Proximity: A Novel of the Navy's Elite Bomb Squad

by Stephen Phillips

  The bugging team was back in the van in fifteen minutes.

  “Entry, clear.”

  “Roger, all units stand down. We’ll rendezvous in one hour,” said Kilkenney.

  “Well, I needed that,” Melanie said pointing to the last of the slushy green margarita as she entered the kitchen.

  “Yeah, I keep forgetting to get Judy’s recipe, she should be a bartender.”

  The company and alcohol put Melanie in good spirits, but the buzz was wearing off now. Only she and Jeannie remained, cleaning the kitchen and sipping sodas.

  “I suppose the baby will sleep good tonight,” giggled Jeannie.

  “I know, and so will the boys,” replied Melanie. “That is the second best thing about ‘Margarita Night’...the boys sleep in on Saturday mornings.”

  “How is Tyler doing?”

  “He is still taking it hard, they both are, but it is still hardest with Tyler... he just doesn’t understand.”

  Jeannie looked over the breakfast bar to their children playing in the living room. She kept her eyes on them as she said, “Makes ya want to get out sometimes doesn’t it?”

  “That, and being in South Texas.”

  “You don’t like it here?”

  “Not at all. The only redeeming thing for me is the schools.”

  “Mel, I can hear acid in your voice. You’re serious.”

  “I am serious. I have finally realized that I can’t take this life anymore. I’m going to tell Jazz to get out.”

  “Holy shit, girlfriend! Really?”

  “Yep, I’ve had it.”

  “Wow. Well... when?”

  “I’ll wait until he gets back. There isn’t anything we can do about it now.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Albania

  The door on the starboard side and the stern ramp of the MH-53 Sea Dragon, “Hurricane 224” were open. Jazz’s seat across from the door provided him a good view of the Albanian countryside. At a high altitude the countryside looked sparsely populated. They only passed one or two villages. Luscious green farmland stretched from the Adriatic to the mountains, which dramatically rose from the plain.

  The -53 really was a behemoth, the largest helicopter in the U.S. inventory. It sported eight blades, three engines and a cargo hold big enough for an old style military jeep. Now the hold was empty except for four aircrewmen and four EOD Techs. Jazz’s security team included himself, Keating, Ashland, and T-Ball. Ashland lay prone, sleeping as usual. Two members of the aircrew sat on the open tail with their feet dangling over the side. Through the opening Jazz could see another -53 trailing them, Hurricane 218. Inside were Grover Denke, Dee, Sinclair, and Quinn.

  The green dive bag on the deck at Jazz’s feet was open. He peered inside, checking that he had all the proper equipment.

  Flak vest, load bearing vest, 210 rounds of 5.56, 45 rounds of 9mm, butt pack. Kevlar helmet. MRE, first aid kit, GPS, toilet paper in butt pack. Three day pack. Camelbak. AN/PRC-112 for emergency comms, rain poncho in three-day pack.

  Jazz leaned back into his M-16A3 placed behind the canvas seat. He had collapsed the stock and pointed the barrel toward the deck for their transit into Albania. On his left hip was his nine-millimeter pistol, the M-9.

  Hopefully, I have everything I need, he thought.

  Airframe vibration increased as they descended. Jazz could see that they were going to land at an airport near what appeared to be a small town.

  Tirane, the capitol of Albania had the only airfield that could accommodate large military fixed wing aircraft. Two Air Force C-17s sat on the flightline. Like ants, men swarmed around the aircraft offloading cargo from their innards. The line stretched to a small tent city next to the terminal.

  The -53 stopped descending at about fifty feet off the deck. Now it moved slowly forward toward the end of the airfield. Jazz stood and headed toward the cockpit. He looked between the two front seats. One of the pilots looked back at him and smiled. There was a parking lot of helicopters ahead. Jazz recognized most of the helos as French in design.

  A man on the ground motioned at the -53 with a pair of wands. The pilot followed his direction and set the bird down in the field between two concrete airstrips.

  The blades stopped, but the engines kept running. One of the aircrew shouted in Jazz’s ear.

