by Dale Brown
While all four of the new Whiplash team members making the jump were parachute-qualified, only one had used the plane before. That made Hera Scokas the team jumpmaster.
Her role as scold came naturally.
“Yo, get moving,” she barked as the last of the three crates began sliding down the ramp. “Come on, Shugee.”
“My name ain’t ‘Shugee,’ honey,” snapped Clar “Sugar” Keeb, who was going out first. Like Hera, Sugar was a CIA paramilitary officer. A black woman raised in Detroit, she’d served in the Army for eight years before joining the Agency. At five-ten and 200 pounds, she had more than a half foot advantage over Scokas, and would have decked her had she been nearby.
She didn’t mind being called Sugar. Everybody used it. Clar’s nickname had been applied by an aunt because of how sweet she liked to make her Rice Krispies when she was two, and she’d lived with it ever since. Shugee, though, was out of bounds.
Sugar put her gloved hand against her oxygen mask, making sure it was tight. Then she unhooked her safety belt and stepped off the ramp, pushing her body forward to fall in a frog position.
The sky ate her up. Night jumps at 35,000 feet were not Sugar’s idea of fun. The wind seemed to sense that, and crushed the top of her helmet against her head. She slid hard to the left, off-balance. A large arrow appeared in the middle of her visor, pointing to roughly two o’clock.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she mumbled, tilting her body back to get on course.
Ten meters above her, John “Flash” Gordon felt the baloney sandwich he’d eaten just before the flight pushing back up through his esophagus. In the six years he’d been in the Army Special Forces, he’d never had a baloney sandwich. He’d also never eaten before a jump, not since an unfortunate experience during an early qualifying jump, where his stomach had revolted at 7,000 feet.
His change in routine had been as inexplicable as it was unfortunate.
Flash clamped his mouth shut and concentrated on the arrow in his helmet. He was right on course.
Hera, meanwhile, was in the plane, waiting for the fourth member of the team to unhook his safety harness so she could jump after him.
The man she was waiting for, Carl McGowan, was experiencing one of the downsides of the safety strap — the snap on the hook was difficult to manipulate while wearing gloves.
“Yo, Tailgunner, we jumping today? Or next week?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep your bra on,” muttered McGowan.
The lever finally gave way. McGowan pushed off the side and took a running leap down the ramp, flying forward into the air as if he were diving into a pool.
As he fell away from the plane, it occurred to him that he would much prefer that Hera took her bra off. She had an A-1 body, even if she was meaner than the bastards who’d worked him through SEAL Hell Week a decade and a half before.
* * *
Down on the ground, Boston scanned the desert with his night glasses, making sure that neither Red Henri nor any of his competitors were approaching. A CIA Global Hawk had been detailed into the area for the night, but he trusted his own eyes more than any high-tech sensor. The fact that he was using a high-tech sensor to greatly magnify what his eyes could see didn’t change his opinion.
Danny checked his watch. The Voice had announced the launching of each crate and Whiplash crew member, along with its estimated time of landing. If he wanted, he could listen to updates on where each was going to land. But he didn’t feel much like listening to a play-by-play, so he told the Voice to alert him only if any of the jumpers or crates was going off course by more than twenty-five yards.
Fifty years before, falling within twenty-five yards of a target would have been considered a reasonable performance, perhaps even an outstanding one. World War II paratroopers struggled with barely steerable parachutes and air crews who often found themselves navigating mostly by instinct. Now the technology was so advanced that packages could be practically delivered to a front door.
Not that skill and human error were completely removed from the equation. The team members had hit a heavy crosswind after deploying their chutes, and struggled to remain on course as they dropped over the last 5,000 feet. Danny, monitoring the team communications channel through the Voice, heard the jumpers cursing and complaining as they coped with the wind. Even with the night vision screens built into their jump helmets, the darkness hampered their depth perception.
“Sounds like they’ve been working together for a while,” he told Boston.
The first cargo chute came down about five yards off target, its winglike canopy making a loud hush as it fell. The second and third hit precisely on their crosshairs, each twelve and a half yards progressively north, each thumping against their protective bottoms with a satisfying cru-ump.
Then came the team members.
Sugar hit first, landing about five yards to the east of her target. Then came Flash, who hit exactly on his target mark, and within.03 seconds of the computed time for landing originally calculated when he left the plane. McGowan came down twenty-two yards from his target, directly due north of Hera’s landing spot. This meant Hera had to steer away to avoid a collision. Her corrections sent her roughly fifty yards off the mark, making her jump the worst of the group.
“Hey jumpmaster,” said Sugar, “looks like you kinda missed, huh?”
“Whoa,” said Flash. “You ain’t telling me the jumpmaster with, like, five hundred years of experience, blew her jump so badly she just about landed in the Atlantic.”
“All right, let’s get moving,” barked Boston. “We have to get these crates unwrapped and packed into the bus.”
Hera folded her parachute, angry but knowing that explaining why she’d had to go so far off course was only going to bring greater derision.
