“I’ll be there, sir,” Fernandez promised.
Murdock shook hands with Stroh and Kohler. They wished him good luck.
The SEALs followed the White Shirt down a passageway lit by red night-light. They went out the hatch and the flight deck was as dark as a cave, with only the silhouettes of the chained-down aircraft visible against the lighter horizon. The SEALs all put on their night-vision goggles, and the deck became a secret party that only the elect could see.
The flight deck was bathed in the glow of infrared lighting compatible with night-vision goggles. Four big two-rotor Chinook helicopters were waiting on the edge of the deck, turbine engines screaming. A fifth sat motionless on one of the elevators in case any of the four went down. Thermal strips on the end of each rotor blade made a solid circle of light as they turned. Other discreet strips on the fuselages were the only anticollision precautions. There wasn’t a light showing in any of the aircraft. The flight deck crew were using infrared chemical light sticks instead of their usual illuminated wands to pass signals across the deck.
The weather report had indicated a low-pressure area over Lebanon; a light drizzle was falling and the cloud cover was very low. A bigger storm was on the way, maybe a thunderstorm. From a SEAL’s perspective the weather was perfect, but Murdock had to defer to the helicopter pilots. They were willing. There would be few if any other aircraft flying, and the ground antiaircraft defenses would be accordingly relaxed. Unlike other aircraft, helicopters did not as a rule fly in non-visual flight conditions. The 160th’s helicopters were among the few in the world capable of doing just that, and would be entirely on instruments. Forward-looking infrared could see through cloud and rain to a certain extent, but night-vision goggles couldn’t.
The SEALs split up and followed individual white shirts to their designated aircraft. Murdock and Roselli headed for the first bird, with a Shorlands armored car inside.
Jaybird and Doc went to the second, which carried a Mercedes limo. Magic and Higgins went to the third, with the second limo. DeWitt and Kosciuszko went to the final Chinook, with the second armored car.
As they approached the helicopter, Murdock and Razor passed through a shroud of hot exhaust air that smelled like burned kerosene. They climbed in the side door just behind the cockpit. The helicopter crewman looked like a huge insect with the twin tubes of his ANVIS-6 night-vision goggles protruding from his helmet. He secured the hatch and went down to his gunner’s window. He and his partner on the other side would be leaning out all during takeoff, giving the pilot helpful directions about any obstacles that might get in the way of the aircraft.
The Shorlands armored car was chained to the floor. It had been backed in so it was pointed right at the rear ramp hatch for a quick drive-off.
Murdock and Roselli strapped themselves into two jump seats on opposite sides of the fuselage near the front of the aircraft. They each had a headset plugged into the helicopter intercom system.
Murdock checked his watch. The second hand ticked over and, exactly on time, the cyclic pitch of the rotors increased, the fuselage shook, and they took off. The Chinook lifted straight up about twenty feet, then lurched to the left to clear the flight deck. Once they were out over water the bird picked up more height and speed.
Murdock sat back and accustomed himself to the peculiar feeling of going forward, up and down, and side to side all at the same time that made helicopter travel so interesting.
They made landfall, crossing a sparsely populated section of the Lebanese coast between Byblos and Jounie. Murdock looked out the window over his shoulder and saw only a blank wall of green through his goggles. He could almost hear the treetops scraping on the bottom of the helicopter. He and Razor took off their life preservers, since instead of crashing into the water and flipping over and sinking, now the only danger was the helicopter hitting the ground and exploding into an enormous fireball.
A short while later the helicopter pitched upward as the terrain-following radar led it up the slope of the Mount Lebanon range.
As they gained altitude, the turbulence rattled the Chinook around. They hit an air pocket, and the helicopter dropped like a rock. Murdock automatically put his head between his legs in the crash position. Then they were flying again, and Murdock straightened up to see Razor Roselli grinning maniacally at him. Through the goggles he could make out Razor carefully mouthing the words, “Kissing your ass good-bye?”
The cockpit chatter through Murdock’s headset became busier. An E-2C Hawkeye radar aircraft from the carrier was providing regular reports on all the air traffic in the area, which aside from an occasional passenger jet and an F-15 combat air patrol over northern Israel, was nonexistent. The helicopters were just listening, and would not break radio silence even to talk to each other except in an emergency. They were also carefully monitoring their radar-warning receivers for any indications of hostile sets. The receivers gave off a tone when any radar energy hit the aircraft. There was just a regular chirp in their headsets as the AWACS radar swept over, but they were going so low and so slow it was doubtful that even the E-2 with digital signal processing could get a return off them.
They rattled between the peaks of the mountain range, and then lurched down the slope toward the Bekaa Valley.
The main highway of Lebanon led from Beirut on the coast over the mountains to Damascus, Syria. But a branch of that headed north along the entire Bekaa Valley, to Homs in northern Syria. That highway went right past Baalbek, and Murdock wanted to get on it south of the city.
Dirt roads led from the villages along the slope down onto the valley highway. The helicopters were going to land alongside one where there was enough room to set down and they would be out of earshot of the nearest village, a little place called Majdaloun, population 610.
“Five minutes,” the pilot said over the intercom.
“Roger,” said Murdock.
Razor Roselli unstrapped himself from his seat and carefully made his way to the armored car. He inched through the narrow gap between the vehicle and the fuselage, and squeezed into the right-hand driver’s door.
Murdock went all the way down to the rear ramp of the helicopter. When they landed he’d walk around and check the ground, take a little look around, then guide Razor out. He braced himself next to the crew chief stationed at the ramp, and plugged his headset into the intercom jack.
He could hear the strain in the pilots’ voices as they headed down. The copilot was watching the ground through the forward-looking infrared. The FLIR was mounted on a chin turret in the front of the helicopter. The copilot could swivel it around, and the image was projected on a cockpit panel display. He was giving directions to the pilot, who was flying the helicopter. The pilot couldn’t see a thing outside, so he kept his eyes locked on the instruments. “Trees on the right, we’re drifting right.”
“Roger.”
“Fifty feet.”
“Come back a bit, we’ve got a boulder right in front of us.”
“Roger.”
Murdock glanced at the crew chief. The man was trying to look nonchalant, and not succeeding. Murdock cocked his AKM and kept the barrel pointed at the floor. A helicopter’s vitals were all above the fuselage, and it would be professionally embarrassing to accidentally shoot a hole in them.
“Okay, you’re on.”
“Twenty feet.”
“Hold it steady.”
The Chinook came to ground at a slight tilt, and then leveled off as all the wheels touched down.
The crew chief dropped the ramp. Murdock took off his headset and charged out into a cold rainy Lebanese night.
The ground was firm enough for the armored car. He couldn’t see anything, and doubted if anyone could see him. When he went back up the ramp the crew had the chains off the vehicle. Murdock signaled Razor to follow him out.