CHAPTER 2: DAMNATION AND THE DAY
March 31, 2008
African Area of Operations
Third Echelon Headquarters
90 KM North of Lake Victoria
Uganda
Angela Xuddur typed on her desktop office computer as fast as she could, trying to coordinate communications between Libyan Special Forces, and Egypt's counterterrorist unit, Unit 777. Just two days ago, the Third Echelon Headquarters here in Uganda got information about a large seizure that took place in Tripoli, Libya. Something about armed protestors, and terrorists were thrown in the mix, but she couldn't really grasp the situation, since the National Security Agency and the CIA didn't know either. The U.S. embassy was shown in every single cable news channel in TV. MSNBC, CNN, Fox News Network had the coverage of the siege of the U.S. embassy.
This reminded Angela of the 1979 Iranian siege of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, in which hostages were trapped in the embassy for 444 days. Operation Eagle Claw rescue by 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) failed, with the death of eight servicemen. Angela did not want the same situation happening here, so she coordinated a few units of the Libyan Special Forces to conduct reconnaissance from about one hundred yards from the embassy, away from the news cameras. Angela had also connected to the Third Echelon Headquarters which was less than a mile away from her command post, which was heavily guarded by Ugandan security teams.
Sam Fisher looked at all the television monitors surrounding the small, concrete place. It was more like a bunker than any type of headquarters. It was a makeshift headquarters. It was used by the Ugandans in the 1970s, but after they abandoned it, the NSA took advantage of it. Every TV monitor was connected to different channels, all covering the U.S. embassy siege in Libya. Irving Lambert wasn't here, but William Redding, Fishers field runner, and Anna Grimstoddir, Fisher's eyes and ears, were in the room. Anna was fixated on what she was doing. She was relaying communications in an endless loop to Angela Xuddur, the NSA's inside woman, and to various special forces teams ready to move in and rescue the hostages. It wasn't clear to how many hostages are in the embassy, but probably a lot.
Fisher sat in a cushioned seat, watching satellite views of the embassy, and whole lot of other crap he didn't understand.
"U.S. president David Bowers says he won't negotiate with terrorists. It's American policy. But he's staying quiet about any rescue attempts. His administration is probably planning a covert operations against these terrorists." Anna said, chewing her bubble gum loudly.
"I just graduated from BUD/S when the Iranian siege happened. The Bowers Administration won't let something like this happen again. One quick operation equals no hostages killed, equals everybody goes home safely." Fisher said in a tired, groggy voice. He was getting tired. He hadn't slept in thirty-two hours. But he was a former Navy SEAL. He could last.
Fisher's cochlear mike beeped in his ear. The voice of Irving Lambert came through.
"Fisher, the NSA has just gave us the stand down order. We won't be doing any hostage rescues. Delta Force, Unit 777, and Libyan Special Forces will be conducting a rescue operation tomorrow night. It's been carefully planned and gone over probably a thousand times. It shouldn't fail."
"Good." Fisher said.
"Operation Damnation will be the first half of the rescue. Here, Delta will open a staging site inside Tripoli. "Operation Death Bowl will be the actual hostage rescue. We'll be on standby just in case anything happens. And if the operations fail, which they won't, the NSA had given us the go ahead to infiltrate the embassy, and secure the hostages alone."
"No problem." Fisher said, and the mike beeped off. But it was a problem. Fisher didn't specialize in hostage rescue. Period. His jobs over the past years was intelligence gathering, assassinations, and infiltrations. Nothing more. Nothing less. Hopefully, Sam would have back up if he had to go in there...
