Read Online Black Storm by David Poyer - Free Book Online Page A

been through the Urban Assault Team concept demonstrator, and if you were in Khafji or Beirut or Monrovia, you’ve done as much of it as anybody in the Corps.”
    Kohler turned the first sheet to a Magic Markered page. It bulleted HUMINT, Enemy Communication Intercepts, Visual Imagery, and Information Received Direct from Enemy. The bottom line was titled Flying Stones.
    â€œMost intel work consists of looking for anomalies. Anomalies are abnormalities; items of data different from what you expect, or weird new shit you have no explanation for. One anomaly might be an error or a misunderstanding. When they pile up, you start looking for what’s making that hump in the groundsheet.
    â€œPutting the anomalies together, we think Saddam’s got some kind of weapon of mass destruction held back. He’s using conventionally armed Scud-Cs against Saudi and Israel. This is something else, something he thinks is so big ’n’ bad it’ll stop us kicking his ass out of Kuwait.
    â€œWe have a name. The Arabic translates as ‘Flying Stones.’ We have a suspected location: in central Iraq, under the coverage of the Kari integrated air defense network. Based on that, CENTCOM’s handed us a ‘black’ mission: find, identify, and localize it.”
    He flipped the chart, and there was western Iraq.
    â€œI’m going to read you the mission statement,” said the captain. Gault took out his notebook. So did the others. Kohler read slowly, so they could get it down. “On order, UAT Reconstitute Twelve will insert into Iraq, link up with indigenous resistance, reconnoiter suspectednuclear/biological weapons site west of Baghdad, and squirt back targeting data before extraction. Mission has priority.”
    He read it again, and one by one they put their pencils up to show they had it. The bare cinder-block space was about as quiet as Gault had ever heard a compartment full of marines. Like everything else the captain had said so far, the words meant more than they said. “Mission has priority,” for example. That meant that whatever happened in Kuwait, whatever happened elsewhere in the war, they’d stay till their mission was complete.
    Kohler pointed in his direction, and he stood. “This is Gunnery Sergeant Gault. Gunny Gault will be the team leader.” He pointed at another man. “Sergeant Jacob Zeitner, assistant team leader…Sergeant Tony Vertierra, RTO…Lance Corporal Fred Nichols, sniper and breach-course qualified…Corporal Denny Blaisell, scout.”
    Gault thought of telling him Nichols didn’t go by Fred—he hated his first name—but didn’t. He just sat down again. The others did too, with a shuffle of feet, some dry-sounding coughs.
    Kohler rolled his head to one side, as if to loosen up. “We’ll do patrol order, map study, and rehearsals over the next two days. The mission attachment’s on his way. A navy Tomahawk targeter.”
    â€œNavy, sir? You mean SEAL?”
    â€œI’m afraid not. We’ll just have to do what we can to get him up to speed. We’ll do basic quick reaction drills and a shooting package, but don’t expect too much. He’s essential at the objective, though, so your job’s to get him there.
    â€œThis is about as short fuze as you can get. We have today, tonight, tomorrow, to train and plan. Then you’re climbing on the helo and executing.”
    Gault finished writing two days prep phase in his book and closed it. He was evaluating what he’d heard, what hesaw on the map. The zigzag line, presumably a helo insert track, leading into Iraq.
    The mission itself sounded infantry-proof. Go in. Link up. Find this thing, observe, identify, report, and return. He’d been in Indian Country before. It could be dangerous, but only if they screwed up. Recon teams seldom did the Rambo-type, direct-action missions: snatching bodies, blowing up bridges. Going