On approach to Beirut, Lebanon
‘’We have Beirut in sight dead ahead, Captain. There are quite a lot of fireworks going around the city, along with occasional large explosions from probable artillery rounds.’
Greta, seeing the same things as Lieutenant Janet Goodman, who was piloting the PELICAN she was in, nodded her head while looking at the numerous lines of tracer bullets and shells flying constantly across the night sky of the Lebanese city.
‘’It’s a shit pit alright. Hopefully, our marines at the embassy will still be holding the fort there. How far are we from our embassy, Lieutenant?’
‘’We are about five miles from it, Captain, and should overfly it in a bit over a minute. How do you want to proceed for your assault?’
‘’We will come in low and fast, then will immediately land in turn on the roof of the embassy, where we will run out and enter it to go reinforce our embassy marines there and start collecting the staff for evacuation. How much loiter time in the air do you have left before you will have to fly to Turkey due to low fuel?’
‘’We can loiter at medium altitude and low speed for another forty minutes before having to turn around.’
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‘’Then, we will have to make it quick. When the last of your PELICANs will have unloaded its marines, have it stay on the roof, ready to take in evacuees. Hopefully, Ambassador Kearny will have prepared his staff and dependents for a quick evacuation.’
What Greta didn’t add then was that she had little faith in her pious hope. Her two years at the embassy in Stockholm had shown her how bureaucratic and inflexible the State Department could be, on top of its personnel too often acting like entitled prima donnas.
Greta would actually not be surprised to arrive at the embassy only to find the diplomatic staff and their dependents waiting with a mountain of personal suitcases they would then insist were ‘essential belongings’. If that proved the case, then Greta would have some hard news for them. She thus decided to preempt that possibility and grabbed her pocket tactical radio, changing its frequency to that used by the marine guards at the embassy, an information she had obtained via Lieutenant Benson after he had talked with Ambassador Kearny, along with the main callsigns used by the embassy.
‘’Castle, this is Cavalryman, come in, over!’
She had to repeat her call before getting an answer on her radio.
‘’This is Castle. How close are you right now, over?’
‘’Our ETA is one minute. What is your present situation, over?’
‘’Pretty bad, Cavalryman. The rioters tried to smash open our main door and are now about to blow it open with RPGs. They also have set fires in two of our annexes, over.’
‘’I copy that, Castle. Have your staff and dependents assemble close to the rooftop access of the main building but don’t, I say again, don’t let them on the roof until we have landed. As well, restrict the number of bags carried to no more than two suitcases per person. Any more luggage could jeopardize safe takeoffs. Be advised that our fuel reserves are limited, so be quick and organized, over.’
‘’Understood, Cavalryman: we will start sending our people to the top floor... Uh, one moment, please.’
Greta didn’t like what that temporary interruption could mean and she impatiently waited for ten seconds before a new male voice came on the radio.
‘’Cavalryman, this is Ambassador Kearny. We were just advised by telephone that a large group of American citizens are trapped and under siege at the American University Hospital, with militants shooting at them and trying to break inside. They need help right away.’
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Greta silently swore to herself before replying to Kearny with a question.
‘’What is their exact location, Castle? In which building and at what level are these American citizens, over?’
‘’In the hospital’s main building, on the second floor. Three private security guards are actually resisting those militants but the Lebanese Army soldiers who had been providing security around the University all fled or disappeared during last evening, at the start of the troubles.’
Frustrated by this extra problem to deal with, Greta thought it over for a couple of seconds before speaking further to Kearny.
‘’I acknowledge your info and will see what I can do to help there. Now, please get your people to the top floor, ready to be evacuated from the rooftop. Cavalryman out.’
Switching back her radio to her company frequency, Greta then grabbed her Beirut City map and consulted it quickly before speaking to her pilot, Janet Goodman.
‘’Lieutenant, veer to your two o’clock: this aircraft is going to the American University Hospital, where American citizens are barricaded and under siege. Your three other aircraft are to continue to the embassy.’
‘’Got it!’
Next, Greta called her second-in-command, First Lieutenant Jiro Watanabe, on her radio.
‘’Seven, this is Six. I am rerouting towards the American University Hospital with the First Platoon, in order to save a group of citizens under siege over there. Continue with the rest of our unit and go secure and evacuate the embassy, over.’
There was a slight pause before Watanabe, a young officer in which Greta had complete confidence, answered back.
‘’I copy that, Six. Will keep you informed via radio of our progress at the embassy, out!’
With that taken care of, Greta then looked outside with the help of her helmet-mounted night vision binoculars, trying to locate the American University Hospital inside the embattled city. It was actually quite easy for her to locate it, as it was by a good margin the tallest building in its neighborhood.
‘’I see the hospital, 600 meters to our one o’clock. It is the tallest building in that area.
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‘’I see it!’ replied Janet as she adjusted her flight trajectory. ‘’You want me to land on its rooftop, Captain?’
‘’Do a loop around it first, to see what kind of force is besieging it. If need be, we will strafe the enemy before landing on the roof.’
‘’Gunners, be ready to open fire!’ then ordered Goodman to her two side gunners and to her copilot, who controlled their PELICAN’s twin 30 mm cannons and rocket pods. Fifteen seconds later, they arrived at the hospital complex, with Janet Goodman then starting to fly a wide circle around it. What they saw on the ground was alarming, to say the least: incessant muzzle flashes around the entrance area showed that there was an intense firefight in
progress, with dozens of dark silhouettes
running or crouching near the entrance.
Greta then saw something that made her
swear.
