They were all standing around Spectre’s three quarter ton pickup in black tactical pants and black Army Combat Shirts. The shirts were designed to help wick away moisture with a fireproof mesh torso and thick abrasion-resistant sleeves, but it didn’t seem to be helping in the humidity. Marcus and Carpenter were both going through gear in the bed of Spectre’s truck as the others just stood and waited in silence.
Spectre was leaning against his truck bed when the silence was broken by the audible thump of what he recognized to be helicopter rotor blades. He tried to look out in the direction of the sound, but couldn’t make out a helicopter in the horizon-less sky. There was no moon, and aside from the cab light illuminating the bed of his truck, it was completely dark.
They had been standing in the open field for only thirty minutes. There was nothing left to say. They had gone over the plan once more in Marcus’s office before locking up the store and piling into Spectre’s truck to make the drive out to the Redlands. Everyone knew what they had to do.
The noise grew louder as the blacked out helicopter cleared the tree line. There were no lights on and despite the yellow markings, its black paint job made it barely visible in the moonless sky. It appeared only as a silhouette before it briefly turned on its spotlight, coming in low and fast and landing in the open field in front of them.
Carpenter and Marcus grabbed their bags and body armor and took off at a jog toward the waiting Blackhawk. They had both seen this many times before in their careers. For Carpenter, it had only been six months since the last time he mounted up and rode into battle in Afghanistan. For Marcus, it had been years, but the sounds of the rotor blades and smells of jet fuel brought back a flood of memories. It seemed like only yesterday he had been running to the same helicopter in the desert of Iraq during Desert Storm.
Baxter and Spectre lingered behind with Agent Decker, who was standing at the back of the truck. She had been with them the entire day prior and was the first person to meet them at the store for their final briefing.
“You boys have fun,” she said as Baxter and Spectre grabbed their gear. She had grudgingly agreed to stay back and provide top cover from the JTTF. She arranged a Sat phone for Baxter to carry, a last lifeline in case things really went bad to call in the cavalry. She would keep anyone from asking questions about Baxter’s whereabouts for the next twenty-four hours while continuing to work with the Department of Defense for a tactical team to secure the facility and recover Chloe and the missing aircraft. Once Baxter called with confirmation, she would be their only hope to get things moving.
Baxter gave her a thumbs up as he grabbed his gear and headed for the waiting helicopter. Spectre was stopped as he turned to grab his gear.
“Cal, wait,” Decker said, grabbing his arm as he reached to grab his bag out of the truck. “Listen, I know you’re dead set on getting this girl home, but promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
Spectre hesitated for a moment. It was the first time he had really picked up on her Georgian accent. She really was a southern belle underneath that hardened exterior.
“You mean more stupid than flying into a foreign country with a stolen helicopter just to get proof of life that we already have?” Spectre said with a grin.
“You know what I mean,” Decker replied, rolling her eyes.
“I’ll do my best,” Spectre said as he slammed the tailgate shut on his truck and headed for the Blackhawk.
Spectre lowered his head to avoid the turning rotor blades and shielded his eyes from the dust and grass being kicked up as he entered the side door of the helicopter. With the four men on board, Elvis gave a thumbs up to Browning in the right seat and the twin turbine engines spooled up as the helicopter lifted off.
Decker watched as the helicopter gained altitude and turned toward the south. As it neared the tree line, its front spotlight extinguished, leaving only the silhouette moving across the dark night sky. She got in Spectre’s truck and began the journey down the dark gravel road back to civilization. She had work to do.
Elvis and Browning leveled the Blackhawk just above the treetops and accelerated to its one hundred and thirty-five knot cruising speed. They were both wearing Night Vision Goggles attached to their helmets, but with the moonless night and low illumination, the threat of unseen towers or obstacles was still high. The two kept a constant scan as the helicopter cleared the farmlands and sped along the swamp toward the open waters of the Atlantic.
Spectre looked at his watch as he sat in the webbed seating next to the side door. In just over an hour, they would reach the landing zone and the real fun would begin.
He was still surprised at how quickly the plan came together. It helped that he was dealing with professionals. Marcus and Carpenter had been the tacticians behind the operation. Between them, they had over twenty years of experience with special operations missions. The hard part was getting Marcus to accept that technology had changed since he last put on the uniform.
Carpenter, Marcus, and Spectre met early at the range the previous morning and over coffee had come up with what they thought to be a pretty solid plan. Carpenter was dead set on assaulting the compound and taking no prisoners. Chloe would be taken out of there one way or another and they would at least stop the flow of secrets to foreign countries. It was also Carpenter that suggested that they bring C-4 Explosives and blow up the F-16 to ensure it too was safe from foreign intelligence.
But that plan didn’t survive the two agents who showed up much later in the morning. Baxter had been through several more phone calls with the SECDEF’s staff. They were still not budging on the proof issue, but on the third phone call at 7AM, one of the Marine Lieutenant Colonels on the staff admitted that if they could come up with definite proof that plane and pilot were both being held, he was sure the SECDEF would humor the idea of sending a Marine Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST) from Guantanamo Bay Naval Air Station to secure the airfield and destroy the plane.
