Head squinted, but could not make out anything more than a mile away. “You want me to take you in there?”
“Yes. But stay away from the dirt road, or you might be heard.”
“I got news for you, gramps,” said Head. “They can probably hear us if we’re three miles away. But after all these search flights, they might not pay attention to us. If that’s where you want to go, I’ll get you there.” Head turned away from the road and banked over the trees. They were only a hundred feet above the tree line; misty shapes of hills rose up, just out of view in the cloud and rain.
“Can you find a clearing?”
“If not, we’ll let you down on the crane. You’d better get on back with Bruce.”
“Aih.” Pompano unstrapped and moved slowly to the rear of the helicopter.
Head glanced down at the navigation system. Once Pompano had left the cockpit he looked up. There was no clearing, as far as he could see — only the dense growth of trees. Head leaned to Gould. “Craziest thing I’ve ever heard of. It’ll be a miracle if it works.”
“You got it,” said Gould.
At three thousand feet in the clouds, the MC-130 couldn’t be heard on the ground. The dense cloud layer dissipated the sound from the plane’s four engines.
The lack of visibility didn’t prevent the crew from the First Special Operations Squadron from completing their mission. In fact, the cloud layer actually enhanced their ability to do their job — keeping track of the MH-60 Black Hawk flying just below the cloud layer.
Colonel Ben Lutler watched over the shoulders of the two pilots in the cockpit. Outside the cockpit window there was nothing to see — a gray mishmash of formless patterns. It looked like an old, analog black-and-white TV set after the television station has gone off the air.
But on the console, a color-enhanced display showed the MH-60 Black Hawk in astonishing detail. An elongated pod fastened to one of the MC-130’s wings held an upgraded AN/AAQ-18 Adverse Weather Vision System, a microcomputer-controlled radar and next generation infra-red surveillance device. The back of the MC-130 was crammed full of navigation, surveillance, and electronic counter-measure gear, enough high-tech weaponry to sizzle equipment for miles around.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly. Minutes earlier, the Black Hawk had turned sharply over the jungle and started to slow. When it started to hover over a part of the jungle, Lutler bit his tongue and waited for the MC-130 aircraft commander to pull the plane into a tight orbit.
The EWOs — Electronic Warfare Officers — sat in the back of the craft and kept the AN/AAQ-18 trained on the helicopter. The EWOs were specialists in the electro-optical bells and whistles hanging off the airframe. They could listen to a radio signal and tell what kind of gear was transmitting it, where it was, and what they had to do to take it out. They were known as “wizards,” and were treated as such.
When the MC-130 banked into a turn, the console continued to display the chopper.
“This is it.” The pilot turned to Lutler. “What do you think, sir? We’ll track Lieutenant Steele once the Black Hawk lets him off, both on IR and the GPS chip he’s wearing. Should we start trying to pin down their destination?”
“Yeah. But don’t broadcast where they’re going if we find it. There’s a flight of F-15Es orbiting six miles above us, just itching to roll in and take out the bad guys. We want to make damn sure the vice president is out before we call them in.”
“Rog.” The pilot turned and spoke over the intercom to the rear of the craft. “EWO, pilot. Do a sweep search on buildings near the Black Hawk.”
“That’s a rog. We’ll get you a list soonest.”
Lutler settled back in his chair. The wizard had spoken. In minutes they should have a fix on the vice president’s location. If it was close by, another few hours and they’d be ready for the pickup.
Outside of the cockpit window the two-pronged fork of the Fulton Recovery System was invisible in the clouds. The concept was simple: A person on the ground would strap into a harness and deploy a balloon; the balloon would lift up a cord for the MC-130 to snag. The person on the ground would be jerked into the air and hauled into the Combat Talon.
The only problem was they’d have to come down out of the clouds before they attempted a recovery.
It should be a piece of cake.
Right.…
“This is it!” Zaz unbuckled and stood in the back of the Black Hawk. Bruce fumbled with the straps. He checked over his combat and survival vest for the tenth time. Two long clips of ammunition fit over his shoulder. He thought momentarily about leaving the extra bullets behind, but they did give him a sense of security.
Grabbing his M-16 he stood and joined Zaz. The two gunners remained in the back of the craft. Zaz swung a winch out from the bulkhead and positioned it near the hatch. The Black Hawk hovered a good twenty feet over the top of the trees. Zaz turned to Bruce and yelled over the thop thop thop of helicopter blades.
“Know how to do this?”
“Roger that.” Bruce remembered being lifted up through the jungle at the end of survival training. The last thing he had seen was Abuj, his dark face silently watching him being hoisted away. Bruce wished that he had the small Negrito with him now.
Pompano stepped from the cockpit. Zaz led the old man up to the penetrator seat.
“This will take you through the trees and get you to the ground. Sit on this seat, and keep your arms and legs in tight. Lieutenant Steele will help you off once you get down. Are there any questions?” Pompano shook his head. Zaz turned to Steele. “Ready, sir?”
Bruce stepped up to the penetrator. Zaz helped him to climb on. The device looked like a long pole that flared out and back again. Bruce sat on the flared section and wrapped his arms and legs around the pole. The penetrator had enough weight to push through the thick jungle foliage, and still offer Bruce protection from the branches.
Zaz put his mouth next to Bruce’s ear. “We’ll drop the Fulton pack when you give us the signal after the rescue. You’ll have that option if you can’t find a clearing for us to get you out. Got your radios? GPS?” Bruce nodded and patted his survival vest. “After we let you off, Captain Head will return to base for refueling — we can’t do an air-to-air in this weather. We’ll be back up here in an hour. All you’ve got to do is call. We’ll know where you are: there’s an MC-130H tracking you.”
“Right.” Bruce swung the M-16 over his shoulder and grasped the penetrator. He took a deep breath. “Let’s get it over with.” He knew that they were being watched from a MC-130, but he didn’t want Pompano to know just how closely they were being tracked.
Zaz started the winch. The penetrator swung off the floor and over to the hatch. Bruce moved out of the helicopter. The rain immediately soaked his fatigues. The wind came straight down, washed down from the rotors. Suspended in air, he swung back and forth, as if on a huge pendulum. He looked straight ahead, and could tell he was getting closer to the jungle.
Seconds later the foliage enveloped Bruce; green, wet, wood smells enveloped his senses. He couldn’t see the ground. A branch flipped up and ran across his body. There were crashing sounds of tree limbs breaking — he thought everyone would hear them descend.
The bottom of the penetrator hit. The jungle was a morass of greenery, moss, leaves, shrubs, tree trunks, branches, all jumbled together. Bruce waited a second to see which way the penetrator would fall, then he leapt out …
He hit a tree, stumbled backward, and twisted his right foot. He crashed through a thicket of plants, finally coming to rest on the ground. He waited a full second before moving. His face stung where the exploding heads-up display had cut him earlier in the morning.