Chapter 7 Post Mission.
Teddy was in his office taking a heavy drink of something that should not have been in a military office. He did not even take his feet off his desk when the door opened. The room was dark, but for a light on his desk. There were only a handful of people, which could make it into his private office. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow, at the sound of ice hitting glass coming from his built-in bar hidden in the dark room. When the sound of someone sitting in an overstuffed chair and the leather squealed, now the LTC looked over to his boss. “I heard that you flew in this morning. How is the baby?”
Lieutenant General Jonathan Harris took a deep slug of the amber liquid. “Mother and baby are doing well. I had some issues to workout, with some of the local government types. I figured that I would swing by and get a one-on-one update on this Operation Looking Glass. I have to admit it was a good name for that mission.”
Teddy now dropped his feet on to the tile floor. He reached over and pulled a thick file out from under a stack about a foot high on the corner of his desk. “They are still looking at the Smotryaschy, but she is going to be renamed the USS Looking, as soon as she is out of the dry dock. The Tamir 5 sonar works, and the Marines found the missing parts for the Redan 2 surface search radar. The air search system is still not working. I was told, that if we can find a fire control radar for a SA 4/6/or an 8. Some of the locals can use them for parts donors, and get it working again.”
Teddy looked over his reading glasses, but his boss was stone faced. “Her hull has some thin spots, but they will be working on adding a few steel plates to those areas before they re-flood the dry dock. It turns out that she was down to about a 75% load on 130mm ammunition, and the 57 was over half empty when they got her into the dry dock. She also has no torpedoes, mines, or depth charges. The three launcher systems looked to be in working order, but who knows. Both of her 85mm AA guns are gone, along with any ammunition for them. The engines should be able to be repaired, to a point. She is basically World War 2 technology, and that is something the locals and the repair ships can deal with. If they are given enough time and materials, they can work miracles. She will only need to have one engine, and that is to power the lights, electronics, and AC. The other boiler and engine combination will be a backup, if they don’t need it for spare parts down the road. If she only has one engine? She will be able to move on her own power around the harbor at about 14 knots. The problem is with the reduction gears, she will only have one set. The other one is only good for a boat anchor. This did let them yank out the second electrical generator. Someone came up with the bright idea to hook it into an existing steam power plant, to supply more power to the nation’s power grid.”
The General looked over his glasses, at the head of ISA in Kenya. “And the cost?”
Teddy made a face and looked at his boss. “Four of the gun trucks are going to be used for spare parts. The engines and transmissions are… well shot. The armor and weapons will have to be moved when they can find suitable vehicles as replacements. One of the AAVPs is going to become the new parts donor, for the rest of the fleet. Fixing the armor is not that much of an issue but turrets, tracks, weapon sites, and suspension are totally different animals. The same is true of the second LAV-25. The good thing is that the wreck will get two other LAV-25s back into operation. I sent you the list of dead, and the ones that will not return to full duty and those that will. I think over a dozen dead is a steep price, for a rusty ship that is going to cost us even more to get back into operation.” Tonight, Teddy was feeling every one of those dead and wounded on this mission.
This was why Harris was here. Teddy might be the head of ISA and had his fingers in almost every pie in Kenya, but every person has his limits. He had been getting reports, which said Teddy was starting to burn out. The Big Boss had his own little Intel net. “She will allow us to add one more warship to our counter pirate missions, and other mission groups in this area of the world. During the mission, they took down one of the largest pirate groups between here and the Suez Canal. It would have been nice to have at least sunk that Mol class PT boat. But one PT boat was taken out, and one or two hard to find torpedoes have been taken out of enemy hands. That does not count the dozen other pirate boats now off the seas. We know that this mission removed almost 400 pirates from one part of our waters. Besides the warship should start to have crews learning their new jobs by the end of the week. They recovered over a dozen useable marine engines, and another dozen that will be used as spare parts. The 37mm, the 14.5’s, the 12.7’s, and smaller caliber machine guns will be very useful, and we can find the ammo for them. I would call that a very good return on our investment.”
