Abort, or get everyone off the chopper as soon as humanly possible.
A veteran of over one hundred special forces missions, Trautman wasn’t the sort of man to abort unless he was being fired upon by vastly superior numbers, and his engines were out, and some of his crew had been shot. And maybe not even then.
He wasn’t scared of a Chinese submarine; even if the ship was armed with surface to air missiles, it wasn’t likely that they would be able to get a tag on the Black Hawk, launch, and hit it; the MH-60 was too well-protected, too agile and too fast for that to be a concern. But if the Texas had ID’d the submerged Chinese ship, then the Chinese sub had almost certainly got a fix on the Texas. And the real problem was that — if the chopper was picked up on radar as well — it wouldn’t take a genius to realize that a special ops team was being taken on board.
But Trautman was willing to bet that his aircraft hadn’t been spotted yet. It was one thing for a submerged ship to pick up on an eight-thousand ton craft in the same body of water; it was another thing altogether for it to pick up a light, stealth-enhanced airmobile unit thirty feet above that water.
He informed Captain Sherman of his opinion, delighted that the submariner was of the same mind, then changed channels to send his orders to the loadmaster. ‘We have possible enemy contact in the water,’ he said calmly, ‘so get those troops off the chopper, and do it now.’
He received confirmation, and prepared to bug out as soon as the coast was clear.
Cole got the message over his own comms system and knew they would have to get down to the deck as smoothly, and as quickly as humanly possible; the captain would want them safely ensconced in the sub, and the sub back down in her natural underwater environment, before the enemy craft was able to get a fix on what was going on.
Cole cursed inwardly; he knew that if the chopper was seen, then the Chinese would immediately understand that a special ops mission was underway.
But, he told himself, the chopper wouldn’t be seen; the Night Stalkers were the best, and Major Trautman was arguably their best man. If the team got down in one piece, the Chinese would be none the wiser.
Knowing what was at stake, Cole was moving before the loadmaster even clapped his shoulder, hands wrapped around the line as he hurled himself out into the warm, moist, pitch-dark night.
Captain Sherman watched through his night vision goggles as the troops rappelled down the line, one after the other in tight formation; the first one landed, taking the impact with supple, buckling knees, disengaging and moving off to the side to allow the next one to hit the deck behind him; then the next, then the next, then…
Holy shit!
As Cole’s second-in-command, Jake Navarone was at the back of the group, making sure everyone left smoothly and securely.
As soon as he saw the form of Julie Barrington disappear into the inky black below him, he too stepped out of the doorway, gravity sending him instantly down the line towards the Texas.
And then the unthinkable happened; either a giant swell hit the sub or else an updraft caught the chopper, but suddenly the line went taut.
Navarone knew immediately, instinctively, what would happen next; to save the chopper being brought down, the line would be released. He was still twenty feet in the air.
Time seemed to be suspended.
In the pitch dark he could only feel the sensations ripping through his body, unable to see anything at all; his stomach lurching upwards at the rapid descent, the line pulling him sideways, snapping him back.
‘Clear!’ he heard below as Barrington landed on the deck, and he knew he was alone now, the last man left on the line, and he willed himself to fall more quickly, as if sheer force of will would increase the force of gravity.
And then he felt the line going slack, and didn’t know whether the ship or the chopper had corrected themselves, or if the safety trigger had been activated and cut the rope loose.
He had been travelling for several seconds now, and decided that he couldn’t just wait and see what would happen; he had to take matters into his own hands.
He let go of the line and pushed himself forward through the warm dark night as he dropped, trying to follow the original path of the rappelling rope, hoping that he would land on the deck of the submarine, praying that he hadn’t miscalculated, that he hadn’t been higher than he’d thought, that he wouldn’t break his legs when they impacted the metal deck, or that he wouldn’t end up in the water, the crew of the sub having to waste valuable time looking for him, rescuing him as the Chinese sub moved ever closer.
But then his feet struck metal and the impact wasn’t too bad, his knees buckled in the way he’d been trained.
And then one of his feet slipped, and he felt it going, sliding over the side of the boat, his landing point compromised.
His arms waved about as he tried to correct his balance, but it was too little, too late; his body was tilting at too great an angle, and then he was falling, legs gone from under him, hands clawing as he tried to grip the side of the sub as he fell.
But then he felt strong hands gripping him, pulling him back up, hauling him up to the deck.
The downdraught from the Black Hawk was gone, and Navarone knew that Captain Trautman was already on his way out of there; he could no longer hear even the subdued sounds of the chopper’s adapted rotors.
What he could hear was the voice of Mark Cole, close to his ear, the man’s hands releasing their tight grip on Navarone’s combat fatigues as his feet settled back on the slick, wet deck.
‘That’s what I call an entrance,’ Cole said, and his face was so close that Navarone could see him smile. ‘Now let’s get below deck before the captain has a heart attack.’
‘Yes sir,’ Navarone said with a smile of his own, following as Cole led him towards the open hatch below deck, and the safety of the submarine’s interior.
5
Taiwan was his.
There were scraps of resistance that would have to be mopped up, but the capital city of Taipei had fallen, and the government of Taiwan’s so-called ‘Republic of China’ had fallen with it.
A part of Wu was surprised that it had been achieved so quickly, but then the other part accepted it completely; after all, that had been the plan all along. The military of that tiny nation was no match for the might of the People’s Republic in full fury, and invasion plans had been secretly plotted and rehearsed for months leading up to the actual act itself.
There had been an initial naval bombardment of key coastal bases, followed by strategic airstrikes of other military and government installations. For two days straight, Taiwan had been hammered down like a stubborn nail until it was entirely unable to defend itself, her own pitiful naval and air forces reduced to nearly nothing. And then the troops had landed, sweeping through the land — rightfully known as the 23rd province of the People’s Republic of China — with almost no resistance whatsoever.
After all these years, all of Taiwan’s tough talk, it had taken Wu just three days to return the island to the true Chinese nation.
And it had all been done with an absolute minimum of civilian casualties. There had been many military deaths, of course — one couldn’t bombard a country with artillery and missile strikes without some people dying — but Wu was pleased that it was the right people who had died. And the civilians were being treated well, as per Wu’s strict orders. After all, if Taiwan was now to fall under the protection of his own government, it was as well that her people accepted it quickly; and good, fair treatment would help immeasurably with that.