"Is there anything we need to go over again?" Pierre Armont inquired,
looking around the dusty, aging Athens hangar with a feeling of wary
confidence. The weather-beaten benches and tables were cluttered with
maps of Andikythera and blueprints of the SatCom facility, scattered
among half-empty bottles of ouzo and Metaxa. He had just completed his
final briefing, which meant the time had come to board the Cessna
seaplane that would be their insertion platform. The team seemed ready.
Hans had come through with the troops they needed; Reggie sat bleary-
eyed but prepared, nursing a final brandy; the brothers Voorst of the
Royal Dutch Marines were austerely sipping coffee; Dimitri Spiros was
quietly meditating on the condition of the equipment; and Marcel of the
Belgian ESI was sketching one last paper run-through of the insertion.
When nobody spoke, Armont glanced at his watch and frowned. This final
briefing had gone longer than expected, but he had to cover more than
the usual number of complexities.
For one thing, the hostages apparently were scattered all over the
place, always a problem. Unless the team could strike several locations
simultaneously, the element of surprise would be forfeited. That meant
the insertion had to be totally secure, giving the team time to split
up, get positioned, and stage the final assault with split-second
coordination. Carrying out one op was dicey enough: he was looking at
three, all at once. The alternate strategy would be to focus
exclusively on Ramirez. Take him out first, blow their command
structure, and hope the others would fold.
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&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.
Naturally there also were grenades. They had plenty of the standard M26
fragmentation type, but since these frequently were next to useless in
a hostage situation, they planned to rely more on stun grenades and
smoke grenades. The same was true of the AN-M14 incendiary hand
grenade, a two-pound container of thermite that burned at over four
thousand degrees Fahrenheit for half a minute. It was fine for burning
up a truck, but not recommended for a room full of hostages. Better for
that was the M15 smoke grenade, which spewed white phosphorus over an
area of about fifteen yards. Smoke, of course, could work both ways,
also slowing up the deploying team.
Last but not least were the tear-gas grenades. To temporarily
neutralize an entire room, ARM had long used the M7 tear-gas grenade,
which dispersed CN, chloraceteophenone. It was not a gas but a white
crystalline powder similar to sugar that attacked the eyes, causing
watering and partial closing, and simulated a burning sensation on the
skin. If conditions seemed to require, they sometimes used a stronger
chemical agent called CS--military shorthand for
orthochlorobenzalmalononitrile. It, too, was a white crystalline powder
similar to talc that produced immediate irritating effects that lasted
from five to ten minutes. The agent (in a cloud form) caused a severe
burning sensation of the chest. The eyes closed involuntarily, the nose
ran, moist skin burned and stung--thereby rendering anybody in the
immediate area incapable of effective action. He would choose which one
to use when the time came. . . .
After Hans had helped Dimitri double-inventory the equipment list,
Armont looked over the dark-brown crates one last time, then gave the
go-ahead for loading. One good thing, he thought: since Andikythera is
Greek, we won't be crossing any international borders; nothing will
have to be smuggled through customs.
Reggie, impatient as always, was eyeing the clock at the far end of the
hangar. "We've already filed the fight plan. I think it's time we made
this a go op. What time is the next radio check with Vance?"
"That's scheduled for 2340 hours," Armont answered.
"After we're airborne. We'll go over the blueprints and compare them
against the disposition of the friendlies and hostiles using his intel.
Then we can decide the best way to take the place down."
The boys are getting itchy, he told himself. They want to get this over
with and get back to their lives. Who can blame them? This screw-up
never should have happened in the first place. Spiros let the client
set the parameters for a job--which violates the first rule. He is going
to have a lot to answer for when this is over. But settling that will
have to wait till later.
"All right," he said, starting up the Cessna's metal stairs and heading
for the cockpit. "Let's get tower clearance and roll."