Chopper Ops

by Mack Maloney

  That was what Qank knew Zim was now anticipating. The sinking of the USS LaSallette had been a big mistake. But mistakes happen. The destruction of the Qak-Six oil rig had been a job, paid for by a rival oil consortium, just one of dozens Zim had contracted for the gunship in the past year and a half. That the star-crossed American ship had happened upon the scene was something that could not have been prevented. And actually, there had been some luck in this. Because the LaSallette was a spy ship, there had been nothing heard about its sinking—not in the media, not in the back channels. Not yet anyway. Qank knew the Americans would want to keep quiet for now about the ship's sinking, rather than admit what it was up to at the time of its demise.

  But Qank also knew the Americans could not let the sinking go unpunished. Refugee camps, food convoys, Bosnian innocents—their liquidation had registered little on America's moral radar. But the sinking of the LaSallette had changed that. Some of their own had been killed—by a weapon they had lost control of many years before. And now the Americans were coming to get that weapon back. Finally.

  Qank and Zim had discussed this eventuality before, of course. In their scenario, they expected at least a thousand American troops, probably special forces of some kind, to transit to the Persian Gulf area, probably offloading in Bahrain or in the United Arab Emigrates, but definitely not in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. The prepositioning of this force would likely be accompanied by the appearance of an aircraft carrier or two moving into the upper Gulf area. Then all U.S. forces in the area would be put on alert—and then the Americans would strike.

  The only question was, when?

  That was where the Third Ring came in. If anyone could identify the means of transport and the timetable of the oncoming American force, the freelance spies in the Third Ring could.

  So Qank worked his secure phones for the rest of this day and far into the night. Giving orders to his informants and getting back their reports, he spoke to more than 150 individuals in eighteen hours. If a thousand special troops were moving to the Persian Gulf area by air, Zim's spies would have detected a small parade of C-5 or C-17 cargo planes making their way across the Atlantic. These planes might land at Rota, Spain, or on Sardinia. (Nonstop transits were not common, if only to preserve the crews and prevent suspicion.) If such a force was moving by ship, the spies would likely see a fast-assault vessel or even a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier suddenly make an appearance in their region.

  The Middle East was like a sieve. Very few things happened that weren't spoken about somewhere by someone. Qank was sure that the American troops coming to get the gunship would show up somewhere. But after a long day on the phone, he was left with an odd fact: None of the Third Ring spies had seen anything. It was business as usual at all their locations. No extraordinary activity at American air bases, no aerial tankers taking off in unusual sequences, no areas cordoned off for classified flights. Nothing.

  The ring reported no unusual shipping activity either. No assault ships had been spotted, no vessel at all that might be carrying the size of the force Qank and Zim were expecting. In fact, there was little U.S. military shipping happening anywhere at all. This was very strange.

  A bit desperate, Qank commenced scouring the Internet, searching the web pages of all the major U.S. newspapers on the East Coast. He was looking for any stories that would have indicated a small specialized military unit moving out, farewell celebrations at a military port or at an air base—that sort of thing. But this turned up nothing as well. He had one of his men do the same thing for all newspapers in the U.K., Italy, and Germany—perhaps the Americans were moving troops down from Europe to do the job. But this proved a dead end too.

  Finally, he had his men check their informants in place in the handful of American bases in the Persian Gulf itself. Maybe some specialized troops already in the region would be called on to retrieve the gunship. But again, there was nothing to indicate that was taking place.

  After thirty-six straight hours of this, Qank was stumped. If something was happening, the Third Ring would have sniffed it out simply because when it came to covert military operations, the Americans were not very good at sneaking in the back door.

  Yet the man in Room 6 said they were coming.

  So, where were they?

  Chapter 17

  Delaney was sick. Very sick.

  Possibly sicker than he'd ever been.

  He'd been riding the rail of the freighter for days, watching as waves that appeared to be the size of skyscrapers rose and fell before him. He'd lost all track of time, didn't know what day it was, or even what body of water he was on. All he knew was that he'd thrown up so many times he couldn't believe his stomach could hold any more.

  It was embarrassing. Of the entire unit, he was the only one who was still expelling bits of food he'd eaten weeks ago. He'd tried all sorts of things to stop. Holding his breath. Drinking warm water. He had even tried prayer. Nothing worked. He felt as if he'd been throwing up his entire life.

  And that was a shame, because this trip had started off so differently.

  Upon leaving Seven Ghosts Key, the unit, contained in three C-5's—men, choppers, and all—had flown to an even more exotic location: a place called Xetu on the outer Canary Islands. The C-5's set down at a large privately run airport on the island's secluded northern end. Because the unit had not been briefed about the details of their transit, everyone just assumed that the C-5's were simply refueling there, and would leave as soon as the gas-up was complete.

  But as Delaney and the others learned that day—and would learn many times in the next week—they had assumed wrong.

  The C-5's sat on the runway for hours, not moving, their insides getting hotter with each passing minute. Finally the unit was unloaded, aircraft and all. It was dark by this time. A half mile away was a small port facility. At its dock was the lowliest, crappiest-looking cargo freighter Delaney could have ever imagined.

