Mission Compromised (47 page)

Now, after months of planning, training, changes, and more planning, it was finally time for the mission to depart. The delayed arrival of the MD-80 had forced Newman to make further adjustments to the plan.

The seven men of ISET Echo plus Weiskopf would be the only ones to go into Iraq, unless there was trouble. And even though the others
moaned about “being left in the rear with the gear,” he ordered ISET Delta, along with Sergeant Major Gabbard, to remain in Incirlik as security and support for the UAV technicians and to guard the thousands of pounds of gear that wasn't going on the operation—equipment that was now staged in the hangar.

Newman had already displaced ISETs Alpha and Bravo forward to Siirt as the QRF. He placed Bart Coombs in command of the QRF, with Captain Bruno Macklin, the SAS officer, as Executive Officer. Newman told them to locate enough four-by-four transportation to get the two ISETs across the border somehow and into Iraq if ISET Echo ran into trouble. ISET Charlie would remain with Newman and the airborne command post—to be parachuted in to help Echo if necessary.

Finally, Newman decided that because of the belated arrival of the MD-80 and the delay in getting the operation underway—at the most it should now last just seventy-two hours from insert to extraction—he and McDade would simply stay aboard the converted MD-80 and use it as their mobile command and communications center. His plan was to return to Siirt after ISET Echo parachuted into Iraq, from which he would then control the operation. All these plans were dutifully transmitted back to Deputy Secretary General Komulakov at the UN and National Security Advisor Simon Harrod via encrypted e-mail.

Counting the six UAV technicians who had delivered the Global Hawk, the three-person MD-80 crew, Newman's two-man command element, and Weiskopf's thirty-eight ISEG operators, there were only forty-nine people involved in carrying out this complex and dangerous operation. But, Newman reasoned,
that's enough to get my brother's killer
—
and if we get Saddam or any of those other thugs, all the better.

Just after the sun's light was replaced by the bluish-white glare of the mercury-vapor lamps surrounding the hangar, Captain Joshua Weiskopf
and the fourteen men of ISETs Charlie and Echo boarded the MD-80, headed for the back of the aircraft, and started strapping on their SVX-30 steerable parachutes. A few minutes later, Newman and McDade climbed aboard and took up their stations at the communications consoles that had been installed on the left side of the aircraft, directly aft of the forward cabin door.

Major Robinette, First Lieutenant Charlie Haskell, the copilot, and Master Sergeant David Maddox, the crew chief, were already aboard, checking and double-checking the engines, oil pressure, and hydraulics; testing the communications equipment, navigation, and avionics displays; making one last inspection of the flight maps; and getting the latest weather updates. They had completed their pre-flight checklist by the time the men in back were 'chuted up and strapped into the two rows of web seats secured to the sides of the cabin.

Though from the outside this MD-80 could have passed for a civilian airliner, the interior was pure military transport. Not only had all the regular airline passenger seats been removed and replaced with two long rows of standard military red nylon benches, but numerous other changes had been made as well.

The forward galley had been removed and turned into the crew chief's station. Only the coffeemaker and sink remained of what had once been a mini flying kitchen. Where once food and beverage carts had been stowed for serving passengers, green oxygen bottles were now strapped in place. A system of tubes affixed to the interior of the fuselage carried the oxygen to those in the passenger cabin. Every two feet or so, all the way to the back of the aircraft, there were quick-connect fittings so that each passenger could be assured of a place to hook into the oxygen.

As the aircraft's twin tail-mounted engines started, Master Sergeant Maddox walked down the cabin between the two rows of men, making
sure that each was strapped in, hooked up to the aircraft oxygen system, and had a working intercom connection. He got a thumbs-up from each man. Before strapping into his own seat, he checked the gauges on the green bottles once again to make sure they were fully charged. Satisfied, Maddox keyed the microphone on his headset and said, “All set back here, Major Robinette.”

As the aircraft began to taxi away from the hangar that had been their home, Maddox threw a switch on a console in his compartment to turn off the incandescent lights and turn on the bank of special night-vision lighting, giving the compartment an eerie, red glow.