‘’I see a French-made AMX-13
light tank rolling towards the main
entrance. It is flying a large flag and is closely followed by over twenty armed
men on foot. From its behavior, I would say that this was a Lebanese Army light tank that was captured by Islamists. Lieutenant, blow that tank to Hell!’
‘’With pleasure, Captain.’
Goodman lowered the nose of her PELICAN, diving on the light tank and allowing her copilot to aim their cannons, which had only a limited arc of fire. A two-second burst then sent 38 30 mm shells at the tank, bracketing it at the same time that they butchered the men following closely behind the tank. The AMX-13, which sported only light armor, then burst out in flames and stopped, while the militiamen who had survived dispersed at a run in utter panic. As the PELICAN overflew the now burning armored vehicle, its two side gunners added the fire from their heavy machine guns, spraying the fleeing extremists and accelerating their retreat.
‘’Time to land on the rooftop, Lieutenant.’ ordered Greta. ‘’Once on the rooftop, stay there at idle power while me and my marines will go get those besieged Americans.’
‘’Got it, Captain!’
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Another thirty seconds and the PELICAN was landing on top of the hospital’s main building. Greta then got up from her seat, her rifle at the ready, and ran to the aft cargo ramp, which was lowering down, while shouting to her marines.
‘’FIRST PLATOON, FOLLOW ME!’
On emerging out of the PELICAN and on the darkened hospital rooftop, Greta quickly scanned her surroundings, ready to engage any armed suspect that could be present.
Seeing nobody but her marines on the roof, she ran to the roof access hut and threw its door open before jumping inside. Again, she saw no one and pointed the staircase inside to her marines.
‘’OUR PEOPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE SECOND FLOOR. FOLLOW
ME, MARINES, BUT BE CAREFUL ON WHO YOU WILL SHOOT AT!’
Greta then ran down the flights of stairs as fast as she could, closely followed by 47
marines.
To her relief, they didn’t encounter any hostile persons on the way down and she arrived at the level of the second floor without firing a shot. Cautiously cracking open the door of the stairwell at that level, Greta shouted out loud into the hallway.
‘’AMERICAN MARINES! WE ARE HERE TO EVACUATE YOU!’
A female voice then answered her from somewhere down the hallway.
‘’THANK GOD! WE WERE GETTING DESPERATE.’
Reassured, Greta looked at Lieutenant Carlos Gonzalez, who commanded her First Platoon.
‘’Lieutenant, disperse your platoon to cover all the accesses to this floor, in order to prevent any Islamist to get up here. As well, post your machine gunners to watch the approaches to the hospital. I will now go see how many people we will have to evacuate: we may well have a few bed-ridden patients in the lot.’
‘’Understood, Captain.’ replied the young platoon leader. As Gonzalez distributed orders to his marines, Greta came out of the stairwell with Master Sergeant Vincent Gambino and the three other members of her command team. A nurse dressed in surgical garb then ran to her, a big smile on her face.
‘’If you knew how happy we are to see you here, miss.’
‘’Well, you will be able to tell me after we will have evacuated the lot of you by air: our transport is waiting on the roof. How many people here needs to be lifted to safety, miss?’
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‘’Uh, quite a lot, I’m afraid, miss. We have 39 members of the night staff here, plus fourteen walking patients. Our big problem is that we also have over thirty bed-ridden patients who are still in their rooms on the upper floors, plus four mothers with their infants on the pediatric floor. Unfortunately, we are presently on emergency local battery power only and the elevators w won’t work without power from our backup generators. Unfortunately, our local technicians all fled at the start of this insurrection and we don’t know how to start our diesel generators.’
‘’We may help you with that, miss.’ replied Greta before turning around to look at her senior NCO.
‘’Master Sergeant, do you think that you would be able to start up those backup diesel generators?’
Vincent ‘Mafioso’ Gambino grinned at that question.
‘’Maam, before joining the Marine Corps, my specialty was to steal cars by hot-wiring them. I will only need someone to lead me down to the generator room.’
That made Greta look at the nurse, who in turn twisted her head and shouted to someone visible as part of a growing crowd of hospital employees gathering near her in the hallway.
‘’MARWAN, COULD YOU GUIDE THOSE MARINES DOWN TO OUR
GENERATOR ROOM?’
She then looked back at Greta, explaining herself.
‘’Marwan Gemayel is a Christian Lebanese-American who is one of our male nurses. He knows every corner of this hospital.’
‘’Excellent! He can go show the way to my senior NCO. Sergeant Rossini, Corporal Somoza, you will escort Master Sergeant Gambino and Mister Gemayel during their excursion down to the generator room. Gunnery Sergeant Blackburn, you stay with me. Miss, I will now need you to show me the patients who are with you.’
‘’Right away, miss. Follow me.’
The nurse then led Greta and her NCO down the hallway and to a sort of patients’ lounge, where fourteen men and women, most of them in their fifties or older and wearing hospital gowns, were sitting away from the windows. One critical look around them was enough to convince Greta that most of those ‘walking’ patients would be unable to climb by themselves the ten flights of stairs leading to the rooftop. She
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then faced the nurse who had first spoken to her, a small woman in her mid-forties and with a distinct Semitic look to her.
‘’I believe that we will have to wait until the elevators are back in operation before leading your patients upstairs, miss. By the way, what is your name?’
‘’I am Aisha Rahal, the head nurse for the night shift at this hospital.’
‘’Are you an American citizen, Miss Rahal?’
The nurse hesitated, guessing the reason why Greta was asking that.
