Chapter 49 - Ops Planning
The satellite information caused an immediate stir in the Department of Defense which soon was elevated to the White House, the President, National Security Advisor and the Secretary of Defense coming to the same conclusion in a very short time. It was in the White House situation room where the Chiefs for each service were given their orders to come up with the plan, to get the object, at all costs. This lead to them immediately going back to their offices at the Pentagon to assemble their staffs and develop plans, their staffs were ordered to present in 8 hours, since the military had only 48 hours to do something, and the clock was already ticking.
There was obviously no way to develop new plans for this new situation in 8 hours, so the staffs dug up similar, already approved plans, determined which were close to this situation then modified the plans to the current situation. This effort saved them time and got them a plan they could use, even if it wasn't totally specific to their particular situation, it was much better than no plan at all. It became apparent almost immediately that this was going to be a Special Ops situation, requiring a small insertion team to get the object, so several Special Ops organizations were immediately put on alert by their respective services, they were going to be moved quickly when this all went down.
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That night Howard was too excited to sleep properly, he was going home the next day, the trip was successful, the suit worked great, their program was going to be funded and most importantly he missed his very beautiful pregnant wife. So Howard had a little trouble sleeping that night, he had now gotten where he wasn't use to sleeping without holding Bernadette, especially with her back to him, wrapped in his arms and his hand on her belly. He really missed her and tossed and turned for an hour before finally succumbing to fatigue and falling asleep. Therefore, it was a very tired Howard who opened his room door, due to the knocking by a Sergeant, at 5 AM the next morning.
"Lieutenant Colonel Wolowitz?" The huge man towered over Howard.
"Yeah that's me. Can I help you?" Howard was still half asleep, but was quickly waking up, looking at the big man.
"Sir, I was sent here to get you and take you to the Command Post. Orders of General Turner." The man explained.
Howard came fully awake, "Okay, let me get dressed."
Thirty minutes later Howard was sitting at a table in the Command Post, with a coffee and donut, talking to the General himself. "Howard, something has come up. There is a special operations Captain coming in today and I need you to get him checked out in the suit, so we need you to stay for a little while longer."
"Yes Sir. How long do I have to train him?"
Turner shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "8 hours".
Howard stared at Turner is disbelief, "Umm Sir, that is not much time."
Turner nodded, "I know, but this is important, we need him trained and you also need the suit ready to transport after you're done."
Howard just stared at Turner, he wanted to ask why, but he knew Turner would have told him if he really needed to know. "I'll do my best Sir."
Turner nodded, "Thanks, what can I provide you to help?"
Howard thought for a second, "Well a ride to the test center where the suit is so I can get it checked out and ready." Howard then smiled. "And lots of coffee and donuts, I'm going to need all the caffeine and sugar, I can get."
Turner chuckled, "You got it."
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Two hours later Howard was just waiting for the Special Ops officer, everything was ready, so he picked up his phone and hit number one on his speed dial and waited. "Hey Honey, I love you."
Bernadette smiled at hearing his voice, then frowned, she thought he would be getting ready to leave or in the air now on his way home, "I love you too, Howie. Where are you?"
Howard swallowed, he was not looking forward to this part. "I'm still here, something came up and I have to stay a little longer Honey, sorry."
Bernadette's felt like her heart fell to her stomach, as a chill went across her body, she was about to cry and her next words barely came out of her mouth. "Howie, please tell me you're not doing anything dangerous again, Please you promised."
"No Honey, I promise I am not doing anything dangerous. I just need to do a little more work for them here. I swear it is nothing dangerous, it is just they need me a couple more days that's all."
Sniff, Bernadette couldn't help herself, hormones and everything catching up with her, "Howie I love you and need you….we need you. You have to keep your promise, you promised me." Bernadette was so upset she couldn't say anymore and started crying. Lucky she had not left for work yet, she was still home, so no one saw the petite blonde break down, except for her husband. on the other end of the line, that heard everything.
Howard felt horrible, he just wanted to be able to hold her in his arms, why did he always hurt her, he suddenly felt not good enough for her. He was a small man, a nerd, a weakling, a jerk, and didn't deserve her, why she was with him baffled him all the time, she could do so much better. Now she was even having their baby, she was so incredible, he adored her and loved her with all his heart. He just wanted to tell her everything that was happening, she would see he was in no danger, but he couldn't say a thing, which made things even worse. "Honey, I'm sorry, please baby don't cry. I'm just here to help right now, that is all. I'll be here a couple days, doing some very safe work and then coming home, promise. I swear, I'm not breaking my promise to you."
Bernadette calmed a little at his soothing words, "Howie, I want to believe you, so I am, because you promised. Honey, just remember we need you and I…..I….I need you so badly, Howie, I can't go on without you….please…..please remember that. I love you so much." Sniff
Howard wiped the tear from his eye. "I love you so much too Bernie. Believe me, I won't break my promise."
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A little while later, when Howard met Captain Taylor, the special ops officer, it was very anti climatic, Howard was so emotionally drained from talking to his wife, he just wanted to get this over and be on his way home. However after talking to Captain Taylor, Howard was impressed, the man was short like him, but he was definitely an operator, a man who had been in combat and was a real soldier, everything that Howard was not. Howard gave him a very quick briefing on the suit, then got him in it, going over movement with him before he had him step out of the suit support rack. Everything was going great, the man was smart and eager, however as soon as he stepped out of the suit support rack he fell to his knees, and had a hard time getting up. Walking was worse, he couldn't seem to get the hang of walking naturally, in the suit, his steps were those more of a robot then a man, very jerky and rigid.
