“‘Nor your friends who pull you out of it.’ Yes, my Colonel, I trust you.”
“And I you. Captain Suslov will command your tank on the assault against the terrorists in the Operations Building.”
“And I will gladly relinquish my commander’s seat and take the morning off, Comrade Colonel.”
“I would prefer you gave that leave to Gunner Potemkin instead, Tolkin, and stayed with your tank.”
Tolkin chewed on this. He did not share the Russian passion for riddles. “Comrade Colonel?”
Colonel Zharkov placed his hand on the praporshchik’s chest, with three fingers extended. Tolkin looked at the colonel’s hand, then at his face. “The zampolit?”
“I fear so, Tolkin.”
Tolkin was puzzled. The three fingers, from one enlisted man (or a warrant, who in the Soviet Army remained in spirit a senior enlisted man), meant Third Directorate; KGB. “My Colonel?”
“It is possible that the captain has orders that differ from ours, Tolkin. We are to take the American hostages intact, and hold them at the pleasure of our superiors in Moscow.”
“Colonel-”
“It may be, Tolkin, that Captain Suslov has orders that are, shall we say, from another source, which might cause him to disobey, or exceed, an order of mine.”
“But, Colonel, surely-”
“You, old friend, are to see that nothing like that happens.”
Tolkin felt the itch of confusion on his brain. This was no decision for a warrant officer. “Comrade Colonel, what means should I use to stop the captain if he disobeys-”
“Any means, Tolkin,” interrupted Zharkov, “all means, if it even looks like he might disobey my orders.”
Tolkin was suddenly afraid. Eighteen years of soldiering had not prepared him to deal with a renegade officer, perhaps of the KGB, on the vaguest of instructions.
“We helped each other in Afghanistan, Tolkin,” said the colonel very softly.
Tolkin remembered. They hadn’t helped each other. Tolkin had gone down in a desolate valley with a leg wound, and his squad had been wiped out. Tolkin had seen the Afghan women moving toward him through the rocks with long knives in their hands. Colonel Zharkov had come back for him and carried him to safety. “Yes, my Colonel. I will look after Captain Suslov, with great care.”
Zharkov smiled. “We must be ready to move by 0545 Local. We must capture the American hostages, intact, Comrade.”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel. We will be ready.” Tolkin saluted.
Colonel Zharkov returned the salute and walked over to chat with Captain Suslov, near the hangar doors.
Air Defense Command, Metz, France, 0410 GMT (0510 Local)
Captain Henri du Clos sat at his command console, watching as the tight formations of American F-111 bombers appeared as bright dots in the northeast quadrant of the master radar repeater. At first, the crew of radar technicians had been very excited, until Captain du Clos told them to calm down, that they were to track the aircraft only, and that no alert was to be called. The men had looked at him for an explanation, but he gave them none, and they shrugged and went back to their consoles. Captain du Clos’s own orders were to track the Americans through French airspace until they left it over the Mediterranean, and then to call General Beneteau and make his report. Captain du Clos intended that his first words to the general would be a profound apology for his earlier rudeness, but he was still seething that he had to preside over this massive violation of French sovereignty with all of his aircraft grounded.
First Airborne assembly point, over the southern Adriatic, 0410 GMT
The pitch of the engines of the C-141 rose as the pilot throttled up, and the nose of the aircraft dipped slightly. The word was quickly passed to the paratroopers to remove all rank insignia and to get into their gear, as the aircraft were descending to their final assembly point.
Each soldier seated on the left side of the aircraft clipped his M-16, enclosed in the soft black M-1950 weapons case, to the left side of his parachute harness, tying it down to his leg with a bootlace. Most of the troops on the right side of the aircraft carried a cased Dragon missile canister in the same left-side position, with their M-16s in the slip on the outside of the Dragon case. Because of the bulk of the missile pack, only jumpers exiting the right door could jump the Dragon; there was too much risk of getting it hung up in the static line for left-door jumpers.
