08:31 (Washington D.C. Time) / 20:31 (Malaysia Time)
Friday, November 1, 1996 ‘C’
National Combined Combat Command Center (NC4), the Pentagon
Arlington, Virginia, U.S.A.
Ingrid, sitting at her open area desk in the NC4 and watching a television set tuned to the CNN channel, tighten her jaws when the reporter describing the hijacking of Air Philippines 305 showed the pictures of her two old comrades while naming them as the pilots of the Convair 800. What had been a serious incident of concern to the U.S.A., which was a close ally of the Philippines, was now turning into a personal cause of anxiety. She however reminded herself that she could not allow her personal feelings to cloud her judgment as the top American military commander. Still, something clearly had to be done, fast.
‘’Major Cusack, do we know where they are going now?’’
The duty intelligence officer, sitting a few steps from her, shook his head.
‘’Not officially, general. However, the Malaysian Air Force followed the Convair 800 until it left Malaysian airspace and reported that it was flying steady on a heading of 271, straight West. It is now over the open ocean and the next piece of land ahead of it is the northeast coast of Africa, Somalia to be more exact…if it doesn’t alter its course.’’
‘’Somalia…’’ said Ingrid to herself. ‘’A failed state controlled by warlords and Islamist extremists. You can hardly find a more chaotic and anarchic place on Earth right now.’’
Looking at the big World situation board facing her desk, Ingrid looked at what assets she presently had in the Indian Ocean. One symbol marking the position of a ship just outside the mouth of the Gulf of Aden, close to the coasts of both Yemen and Somalia, immediately attracted her attention and she shouted an order to the duty Navy senior officer.
‘’Captain Merrick, have the U.S.S. NEPTUNE head South at top speed to take position off the eastern coast of Somalia. I want it to launch one of its early warning birds, so that it could locate and identify positively the hijacked Convair 800 of Air Philippines while staying out of visual sight from the cockpit of the Convair. It is then to discreetly follow Air Philippines 305 in order to confirm where it is going to land. Also, alert the NEPTUNE to have its embarked Marine battalion ready to execute a mass hostage rescue operation.’’
‘’Understood, General!’’
With officers in the NMCC starting to implement her orders, Ingrid gave a bitter look at the big situation board.
‘’This happens only four days before our presidential elections. It can’t be a simple coincidence. Whoever arranged this hijacking is probably counting that the elections will distract us from reacting properly to this.’’
A mere minute after that, the duty intelligence officer got a phone call that seemed to agitate him. He then looked at Ingrid with a somber expression.
‘’General, we have another airliner reported as possibly hijacked. An Alitalia Boeing 717 that left Cairo for Rome stopped responding to air traffic control once over the Mediterranean and then turned Southeast. It is now flying over the Red Sea, heading in the general direction of the Gulf of Aden. The Israelis scrambled a pair of fighters in response and are now following the airliner from a distance.’’
‘’Damn! Do we know how many persons are aboard that flight?’’
‘’Yes, General! It took off from Cairo with 323 passengers, most of them American and European tourists, plus ten crewmembers.’’
‘’This can’t be a coincidence, happening at the same time that we have another hijacked airliner heading towards Somalia. This must be a coordinated mass hijacking event. Keep an eye and ear out for more possible airliners or even cruise ships being hijacked, Major. Captain Merrick, pass that information to the U.S.S. NEPTUNE. I want it to track that Alitalia flight, on top of tracking Air Philippines 305. If those two hijacked airliners end up landing at the same location, then we can expect to find a strong hostile force at that said location. We may need to involve more of our assets in order to deal properly with this double situation. What do we have in Djibouti right now, Colonel Reed?’’
The duty Air Force senior officer looked quickly at his latest reports before answering her.
‘’We have nothing right now in Djibouti, or in the Northeast tip of Africa. However, the French do have a few helicopters in Djibouti, along with about 200 troops.’’