  Under instructions from Smitz, the unit pushed the choppers over to the dock, which, despite much grunting and groaning, took under an hour. Once they were at the dock, an ancient crane lifted the choppers onto the freighter, putting the Hinds into the hold first, and then settling the big Hook and the even bigger Halos onto the deck. Once they were in place, the crew covered the helicopters with black tarpaulin and then arranged empty metal containers on top of them, hiding them completely. Then the unit itself was loaded aboard.

  Then they sailed.

  Delaney had gotten sick soon after chow the next morning. At first he thought it was the food. The freighter was so dirty and grimy and rusty, Delaney was convinced the CIA had dressed it up to look that way, and the food was absolutely horrible. When Delaney found himself bent over the railing an hour later, he would have bet his lunch the greasy eggs had made him sick.

  But then he noticed the ship was rolling. Up and down, up and down. And then he noticed that there was a nauseous rhythm to this motion. And once that thought was firmly entrenched in his mind, there was no turning back. He became sick and had remained sick ever since.

  He'd spent so much time on the rail, he actually had a favorite spot to throw up from: about midships, port side. Crew members—when he saw them—totally ignored him. Members of the unit did too. The Marines had done their morning calisthenics no more than fifty feet away from him and no one had given him a sideways glance. He was insulted and relieved at the same time.

  Only Norton showed him any sympathy, bringing him pints of water so he wouldn't get totally dehydrated. But vomiting was a solitary practice, so Delaney just took the water and waved off any of Norton's attempts to converse or distract him.

  After more than one hundred hours of this, Delaney was convinced that Hell actually floated on an ocean.

  *****

  It was now the fifth day and though Delaney didn't know it, his nightmare was about to end.

  It was Norton who brought him the news. The pilot arrived on deck with a pint of water and, for the first tim
e, a cup of coffee.

  "You don't expect me to drink that, do you?" Delaney asked, looking at the steaming mug.

  "Yeah, I do," Norton replied.

  Norton looked different. It took Delaney a moment to realize why. Finally it hit him. Norton was unshaven, in need of a haircut, and his clothes weren't exactly spiffy. For the first time ever, his friend actually looked unkempt.

  "Look in a mirror yourself," Norton told Delaney, reading his thoughts. Then he passed the coffee cup into Delaney's shaking hands.

  "What makes you think I can actually keep this down?" Delaney asked him.

  "Because I have good news for you," Norton replied.

  Delaney stood up straight for what seemed like the first time in years. "And that is?"

  Norton pointed to something just off their bow. They were in a thick fog, and Delaney tried hard to focus his bleary eyes. After a few moments, he could just barely make out the outlines of something floating in the middle of the bluish-green water. It looked like an extremely large sludge barge.

  "What the hell is that thing?" he managed to blurt out.

  "It's our destination," Norton told him. "We're finally here."

  *****

  Their destination was named Heaven 2. It was presently anchored near the island of Halul, about fifty miles off the coast of Qatar in the lower Persian Gulf.

  It was an old sludge barge, 250 feet long and sixty feet wide, and originally built to move all kinds of unsavory cargo up and down the Red Sea. It was rusty, what paint that remained was peeling, and the vessel had a distinct 15-degree list to the port side. There was a small control house at its bow, and a steering hut/chart room on its stern. Belowdecks there was room enough for a crew of six, a mess, a head, and little else.

  The CIA had purchased the barge in 1987, and brought it into the Persian Gulf in order to run small amphibious operations against Iran. But it hadn't seen active duty since 1993. And it hadn't been cleaned since 1991.

  A thick wooden platform covered the top of its hull; this created an area large enough to carry all five of the unit's helicopters with little room to spare. The barge moved about by means of two tugboats, and from the air or to the uneducated eye, it could have passed for a scow. A crew of six part-time CIA-paid seamen kept the barge afloat.

  The freighter docked with the vessel and painstakingly unloaded the five helicopters. It was about one hour before sunrise when this operation began, and the fog drifting up from the mouth of the Gulf was getting thicker. Together, the mist and the dim light gave the unloading operation some much-needed natural cover.

  The entire unit pitched in getting the choppers onto the platform and back under wraps. They were under orders to handle the aircraft "as if they were handling eggs." One of many sticking points of the operation was the maintenance of the choppers. The Army Aviation guys knew a little bit about fixing the Russian machines. Plus a dozen air techs from Seven Ghosts Key had come along for the mission. But between them, they could fix only small problems such as frayed wires, bum generators, blown fuses, and the like.

  If anything major went wrong with one of the choppers—if a critical part failed or broke—the mission would be doomed.

  *****

  One hour after getting the choppers stowed away, Smitz called a meeting in the barge's tiny chart room.

  All of the principals drifted in. They were tired, dirty, anxious. Delaney, still pale, asked why the barge didn't have a swimming pool. No one laughed, least of all Smitz. Always earnest, the young CIA officer especially didn't appear to be in the mood for any jokes now. In fact, he'd seemed to have aged ten years during the five-day voyage. His beard was erupting, his hair was tousled. He was wearing a tattered pair of Army fatigues. He certainly wasn't sporting the schoolboy look any longer. He was now one of them.