The crates were designed to be broken down quickly. Still, it took over three hours for the team to get everything onto the bus. They fashioned a rack out of the cargo containers for the roof, giving Abul fits as he worried about the lines breaking the frames on the bus’s windows.
“I don’t think the motorcycle will fit in the bus,” said Boston as they finished. “Maybe we should drive it back.”
“And who’s going to drive it?” asked Danny.
“Gee, I don’t know.” Boston smiled. “We could draw straws, or just go by rank.”
“Officers excluded?” said Danny.
“Oh yeah. This is strictly an enlisted thing.”
“What about those of us who aren’t in the Army?” asked Sugar.
“Hey, I’m not in the Army,” said McGowan. “So I oughta get dibs.”
“I’ll ride it back,” said Danny, taking the handlebars. “I think Chief Rockland needs a little time to bond with his people.”
“Thanks,” said Boston.
* * *
The bike was a Ducati, remade for special operations work under contract to the Technology Office. It had an extra large gas tank, and a heavy duty suspension to accommodate the weight of a soldier with a full complement of gear. It lacked the glossy paint normally associated with Italian motorcycles, and included a few accessories not normally found in street bikes, like a miniature forward-looking infrared radar mounted in the headlight assembly. But it was still a Ducati, and Danny had a blast riding it back to the base, running ahead of the bus. The dirt road was just loose enough to add maneuvering interest as he zipped up the hills.
His fun lasted all of ten minutes, as the Voice announced that a pair of Jeep-sized vehicles were approaching on the road south. The computer calculated that the bus would arrive at the highway within thirty seconds of the Jeeps.
He had the Voice cut into the team radio channel.
“Boston, have Abul stop for a while,” he said. “Two Jeeps are heading our way. I don’t want them to see you.”
“No problem, Cap. How’s the bike?”
“It’s nice. I’m going to get a little closer to the road and have a look at these guys.”
“Roger th
at.”
Danny leaned on the gas, accelerating so he could get near the road well before the other vehicles. The oversized muffler and heat dissipater turned the trademark Ducati roar into a low moan — a sin, really.
He stopped about a half mile from the road and lay the bike down gently in the dirt. Adjusting the infrared image from the motorcycle, he zeroed in on a rise in the road about a mile to the north and waited.
“Estimate time for the vehicles to pass,” Danny asked the Voice.
“Three minutes, eighteen seconds.”
“Can you identify them?”
“Negative.”
“Are they Sudanese army?”
“The army does not operate Jeeps.”
“They’re real Jeeps?”
“Chrysler Motors, model year 2001.”
“Do these belong to Red Henri?”
“Vehicles are not among types known to be operated by East Sudanese Liberation Crew headed by rebel known as Red Henri.”
The Voice listed three probabilities: two rebel groups that operated to the west, and an aid organization, which was headquartered far to the north. Danny doubted it was the aid group — even do-gooders knew better than to drive out here at night.
The lead Jeep took the hill at about forty miles an hour, cresting into his view. It carried four men; the rear Jeep held two.
They began slowing, and Danny sensed that they were going to turn up the road toward the camp. Sure enough, the lead vehicle stopped abruptly just past the turnoff, then backed up and began climbing the hill. He had the Voice project the image from the Global Hawk into the control unit, watching as the Jeeps continued on the road toward their camp.
“Nuri, you on the line?” Danny asked over the Voice’s communications channel.
“Yeah, I’m looking at them on the laptop.”
“Who are they? Do you know?”
“No idea. I’d guess rebels, but that’s pretty obvious.”
“Maybe you oughta hide up in the rocks.”
“Maybe. Let’s see what happens.”
* * *
Back at the bus, the Whiplash team members were developing a shared case of cabin fever. They had spent the better part of the last three days traveling, first to report for the assignment and then to get into position to make the jump. None of them, Boston included, liked the idea that they were sitting and waiting in the desert, as if afraid of a couple of locals in old Jeeps.
Hera pushed her feet against the seat back, trying to keep her muscles from going into spasm.
“Hey Chief — when we are we moving?” she asked.
“Soon as Colonel Freah says we’re good to go.”
“When’s that going to be?”
“It’ll be when it is,” said Boston.
“That’s a line of Plato, isn’t it?” said McGowan.
“Who’s Plato?” asked Boston.
“Plato’s that guy in the Popeye cartoons who ate all the hamburgers,” said Flash.
“No, you’re thinking of Pluto.”
“I know who Plato is, asshole,” snapped Boston, but no one heard him — they were too busy trying to remember the cast of the ancient cartoons.
* * *
Because they’d had to scramble to pull the operation together, Flash, McGowan, Hera, and Sugar had joined Whiplash as provisional members. There was no question that they were qualified; all had proven themselves in covert operations in the past.
But impressive résumés didn’t make a good team great. Boston knew all too well that the opposite could be true. The success or failure of a group depended very much on the chemistry between them, whether they were trying for a pennant in baseball or sneaking behind enemy lines in battle. Even if he had personally vetted everyone in the group, he still wouldn’t have been sure how they would all work together in the field.
