by Dirk Patton
As we flew over the southern part of the state, we all started getting ready. First order of the day was to get stripped down and don the polypropylene underwear that would protect us from the intense cold when we first exited the aircraft. For a few minutes we all looked like big kids wearing our Doctor Denton footy pajamas at a party. But kids didn’t wear skin tight, thermal underwear, and sure didn’t look like Martinez. Scott and Yee were doing their best, but couldn’t help steal appreciative glances at her. Grinning and ignoring all of them, I finished dressing in my combat fatigues, finally slipping into the bat suit which also was well insulated. Boots back on, I packed everything else away into my pack, then stacked a helmet, insulated hoodie, goggles and my rifle on top of it.
Next I inserted a small earpiece for a tactical radio then slipped into an oxygen mask that covered the lower half of my face, plugging the end of the supply line into a narrow tube that was mounted to a bulkhead. The tube supplied pure oxygen which was all we would breathe until on the ground in Los Alamos. To prevent the bends it is necessary to purge your bloodstream of all the nitrogen that is naturally occurring in the atmosphere. To do this you need to breathe pure oxygen for at least half an hour before jumping. We had more time than that, but I knew a SEAL years ago that hadn’t properly pre-breathed and was hit so hard with the bends on the way down that he couldn’t control his jump and wound up dead. I might die in Los Alamos, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to be because I hadn’t prepared.
Checking on the other three, I received a thumbs up from each of them as they plugged into the plane’s oxygen and confirmed it was flowing into their masks. Moving forward, careful to make sure I didn’t snag my O2 line, I stuck my head into the cockpit.
“I was about to call you. Phoenix coming up on our left.” The pilot said when he looked around and saw me.
It wasn’t practical for me to switch places with the co-pilot to gain access to the imaging controls, so I talked the man through finding my house. It was dark below, much of the sprawling metropolitan area showing no signs of life. There were occasional pockets of electric light that looked like small neighborhoods, but they were few and far between.
The monitor was displaying the feed from a high definition night vision camera and I was easily able to identify landmarks. The co-pilot made adjustments with a small joy stick, finding Sky Harbor airport in the middle of the city, then following the ten lane freeway that ran right by it. The same freeway I’d driven to the airport a few weeks ago when I’d left on my trip to Atlanta. For a moment I idly wondered if the car was still where I’d left it in long term parking. Dismissing the thought, I watched as the camera panned along the freeway which was clogged with wrecked and abandoned vehicles.
As the view kept panning to the eastern suburbs it struck me that there was no movement. No people moving. No infected moving. Not even animals. Where the hell did four and a half million people go? That wasn’t a question I could answer from 40,000 feet in the air. Eyes glued to the monitor, I spotted the freeway exit for the area of town I lived in and the camera adjusted to a new angle as I gave directions to the co-pilot. Soon I recognized neighborhoods, my stomach clenching when all I saw were burned out husks that had once been houses. Following the streets, I counted the number of turns, and saw the iron gates that controlled access to my neighborhood.
The gates were torn out of the stone columns they had been mounted to, lying to the side of the road in the front lawn of the president of our HOA. That house had burned as well. Following a couple more streets I started counting, still seeing nothing other than the remains of large homes that had burned. Then I spotted my house. Or what used to be my house. I made sure I was looking at the right one by checking the shape of the pool in the back yard. Katie and I had put a lot of time into designing the perfect pool for us, and my heart sank when I saw it was only half full of water, debris from the house piled around the edge from the back wall having collapsed.
I stood there staring for a long time. Until this moment I had refused to accept that Katie wasn’t sitting at home waiting for me. Getting up early every morning, doing yoga for an hour then running five miles before taking a swim in the pool. While I knew that I had been clinging to hope and fantasy, reality didn’t hit me until I saw the destruction. And reality hit hard. I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything except stare at the monitor.
