Dragon Sim-13 (17 page)

Riley held six fingers aloft. "Six minutes!" He extended both hands, palms out. "Get ready!" The team members unbuckled their safety straps.

With both arms Riley pointed at the men seated along the outside of the aircraft. He pointed up. "Outboard personnel stand up."

The members of Team 3 staggered to their feet in the wildly swaying aircraft, using the static line cable and the side of the aircraft for support.

Curling his index fingers over his head, representing hooks, Riley pumped his arms up and down. "Hook up!"

Riley watched as each man hooked into the static line cable. As jumpmaster, Riley was already hooked up and facing the team as he screamed the jumpmaster commands. The loadmaster was holding onto Riley's static line and trying to keep him from falling over as Riley used both hands to pantomime the jump commands.

"Check static lines!"

Each jumper checked his snap link hooking into the cable and traced the static line from the snap link to where it disappeared over his shoulder. He then checked the static line of the man in front, from where it came over his shoulder to where it disappeared into his parachute.

"Check equipment!"

Each man made sure one last time that all his equipment was secured and his connections made fast on his parachute harness.

Riley cupped his hands over his ears. "Sound off for equipment check!"

Starting from Captain Mitchell, who slapped the man in front on the rear and yelled "OK," the yell and slap were passed from man to man until Comsky, who was to be the jumper behind Riley, yelled "All OK, Jumpmaster," giving the thumbs-up.

With all his jump commands done except the final "GO," Riley gained control of his static line from the loadmaster and turned toward the rear of the aircraft. He swayed to the front as the aircraft slowed down from 250 knots to 125 knots. Three minutes out. Then the ramp would open and he would lead the team off into the dark night.

FOB, Osan Air Force Base, Korea Tuesday, 6 June, 1548 Zulu Wednesday, 7 June, 12:48 a.m. Local

Hossey slammed down the phone in anger. "The operator says I was connected to the number but it went dead." He looked at the clock and made a decision. "Cancel it. Call them back. This whole situation is too uncertain. It's better if we do nothing than go when it looks like our SFOB has disappeared. I'll take responsibility. We can always go again tomorrow night. Get me the Talon on voice. We still have twelve minutes."

"Yes, sir." The communications man went to work on his equipment.

One Minute Out, Operational Area Dustey, China Tuesday, 6 June, 1549 Zulu Tuesday, 6 June, 11:49 p.m. Local

The loadmaster leaned over Riley's shoulder and stuck an index finger in his face. Riley looked over his shoulder at the team and screamed: "One minute!"

Ten seconds later his knees buckled as the plane rapidly climbed the 250 feet to the minimum safe drop altitude. The noise level increased abruptly as a crack appeared in the ramp, growing into a gaping mouth. As the ramp leveled off, Riley stared out into the night. It was hard for him to believe that he was actually over China.

Fighting the bulging rucksack hanging in front of his legs, Riley got to his knees. Grabbing the hydraulic arm on the right side of the ramp, he peered around the edge of the aircraft, looking forward and blinking in the fierce wind. It took a few seconds to get oriented, but there it was in the moonlight. Only about twenty seconds away loomed a lake. It had the right shape. He could see a river—it had to be the Sungari—to the left of the lake. Despite himself, Riley was impressed. More than two hours of low-level flying, an en route change, and they were right on target.

He stood up awkwardly and yelled over his shoulder as he shuffled out to within three feet of the edge of the ramp. "Stand by!"

Riley stared at the red light burning above the top of the ramp. As soon as the light turned green he'd go. He moved a few inches closer to the edge. Looking down he could see the leading shore of the lake below.

The green light flashed. Riley yelled "GO!" over his shoulder and was gone. Comsky followed. Then Chong.

As the sixth jumper approached, the light turned red. Olinski ignored the stop signal. If one went, all went. The rest of the team did the same. The loadmaster lunged forward from the side of the plane and tried to grab the last jumper as he went by. Captain Mitchell shrugged off with a surge of adrenaline and stepped off into the swirling air.

FOB, Osan Air Force Base, Korea Tuesday, 6 June, 1551 Zulu Wednesday, 7 June, 12:51 a.m. Local

Hossey was livid. "What do you mean they're gone?"