‘’I have dual American-Lebanese nationality but I have a family and two children here in Beirut and I am unwilling to leave them behind. I will thus have to skip your offer of flying out of here with my patients.’
‘’But you could well be killed by those extremists if they catch you after we are gone, Nurse Rahal.’
‘’Maybe, but they could also spare me and let me go.
Greta couldn’t help stare in silence at the small woman for long seconds before speaking again.
‘’Nurse, believe me when I say from experience that such religious extremists possess little sense of decency or even basic humanity. They will probably rape you first, then kill you, when they will see that your patients and staff have escaped them.
Here is what I propose to you: fly out with us to the American embassy, where I intend to stay in and hold while my aircraft fly our rescued citizens to our base in Incirlik, Turkey.
That way, you will be able to stay safe while still being relatively close to your family, and that until order can be restored in Beirut.’
Her last sentence somehow attracted a smirk on the nurse’s face.
‘’Order, restored in Beirut? This city is already well past the point of being governable, miss. While our government would deny that, Lebanon is for all practical purposes a failed state, where ethnic and religious hatreds combine with rampant government corruption and incompetence to make it a hellhole for decent, moderate persons like me and my family.’
‘’Then, why not move to the United States with your family. Do your husband and children hold dual American-Lebanese nationality like you?’
‘’We would probably go now, in view of how bad things have become in Lebanon.
However, I won’t abandon my family here.’
Greta, whose mind was working in overdrive, thought for a moment before looking into the nurse’s eyes.
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‘’Your husband, would he be able to bring your children to the American embassy today? Does he have a car?’
‘’He doe...if it was not destroyed in the more recent street fighting and artillery bombardments. But isn’t the American embassy under siege right now?’
‘’Not for long, Miss Rahal.’ replied Greta with a ferocious smile. ‘’What I propose is that you fly with us to the American embassy, where you will be able to call your husband to ask him to drive with your children to the embassy compound, which will stay under the protection of my marines.’
‘’But you could end up being trapped there, miss, surrounded and under mortar and machine gun fire.’
‘’First off, please call me ‘Captain’, not ‘miss’. Second, I fully intend to push those extremist bastards away from the embassy compound with the support of our aircraft and ships, so that it could become a haven for our citizens in Beirut. Once my aircraft will have been able to transport our first load of American citizens to Turkey, they will return here to pick up more of our citizens. Believe me, Miss Rahal: this is the best chance you will get to get out of Lebanon with your family. Come with us to the embassy, please.’
After a moment of reflection, Aisha Rahal nodded her head once.
‘’Alright, I will fly with you to the embassy, where I will call my family and tell it to join me there.’
‘’Thank you, Miss Rahal.’
‘’It is I who needs to thank you, Captain. By the way, what is your name?’
‘’Greta Visby. Captain Greta Visby, at your service.’
To Greta’s surprise, the nurse opened her eyes wide on hearing that.
‘’The U.S. Marine Viking Shield Maiden?’’
‘’Uh, don’t tell me that I am known even in Lebanon, miss?’ said Greta, not exactly liking the implications of such celebrity in a place like Beirut. For one thing, it could make her a prime target for the local Islamist extremists, as she had often bashed hard in the past other groups of Islamist extremists around the Middle East, South Asia, Somalia and Europe. That also meant that she could expect a long and painful death if she was ever captured alive. However, the nurse nodded again at her question.
‘’You were in the local news a few times during the past years. After all, you are a woman who stands out of the norms. Some of our male medical staff here did tell me that they had some fantasies concerning you.’
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‘’Why am I not surprised by that.’ replied Greta with a sigh. As she said that, the main lights came back on in the hospital, making her smile in satisfaction.
‘’Aaah, it seems that Master Sergeant Gambino would make a good electrician indeed. Now, before we start getting your walking patients up to the rooftop via the elevators, I want you and your staff to retrieve the personal effects of your patients and of themselves and, most importantly, their American passports, if they brought them to the hospital. Once ready, Gunny Blackburn will escort your patients up. As for you and me, we will go see how your bed-ridden patients are doing, so that we could prepare them for air evacuation. Act fast: time and fuel are limited.’
‘’I will get my nurses on it right away, Captain.’ replied Aisha Rahal. Only then did Greta catch on to something she should have noticed earlier.
‘’Uh, your nurses are here but where are the doctors of the night shift?’
That question brought a bitter expression on the face of Rahal.
‘’Our senior doctor was killed when he tried to dissuade the rioters from storming the hospital. The three other doctors present then fled.’
‘’I see! Well, let’s take care now of those who stayed.’
As Aisha Rahal distributed orders to her staff so that they could go retrieve their personal effects and those of the fourteen walking patients, Greta activated her pocket radio and called her second-in-command.
‘’Seven, this is Six, over!’
Lieutenant Watanabe answered her nearly at once, with the noise of some gunfire in the background.
‘’Go ahead, Six.’
‘’How is the situation at the embassy, Seven?’
‘’We have full control of the embassy compound and the diplomatic staff and their dependents are in the process of getting in our PELICANs. We are presently exchanging fire with a few gunmen sniping at the embassy from about 300 yards away.
Thankfully, those gunmen shoot like pigs. I have suffered two light wounded to date but I am confident that we can hold the embassy at this time, over.’
‘’Good! We have repelled an assault against the university hospital and are in the process of gathering the staff and patients for air evacuation. Be advised that the rioters had an AMX-13 light tank they had apparently captured from the Lebanese Army.
