Firmly clutching the Colt once more, he left the small cluster of trees behind, moving slowly forward. Every step required serious effort as he dragged his exhausted legs through the thick mud. He leaned forward to help his momentum, but still the swamp acted as a brake, pulling him back. He cleared the trees again. He felt exposed, vulnerable, and doubted that he could realistically escape an attack while in the clearing.
He scanned the dark skies. They were clear, star-filled, and moonless. Ortiz reached for the battery-operated Sopelen TN2-1 night-vision goggles. Again, he tucked the Colt under his armpit, put the goggles on, and activated the thermal-imaging system. Suddenly, the dark surroundings came alive in a palette of green hues related to heat signature. The hotter the image, the lighter it showed through the goggles. He looked behind him and instantly spotted Zimmer’s light-green silhouette against a dark-green background. Ortiz quickly did a three-sixty scan of the clearing. There were no anomalies in the dark green pattern.
Continuing toward the next cluster of trees, fifty feet ahead, he heard a sound he’d hoped he would not hear—the low flopping sound of a helicopter.
His mind raced through his options. There weren’t that many. Actually only two. Race as fast as he could toward the tree line—something he didn’t think would be successful. Or…Ortiz spotted the thermal image of the engine exhaust as the helo loomed above the trees.
He didn’t have a choice. He was not sure what the rest of the platoon would do, but he knew what had to be done. Without a second thought, Ortiz bent his legs and lowered the upper part of his body, Colt and night goggles, down into the putrid mud.
Suddenly it all went away. The noise disappeared and a cool, soothing sensation enveloped him. Ortiz kept his eyes shut and silently cursed his bad luck. He wasn’t sure how much time he needed to spend under the mud.
How long is long enough? Twenty, perhaps thirty seconds? A minute maybe?
It didn’t matter. His instincts forced him down until his lungs couldn’t take it any longer, and even then he squeezed out a few more seconds. With his lungs about to burst, Ortiz pushed himself up just enough to keep his head above the surface.
“There you are, Tito. Jesus, brother! We thought you were lost or somethin’.”
Ortiz was momentarily confused. Where was the helo? Why was Zimmer next to him? Why wasn’t he covered with mud like himself?
“You fucking pendejo,” Ortiz hissed. He straightened up, nearly tore the night goggles off his head, and wiped the mud and whatever else was there off his face. “You mean to tell me that I stuck my whole body in shit to prevent the enemy from spotting us and you just stood there? I saw you, carbon. You were on the clearing like me. Why didn’t you—”
“Tito, you overreacted, man. I saw the helo above the trees and then I saw you going in. I was about to dive in also when it turned around and left, man, so I kept on walking in your direction.” He motioned for them to move toward the tree line.
Ortiz went first, reaching the safety of the trees in under a minute. He grabbed the hand-held, waterproof radio on his belt.
“All is clear to the tree line, jefe. Over.”
“Roger, Tito. Proceeding to meet you single file. Five-minute intervals per cross, over.”
“Over ‘n’ out.” Ortiz turned to Zimmer, who stood a few feet behind him.
“Mierda. I can’t believe I did this shit for nothing,” Ortiz whispered as he lay the Colt over a branch and grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket. He could barely stand the smell. “It’s bad enough to be walking in this shit, but to have it up your nostrils…yech.”
“Sorry, man. I wish I could…oh, man,” Zimmer said the moment Ortiz finished wiping off most of the mud from his face and neck. “Look at you, man.”
“What about?”
“Leeches, man.”
“Don’t screw around. I ain’t in no mood to…” Ortiz stopped talking the moment his fingers came into contact with a slimy-feeling object on the side of his neck. He closed his eyes and inhaled, trying to control his initial impulse to vomit. “Get the fuckers off. Get them off!”
“All right, all right, but keep it down. Don’t move.” Zimmer slung his Colt across his back and pulled out a double-edge, black-painted hunting knife from his belt sheath.
