by Thomas Craig
"No—"
"It will not be your decision, Valery, but mine." He paused.
Through his misery — and relief that his father intended nothing more for the moment — Valery heard his father s stertorous breathing and his own ragged inhalations.
"Do you understand?" his father repeated. "You see no one, you talk to no one. You stay indoors. You do not answer the telephone. Is that clear?"
"I — understand."
"Good. You've babbled quite enough already. A week of silence, and then enlistment at the academy, will help all of us." The Frunze Academy, the school for elite career officers. His father's influence could get him a place there — dammit. "Very well." The voice was unsoftened, and merely pretended to familiarity, to a common humanity between them. "Now, go. Go, Valery."
Valery made a grab at the generals hand, but his grip closed on air. The hand had been snatched away like that of some czar displeased with a menial ambassador.
"Go," the general breathed from near the windows.
Through the wetness of his tears, the sky appeared almost colorless to Valery Rodin; his father's figure a looming dark shadow against it.
A map was spread near his right boot, pictures unrolled on the screen of the moving-map display like a series of hurried-through slides. He might have been thumbing through some familiar reference book for information he knew it contained.
The three hundred and fifty miles of the coastline between the Iranian border and Karachi flashed by in sections. Narrow coastal strip before the coastal range. Blue of the sea. No islands, no coral atolls, no sandbanks of any size. Just the isolated coastal strip. A few small holiday resorts, a handful of villages. His eyes glanced from the magnified images to the map on the floor, as if seeking reassurance or in growing desperation.
There were people around Gant, silent and expectant, and that expectancy was fading, turning cold and sour. He was hardly conscious of them or their changing mood. Aware only of the headset he wore as he sat in front of the display, which was no larger than a Portable typewriter.
A box with keys below a small screen — a box without answers.
He could not be sure. He had to choose blind, sensing the precise length of a beach, assuming its width between surf and palm, assuming its emptiness — all before they overflew it to check it out
If he was wrong in any of those parameters, they would have no time or fuel to find a second dropping zone. And all he had in the way of backup was one of the flight crew acting as an observer, standing between pilot and copilot, binoculars ready for the earliest possible visual sighting of the dropping zone he proposed. By the time the beach took on dimension and form in the observers glasses, it would be too late to make any changes. It would be either go or no go.
Anders was in the secure communications room behind the flight deck, talking via satellite with Langley — with the White House by now for all Gant knew. Squeezing permission out of Karachi's military and Islamabad's government. Pressuring the director and the President to bribe the Pakistanis. Offer them anything — everyone always wants guns, missiles.
Gant muttered to himself, flicking back, flicking forward once more through the sequence of map sections. Holding, weighing, discarding, hurrying on. The stain of yellow-brown was clearer through the small window. It wore a line of green above it now and, more mistily, a jagged line of brown hills. Beach, trees, hills. The dropping zone had to be on the beach, but where, along this length of coast?
The three pallets would be loosed from the rear doors — fuel, Garcia's MiL, then his own helicopter. Parachutes opening and dragging, the impact of it like landing on the deck of a carrier — and he'd done that, scores of times, though Garcia hadn't and didn't like the idea. With great good luck, the pallets would remain intact and upright and they could release the MiLs, unlock the rotors and rig them, fuel up, and take off, to rejoin the Galaxy in Karachi, always praying the transport had made it.
If he could find the beach.
One road along the coast, no more than a wide dirt track. The villages and tiny resorts and occasional isolated bungalows were strung along it like weak and intermittent fairy lights. He heard the pilot's voice against his cheek.
"It's getting critical, mister." He no longer used either Gant's name or his rank. Gant was CIA, not air force; an obscure kind of enemy. He was intent upon wrestling the mission to a new shape, and the pilot was no longer in command of the tanker crew. Gant might just kill them with his scheme. "Our best estimate is — ETA over the coast in six minutes. That will leave you, at most, another four minutes of flying at zero feet before I have to ditch, or you re out the back door and I can still make Karachi. Got that?"
"I understand," Gant replied, waving one hand to silence the fierce whispering the pilots ultimatum had created. "Where do we cross the coast, on your present heading?"
