Up on the platform, Lt. Col. Robert O’Connell caught a glimpse of movement near the hangar doors. Gener was coming back from the communications center. O’Connell straightened up, feeling the first trickle of cold sweat under his arms. This was it.
“Ah-tench-hut!”
The Rangers snapped to rigid attention as their colonel threaded his way through them and bounded onto the platform.
Gener nodded once to O’Connell, his eyes alight with excitement. Then he turned to face the waiting battalions.
“At ease!”
A tiny, almost invisible, wave of relaxation rippled through the hangar.
The colonel pulled a single sheet of thin paper out of a pocket and held it up so that every man could see it.
“This signal came in from
Washington five minutes ago. It’s official, gentlemen! Brave Fortune has a green light! We go in tonight. Exactly as planned.”
O’Connell felt some of his nervous tension evaporate as the mission became a reality. No one had really been sure that Washington had the guts to risk trying such a stunt, and in many ways, that uncertainty had been the worst part of
the wait. From now on each man’s fate was out of the hands of unknown politicians and generals and in the hands of God, impersonal chance, and the team’s fighting skills. Somehow that was easier to take.
Gener lowered the message form and studied the sea of camouflaged faces in front of him.
“Before Lieutenant Colonel O’Connell goes over the ops order with you, I just want to say one thing. And that’s that I’m damned proud to be fighting with you boys. Damned proud. Rangers, I salute you.”
He brought his hand up in a sweeping, almost exuberant, salute and held it as every soldier in the vast hangar returned the gesture.
The colonel dropped his hand, spun on his heel, and looked at O’Connell.
“They’re all yours, Colonel.”
Yeah, right. At least until we hit the ground, O’Connell thought. He moved to the edge of the platform. Two noncoms wrestled a large map into position behind him. Circles, arrows, and dotted lines marked drop zones, objectives, and approach routes. He half-turned toward the map, feeling the pressure of nearly one thousand pairs of eyes watching his every move.
“At oh one hundred hours tomorrow, the First and Second battalions, plus elements of the regimental HQ, will make airborne assaults on the following targets inside the Republic of South Africa …… O’Connell was sure that all of his men already knew the entire attack plan both forward and backward. Some could probably repeat it back word for word. But it wouldn’t hurt to go over the highlights one last time.
Airborne landings in darkness and against opposition were full of sound and fury-glowing tracers in the night, blinding explosions, and dead men entangled in still-falling parachutes. In the midst of such brain-numbing confusion, it was vital that every Ranger know exactly what he was supposed to be doing at any given moment. And since there were bound to be casualties, he should know exactly what his comrades were supposed to be doing as well.
In what seemed like no time at all, he was finished. 0”Con nell let the last map page fall back and turned to face the waiting battalions.
“This is it, gentlemen. We’ve worked hard together preparing for this op. But now you’re as ready as we can make you.”
He lowered his voice, speaking quietly now so that every man had to strain to hear him.
“This mission won’t be easy. And it sure as hell won’t be a bloodless cakewalk. But remember that this mission is strategic. And when we’re done, these Afrikaner bastards are gonna know exactly who’s jumped down their throats and kicked their guts out.”
He swept the black beret off his head and lifted it high in one hand. His voice grew louder, more confident.
“And who’s that gonna be?”
The answer came flooding back, shouted from a thousand throats.
“Rangers!
Rangers! Rangers!”
O’Connell grinned. He let them yell awhile longer and then held up a hand for silence.
“First and Second battalions of the Seventy-fifth, board your aircraft.”
In seconds, companies and platoons were forming up into march columns-each heading for one of the ten C-141 jet transports waiting outside on the tarmac.
Brave Fortune was under way.
CHAPTER 30
Brave Fortune
NOVEMBER 28-ABOARD SIERRA ONE ZERO, OVER THE SOUTH ATLANTIC OFF THE COAST OF ANGOLA
The MC-141 Starlifter known as Sierra One Zero flew east toward Africa at thirty thousand feet, surrounded by a manmade constellation of winking navigation lights. Those ahead and slightly higher belonged to four huge
SAC KC10 tankers. The lights behind and to either side belonged to
Sierra One Zero’s four companions.
“All right, disconnect.” Sierra One Zero’s pilot, a full Air Force colonel, glanced across the darkened cockpit at his copilot.
“Roger, ” the aerial tanker’s boom operator responded over the intercom.
“Pumping stopped. Good luck and give them hell.” They were operating under conditions of strict radio silence, but the boom connecting them to the KC-10 also allowed them to talk to the tanker directly.
“Released.”
The refueling boom snapped up and away from the Starlifter in a white puff of jet-fuel vapor.
The colonel eased back very gently on the throttles, watching carefully as the huge tanker pulled farther out in front. Satisfied that he now had enough room to avoid a midair collision, the colonel banked the MC-141 gently to the right and slid back into place at the head of his formation.
Sierra One Zero’s pilot watched the tankers slide past his side window and disappear from sight. Then he pushed his throttles forward again, listening as the roar from Starlifter’s four engines grew louder. An indicator showed the plane picking up airspeed, accelerating from the 330 knots used for in-flight refueling toward its normal cruising speed of 550 knots.
The five jet transports carrying the 1/75th now flew in a tight arrowhead, with one Special Operations MC-141 out in front and four standard
Starlifters behind and to either side. The 2/75this C-141s, anotherMC-141, and more tankers were several miles behind the formation.
“The MC-141s, designed for long-range penetration missions deep in enemy territory, carried just about every piece of special electronic gear known to man-terrain-following radar for low-level flight, infrared TV, and jamming systems to boggle hostile radars if they were detected.
With luck, they’d be able to lead the less capable C-141s all the way in to
Pretoria.
The SAC tankers altered course and began pulling away fast, heading back for their own refueling stop at Ascension Island nearly sixteen hundred miles to the west.
He toggled his intercom switch.
“Bob?”
“Yes, Colonel?” Lt. Col. Robert O’Connell answered immediately from his position in the crowded troop compartment below and behind the cockpit. His regimental commander, Colonel Gener, was in Sierra One Three-flying in a separate aircraft to make sure that no single crash or mishap would leave the 1/75th leaderless.
“We’re gassed up and heading in. Estimate we’ll cross the coast in twenty minutes. “
The Air Force colonel could hear the tension in the Ranger battalion commander’s voice.
“Thanks, I’ll pass the word.”
The five C-141s continued east, flying high above an unbroken layer of cloud and beneath a sky full of bright, un winking stars.
ABOARD USS CARL VINSON, IN THE INDIAN OCEAN
Rear Adm. Andrew Douglas Stewart stood watching from the Vinson’s bridge as her four steam catapults threw plane after plane into the night air.