Howard was trying hard to help him, "Captain, it is just like a video game, you know the one where you control a fighting robot warrior or like HALO, you are the player, but you are not actually there, you have to control it in a remote fashion like that."
"Sir, I never played video games." Came the response from inside the suit.
"You never played video games?" Howard was shocked.
"No Sir, I played sports, studied, and went out with girls in school and college, and I never found time in the Army."
"Oh?" Howard thought for a moment, "Well you have to think that you are controlling a robot, not in the robot which moves with you, because it really doesn't, when you move your legs and arms it is really like pushing buttons, the movement sensors act that way, and the suit responds, so you have to plan a little ahead for the lag between your moment and the suits. The lag is not much, but if you don't account for it, it makes it difficult to accomplish anything."
"Like this Sir," Howard watched the suit take a more normal step, then watched as it fell flat on its face.
Howard mumbled under his breath, 'No not like that.' then into the microphone, "Captain are you alright."
"Yes Sir, nothing hurt but my pride. I hope I didn't break anything."
"What does your screen say?" Howard asked
"I'm not sure." Howard shook his head, and thought, 'Leonard had worked in the suit for weeks before he went out, he also helped build it. How did they expect this man to do all that', Howard looked at his watch, 'in four more hours'.
Howard explained to the Taylor what to look at, in the heads up display, finally getting from him that everything was up and green. "Okay slowly stand back up." Howard instructed, watching him slowly get up. "Alright try walking towards me." Howard then watched Taylor walk very stiff towards him, obviously trying not to fall down again.
"That doesn't look too promising, Howard." Howard almost jumped when he heard Turner's voice behind him.
He turned quickly, "Sir, he has fell so many times on his knees, I will probably have to replace the knee plates. He is a good man, but not for this. Is there someone else you can send…..someone who has played video games." He added.
Turner shook his head, "Taylor was the only one small enough to fit the suit. Can you do anything with him in the next four hours?"
"Sir, I really wish I could tell you yes, but to tell you the truth, I don't think he will be able to walk across the room in four hours. If you can give me a few weeks….."
Turner shook his head, "No Howard, we only have four hours."
"Then no Sir, he won't be ready." Howard felt awful, he had failed the General.
"Okay, get him out of it and come see me when you are done."
Howard nodded, "Yes Sir."
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There were two SEAL Teams mobilized immediately by the Joint Chiefs, the mobility of the teams and the short time they had to deploy making them the only logical choice. The Army also mobilized its Special Operations Company, which they deployed almost immediately, in a night drop a few miles from the facility. The company then hiked to within one mile away from the target facility, under the cover of night, digging in to control both roads from it, to make sure the object didn't leave. Their job was simple in plan, no trucks left, that could hold the object, without them letting them go by, they had thermal and other instrumentation to detect the object, so if a truck had it inside they would know. They were also to be there to provide a back up for the Team that actually was going to assault the facility, so as they just hunkered down in the desert, the next 24 hours was going to be very stressful for them and if things went wrong, deadly.
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Howard was in a secure room with General Turner deep inside the Command post, drinking coffee again, he was tired and a little bit concerned. Turner obviously wanted to tell Howard something classified and that was Howard's concern, knowing classified stuff was never good, as far as Howard had seen so far. So Howard watched Turner while he got some papers out of a locked briefcase and spread some folders in front of him, Howard knew whatever was going to happen next, he was not going to like it.
"Howard, what we are going to discuss now is Top Secret, special access, no one must know, no one, Okay?" Turner looked at Howard extremely serious.
"Yes Sir, I understand."
"Okay, see this picture." Turner handed over the picture to Howard. It looked like the picture of the device they captured in Los Angeles, that Howard remembered from before.
"Yes sir, it is the device we recovered."
"No Howard, look closely." Howard did as told and noticed the timer was missing, which confused him.
"The timer is missing from it, Sir."
Turner shook his head. "This one doesn't have a timer."
Howard stared at Turner, what he said starting to sink in, "This one? There was more than one?"
Turner nodded, "We had received the serial number of the stolen one, from the Russians, and when Leonard retrieved it….well to make a long story short, it was not the one we were looking for. It took weeks for the Russians to do an inventory, but they finally found out two were stolen, we had one already, but the second one, well no one knew where it was."
"Crap!" Howard looked at Turner with wide eyes. His first thoughts were of his wife in Pasadena, he needed to make sure she was safe, "They aren't going to try LA again, Sir?"
Turner shook his head, "No, we have been looking for it and we found it yesterday." Turner now passed Howard a map, "Here, in this facility."
"Bomb them." Howard said, without even thinking, to Turner, he just wanted that thing destroyed.
"We can't Howard, to much political fallout. This isn't the first time we have seen state sponsored terrorism, but because it is a nation, we aren't really in conflict with, we can't do the obvious, too many international problems. But we can go in secretly and get it, and they can't complain much because then they would have to admit they had it."
"You are going in there?" Howard was really surprised, "How?"
"Special Ops teams, SEALS, we have some watching the area now."
"Good." Howard nodded, but then saw Turner still looking at him.
"Howard, the assault team goes in, in the next 24 hours and we really don't know much about the insides of that facility. We are sending good men into an unknown facility, so it is just the men with guns going into danger, to get that device." Turner was still staring at Howard.
Howard felt something wasn't right and somehow he thought it involved him. "That is why you wanted the suit, to go in with them, for support. But Sir Captain Taylor won't be able to do it. We have no one to operate it…" Howard suddenly felt his blood go cold, "….….but me." Turner nodded.