  “You guys need to go with the pilot for a brief at one of the tents.”

  Jazz nodded.

  The Techs removed their UDT vests and Protec helmets, replacing them with flak vests and Kevlar. Each man had already positioned his load-bearing vest over his flak. Jazz slipped the sling on his rifle through a carabineer affixed to a D-ring on the shoulder of his load-bearing vest.

  “Do we need to put on our three-day packs?” he asked.

  The aircraft was too loud, nobody heard him. He saw T-Ball and Ashland stepping off the ramp. They had left their packs behind.

  I guess we’ll be near the bird most of the time.

  Keating, Ashland, and T-Ball were waiting for their lieutenant. They looked like they were ready for war. Jazz hoped they did not have to be.

  “Come on, LT. We gotta get to this brief,” said Keating.

  Grover Denke and his “squad” came out of the second helo. Denke walked next to Jazz as the group moved toward the American compound.

  “This reminds me of Bosnia,” said Denke, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.

  “How so, Senior?”

  “The land looks the same. The tent city up ahead there. A little bit of military chaos. And the cold.”

  Jazz surveyed the scene. The French-made helicopters he saw from the air were in fact French military, and Swiss, and Dutch, and three were even from the United Arab Emirates. Trucks with aircraft pallets on them drove past, heading for their helicopters followed by slower moving forklifts.

  “What was on those pallets?” asked T-Ball.

  “Looked like HDRs,” answered Quinn.

  “What are HDRs?”

  “Humanitarian Daily Rations. They are basically MREs in yellow packaging. Written on the side of the packages in several languages it says, ‘Given to you by the people of the United States.’ I suppose that is our cargo today.”

  “How do you know about HDRs?”

  “I did one of these things in Liberia once.”

  There were men and women from many different foreign military forces around. Jazz studied each of their weapons and uniforms. He was only able to distinguish a few. They followed the pilots through a sandbag gate in the corner of the tent city. There a soldier checked their identifications while a second sat at the ready next to an M-60 machine gun.

  A civilian toting an M-4, a version of the M-16 even more compact than the CAR-15 was waiting for them just inside the checkpoint.

  “You guys off the Inchon?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the senior pilot.

  “I’m Thomas Henderson. I’ll be giving you your mission brief today. Please follow me to the briefing tent.”

  Within a few steps the men were slipping on the muddy ground. They followed Henderson through a maze of tents and camouflage netting.

  “LT, look there,” said T-Ball pointing to a large tent with a sign out front. The sign had an EOD crab on it and read:

  617 CES/EOD Ramstein AFB GE

  “Cool. Maybe we’ll get some work with those guys.”

  “Maybe.”

  The men all took their seats inside the briefing tent. Henderson was a thin man with long blonde hair. He wore a khaki vest that had pockets all over it, a blue sweatshirt, and blue jeans. His boots were caked with mud. Jazz noticed in addition to the M-4 Henderson had a pistol in a holster underneath his belt. Without the weapons the man looked like a journalist, and a hippie one at that.

  In the tent were the senior pilots from both aircraft, the men of Det Four, and also Army and Air Force aircrews and Air Force security personnel.

  “Gents, again I am Thomas Henderson. I am an Air Force civilian. Today you will be flying
to Kukesh to deliver humanitarian rations, blankets, and tents. Kukesh is in the northern part of Albania, just over the border from Kosovo.

  “Right now the threat level is high. We have intelligence assessments that there are terrorist elements throughout Albania. We know that the population is heavily armed. Most of the country is controlled by local mafia and there are black-marketers throughout.

  “Any one of these elements may try to test the United States’ presence here. We just do not know how they will react. Plus, you never know when you will be shot at by an annoyed farmer as you fly overhead.”

  Henderson surveyed the men in front of him. They were silent.

  “The good news is; nobody has had any problems yet. The trip up there is about two hours by helo. Any questions?”

  One after another, half the men in the tent asked questions. Jazz sensed that everyone wanted to be recognized. Realizing he didn’t have any intelligent questions to ask he kept his mouth shut.