My PELICAN destroyed it but the rioters may have captured more armored vehicles, so
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watch out for them. Your orders are to fly the embassy staff and dependents to Turkey, where our PELICANs are to refuel and return to Beirut to pick us up. I will soon join you back at the embassy, where I intend to hold the complex as a safe haven for fleeing American citizens presently in Lebanon. We will hold it for as long as needed or until ordered out. Any questions, over?’
‘’Negative, Six. Will wait for your return. Seven, out!’
Next, Greta called Janet Goodman, who was still waiting with her PELICAN on the hospital’s rooftop.
‘’Bird Six, this is Marine Six. We should have hospital staff and patients coming up to you soon. Once all in, we will fly to the embassy, where I will disembark. You will then fly the evacuees to Turkey, refuel there and return for us at the embassy compound, which we now hold. Pass to the MONTANA that we hold the embassy and will soon be evacuating American citizens out of Beirut. Our casualties to date at the embassy are limited to two light wounded, while I suffered zero casualties at my location, over.’
‘’I copy, Marine Six. Will call the ship right now, out.’
04:18 (Beirut Time) / 03:18 (Western Mediterranean Time) Navigation bridge of the cruiser U.S.S. MONTANA Sailing into the Mediterranean from the Strait of Gibraltar Captain (Navy) Richard Eldridge was sitting in his command chair on the navigation bridge of his cruiser when his signals officer, Lieutenant Nadia Kaminsky, came to him with a message clipboard in her hands. Kaminsky stopped at attention next to the command chair, then presented her clipboard to Eldridge.
‘’Two messages for you, sir: one from our air assault force in Beirut, the other from Admiral Adams, at Sixth Fleet Headquarters in Naples, addressed to all ships in the Mediterranean.’
‘’Thank you, Lieutenant.’ said Eldridge while taking the clipboard from the very pretty and sexy 31-year-old blonde female officer. As per standard routine, Kaminsky stayed near the chair while Eldridge read both messages, ready to write down for transmission any response her captain would have to those messages. While obviously pleased by the message received from Beirut, Eldridge seemed distinctly displeased by the one from Naples. Having herself read that last message, Kaminsky easily
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understood why her captain would dislike it: it was the latest example of the rigid, by-the-book command style which Vice Admiral Thomas Adams, the commander of Sixth Fleet, was known for. Once he had finished his reading, Eldridge looked up at his signals officer.
‘’Have you already acknowledged receipt of this message from Sixth Fleet, Lieutenant?’
‘’Not yet, sir: I was intending to do so at the same time as you would respond to it, sir.’
‘’Then, ignore it and play dead about it, Lieutenant. Advise me if we get further messages from Naples later on.’
‘’Uh, yes sir!’ replied Kaminsky, who then took back her clipboard and left the bridge. Eldridge, still sitting in his command chair, muttered to himself in a near whisper tainted with disdain.
‘’Hold positions until State Department and National Security Council can decide on how to react to the events in Beirut... In the meantime, our staff and citizens there are supposed to sit tight and take shelter while we sit on our thumbs? What a dud this Adams is!’
Taking a decision, Eldridge then got out of his command chair and approached his bridge duty officer, Lieutenant Kate MacDonald.
‘’Lieutenant MacDonald, pass into hydrofoil mode and push our engines to maximum: we need to get to the Lebanese coast as quickly as possible.’
‘’Hydrofoil mode and maximum speed, aye sir!’
The young navigator then pushed all the way forward the engine control throttles of the cruiser and dialed a new setting for the ship’s triple pairs of stabilizer elevons, which connected together all three hulls under the waterline. Now set at a slight upward angle, those elevons then started acting like hydrofoil surfaces, making the hull of the 30,000-ton battlecruiser partly rise out of the water under the push from its four shrouded propellers. With its hydrodynamic drag greatly diminished by this, the U.S.S.
MONTANA’s speed sharply increased, something that in turn raised its hull further out of the water and increased its speed even further. Eldridge grinned with contentment when MacDonald soon announced that their speed was now 56 knots, equaling the best speed achieved during the initial sea trials of the cruiser. This capability to hydroplane and its consequent top speed had been kept secret for years now and had not been used since the initial sea trials, both to keep it secret and because it had not been
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needed in the past. It had not been used even during the 1996 naval war against Russia, for the reason that hydroplaning at full power generated a huge amount of underwater noise, something that could have been fatal to the MONTANA in that war, when it was facing dozens of Russian submarines on the prowl. Now going at nearly twice its publicly known top speed, Eldridge was confident that his cruiser would soon be within bombardment range of Beirut, ready to support the marines of Captain Visby. He then whispered to himself words from a popular country music song.
‘’We have a long way to go and a short time to get there... Give them Hell, Captain Visby!’
04:51 (Beirut Time)
Rooftop of the main American embassy building
Beirut, Lebanon
Greta was smiling with satisfaction as she watched the last of the four PELICANs fly away northward towards Turkey, with over 186 American citizens aboard the four assault transports. The first part of her mission was now a confirmed success.
However, she still had another 23 American civilians at the embassy who had elected to stay while waiting for their families to join them here, so that they could eventually fly out together. Her chief worry now was to see those family members being able to reach the embassy compound without being stopped or attacked by Islamist extremists. Using a hand-held thermal imager camera, she slowly scanned the façades of the buildings lining the opposite side of the avenue which ran past the embassy compound and on which the embassy’s main gate opened. If American citizens came and tried to find refuge here, then that would most probably be the way they would come. She did spot half a dozen thermal silhouettes peering at the embassy while trying to hide at window corners or from behind low roof parapets. Mentally taking note of where they were, she then looked at her second-in-command, First Lieutenant Jiro Watanabe, who was crouching next to her on the flat roof of the embassy, and passed her thermal camera to him.
