The flight back to England was uneventful. Arnivisca beeped all of us back to the airport before Duke and I could catch up over a drink, but he got clearance from GSG-9 to come back to England with us, apparently, Rainbow had just released some of its earliest activities to certain allies and the Germans seemed to be especially interested in our counter terrorist techniques. The German Spec Ops Command called up John Clark and was allowed to send Duke with us as an observer and advisor to our operation.
So it ended up that we were telling stories on the jumbo jet that was taking us to London, instead of beer, we had those stupid little bottles of plane alcohol, but, as long as the UN was footing the bill, it worked.
There was time now for a little filling in. Duke and myself had both been members of the Canadian Army. We had seen action in the Gulf, Bosnia, Africa, and Kosovo. Most of those missions were when we were both in the Canadian JTF-2, Canada's own Joint Task Force, Team Two. We were the elite Special Forces antiterrorist group of Canada. In 2000, Duke had left to transfer over to Germany's Grenzchutzgruppe-9, the top counter terrorist group at the time. I opted to stay in the Canadian Military, close to home. Then, in September of 2001, with the terrorist attacks in the United States and the subsequent lack of Canadian Military Involvement, Rainbow, seeing my files and ratings, approached me and offered me a position in their ranks. The only catch would be my resigning my commission in Canada. I liked the county and forces, but the leadership was lacking, this way, I would be going operational immediately and would be making more money as well. I signed on.
At that time, Rainbow was still top secret and I was unable to tell anyone, Duke, my parents, anyone at all where I was going or what I would be doing once I got there.
Duke, on the other hand, had made himself quite a career in GSG-9. His family was from Germany, and he was always out on operations, doing what he loved. He had made quite a name for himself in the Counter Terrorism Community as well, but Rainbow had never shown much interest in him because of the publicity that would be showered on them if he ever transferred to our ranks. He was pleased now to know what I was doing, and to know why he could never get a hold of me. He was definitely pleased to be riding with me on our next couple of operations.
We landed at midnight, local time, in London. We picked up some rental cars and were on the move back to Hereford where our base was. Myself, Duke, Krystal and Andrew Burke rode with me. While I drove, filled Duke in on the mission so far. He offered some interesting insights into some of our problems. Burke listened carefully. The young Englishman was on squad two of Team six with me, I really never had the time to talk with him, as he kept mostly to himself. He often told jokes before missions to relax the team, frankly, I always thought the jokes did more to relax him then it did to relax the rest of us.
However, something that surprised me was how much Duke and Krystal hit it off. They had barley known each other for hours now and already they seemed able to talk freely and recognize each other's unconscious body movements. They would often talk quietly in a lull in the conversation.
It was about an hours drive to Hereford. A light rain had begun to fall as our small convoy turned into the town. As we stopped at an intersection, I looked over at Burke, seated next to Krystal in the backseat. "Okay Burke, give it to Duke." Burke smiled and reached into his duffle bag, holding up a balaclava with the eyes and mouth sewn shut.
"Put it on, Duke." I said, passing the balaclava to him.
"What the hell is this?" he asked looking at the balaclava.
"We don't just let any person into our base, you know, but when we do, we like to keep our location secret. So we use this." I explained.
Duke shook his head and slid the balaclava on, covering his eyes. I pulled out and continued on my way to the base.
Although his eyes were covered, I knew that Duke would be committing every turn, sound, and change in speed to memory. Just because we blocked one of his senses didn't mean that we had totally blinded him from knowing where we were going.
We pulled into the base, past the dozen or so armed guards that were at the gate, then down into the underground parking lot. We got out, grabbed our bags and used our keycards to get into the elevator that would take us into the base.
The armored doors opened and we entered a long corridor. The corridor was lined with metal detectors and hidden gun ports. Then we came to the main door. The door was circular, like one from a large safe. It was designed to withstand most conventional explosions. Arnivisca took a key that he always had draped around his neck and used it to unlock the door. Then, with a hiss of compressed gasses, the large door swung open, admitting us to the inside.
The room ahead of us was operations, the brain of our little operation. That was where the command and control aspects of missions were planned and executed. Operators listened in on communications and watched a mission progress on satellites.
There was the armory, in a smaller room to the side of operations, that was where our armorists would dispense us the necessary weapons and gadgets that we would need for our operations.