The General knew that Teddy had a sour spot about the DSGE. After talking about the golden apple, it was time for the worm. “I had the three surviving Frenchmen flown out two days ago. They are still not admitting that they were DSGE or telling us what they were doing, that got them caught by pirates in the first place. I understand that the group could not move fast enough, to get away from the water’s edge of the harbor. I have a feeling that they were be of two minds, of eating every crab in sight or throwing up at the sight of one of them on a dinner plate.”
Teddy looks like someone had kicked him in his genitals. “I hope you got something for them. I wish you would have let Zebra team talk to them. And then dump them in the harbor, when they were done with their bodies.”
Harris did not even move a millimeter at the statement of torturing and killing three possible members of the French intelligence agency. “The French became very friendly, when I used my video teleconference to show the image of the survivors. I don’t think their boss believed me about how the fourth man had died. I bet that it will be a very in lightening interview when they get home. They sent a C-160 down filled with some ATGM missiles, a pallet of 155 rounds, and some high value spare parts we needed. I might have gotten an APC, if I had pushed it. I will settle for them thinking that they owe us one. That should drive some of their more narrowed minded bunch right over the edge. I also was passed a note, to be sent to a “Messieurs Mtendere and Lionel”. The General gave a raised eyebrow as he spoke the two names that he had seen on a few reports already.
LTC Thomas only raised an eyebrow in reply to his boss’s unasked question. Having possible French Intel assets working in their backyard could cause problems. Then again? That might be useful to try to pull information or push the right kind of data to the DSGE. It was a double edge sword, but that kind of thing was the new normal for Intel work in this part of the world.
Harris met the eye contact, with the knowledge that the message was sent and received. “I left the notes with one of your staff before coming in. But it did get me thinking. This is the second major recovery, which came from a third party. How do you think that we can use these independent prize hunters more effectively?”
The two men spent the next few hours working on a list of different ideas. The pros were long, but the cons were not small either. Teddy had to call in half a dozen of his team to work on the idea, before the two men kicked the idea fully over to Teddy’s small but very competent staff to flush out. Both men thought that the next few weeks would be interesting. The hard part would be managing it and keeping the wrong people from finding out about to many of the details of the operation.
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Captain Richard Mtendere was sitting in more meetings than he had cared for, after the Bluenose had returned to Mombasa. The first one had been no sooner than the lines had been attached to the dock. A Navy commander had boarded the ship, carrying a leather letter case. Richard and Norwell had been pulled to the aft most part of their vessel. They were out of the way of the group helping the Frenchmen and SF team unload. In a very quiet ceremony, both men were given “papers” that said each man now held the rank of Captain. It was of the O3 kind, not the O6 of the navy type. Richard had raised an objection, but he had been met with a very level look from the officer until he shut his mouth again. Richard could tell that this man didn’t want to be here, anymore then the two boat owners wanted him on their vessel.
Now any time they were in port. They had an open invitation to attend a private Harvester meeting. The Bluenose was still in a full dry dock, and she had been in that dock for the last week. It had taken a week, for a space in one of those things to open up for her. They were just lucky that the port of Mombasa had those, and still had the people that knew how to use them. Richard and Norwell were paying for the dock time, out of the profits from their part in Operation Looking Glass.
The ship had needed the dry dock to repair battle damage to the hull, and the engines needed some looking after. Getting a slot in a dry dock was not cheap, but this had not even cut that deeply into the funds they now had “in the bank”. With the ship in the body and fender shop. He had time to check up on the mission, and to see the first of a new type of Harvester meeting. Richard had been very surprised when an O-2 had hand carried the invitation to his hotel room. He had only passed along a message two mornings before that he had free time to use his pass. The one that he had been given on first returning to Mombasa.