‘’I can see seven signatures of probable extremists looking at us from those buildings across the avenue. I doubt very much that simple Lebanese residents would take the risk of staying in such positions and stare at the embassy after the exchange of gunfire which happened in the last half hour.’
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‘’Agreed!’ said Watanabe while scanning the buildings with the thermal camera.
‘’They have to be Islamist extremists left behind to watch us after that mob of rioters retreated after tasting our firepower. What do you want us to do about them, maam?’
‘’We still have over one hour of darkness left before Sunrise and I doubt very much that those assholes have night vision devices. I want you to take our first and second rifle platoons with you, lead them as stealthily as possible to those buildings and then get rid of those enemy observers. I want our marines to use their pistol and rifle silencers for that search and destroy mission, so that the enemy doesn’t realize that we came out of the compound. Once that is done, you will covertly lead one platoon east down the avenue in order to eliminate any roadblock which could prevent American citizens from reaching the embassy. Keep this camera for the moment: you will need it.
I will have our light mortars ready to cover you. Start as soon as you are ready to go.’
‘’Yes, maam!’ replied Watanabe, more than happy with her orders: he, like her, was a believer in taking the initiative from the enemy and in moving aggressively. He then keyed his pocket tactical radio to call the leaders of First and Second Platoons.
Alpha One Six and Alpha Two Six, this is Alpha Seven: join me for a quick orders group on the rooftop, over.’
‘’Alpha One Six acknowledged.’
‘’Alpha Two Six acknowledged, am on the way.’
Less than two minutes later, both Lieutenant Gonzalez and Lieutenant Vaughn were crouching next to Watanabe near the roof parapet. The latter then let them use the thermal camera so they could observe where the presumed enemy observers were, while passing to them Greta’s orders, finishing with a question.
‘’Any questions before we go? No? Then, gather your marines and make sure that they fit their silencers on their weapons.’
Both lieutenants nodded their heads at that: due to the combat experience gained during the past decades in various theaters of operation, including Afghanistan and Somalia, the Marine Corps had slightly modified its combat procedures and tactics and had acquired a large number of the best and most effective pistol and rifle silencers available on the commercial market, on top of modifying its individual small arms in order to make them able to fit silencers on. The value of stealth, especially during night close combat operations, was fully appreciated in the Marine Corps and that measure had been meant to maximize the operational stealth of its soldiers in battle. In that, the Marine Corps
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surpassed the U.S. Army, which had balked at the cost of so equipping all of its soldiers.
Quickly explaining to his two platoon commanders how he intended to proceed, Watanabe then led them off the rooftop and down to the basement level of the embassy main building, collecting the marines of the two rifle platoons in the process. There, Watanabe opened the steel trap giving access to the main sewer line linking the embassy with the city sewer section situated across the avenue passing by the embassy compound. The marines of the security detachment assigned to the embassy had shown to him the blueprints they had of the various access routes to the embassy’s main building, which included the sewer lines. Thankfully, it had been a dry few weeks lately, so Watanabe was not worried about having to wade waist-deep in raw sewage. When he set foot down in the sewer collector tunnel, he in fact found it to be nearly dry.
Thanking his luck, he lit his rifle-mounted flashlight and started cautiously walking southward along the concrete tunnel, followed by 83 marines.
After walking as silently as he could for a few minutes, Watanabe arrived at a junction with another large sewer concrete pipe oriented East-West, which he knew from the embassy blueprints was roughly following the main avenue which passed along the embassy compound. Signaling his two platoon leaders to gather next to him, he then whispered fresh orders to them.
‘’We should now be right under the avenue running past the embassy. First Platoon will now climb out of the sewers through the nearest manholes and will start to quietly secure the buildings directly facing the embassy. You may encounter up to a half dozen or more gunmen hiding in those buildings and watching the embassy. Take them out as quietly as possible. In the meantime, I will lead Second Platoon eastward down this sewer main and will emerge once we will have walked at least 200 yards down, then will make sure that the enemy has not established some kind of roadblock along the avenue. If we don’t encounter roadblocks at first, then we will go further East, but on the surface, to secure a good length of the avenue. Our goal is to secure a route to the embassy for our nationals who will try to flee Beirut. Questions?’
‘’No, all is clear for me.’ replied Carlos Gonzalez, while Sydney Vaughn shook his head.
‘’Good! Let’s get to work!’
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As Jiro Watanabe went down the sewer line heading eastward, Lieutenant Carlos Gonzalez walked to the nearest street manhole cover he could see overhead, then slung his rifle and grabbed his pistol, screwing a long silencer on its muzzle before starting to climb silently the rusting steel ladder going up to the manhole cover. Once in contact with the heavy steel grill, Gonzalez slowly pushed it up and sideways, taking it out of his way before cautiously sticking his head above the level of the street. It was still quite dark outside and, luckily, some stray bullets had cut the power lines running along the avenue, plunging the whole district in the dark. Listening as well as looking around, Gonzalez finally decided that it was safe for him to come out and climbed the last steps of the ladder, stepping on the street and immediately crouching next to the front bumper of a parked car. While keeping watch for possible enemy gunmen, he made hand signals to his marines as they emerged from the sewer manhole, directing them in fire team groupings to specific buildings lining this side of the avenue. He however kept one fire team with him, so that its two light machine guns could cover by fire the avenue in both of its directions. Some four minutes later, as they were still watching the avenue, Gonzalez heard the first muffled shot from a silenced rifle, coming from the third floor of the building he was in front it.