We were moving northeast and would soon be out of visual range. The co-pilot made adjustments with the joy stick to keep my house centered in the image, clicking a button to zoom in. He zoomed in a bit more, leaned forward to stare at the screen then turned to face me.
“There’s no vehicles in what’s left of the garage. Should there be?” I didn’t understand what he was saying at first, then leaned forward to look at where he was pointing.
No vehicles! I had driven Katie’s car to the airport the day I’d left because my truck won’t fit in the low ceilinged parking garage. She always bitched about it, usually preferring to drop me off and pick me up so she had her small Mercedes and didn’t have to drive my behemoth. This time she had plans to meet a friend for coffee, so I’d driven myself, leaving my truck at the house. The truck was gone! Had she gotten out?
She and I had spent a lot of time four wheeling in the Arizona desert and mountains, and we lived so far out of the city that it was just a five minute drive to Tonto National Forest. She had access to guns and a very capable four wheel drive truck. And she was smart, tough and practical. I’d always thought she would have made a hell of an SF Operator. Well, if she didn’t get pissed off and shoot a superior for telling her what to do. Very early in our marriage I’d made the mistake of trying to assert my male dominance and tell her the way something was going to be. I’d never repeated that error.
While I was thinking this we moved out of camera range and the co-pilot shut down the display. I thanked him for helping and returned to the back, sitting down and feeling hope displace the despair that had washed over me when I’d gotten my first look at the house. Was I being foolishly optimistic? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Katie was tough enough to survive. Sometimes she could act like a pampered princess, but if she’d had time to arm herself, gather up food and water and get in the truck, there was a reasonable chance she was alive.
19
“Ten minutes.” The pilot called out, his voice clear over our secure earpieces.
Ten minutes to jump. We were over northern New Mexico, flying at 35,000 feet AGL or Above Ground Level. I had slipped the insulated hoodie over my head and attached it to the collar of the underwear. Goggles and helmet were in place, heavy gloves held in my left hand. I triple checked the altimeter and GPS unit attached to my left sleeve, ensuring that when the altimeter read ZERO it was actually 7,300 feet above sea level which is the elevation of the mesa Los Alamos sits on. Get this wrong and you either open your chute too early or too late. Too early is bad, too late is generally fatal.
Satisfied with the altimeter, I made sure the right coordinates were in the GPS. Captain Blanchard had provided me with high resolution coordinates for the building where the SADMs were stored, and I planned to come down on its roof. 10 years ago I would have felt confident that I could pull that off. Now, I’d be satisfied to come down within the city limits. Without any broken bones.
Moving through the space, I went to each of the AF personnel and had them show me their altimeters and GPS. They were all set correctly, as they had been the first two times I’d checked. Scott and Yee looked at ease, having made jumps with Army SF units in Afghanistan. Martinez tried to show a calm exterior, but I could hear her rapid and shallow breathing over the radio. I stopped and stuck my face in front of hers, peering at her through my goggles.
“Just another jump, Captain. Remember your training, keep your body under control while we’re falling, and pull at 1,500. Good to go?”
She licked her lips nervously and nodded. Reaching out, I placed a hand on her shoulder and left it there. She look
ed me in the eye and I said nothing, just looking at her until I heard her breathing even out. When it did, she nodded again and I gave her a smile and moved on.
“Five minutes.” The lighting inside the bomber changed from white to red. Light in the red spectrum does not affect human night vision and was used to allow us to still see, but at the same time adjust to the darkness waiting outside the aircraft.
Disconnecting my air supply from the line attached to the bulkhead, I connected to the small aluminum bottle strapped to my body which would supply oxygen during the fall. Shuffling to the back of the aircraft I stood facing the rear. My pack was heavy and cumbersome, strapped as it was to my lower abdomen and upper thighs. The parachute was light on my back and I took a moment to check all the straps, pulling them as tight as I could get them, especially the ones that went between my legs. Many years ago I had failed to make sure those two straps were tight before jumping. The looseness allowed one of my nuts to shift underneath the strap, which was fine, until my canopy opened and those straps suddenly snapped taut to slow my descent. Definitely a lesson I will never forget.