Richard looked around the room in one of the key buildings that the US military used in Africa. He shot a smile at LCDR Moore, and she returned a single finger salute back at him. That only got a chuckle from Richard. She was still sporting a shiner from the party two nights ago. Not everyone in this room had been involved in the active parts of Operation Looking Glass. LTC Thomas was not leading this meeting. He was in the room, but not in uniform for some reason. There also were faces that Richard had not seen before. This put him on edge and his inner voice was telling him that something was up. From some of the looks he was seeing this was not a “normal” Harvester meeting.
A very tired looking army Captain walked up to the metal frame briefing stand. She was the commanding officer of the Military Intelligence Company or MICO. She also was, more or less the head of Colonel Thomas’s staff. She punched a button and the central screen lit up. Even her voice sounded tire to Richard’s ears. She had put in some long hours getting this latest hair brain idea off the ground. She had not liked the idea, much less giving non cleared personnel access to some of this data. But she had to admit, that the last mission had been very productive.
She took a deep breath and looked at the back wall. “I would like to think all of you for coming to today’s meeting. I would like to congratulate and inform you. That all of you, have been selected to become the first group indoctrinated into Project Prize Hunter. If this proves to be fruitful? It will slowly be expanded. I will warn you! That some of the data you will have access to could get our people killed, if the wrong people find out about them.”
The whole room was now on edge. Some had even shifted in their seats. From one of the side doors, a group of people in uniform started carrying in white cardboard boxes of files. All of the eyes in the room were watching, as the new group put boxes of files on a table near the far wall. Two very hard to find laptops were pulled out, and soon they were displaying a screen with blue back grounds as they were waiting to be used.
The Captain waited for the rest of her staff to finish getting all of the gross and distracting movements done. “As the name suggest, we have a list of prizes we want you all to find and report or more hopefully find and recover. First, we would like you to check out any Boeing 707’s you can find. Not every 707’s is going to have the same value to us. We are really looking for the 123 or 820s models. Their P&W J57 engines are needed for our B-52Gs and KC-135s. I have no idea what airframe will get the parts, in the end, but both craft are in high demand. The P&W JT3Ds engines on the 707-820s are needed to support the H model BUFF. If that might be too big for you to handle? We can use 122mm MRL rockets. We also have a Team that needs some support, to turn seaweed into biofuel. They need long and large dimeter high heat capable pipes and the like, to do some fast heat transfers. Also be on the lookout for any SA 4 or 6 sites.”
The female kept going on, with her prepared briefing. After the first hour, she had opened the floor for any questions. She would address most of those questions, before continuing with her briefing. The whole meeting lasted for two and a half hours. When the captain had stepped away from the metal frame, the room had quickly broken into smaller groups. They had descended on the other military Intel people and files along the one wall like a starving man on a finely cooked steak.
Richard was hanging back from the crowd and avoiding Denise at the same time. He had his eyes open as well as his ears, as he moved around the room. He had a note pad, but he was not using it at this time. He did not want anyone else to notice, that he was keeping track on what was being looked at by the other groups. He quickly found out that, as far as he could tell. That everyone was looking at data related to possible land based recovering missions. Then he noticed that there was a stack of files not being viewed. They seemed like they were related to the post mission briefs on the four major convoys, which had made it from the states to his little corner of hell.
He absentmindedly picked up a pair of thick folders from the set up folding tables. One of them was dated Nov 1997, and the other was marked May 1999. Richard flipped through the first one, and his eyebrows went up into his hairline. In a low voice he started talking to himself. “Well now, that is interesting.”
He did not see or hear LCDR Moore come up behind him. She had been moving into strike, until she saw the target reach for a set of files with Navy markings on the cover. The red head had an odd little smile, as she slowly moved away from the one-time target. Now she had to go tell the MICO commander, that at least one hook had been set. You did not send a good fisherman out for bluegills, you sent them out to find your Blue Marlin. Besides, she could always practice her football techniques at a later date.
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