‘’Here we go: the dance has now started.’
Some 280 meters to the East, Watanabe found a street-level manhole and decided to check it out. Climbing the steel ladder to the manhole, he raised and slid it out of the way as silently as he could, only to realize that a truck was parked right over the manhole. In fact, one of its rear wheels had nearly blocked the cover from opening.
Watanabe was mentally swearing about this when he heard a male voice speaking Arabic very close to his location. Tensing up, Jiro used his night vision goggles to scan the surroundings of the parked truck and soon realized that he was only some six meters to the west from an improvised checkpoint set across the avenue with a bunch of garbage cans and containers arranged to form a chicane. Four armed men in various civilian garbs mixed with an eclectic mix of pieces of military uniforms were standing or slouching around the chicane while talking between themselves. Jiro then examined the truck parked overhead, to see if it would be possible to crawl out from under it without being seen. Thankfully, that truck, a four-wheeled vehicle, had a quite high ground clearance which made it easy to crawl out from under it. However, that detail also raised an alarm into Jiro’s head: this looked like a cross-country capable vehicle and, with the
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fact that it was parked very close to a checkpoint, could mean that it belonged to the gunmen manning the checkpoint. Signaling by hand to the leader of the Second Platoon to climb up to him, he then whispered in a very low volume to Lieutenant Sydney Vaughn.
‘’The manhole we are in has a possible enemy light truck parked right over it, while there is a checkpoint some six paces down the street, with four gunmen manning that checkpoint. There may well be one or two more gunmen aboard the truck parked over us. Make sure that all of your marines have silencers on their weapons, then tell your first squad to start climbing quietly to street level and crawl out from under that truck. Me and you will come out first and will use our silenced pistols to cover our men as they crawl out of the manhole. Go down and pass the word quietly while I take a prone position on the sidewalk, ready to cover you.’
‘’Got it!’ whispered back Vaughn before climbing back down to go speak with his marines in the sewer. Steeling himself and with all his senses in high alert, Watanabe then cautiously came out of the manhole and crawled to the nearby sidewalk. He turned on his back before moving out in the open, his silenced pistol pointing up and ready to shoot any gunman who could be sitting in the light truck. He barely kept a chuckle in when the first thing he saw was the butts of a man sitting on the ledge of the truck’s cargo box: if he shot now, that man would definitely say ‘ouch’ before dying. Finishing to crawl out in the open but staying on his back for the moment, Watanabe signaled by hand to Vaughn, who was emerging out of the manhole, to crawl to a position behind the front left tire of the truck, where he would be in good position to aim his pistol at the gunmen manning the checkpoint. Next out of the manhole was Sergeant Mike Harris, the leader of the first squad of Vaughn’s platoon, who was then followed by Corporal Steven Parker, the leader of Fire Team Charlie of the first squad. Once he had four marines out of the manhole and ready to crawl out from under the truck, Jiro judged that he now had enough firepower at the ready to deal with this checkpoint and, raising first to a sitting position, then quickly got up on his feet, next to the right side of the truck.
That was when he faced the gunman who had been sitting on the truck’s side ledge.
That man, a rather hirsute guy in his thirties, could only look at him with stunned surprise before Watanabe shot him between the eyes with his silenced pistol. Jiro then pivoted in a flash and started firing at the four gunmen holding the checkpoint, with Vaughn and Harris joining in and killing all four men in a couple of seconds, with none of the gunmen able to even raise their rifles before getting killed. Running quickly to the checkpoint,
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Jiro then looked up and visually inspected the balconies of the apartment buildings lining both sides of the avenue near the chicane. He was just in time to see a man’s head emerge from past the railing of a balcony, looking down at the checkpoint and shouting a brief question in Arabic.
‘’Sorry: I only speak nine-millimeter tonight.’ replied Watanabe before shooting that man in the face. The man crumbled down on the balcony, letting a pair of binoculars he had been holding fall to the sidewalk, where it shattered into pieces.
Watanabe, understanding that he had just shot a watchman covering the eastern approaches to the checkpoint, keyed his tactical radio.
‘’Alpha Two Six, from Alpha Seven: have a squad man the checkpoint and send your two other squads to clear and secure the buildings next to it.’
‘’Understood, Alpha Seven.’
Within less than a minute, the thirteen marines of the first squad were in position at the checkpoint, their weapons pointing mostly eastward, with Private First-Class Penny Stone crouching next to Watanabe, who stood behind a steel dumpster. The redhead young woman then smiled to Jiro.
‘’From a sewer line to a trash dumpster: a rather smelly start to combat, sir.’
‘’Who said that being a marine was like a bed of roses, Private Stone?’ replied Jiro, making the Irish-American ex-professional wrestler chuckle.
‘’Right, sir!’
Becoming serious again, Jiro keyed his radio again and called his first platoon.
‘’Alpha One Six, this is Alpha Seven. Send situation report, over.’
‘’From Alpha One Six, we have finished scouring the buildings facing Castle.
Eight gunmen, including six of them asleep at the time, taken out. Area secure, no casualties on my side, over.’
‘’Alpha Seven acknowledged, out.’
Jiro was about to call Greta when Sergeant Harris shouted a warning to him.
‘’TWO CARS ON APPROACH FROM THE EAST!’