"Somewhere — Charlie?" Gant heard the navigator muttering, then: "West of some God-forsaken place called — what? Ras Jaddi— village called Pasni on a low headland. Got it?"
Gant flicked through the sections of map on the cassette loaded into the display. "I got it." Ras Jaddi, a tiny headland, a speck of atoll? No, nothing except beach, the narrow strip before the trees. That yellow smudge he could see through the window. Ras Jaddi.
"Well, mister?"
Between Ras Jaddi and Ras Shahid, then. Within that fifty-mile stretch. He flicked at the buttons, watched the map unroll backward now, from east to west. Where was there a beach?
He had told Anders to pressure Langley s satellite photography experts into some immediate response. Supply background data, consult photographs, records, files — all the while knowing that there would be time only for a blind guess, the one quick overflight and look-down, then the decision of yes or no.
Beach—
— sand.
The sea was very shallow for a long way out, just there. The beach should consist of fine white sand up near the trees. An impact on wet sand would be risky; they had to make the DZ above the tide.
"Skipper — alter course to intersect the coast ten miles west of the headland. Somewhere between there and Ras Shahid is the DZ."
"You have to be more specific, Gant. I got no fuel to spare."
"OK, OK." He flicked once more through the sections of the map in a feverish hurry. He heard breathing around him, a ragged chorus, like the noise of boxing fans believing their man is going down for the final time. Section after section passed before him, each one covering no more than five miles of coast, detailed, enlarged—
— but only drawings, sketches.
There…
He made the calculations. The beach stretched for a mile and a half in almost a straight line. High tide reached no more than — it was wide enough. Trees, no villages or settlements, no bungalows. A sandbar almost encircled a small bay.
"OK," he announced. "Seventeen miles west of Ras Jaddi — hit that beach and hope to God."
There was silence for a moment, then the muttering of the Galaxy's navigator, finally: "OK, mister, it's your funeral."
"I know it."
"ETA is five minutes plus. We're at nine thousand feet, cruising at two-forty knots. Twenty miles to run. Beginning my descent. When we reach the DZ, you have time for one look-see." He paused, then added: "Then you say go or no go."
Gant envisaged the Galaxy's enormous shadow flickering across the fine white sand, and swallowed the saliva that had gathered at the back of his mouth. The huge wingspan, the weight of the aircraft, its lumbering inability to maneuver, everything. He saw it sagging toward the beach, laying its three pallets like eggs — a great prehistoric, reptilian bird. There would be time for the two passes, no more. The beach had to be wide enough, long enough, flat enough.
He stared at the picture on the screen until it began to grow vague and out of focus, then looked up. Mac nodded grimly. Garcia tried to grin, but his hps trembled. Garcia's crew had moved away. Gant had done what they all wanted, and what they had most not
wanted. Garcia was not as good as he was, none of them had his experience; no one had his reputation. Now he was risking their lives, and they resented it.
"Mac," he said brusquely, "see the loadmaster. Make sure the guy is up to this, huh?"
Mac was experienced enough for his judgment to be trusted, even in this situation. He was the only one for whom Gant did not have to feel responsible. And Mac was in his MiL. Mac, perhaps, was lucky.
"Sure, Major." Even Mac was stiff and remote with anxiety, using Gant's rank as an indicator of doubt.
"The rest of you, you know the theory. Just let it happen to you." He shrugged. Always, he felt this difficulty, this distaste for risking other people's lives. He resented his responsibility for them. "Belt in tight and ride down. You do nothing. The captain and the loadmaster are the main men. The fuel goes out first, then you, Garcia. Then me on the second pass. I won't drop on your back/
"Sure," Garcia replied.
Gant resented the almost sneer, even as he understood it. Then he saw Anders moving swiftly down the hold toward him, his face no less drawn and pale than when he had departed for the communications room.
"OK," Gant concluded. "You got maybe five minutes. I suggest you get on board. Stow everything movable, make everything secure. OK? Anders?"