The men grew bulkier and more awkward-looking as they donned the entire equipment package. MC-1 main parachutes went in back, with the T-10 reserves in front, low on the men’s stomachs. Each man’s rucksack, weighing anywhere from forty to sixty-five pounds, hung suspended from the front of the harness in front of the man’s knees. When the jumpers had descended to 200 feet above the DZ, the rucksacks and the weapons packages would be unclipped and allowed to dangle ten feet below the trooper on yellow nylon straps, leaving his legs free to flex and break his fall.
The paratroopers checked their own equipment, then buddied up and checked each other, making liberal use of the green vinyl “100 mph” tape to cover and secure anything that might foul a static line or a parachute shroud.
Lieutenant Jason Brown checked his own gear, then he checked that of his two radiomen while they checked each other’s and his. He turned around in his seat and had a final word with Sergeant Bright. Lieutenant Brown felt a strange exhilaration and, to his surprise, no fear. Something about the atmosphere in the aircraft as the paratroopers exchanged soft punches, and hand slaps seemed to lift everyone’s spirits. It felt like a football locker room before a very big game.
Jumpmaster-qualified personnel worked their way down the lines, hanging on to the static-line wires above them and walking over the seated troopers’ rucksacks. They checked each man’s equipment, making sure that nothing was loose or protruded, and that everything was clipped on, buttoned up, or taped flat. They reminded a man here and there to make sure his static line, once hooked up, was behind his shoulder.
One of the safety NCOs came behind the jumpmasters, carrying two Dragon packs. He stopped in front of Lieutenant Brown. “Care to jump one of these Dragons for us, sir? We’re asking everyone jumping right door who doesn’t have an extra load to take one more for the grunts.”
Jason Brown looked at the bulky Dragon launcher. What the hell, he thought, and grinned. “Will do, Sergeant.”
The jumpmaster helped him hook up the strap and tape the heavy weapon to his left leg. “Don’t forget to let that drop below you as soon as you check your canopy, sir.” The jumpmaster passed on.
Now that the paratroopers had all their gear on including the parachutes, they looked more crowded and uncomfortable than ever. Unaccountably, thought Lieutenant Brown, they looked much more cheerful. Brown heard an insistent humming, soft at first but then growing as more troopers joined in. He recognized the tune and smiled. It was the chorus of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Connelly was a religious man, and he crossed himself as the humming swelled. How strange, he thought, and yet how fitting, that these bone-hard, foul-mouthed, tobacco-chewing paratroops should want to join one another in a hymn, and for them, what better hymn.
“Sing it, Reilly,” said a fierce-looking black sergeant directly across the row from Connelly.
“Yeah, Reilly, sing it,” chorused several others.
A fresh-faced redheaded trooper whose cheeks looked never to have seen a razor flushed red to his freckles and shook his head.
“Stand him up,” said a company first sergeant, four down the bench from Connelly. The troopers on either side of Reilly lifted him to a standing position and pushed their shoulders together under his hips so he couldn’t sit back down.
Reilly smiled. He looked like an altar boy. The humming grew louder as more troopers joined in. At the end of the chorus, Reilly began to sing, in a clear, trilling tenor: “There was blood upon the risers There were brains upon the chuteIntestines were a-dangling from his paratroopers’ boots.They picked him up, still in his chute and poured hi
m from his boots,And he ain’t gonna jump no more!”
The troops thundered:
“GORY, GORY, WHAT A HELL OF A WAY TO DIE! GORY, GORY, WHAT A HELL OF A WAY TO DIE! GORY, GORY, WHAT A HELL OF A WAY TO DIE, AND HE AINT GONNA JUMP NO MORE!”
Connelly shook his head in amazement as Reilly cheerfully sang out a new verse even more gruesome than the last.
A horn in the center of the cabin blew, and the red jump lights flashed. The men fell silent. Lieutenant Colonel Bowie spoke into a portable bullhorn. “Men, we have a signal from Thunder. The SEALs are jumping now. We will be un-assing in Colonel Baruni’s face in thirty to forty-five minutes. I want to see every one of you safely on the ground!”
Lieutenant Brown joined the unrestrained, almost savage cheering that filled the cabin of the aircraft. The cheering gradually coalesced into a two-syllable drumbeat, such as might have driven Roman oarsmen on the waters below 2,000 years before:
Air-BORNE!
