Airborne (1997) (55 page)

“I still advise we get further confirmation of this leak before taking action of our own,” the Secretary of State was saying. “If we dispatch forces prematurely, and the Sudanese don’t move on the embassy, it’ll be more than a serious embarrassment to us. Every sheikhdom and caliphate in the region will be up in arms at our aggression against a sovereign Muslim state.”

The President shook his head vehemently. “I’m not waiting until the embassy’s been overrun and I have a hostage crisis on my hands. There are over three hundred U.S. personnel in the compound with their wives and kids included. Plus maybe a couple hundred citizens of Western nations who’ve gone there to seek refuge from armed gangs that have been running wild in the streets. These people have to be extracted.”

“I agree with you on principle,” the Secretary of Defense said, as the President had expected. Pick an issue and his view tended to be diametrically opposed to that of the Secretary of State. The two men were thick as thieves, however, their friendship seeming to thrive on argument. “My concern is the strategic difficulty of launching a rescue. It’s a sure thing we’re not going to get any help from other nations in the region.”

“Not even the Egyptians?” the President asked. “Their troops have been involved in border skirmishes with the Sudan for almost two decades.”

The Secretary of State shrugged. “True, but when push comes to shove, it’s sure to be the same old story. The Egyptian president’s got his own problems with terrorists and radical factions within his government. He won’t want to rile them over an issue that’s essentially got nothing to do with him.”

“Mr. President, I think we ought to look at shaking the mothballs off Operation Fort Apache.” This from General Richard Hancock, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sat there rubbing his chin, a meditative expression on his face.

The President glanced at Hancock, gesturing with his hand for him to continue. “Fort Apache was cooked up in the nineties, but could have been tailor-made for the situation we’ve been discussing. It’s based on the idea that an airborne infantry battalion can be dropped into an urban area on or near a threatened or overrun embassy compound without external support from other nations.”

“Sounds to me like Charlie Beckwith’s old nightmare scenario,” the Secretary of State said.

“The extraction would be dicey, to say the least. We’d need to fly the choppers nonstop from the Red Sea to Khartoum and have them touch ground on a hot LZ ,” the Defense Secretary said.

“That’s where the Osprey comes in. The MV-22Bs can do the job without any refueling, and three times faster than the old CH-46s or CH-53s. It’s agile, and, for all intents and purposes, self-deployable.”

“Which makes it ideal for plucking our evacs out of a brushfire,” the Secretary of Defense said.

“Exactly.” General Hancock sipped from the water glass at his elbow and then glanced at the Secretary of State. “You mentioned Colonel Beck-with a second ago. If he and the Delta Force had been given a piece of equipment like the Osprey at his disposal for Eagle Claw, the 1980 Iranian hostage rescue attempt might not have ended in a wash. Same goes for the Son Tay POW extraction ten years earlier.”

“Okay, let’s hear the rest,” the President said.

Hancock nodded. “Once the troopers have been delivered, they fight their way into the embassy, relieve and reinforce the Marine guard detachment, and then establish a perimeter around the compound. This done, they hold on until the helicopters of an offshore Marine Expeditionary Unit—Special Operations Capable [MEU (SOC]) can come into the compound and fly the evacuees to the waiting ships.”

“What about the paras?” the President asked. “Who gets them out after the people inside the embassy have been removed?”

“The troop evac’s been thoroughly integrated into the plan, sir. As the civilians are being taxied offshore, the airborne troopers and their Marine supporters will conduct what’s known as a ‘collapsing bag’ defense, tightening their perimeter with each successive relay of choppers, and finally exiting the area on the last relay wave.”

“There’s still the question of air support,” the Secretary of State said.

“I feel confident that the embarked MEU (SOC) will have what it takes to do the job,” Hancock said.

There was a sudden silence in the room. It stretched. At last the President looked at the Chairman and nodded soberly.

“Let’s get this train on track,” he said.