What he’d seen so far didn’t encourage him. They’d pitched in to help secure the gear well enough. But he could tell they were still checking each other out, deciding whether they wanted to trust each other.
* * *
“Brutus was the guy Popeye beat up,” said Boston, in a tone that suggested the conversation should end. “Wally was the hamburger guy.”
“You’re wrong,” said Flash. “It was Bluto.”
“It’s amazing how grown men can argue about cartoons,” said Hera.
“We aren’t arguing. We’re discussing,” said McGowan.
“This is about as intellectual a discussion as those jawbonis can have,” said Sugar.
“Who are you calling a jawboni?” said McGowan. “I’m Scots — I don’t do jawboni.”
“All right,” said Boston. Sensing the animosity level starting to rise behind the joking, he decided it was time to act less like a chief and more like a kindergarten teacher. “Who wants ice cream?”
* * *
Danny worked out a plan in his head to ambush the men in the Jeep if they went into the camp. But it wasn’t necessary. The Jeeps continued up the road without turning off, moving through the hills.
They brought the bus into camp twenty minutes later and began unpacking. The gear seemed to have gained about a thousand pounds in the five miles from the drop. The process dragged as they sorted, stored, and installed. Even Danny grew tired. He kept himself going the last hour or so thinking about Reid’s ice cream.
With everything finally squared away a half hour before sunrise, he divided up the watch, then headed to the house and its makeshift kitchen for a prebedtime snack.
Only to find the ice cream gone.
“You always said the troops were the first priority,” Boston said when Danny asked for an explanation.
“From now on, they’re the first priority on everything but ice cream.”
13
Sudan desert
The jeeps that Danny had seen did not belong to one of the rebel factions. They were actually carrying Bani Aberhadji south to a small village about forty-five miles southeast of the base camp.
The Iranian Guard official was visiting the village, located in the shadow of the hills, as part of his inspection tour. The village was under the control of a Sudan rebel and former regular army officer known as Colonel Zsar. Zsar was a comparatively modest man — he’d been a captain when he deserted the army, and a promotion of only two ranks showed considerable restraint. He couldn’t be called humble — a humble man would not have survived here — but he was a devout Shiite Muslim, a minority, if not quite a rarity, in this part of Africa.
Colonel Zsar’s force of fighters totaled over five hundred, and when his loose allies farther east were counted, over a thousand. Just as importantly, he was well-armed, with several pickup trucks and even a pair of armored cars supplementing a small-arms arsenal rich in automatic rifles, grenade launchers, and heavy machine guns. Colonel Zsar had a half-dozen light artillery pieces and several heavy mortars. Rumors of these weapons were widespread and one reason the Sudanese army had never attempted even a token appearance in his area of control.
There were several reasons for Colonel Zsar’s success. Though not a charismatic leader, he was able to influence followers with a calm and reassuring personal style. Though confident in battle, he did not overreach, choosing battles carefully and, like most of the successful rebels, he avoided major confrontations with regular army soldiers on anything less than overwhelmingly favorable terms.
He also had a strong defensive base to work from, protected by the hills and close to the border. Not only was he far enough from the main centers of government control to make it difficult for them to launch a large attack, he was isolated from most of the other rebels as well.
Like other successful rebels, Colonel Zsar had a steady source of income to pay for his army. But his was unique — the village he controlled was a modest manufacturing center, turning out small wooden and clay bowls, miscellaneous pottery, and wooden shovels. Zsar charged the owners a small tax in exchange for keeping order. Lately he had taken over one of the pottery fa
ctories himself, and added two others, both related to agriculture. One skinned cows and occasionally other animals, selling the meat and tanning the hides for use elsewhere. The other processed milk — collecting it and pasteurizing it. By Western standards, the operations were small and primitive. But here they were major sources of employment and veritable economic powerhouses.
It was the economic base that had brought Colonel Zsar to Bani Aberhadji’s notice some two years before. And when his emissary in Sudan, Arash Tarid, reported that Zsar was a fellow Shiite, Aberhadji knew he had found the perfect situation.
Tarid was at the wheel of the lead Jeep, driving Bani Aberhadji to the village below Colonel Zsar’s fortress headquarters. Colonel Zsar’s foray into entrepreneurship had been made possible by Aberhadji’s generosity, and he was coming specifically to visit his milk factory.
The colonel had not been notified of the visit. Undoubtedly he would see the Jeeps, realize they belonged to Tarid, and rush to meet them. Aberhadji did wish to see him — the personal touch was important, after all — but first he wanted to see the plant.
“There are no guards?” said the Iranian as they came near the village. It was well-off for Africa, but the ragtag collection of shacklike houses, old huts, and battered trailers and prefabs would have been considered a poor slum in Iran.
“No, they’ve seen us and recognized the Jeeps,” said Tarid. “If they didn’t, they would have fired at us by now.”
“You’re sure of this.”
“Yes.”
Tarid was not himself comfortable with the level of security, but it was typical among the rebels, even extensive. The lookouts might not even have been awake. But even the most alert would know that two Western-style vehicles did not pose an immediate threat, and intercepting them was far more likely to cause problems than merely watching.