Air-BORNE!
Air-BORNE!
Uqba ben Nafi, 0430 GMT (0530 Local)
The eight-member SEAL team dropped from the cavernous bomb bay of the B-52 in a tight cluster. Hooper and Osborne had been on the bottom of the pile inside the aircraft, with Feeney, Ricardo, Stuart, and Leah Rabin above them and Miller and Jones on top. They had hung suspended in a nylon web net above the bomb bay, each person gripping the harness of the person or persons below him. When the bomber’s crew and computers agreed they were on target, the light net with the team in it was dropped from the aircraft.
After they bounced through the bomber’s slipstream, the net, which was heavily weighted in its center, collapsed and fell away behind them. They released their grips on each others’ gear, held their arms tightly against their sides, and drifted slightly apart. Using just their hands to deflect the air rushing past them, they were able to maintain station close enough to land in a tight group, but far enough apart to avoid fouling each other’s parachutes when they opened. Stuart found he had to fight at first to maintain the proper slightly head-down attitude, but he relaxed and concentrated on keeping station on the tiny blue light on the top of Hooper’s helmet. Hooper extended his arms and did a slow half somersault, and looked back up at each member of the team. Satisfied, he gave a thumbs-up sign with his glove, which had been treated with phosphorescent paint, then half somersaulted back to his original face-down position. Below them, the brightly lighted apron of the air base and the dark sheen of the pond were clearly visible.
The automatic releases for their main parachutes were set to open at 2,000 feet above sea level, but Hooper would pop his as soon as the altimeter on his wrist showed 2,500. When they saw Hooper’s canopy deploy, all the other SEALs were to pull their manual releases. The slight difference in time would shift Hooper’s position from in front of and below the team to behind and above, and the team would thereafter fly formation on Osborne’s green helmet light by maneuvering the steerable midnight blue airfoil-shaped parachutes.
The ground seemed to come up impossibly quickly, though there was little sense of motion. The only sound was the rush of wind past Stuart’s helmet as he turned to look at Leah, twenty feet to his left as they dropped. Her visor was turned in his direction; she was looking at him, too.
Hooper extended his arms in a swimming motion and tilted his head up. The air deflected by his chest turned his body so his feet were now below him. The team members followed his actions and grasped their main chute release handles in their right hands. Hooper’s first-stage chute popped suddenly, and he appeared to shoot upward. Stuart pulled his release and felt the chute deploy behind his head. There was a jerk, a sense of being pulled upward, then a stronger jerk as the main canopy opened and the drogue fell away. Stuart looked up to check his canopy, surprised to find it clearly visible despite the inky darkness. He checked the shrouds, then he pulled his tape and felt his radio and equipment pack drop below him and tug at the end of its strap. Quickly he grasped the handles attached to the risers on either side of him and rotated the parachute slowly. He saw Leah struggling to release her gear, and felt a pang of guilt that she was here. He was relieved when she loosed her ammo and grenade pack and gripped her riser handles to steer the chute.
Hooper floated above, watching the jumpers below him maneuvering closer together now that their parachutes were fully deployed. What a team, he marveled. They could all land in a ten-meter circle if they had to.
The pond sped up, growing larger. The SEALs fell in almost perfect silence, the only sound the soft rush of air through the vents in the parachute canopies. Hooper watched as the SEALs unsnapped the oxygen tanks and masks and dropped them, and he pitched his own. He unzipped his body bag enough to reach his scuba air supply behind his neck and turned it to full on. He looked down at Osborne, who was side-slipping his chute to the very middle of the fire-fighting reservoir. Osborne pulled both shroud handles outward and down, flaring the chute and slowing his descent. Hooper watched the others flare, waiting a second longer himself to catch up with them. Hooper held his scuba mouthpiece in front of his lips and pressed the purge button. He felt the air from his tank brush against his cheek; then he put the mouthpiece in his mouth.
The eight SEALs landed in the water in an almost perfect octagon, less than twelve meters from side to side.
