Death Before Dawn (SEAL STRIKE Book 1) Page 2

  While awaiting final orders at OCS, Matt spent some time considering the daunting attrition statistics for the BUD/S course. The seven hundred and twenty students who arrived throughout the year were assigned to five or six 120-man classes. Traditionally only twenty original students from each class finished the six-month-long course. The eventual graduating group was comprised of a great number of rollbacks—students who started in one class and then for various reasons, were pulled out to recuperate or be retrained before being inserted in another class.

  It had dawned on Matt as he read his new orders to BUD/S that he might be making a colossal mistake. He wanted to prove he was as good a man as his father but even his father didn’t face the odds SEAL training represented. But it was too late. He’d made the choice to join the Navy, and not the Marine Corps, to become a SEAL--and that decision was behind him. Within days of receiving orders, Matt was on a plane bound for California.

  A sharp, loud whistle jerked him awake, his body tensed up. He realized it was the people on the berm line making all the noise. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, how long had he been asleep and why did he always dream about his decision to become a SEAL?

  These jokers needed to move on! Matt tried to will the enemy to leave and as if in response, the security patrol, their voices barely audible above the wind, turned inland, moving briskly away from the SEALs’ position. Matt smiled. He’d give it a minute or two then stand up to stretch. As usual, he was cold and wet, but the muscle cramps and numb body parts were combining to make this mission a special kind of shit sandwich.

  The acronym SEAL stood for sea, air, and land. It implied the Navy’s finest were capable of striking by sea or air while executing special operations missions against high-visibility targets ashore. The demands placed on men and equipment operating in this manner was unique. All eight of Matt’s men continued to lie motionless for another five minutes, allowing the patrol to get beyond the range of small arms fire.

  Matt was the first to move. With a series of deft hand movements, he signaled for the team to get up. He stood and stretched giving his men the non-verbal cue to do the same. Once he felt more limber, he signaled to move toward their objective, the high dominating just beyond the berm line ridge that separated them from the inland terrain. His only concern was where did the patrol go? Did they move along the beach or move inland toward the ridge?

  Matt moved up to the berm and crouched down to observe the backshore. His men came up online and assumed their fields of fire. Nobody made a sound; they were cold but disciplined. Their job was to stay tight and keep their head on a swivel, looking for anything that threatened the small patrol. Their officer’s job was to navigate to the target, execute the mission, and navigate back to the beach landing site so they could call in the boats offshore for pickup. If everyone did their part this mission would go smoothly. That’s why they called it the “Teams.”

  Matt was satisfied the way was clear and he stood up crossing the berm line and descending slightly to the open terrain beyond. He signaled for the point man to assume his position up front and the team casually shifted from being on a line, shoulder to shoulder, to a new alignment in a single-file formation. The point man wove back and forth in wide twenty-yard sweeps until he froze putting his left fist in the air. He unclenched his hand and waved forward indicating he wanted Matt to come up and talk. The point man had discovered the footpath their intelligence folks had told them would be there.

  The serpentine path in front of them stretched for a hundred yards or more. The SEALs tried to maintain a separation of four to five yards between each man in the patrol. Proper spacing between operators was critical in a small group such as this. Get too close to each other and one burst of machine gun fire or a well-thrown hand grenade could take out half the team. Spread out too far, and the silent hand and arm signals would be too difficult to use in the dark. As always, there were risks and advantages to be weighed and it was Matt’s responsibility to guess right.

  The camouflaged figures each covered a pre-assigned side of the patrol, staggering their fields of fire—one man to the left, the next man to the right—sweeping their weapons back and forth in readiness. The key to this patrolling method was to move one’s eyes in coordination with the movement of the weapon. Most problems would be detected visually. If you were sweeping correctly, no time would elapse between seeing a threat and pressing the trigger to deal with it. The group would patrol in this manner while covering both the left and right fields of fire until they reached their objective.