Towards the back of the building were the rooms for members that either lived on base or needed to sleep here because of time constraints. For those members, there was a gym, pool, a small bar that had darts and pool, a library, and of course, the shooting range. Also for training, we had access to a close kill room and a recreated city street to sharpen our skills in urban warfare.
While Arnivisca reported in, I showed Duke around the place and then to his cabin, where I left him to take a shower and change into a fresh pair of combats. Woodland combats were the most common dress on base.
I did the same, returning to my cabin to rest. Tomorrow I would schedule some CQC exercises and coach Krystal through them, try to make her as good as possible before we went out on our next mission. Until then, I just wanted to sleep. After my shower, I got under the covers and fell instantly to sleep.
I awoke to the sound of my bedside phone ringing. I groaned and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" I mumbled into the mouthpiece.
"Hello, Molnar. Were having a briefing at 0900 hours and wondered if you would like to attend?" Filtered in the voice of Dimingo Chavez.
"Absolutely, sir. I'll be there." I confirmed.
"Excellent, Command and Control room three." Then he hung up.
I looked over at the alarm clock on my bedside. 0758 it stated in its unwavering red numbers.
I jumped out of bed and into the shower. The warm water helped bring me around somewhat. I then jumped into a fresh pair of woodland combats and glanced at the mirror before I left. My hair had grown a lot since I had left, I would have to go to the barber before we left again.
I stepped out of my cabin and made sure that the door was locked. I stepped over to the nearest elevator and punched in the number for the command and control rooms. The lift took me up to near the ground level of the base, as most of the Rainbow base was underground, the levels near the surface had the highest security.
I stepped out of the lift and over to where the command and control rooms were. I checked my watch, 0856. The red light was displayed over the door, which signified no entry. An armed guard nearby ensured that no one violated that light.
I looked over as the lift opened again, Duke Morgan stepped out, dressed in black GSG-9 combats. He walked over to me and sat down on one of the chairs that were beside the door to the command and control rooms.
The light above the door switched to green and opened up. Arnivisca waved me and Duke into the room and the swung the door shut behind us.
Chavez and John Clarke looked up from the planning table. The interior of the room was dark, a monitor on the far wall showed a picture of satellite telemetry. The planning table looked like a pool table, but had a bright white, sitting on top were transparencies of reports and blueprints.
"Ah, Molnar, Morgan, nice to see you." John Clarke took the cigar out of his mouth long enough to rattle off a few nice words. "We want you to get a good look at this and tell us what you think."
He punched a few keys on the laptop computer he held with him, and then gestured to the satellite display screen.
The image flashed by in two second intervals, but it was pretty clear what was there. A UH-1N Huey landing, then two men lifting off a large black crate with a small forklift, then rolling it into a nearby building.
"That was taken a few hours ago. The Huey left when the satellite was out of range and so far we haven't seen any other movement around the area." Clarke explained.
"I assume you ran thermals of the location." Stated Morgan.
"Every two hours when the satellite comes into orbit. Its our theory that the building that they carried the weapon into is an entrance to an underground complex that is blocking our satellites from taking an accurate picture."
"Figures, they probably know better than we do when the satellite is coming into orbit." I commented.
"Exactly." Clarke stated. "Which is why, in twenty-four hours, your team will be deploying to where this was taken."
"Where is that, sir?" Morgan asked.
"Afghanistan." Said Clarke flatly.
Damn, I thought. After the brief war was fought between the US and its allies, ending in the decimation of the country and subsequent reparation payments, the US had left the Taliban in control, but without money or power. As a result, the country killed any person that had anything to do with the United States in any way. If any of my team were captured, the result would probably end in death.
"Considering the present Afghan policy on the United States, were only going in on a small forward reconnaissance mission. Very low key. Observe from a distance to find out if they have the weapon or not, if you believe they do, raid the camp, confiscate it and get it the hell out of that country."
The next few minutes were taken up by initial planning of the mission. Team six would be inserted by skydiving in through the radar. Clarke had already acquired the use of a US C-5 Galaxy transport, so that ruled out one problem. We would be silent for most of the mission, but would also carry heavy weapons in case we did have to raid the base. Extraction would be by a chopper stationed just off the Afghan border. It could fly in, snatch us and be out before the military could even mount a response.
It all sounded good. Arnivisca and Chavez would be doing all the fine planning for the mission. We would be leaving for the airbase at Aviano, Italy in a few hours, so it looked as if I would have to call Krystal and tell her that there would be no training this time around.