Long before dawn broke over the airfield, the “Green Ramp” assembly and aircraft-loading areas at Pope Air Force Base were alight with sodium lamps and bustling with activity, the readiness standard operating procedure (RSOP) moving along like clockwork. Indeed, like the gears and knobs of the famed Swiss clock against which the accuracy of all other timepieces are measured. As America’s quick-reaction ground force, the 82nd was trained and equipped to get a battalion task force ready for deployment to any corner of the world within eighteen hours of receiving its execute orders. These had come down by way of an encrypted redline telephone communication from a duty officer at XVIII Airborne Corps Headquarters, who had rushed to the emergency operations center to make the call after
he
received the classified message from a DoD courier.

The 82nd Division consists of three brigades, each of which remained on alert as the division ready brigade (DRB) for a standard six-week rotation. The DRB presently doing its tour was the 3rd Brigade (built around the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment), and by N+1 (notification hour plus one) its commanding officers had hastily gathered in a briefing room and received the mission outline. The DRB always keeps one battalion, known as the Division Ready Force (DRF) on alert status. Today it was the 2nd Battalion of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (2/505), and they were pegged for the drop into Khartoum. Two hours later, the 2/505th’s troops had rushed to a marshaling area in Fort Bragg to await the delivery of their urban camouflage BDUs and other equipment from nearby supply depots. Now Colonel Bill “Hurricane” Harrison, commander of the 2/505th, stood looking out over the tarmac of Pope Air Force Base, the complicated digital wristwatch his wife had gotten him for his birthday ticking off the minutes and hours till N+18. He was both un-characteristically tense and vastly impressed: the latter because of the seamless coordination of the procedures that were underway, the former because this would be his trial by fire, his first opportunity to lead his men into combat.

A hundred yards in front of him, a pair of big-bellied C-17A transports that had been flown in from the 437th Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, were being loaded with cargo. Others assigned to carry the paratroops were already in the landing pattern. For tonight, the task force’s contingent of heavy lift was limited to a half dozen HMMWV “Hummers” armed with M2 machine guns and Mk. 19 40mm grenade launchers, and two M119 105mm Howitzers. Other than MANPADS Predator and Javelin anti-tank missiles, the soldiers themselves would carry only small-arms ammunition and a single day of rations and water. They would be moving swiftly and traveling light, the plan calling for them to drop into a soccer field near the Sharia al-Geish, or Ring Road, which swings around central Khartoum and comes within a half mile of the embassy. Once on the ground, they would then infiltrate the area around the embassy compound before anyone could raise a hue and cry. If all went well, they would complete the evac and be out of harm’s way within twelve hours of hitting the ground.

Hurricane watched the loading a while longer, then impatiently glanced at his wristwatch and frowned. Although it seemed as if an hour had crawled by since he’d last checked the time, it had, in actuality, been a whopping ten minutes. Time compression from the stress was taking effect. Taking a deep breath to slow things down, he jumped into his Hummer, driving from Green Ramp toward the marshaling area to inspect the troops. When he reached the area a few minutes later, he found the assembled paras outfitted, on their feet, and ready. Like Hurricane himself, they could hardly wait to be in the sky.

As he listened to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Jackson was having trouble deciding whether he’d walked under a figurative ladder or seen his lucky star the day he’d accepted command of HMM- 164, the Air Combat Element (ACE) for the 13th MEU (SOC). Seeing the six-month Indian Ocean tour as a golden opportunity for advancement, Jackson had accepted. Little had he known that he’d be flying into the middle of “bad-guy” country as a result of his decision.

“Our mission is to airlift the embassy personnel and refugees as the 2/505th defends the sector,” his CO was saying, his tone crisp and factual. Colonel Greg LeVardier pointed his laser pointer at a circled area on the digital map being projected behind him. “In addition, Echo Company will be deployed to reinforce the airborne battalion holding the perimeter. Fire support will be provided by artillery inside the ...”

Jackson listened intently, the tiny down-curved thought lines forming at the edges of his mouth and eyes. Unlike the other Marines in the room, he took no written notes, a practice that would have brought a thorough and far-from-gentle reprimand from LeVardier had he been anyone else in the 13th. But Jackson’s blue-eyed good looks and athletic physique were only his most visible attributes, for he was also gifted with a unique eidetic memory that would allow him to retain everything that was said and done at the briefing in perfect detail. If the fact that he’d graduated Annapolis third in a class of seven hundred without ever jotting a word onto a sheet of paper hadn’t been proof enough of his infallible recall, LeVardier’s obliviousness to his lack of writing tools would have satisfied the most unyielding of skeptics.

