SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

“As proposed by you, there is only one service branch employed on the actual rescue — the Army. The other branches are used in support roles, or not included at all.” She dropped the pad out of sight. “The Navy wants a substantial piece of this, Major Ritzik. So does the Air Force. So does the Central Intelligence Agency. The Joint Chiefs chairman is strongly recommending — his staff has already drawn up a mission profile and detailed operation plan, I might add — that we assemble a company-sized unit made up of Army, Navy, and Air Force Special Operations personnel to do the job, as opposed to your twelve-man Army element with Air Force support.” Wirth paused. “So, Major, how do we deal with the chairman’s objections?”

Mike Ritzik glanced at the dark circles under the national security adviser’s eyes as she stood behind the president’s wing chair, and realized she’d probably been up all night. The president didn’t look too good, either. Neither did the SECDEF. “I don’t believe a company-sized force is a good idea for this mission, Dr. Wirth.”

“Why?”

“First of all, the size alone is cause for failure. Moving a hundred-plus people attracts attention. Second, I totally reject the chairman’s concept of a unit assembled specifically for this operation. Jointness is a concept that Congress first forced on the military for political reasons. Unlike most of the dumb ideas they come up with on Capitol Hill, this one actually worked — like when the Navy carriers served as forward basing for Special Forces during the Afghan campaign. But when it comes to the sorts of small-unit operations I do, jointness for jointness’s sake can be dangerous.”

“Dangerous, Major?”

“Dangerous, ma’am. I’m not talking about being able to communicate on the same radio frequencies — that’s a good idea. But so far as I’m concerned, unless you’ve trained with someone for a long time, it’s impossible to operate with that man successfully on a high-risk op. You don’t know what the other guy is thinking, how he works, or what he’s good at.”

“But we’re talking about our most elite forces, Major,” Wirth said. “You’re all professionals. Certainly that counts for something.”

“It does, ma’am,” Ritzik said. He paused just long enough to sneak a look at the president, who was staring at him intently. Strange that the man hadn’t said anything. Ritzik’s eyes shifted back to the national security adviser. “Working with strangers increases the chance of failure — increases them exponentially. Sure, symbiosis and integration — and those are a couple of the buzzwords you hear from the Joint Chiefs these days — can be achieved. ‘Integration’ is precisely what I’ve been doing for the past two years with the SOAR. But fluidity in combat takes months of work. The schedule the secretary outlined to me doesn’t allow any time for that kind of mission prep.”

“I’m still skeptical,” Monica Wirth said. “Admiral Buckley makes a strong argument that a joint strike force would be effective and successful.”

“The admiral would say that.” Ritzik almost had to laugh. Phil Buckley, the current JCS chairman, was a Navy sea systems manpower specialist who had spent twenty-eight of his thirty-one-year career behind a desk as a staff officer. According to the RUMINT{RUMor INTelligence is military slang for “urinal gossip.”} at Bragg, he’d been selected for chairman in the last months of the previous administration because he’d been the safe choice, a bureaucrat who wouldn’t rock the boat. Phil Buckley had spent the past decade and a half not commanding or leading, but writing legislative memos.

The role suited him, too. Buckley was precisely the sort of individual who looked good marching down the marble corridors of the Hart or Cannon office buildings. He was tall and lean and had the eagle-eyed stare of a Warrior. But in point of fact, the man had never seen a shot fired in anger. He was a manager, an apparatchik, one of the Pentagon’s detested professional paper pushers.

Ritzik knew the suggestion Chairman Buckley was putting forward was a recipe for disaster. But they all had to know it, too, didn’t they? He started to speak again. But the words caught in his throat, because Ritzik, openmouthed, caught something he hadn’t been supposed to see: an imperceptible signal, passing like electricity, between the other three.

That was when Ritzik realized what was going on. The president was testing him. Challenging him to prove he could succeed. This was all about will. Resolve. Tenacity. Determination.

Ritzik viewed Pete Forrest with fresh respect. And as a sign of that esteem, he’d give his commander in chief the unvarnished truth. At Delta, you always spoke your mind during the hot-wash sessions, no matter how much it might wire-brush the senior officers. Because as Ritzik saw it, the Warrior’s ultimate goal wasn’t getting promoted, but to prevail over your enemy and bring all your people home.