Hossey was livid. "What do you mean they're gone?"
Through the static of the scrambler, the pilot of the Talon patiently explained. "They jumped about a minute ago. We had to change course to avoid Soviet radar we picked up along the way. The new route was more direct and cut about ten minutes off the drop time. We got the message just after we turned on the green light. The first several jumpers were already gone. The loadmaster tried to stop the rest but couldn't." Hossey considered the situation. The plane was still over Chinese airspace and it wasn't a bright idea to keep them on the air too long anyway. "All right. Out here." Hossey put down the mike.
Hooker summed up the situation. "The bottom line is that the team
is on the ground now. In about five hours we should get their ANGLER report, giving us their status. Our first scheduled contact going to them is in eight hours. Do you want me to tell them to abort then?"
Hossey's mind raced. What a screwup. There was nothing he could do about it now. The team was in. He looked up as the SATCOM terminal came alive for the first time in several hours. Hossey snatched the message as soon as it cleared the printer.
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET TO: CDR FOB Kl/ MSG 45 FROM: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM REF: FOB MESSAGE 43
ROGER YOUR MSG 43/ SATCOM PROBLEMS ON THIS
END/ LOST COMMO/ UP NOW/ SORRY
WHAT IS TEAM STATUS CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
"Bullshit," Hossey muttered to himself. "Get out of the way." The comm man moved while Hossey sat down and typed in his own message for reply.
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
TO: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM/ MSG 44
FROM: CDR FOB Kl
REF: SFOB MESSAGE 45
TEAM INFILTRATED/ COMMO PROBLEMS SERIOUS/
ALMOST ABORTED INFIL BECAUSE OF/
EMERGENCY PHONE LINE DEAD/
SATCOM DEAD/ NO ROGER MY 43/ WHAT IS GOING ON CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
Meng almost smiled as he saw the message from the FOB run across his screen. It had been a close call and a stupid mistake on his part. He tapped out his response.
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
TO: CDR FOB Kl
FROM: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM/ MSG 46
REF: FOB MESSAGE 44
AGAIN/ COMMO PROBLEMS SOLVED/
MISSION A GO/ SORRY CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
Jumping at 500 feet left little time for anything other than landing. Riley was only 250 feet above the water of the lake when his main parachute finished deploying. He barely had time to check his canopy before he was in the water. The natural buoyancy of the air trapped under his dry suit popped him back to the surface after a brief dunking.
The parachute settled into the water away from him where the wind had blown it. As the pull of his two weight belts tried to draw him back under, Riley quickly pulled his fins out from under his waistband and put them on to tread water. He worked rapidly to get out of the parachute harness. Unhooking his leg straps, he then pulled the quick release on his waistband. He pulled out the parachute kit bag, which had been folded flat under those straps, and held onto it while he shrugged out of the shoulder straps.
With the harness off, Riley pulled in on the lines to his parachute. Holding one handle of the kit bag with his teeth, he used his hands to stuff large billows of wet parachute into the bag. After two minutes of struggling, Riley succeeded in getting the chute inside and the kit bag snapped shut. Riley took off the second weight belt he wore and, attaching it to the handles of the kit bag, let it go. The waterlogged chute and kit bag disappeared into the dark depths.
Allowing his rucksack to drag behind him on a five-foot line, Riley turned to swim in the direction he believed the aircraft had been heading. As he lay on his back and started finning, he checked his wrist compass to confirm the direction, straight along the azimuth the Talon had flown over the DZ. Soon he heard muffled splashing ahead, which verified that he was heading in the right direction.
This was the first time that most team members had ever conducted a water jump under these kinds of circumstances. In training, safety requirements, combined with the cost of parachutes, required one safety boat per jumper to assist in recovery of the jumper and parachute. There was no one to assist in recovery now. The lack of realistic training was showing itself in the noise and time it was taking the other team members to derig. For Paul Lalli, a disaster seemed in the making.
Lalli came down facing directly into the six-knot wind. When he popped to the surface after landing, he found his parachute descending on top of him. The two weight belts he wore gave him an almost neutral buoyancy and, without his fins on, he found it difficult to keep his head above water. When Lalli reached up to push away the nylon so he could breathe, the movement caused his head to slip underwater. In the dark, with the chute bearing down on him, Lalli became disoriented and panicky.
The first thing he needed to do was get his fins on. That's what Riley had emphasized during the jumpmaster briefing at Osan, but Lalli had forgotten this in his initial panic. Now he reached down, pulled out his fins, and tried putting them on. He got his right one on, but as he was maneuvering the left one, the suspension cord from the parachute got caught around his arm and leg. He was momentarily trapped two feet below the surface. In his panic, Lalli dropped the fin and it was swallowed by the cold water. Struggling even harder, he got himself more entangled. Using his right leg he stroked vigorously and broke surface underneath the canopy. Taking a gulp of air, Lalli sank back underwater, wrestling with his parachute.
Meng looked up as the words scrolled by on the message board.
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
TO: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM
FROM: CDR FOB Kl/ MSG 45
TEAM INFILTRATED/ NO REPORTS OF PROBLEM/
AIRCRAFT RETURNING CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
The reaction in the Tunnel from the USSOCOM staff was one of relief. Meng watched as General Olson turned to his operations officer. "That's one hurdle crossed."
If only they knew, Meng thought.
Riley couldn't see the chem light the captain was supposed to hold up for the assembly point. He figured that Mitchell was still struggling with his parachute. Riley continued swimming until he came upon the next jumper in the water. It was Comsky, who had followed him off the ramp. He helped Comsky finish stuffing his parachute in the kit bag and sink it. They hooked together with a six-foot buddy line and, trailing their rucksacks behind, slowly finned on their backs along the compass heading.
Lalli was losing his battle. The parachute was becoming waterlogged and he knew it would stay afloat for only about ten minutes. He estimated he had been in the water more than five minutes now. Using his one free leg to struggle to the surface and grab quick breaths, he was tiring. The sodden nylon was suffocating him, pressing down like a cold, wet blanket.
Then Lalli remembered something that Riley had told them to do in such an emergency. He reached down his right leg to where his dive knife was strapped, pulled it out, and started hacking wildly at the suspension cord that entangled him. On his third slash he managed to drive the point of the dive knife into his left thigh almost an inch. Despite the pain, he yanked it out and continued his efforts. He was rewarded by his left leg finally coming free. Treading water, Lalli pushed out against the wet silk and took a few seconds to catch his breath. Then he used his knife to cut through the parachute to open air.