Brad Thor - State Of The Union

With an unusual number of vessels from Russia’s Baltic Fleet prowling the Gulf of Finland, all of theConnecticut ’s extraordinary stealth capabilities had been called upon to maneuver it undetected into a position off the Finnish coast where it could launch the ASDS.

The bone-dry, completely enclosed, sixty-five-foot long minisub was considered one of the hottest pieces of equipment the United States Special Operations Command had ever put into service. It could travel at ranges up to 125 miles with a speed of just over eight knots on a series of lithium ion polymer batteries. Its integrated control and display systems, dual-redundant flight control computers, operational software, forward-looking sonar for detecting natural and manmade obstacles, as well as side-looking sonar for mine detection and terrain/bottom mapping, were all state-of-the-art. In addition to a Navy-certified submarine pilot and SEAL navigator, the craft could accommodate anywhere from eight to sixteen SEALs, depending on the amount of gear their mission required. Tonight, though, Harvath, Morrell, DeWolfe, and Carlson were taking up most of the room.

As they came within range of their objective, the pilot, whom Carlson had referred to incessantly as ‘Captain Nemo’ since they had boarded in Gotland, told his passengers to begin preparing to get wet.

Because of the amount of equipment they had to transport, they were limited to exiting in pairs from the lock in/lock out chamber in the floor of the ASDS.

All four of the men wore brand new amphibious diving suits developed by the Army’s Soldier and Biological Chemical Command lab in Natick, Massachusetts. The amphibious diving suits acted and looked like the typical dry suits designed to keep their wearers warm by preventing water from reaching the skin, but in this case, once the wearers climbed out of the water, the polyurethane-based, three-layer polymer membrane was also designed to soften and become more amorphous, so sweat molecules could pass through it and perspiration could escape, preventing wearers from overheating. Gone were the days of having to change into a separate set of clothes for land-based operations. That said, the waters of the Baltic were absolutely freezing at this time of year, and as added insurance, the men wore an additional fleece lined layer beneath their suits.

Their LAR VII closed-circuit rebreathers were complimented by military full facemasks with unimpeded field of vision, which provided added facial protection from the icy water. Rebreathers were always the system of choice for covert operations. Regular scuba equipment not only gave off clouds of large visible bubbles, but was also noisy. Closed-circuit oxygen rebreathers on the other hand were quiet, gave off no bubbles and filtered the user’s exhaled carbon dioxide, recharging the remaining nitrogen gas, which makes up a large part of the air, with pulsed oxygen. This economical system allows a diver to stay submerged for four hours or more. The main disadvantage, however, is that the diver is limited to operating in shallow water as pure oxygen begins to become toxic at depths greater than thirty feet.

Waterproof combat bags protected the team’s M4 machine guns, a light weight version of the M16, which possessed a shorter barrel and a collapsible stock.

‘Dummy corded’ to each man, to prevent it from being dropped while underwater, was a highly classified weapon made by Heckler amp; Koch that didn’t appear in any of their catalogs-the H amp;K P11.

The P11 was a special pistol, which could fire five 7.62-caliber darts both above andbelow water. But once those five shots have been fired, The P11 takes even longer than an antique black powder rifle to reload, as it has to be sent all the way back to the H amp;K factory.

To navigate the strong currents around Aidata Island, each man commanded a Farallon MkX DPV-Diver Propulsion Vehicle. The Farallon MkX model DPV was a result of a joint research project between the U.S. Special Operations community and Farallon to give American combat divers an extended mission range and greater top speed than normal commercial DPVs delivered. One of the greatest benefits of a DPV was that because a diver didn’t have to propel himself to an objective, he wasn’t doing any work, so his air could last up to fifty percent longer-essentially doubling his dive time.

The devices looked like minitorpedoes. Because they incorporated a revolutionary new hydrogen based propulsion system, as opposed to the silver zinc batteries being used by other companies, they were much faster than anything previously produced.

Once Harvath, Morrell, DeWolfe, and Carlson were all outside the mini-sub, they activated their waterproof night vision monocles, powered up their DPVs and followed their GPS displays on predetermined courses for Aidata Island.

Though he had long since deleted the message, the final transmission Frank Leighton had received from Berlin still floated in the forefront of his mind:

Your mission has been compromised. Entire Dark Night team terminated. Gary Lawlor seriously wounded. Prognosis unclear.

Mission parameters now changed. We are coming to you. Will explain at your location. Hold position and exercise extreme caution. You are being watched.

Frank Leighton had spent most of the last twenty-two hours wrestling with a multitude of questions.Who had killed his teammates? Who exactly was watching him? Was it the Russians? What had happened to Gary Lawlor? How had the Dark Night operation been compromised? Who was this new player, Norseman? And why had his burst transmission been terminated so abruptly?

Though Norseman had managed to discover the emergency contact location and the code for the burst transmission, Leighton was still not one hundred percent convinced that he was who he said he was and decided to slant the playing field as much in his favor as possible.

When Norseman said, “we are coming to you,” undoubtedly he meant that he would be arriving with a team of some sort. If they really were concerned about being observed, they would probably arrive under cover of darkness and most likely via the water.

The first thing Leighton did was booby-trap the site where he had secreted his nuke. If worse came to worse and he was captured, he could at least march his captors into an ambush and maybe be able to escape.

Next, he made sure his boat was ready to sail. He went over the entire craft from stem to stern and made sure everything was literally shipshape. After that, there was nothing left to do but wait.

Hidden within a small outcropping of rock on the side of the inlet where his boat was moored, was a narrow fissure just big enough for Leighton to wedge himself into and be concealed. The waiting seemed to last an eternity, but he was patient. The night was dark and did not offer much ambient light, which greatly reduced the effectiveness of the old night vision binoculars now clutched in his hands. When he finally did notice something near the beach, he thought his tired eyes were playing tricks on him. Leighton squeezed his eyes shut for several seconds, trying to dissipate some of the ‘orange burn’ so common with use of night vision optics.

When he looked back through the binoculars again, the shapes appeared not to have moved.Probably just piles of kelp washed in by the tide, he thought to himself. The Baltic was famous for the large seaweed forests that populated its sea floor. Then, as he was about to lower the binoculars and give his eyes another rest, he noticed it-movement. They were here.

As Leighton extricated himself from his hiding place, it took several minutes for him to get the blood flowing into his legs again. Though the site had provided an exceptional vantage point, he should have stretched more often. His body was not as forgiving as it used to be.