Charlie nodded, before turning back to the whiteboard he’d been using. ‘So, to recap, we’ll be circling the DZ at 20,000 feet – out of hearing range of anyone on the ground – waiting for the C-17 carrying the sub to come over.’ On the whiteboard Charlie had drawn a shape representing Dragon Lake, which was their DZ, or drop zone, plus winged shapes above it which represented the aircraft.
‘As soon as we have AEW&C confirmation that the sub has splashed down,’ Charlie went on, ‘we hit the silk and do a HALO drop into the lake in darkness. Once we’re in the water, we use the inflatable dinghy that’s being dropped with us to make our way to the sub. After that, we’re in the hands of the sub’s crew, whose job it is to get us into Deep Cave through the underwater channel. Once we surface in the pool in the cave, we disembark and Ben will deploy EDD Caesar. At Zero Hour, while the Taliban are kept busy by Land Team at the cave’s land entrance, we move in and free the hostages.’ Charlie paused and looked at his team. ‘Any questions?’
‘How will the dog do in the water?’ asked Corporal Mortenson, the Danish diver. He was the only member of Sky Team wearing a wetsuit – his usual outfit for a marine op.
‘Dogs can swim, mate,’ said Bendigo Baz. ‘You do know that?’
Casper shrugged. ‘I was worried that the dog might be a burden to us.’
‘Mate,’ said Charlie, ‘Caesar won’t be a burden. Believe me, the day will come when you’ll be grateful to have Caesar around.’
‘Caesar is a strong swimmer,’ assured Ben. ‘Just the same, once we’re in the water, I’ll get him and my gear into the dinghy with everyone else.’
‘So, Caesar gets a water-taxi ride?’ said Corporal Banner, smiling wide. ‘Man, what a spoilt pooch.’
This generated a laugh from several of the others.
Hearing his name mentioned, Caesar began to wag his tail, his pink tongue hanging out the corner of his mouth. Caesar, now with a full belly, instinctively knew that he and Ben would soon be going on a mission. He had seen and heard the Hercules pull up outside, jogging memories of the parachute jumps that he and Ben had done together in the past. And as Ben had told Sergeant Bruce, Caesar loved making parachute jumps.
‘What happens if something goes wrong with the mini-sub once it’s in the lake and we can’t use it?’ Sergeant Bruce asked.
‘If for any reason the sub can’t be used,’ said Major Jinko, ‘the crew have orders to blow the explosive charges onboard and sink the sub to prevent the Taliban knowing it was ever in the lake. Secrecy is everything.’
‘And what happens to us in that eventuality, man?’ asked Corporal Banner. ‘Is there a Plan B if we’re in that lake without a sub?’
‘Yep,’ said Charlie. ‘We would link up with Land Team. But that won’t be happening. This op has to go off without a hitch if we’re going to save the Big Cheese. So, think positively, everyone. Any more questions?’
‘How do we locate the sub once we’re in the water?’ Mortenson asked. ‘It’ll be as black as Hades out there.’
‘With this homing device,’ said Charlie, holding up a device about half the size of a paperback. ‘You take charge of that, Mortenson.’ He handed the device to the Dane. ‘It’ll lead us right to the Pencil.’
‘What’s Zero Hour?’ Sergeant Bruce asked.
‘Zero Hour is 0515 hours,’ Major Jinko advised. ‘Synchronise your watches now, all of you.’
Charlie checked the time on his watch, which he had previously synchronised with Duke Hazard’s. ‘The time now is 0245. Check?’
‘Check,’ the others confirmed in unison, adjusting the time on their watches to precisely match Charlie’s.
‘Okay, let’s get our gear stowed aboard the Herc,’ said Charlie.
‘What’s our ETD, Charlie?’ Lucky Mertz asked, as he shouldered his parachute.
‘ETD is 0330,’ Charlie replied. ‘We’ve got forty-five minutes to get cleared away. Let’s do it, blokes. Let’s bring the Big Cheese home.’
‘Yeah!’ yelled Bendigo Baz, punching the air. ‘Time to sort the mice from the men!’
