When McLanahan flipped his NVG out of his eyes, everything disappeared in the blackness. He could see nothing outside — no roof, no men, no machine-gun nests. The feeling of vertigo was very real and gut-wrenching, so he put the NVGs back in position real fast. For safety and security reasons, the MV-22 had changed positions on the roof after unloading the first twelve Marines on board, because an enemy could have easily drawn a bead on the hovering aircraft. Now Hammer Four was maneuvering back into position to off-load the three Air Force officers and the rest of the Marines in the security-team platoon.
“We’re going to approach the roof tail-in,” Wohl said to his three Air Force officers, “so remember, when you get off the rope, turn immediately towards the center of the roof. It’s real easy to get confused when you leave the chopper, so if you get disoriented, just step clear of the rope and drop to one knee. I will grab you and tell you where to go. Don’t get confused and run off the edge of the roof. Remember to step clear of the rope because the next Marine will be coming down right on top of you. Look before you move.”
The MV-22 stopped its forward motion, swung left so the nose was facing out away from the building, and translated backwards until the cargo ramp, and then the crew doors, were over the edge of the roof. Spotter/gunners in each door guided the pilot to the proper position.
When the MV-22 was positioned properly and stabilized in a hover, the jumpmaster yelled, “Jumpers, go!”
Wohl and Briggs pulled themselves onto their ropes. Like the hot dog he was, Briggs held on to the rope with one hand and gave McLanahan a thumbs-up and a big smile, then disappeared below the edge of the cargo ramp.
The jumpmaster yelled, “Jumpers, ready on the rope!”
McLanahan shuffled forward onto the cargo ramp, careful not to cross his feet in case the motion of the MV-22 caused him to trip. He reached out and grabbed the thick, soft nylon rope. Someone down below was holding the bottom, and the tension against him made McLanahan feel as if he were going to be pulled off the cargo ramp, so his grip involuntarily tightened. This was it. The noise was almost unbearable. McLanahan was afraid he wouldn’t hear the commands because of the rotor noise and the roar of the blood pounding in his ears, but three seconds later, the jumpmaster yelled, “Jumpers, g—”
The SEA HAMMER tilt-rotor suddenly heeled upwards so hard that McLanahan’s knees buckled. The aircraft then swung hard left, lifting up some more, swung hard right, and then the 25-millimeter Hughes Chain Gun pod on the left-side sponson opened fire. McLanahan’s feet left the deck, and he found himself hanging for dear life on to the rope, dangling away from the cargo ramp, being swung so violently that he could not reach the ramp.
The MV-22 flew away from the rooftop, picking up speed and altitude fast to fight off a sudden attack.
“Patrick!” General Ormack yelled. He was on his hands and knees on the cargo deck, being pulled back against the web troop seats by a Marine. The Marine on the other fastrope on the cargo ramp was nowhere to be seen-McLanahan realized with a thrill of terror that he probably fell off the rope when the SEA HAMMER made that violent swerve. That tightened his grip on the rope even more.
The jumpmaster, who was secured by a safety line, edged his way to the back of the cargo deck. He motioned with his hands to his ankles. McLanahan immediately understood. Holding on tightly with his hands, he wrapped his left leg around the thick rope, letting it twist around his leg and rest against the inside of his left sole, then pressed down on it with all his might with his right foot. The rope and his left foot formed a firm step that McLanahan could use to relax his hands and take some of the press …
A streak of yellow fire suddenly arced away from the aircraft hangars to the right. The MV-22 made a sharp left turn, but the streak of fire was too fast and hit the right engine nacelle. The nacelle exploded in a ball of fire, showering McLanahan with flying pieces of metal and white-hot flame. A shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile, probably a Soviet-made SA-7 or SA- 11, had hit the right engine.
They were going down.
The MV-22 swiveled to the left. Still dangling on the rope, McLanahan had no sense of up or down anymore. His knuckles and cheeks were flushed with pain from the burning right engine. He hit the side of the cargo door as the SEA HAMMER nosed up. When the nose suddenly came back down, the whipcrack was too much.
McLanahan was thrown off the rope like a pellet from a slingshot.
The explosion from the Marines’ three simultaneous attacks from the stairwell nearly threw Vadim Teresov, who was rushing down that same stairwell to the second subfloor, off his feet. Damn them! he cursed. That was close! Bits of concrete and insulation dust dropped from somewhere above him, and the lights flickered, then went out completely.
Teresov found himself leaning in a corner of the stairwell against a wall, shaking his head to clear the ringing. The emergency light over the last door below him snapped on. He took a few moments to let his head clear, then gripped the Makarov tightly and headed toward the light. At first he swung the pistol overhead, aiming it at the stairs, deciding that he was going to shoot anyone who appeared — if they were attackers they were his enemies, and if they were Soviets they were cowards, and both had to die. But when he reached the door to the second subfloor, he found all his concentration swinging toward the grim task at hand, and he forgot about all else.
Teresov looked through the wire-reinforced window in the door. The guard’s desk near the door was unmanned, the door locked. He quickly unlocked the thick gray-steel fire door with his pass key, closed it behind him with a dull echo, and locked it again. The basement of the security building was a maze of heating ducts, machinery, leaking pipes, and sounds of all kinds. Only a few emergency lights were on down here, so Teresov unclipped the light from its bracket over the doorway and used it as a flashlight to find Luger’s cell.
The Marine Corps pilot of the stricken MV-22 SEA HAMMER tilt-rotor aircraft had by force of habit lifted the nose to gain altitude when the missile hit the starboard engine. That was a mistake that he almost did not live to regret: when you suddenly have no flying speed left, you don’t raise the nose, which bleeds off more airspeed — you dump the nose to try to regain airspeed. Realizing his error, he immediately dumped the nose and stomped on the right yaw-control pedal to counteract the spin to the left. Without forward airspeed of 60 knots or more, the SEA HAMMER wasn’t going to autorotate no matter how perfect his procedures were, but with a few extra knots of airspeed in the fall, he might have enough speed to keep the aircraft upright in the crash landing. A V-22 must crash-land upright and level — anything else would mean serious fuselage stress, rupture, and fire.
The V-22 has a system that can apply power from one engine to both rotors at the same time, and in most conditions the aircraft can stay controllable; the crossover was supposed to happen automatically, but the third item in the bold print (must-be-committed-to-memory) checklist for engine failure inflight, after POWER-MAX and AIRSPEED-60 KIAS, is EMERGENCY CROSSOVER — CHECK XOVER.
“Check emergency crossover!” the pilot shouted to the copilot.
The copilot had immediately run the same checklist in his head, so he was on the same step as the pilot, looking at the illuminated status light. “Linkage shows crossover!” the copilot yelled back. That interchange took one-half second. They had another five seconds before they’d hit the ground.