  "You're all finally going to get your wish," he began soberly once everyone had arrived. "Though it's not how I imagined it, this is what you've been waiting for: 'the motherfucker of all briefings.' "

  There was a round of tired, mock applause as Smitz laid out a long piece of paper that had scrolled out of his NoteBook's printer. It was about three feet long, six pages in all. It was crowded with text, maps, photos, crude illustrations, and code-word lists. It looked very unimpressive.

  "These are our operational orders," Smitz said, examining the document. "They were just sent by my office. Why it took so freaking long, I'll never know. But here they are. Here's what they want us to do."

  He flattened out the length of paper and held it in place with help from some empty soda bottles found in a nine-year-old bag of trash. He indicated the first photograph on the document. It was a satellite image of a very deep valley surrounded by some very high mountains. There were a half-dozen buildings lining one side of what looked to be a perfectly straight two-lane asphalt highway. One of these buildings looked like a Western-style ranch.

  "We're attacking Arizona?" Delaney quipped.

  Again, no one laughed.

  "This is a site located somewhere in the Suhr-bal in northeast Iraq," Smitz began, using a chewed-on pencil as a pointer. "It has no known name. However, it is about two hundred klicks from where we are now. Six buildings in all. One appears to be a barracks. One is a very smoky factory."

  "A hole in the wall," Ricco said. "So what?"

  "Well, it's an ingenious hole in the wall," Smitz said. "Look at this building. It's large enough to be a hangar. And notice this roadway. It appears to begin and end nowhere. But it's just long enough to handle both heavy cargo planes and jet fighters."

  "An airport in disguise?" one of the Army pilots asked.

  "That's the thinking," Smitz replied.

  He pointed to the high mountains.

  "Look at the topography of this place. Everything around it is at least 2500 feet high. The angles of these peaks are so sharp this place is likely to be covered in shadow for most of the daylight hours."

  He pointed to the factory-like building.

  "And no one has any idea what this place does, what it makes, if anything. But those three stacks seem to be belching out some kind of black smoke on a continuous basis."

  Smitz paused for effect.

  "Bottom line: Some people in my office believe the ArcLight gunship operates from here."

  Those gathered pulled in a little closer. They were now studying the satellite photo with renewed interest.

  "So the highway is a runway, the mountains provide the shadows to hide in, and the factory smoke obscures the airplane when the shadows don't," Norton said. "Someone kept his thinking cap on for this one."

  "That's the guess," Smitz confirmed. "This place looks innocent and unimpressive. But whoever built it went a long way to make it nearly impossible to get a good satellite read on it. Or even a U-2 flyover."

  He indicated the long ranch-style building. It looked a bit like Motel Six, back on Seven Ghosts Key.

  "Note this structure," Smitz said. "Some people in my office believe the plane's original crew is being held here. Going in and getting them out is what Team 66 has been training for."

  He pointed to an even larger building further down the "highway."

  "This might or might not be a hangar," he said. "It's big enough to house—or hide—a C-130. Whether that's its function or not, my office isn't sure. And note what could be AA gun emplacements."

  He pointed to several dark spots in the lower hills surrounding the base. If they were AA gun or missile sites, they were in the correct position to provide the valley with maximum air defense coverage—unless something was coming in real low.

  Smitz took a moment to collect his thoughts. There was no talk among the men gathered. Just a grim silence and the gentle rocking of the barge.

  "OK then," Smitz began again. "That's the target. Now here's the plan. . . ."

  The men gathered even closer around the chart table.

  "After the place has been reconnoitered," Smitz said, "we will determine the most opportune time for the ra
id. We'll go in as one. The Hinds arrive first, ride in low, and take out the AA threat. Then they will sweep the area of ground opposition. The Halos will land and half the guys from Team 66 will crash the prison building, eliminate any opposition, and free the original crew.

  "The rest of the Marines will go to the hangar, hopefully find the gunship inside, and secure it. By that time"—he turned to Norton and Delaney—"you two will have landed and—"

  Delaney quickly began waving his hands.

  "Whoa!" he said. "You want us to land? Shouldn't we be providing the air cover?"

  "Under usual circumstances, yes," Smitz replied. "But there are two things you have to do on the ground. First, as senior officers for the mission, it's up to you two to appraise the situation inside the prison building, whether it's good or bad. But more important, you have to get on board the ArcLight and determine its flight capability."

  "Well, how long will we have to do that?" Delaney asked innocently.

  "About ten seconds," Smitz replied without even looking up. "You'll have to very quickly determine whether you can fly the thing out of there or not. If you can, then you will load everyone aboard, abandon the choppers, and get the hell out of there."

  "What if we can't fly it out?" Norton asked.

  Smitz took a breath. "Well, then we put everyone on the choppers, wherever they will fit, and take off. We leave explosives inside the ArcLight, blow it up before leaving. Should that not work, you guys use your choppers' weapons on it. Fuck it up to the point of never flying again."

  They could all see Gillis and Ricco getting fidgety.

  "Where the hell do we come in?" Ricco finally asked. "Why are we even here?"