As the others picked up their gear and walked out onto the tarmac toward the waiting Hercules, Charlie stayed back with Major Jinko to help give Ben a hand with his equipment. Ben had the heaviest individual load of any of the members of Sky Team. In addition to being responsible for Caesar and donning a parachute large enough to support the pair of them, he carried his MP5 submachine gun, a weapon designed for anti-terrorist operations in confined spaces, spare 9 mm magazines, stun grenades, a sheathed commando knife, a torch, a full water bottle and several packs of MRE emergency rations for Caesar and himself. He also had a medical kit and spare Browning magazines in his trouser pockets. His Browning Hi Power 9 mm automatic pistol was holstered on his right thigh, and an altimeter strapped to his left wrist would tell him when it was time to deploy his parachute after he left the aircraft.
But that wasn’t the end of Ben’s load. A waterproof bag attached to Ben’s belt contained flying gloves, combat gloves, night-vision equipment, his laptop computer, two radio transceivers and a video camera that could be clipped onto Caesar’s Kevlar vest for forward reconaissance work. Under Ben’s life preserver, a small personal radio for communication within Sky Team was attached to his bulletproof vest, and night-vision goggles were strapped to his helmet. And once it came time to jump from the Hercules, Caesar would also be strapped to him. Jumping into a lake from 20,000 feet carrying all of this would be, to say the least, a challenge. Not that Ben was concerned – he was trained and ready for it.
Charlie carried both Ben’s parachute pack and his own as well as a large black haversack that was strapped to his chest. ‘This will be Caesar’s first operational HALO jump, won’t it?’ Charlie asked Ben as they walked to the waiting Hercules.
‘We’ve done it often enough in training,’ Ben replied. Caesar trotted happily along beside him on his metal leash, tail wagging.
‘Into water?’
Ben nodded. ‘A couple of times into water. Caesar will be fine. How about you, mate? Will those Zoomers of yours be up to it?’
‘Not a problem, cobber,’ Charlie confidently replied.
‘They won’t slow you down in the water?’
‘No way. These Zoomers are made from carbon fibre, remember? They’re as light as a feather, and it’s not as if they’ll rust.’
None of the other members of the task force had mentioned Charlie’s artificial legs. Ben assumed they hadn’t even noticed his Zoomers. If they had, they’d apparently soon forgotten them, with Charlie proving to be as agile as any member of the team.
‘Glad to be back on ops?’ Ben asked.
‘It’s what I’m trained for, mate. And it’s what I’m best at. God knows what I would’ve done with my life if Josh hadn’t put me onto Zoomers. There aren’t many options for legless soldiers. These things have given me a new lease on life.’
Major Jinko stood watching from the hangar door as the last of the eight to board, Charlie, Ben and an excited Caesar, walked up the lowered ramp and into the Hercules. Soon, Sky Team would be in the air.
There was a tense silence in the Special Ops control room at Tarin Kowt. Lieutenant General McAvoy, Brigadier Quiggly and Major Jinko all eyed a bank of LCD screens that covered a wall in the room. In front of them, a team of Special Operations staff from Australia and the US sat at two rows of desks covered with computers and communications equipment. The entire Blue Dragon op was being controlled from this dark windowless room, and the lives of the secretary-general and his party were in the hands of these men and women.
‘EITS in position above target,’ announced one of the operators.
EITS, meaning ‘Eye in the Sky’, was the codename for a Boeing Wedgetail aircraft from the Royal Australian Air Force’s No. 2 Squadron. Wedgetails were specially built for the Australian Army by Boeing as an AEW&C (airborne early warning and control aircraft). Based on the airframe of the Boeing 737 passenger jet, each Wedgetail carrie
s a massive radar array atop its fuselage, plus downward-pointing sensors and long-range cameras in its belly. The main cabin of each Wedgetail is designed to accommodate eight RAAF operators sitting at a line of consoles, each with a glowing screen depicting various aspects of a chosen target.
The Wedgetail slowly circled Dragon Lake and the entrance to Deep Cave at 35,000 feet. By the time the two US aircraft involved in this phase of the operation joined the Wedgetail over the target, Lieutenant General McAvoy would have three aircraft stacked one above the other at 13,000-foot and 15,000-foot intervals.
‘Let’s see what EITS can see,’ said the general. ‘Put its infrared image of the lake up on the main screen.’
An indecipherable pale green image filled the room’s main screen. It looked like a green snowstorm.
‘Clearly, there’s no life down on the lake,’ Brigadier Quiggly remarked.