Through the static of the scrambler, the pilot of the Talon patiently explained. "They jumped about a minute ago. We had to change course to avoid Soviet radar we picked up along the way. The new route was more direct and cut about ten minutes off the drop time. We got the message just after we turned on the green light. The first several jumpers were already gone. The loadmaster tried to stop the rest but couldn't." Hossey considered the situation. The plane was still over Chinese airspace and it wasn't a bright idea to keep them on the air too long anyway. "All right. Out here." Hossey put down the mike.

Hooker summed up the situation. "The bottom line is that the team

is on the ground now. In about five hours we should get their ANGLER report, giving us their status. Our first scheduled contact going to them is in eight hours. Do you want me to tell them to abort then?"

Hossey's mind raced. What a screwup. There was nothing he could do about it now. The team was in. He looked up as the SATCOM terminal came alive for the first time in several hours. Hossey snatched the message as soon as it cleared the printer.

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET TO: CDR FOB Kl/ MSG 45 FROM: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM REF: FOB MESSAGE 43

ROGER YOUR MSG 43/ SATCOM PROBLEMS ON THIS

END/ LOST COMMO/ UP NOW/ SORRY

WHAT IS TEAM STATUS CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

"Bullshit," Hossey muttered to himself. "Get out of the way." The comm man moved while Hossey sat down and typed in his own message for reply.

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

TO: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM/ MSG 44

FROM: CDR FOB Kl

REF: SFOB MESSAGE 45

TEAM INFILTRATED/ COMMO PROBLEMS SERIOUS/

ALMOST ABORTED INFIL BECAUSE OF/

EMERGENCY PHONE LINE DEAD/

SATCOM DEAD/ NO ROGER MY 43/ WHAT IS GOING ON CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

Fort Meade, Maryland Tuesday, 6 June, 1555 Zulu Tuesday, 6 June, 10:55 a.m. Local

Meng almost smiled as he saw the message from the FOB run across his screen. It had been a close call and a stupid mistake on his part. He tapped out his response.

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

TO: CDR FOB Kl

FROM: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM/ MSG 46

REF: FOB MESSAGE 44

AGAIN/ COMMO PROBLEMS SOLVED/

MISSION A GO/ SORRY CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

Operational Area Dustey, China Tuesday, 6 June, 1555 Zulu Tuesday, 6 June, 11:55 p.m. Local

Jumping at 500 feet left little time for anything other than landing. Riley was only 250 feet above the water of the lake when his main parachute finished deploying. He barely had time to check his canopy before he was in the water. The natural buoyancy of the air trapped under his dry suit popped him back to the surface after a brief dunking.

The parachute settled into the water away from him where the wind had blown it. As the pull of his two weight belts tried to draw him back under, Riley quickly pulled his fins out from under his waistband and put them on to tread water. He worked rapidly to get out of the parachute harness. Unhooking his leg straps, he then pulled the quick release on his waistband. He pulled out the parachute kit bag, which had been folded flat under those straps, and held onto it while he shrugged out of the shoulder straps.

With the harness off, Riley pulled in on the lines to his parachute. Holding one handle of the kit bag with his teeth, he used his hands to stuff large billows of wet parachute into the bag. After two minutes of struggling, Riley succeeded in getting the chute inside and the kit bag snapped shut. Riley took off the second weight belt he wore and, attaching it to the handles of the kit bag, let it go. The waterlogged chute and kit bag disappeared into the dark depths.

Allowing his rucksack to drag behind him on a five-foot line, Riley turned to swim in the direction he believed the aircraft had been heading. As he lay on his back and started finning, he checked his wrist compass to confirm the direction, straight along the azimuth the Talon had flown over the DZ. Soon he heard muffled splashing ahead, which verified that he was heading in the right direction.

This was the first time that most team members had ever conducted a water jump under these kinds of circumstances. In training, safety requirements, combined with the cost of parachutes, required one safety boat per jumper to assist in recovery of the jumper and parachute. There was no one to assist in recovery now. The lack of realistic training was showing itself in the noise and time it was taking the other team members to derig. For Paul Lalli, a disaster seemed in the making.

Lalli came down facing directly into the six-knot wind. When he popped to the surface after landing, he found his parachute descending on top of him. The two weight belts he wore gave him an almost neutral buoyancy and, without his fins on, he found it difficult to keep his head above water. When Lalli reached up to push away the nylon so he could breathe, the movement caused his head to slip underwater. In the dark, with the chute bearing down on him, Lalli became disoriented and panicky.