  The point man was responsible for looking where they were going. He focused on threats both close to the patrol and farther out on their intended path. The rear security maintained coverage of the trail left behind by their passage. With the center of the formation looking evenly at both flanks, the process resulted in a 360-degree zone of observation and defense.

  The patrol was easing into a natural rhythm. Each SEAL walked in single file stepping gingerly into the footsteps of the man in front. In this way, the point man determined the best path for the rest of the group, reducing the possibility of anyone else tripping a booby trap. Matt kept tight control over his team as it glided across the rock-strewn coastal plain. From time to time, he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder to see if the combat rubber raiding craft could be spotted where it sat hidden in the inky darkness offshore.

  The barking of a dog up ahead froze the painted warriors in mid-step. The patrol waited to make sure the dog wasn’t barking at them then continued ahead silently. The little island teemed with insects, rodents, and even small foxes—more than enough to justify the dog’s behavior. While they waited Matt took advantage of the break. He pulled the waterproof UHF radio out of a shallow side pouch on his equipment vest and pressed the rubber coated push-to-talk button. Hissing softly into the tiny microphone, Matt attempted to pass the mission’s first event code word.

  “TANGO TWO-NINE-ONE, this is TANGO TWO-NINE actual, code word PEBBLES, I say again, PEBBLES, over.”

  Three minutes went by without a response. In frustration, Matt checked his watch then attempted the call again. The radio’s batteries were brand new and unused! Why wouldn’t they answer?

  He looked out to sea where he knew that beyond the natural sea barrier of the island’s rocky shallows, there were two black combat rubber raiding craft, or CRRC, bobbed gently on the deep ocean swells. Were those goof balls asleep?

  Matt went down onto one knee. His team mimicked his movement and each man slid a foot or two off the trail in the direction of their individual field of fire. Matt started to tear away the heavy layers of waterproof wrapping around the radio to expose the function dials. Maybe the frequency setting was wrong. He located and then rotated the selector switch to the left, taking it off frequency then returned it to its original position. Matt’s fourth attempt was interrupted by the CRRC commander’s voice.

  “TANGO TWO-NINE actual, this is TANGO ONE-ONE, say again your last. Over.”

  Matt waited impatiently until the call was completed before responding in a clear and hostile voice, “PEBBLES, PEBBLES, I say again! PEBBLES, over!”

  “Roger, your last. Good luck. TANGO ONE, out!” The boat pool leader’s voice was subdued.

  Chapter Two

  Matt shoved the UHF radio back in its pouch and snapped it shut. Those bastards had been asleep! He twisted around to face the lanky point man squatting next to him. “Let’s get the show on the road, Duke. We’re burning moonlight!”

  Duke’s slow nod of affirmation was lost in the darkness but his body language signaled acknowledgment of the order. The point man stood up casually, heading once again toward the high ridge above. The small team followed suit and crept silently up the steep embankment Duke reached the top of the ridge ten minutes later.

  At the top of the ridge Matt moved forward until he was next to his point man. He could clearly see the hard-packed coastal road winding across their intended path like a lazy gray ribbo
n. It was wide enough for two vehicles but not illuminated in any way. He glanced toward his left in the direction where the enemy beach patrol had departed. He thought he could see lights in the far-off distance that might be a vehicle or even flashlights. Matt estimated they were between two and three hundred yards away. They were no longer an issue.

  Duke raised an open hand to signal to Matt and the others his intention to advance. Knees creaking and snapping in protest under the heavy combat loads, the team members rose up and continued their tense movement, following Duke once again in a file across the ridge. Duke quickened the pace a little until he reached the seaward edge of the coastal road. He stopped at the gravel boundary and carefully sank down to his belly. Twisting back around with excruciating slowness, he used his hand and made a slicing motion across his throat to signify to the rest of the team that a danger area blocked their path of intended travel. Duke added another hand signal resembling a peace sign. This designated the road crossing as a level-two threat.