As the MD-80 reached the end of the taxiway and began the right-hand turn onto the runway, Newman could see four USAF F-15s, two F-16s, and a Navy EA-6B Electronics Warfare aircraft to the left of their aircraft, all poised to follow them down the runway and into the night sky. Newman heard Major Robinette's voice in his headset: “Ready to go, Colonel?”

“We're ready to roll, Major.”

With that, he heard the copilot's voice, “Switching to channel 21.” Then, “Tower, this is Picnic One. Permission for takeoff.”

Newman heard the voice of the air traffic controller in the tower give the aircraft its clearance as they turned onto the runway. As the plane began its takeoff roll, Newman flicked a switch in at his console and a video monitor came on, displaying the ground racing past the rear of the aircraft. A miniature video camera, equipped with a low-light lens, was mounted at the base of the tail so Newman would see the jumpers go and ensure that they didn't get fouled with one another.

As the aircraft cleared the ground, there was a loud “clunk” as the landing gear retracted into their housings and then the whine of hydraulic pumps over the roar of the engines while the flaps retracted. In the cockpit,
Major Robinette reached up and flipped down the night vision goggles mounted on the front of her helmet. Lt. Haskell kept his goggles up so he could monitor the instruments.

Newman switched his intercom to the channel designated for communications among the passengers. Unlike a standard military aircraft rigged for parachute jumping, this one had an intercom station for everyone aboard. He keyed his mike and said to no one in particular, “I was thinking … with all that extra cargo space back here, maybe we should have brought some Harleys.”

“That would have been a great idea if we could have gotten a hog out that rear hatch,” Weiskopf said. “I'd much rather roll out of Iraq on a Harley than ride the upchuck snatch on Monday afternoon.” Despite Weiskopf's carefree tone, Newman knew he was concerned about using the STARS system. They had all seen it demonstrated while they were training in Oman, and they had all practiced deploying the helium-filled balloon with its nylon tether and donning the two-man rescue suits with their sewn-in harnesses. Having demonstrated the device once to his own Recon Marines, Newman could understand why the Harleys sounded better.

As the MD-80 headed east toward the mountains shadowing Lake Van, the banter over the intercom slowly sputtered out as each man dealt with his own thoughts about what might lie ahead. Some fiddled with their equipment as though some last-minute change in rigging might have monumental consequences. Others attempted to doze, leaning back in the webbing of their seats with their eyes closed. The plane turned right to a heading of 120° south to follow the Tigris River.

As they crossed into Iraq at the junction of the border with Syria and Turkey, there was a flurry of radio traffic from the F-15s and -16s, now ahead of them near Mosul. A USAF KC-10 tanker had met the war birds
over Siirt, and they had gone screaming off to the south to take out any Iraqi missiles that might try to acquire and target the MD-80.

As the MD-80 passed west of Mosul at thirty thousand feet, headed for the drop zone ninety miles to the south, fires could be seen burning off to their left, near an Iraqi air base. From the radio chatter, Newman and the others could tell that the strike aircraft had engaged an Iraqi radar site and scored a hit, probably on a surface-to-air missile site.
They aren't supposed to have SAMs this far north
, Newman thought.

He checked the navigation plot and his watch, confirmed the heading, and said into the intercom: “Gentlemen, forty miles to the DZ, in ten minutes. Check your portable oxygen bottles. It's almost time.”

Each man disconnected from the intercom, took a few last deep draughts from the aircraft oxygen system, and switched over to his own portable oxygen bottles. The jumpers moved to the back of the plane where the rear hatch opened to the cold night air. The noise of the wind rushing past the aircraft and the roar of the two engines mounted above the tail were deafening. The temperature gauge on the GPS strapped to Weiskopf's wrist said that it was minus eighteen degrees Fahrenheit near the open hatch.

Timing for the jump was critical. This was no standard combat jump. Even though the MD-80 was going to nose up and throttle back to slow down briefly, the jumpers would still be spread out over miles if they didn't exit within seconds of each other. Behind and slightly above the MD-80, two F-16s were lined up as if preparing to refuel and would so appear on Iraqi radar.