‘Bring up the area five clicks around the entrance to Deep Cave,’ McAvoy ordered. ‘Give it to us in infrared.’
Another pale green image replaced the first on the big screen. This time, there were two clusters of bright green dots in the lower left side of the image.
‘Zoom in on the smaller group to the left,’ McAvoy instructed.
The image blurred for a moment, then sharpened so that it was possible to see two bright green men, stationary like statues, on a hilltop.
‘Hostiles,’ said Major Jinko. ‘Looks like we have two Taliban fighters guarding the approach to Deep Cave.’
‘Now let’s see the larger group,’ said McAvoy.
The image changed to show eight green men in a staggered line approaching the hilltop where the two Taliban sentinels were waiting. This was Land Team.
‘What’s that extra image with the man on point?’ McAvoy asked with a puzzled frown.
‘That’s Alabama, the EDD, sir,’ Jinko advised.
‘Uhuh,’ a relieved McAvoy returned. ‘Okay, advise Land Team of the location of those two guards. They’ll need to take them out before they can approach the cave entrance.’
As one of the operators radioed Corporal Cisco with the message, another operator announced, ‘Sky Team advise they are in position for insertion, sir, and are standing by for “go”.’
‘And where is Cheese Cutter now?’ McAvoy asked. ‘Cheese Cutter’ was the codename he had allocated to the gigantic C-17 bringing the Pencil, Renzo and Ellerman over from California.
‘Cheese Cutter is fifteen minutes out from target, sir.’
‘Very good. Advise Sky Team that they are twenty minutes from “go”.’
‘Roger that.’ The operator flicked a radio switch, then said, ‘Cheese Board from Cheese Master. Are you receiving? Over.’
The voice of the pilot of the Hercules carrying Sky Team crackled in the operator’s ears. ‘Cheese Board receiving. Over.’
‘Cheese Board, advise your cargo that they have twenty minutes until “go”.’
‘Copy that, Cheese Master. Twenty minutes. Will advise. Cheese Board out.’
Seated in the webbing seats along one side of the cavernous interior of the Hercules, the members of Sky Team were concentrating on breathing. Each of the seven men had an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. They were breathing 100 per cent pure oxygen supplied by the aircraft. This was necessary to flush nitrogen from their systems so that they didn’t suffer from decompression sickness once they jumped out of the plane at 20,000 feet.
Just before the jump, Charlie was to give the signal to change over to the less-rich oxygen supply that each man carried in the bottles strapped to their chests. Once out of the aircraft, they would breathe that oxygen until they reached a lower altitude. If they didn’t follow this procedure, the men could black out, in which case they wouldn’t be able to pull their parachute ripcord and would plummet to their death.
In the changeover process from aircraft oxygen to their individual oxygen supply, each soldier had to hold his breath. Just taking a single breath in the atmosphere within the cabin could prove fatal. Caesar was a different story. He, too, needed to breathe 100 per cent oxygen before changing over to the less-rich variety for his jump with Ben. But as clever as Caesar and other Special Forces dogs are, they don’t know how to hold their breath during this changeover, nor can they be trained to do it.
So, in addition to his usual doggles, Caesar was wearing an airtight oxygen mask that had been custom-made to fit him. It was attached to two black oxygen bottles that Ben had strapped to the bottom of Caesar’s Kevlar vest. When the time came, Ben would turn a switch on a valve connected to both bottles, which would automatically change Caesar’s oxygen supply over from 100 per cent to his less-rich oxygen.
Caesar had worn this oxygen mask before and was accustomed to it. Not all war dogs are as accepting of the oxygen mask, and some otherwise promising dogs fail the HALO phase of their training when they can’t tolerate the mask. Trusting Ben implicitly, Caesar wore and tolerated it. He lay patiently at Ben’s feet in doggles and oxygen mask, waiting for the parachute jump that he expected to come. Every now and then, Ben would bend to give him a comforting pat and ruffle of the neck, and Caesar would raise his head and attempt to lick him, only for his long tongue to hit the plastic side of his mask.
‘Twenty minutes to DZ,’ came the pilot’s voice in Charlie’s headset.
Charlie immediately relayed the message to his comrades via a show of ten fingers twice. They all nodded and checked their watches.