Twisting his head in that direction, Jiro saw two medium-sized sedan cars approaching at a good rate of speed. However, their drivers slowed down, then stopped, on seeing the chicane and the dark silhouettes around it. Taking a chance, Jiro stepped from behind the chicane and walked slowly towards the two cars, his empty arms waving high above him while shouting in English.
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‘’AMERICAN MARINES! IF YOU ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS, CONTINUE
TOWARDS THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, WHERE MORE MARINES WILL OFFER YOU
PROTECTION.’
His risky choice of action was then rewarded by a man’s head sticking out of the driver’s window of the lead car, with the man then shouting back in English.
‘’WE ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS, MISTER. WE HAVE OUR PASSPORTS
WITH US.’
‘’THEN, COME FORWARD AND STOP AT THE CHICANE, SO THAT I COULD
CHECK YOUR PASSPORTS.’
Walking back to the chicane, Jiro then bent down to speak to the lead car’s driver once the man stopped next to him. Looking quickly inside the car, he saw that the man had one teenage girl and three younger children with him. The car was also packed with suitcases and bundles.
‘’May I see your passports, please?’
‘’Of course, sir! Here they are.’
Taking the five American passports offered to him, Jiro quickly examined them, then gave them back to the driver and saluted him.
‘’You may now proceed to the embassy, sir. You will encounter another group of marines at the main gate of the compound, so don’t worry about your safety beyond this point.’
‘’Thank you, mister.’
The first car then negotiated the chicane and continued westward towards the embassy as the second car came forward. This time, Jiro saw one woman and two young teenagers in that car, with all three of them having valid American passports. The woman who was driving that second car smiled to him before going forward.
‘’Thank God for the U.S. Marines!’
That warmed the heart of Jiro Watanabe, who saluted the departing car while grinning and talking to himself.
‘’This is a good day indeed to be a marine.’
06:36 (Washington Time) / 13:36 (Beirut Time)
Monday, September 08, 2008 ‘C’
National Combined Combat Command Center (NC4)
The Pentagon, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
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General of the Army Joseph ‘Shit Thrower’ Shuman, having taken a two-hour nap and a good breakfast after spending the whole night up while following the chaotic situation in and around Lebanon, was feeling much better as he walked in at an energetic pace in his NC4 operations center, situated in the heart of the Pentagon. His first move was to go to the desk of his night shift operations officer, Brigadier General Linda Clarkson, a very competent Air Force flag officer whom he appreciated and respected.
‘’Anything new and notable, General Clarkson?’
‘’Uh, you could say that, sir. Quite a few things happened during the last few hours but, due to late reporting or delays caused by multiple command echelons being at play, we now know that the U.S.S. MONTANA, which entered the Mediterranean some seven hours ago, reacted to the news of our embassy in Beirut being besieged by Islamist-led rioters and launched its embarked marine company towards Lebanon in four PELICAN VTOL assault transports. It did so despite of a general order to all our ships in the Mediterranean to not react to the crisis in Lebanon until formal orders could be given by Sixth Fleet Headquarters.’
‘’WHAT?’ nearly shouted Shuman, instantly angry. ‘’Who is the idiot who gave such an order?’
‘’Vice Admiral Adams, the commander of the Sixth Fleet in Naples, sir.’
‘’Alright, I will square his peg later on. What happened afterwards? Were the marines sent by the MONTANA able to help our embassy in Beirut?’
‘’They certainly did, sir.’ replied Clarkson, grinning. ‘’The marines of Alpha Company, First Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment, succeeded in reinforcing our embassy just in time and in securing it. They then used their PELICANs to evacuate to Incirlik the embassy personnel, their dependents and quite a few American citizens trapped by the fighting in Beirut. They even managed to go rescue and evacuate the personnel and patients of the American University of Beirut’s Hospital, which had been under assault by Islamist extremists. To date, the total number of American and dual-national citizens evacuated from Beirut by air thanks to our marines is at 319 men, women and children, with more due to be flown out from our embassy in Beirut once our four PELICANs return from their latest round trip to Turkey. By the way, the media news channels are already reporting on this ongoing rescue operation.’
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‘’Now, that’s the kind of news I like. Do you know who commands our marines in Beirut?’
If anything, Clarkson’s grin widened even more then.
‘’None other than Captain Greta ‘The Viking Shield Maiden’ Visby, sir. That girl is truly becoming a celebrity on the news channels.’
‘’Yes! I knew that I made the right decision when I commissioned her in the field while in Afghanistan. Okay, what do we have now on the way to reinforce or at the least support our marines in Beirut, General Clarkson?’
Shumer’s smile disappeared when Clarkson made a face while shaking her head.
‘’Nothing, sir. Vice Admiral Adams still has not rescinded his ‘hold’ order to our ships in the Mediterranean, while the commander of our European Command, General Vance Horner, has not ordered Adams to cancel his previous order. General Horner did order his special forces units to prepare for deployment to Lebanon but those units still have not left Germany, sir. On the other hand, the U.S.S. MONTANA is still ignoring the directive from Admiral Adams and is speeding towards the Lebanese coast at 56 knots.
It should be within bombardment missile range of Beirut in about three hours, sir.’
‘’And what is Vice Admiral Adams saying about this rush eastward by the MONTANA?’
‘’Nothing, sir, because the MONTANA has not advised Naples about its movements and is apparently ignoring Admiral Adams’ orders to hold in place. That cruiser captain is risking court-martial for insubordination by doing so, sir.’