The first thing he needed to do was get his fins on. That's what Riley had emphasized during the jumpmaster briefing at Osan, but Lalli had forgotten this in his initial panic. Now he reached down, pulled out his fins, and tried putting them on. He got his right one on, but as he was maneuvering the left one, the suspension cord from the parachute got caught around his arm and leg. He was momentarily trapped two feet below the surface. In his panic, Lalli dropped the fin and it was swallowed by the cold water. Struggling even harder, he got himself more entangled. Using his right leg he stroked vigorously and broke surface underneath the canopy. Taking a gulp of air, Lalli sank back underwater, wrestling with his parachute.

Fort Meade, Maryland Tuesday, 6 June, 1600 Zulu Tuesday, 6 June, 11:00 a.m. Local

Meng looked up as the words scrolled by on the message board.

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

TO: CDR USSOCOM/ SFOB FM

FROM: CDR FOB Kl/ MSG 45

TEAM INFILTRATED/ NO REPORTS OF PROBLEM/

AIRCRAFT RETURNING CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET

The reaction in the Tunnel from the USSOCOM staff was one of relief. Meng watched as General Olson turned to his operations officer. "That's one hurdle crossed."

If only they knew, Meng thought.

Operational Area Dustey, China Tuesday, 6 June, 1600 Zulu Tuesday, 6 June, 12:00 p.m. Local

Riley couldn't see the chem light the captain was supposed to hold up for the assembly point. He figured that Mitchell was still struggling with his parachute. Riley continued swimming until he came upon the next jumper in the water. It was Comsky, who had followed him off the ramp. He helped Comsky finish stuffing his parachute in the kit bag and sink it. They hooked together with a six-foot buddy line and, trailing their rucksacks behind, slowly finned on their backs along the compass heading.

Wednesday, 7 June, 12:01 a.m. Local

Lalli was losing his battle. The parachute was becoming waterlogged and he knew it would stay afloat for only about ten minutes. He estimated he had been in the water more than five minutes now. Using his one free leg to struggle to the surface and grab quick breaths, he was tiring. The sodden nylon was suffocating him, pressing down like a cold, wet blanket.

Then Lalli remembered something that Riley had told them to do in such an emergency. He reached down his right leg to where his dive knife was strapped, pulled it out, and started hacking wildly at the suspension cord that entangled him. On his third slash he managed to drive the point of the dive knife into his left thigh almost an inch. Despite the pain, he yanked it out and continued his efforts. He was rewarded by his left leg finally coming free. Treading water, Lalli pushed out

against the wet silk and took a few seconds to catch his breath. Then he used his knife to cut through the parachute to open air.

12:05 a.m. Local

Slowly, Riley gathered in the members of the team as he swam. After meeting up with the third jumper he saw the blue chem light come on ahead. It was then that he came across Lalli treading water in the middle of a half-submerged parachute. With the other three team members, Riley pulled Lalli free of his chute and finished sinking it. As Lalli treaded water next to Riley, he told him of his self-inflicted wound and loss of a fin.

"Can you make it to shore?" Riley asked.

"It really doesn't hurt. I'm not sure how much it's bleeding or how bad it is. I can use the leg. The only problem right now is that my suit is filling with water and with only one fin I can't swim as fast as the rest of you."

"Drop your weight belt and use your ruck for buoyancy if you need to. Don't worry, we aren't gonna leave you. We got plenty of time." Riley hissed at Comsky to come over.

Riley told Comsky what had happened. "You stay with Lalli the whole way in. As soon as we get to the changing area, check him out."

"Right, Top." Comsky hooked himself to Lalli with his buddy line and peered at him in the dark.

"You hurt, Comsky fix," he grunted. Just the hulking presence of Comsky in the water next to him made Lalli feel better.

Riley picked up only two more jumpers; the rest of the team headed toward the captain on their own. When he arrived at Mitchell's position, he found the entire team accounted for. That in itself was a major hurdle crossed, Riley knew: infiltrated in the right place with all people accounted for.

With some difficulty, they organized themselves into their team formation for swimming. Lining up in pairs they started finning, Riley and Hoffman, the second-strongest swimmer after the team sergeant, in the lead. They finned slowly, on their backs, arms tight to their sides, not allowing the tips of their fins to break the surface. The weight belts kept their bodies submerged except for their camouflaged faces, which looked up into the night sky. Waterproof rucksacks bobbed in the water behind each swimmer. From the air the formation appeared to be a long, swimming centipede, edging its way toward shore.