  Twenty minutes later he was back in the -53, lifting off the grass in Tirane. The hold of the helo was packed to the gills while they had their meeting with Henderson. There were several aircraft pallets with cardboard boxes on them. Some were labeled “WORLD FOOD BANK,” others said “U.S. GOVT HDRs,” with a greeting on them just as Quinn described. One of the pallets in the back appeared to have blankets on it. Each pallet was covered with a cargo net and chained to the deck.

  There was no longer any room to move fore and aft in the helo. Jazz positioned himself in the small space in front of the cargo near the forward door. Keating sat across from him and they were joined by one aircrewman. The others, including Ashland and T-Ball, all stepped up the ramp and found a spot in the back behind the cargo.

  The countryside grew even more mountainous as they headed inland. The pilots used a chart and a road map to navigate their way to Kukesh. They followed one of the valleys that stretched liked splayed fingers connecting the highlands to the coast.

  Through the window Jazz could see a treacherous road hugging the side of the mountains, winding its way through the valley. It was definitely a difficult passage in the best of weather.

  Sometimes the pilots decided the best course was to dodge over a mountain peak. Then flight became as unpleasant as an amusement park ride. Both Jazz and Keating would look up as the nose of the Sea Dragon rose. Wind pushing on and around the peak would buffet the airframe violently as they crested over the summit or ridgeline. Then the helo would drop again quickly leaving Jazz’s stomach at a higher altitude. On the worst occasions the pilots would circle and bank steeply, searching for the road again.

  When they got to Kukesh the aircrewman tapped Jazz on the knee. He leaned over and yelled in the officer’s ear.

  “WE’RE ALMOST THERE, SIR! YOU MAY WANNA GET UP AND TAKE A LOOK AROUND!”

  Jazz nodded, unclipped his seatbelt and stood. He slipped off his Protec helmet and traded it again for the Kevlar. Affixed to the helmet was a set of flight deck goggles. The helo buffeted up and down. Jazz held his M-16 in one hand while bracing himself with the other as he looked out the window.

  The village appeared as any Mediterranean village except that to the north between the town proper and the mountains was a field filled with color and movement. Jazz suspected that he was seeing a bird’s eye view of the Albanian refugees.

  Suddenly the helo banked, dropping in altitude and heading toward this field. As they got close, Jazz saw that it his supposition was correct. Many of the displaced Albanian worked to set up shelters. Some were still streaming from over the mountain.

  Though it was now late March, the peak towering over the town of Kukesh was covered with snow. Clearly winter was going to be present until mid-April at least.

  They circled the camp three times, just high enough to get a good look but not so low as to disturb the ethnic Albanian farmers with the downwash from the blades. Now Hurricane 224 and 218 headed for the eastern part of the town.

  There was another field, but this one was open. To the north of the field was an orchard. As they descended further Jazz could see that the field had a barbwire fence surrounding it. There were a few buildings and military-looking trucks.

  Nobody said there was a military facility here... strange..., he thought.

  Suddenly the aircraft dropped dramatically. The aircrewman grabbed Jazz by the shoulder this time and yelled in his ear.

  “WE’RE GOING TO LAND HERE, SIR! DO YOU CONCUR IT IS SAFE?”

  It was a requirement that the senior EOD Technician determine that the landing zone was not hot and that the aircraft could take off. Jazz looked around; there appeared to be no threat.

  “YES! IT IS SAFE!”

  The aircrewman gave him a “thumbs up” as he spoke into his lip mike. The -53 descended faster. At about twenty feet off the ground they began to move forward again. The pilot was taxiing away from the buildings. Finally they hovered for a moment and the helo set down on the field.

  It felt like he was in a movie from the moment he stepped through the door. All Jazz could hear was the thump of the blades. He got outside the arc of the blade where it was somewhat quieter.

  Jazz moved to the two o’clock position on the right side of the -53. Keating moved around to the eleven o’clock. A quick three sixty revealed that the field in front and to the right of the helo was clear. Then Jazz looked toward Ashland at the five o’clock position. Ash was gesturing toward the building beyond.

  Soldiers.

  There were soldiers running from the building armed with Kalishnikov AK-47’s.