It was a debate that went on for the better part of an hour before the final plan was drafted. Spectre wanted to get Chloe out alive. He still believed that she was a victim and that time was being wasted discussing it. The SECDEF had already proven incapable of looking at the facts and more proof wouldn’t sway his opinion. They were just wasting time.
Agent Decker, on the other hand, had come out from the back corner in defense of letting the system work for them. There was no way they could get in and out of the secured airfield alive. It was a suicide mission at best. At worst, they would all be captured and die in a Cuban prison. It was only a rescue mission if there was a chance of someone getting rescued, she argued. They just didn’t have the logistical support.
To Spectre’s surprise, Marcus was the first to agree with Agent Decker. He wasn’t sure if Marcus had fallen victim to her southern charm or if the Marine Scout Sniper was coming out of him, but it was clear Marcus liked the recon plan. It was mostly survivable, as Marcus put it.
As the Blackhawk finally went feet wet and sped just fifty feet above the calm Atlantic seas, Spectre looked over his makeshift team. They were all deep in thought, probably going over their roles in the piecemealed operation they had come up with on a bar napkin. He could see calmness in Marcus and Carpenter. They were the real warriors. They had done this hundreds of times before. It was as natural as breathing to them.
Baxter sat quietly looking out over the mounted minigun into the starry sky. Spectre wondered if he had ever been part of any tactical operation before. He was still fairly young, but he had shown a great amount of maturity in their meetings. And he had been on target in every run through they had done.
After drawing up the plans and studying the satellite imagery that Baxter and his SOUTHCOM friend had provided, the newly formed team spent the morning and most of the afternoon running through drills in the store’s configurable shoot house. They had tried to simulate as much of the airfield as they could, focusing equally on shooting in open areas and room clearing. Altho
ugh their plan was not to directly engage anyone, they all agreed that if things went south, they needed to be able to work effectively as a team.
“You ok, buddy?” Marcus asked, tapping Spectre’s leg and snapping him from his trance.
“I’m fine,” Spectre replied over the intercom. They were all wearing David Clark headsets and tied in through the helicopter cabin intercom system. Baxter and Carpenter turned to look at the two talking.
“You’re not going to get weak kneed on me are ya, fucking Air Force guy?” Marcus poked. Carpenter frowned and flipped off Marcus from across the cabin.
“Easy there old timer, you’re outnumbered,” Carpenter interjected.
Marcus turned with a devilish grin. “It’s almost as bad as having a bunch of fucking Democrats with me!”
“Ten minutes,” came the call from Elvis. They had just crossed into Cuban airspace and were nearing their designated landing zone.
The laughter ceased and the men went to work, unzipping their black tactical bags and pulling out their weapons. Spectre, Baxter, and Carpenter pulled out H&K 416s from their bags. Chambered in 5.56 NATO with semi-auto and automatic fire modes, it was a modified variant of the American M4 Carbine. They each had EOTech red dot sights with flip up magnifiers mounted to the flattop rails, as well as a flashlight and laser attachments.
Marcus had opted instead for his personal Knight’s Armament M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System rifle chambered in 7.62 x 51 with an AN/PVS-10 Sniper Night Sight scope. He had purchased it as a birthday present for himself when another nearby store had gone out of business. It had been a relative steal at $10,000 new in the box, but it made him as excited about shooting as the Red Ryder BB Gun he had as a kid. He never thought he would get to use it for real.
With their weapons ready, they each pulled out their body armor vests. They were equipped with Level III body armor with anti-trauma and anti-stab panels. While heavier than concealable vests, these black vests gave them both front and side protection from up to 7.62 caliber rounds and full stab protection. They each had MOLLE pouches for spare magazines and a knife on the left shoulder. Working at a military and police supply store had its perks, Spectre had mused earlier as they loaded up the equipment in his truck.
The helicopter cleared the shores and headed south over the sugar cane fields and farmlands. Elvis checked the map against their GPS. They were right on course and from their mission planning and imagery study, the landing zone would be off the nose soon.
Getting the helicopter had been the tricky part. As the Director of Air Operations, Browning had been used to significant leeway with air asset allocation in the past, but with the budget cuts and flying hour requirements, he had seen his freedom dwindle. A few months prior, it would have been easy. He and Elvis could have just signed out the helicopter on a cross country for hours and proficiency and no one would have blinked an eye.
But with the cutbacks, he had to be much more elaborate. So it took a little creative number crunching to find the helicopter in the fleet closest to needing depot level maintenance in Tucson and he signed it out as an early depot trip for operational necessity. He even had his maintenance team add two 230-gallon ESSS mounted fuel tanks for the trip, citing rising government contract fuel costs at civilian fields as justification for the extended range.
After repositioning the aircraft to nearby Homestead General Airport, the two met with the team at the store to discuss infiltration and exfiltration options and possible landing zones. They scoured the imagery and ran through various scenarios, finally settling on four possible landing zones. Two were directly north of the airfield, each about a mile from the perimeter fence, and the other two were due east about a half mile.