They drifted away from him, completing a departure they had begun the moment his decision was made. Anders glanced at them, looked at the map display — bending to reconcile it with the large-scale map of Pakistan on the floor of the hold — then said:
"Langley says to hold."
'Tell the skipper. He's talking about five minutes, no more. What kind of holding pattern is that?"
The Galaxy was descending now. Through the window, the strip of sand was still no wider, no more than a margin between blue and green and brown. The sea glittered far below, wide and empty.
"I know, Gant, but the government in Islamabad can't be talked to and persuaded all in a couple of minutes."
"Karachi?"
"Awaiting orders from Islamabad."
"We have to go, whatever. You know that, they know that. Up the ante — a bigger bribe, Anders. Get those guys in Islamabad to see it our way. Isn't it this neck of the woods where bribery's a way of life?"
"It all takes time, dammit."
"Time is the thing we haven't got."
"You know I can't authorize this, Gant," Anders said heavily. He leaned one crooked arm against the bulkhead, his weight against it. He appeared to be staring down at the sheen of the sea.
"You're just playing politics, man," Gant snapped, staring at the displayed section of map. That beach, there—
He was committed. They had to go.
"Whatever, it's been put on hold," Anders murmured.
"Hold? Anders, the computer scenario for the mission is out of date — tell them. Wake them up!"
"I did, but—"
"We're talking about minutes here! The shit's hit the fan, and all those guys are wondering is, who's broken wind."
"It's still on hold, Gant."
"It can't be."
He turned to look at the two Russian helicopters. Garcia was already aboard the 24A, checking that everything was stowed and secure. His copilot was alongside him, his gunner in front of them in the forward section of the helicopter cockpit. The MiL, on its pallet and with rotors folded in line along the top of the fuselage, looked helpless, unready. Behind it, the fuel drums were being checked on their pallet. The shadowy bulk of his own helicopter was closest to him. Around all three pallets, the Galaxy's crew moved urgendy. Mac stood with the loadmaster. Orders and checks crackled and flew from microphones.
He had already briefed the crew and their loadmaster. Getting Mac to check was only a way of keeping him occupied, and away from himself. The loadmaster was experienced and competent. He had dropped palletized loads at zero feet on previous occasions, but only from the hold of a much smaller Hercules transport. In the end, he would have to do little more than obey orders. The Galaxy's captain would call out the timings on each run, give the green light, and only then would the loadmaster's team, harnessed to the fuselage, release the pallets through the open rear doors.
"It can't be," Gant repeated softly.
"It has been."
"Jesus H. Christ! Do they realize? Do they understand? We lose these two choppers unless we can dump them on the beach. There is no other way — even they ought to be able to see that, six thousand miles from here."
"Gant?"
"Yes, skipper," he snapped into the headset.
"ETA, one minute. When we hit your beach, we have no more than four minutes in the DZ area. Two passes only, after the look-see. You got that?" There was an edge of nervousness in the aircraft pilot's voice now; something almost apologetic, too. "I don't have clearance, Gant," he added.
Gant looked at Anders, then said without hesitation: "You have it, skipper. I just gave it to you."
"Let me talk to Mr. Anders."
Anders was glaring at Gant. His body was slumped against the fuselage. The sea was much nearer beyond the curve of his arm. Hills were real, individual mounds and peaks and slopes. The line of palms and other trees, the strip of white sand snaking away westward, losing clarity and finally identity in the faint heat haze and the sheen of the sea. Gant swallowed.
"OK," he said, and handed the headset to Anders. "Tell him," he said softly. "Everything's ready." His fierce whisper contained no element of temptation, merely inevitability. "We have to go. You can clean up after the horses have left. Do it."
Anders took the headset as if it might explode in his large hand. His eyes were troubled and vague. For him, the beach ahead of them was not deserted but mined with diplomatic catastrophes. His career, too, was endangered by Gant s simple recklessness.
He glanced at the MiLs, at the voice-filled hold, the hurrying cargo crew, the sea, and the nearing strip of sand. Then seemed to look into the distances clouded with heat.
"Can you make Karachi, skipper — afterward?"