  Oh, fuck. This could be bad, thought Jazz.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Contact

  Jazz jabbed a finger toward the soldiers. Ashland’s head swiveled toward them. Jazz could see his shipmate’s body tense from forty feet away.

  Are they coming to greet us, or do they think we are invaders? he wondered.

  From his vantage point Jazz could tell that the aircrew were oblivious. He could see the first of the pallets now on the grass under the tail. A crewman in the door waved at him and motioned that the helo was moving forward. The -53 lifted slightly and taxied forward.

  There was an officer with the soldiers. Jazz noted the man forming his troops in a line along the field. Each man had his weapon slung at the hip, pointing right at the men from Inchon disgorging aid. Either they wanted to be threatening, or they had very poor weapon’s discipline.

  Fuck, this is not good. Hopefully this guy knows the deal.

  Suddenly Jazz saw a flash of light come from the Albanian line, or had he imagined it?

  He looked again at the Albanian officer who was shouting and pointing at Denke’s aircraft. Several flashes now erupted from the weapons the soldiers were holding.

  They’re shooting at us!

  Jazz was surprised by his own reactions as he carried them out. His movements reminded him of wrestling moves he developed in high school--he didn’t have to think, it just happened.

  As Jazz stepped over to where Ash was standing he pulled back on the charging handle of his M-16, chambering a round. By the time he was abreast of his teammate, Ash was already shooting.

  Jazz raised his weapon, flipping the fire selection switch from “SAFE” to “SEMI.” He put it in his shoulder, sighted it at the officer and pulled the trigger. The sound of the helicopter turning and his earplugs prevented him from hearing the rounds going downrange. Jazz did feel a slight kick and he smelled the familiar gunpowder residue of the 5.56 ammunition as he swept the rifle down the line of soldiers.

  The wash from one of the Hurricanes lifting off pushed against him. The Albanians now broke into a run back toward the building they emerged from. Jazz could not tell if they hit any of them.

  Time to skedaddle, he thought.

  Quickly, Jazz surveyed the scene. It was Hurricane 218, Denke’s helicopter, that took off. Denke, Dee, Sinclair, and Quinn, however, were still on the ground.

  Keeping their weapons pointed at the main buildi
ng, the men of Det Four moved toward Jazz. He motioned toward Hurricane 224.

  “GET ON THE BIRD! LET’S GET OUTTA HERE!”

  Jazz and Keating went through the starboard door while the others climbed up the ramp in the rear. Jazz noted that one pallet remained. As the helo lifted off, Jazz counted heads twice. All of Det Four was onboard.

  “Anybody hit!” he called out.

  Keating patted himself down and shook his head, “No.”

  “Hey back there! Senior Chief! Anybody hit!”

  Denke also shook his head, “No.”

  Jazz was surprised.

  He sat down in the seat next to Keating and put on his safety belt, just in time.

  Suddenly the aircraft started to shudder. The aircrewman up front with Keating and Jazz fell over as the helo banked violently to the left and began to descend. Jazz’s stomach went up into his throat. He tried to reach for something but found his hands flailing. The aircraft righted itself, but then nosed forward. Now hydraulic fluid began to pour from the overhead just behind the cockpit. Through the window, Jazz could now see treetops sprinkled with snow. Just when he thought they were going to hit, the nose came up again violently. He felt the aircraft’s descent slow slightly and the blades thwopped louder as it seemed they were trying to grip the air.

  Then they hit.

  Jazz did not remember getting out of the aircraft. It was as if he woke up sitting under the tree just outside the starboard door. His whole body ached.

  “Uh.”

  As the helo in front of him came into focus and his ears stopped ringing he heard several moans.

  “Who’s up!” came Denke’s voice from his left.

  Jazz looked toward the aircraft’s tail and saw Denke standing there.

  “LT, are you okay?”

  “Uh, yeah. I think so. What happened?”

  “We crashed.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think those soldiers were shooting at the aircraft. That’s probably why 218 left without us. We were certainly next, though.”

  Jazz scratched his head trying to understand. Then he noticed that the side of the aircraft was peppered with bullet holes.