  The alert point man’s signals indicated a situation that required very special handling. In accordance with the team’s standard operating procedures—SOPs—each SEAL, in turn, passed Duke’s signal back until the rear security acknowledged with a thumbs up. Matt allowed time for this silent communications process before passing his command to execute the proper tactical drill. The command was again repeated down the patrol.

  The SEALs rapidly but quietly advanced to the road They stopped in front of Matt then peeled off left and right at the young officers indicated direction until the entire team was deployed around him in a defensive perimeter. The SEAL enlisted men were keenly aware they’d fallen behind the planned timetable. Each looked expectantly at their young officer to catch a hint of what he was going to do.

  Matt squatted, balancing evenly on the balls of his feet while he weighed his options. Standard SEAL team operating procedures for a level two threat area called for placement of his most powerful weapons, M-240B machine guns in this case, on either flank of the road crossing, the big belt-fed guns effectively covering either approach in case of an attack as they became exposed during the road crossing.

  With the men deployed, Duke began his movement across the road reinforced by a grenadier carrying an M-203 grenade launcher strapped under his M-4 rifle. Once across, the triangular formation formed by Duke and the grenadier at point and the two machine gunners on the flanks ensured the team could adequately deal with any worst-case contact scenarios. Matt’s real problem was time—this maneuver was slow and methodical.

  The SOPs didn’t cover how to balance threat level against timeline considerations. This was a command decision, a matter of tactical judgment, and as the officer in charge, he was expected to figure it out himself. As the guys would say, that’s why Matt was paid the big bucks. With the full weight of the decision on his shoulders, Matt began to feel his heart rate rise.

  The dark night hid many mysteries for the young warriors. The wide-open terrain and dominating high ridge placed the SEALs in a terrible position. Matt saw Duke look back nervously from the opposite side of the road. Nobody was following him yet and he instinctively knew it wasn’t a good idea to screw around exposed in the open and without adequate cover where they were. There wasn’t even a bush to hide behind.

  Duke took his time. Any minute Matt fully expected to hear the enemy patrol returning, tires crunching down the road to their left. Headlights illuminating the SEALs, half on one side, and half on the other side, of the gravel road, Duke spent ten minutes making sure the way forward was clear of threats. As he lay there, Matt’s mind wandered to his record of poor leadership. Was he going to screw this up too?

  His first test as a leader and as a frogman, BUD/S, was the crucible for all young men aspiring to be frogmen. The twenty-two weeks was now shorter than the twenty-six weeks that was traditionally associated with the ordeal. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, several weeks were carved off the end of BUD/S and pushed forward into the next training experience, the four-month long SEAL Qualification course or SQT.

  Matt’s BUD/S class had filled the lodging facilities to capacity. A normal BUD/S class started with close to one hundred and twenty students. His class was an anomaly coming in at one 141 would-be frogmen. It was times like these, the stress of the mission and the dead time before the action began, that he found himself flashing back. He did so for two reasons. First, he couldn’t believe he’d survived so much of what the instructors threw at them and second, he revisited every dumb mistake he’d made as an officer.

  He’d been a lackluster performer on many fronts. The myth, perpetuated by recruiters, movies and other unclassified references, was that BUD/S was primarily a physical test of pain and endurance. Based on this assumption Matt should have been a star but the myths were wrong. The BUD/S experience was a subtly designed torture session punctuated with classroom lectures to give the impression learning was the objective. In the first nine weeks or first phase of BUD/S, students were only taught skills that allowed the instructors to safely toss them into harm’s way. In the pool, in the bay, and in the ocean.

  Basic swimming, water survival, rubber boat operations, barracks inspections, personnel inspections, and physical fitness was the focus of first phase. After several weeks of near continuous activity, Matt’s class found itself on the precipice of the infamous Hell Week event. Hell Week ratcheted up the intensity of prior weeks, did not include instruction or lectures, and allowed for limited sleep periods—usually consisting of ten to twenty-minute cat naps. By Hell Week, Matt found himself gravitating to the second position of class leadership, right behind a seasoned fleet Lieutenant named Mike Seith.

