He’d struck the tree several times on the way down. He’d have to check the system in his helmet, but if he was a betting man, he was sure he’d find a short somewhere. Hopefully it was something he could fix.
But first things first.
Above him the canopy was thick with twisted limbs and green leaves. Hoover was rigged to his chest, so he couldn’t see beneath him. He kipped his legs to begin swinging so he could see the ground below. He gauged it to be about twenty to thirty feet. Just enough to break a leg.
He thought for a moment. If he’d been in an American chute, he’d have a reserve that he could deploy to use as a rope. Chinese cargo chutes didn’t need reserves. After all, cargo couldn’t activate them.
Looking around again, he spied a tree with sturdy limbs about six feet to his right. It only took him a moment to decide what to do.
“Okay, girl. This is what we’re going to do,” he said, looking into the soulful eyes of the Malinois. “I’m going to lower you down. You won’t be able to reach the ground, but there’s good reason for it. One, if I fall, you’ll be that much closer to the ground. Two, I need to be able to use my arms to see if I can save us.” He petted the dog. “Inshallah, we’ll be down in a few moments.”
The dog whined again, then seemed to catch herself. She licked Yaya on the cheek and resumed panting.
Yaya ensured Hoover was secured to the drop line, then unclipped her from the rigging. There was a moment of release when her weight left his chest, but he caught it with his arms.
“See you in a bit, girl. Keep your head down.”
He gently lowered her to the end of the tether. The other end of the line was clipped to the harness on her back, so there was no worry of strangulation, although he was aware that when he began swinging toward the tree, she’d swing as well.
He felt her weight the way a boat would feel an anchor. To gain momentum with his hips, he kipped his legs and began to swing away from the tree, then toward it. Back and forth he went until his fingers brushed the bark of his target. Two more kips and he managed to grab a protrusion with the tips of his fingers. He felt himself slipping backwards and reached out for a vine he’d spied earlier. But as his hand grasped the slender green vegetation, he realized it wasn’t a vine.
But it was already too late. He swung backwards and brought the object with him. The snake wrapped itself around his wrist, its head rising to appraise him. He wasn’t a herpetologist, but he knew a tree snake when he saw one. Many of them were venomous. This one opened its pointed head and revealed a cotton-white mouth and two slender fangs.
Yaya did what any SEAL would do. He shook his arm furiously and screamed. The snake fell away and it was only too late that he realized that Hoover was below him. He squirmed to see the snake land squarely on the dog’s back. Hoover snapped at it and shook her body, much as the SEAL had done. The snake fell to the jungle floor. Hoover looked up at Yaya, none too pleased.
“Sorry, girl!”
Yaya’s pendulum movement had almost stilled. So he kipped again to get it started. This time as he gained momentum, he searched the tree for any more unexpected fauna. Thankfully, there was nothing. He was able to grasp a limb, cut away from his risers, and climb down the tree. Once Hoover’s feet hit the ground it became easier, because Yaya no longer needed to hold the weight of the both of them.
Hoover began to growl and snap. But Yaya’s grip on the tree was too precarious for him to look. He shimmied down as fast as he could. When his boots hit the ground, he jerked his 9mm free and swept the jungle. Then he saw Hoover.
The dog stood with the snake in its jaws. It strode to the SEAL, deposited the reptile at his feet, and looked up as if to say, That’s how it’s done.
“All right, girl. You done good. Now let’s make the rendezvous.” Yaya pulled out his compass and his tablet and oriented himself to the scrolling map. After a moment, he gestured in a direction.
“Point,” he commanded.
Hoover took off like a shot.
50
When Walker had finally regained consciousness he had been upside down and about a foot from the ground. Beneath him raced a division of ants, making it seem as if the ground was moving. He’d puked, a sure sign of a concussion.
But he’d made the rendezvous with the others just fine. With the exception of the bad luck of their coms breaking down, the insertion went without a hitch. Of course, all hell could be breaking loose Stateside and a comet could be plunging into the Atlantic but they’d never know about it. He’d hoped that the twenty-four-kilometer trek through the jungle would clear his head, but it only served to make him feel worse. The faster his heart beat, the more his head throbbed. The fact was they were too deep in enemy territory for anything to be done about it.
Once outside the warehouse compound, the SEALs conducted reconnaissance using both infrared and night-vision devices. Their only thermal imagery came from the Leupold scope attached to Walker’s sniper rifle. They hadn’t counted on being out of coms with support. NRO had deployed a geosynchronous satellite above to provide the SEALs with real-time imagery intelligence across all visual spectrums. The SEALs didn’t detect any evidence of habitation. The guards that had previously been stationed around the site were no longer there. It appeared to be deserted.
Holmes ordered Yaya to find a way to fix their coms. Both Laws’s and Walker’s ComTac headsets had been ripped and crushed in their descents. Holmes had his data mode and voice cables ripped free and his uplink wasn’t functioning, although there was no visible evidence of damage. Ruiz’s set had lost its cipher fill, which meant although it would work, it couldn’t talk to anyone. And Yaya’s receiver unit had been punctured by a branch. He had an ugly green and purple bruise beneath it to show how lucky he’d been.
They hadn’t been prepared for the LALO. Had they had more time, they would have protected the equipment better. As it turned out, they were lucky the only damage was to the communications gear. Yaya was able to scrape together two complete systems that could talk to each other, but had no uplink capability. Holmes took one; the other he gave to Laws. There was talk about Walker taking it in his role of sniper, but Holmes was against that. He wanted to split the four remaining SEALs into two teams and he wanted to be able to synchronize activities.
Walker was reminded of the stories he’d heard about Camp Rhino. In the earliest days of the war in Afghanistan, a drug smuggler’s outpost was chosen to become the coalition’s first firm foothold on Afghani soil. Air Force special operators HALO’d in and secured a drop zone. SEALs arrived next to ascertain evidence of enemy personnel. Back then everyone in Afghanistan was an enemy, whether it be some poor trader with a camel or a fighter with an RPG. The SEALs were from Delta Platoon, SEAL Team 3. They were essentially one hundred nautical miles from friendly forces and experienced intermittent communications. Walker remembered talking to a guy about how when the coms went out they kept wondering if the mission might have been called off and they didn’t know it. Back then the Task Force K-Bar commander was operating by the seat of his pants. The plan was to fly three hundred marines in from the Fifteenth Marine Expeditionary Unit by helicopter. The SEALs were to observe until then. The decision to postpone the insertion of the marines by twenty-four hours was made by the task-force commander, but no one informed the SEALs. During the last twelve hours of their mission, they had lost all coms and couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.
But every SEAL knew that unless specifically told otherwise, they were to continue on with their mission. For the SEALs of SEAL Team 3, their mission was to observe and secure until the marines arrived. For the SEALs of SEAL Team 666, their mission was to try and discover the command and control network involved with the movement or nonmovement of the chimeras to America.