I pulled my gloves on and looked at my GPS. A small red dot pulsed at the bottom edge of the screen, meaning the target was behind me, in the direction we were traveling. The bomber had slowed to just above stall speed when we’d descended to 35,000 feet and we would go out the back door a few seconds before the plane flew directly over our target. Our forward momentum would bleed off very quickly when we hit the air, then we would form up and “fly” ourselves down to 1,500 feet where we would open our chutes and steer to the drop location.
The automated weather unit at Los Alamos airport was still transmitting and the pilot had let me know there was only a two knot wind out of the east at ground level. That was nice to know, but I was also worried about what we would encounter on the way down. It was summer time, and the barren terrain below had been baking in the sun all day. Now that it was night the rock and sand would be radiating heat, creating updrafts which in turn would create downdrafts. A strong updraft could cause us to miss our target by miles. A strong downdraft could cause us to fall thousands of feet in a couple of seconds, making it difficult or impossible to get our canopies deployed and make a safe landing.
Putting all of this out of my head, I glanced over my shoulders to make sure my small unit was ready. Sergeant Scott stood a step behind and to my right, Yee in the same position on my left, Martinez sandwiched between them. I would lead the way off the ramp, the three of them tight behind me, and if Martinez hesitated, Scott and Yee were ready to each grab an arm and bring her with us. Her best chance of making this successfully was staying right behind us and doing what we did, when we did it.
“De-pressurizing now.” The pilot spoke over the radio. Moments later my ears popped as he equalized the pressure within the aircraft with the thin air outside. Both pilots were now wearing oxygen masks as well as having sealed the door to the cockpit which remained pressurized. Their wearing of the masks was just a precaution in the event the seal on the door failed while the main part of the plane was open to the outside environment.
“Thirty seconds. Opening now.” I felt a slight vibration in the soles of my boots as the sloped back wall directly to my front started lowering. A thin gap opened between the ceiling and the wall, quickly widening as the wall lowered and became a ramp that extended back into space from the main body of the bomber. I stepped forward, stopping with six feet of ramp between me and a nearly seven mile drop. Scott, Yee and Martinez moved forward to keep us tight, Scott and Yee placing a hand on my shoulder briefly to let me know they were ready. I was depending on them to monitor the Captain.
“Ten seconds. Good luck and God speed, gentlemen and lady.” The pilot said before going into a countdown. When he said “five”, I leaned myself slightly forward and shifted my weight to the balls of my feet. When he said “one” I took a deep breath, let it out and stepped off with a fast stride as he started saying “Go! Go! Go!”
In two steps I covered the six feet to the edge of the ramp, launching myself out into space as I ran out of the aircraft. I immediately spread my legs apart and reached my arms out to each side to stabilize my body. The surfaces of the bat suit caught the thin air and allowed me to make a sweeping turn so I was facing in the same direction as the departing bomber. I took a second to look up, catching a quick glimpse of red light as the ramp closed tightly, then it disappeared from my sight.
“Report.” I said over the radio.
“Boomer 2 in pattern.” Sergeant Scott answered. Moments later both Yee and Martinez checked in. Martinez sounded a little breathless, but nothing too concerning. If she wasn’t scared she wouldn’t be human.
“Doing OK, Martinez?”
“Time of my fucking life, sir.” Martinez panted back. I smiled, knowing she was scared, but glad to hear her sarcasm. She was doing great for her first combat jump.
Below us was nothing but darkness. Far to the south I could see lights and guessed that was Kirtland AFB and the Russians. Glancing at my GPS I was glad to see us on target, and a check of the altimeter showed we had already fallen 5,000 feet. Another check of the GPS to satisfy myself and I relaxed a notch and tried to see anything on the ground below me. Nothing. No lights, candles, campfires…nothing.
