CHAPTER SEVEN: MISSION BRIEFING
As General Hawk entered the room, everyone stood at attention. "Take your seats. And get comfortable, we have a lot to go over."
The soldiers took their seats in the quiet auditorium – so quiet that you could hear a pin drop, but they were far from comfortable.
This mission briefing was clearly unlike the others. There were no slides, no PowerPoint, no pointers.
"As most of you know by now, we sent six of your team mates on a top-secret, need-to-know mission," General Hawk said.
This is déjà-vu all over. Again with the secrecy. Every time you guys try to keep a secret, it turns out bad… haven't you caught on yet? Snake-Eyes thought, wanting to make his thoughts known to Hawk. He knew General Hawk had his orders as well, and that he was taking his own frustration out on the old Tomahawk, but the fact remained that he hated being kept out of the loop... especially on a mission where he could have helped. Sea operation or otherwise.
"You saw them on the news. Shipwreck, Deep Six, Torpedo, Leatherneck, Gung Ho, and Wet Suit. As you well know, all of them have the highest ratings on water assaults and maritime combat. One of them has the deepest dive for any American – which is also the second deepest dive ever recorded, and three of them are former Navy SEALs. Their original mission was to recover Dr. William Bennett who was located just off the coast of Borovia. Dr. Bennett is one of the world's top-rated scientists, specializing in the nuclear and electronic fields. While Dr. Bennett is actually a Borovian, he was able to send out a letter directly to the President of the United States, stating that a faction of his country was working on creating not a nuclear bomb, but an E-bomb. We sent our men in, code named Whisky Team, to get the doctor out of there and bring him stateside, but it obviously didn't go as planned."
"Mainframe, you're up," General Hawk said, passing the briefing to one of the smartest minds on the team. "Brief them on the E-bomb."
"Thank you General Hawk," Mainframe said politely, who had just started up the computer in order to bring up his own briefing slides. While the computer was still warming up, Mainframe gave an impromptu briefing without using his cheat slides. "Let me explain what General Hawk means when he talks about the E-bomb, or an EMP. An E-bomb is an electromagnetic bomb. It was first discovered as a side effect of a nuclear bomb. Basically, if you take away the explosion part of the nuclear detonation, you would still have an electromagnetic field which would fry every single piece of electronics for miles. Of course, with a nuclear bomb, this normally doesn't matter since everything within miles is destroyed anyways. However, here lies the problem with the E-bomb."
Mainframe continued, trying to carefully dummy down the technical aspects of the bomb. "In the last few decades, the U.S. has discovered how to dramatically increase the range of the E-bomb. According to Dr. Bennett, one of the factions in Borovia has just about achieved a similar range, as well as capabilities to launch it over a tremendous distance. We don't know which Borovian faction, and it seems like he doesn't either. It could be anyone heading up this project.
As for the range of the E-bomb, we're talking thousands of miles. Now, imagine what would happen if it detonated over, say, Las Vegas. Every state from California to Oklahoma would lose all of its electrical functions and capabilities. Now we're not just talking about losing our gambling privileges."
"Think about it for a second: No cars, no computers, no refrigerators, no power lines, no air conditioning, no heat. But let's expand this thought process even more."
"This also means no water pumps… which run electronically these days, so everyone on the West Coast will eventually go thirsty; farmers won't be able to water their crops or give their livestock drink. This means no military electronics and equipment, which means no military defense. We'd be extremely vulnerable to enemy attack. I think you get the idea. This would, in short, be catastrophic."
Mainframe nodded back to the General, indicating he was finished, even though he never fully got the slides up and running.
"Thank you Mainframe," Hawk said. "Getting back to the point at hand; apparently Dr. Bennett also indicated that Borovia had plans for this weapon, and given the friction they've had with us as of late, we're fairly certain it is meant for the United States.
"Whiskey Team was set to enter Borovia from the southern coast, in order to bring Dr. Bennett to the United States as mentioned before. According to his letter, Dr. Bennett was not being held captive, per se, but strong-armed into working for them. He was treated well, but he indicated in his letter that he believed that if he tried to escape, they would kill him, so he played along with them the best he could."
"Once stateside, Dr. Bennett would be able to testify in front of the United Nations Security Council, which would be proof enough to involve other countries to join us in taking action, even against a third-world unstructured country such as Borovia. With Dr. Bennett's evidence, and with the E-bomb being enough of a threat to all world powers, it would be enough to spook even China and Russia, so we are confident we would get their votes to take action… beyond diplomatic action, at least. But we need proof in order to do that, which is why Whiskey Team was sent in to retrieve the doctor.
"We believe they were captured at some point on land, more than likely right after they reached the coastline. We believe the killing of Borovian soldiers and civilians are greatly exaggerated – they had strict orders to avoid firefights if at all possible, given the gravity of the situation. In addition, satellites didn't pick up any firefight activity, so we suspect they were ambushed. We are also certain that, by now, Whisky Team and possibly even Dr. Bennett have been relocated.
"If anyone on Whiskey Team gave up Dr. Bennett, there is no doubt they will have killed him. However, we gave Whiskey Team strict orders to voice that, in case they were captured, they were simply doing reconnaissance on a hostage search. We all know how disorganized Borovia is, so reconnaissance is really a viable excuse, and not far from the truth.
"Whiskey Team doesn't have much time left. They won't be executed immediately because it would look bad for Borovia…yes, even these terrorists are trying to play the role of the poor and innocent victim and actually do care about how the world views them; like any other hostile country in a situation like this, they will most likely fake diplomatic negotiations, maybe even ransom them off if we're lucky. Worst case scenario, they will execute our men if they think it gives them an advantage.
Hawk gritted his teeth, spelling out the goals for the teams: "Primary mission objective: Find Dr. Bennett. Secondary mission objective: Find Whiskey Team. This is where all of you come in."