“The third and final relay must be completed no later than 0800 hours,” LeVardier said, wrapping up. “Okay, that’s it. Any questions?” There were very few, and ten minutes later the soldiers rose from their desks and cleared the room, hastening to begin their preparations.

Flying low to evade the Sudanese air defense systems, the Globemaster III banked over the Drop Zone (DZ) beneath a sliver-thin crescent moon, having reached its destination three thousand miles and three aerial refuelings after takeoff. Braced in the jump door of the cargo compartment, Sergeant Vernon Martin, the flight’s jumpmaster, glanced down through the darkened sky, seeking the beacon lights of the cargo that had been dropped seconds earlier. His combat jacket flapped crisply around his body, and the combined roar of the wind and turbofans filled his ears. He grunted with satisfaction as his eyes picked out the pale orange glow of the lights far beneath him. Each piece of heavy equipment had begun its descent under twin twenty-eight-foot drogue parachutes, and had its earthward plunge further slowed by several big G-11X cargo chutes that had sprouted from the airdrop skids. The tiny beacons attached to the payload served a twofold purpose: They would help the paras avoid crashing into it when they touched down, and would make it easier to recover the vehicles and armament once the ready brigade was assembled on the ground.

Reassured that the vital gear had landed neatly within the soccer field’s perimeter, Martin cranked his head over his shoulder to see how the pre-jump sequence was going. At the “Ten Minutes Out” call, the troopers had stood up, raised their red seats, moved toward the jump doors in their cumbersome backpacks and T-10 parachutes, and clipped their static lines to the anchor cables that ran the length of the compartment. At “Five Minutes Out”—just before poking his head outside—Martin had given the command for each trooper to check his static line and the line of the man in front of him, backing it up with an arm-and-hand signal because of the loud drone of the aircraft’s engine. Now he tapped his chest with both hands, shouted his order for the equipment check, and watched the men begin looking over their gear from the head down, still holding the static lines, using their free hands to make sure everything from their helmet straps to their bootlaces were firmly secured.

“Sound off for equipment check!” he said after less than a minute, cupping his hands behind his ears.

“Okay!” the furthest para from the door called out, and slapped the man in front of him on the thigh. He, in turn, did the same to the next man forward. Lieutenant Everett Ives was first at the door, Sergeant Joe “Brooklyn” Blount behind him. Ives felt Blount tap him to indicate his equipment had made the grade, completed his own inspection, then turned toward the center aisle and gave the “okay” hand-signal to the last man on the inboard Chalk. The second Chalk repeated the procedure without missing a beat. Finally Corporal Tom Cousins, the first parachutist on that side of the aircraft, pointed to Martin and said, “All okay!”

Martin nodded approvingly and snatched another look outside. The sky was mercifully quiet, no trace of AAA fire disturbing the black of night, a strong indication the opposition remained clueless about the mission. Nor did Martin see any obstructions on the wings or fuselage that could foul the lines. A final downward glance reinforced his confidence. Bare of trees, stony outcroppings, and man-made structures, the level soccer field below made an ideal DZ—assuming that it was not surrounded by gun-toting American-hating fanatics. He turned back toward the men and simultaneously gestured to both port and starboard jump doors. “Stand by!” Ives and Cousins shuffled forward against the opposing shove of wind resistance and assumed identical stances of coiled alertness in the doors, their knees bent, upper bodies straight, eyes to the front.

Now the green light above the doors blinked on. This was it.
“Go!”
Martin shouted. A split-second before stepping into space, Joe Blount promised himself he’d down a whole pie at Vinnie’s Pizzeria on his next visit to Bensonhurst, just a little reward for a mission well done. Best pizza in the universe there at Vinnie’s. Have them pile everything on it and stand out on the sidewalk with the box, eat it right on 86th Street under the el, where John Travolta had strutted through the opening credits in that old flick,
Saturday Night Fever.
Stand there and gobble slice after slice until melted mozzarella and sauce were dripping from his nose and ears. Vinnie’s in Bensonhurst, a whole goddamn pie, yessiree. He sprang up and out into the North African sky, followed at one-second intervals by the other exiting troopers.