‘’Hum, contacting them and getting them to accept to launch a joint rescue operation would take way too long. However… Colonel, get in contact with the French and ask them to have their base in Djibouti ready to act as a reception point for any hostages we may end up rescuing. I will now call the White House to advise the President about all this.’’
Ingrid shook her head as she grabbed the handset of the encrypted telephone linking the Pentagon with the White House: whoever was arranging those hijackings would need to be dealt with firmly, once found out.
18:03 (Somalia Time) / 09:03 (Washington D.C. Time)
Combat Information Center (CIC) of the battle carrier U.S.S. NEPTUNE
Indian Ocean, near the Gulf of Aden
Rear Admiral Mack ‘Big Mack’ Benson nodded once his head at the arrival at a near run of Lieutenant Colonel Paul Wilkinson, the commander of the marine battalion embarked on his battle carrier. He then looked around the electronic tactical situation display table at his senior officers and squadron commanders.
‘’Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new and most urgent mission given to us by Washington. First, to put everybody in the picture, two airliners have recently been hijacked and are now headed towards Somalia: an Air Philippines Convair 800 that was hijacked in Tawi-Tawi and an Alitalia Boeing 717 that had left Cairo and was heading to Rome. There are 47 passengers and three crewmembers aboard the Convair 800, which is presently over the Indian Ocean and heading towards Mogadishu, while there are 323 passengers and ten crewmembers on the Alitalia flight, which is now over the Red Sea and approaching the Gulf of Aden. The numbers and affiliations of the hijackers on those two planes are still unknown, except for the fact that the hijackers on the Air Philippines plane are probably Filipino Muslims and that there are at least four of them. On receipt of the warning order from Washington, I scrambled two of our MP-21 early warning patrol aircraft, so that they could locate, positively identify and then trail discretely both of the hijacked airliners. The Air Philippines Convair 800 has now been confirmed to be here, some 3,200 miles due east of Mogadishu and is flying westward over the Indian Ocean at a constant speed of 360 knots. As for the Alitalia Boeing 717, its last reported position was 110 miles northwest of Djibouti. Our MP-21s will continue to track them in order to find out where they will land, which will probably be somewhere in Somalia. The Convair 800, while it topped up its fuel tanks in Kuala Lumpur, doesn’t have enough range anyway to fly much further past Somalia. Once we will know where those two hijacked airliners will have landed, we will then launch a snap hostage rescue mission, with Colonel Wilkinson’s battalion effecting an air assault aboard our PELICAN VTOL{4} assault transports. First on the objective however will be our embarked SEAL team, which will land as discretely as possible near the objective and will then do a covert reconnaissance of it. Our SEALs will then guide in and assist our marines when they will close in on the objective. Unfortunately, we can’t make a more detailed plan until we know where these hijacked aircraft will land in Somalia. Our main goal is to rescue as quickly as possible those hostages before they could be moved or dispersed, hopefully without casualties occurring to them, but we will also eliminate the terrorists who will be guarding them. The freed hostages will then be flown to the NEPTUNE. Our attack squadrons will also be in the air, ready to provide close air support to our Marines. Any questions at this point?’’
Wilkinson was the first to raise one hand.
‘’Admiral, have those hijackers made any demands yet? What are their goals?’’
‘’According to Washington, they have not made any demands yet, which is effectively a bit surprising, so we know nothing about that. Maybe they are waiting until all their hostages will have arrived before announcing their demands. Our game will be to strike them as early as possible, in order to maximize the effect of surprise. Your marines will thus have to go in light and move fast. Any delay or slowness on our part may end up costing dozens of innocent lives.’’
‘’I understand, Admiral. My marines will do their very best.’’
‘’Then, go right away to start preparing your marines, Colonel.’’
‘’Yes, sir!’’
As Wilkinson walked away, Benson looked at Lieutenant (Navy) Mike Durban, the commanding officer of 3rd Platoon, SEAL Team 10.
‘’Will you prefer to be parachuted in HALO{5} mode once we know where these airliners will land; be landed by a PELICAN ‘A’; or use your SUPERCARs, Lieutenant?’’
