Woods searched the sky for Wink, also mindful of where he was going. Nothing like parachuting into the valley of the Assassins right after having bombed the hell out of them. He hung helplessly under his parachute, horrified by how long it was taking to get down to the ground. He unhooked his oxygen mask. His breath came quickly as he drew in the cool night air, his mask hanging off his helmet. Without warning he suddenly slammed into the hard-packed ground and tumbled head over heels, skidding to a stop. His parachute filled with the small late night breeze and began to pull him again. He tried to release the shoulder harness fittings but had trouble getting his gloved fingers under the covers. Struggling to lift the flaps, he finally worked his hands into the fittings and released the parachute. It drifted away from him, driven by the wind.
Woods knew he had to hide, but he couldn’t move. He was overwhelmed with a sudden sense of failure. Suddenly, he knew how it was going to end. He had succeeded only in arousing the Sheikh, who would now come and find him, torture him, and kill him.
He scanned the ground around him for Wink. He couldn’t see anyone. He looked in amazement at the place where his Tomcat had plummeted. It was between him and the mountain fortress of Alamut, burning away in the darkest part of night. The base of the mountain on which Alamut sat seemed mysteriously quiet. The deep explosions had produced no visible evidence of damage.
“Trey!”
Woods’s heart jumped as he heard his name. He looked behind him. “Wink!”
“You okay?”
“I think so,” Woods, said standing up for the first time. He reached into his survival vest and pulled out his 9-millimeter Beretta.
“Put that thing away!” Wink said as he limped toward Woods. “You’ll probably shoot me.”
“We gotta get out of here,” Woods said. He put his gun back in its holster in his survival vest. “This place is probably crawling with men looking for us. We’ve got to get to the hills and radio for help.”
“I can’t,” Wink replied.
“Why not?”
“I tried to use my radio when we were in our chutes. I dropped it.”
“You didn’t have it on a lanyard?”
“No.”
“Nice preflight,” Woods said.
“Your radio okay?”
“I sure hope so.” Woods looked down at his survival vest, unzipped the large pocket, and felt for his Motorola PRC-112 radio, which was in its place. He was reassured. “We’ve got to move. They probably saw us come down.” As they started to walk he noticed Wink was limping. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just twisted my knee on the landing. It hurts, but I can walk on it.”
They suddenly heard loud shooting from a mechanized large-bore gun.
“Holy shit!” Wink whispered as they kneeled next to a boulder. “That’s the guy who got us,” he said, alarmed. “He’s on the other side of this hill!”
Woods pulled out his radio. He had to make a move. He turned it to the SAR frequency, 282.8, plugging it into his helmet so he could hear it without it making any audible noise. He pressed the transmit button. “Big! You up?” Woods waited for a reply. Nothing. “Big! You up?”
“Yeah. Chasing snakes. You okay?”
“Yeah. Both on the ground safe. We’ll be doing a little E&E.” Escape and evasion.
“We’re out of here. Stay out of sight. We’ll send someone back for you.”
“When?” Woods asked, feeling foolish as soon as he asked the question.
There was a pause as Big tried to imagine a way to convey a time to Woods without someone else who might be listening knowing immediately what the time was. “Stay up on this freq. Out.”
“Roger, out,” Woods replied.
“What did he say?” Wink asked.
“He’s okay. They’re heading back. He said they’d send someone to get us.”
“Like who? An H-60? They can’t fly this far.”
“I don’t know.” Woods slipped the radio back into his survival vest. “I don’t know,” he repeated.
“When?”
“That’s what I asked him.”
“And?”
“He said to stay on this freq. Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Big couldn’t believe what had happened. He kept his Tomcat level on the way out, turning as little as he possibly could. He didn’t want to know what might happen if he tried to turn with the left wing tip of his Tomcat shot clean off. What the hell had happened? He was frustrated with himself, with the Navy, with intelligence, with the Sheikh, with everything and everybody. He tried to contain his rage as he flew away from danger toward safety. They had gotten satellite imagery yesterday at last daylight. There wasn’t any AAA. There hadn’t been any air defense anywhere near Alamut. There were no soldiers, no AAA, and no SAM sites. There was no indication anyone knew they were coming at all. Now they were heavily defended by well-handled air defense systems. Unbelievable.
They passed out of Iraq into northern Syria. He couldn’t stay as low as he wanted anymore. His Tomcat was too hard to handle. It felt unhappy with three feet of its left wing gone. It wanted to roll left and yaw. He’d been able to control it with trim so far, but he couldn’t hug the ground all the way back in his condition. He climbed to three thousand feet and slowed to three hundred knots, there for any competent radar operator to see from a hundred miles away. They needed protection and help. They had to risk being heard and located by the Syrians.
Sedge called the E-2. “Blue Door 32, this is Watchmaker 09.”
“09. Blue Door 32. Go ahead.”
“Go secure,” Sedge said.
“Roger, secure.”
Sedge looked down to his left and turned the dial on his secure UHF encryption box. “32, you up?” Sedge asked.
“32’s up. Go ahead, 09.”
“They were waiting for us. They got our wingman. He went down at the target site, just southwest of the mountain. He landed in the valley — the airplane crashed just short of the base of the mountain. Alert whoever is in charge of SAR.” Search and Rescue.
“Roger, 09. Say your posit.”
Sedge looked at his PTID and read off the bearing and range to where the carrier was when they left. “We’re 083 for 230 from home base.”
“Roger. You inbound?”
“Affirmative, but we’ve been hit. We may not make it.”
“You need assistance, 09?”
“Just have a SAR chopper near the coast in case we can’t make it to the ship. We’re missing about three feet from our left wing.”
“Wilco. You see any chutes at the target?”
“Affirmative. Two good chutes, and positive radio contact with them on the ground.”
“Roger. We’ll check on what SAR assets are available.”
“Roger, 09 out.”
Wink rubbed his knee. “We can’t stay on this hill with the ZSU on the other side. When they find our chutes, this’ll be the first place they look. We’ve got to get to the hills on the north end of the valley. Probably a mile across. It’s our only chance.”