Ortiz shut his eyes and held his breath the moment he felt the cold steel pressed flat against the skin of his neck. Slowly, the blade moved upward, almost as if he were shaving. In that short period of time the leech had already managed to attach itself strongly enough to leave behind a patch of bloody skin on Ortiz’s neck.
“Got one. Fat little bastard.”
Ortiz opened his eyes and stared at the disgusting-looking creature crawling on Zimmer’s knife. Zimmer simply threw it back in the swamp. “Two to go. Guess you won’t have to shave tomorrow, man.”
“Just get them off, man.”
Zimmer grinned and pressed the knife against Ortiz’s neck, removing a second leech along with a chunk of skin. The third one had partially attached itself to Ortiz’s right ear. Zimmer removed it with his fingers.
“All right. You’re back to your pretty self.”
Ortiz managed a thin smile. “Thanks, hermano.”
Zimmer smiled back. “Anytime.”
“You think this thing still works?” Ortiz pointed to the night goggles.
“They fuckin’ better.”
Ortiz cleaned the thermal-imaging system as best he could, put it back on, and activated it.
“Well?” Zimmer asked.
“It’ll do,” Ortiz responded as he scanned the area and satisfactorily noted the dark-green surroundings…shit!
He moved against a tree and motioned Zimmer to do the same.
“What’s going…” Zimmer stopped talking when he noticed Ortiz putting a finger to his lips. Zimmer quickly reached cover behind an adjacent tree.
Ortiz moved to the left and briefly checked the area directly ahead of them. He saw two—no—three sentries. Their light-green silhouettes shone beautifully against the stark background. He looked at Zimmer, also wearing night goggles. Zimmer nodded his head.
Ortiz reached for the radio and turned the volume down.
“Found three sentries. One hundred feet ahead. Permission for silent engagement, over?”
“Careful, Tito. Is Tommy there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Permission to move out. I’ll get two men in there to cover you. Hold for twenty seconds before moving.”
“Roger.” Ortiz holstered the radio and checked his watch. Twenty seconds. He waited.
Ortiz looked at Zimmer and pointed. Zimmer nodded and headed left. Ortiz checked his watch once more. This was it. The real thing. He warily moved to the right, always keeping an eye on the light-green figures a few feet apart from one another, his hands solidly gripping the light submachine gun. He clutched it for lack of something else. In reality he knew he could not use the Colt. That would give away his position. He wished they’d had more time to prepare for the mission, but with the two-hour notice they were lucky to have the gear they had—which was standard Special Forces.
Ortiz reached a spot over a hundred feet to the right of the sentries, and cut left to make a wide semicircle around them. He would attack from an unexpected angle, hitting the sentries from behind, from the place they would be least likely to expect any unfriendlies to come from. The sentries were near the edge of the tree line and slowly moving toward the rest of Mambo.
Suddenly a bright sparkle of green light nearly blinded him. It quickly went away and was replaced by a medium-intensity glow near the head of one of the sentries. Ortiz shook his head.
A cigarette. The idiot lit a cigarette!
That puzzled Ortiz. Are these guys so secure in their position that they don’t think anyone would dare attack from this side? Do they think an attack m
ost likely would come from the beach?
Ortiz completed the semicircle and reached a spot a hundred feet directly behind the sentries, who were still moving in the same direction. He spotted Zimmer forty feet to his right. Ortiz lifted his right hand in a fist and slowly moved it toward the enemy.
Zimmer nodded and slung the Colt behind his back. Ortiz did the same, and reached for his hunting knife. He briefly stared at the swamp and exhaled. There was no other way. Ortiz immersed his body in the swamp once more, only leaving his head out. The sentries had stopped and scanned the clearing in between the cluster of trees where they were and the trees where Mambo would be by now. He blinked once more. A second sentry had lit a cigarette. Incredible!
Kicking his legs until they hurt, Ortiz propelled himself through the muddy hell. His neck came in contact with the swamp surface. He knew what that meant, but that didn’t matter any longer. Only the sentries mattered. If they could be called that, he thought as he closed the gap to fifty feet. He could hear their voices. Sound traveled well over a smooth surface.
