Thomas Hoover - Project Cyclops

The decision on that option would have to be made in about two hours, just before they set down the plane two kilometers west of the island and boarded the Zodiacs for insertion. That was when Vance was scheduled to radio his intel on the disposition of the hostiles and the friendlies. What a stroke of luck to have him there, a point man already in place to guide the team in.

"All right, then," Spiros said, finally coming alive, "let's do a final check of the equipment. We need to double-inventory the lists and make sure everything got delivered. I don't want to hear a lot of crap from you guys if somebody can't find something later on."

The others nodded. Dimitri had had to scramble to get all the hardware together, and Reginald Hall had had to make some expensive last-minute arrangements to obtain a set of balaclava antiflash hoods for everybody. When there were hostages everywhere, the safest way to storm the terrorists was with nonlethal flash grenades, which produced a blinding explosion and smoke but did not spew out iron fragments. But their use required the assault to function in the momentarily disruptive environment they created. The hoods, which protected the wearer's face and eyes from the smoke and flash, were crucial. And since your local hardware store did not stock them, he had borrowed a set from the Greek Dimoria Eidikon Apostolon, a SWAT unit of the Athens city police trained to provide hostage rescue, securing six on a "no questions asked" basis, even though everybody there knew they had only one use.

Word of the hostage-taking down on Andikythera had not yet leaked out to the world, so DEA had not been consulted. But their record of security at the Athens Hellinikon Airport was so miserable he doubted they ever would be considered for a job like this. Though the DEA had trained with the German GSG-9, the British SAS, and the Royal Dutch Marines, they still were basically just cops. A real antiterrorist operation would be out of their league.

DEA had no illusions about that, and they also knew that Spiros was with ARM, arguably the best private antiterrorist organization in the world. So if they granted Dimitri a favor, they knew they could someday call on ARM to repay in kind. In the antiterrorist community, everybody was on the same team. Everybody understood the meaning of quid pro quo.

Most of the rest of the equipment had been retrieved from the ARM stocks the organization kept stored in Athens. Governments frowned on the transportation of heavy weaponry around Europe, so the association found it convenient to have its own private stocks at terminals in London, Paris, and Athens. It made life simpler all around.

Reggie Hall had dictated the equipment list as he drove in to London in his black Jaguar, cursing the glut of traffic on the A21. Once he reached the ARM office there, a small inconspicuous townhouse in South Kensington, he faxed the list to Athens, then caught a plane. Dimitri had checked out the list against the ARM inventory in the warehouse and quickly procured whatever was lacking. It had been packaged into crates, then taken by lorry to this small side terminal of the Hellinikon Airport, ready to be loaded on the unobtrusive Cessna seaplane he had leased for the operation.

By that time the rest of the team had already started arriving. Then, two and a half hours ago, Pierre had begun the briefing.

A counterterrorist operation always had several objectives: protecting the lives of hostages and procuring their safe release, isolating and containing the incident, recovering seized property, and preventing the escape of the offenders. But this time there was a twist to the usual rules. In a special-threat situation like this, possibly involving nuclear weapons, the recovery of those devices was the paramount priority.

The way Armont had planned the assault, ARM could manage with a seven-man team instead of the nine most special-reaction outfits normally used. He would be team leader, which meant his responsibilities included supervision as well as being in charge of planning and execution, controlling cover and entry elements, and determining special needs.

Since Vance was already on the ground, he would be point man, providing reconnaissance and recommending primary and alternate routes of approach. The point man in an assault also led the entry element during approach and assisted the defense men in the security. Finally, he was expected to pitch in and help with the pyrotechnics as needed.

The defense man would be Marcel, the Belgian, who would cover for the Voorst brothers during the assault and provide security for Vance during the approach. He would also double as point man when required and protect the entry team from ambush during approach. Another duty was to cover the entry element during withdrawal and handle the heavy equipment.

Hans would serve as the rear security man, following the entry element during movement and providing close cover during withdrawal. He would be second in command, and also would bring in whatever equipment was needed.

Since Reggie was a crack shot, the best, he would be the standoff sniper, maintaining surveillance on the subject area from a fixed position, monitoring radio frequencies, and providing intelligence on hostile movements. He also would neutralize by selective fire anybody who posed an imminent threat to the entry team.

Spiros would be the observer, keeping a record of everything for an after-action summary, providing security for Reggie, and assisting in locating hostile personnel. He would relieve Hall as necessary, and handle the CS or smoke if Pierre signaled for it.

That was it for assignments. Everybody would be doing more or less what they always did. So far so good.

The next item was intelligence. Normally you tried to gather as much as you could on-scene, and presumably Vance was taking care of that. For the rest of it, Armont had dug up blueprints for all the buildings from the files, and on the plane from Paris he had meticulously numbered the levels, sectorized the windows, and labeled all the openings, ventilation shafts, et cetera. At the briefing just completed, he had used the blueprints to designate primary and secondary entry-points. He would fine-tune his strategy with Vance by radio once they had made the insertion; and then, after he had located all the terrorists and confirmed the situation of the hostages, they would use the blueprints to plan the assault.

Next came the equipment. Since the assault would be at night, they would need vision capabilities. That included M17A1 7x50 binoculars, starlight scopes, and infrared scopes. Then the radios, which had to be multi-channeled, with one channel reserved strictly for the team, and have cryptographic (secure voice) capability. The surveillance radio package-compact in size, with a short antenna-included a lapel mike, push-to-talk button, and earpiece. All members of the team would have a radio, worn in a comfortable position and out of the way. As usual they would employ strict communication discipline, using their established call signs and codes as much as possible.

Other personal equipment included chemical light wands, luminous tape, gloves, protective glasses, disposable inserts for hearing protection, black combat boots, lightweight body armor, balaclavas, flashlights, knives, first-aid pouches. Insertion gear included grapple hooks, several hundred feet of half-inch fibrous nylon rope, locking snaplinks, and rappelling harnesses.

Finally there was the weaponry. Everybody would carry a.45 caliber automatic pistol and a.38 caliber revolver with a special four-inch barrel. The assault team would use H amp;K MP5s except for Armont and Hall: Pierre preferred a Steyr-Mannlicher AUG and Reggie had brought along an Enfield L85A1, in addition to his usual AK-47. Then, just in case, they had the heavy stuff: M203 40mm launcher systems, M520-30 and M620A shotguns, modified 1200 pump shotguns, and 9mm PSDs. God help us, Armont thought, if we need all this.