"If you're praying real hard, Mr. Anders, then maybe."
"And you, Gant, can you make Karachi?"
Gant nodded. The coast was less than five miles away. The transport was closing in on it, beginning to turn onto a new, westward heading. White sand.
Anders urged: "We can get down just by declaring an emergency. It's you they have to let land, after we've reneged on the original deal — you're not supposed to be seen."
"I know it. Look, we have camouflage nets, the works. We'll wait for you to contact us. Send for the rest of the family when you're settled in the new job, huh?"
Anders nodded. "You have clearance, skipper. My authority. Good luck."
"Thank you, Mr. Anders. ETA, thirty seconds. Gant?"
"Yes?"
"We'll set up the visual markers. You'll hear us, but don't give me trouble. It's out of your hands. OK?"
"OK." Gant sounded reluctant, but took off the headset.
During the first overflight of the beach, the flight crew would select visual markers, make their fixes, define exact distances. Making the strip of sand a grid, a pattern — a dropping zone.
He looked at Anders. '"Thanks."
"For what?"
"Seeing the inevitable."
"Shouldn't you—?"
"I want to see that beach."
They stared through adjacent windows. Perhaps six hundred feet up now, no more. The sea stretched away from them without wrinkling, without waves, like some vast lagoon. The edge of the tide flowed beneath the Galaxy's belly. Its huge shadow, coldly black on the white sand, wing tip over the water's edge. Gant glanced at the frozen frame of the map display, and began to recognize the shallow curve of the beach, the knoll of palms, the cradling arm of the sandbank. The transparent water seemed to run with silver veins, like mercury flowing over a blue-green glass slide. There were no rocks littering the beach, just the sand. He glanced across the hold. Trees flickered in the windows like an old, dark film, beyond the starboar
d wing.
Straight, flat, wide. The DZ.
"Good luck," Anders murmured.
"What? Oh, yes. Keep in touch."
"Wait for my—"
"Sure. It's in the bag. They won't want two Russian choppers sitting on one of their beaches for too long. See you, Anders."
He left the window. The Galaxy, having completed its check run, was beginning to climb and turn. The flight deck conversation, relayed to the hold, became more desultory. His stomach felt hollow. Nerves gripped him, shaking his body until he clenched down on them. A flight of seabirds, cormorants or pelicans, had risen agitatedly into the air from near the sandbank as the Galaxy flew over them. The captain's voice dismissed them as a possible hazard. Pelicans, he decided. Huge beaks and white bodies. Now settling like scraps of blown paper onto the cool, transparent water.
He winked at Mac, who was already strapped into his seat in the gunner s separate cockpit. Mac grinned.
He strapped himself into his seat, fitted his helmet, checked the cabin for anything not stowed or fixed. Fuel tanks empty. There was no way they could have risked a drop with fuel aboard. They'd fuel up from the drums, using the hand pump on the third pallet.
"Mac?"
"OK, sir." Mac seemed relieved, fitting once more into his role, their relationship.
"Then just hold on tight. Like the roller coaster, that's all it is."
The Galaxy was still turning in its great loop to approach the beach from its original heading. The loadmaster appeared below the pilot's cabin. Gant raised his thumb, the loadmaster responded, then turned to watch the drop-signal lamps. He pressed the right earpiece of his headset against his ear and raised his left arm as the red lamp glowed. When the green light replaced it, he would drop his arm and the crewman next to the ramp panel would press the toggle. The drogue chute would be ejected into the slipstream of the Galaxy. The main canopy would trail after it, and then jerk open folly, pulling the first pallet out in an instant, a mere twenty feet above the sand. fie could not tune the VHF set to the Galaxy flight deck's frequency. The intercom system operated by wire, like a telephone. He must sit in ignorance, in silence, until the loadmaster's arm indicated he was on his way. He would know nothing until the drogue chute opened, beginning to pull him through the doors. The feces of the Galaxy's cargo crew, harnessed and helmeted, would be the last thing he saw inside the transport, before they began rushing past him, as if seen from a speeding train. Red light, green light, moving arm, the jerk of the parachutes.