Liberty Lee kept low as she carefully picked her way among the rocks, working toward lights shining in the distance. Contrary to Abdul Razah’s expectations, she had not drowned. During her years of training in Korean martial arts, Liberty had learned many things other than hitting and kicking. She had learned how to slow her heart rate and how to sleep standing up. She had also learned to hold her breath for an extraordinary length of time.
While fleeing her Taliban captors, Liberty had remained underwater for six minutes, swimming away from the light of their lanterns. When she’d eventually surfaced, it had been in the darkness of the far side of the pool. Since emerging from the water, Liberty had been trying to find a way out of the cave. Confronted by solid stone walls in all directions, Liberty concluded that there must only be a single entrance – the one used by the Taliban beyond the area where her colleagues were being held. She would have to cross that area to get out. Hoping the Taliban had withdrawn from the hostage site as they usually did, she took the risk of returning to it.
As she crouched behind a rocky outcrop, Liberty could see that not only had Commander Baradar left glowing lanterns at the hostage site, he had left Abdul Razah and another heavily armed insurgent to guard them closely, now that there was a possibility of ISAF forces being in the area. Liberty could make out all six remaining hostages huddled in the dull light, their hands bound behind their backs. Worse, she could see that Secretary-General Park had been forced to wear a bulging white vest, a vest she was sure contained explosives. The Taliban could be expected to detonate those explosives if they felt threatened, even if it meant killing themselves.
Liberty pulled back into the darkness as she tried to figure out what to do next. Whatever she did, she dared not risk the Taliban detonating that vest.
Aboard the C-17 codenamed Cheese Cutter, Dave Renzo and Brad Ellerman were preparing to make their parachute jumps and to follow the Pencil down into Dragon Lake. Both men had donned navy-blue waterproof jumpsuits and life preservers. Around their waists they wore belts to which were attached knives, one-man dinghy packs and GPS tracking devices. They had been breathing oxygen from the aircraft’s system on the long flight over the North Pacific and SouthEast Asia. Now, as the Cheese Cutter descended to 7000 feet, they donned their parachutes and jumping helmets with the help of loadmaster Sergeant Kramer and her crew.
Over the intercom and above the roar of the engines, Commander Renzo asked, ‘Staff Sergeant Kramer, what will be the procedure for the airdrop? How will you people be able to push that sub
out the back? It weighs seventy tonnes!’
Kramer smiled. ‘Simple, sir. Standard procedure for airdrops of heavy loads. Once we’re over the target, the pilot will put us into a steep climb. Your submarine will roll out the back all by itself. It’s only sitting on those wheels, it’s not bolted on. Once the sub is freefalling, the wheels will drop away, fall into the lake and sink without a trace.’
‘Then the lieutenant and myself jump?’ Renzo asked.
Kramer nodded. ‘Yes, right after we lose the cargo, sir. I’m about to lower the ramp, so I’ll need you both to come with me. I’ll harness you up, so you don’t go out too soon. We’ll release you when it’s time to follow the sub.’
‘Sir,’ said Ellerman, turning to Commander Renzo, ‘I suggest that you jump first and I follow. I’m used to steering parachutes, you’re not. I can follow you down. That way, we land close together.’
Renzo nodded. ‘Good thinking, Brad.’
The three of them unhitched from the intercom and walked to the tail of the aircraft where several USAF crewmen harnessed them to the side and out of the way of the mini-sub. Should any of them lose their footing, these safety harnesses would prevent them from falling out the back of the aircraft. Kramer also hitched the two men’s parachutes to a static line, which would automatically open their chutes as they left the ramp. Kramer then pressed a large red button, and the massive stern ramp slowly came down to the horizontal, creating a gaping opening in the rear of the plane.
Renzo and Ellerman stared out into the black void. Renzo had never jumped out of a plane, let alone parachuted into a mountain lake in hostile territory. He had butterflies in his stomach, a sensation he hadn’t experienced since performing in a school play when he was ten. He wasn’t afraid, he assured himself, just out of his comfort zone.
Staff Sergeant Kramer spoke into her headset microphone. ‘Passengers ready to go, Cap,’ she advised the pilot.
‘G minus six,’ the pilot replied. The ‘G’ stood for ‘Go’.
‘Copy that. G minus six.’ Kramer held up six fingers to Renzo and Ellerman, signifying they were six minutes from drop time.
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