“My thought exactly, Major. The eagle eyes found one of those prefab sons o’ bitches that smacks of Chinese construction. Real close to those control bunkers we took a look at in Iran last summer.”
Sean had been up close and personal for that one. Almost too close. “And once we secure it?” He never thought in terms of “if’ when it came to a mission’s outcome.
“There’s a DOE tech guy comin’ down with the gear y’all ordered from Wally World.” Cadler didn’t expand, an unseen smile on his muscular face.
Another one of those. Sean knew Delta didn’t have a stellar record in keeping technicians from the Department of Energy safe when in their care. His thoughts momentarily went back to the man condemned to death during the last and only mating of their talents. He wondered how Anderson was doing.
“We’ll try and give this one back in one piece,” Sean said with some levity.
“Deal. Any assets you think y’all might need?”
“Let me talk to Lieutenant Duc.” Lieutenant Cho Duc was the Pave Hawk’s pilot. “We’ll run through an insertion to see. Are there photos on the way down?”
“The com center o’er on Crocodile Road should have ‘em ‘bout now.”
“Okay. We’ll get to it.”
“Fingers crossed, Major.”
“Fingers crossed, sir.”
The satellite photos were retrieved from the Cape’s com center and delivered to Sean and Lieutenant Duc, who were sitting in the open port-side door of the Pave Hawk. Duc, a twenty-eight-year-old child of the Nam experience whose earliest memory was of the American Hueys buzzing his family’s village north of Saigon, was a member of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, commonly referred to as the Nightstalkers for their inhuman ability to fly low and fast in total darkness. They were less well known as Delta’s taxi service.
“Long flight,” Duc commented, looking at the map. He was a small, thin man, whose neck was strangely overdeveloped from the constant wearing of NVGs during the Nightstalkers’ “normal mission profile” flights.
Sean watched him trace a line around the east end of the island before turning west, past Guantanamo Naval Base, to their target west of Cienfuegos. “Not overland?”
“Not with a war going on,” Duc answered, his voice inflected with the choppy influence of his native tongue. “We got two AW ACS up, one in the Gulf and the other this side of the keys. They say there’s still a bunch of SAM radars up and running. Plus, one lucky shot can ruin your whole day.”
“Then we go around past Guantanamo and come in from the water. We’ll have to tank, right?”
Duc nodded. “Ten men, four crew, a little gear. Probably a six-hour flight to avoid getting shot at until we want that.” He smiled deviously. “We’ll tank once east of the island and once right before we go in.”
“We should get a Combat Talon alerted,” Sean said. “The MC-130H Combat Talon was a Special Operations version of the C-130 Hercules. Its capabilities included communication, navigation, refueling, and in-flight extraction of troopers using the Fulton STAR recovery system, an E-ticket ride if there ever was one.
“You didn’t know? The Talons are all grounded,” Duc said.
“What? Why?”
“One of them took a beaucoup beating yesterday when one of the nose prongs came off in flight. Knocked out two engines and took a chunk of wing with it.” The nose prongs, normally folded back against the fuselage, were extended to form a forward-facing V when a pickup using the Fulton system was in progress. The prongs would catch a line hoisted skyward by a helium balloon and hold it until it could be fed into a winch system. On the other end of the line a trooper or troopers would be yanked from their earthly bonds and pulled into the aircraft. “They want to make sure it’s not metal fatigue.”
“But we don’t really need a Talon. We can go with a Shadow.” Duc referred to the HC-130 Combat Shadow, the Talon’s cousin optimized for in-flight refueling of multiple helicopters.
“Okay.” Sean knew that the lieutenant could be trusted implicitly when it came to getting them into and out of potentially hot LZs. And this might get hot, he thought, looking to the two-pintle-mounted 7.62mm miniguns. “Think those will be enough?”
“I don’t want to have to find out. How about we get some backup? Something that can ruin the Cubans’ day if we need to.”
Sean nodded agreement. “Anything else?”
Duc thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t mind having one of those AWACS dedicated to watching our ass.”
“I’ll tell the colonel.” That meant the colonel would get it for them. Bill Cadler had clout, and a hell of a loud voice.
“Look at those,” the lieutenant said, pointing at the images of the plant. “Power masts all over the place. We gotta watch those.” His eyes traced a path around the logical path for any lines between the tall metal structures. “We gotta come in right.”
“We should be able to get one or two run-throughs down,” Sean said, hoping they would have enough time. There wasn’t much time for preparation on this one. “I’ll let you know when we’re ready.”
“Gotcha.” Duc took one copy of the map and satellite photos to the front of the Pave Hawk to begin planning the precise flight plan.
Sean stood and took a few steps from the helicopter before looking back. This would be the first real test of this version of the Pave Hawk. It was a formidable-looking bird. The stubby wings that held the 230-gallon outrigger fuel tanks forward and above the side doors could also add to the twin miniguns’ firepower by holding air-to-air or air-to-ground missiles. There were also systems to prevent the Pave Hawk from being hit. Chaff-and-flare dispensers, tied to missile-launch detectors, could pump out the radar and infrared countermeasures from just behind the cabin, and the entire helicopter was covered in a black-and-green infrared-suppressing paint scheme. To help get it to any target, there was a FLIR system and a Terrain Avoidance/Terrain Following radar that allowed Lieutenant Duc to fly so close to the earth that new threats of collision had to be planned for. That was taken care of by the sharp, forward-facing blade protruding upward from the Pave Hawk’s fuselage a yard forward of the main rotor shaft. This was protection from wire strikes, the very real possibility of clipping a power or communication line as the helicopter skimmed low to the ground. Any contact above the nose and below the four blade rotor would direct the offending wire into the sharp blade, slicing it in two and — hopefully — saving the Pave Hawk. The system had proved itself during training flights, leaving certain local utility companies in the South and West scratching their heads as to how their lines came to be cut.
All the systems inherent to the Pave Hawk were meant to make it one of the safest and most stealthy taxis for the special operations forces — Delta, in this case. It was a matter of mating the best with the best.
The major’s attention shifted to the east-west runway just north of where he stood. From over the Atlantic a dark green C-130 descended and touched down gracefully. There were no markings visible on its exterior, which told Graber that it was the Herky Bird from the 23rd Air Force that was bringing down the gear he’d requested from Bragg, plus the technical expert from DOE. Sean watched the aircraft taxi to a blue Air Force Humvee, which waited for a single passenger to deplane and climb in. A second vehicle, which would get the equipment brought down, pulled up to the stern ramp as the Humvee drove away. In a minute it stopped just short of the Delta major.
“Can’t you grunts do anything without me?” Joe Anderson asked loudly as he stepped from the vehicle. There was the slightest smile on his smallish face.