‘’The only one who will get court-martialed in this affair is Vice Admiral Adams, for gross incompetence and dereliction of duty. Find the name of that cruiser commander for me, General Clarkson, so I could later reward properly his sense of initiative and resolve in this crisis. In the meantime, I am going to call General Horner in Stuttgart and ring his bells real good.’
Linda Clarkson wrung her right hand as Shuman charged towards his private office in the operations center. General Joseph Shuman had been nicknamed ‘The Shit Thrower’
after he had a bucket of raw sewage dumped over the work desk of the then American theater commander in Afghanistan, for having done nothing to prevent his troops from being exposed to the toxic smoke from the infamous ‘burning pits’, where raw sewage and trash were being burned around the American camps. That hapless commander had then been unceremoniously relieved of command and replaced by the legendary ex-General of the Army Ingrid Dows, who had been recalled out of retirement by President
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Bush in order to straighten up the mess in Afghanistan. General Horner and Vice Admiral Adams were thus likely in for one memorable taking down by General Shuman.
10:06 (Washington Time)
The Oval Office, The White House
Washington, D.C.
President George W. Bush was discussing with his chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, and with Barry Steven Jackson, one of his senior political advisors, about the approaching presidential elections of November, when his intercom buzzed. Activating it, Bush saw that his private secretary was the one on the line.
‘’Yes, Martha?’
‘’Mister President, the Director of National Intelligence is here with the directors of the CIA and of the NSA. They say that they need to speak with you on a most urgent and sensitive question of national security.’
‘’Very well: let them in, Martha.’ replied Bush before giving an apologetic look to Bolten and Jackson. ‘’I am afraid that we will have to continue this conversation at another time, gentlemen.’
‘’We understand, Mister President.’ said Bolten while getting up from his sofa with Jackson. The pair walked out of the Oval Office at the same time as Mike McConnell, Michael Hayden and James Loyd walked in through another door. Bush noticed at once the somber, nearly alarmed expression on the faces of his three top intelligence officials.
‘’What do you have for me, gentlemen?’
‘’A potential national security and World crisis of the first order, Mister President.’
answered glumly McConnell. ‘’It is about those Pakistani nuclear warheads which went missing and which we suspected were handed to Al Qaeda via the Saudis. The NSA just intercepted a cell phone conversation between a high-level Saudi intelligence operative in Beirut and a surviving Al Qaeda senior leader, who was also in Beirut.
While they spoke using coded speech, we were able to surmise that at least one of the missing Pakistani nuclear warheads is in Beirut, along with a Pakistani nuclear scientist capable of arming and detonating that warhead.’
‘’WHAT?’ nearly shouted Bush, shaken by that information. ‘’Are you sure about this?’
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‘’Quite sure, Mister President. Both the identity and location of that Saudi operative and that of the senior Al Qaeda leader have been confirmed via voice analysis and cell phone transmission links. Furthermore, that Pakistani nuclear expert’s name was mentioned, something that actually triggered the attention of our surveillance systems. From what they said, it appears that an Al Qaida team of operatives are about to carry out a suicide mission out of Beirut, using that Pakistani nuclear warhead.
Thankfully, they spoke for long enough for us to be able to triangulate the position of that Al Qaida team: as of two hours ago, that team was aboard a cargo ship presently docked in the port of Beirut. However, our surveillance satellites showed that this ship, which by the way is registered under a flag of convenience but is owned by a Saudi company, was under steam and ready to sail. It thus could sail out of Beirut at any moment now. As for where these Al Qaeda bastards are heading, our best guess would be a port in Israel, either Haifa or Tel Aviv. That cargo’s official destination is Alexandria, in Egypt, so its route will make it sail very close to Israeli coastal waters. I am not sure that, even if we alert the Israeli to this, they will have time to properly react before that cargo ship would be close enough to harm Israeli coastal cities. Further, if the Israelis would bomb that ship and sink it, it could result in some serious radioactive contamination of the waters off Israel.’
Bush was silent for a moment, his mind in turmoil about the possible consequences of such a catastrophic scenario. Before he could speak, McConnell’s cell phone, which was equipped to handle encrypted conversations, started buzzing, making the Director of National Intelligence fish it out of one pocket and answer it.
‘’Yes?’
Bush, along with Hayden and Loyd, saw McConnell’s expression clearly change from concerned to alarm.
‘’What? When?... Alright, keep me posted if you get any new information about this.’
As McConnell closed and pocketed his encrypted cell phone, he gave Bush a dejected look.
‘’Mister President, that ship was just reported having sailed out of Beirut about one hour ago, and is now doing at least fifteen knots. At that speed, it will be at the level of Haifa in about three to four hours, and passing by Tel Aviv in less than eight hours.’
‘’My God! Can we send a SEAL team to board that ship and stop this operation?’
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‘’No, Mister President: our nearest SEAL team is in Naples, Italy: way too far for it to get to that ship in time.’
As Bush, McConnell and Hayden were left pondering grimly the consequences of a nuclear weapon detonating in the Middle East, James Loyd suddenly remembered something that made him exclaim out loud.
‘’Our marines in Beirut: they could fly out of our embassy there and take by assault that ship in less than one hour.’
‘’But, do they have aircraft available to them right now?’ asked McConnell. ‘’I thought that their PELICANs had flown to Turkey to evacuate some of our citizens stuck in Beirut.’
President Bush’ reaction then was to hurry to his secure telephone on his desk.
‘’We will find out quickly enough: I’m going to call our NC4 operations center at the Pentagon.’
17:31 (Beirut Time) / 10:31 (Washington Time)
Rooftop of the American embassy, Beirut