Forty feet. He looked over his right shoulder. Zimmer was there. Also up to his neck in it. Ortiz lifted one hand out of the mud and pointed to the right-most sentry. Zimmer nodded. Ortiz shifted his gaze back toward the enemy. Thirty feet. He clutched the knife’s handle so hard his fingers grew numb from lack of circulation. He couldn’t help it. His mind was almost on automatic as he closed the gap to less than twenty feet.
His approach was quiet, calculated. He used the noise created by the sentries to mask his own. He knew Zimmer would do the same.
Ortiz briefly gazed upward. Toward the stars. The crystalline sky looked majestic, dazzling, peaceful. He enjoyed it for another brief second before training his eyes on the left-most sentry. The one with the cigarette in his right hand. The man took another draw and turned his head to the side. Ortiz saw his profile. A young man, he noted.
Ten feet. Ortiz heard a few words. They were speaking in French. They were too close. Ortiz knew he had to act right away or risk detection. Would he be able to propel himself out of the mud fast enough?
He eyed Zimmer, the right-most sentry, the left-most sentry, and back to Zimmer. Their eyes locked. Ortiz held up his left hand and counted one, two, three with his fingers.
Now!
They lunged simultaneously, knives extended in front, aimed for the throat. Ortiz reached his prey in less than three seconds, catching him entirely by surprise as he was about to take another draw from his half-smoked cigarette. The sentry’s hand never made it to his face. Ortiz drove the ten-inch blade into the base of the sentry’s neck. He heard the nauseating sound of broken bone and ripped cartilage as the stainless-steel blade went deeper and exited through the larynx. An explosion of air and foam followed as the sentry brought both hands to his neck before falling face-first into the swamp. Ortiz let go of the knife and turned to the sentry in the middle, whose face showed obvious surprise. His eyes were open wide in fear as his fumbling fingers tried to reach for the automatic weapon that hung loose from his left shoulder.
Ortiz lunged and pushed the sentry on his back and forced him into the swamp. He grabbed the sentry’s lapel with one hand and pushed his head back with the palm of the other hand. The sentry let go a half scream before his head went under. Ortiz eyed Zimmer. He had disabled the right-most sentry. Ortiz shifted his gaze back toward the sentry he had pinned down in the swamp. The sentry’s body was under except for his arms, which viciously flapped in a desperate attempt to free himself from Ortiz’s death lock, but Ortiz kept up the pressure. He knew it was just a matter if time. The sentry had screamed before his head went under. That meant he’d exhaled instead of inhaled. The more the sentry fought the faster he would use up the little air that remained in his lungs. Ortiz was right. The arm movement slowed to a halt. Ortiz counted to thirty before letting go. When he did, he noticed the arms slowly sinking.
“Damn, Tito. You sure can be one mean bastard.”
Ortiz stared at Zimmer. “Can’t say I was proud of it, but we can’t let their people know we’re here.” He reached for his handkerchief and wiped off his neck. “How many, hermano?”
Zimmer got close. “Just one. How about me?”
Ortiz examined Zimmer’s neck. “Two.”
* * *
A few minutes later he reached for the radio. “Ortiz here. Sentries neutralized. Area’s clear.”
“All right. Let’s move it, Tito. You two hide the bodies and keep moving forward. We’ll catch up with you. This area is likely to be roaming with patrol helos in a few minutes.”
“Roger. Moving out.” He replaced the radio. “You heard the boss, Tommy. Let’s get outta here.”
“You got it, brother.”
* * *
Vanderhoff picked up the phone on the first ring. “Yes?”
“Sir, I think we may have a situation.”
“Explain.”
“A helicopter just made a routine run east of here and they can’t get a response from the patrol team on the ground.”
“Equipment breakdown perhaps?”
“Ah, no, sir. Each man carried a portable radio. I doubt all three are malfunctioning at the same time.”
Vanderhoff inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself down. He checked his watch. Less than an hour to go before the launch. He had to keep the intruders away for another hour. After that it would be over. There was nothing anyone would be able to do.