“Thirty seconds to the 35th parallel,” Newman shouted to the last man in line. He in turn tapped the man in front of him on the shoulder and the word was passed instantly to the front of the column with a hand signal. Weiskopf stood poised in the mouth of the hatch. He had elected
to be the first man out. Each man behind him would count to two and throw himself out the hatch.

The backup team, shifted forward to compensate for the weight of the eight men, gathered in the tail of the aircraft. Newman helped clear the area by the cargo bay door and wished each man good luck.

“Ten seconds!” yelled Newman. Once again the hasty series of shoulder slaps and Weiskopf turned and leaned into the hatch, his gloved fingers gripping the aluminum skin as he waited for the light above his head to go from red to green. Newman could hear the whine of the engines diminish and felt the deck tilting as the nose of the aircraft came up, bleeding off airspeed.

Newman heard Major Robinette's voice on the intercom: “Go!” The light over the rear hatch flashed to green and in less than fifteen seconds, all eight men had disappeared into the night sky thirty thousand feet above Iraq. Newman ran forward and resumed his seat at the command and control console.

Within a few minutes, the four F-16s peeled out of formation and headed east. The MD-80 banked and turned back to the north, heading for the “Three Corners” junction of the Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish borders.

 

It took Weiskopf and his seven teammates more than twenty-five minutes to glide the twenty miles to their target, the drop zone eighteen miles west of Tikrit. There was little wind, so they flew their chutes in on a fairly straight path and managed to land a mile or so from their objective. Within an hour, all eight men had buried their parachutes and high-altitude jump suits, regrouped, and headed off at a dog-trot for the small rise north of Lake Tharthar where they planned to hole up until the next night's movement. Their escort, an F-117A “Nighthawk” stealth fighter
launched from Incirlik, picked up their radio acknowledgment that all had landed safely, and it stayed high overhead, invisible to Iraqi radar, refueling from a real tanker when necessary, until the ground team arrived at their safe-haven just before dawn. After dark on Saturday and Sunday, another F-117, also invisible to Iraqi radar, would show up to orbit overhead like a guardian angel to provide fire support if the eight-man unit was detected by an Iraqi patrol while on the move.

Now, as Weiskopf and his team moved across the desert floor, the F-117 was overhead. Though neither the small patrol nor the aircraft pilot broke radio silence, they were acutely aware of each other's presence and confident that no Iraqi knew they were there. At least, that was the plan.

 

Parkside Community Church

________________________________________

Dulles, Virginia
Friday, 3 March 1995
1930 Hours, Local

 

Rachel sat in a back pew of the church that she had seen from the highway many times on her commutes to Dulles. She had simply intended to drive by the sign at the entrance to the parking lot to check on what time services were on Sunday but had found lights on, the parking lot almost full, and people walking up to the front door. She had come inside as much out of curiosity as anything else.
Why
, she wondered,
would all these people be going to church on a Friday night?

This question was answered as the meeting started. The pastor welcomed the people in the congregation and said how pleased he was that so many would come out for “the final night of a week of special meetings designed to help people discover God.” He had called it an evangelistic meeting. Rachel was uncomfortable with the word
evangelistic
but soon settled into her seat anyway.

It had been almost ten minutes since the church service had ended—yet she still sat there contemplating what had just taken place.

Sandy had been encouraging Rachel to “find a church where you can hear the Word of God.” Rachel didn't quite know what that meant. Sandy had tried to explain what it meant to be a Christian, but that had also sounded confusing to Rachel; in fact, there was a lot of terminology Sandy used that Rachel didn't understand.

She had planned to simply show up at a Sunday service, but here she was on a Friday night in a suburban Virginia church surrounded by people she didn't know. When she had entered, she had found a place to sit, not far from the rear of the sanctuary, and moved in to take a seat. An usher had handed her a printed program, which she read before the service began. On the back cover was printed:

GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION

THE NEED:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)