integration checks prior to dropping ramps?"

"Can't you do that now?"

Kaplan held his hands out at his side and waved them vaguely in the direction of several small groups of soldiers scurrying about as they tended to last-minute preparations. "We could try, Colonel, but "at the moment it would be like herding cats. Once Alpha Company is airborne they will become the ultimate captive audience.

If Sergeant Benoit and I are with them we will have thirteen hours to check the individual units, answer any last-minute questions, and sort out any problems. Besides," he added reluctantly,

"this will be the first time the Land Warrior will be seeing combat on this scale. It would be useful to both the program and the Army in general if someone who is familiar with the system is there on the ground to study it under actual conditions."

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"Yes," Shaddock mused, "I see your point. And once you're on the ground? What will your function be? I mean, we are going into combat."

Drawing himself up, Kaplan peered into Shaddock's eyes.

"Despite what you or the Army may think, I am a soldier, no less dedicated to my profession or duty than you."

Shaddock's natural inclination was to decline the offer from his fellow officers. This was, after all, a raid. Neither he nor any of his staff would have any time once they were on the ground to deal with straphangers. Still, as he stood there looking at the pair he realized that these were no ordinary joyriders. Delmont was a trusted representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His presence on the ground could be useful if things started to go south. If nothing else, he could deal with all communications directed at the 3rd of the 75th from CENTCOM or the Joint Chiefs that were not mission related.

Stepping closer, Shaddock poked the special ops plans officer in the chest with his index finger. "If you do go, mister, it will be your job to handle any and all incoming calls fromv anyone and everyone who is not in my immediate chain of command. Clear?"

Understanding what the battalion commander was driving at, Delmont nodded. "That's reasonable. Can do."

After nodding, Shaddock looked at Kaplan. "Colonel, I have to admit that I've not had the opportunity to study up on the Land Warrior. So I find that I am unable to tell if you're blowing smoke or on the level." He paused, looking down at the ground as he made a show of weighing the issue for a moment. When he was ready he looked up. "Rather than put this operation at risk I find that I have no choice but to add both you and your NCOIC

to the troop list."

Shaddock noted how Kaplan's face lit up. "Now," the battalion commander stated, "you two need to get with my XO and let him know you're to be added to the manifest. Colonel Kaplan, you're to attach yourself to Lieutenant DeWitt's company until we're on the ground. Once there, you're to report to my TA^

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CP. Colonel Delmont, you'll be with the TAC CP throughout the operation unless I have need of your services elsewhere. Any questions?"

Having achieved their aim, both Delmont and Kaplan snapped to attention and shook .their heads.

"Now," Shaddock concluded, "if you don't mind, I have a battalion which I need to tend to." Of course both Delmont and Kaplan knew this was something less than truthful. Like them, the commander of the 3rd of the 75th was, for the moment, little more than a spectator as hundreds of soldiers, pumped up by the prospect of battle, prepared themselves for combat.

15:55 PACIFIC, 18:55 EASTERN,

02:55 DAMASCUS (22:55 ZULU)

Even before the officers and men of the 3rd of the 75th Rangers departed Fort Irwin aboard giant C-17 Globemaster Ills, the first whispers of Fanfare were beginning to sweep across the vast expanses of Syria like the stirring of-the breeze before a prairie storm. Fanfare's opening gambits were not directed at Syrian troops or the facilities they manned. The targets of these long range assaults were the systems upon which those soldiers had come to depend. Like their mark, the tip of this spearhead was not human. They weren't even machines. They were the unseen digital commandos sent streaming through the atmosphere in endless columns of zeros and ones. Their objective was to infiltrate, cripple, incapacitate, and confuse the electronic components of the fragile network that linked the Syrian air defense with its national command authority as well as the integrated communications array on which the Syrian leaders and military relied.

This was the twenty-first century-version of the Trojan horse, better known as informational warfare. Launched from computers scattered around the United States, technicians unlocked back doors to automated systems all across Syria. Through those hidden portals, they unleashed worms, viruses, and other electronic predators designed to ravage programs needed to direct and coordinate the Syrian military. Each of these attacks was discrete, very narrowly targeted, and initiated in a well-orchestrated sequence so that by the time the Syrians realized what was afoot, the damage was already done.

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Nothing was sacred, nothing safe. Included in this panoply of systems scheduled for disruption were nonmilitary ground- and space-based telecommunications platforms owned and operated by international conglomerates. Designed to support the global economy by linking remote areas of the world via wireless Internet connections and cell phones, these systems provided the Syrian military with an emergency backup. The same cell phones American kids carried about in their backpacks at school were standard issue to commanders of Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries.

While no one doubted that there would be howls of protests from corporate CEOs and their clients when selected portions of this privately owned technological wonder suddenly went off the air, the American command authority had determined that a few hundred botched business deals and stock trades were a small price to pay for protecting its fighting men.

Fanfare's preliminary ethereal maneuvers could not play havoc forever without evoking a response from the Syrians. Eventually their command-and-control structure woke up to the fact that they were under attack. When that occurred, Syrian units began to deploy to repel the ongoing assault. To dissipate this effort and keep senior Syrian commanders ignorant of the assault's true form and the direction from which it was coming was the aim of Fanfare's deception plan. This was achieved through the use of disinformation, a more ancient form of warfare that had once been a forte of the former Soviet Union.

Disinformation is a tricky ploy that can easily backfire if not properly orchestrated. In the case of Fanfare, the primary agents of disinformation were selected members of the administration and Congress known for their propensity to leak information. In the wake of Sergeant Yousaf Hashmi's execution, these oft quoted unnamed sources who kept the American media supplied with state secrets were fed rumors that retaliatory air strikes meant as a warning to the Syrian leadership were in the offing.