USS America, 0410 GMT (0510 Local)
Admiral Bergeron sipped strong coffee from a china mug and looked at the status boards in Flag Plot. The fleet status board showed the disposition of the two battle groups he now commanded. Both the America and the Nimitz were at flight quarters, steaming into the light southerly breeze and launching aircraft. First up were the E-2C Hawkeyes, two for overall air control and two more for communications relay with the landing force. Next the A-6 Intruder attack aircraft, armed with Shrike antiradar missiles, and the A-7 Corsairs armed with bombs and rockets for close air support. Once the first attack wave was off and orbiting in assigned areas, the normal four-plane Combat Air Patrol would be recovered and replaced with eight fully fueled F-14 Tomcat fighters, armed with Phoenix and Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. Two more Tomcats would then be spotted on the forward catapults of each carrier, fueled and armed and with crews strapped in. Eight Tomcats had been launched from Nimitz an hour before to give fighter cover to the air force F-111s, which awaited their attack signal in assembly areas sixty miles north of eastern Libya.
All of this information was displayed on the air status display and continuously updated by technical ratings at computer consoles, some in this room but most far away in the ship’s Combat Information, Flight Operation, and Attack Direction Centers.
While the carriers and their screening vessels steamed toward the Libyan coast, some thirty miles out, the Shore Bombardment Group clung to the edge of the twelve-mile limit. Most of the firepower was on the refurbished World War II battleship New Jersey, with her nine sixteen-inch and twenty-five-inch guns. The three destroyers that would work in close were built in the 1960s and had two five-inch guns each, plus Tartar antiaircraft missiles that would be used to provide point air defense for themselves and the battleship.
The battle area status display showed the air force units as well as all the Navy and marines. The ten C-141s carrying the paratroopers were descending to their final assembly area forty miles off the Libyan coast and ten miles east of the fleet. East of them were the sixteen F-111s from Upper Heyford, ready to attack their targets at Benghazi and Tobruk, which were, respectively, 360 and 520 miles from Uqba ben Nafi. The admiral was very glad he could leave the Libyan Air Force to the F-111s.
The amphibious squadrons, centered on Saipan and Inchon and protected by their own screen of destroyers and air-defense cruisers, sailed just outside the Libyans’ twelve-mile limit, under the overall command of Rear Admiral Kinnock in Saipan. Both ships had reported they had AH-1T marine Sea Cobra gunships, armed with 20mm cannons, antitank and antipersonnel rockets, and TOW antitank missiles, spotted and ready for takeoff. They would take off
and orbit once the SEAL team reported they were ready to assault the Operations Building, and then CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters would be spotted to take the marine rifle company ashore, and then to bring everyone back.
It could just work that way, thought Admiral Bergeron, sipping cold coffee. It should.
A telephone buzzed next to the admiral, and the sailor seated next to him picked it up. He listened, then passed the phone to the admiral, who pressed the transmit key and spoke. “Admiral Bergeron.”
“Admiral, Colonel Brimmer. We have a signal from the SEALs. They are out of the pond, not detected, no casualties.”
The admiral frowned. “I thought they were radio silent.”
Colonel Brimmer laughed. It sounded like paper crackling through the scrambler. “They are, Admiral. They broke squelch, three shorts and a long.”
“I see. When will they signal again?”
“If nothing goes wrong, just before they break in to take the hostages.”
“Good. Everything holding up on your end?”
“Yes, sir. As soon as they tell us they’re in control of the hostages, we’ll begin the assault.”
“Very well. Keep me informed, Bob.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Thunder out.”
Admiral Bergeron handed the telephone back to the sailor on watch. It could work, he thought to himself.
Uqba ben Nafi, 0422 GMT (0522 Local)
Stuart put the radio handset back in its holder after sending his three shorts and a long to the fleet. The signal had been acknowledged by a single click. His nylon poopy-suit was already drying in the soft onshore breeze, and he was getting warm. The SEALs would keep the immersion suits on until they were through the windows, as protection from broken glass.
Osborne and Miller had gone after the revetments to the east, and the rest of the team clustered in the deep shadow at the top of the berm around the reservoir, silently watching and listening. Feeney low-crawled to Hooper and Stuart and whispered.
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