These LZs were adequately out of the line of sight of any possible roving patrols, and miles from the nearest farmhouses. At the predawn hours they had planned, they could easily get in under the cover of darkness without waking anyone to alert the Cuban authorities.
The Blackhawk continued over the sugar cane fields as it approached the primary landing zone. Under his Night Vision Goggles, Elvis kept a lookout for any people or animals that could pose a potential hazard. With the LZ cleared, he raised the helicopter’s nose and began to slow for the landing.
Spectre chambered a round in his H&K 416 and checked the Kimber Ultra TLE 1911 handgun in his drop leg holster. He was hopeful that their intel had been correct, and no one would be anywhere near them when they landed, but he wasn’t about to be caught off guard. His adrenaline started pumping as the tail wheel touched down followed by the main wheels and Carpenter opened the side door.
Carpenter and Marcus jumped out of the helicopter first and ran out twenty feet from the helicopter. In unison, they each dropped to a knee and established a perimeter. Spectre and Baxter followed suit from the opposite door and established a perimeter from the other side.
Carpenter keyed the throat mike on his Motorola radio and announced, “All clear.”
With the perimeter secured, the Blackhawk’s powerful turbine engines spooled down as the rotor blades slowed. Despite the extended fuel tanks, they had decided it would draw the least attention to have the helo land and shut down versus risking being spotted on radar or someone seeing it flying around in a holding pattern and alerting the local authorities or the military.
As the rotors slowed to a stop, the men regrouped near the front of the helicopter and pulled their Night Vision Goggles from their bags. Their mission had finally begun.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Castro Field, Cuba
The team made their way through the narrow rows of the sugar cane fields as they progressed toward the preplanned observation position. Aside from the buzzing of cicadas and the occasional farm animal heard rustling in the distance, it was a fairly quiet night. The men had managed to move quietly through the fields despite their weapons, body armor, and additional gear they carried.
They kept their weapons low and ready, using their Night Vision Goggles to scan for patrols or farmers as they slowly crossed dirt roads and footpaths from field to field. Because they were only a mile away, they were able to move slowly and quietly using deliberate movements. Stealth was the only option for this mission.
Marcus and Carpenter still seemed right at home. They both were at the front of the column, navigating the team from the landing zone into their observation position, while Baxter and Spectre brought up the rear. Despite a seemingly endless amount of ribbing from Marcus as they packed their gear, Carpenter was using a Garmin handheld GPS receiver while Marcus stuck to his map and compass to navigate the route they had selected the day prior.
The men were on high alert, but despite the danger and fear of being discovered, Spectre’s mind was wandering. He thought about Chloe and her captors. She was strong. He had always known her to be a strong woman, but surviving for this long with foreign interrogators would be tough for anyone. He wondered if they had even planned on keeping her alive. Was her information more valuable than killing her and being done?
He tried to push the thought out of his head. He wanted to believe she was still alive. He had to believe she was still alive. They had been through too much together. They had their own love story together.
He found himself reliving their proposal. It hadn’t been anything creative or fancy. He had asked his father for the ring a few weeks prior. It had been his mother’s before she died in a tragic car accident, and before that, her mother’s. He thought Chloe would appreciate the significance. He wanted a simple, but meaningful, gesture.
She had flown up to Washington, D.C. to spend the Veterans Day weekend with Jack, Evan, and her mom. Congresswoman Ridley had been asked to speak at a Women Air Service Pilots function honoring the women who served as pilots in the Army at home during World War II. These women had been the pioneers of military aviation for women, and Chloe didn’t want to miss the opportunity to meet them.
Chloe had asked Spectre to go with her, but Spectre used the store a
s a cover for declining, secretly buying a ticket to surprise her instead. His goal was to show up on Friday evening, propose in front of her family, and accompany her to the WASP function to watch her mom speak the next night. It wasn’t the most romantic of plans, but he thought the surprise and the gesture of proposing in front of the people she cared about most would be well received.
Spectre had even coordinated with one of the Congresswoman’s staffers, letting him in on the plan and using him for intel on where the family would be eating that evening. It was there he planned to pop the question and solidify their relationship.
He showed up with flowers in hand, just as they were ordering drinks. It was at this moment he realized his first tactical error. He had coordinated with the Congresswoman’s aide, but had neglected to talk to the Congresswoman or Jack. So the woman that was barely fond of him in the beginning was now unpleasantly surprised by his sudden appearance.
“Cal? How’d you find me?” a surprised, wide-eyed Chloe asked, breaking the awkward silence.
Spectre immediately regretted his decision until a smiling Chloe stood and hugged him. “I mean, I’m so glad you came. I’m just really shocked you’re here. I had no idea!”
The waiter took Spectre’s coat and offered him a chair next to Chloe. It had been an awkward meal for Spectre. He could almost feel the disapproval from her mother hanging thick in the air. But the second tactical error was only realized at the end of the meal.
Spectre made his prepared speech to the table that recounted his time with Chloe and the love they shared, only to realize, as he reached for his jacket pocket, that his coat was in the coat check closet, along with the ring. Not wanting to ruin the moment, Spectre aborted the speech and instead thanked everyone for having him for dinner on such short notice. They had all been so confused.
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