As we passed through 25,000 feet I issued the command to spread our spacing over the radio. Each of them acknowledged, Martinez sounding a little shaky. We were falling in a stack, me at the bottom and Martinez at the top, and were too close together to safely deploy our chutes when we reached 1,500 feet. To deal with that, we’d start spacing ourselves out now.
I would adopt a slight head down position for a few seconds, causing me to fall faster and pull away from my jump mates who would flatten their bodies in the horizontal plane and use wind resistance to let me gain separation from them. When I was far enough below, Sergeant Scott in the number two slot would do the same thing, then finally Yee. All Martinez had to do was not fall faster than the rest of us and we’d pop out of the fall and touch down within seconds of each other.
Checking the GPS I noted we had drifted a little off course and made a correction. By 10,000 feet we were back on target, and that’s when the first updraft hit us. I had been falling smoothly through calm air, the altimeter winding down at an almost constant pace, when suddenly I was pushed hard and knocked off course. Curses over the radio a heartbeat later told me I wasn’t the only one. As fast as the updraft hit, we were out of it and after I stabilized my body I checked the altimeter and GPS. 8,500 feet and off target.
“Check GPS,” I called out to my team and twisted my body to get back on course. I hadn’t fully adjusted when I flew into a downdraft. For a fraction of a second it seemed like I had stopped falling, then it felt more like one of those amusement park rides that drops you and leaves your stomach behind. More curses over the radio.
It only took a few seconds for me to pass out of the downdraft, but when I did I checked the altimeter and wasn’t happy to see how much my rate of descent had been affected. I was passing through 4,000 feet and the GPS told me I was off target by almost four miles. I had been to Los Alamos before, while in the Army and later as a civilian just playing tourist. I knew the mesa the small city sat on wasn’t very large, and four miles off our target could easily cause us to miss the mountain top completely and wind up in a several thousand foot deep canyon. As so often happens, the plan had to change to deal with new circumstances.
“Pull now!” I shouted into the radio. “Pull! Pull! Pull!”
Following my own order I reached behind me and pulled the pilot chute of its pocket, releasing it into the air. I heard it flutter out into my slipstream, and a moment later it inflated, pulled the pin and released the main canopy. The black fabric made a snapping sound when it filled with air and I let out an involuntary grunt when my fall was suddenly arrested. I heard two more snaps above me, waiting for the third, looking up when I didn’t. Above and behind me I could see
two canopies, darker patches against the dark, starry sky, then a body fell past me.
20
The four men hadn’t wanted to lay their rifles down, but Jackson convinced them by having the door gunner fire a one second burst from the minigun into the ground in front of them. Water and mud erupted into the air, then they couldn’t disarm themselves fast enough. Rifles in the water, the pilot descended to a hover with the Black Hawk’s tires just brushing the green tops of the rice paddy, its rotor whipping up a maelstrom of water, mud and debris. Jackson and the two Rangers jumped out the open door, rifles immediately coming up to cover the men.
“Disarm them and get them up on the road.” Jackson ordered and turned to check on Rachel. She was wading through the paddy, using big strides to move easier through the water, looking intently at the door of the Black Hawk as it climbed and went into a low orbit around the area. Dog trotted up to Jackson and nuzzled his hand.
“You OK?” Jackson asked as Rachel walked up to him.
“We’re good, but we wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t showed up. Thank you.” She was talking to Jackson but looking up at the orbiting helicopter.
“You’re welcome, and he’s not here. He’s on a mission to retrieve some equipment we need to deal with the Russians. Before he left he made me promise to keep looking for you.” Rachel smiled a sad smile then a confused look passed across her face.
“Russians? What are you talking about?”
“They’ve invaded. Attacked us right after you four went into the river. That’s why it’s taken us so long to find you.”
“Four? John came in after us?”
“Didn’t even hesitate. Couldn’t have been more than a few seconds behind you, but it’s a big river and he couldn’t find you. We plucked him out and that’s when the goddamn Russians showed up.”