‘’I definitely prefer to use our SUPERCARs for this, Admiral, as long as you can approach the Somali coast a bit in order to give us more range once we launch. With our SUPERCARs, we will be able to travel fast, both in the air and on the ground, and we can also do a completely silent final ground approach on battery power.’’
‘’No problem, Lieutenant: we can get within a hundred nautical miles of the coast during the night with very little risks of being detected. You may go prepare your men now: I will advise you the minute that we will know where those airliners landed.’’
18:32 (Somalia Time)
3rd Rifle Platoon/Bravo Company quarters
Stern section, Upper Deck, U.S.S. NEPTUNE
‘’MAKE SURE THAT YOUR WATER BOTTLES ARE FULL: IT’S HOT AND DRY OUT THERE IN SOMALIA!’’
The marines of the 2nd Squad/3rd Rifle Platoon replied as one to their squad leader, Sergeant Jeffrey Brown.
‘’YES, SERGEANT!’’
One of the twelve marines under the command of Sergeant Brown was Private First-Class Greta Visby, a tall and athletic blonde who had just celebrated her 21st birthday. Since she had already filled her two water bottles mere minutes ago, she continued filling her rifle magazines with loose .243 Winchester cartridges. The magazines for her Winchester M1986A2 assault rifle were of the 25-round box type and were customarily used in pairs fixed together with a spacer between them. That gave a total of fifty rounds which could be fired quickly, with the change between left and right-side magazines taking only a couple of seconds. Greta’s Colt M1986A2 also included an integral 60mm RGL95 single shot grenade launcher, which added a very significant punch to it and was fixed under the rifle barrel. With a pneumatic long recoil buffer to soak up the punishing recoil from the firing of a 60mm rifle grenade, that allowed a maximum range of 700 meters against fixed targets, or 200 meters against moving targets, with the HEAT{6} grenade able to defeat up to 300mm of steel armor, more than enough to destroy light and medium armored vehicles. In fact, Greta had already been able to use her RGL95 to good effect only a few months ago, while on a combat mission inside Armenia. The single 60mm rifle grenade she had fired then had stopped cold an enemy BTR-70 wheeled armored personnel carrier.
Once Greta was finished loading her magazines and preparing her combat equipment, she took out of its scabbard her rifle’s bayonet, which had a long, twelve-inch blade with serrations along its top edge, and started sharpening it with a small sharpening stone. One of her fire team comrades, PFC Thomas Finch, smiled with amusement on seeing her do that.
‘’You’re planning to bring a knife to a gunfight, Greta?’’
‘’What I am doing is to make sure that I have an effective backup weapon if my rifle ever jams, Thom. A dull knife isn’t worth much in a fight.’’
‘’And did you ever kill anything with a knife, or use one in a fight?’’ insisted the African-American marine light machine gunner, making Greta nod her head.
‘’Once, when I was still living in Northern Sweden as a young teenager, my father was attacked by a pair of wolves when he went out of our cabin at night. I then used my hunting knife to help him chase away those wolves. I was also quite skilled at skinning catches with it. Too many of our men think that the bayonet is a next-to-useless relic of the past. I would say otherwise. For one, it is perfect to silently kill sentries or to guard prisoners.’’
Thomas Finch nodded his head slowly, impressed by her coolness, then returned his attention to his own kit.
In the CIC, Rear Admiral Benson got a few minutes later a report from one of his air situation officers.
‘’Admiral, our MP-21 tracking the Alitalia flight signaled that the airliner has just landed.’’
‘’Good! Tell our aircraft to overfly that landing site at high altitude and to take pictures of it. Then, mark electronically that landing site on our tactical plot display table.’’
A few seconds later, a bright red symbol appeared on his tactical plot, which also showed a map of Somalia. The location of that symbol made him let out a disbelieving remark.
‘’Hell, that’s literally in the middle of nowhere!’’