“Send all available men out!” he snapped back. “I want those two helicopters delivering security personnel out there immediately. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
Vanderhoff slammed down the phone and tightened his fists. This was the most critical phase of the operation. It was the only way to be sure Lightning would be destroyed. Doing it otherwise would leave too much to chance and would give NASA time to figure out a way to save the wounded orbiter.
FIFTY MILES OFF THE COAST OF FRENCH GUIANA
Wearing a set of GEC Avionics “Cat’s Eyes” Night Vision Goggles, Lieutenant Crowe stared at the fuel drogue on the end of the sixty-foot-long hose hanging down and behind the tail of the KC-97 tanker. Crowe’s wingman, Stallion Two, patiently took second place behind him. The advanced NVGs, secured to a bracket mounted on the front of his helmet, superimposed two smaller combiner lenses in front of Crowe’s eyes. Intensified outside light, reflected onto the combiner lenses through a mirror and prism design, provided Crowe with a bright, green-tinted view of the moonless night.
Crowe lifted the collective lever and twisted the motorcycle-style throttle grip at the end, increasing main rotor RPM and also changing the rotor blade profile, creating additional lift. The maneuver empowered the 36,000-pound heavy assault transport helicopter to climb to a comfortable one thousand feet at 160 knots.
He eyed the approaching drogue and then his helo’s seven-foot-long refueling probe extending out from the right side of the nose. The drogue was less than ten feet away.
Crowe inched the cyclic forward. The trick was to approach the drogue fast. A slow approach would cause the drogue to be pushed down by the air from the main rotor. Crowe eyed the drogue. He aligned the refueling probe as best he could with it. Then in one move, he gently pushed the cyclic forward. It took about one second for the Sikorsky helicopter to leap forward.
Contact! The probe reached the drogue and snagged it.
“Leaded or unleaded, Stallion One?”
“Don’t matter,” he responded. “They all come from the same tank anyway. I’ve only got five hundred pounds of juice left. Top me off.”
“Will do, Stallion One. Are you gonna want the windows washed?”
“Ah, no thanks.” Crowe smiled. Someone was in a good mood aboard that tanker.
Two minutes later he eyed the fuel gauges. “All right, guys. I think that’ll just about do it. Thanks a bunch.”
“Our pleasure, Stallion One. Good luck on your exercise.”
Crowe raised his right eyebrow. Exercise? Okay, so someone had given that explanation to the tanker’s crew. They—whoever “they” were—wanted to keep the number of people involved at a minimum. It made sense, he decided. That way, when things go ape-shit, “they” don’t have to tell too many people to keep a lid on it. Covert operations. He’d flown them enough times in Vietnam to be able to smell them and this one stunk. The worst part of it was that he had no idea what was going on. Just that he had to pick up an Army Special Forces team. Nothing else. He had been given a rendezvous point and a time. He was to wait for no more than five minutes and would keep rotor RPM high enough to leave in seconds.
Crowe gently maneuvered his helo to the side to make way for Stallion Two. He flew without a copilot. The two rookies were onboard Stallion Two, which approached the drogue too slow. It went under.
Crowe spoke on his voice-activated headset. “Back off and go back a bit faster.”
“Roger, Stallion One.”
The Stallion let the drogue move forward about twenty feet before it moved in again. This time Crowe watched approvingly as the large helo approached the drogue at a higher speed, snagging it.
“Good job.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Crowe checked his watch. They had forty-five minutes left.
KOUROU, FRENCH GUIANA
Vanderhoff finished dialing Chardon’s private number. He heard it ring twice before the general’s rough voice crackled through Vanderhoff’s speaker box.
“Oui?”
“Wake up, General. We’re in trouble and I need the service of a team of your elite Force d’Action Rapide. I might be getting paranoid, but we just lost contact with three of my men minutes after their deployment. There is a chance Stone might have reached his people. We can’t afford to take a chance with the launch thirty minute away.”
“You’re right, monsieur. I’ll give the order immediately under the pretext of a possible terrorist attack on the facility.”
Siege of Lightning Page 22