  Mike was a natural leader. He was older than most of the class at thirty years old, but he was an animal physically. His poise and calm demeanor radiated out in a way that soothed both the students and the instructors. Mike had a knack for saying or doing the right thing at the right time, avoiding much of the threatened punishment from the instructors as a result. Due to his stellar leadership, Matt’s class had eighty-seven men survive long enough to begin Hell Week. The class’s first loss at two in the morning of the first day of Hell Week was Mike.

  Night rock portage was a violent and dangerous event practiced before Hell Week by the class who were broken up into seven-man boat crews. Each rubber boat was paddled out to sea and remained fifty yards off the Hotel Del Coronado rock jetty until signaled by the instructors to make their run. Boat by boat, the instructors watched as the students were twirled around by the incoming waves and dumped unceremoniously into the dark churning water. That is, if they were lucky. A few boats were able enough to time the swells and the breaking waves to land on the rocks without incident. But once in a while, things went very wrong.

  Matt didn’t see Mike Seith get thrown into the rocks, he was still at sea awaiting the signal to paddle into shore. But once he’d landed successfully and was able to get his crew and boat over the rock pile and onto the sandy beach, he spotted Mike. The class leader was being stabilized by a corpsman attached to the first phase staff. He was strapped down on an EMT board with his lower right leg jutting out at a weird angle. The military four-wheel drive ambulance was backing up slowly, its double backdoors already open and ready to receive the injured student. Just like that, Matt realized he was now the class leader.

  Mike had been a great leader, but he’d been so good the rest of the senior students hadn’t evolved their own leadership abilities. Matt was the fifth senior officer out of seven when his BUD/S class started. He’d glided through the first weeks of first phase, rarely called upon to exercise judgement of any kind. Then, in the last ten days leading up to Hell Week, he found himself one of three surviving officers. Naval tradition dictated that as senior man, he was responsible for the entire training class.

  Matt made it through the famous gauntlet, experiencing fatigue and sleeplessness that made zombies of them all. He barely had enough energy and sense of purpose to make it thr
ough as an individual—there was nothing left for the men. They were on their own after Mike was hurt. The class paid the price for Matt’s self-absorption. Of the eighty-seven who began Hell Week, only thirty-nine crossed the finish line late on Friday. Matt knew his weak leadership was a factor and so did the first phase instructors.

  There were few opportunities to learn during the second phase of BUD/S. The second block of instruction dealt with basic SCUBA and advanced SCUBA apparatus as well as combat swimmer sneak attacks against enemy warships. It was far more technical and while the fitness became more and more challenging the academics and ability to operate underwater were of paramount importance. His class lost two more from academic failures and three men who couldn’t pass the second most difficult event in BUD/S after Hell Week, pool competency.

  Matt organized the other two officers into a study group to mentor and tutor the enlisted men in diving physics. He had some pride in knowing the academic attrition could have been far worse. His plan likely helped three of his classmates move on to third phase. Pool competency was a different matter. The test was conducted in a training pool with underwater observation windows and safety divers positioned around the student. SEALs operated in dark, murky harbors and routinely maneuvered under and around commercial and military ships. It was imperative the commandos were comfortable in high risk situations such as a loss of air supply or becoming entangled. It was this fear and how each man managed that fear that made this evolution so difficult.

  Matt’s own experience was typical. He was waved over to the edge of the pool where he stood at parade rest, his hands clasped behind the small of his back just under the twin SCUBA tanks resting on his shoulders, suspended from rude canvas straps that bit into his skin. He was made to watch the student performing the test in front of him, but he wasn’t able to see what the two instructors were doing to the SEAL candidate. The instructors were darting in and out, messing with the student’s diving equipment and then moving away. The student’s task was to remain calm and to assess each system failure as it was introduced. Slow, methodical gear checks tracing each piece until it was verified as working or confirmed it that it was not. No easy task as the face mask was taped up—the student was operating blind.