"Cougars! Prepare for jump!"
The eleven men along the starboard side of the aircraft stood as one.
The bad guys had thrown the team a curve just over twenty-four hours ago by separating the two ships that, until now, had been lashed together. The Atlantis Queen was still less than half a mile away from the Pacific Sandpiper, but the two vessels would have to be taken down separately now.
And so a second assault force was approaching the Sandpiper on board the USS Ohio with an ASDS riding piggyback on its after deck and Navy SEALs preparing to deploy. Jaguar Team, which originally had been intended to land on the Sandpiper, would now hang back in the orbiting Osprey and jump where they were needed.
The Cougars began going through their final checkout.
Dean pressed a key on the panel strapped to his left forearm, and the LED screen lit up with pertinent data — his altitude above sea level, now 22,745 feet; the temperature outside, minus twenty-three degrees; the wind speed downloaded from the Osprey's computer; the atmospheric pressure… it was all there, right down to the wind speed above the water at the target. He pressed another key, and the atmospheric data were replaced by a bio stats screen, including, again, the outside temperature, as well as heart rate, blood pressure, and the flow rate of 02 through his face mask.
He pressed a third key, and those data were replaced by a navigational screen showing his precise longitude and latitude, plus his current velocity — 271 knots — as clocked by NAVSTAR-GPS satellites in medium Earth orbit, eleven thousand miles overhead. Most important was the tiny, glowing red arrow on the extreme right, by his wrist, accompanied by the numerals 96845, the last three of which were flickering so quickly they were blurred as the number dwindled. It was the range, in yards, to the target, which now lay about fifty-five miles to the northeast. The arrow gave the direction to. the Atlantis Queen and was now pointed at the front of the Osprey's troop bay.
The wrist pad gave him all the data he needed to conduct a HAHO paradrop and landing on what otherwise would have been an impossible target — a moving target, in pitch-blackness, that was just seventy feet long and about fifty wide.
Each of the other men in the assault had the same device, and each was cycling through the different screens now, making sure they were operational. Once certain that their electronic systems were good to go, they began the time-honored physical check, with each man checking the straps, weapons, gear, and buckles of the man beside him, then standing still as the two switched roles.
Each man in the assault team wore a black GORE-TEX jumpsuit over a Polartec liner, cold-weather gloves and overboots, and an HGU-55/P parachutist's helmet with a built-in communications system that would allow him to talk to the other team members and, via a relay through a nearby AWACs aircraft, with Desk Three. His lower face was covered by an MBU-12P pressure demand oxygen mask. His left eye was covered by an AN/PVS-14D night-vision monocular, which left his right eye dark-adapted in the dim red glow of the Osprey's cabin lights.
They carried a mix of weapons. Four, including Dean, carried the ubiquitous H&K SD5 with infrared laser targeting mounts and an integral sound suppressor. Four others carried a fairly new entry in the U. S. military arsenal, the AA-12 automatic combat shotgun, while the last four carried CAR-15 assault weapons. Each man also carried a SIG SAUER P226 with a sound suppressor screwed tight to the muzzle.
Dean finished checking the straps and harness fastenings on Tom Fredericks, the man immediately in front of him, making sure in particular that his combat shotgun was secure on his back and the hose from his 02 cylinder was clear and not going to be torn by an opening parachute. Then Dean clapped Fredericks on the shoulder and allowed the other man to check him.
Final checkout complete, the twelve of them stood single file, facing the still-closed boarding ramp of the aircraft.
And then there was nothing to do but wait.
Chapter 24
The minutes passed, as they always do just before a step into emptiness, slowly.
The Osprey had reached its service ceiling of about twenty-four thousand feet. HAHO parachute jumps usually took place at altitudes over twenty-five thousand feet, but that could always be tailored to fit mission requirements. Cougar would be steering to target across a distance of only five miles, rather than the more usual thirty to fifty. They droned along now in level flight, steadily closing on the waypoint designated Charlie One.
"What's the word, Mr. Rubens?" Dean asked, keeping his helmet comm gear switched off while he used his implant to talk to the Art Room. "We've got about two minutes to go/no-go."
"The President still hasn't gotten back to Bing," Rubens said. He sounded tired and not a little exasperated. "This may be a CYA hand-me-down." "Shit."
Dean hadn't been paying a lot of attention to the bureaucratic games in Washington lately, but he'd heard enough from Rubens over the past several days to make a pretty fair guess as to what was happening. The current administration didn't want to be seen as militarily adventurous at a time when it was trying to disengage from Iraq. The United Kingdom had rejected an offer of help by the United States with Harrow Storm, and that had been fine with the President. He wanted to stay out of what publicly was a British crisis if he possibly could.
But the two hijacked ships were now just two hundred nautical miles from New York City. Rubens was convinced that the real goal of the IJI Brigade terrorists was to force the United States to step in and either attempt a bloody takedown of both ships, one that might well end in hundreds or thousands of casualties and risk radioactive contamination of the entire North Atlantic Gulf Stream, or, failing that, sink the two ships out of hand to keep them out of American waters or ports, an act that would show the U. S. military murdering thousands of hostages and contaminating the ocean, all live on the nightly cable news.
By doing nothing, the administration might be hoping that someone else took the responsibility of actually making a decision. If Rubens decided to launch Operation Neptune on his own, he would give the President options. If Neptune was a success, the President could accept the praise. If it was a disaster, he could always "disavow all knowledge of their actions," as the old TV spy show so succinctly put it.
As Rubens said, a CYA hand-me-down of responsibility — cover your ass, and let someone else take the responsibility.
"Neptune," Rubens said after a moment, "is a go. On my authority."
"Copy," Dean replied. "Neptune is go." At that moment, he was very, very glad he did not have Rubens' job. Success would mean someone else got the praise and he, most likely, would get a severe dressing-down for exceeding his authority. Failure meant political crucifixion and quite probably legal action as well. If Neptune turned sour, they would be looking for scapegoats in the morning.
"Good luck, Charlie."
"Thanks. And… don't worry. We'll do our best."
"I know you will."
The aircraft cargo master slapped Dean on the shoulder and switched his headset back on. "The tangos just called to wave us off," the cargo said over Dean's helmet radio. "Guess they're nervous about us flying so close."
"What'd you tell them?"
"That we were a fat, stupid UPS plane en route to Boston," the cargo master replied. "Just like we planned it."
"Any reply to that?"
"Negative. But you can bet they're watching us!"
"Yeah, but a cruise ship's radar isn't going to spot man-sized targets. They can watch all they want."
The cargo master held a hand up as he listened to an intercom transmission from the cockpit, then nodded and gave Dean the ready sign. They were coming up on Charlie One. The pitch of the Osprey's rotors changed as the aircraft slowed sharply.