"Which means that if we can't smuggle the cell through we will have to repel a much larger force," August told the group.
"For various reasons negotiation is not an option," Rodgers added. "We have to get past them one way or the other."
The general looked at the faces of his troops. With the exception of the medic, all of these soldiers had been in battle. Most of them had killed. They had shed the blood of others, usually at a distance. They had seen the blood of their teammates, which typically fanned their rage and made the blood of the enemy invisible. They had also faced superior odds. Rodgers was confident that they would give this effort everything they had.
Rodgers listened as Colonel August talked about the strategy they would employ upon landing. Typically, they would go behind enemy lines carrying mines. Two or three operatives would form a subgroup. They would go ahead and plant the mines along the team's route to protect them from enemies. They would also throw out substances such as powdered onion or raw meat to confuse and mislead attack dogs. They did not see dogs in the photographs and hoped that the animals were not part of the army units.
Since there were apparently four members of the cell, plus Friday and the two Indians, August had decided to go forward in an ABBA formation. There would be a Striker in front and behind each group of two Pakistanis. That would enable Striker to control the rate of progress and to watch the personnel they were escorting. Neither Herbert nor Rodgers expected any resistance from the cell, From everything they had been told, both groups wanted the same thing. To reach Pakistan alive. As for the Indian force, the American team was prepared to move at nightfall, wage a guerrilla campaign, or simply dig in, wait them out, and execute an end run when possible. They would do whatever it took to survive.
Striker had drilled for this maneuver high in the Rockies. They called it their red, white, and blue exercise. During the course of two hours their fingers had gone from red to white to blue. At least they knew what they would be facing. Once they reached the ground they would know how to pace themselves. The only uncertainty was what might happen on the way down. That was still what concerned Rodgers the most. They were approximately ten thousand feet up. That was not as long as most high-altitude, low-opening jumps. Those operations typically began at thirty-two-thousand feet. The HALO teams would go out with oxygen-heavy breathing apparatus to keep from suffering hypoxemia. They would also use barometric triggers to activate their chutes at an altitude of roughly two thousand feet above the target. They did that in case the jumper suffered one of two possible ailments. The first was barometric trauma, the result of air being trapped in the intestines, ears, and sinuses and causing them to expand painfully. The other was stress-induced hyperventilation, common in combat situations. Especially when jumpers could be aloft for as long as seventy or eighty minutes. That gave them a lot of alone-time to think, particularly about missing the target. At an average drift rate of ten feet for every hundred feet of fall, that was a concern for every jumper. Breathing bottled oxygen at a rapid pace due to stress could cause a lowering of blood carbon dioxide and result in unconsciousness.
Though neither of those would be a problem at this lower height, it was two thousand feet higher than they had practiced in the Rocky Mountains. And even there, then-Striker Bass Moore had broken his left leg.
Lean Sergeant Chick Grey was chewing gum, unflustered as always. There was a bit more iron determination and aggression in the eyes of waspish privates David George, Jason Scott, and Terrence Newmeyer. Corporal Pat Prementine and Private Matt Bud were popping gloved knuckles and shifting in place, as full of rough-and-tumble energy as always. And the excitable Private Walter Pupshaw looked as if he wanted to tear off someone's head and spit down the windpipe. That was normal for Striker's resident wild man. The other team members were calm with the exception of Sondra DeVonne and the green medic, William Musicant. Both Strikers seemed a little anxious. Musicant had limited combat experience and Sondra still blamed herself for events that led to the death of Lt. Colonel Charlie Squires. She had spent many months being counseled by Liz Gordon. But she had gone on other assignments with the team since then. While the young African-American woman was not as relaxed or go-get-'em as the others, Rodgers was certain he could count on her. She would not be here otherwise.
When they were ready, Rodgers picked up the phone beside the hatch. The copilot informed him that the plane would reach the target in less than five minutes. August lined up his team and stood at their head. After everyone had jumped, Rodgers would follow.
Since the aircraft was not typically used for jumping, there was no chute line or lights to indicate that they had reached the drop zone. August and Pupshaw opened the hatch while Rodgers remained on the phone with the cockpit. The air that surged in was like nothing the general had ever felt. It was a fist of ice, punching them back and then holding them there. Rodgers was glad they had the masks and breathing apparatus. Otherwise they would not be able to draw a breath from the unyielding wall of wind. As it was, August and Pupshaw were knocked away from the opening. The colonel and the burly private had to be helped back into position by the next Strikers in line.
Rodgers moved sternward along the fuselage, away from the hatch. The howl of the wind was deafening, bordering on painful. It would be impossible to hear the command to jump. The general went back three meters, as far as the phone cord would reach. He used his free hand to cover the left ear of his hood. He pressed down hard. That was the only way he could hear the copilot. Meanwhile, August motioned for each Striker to determine individual jump times by using the "blackout" system. That was the method employed for secret nighttime jumps. It meant putting the right hand on the shoulder of the jumper in front of them. When the shoulder moved out from under someone's hand it was time for that person to go.
The wind pressed the Strikers' white uniforms toward the front of the plane. The soldiers looked like action figures to Rodgers. Every crease and fold seemed molded in place like plastic. The soldiers were leaning forward slightly to let the wind slide around them, though not so much as to allow it to batter the person behind them.
Seconds moved at a glacial pace. Then the word came that they were less than a half mile from their target. Then a quarter mile. Then an eighth of a mile.
Rodgers looked at the Strikers one more time. If they knew how difficult this jump was going to be they were not showing it. The team was still outwardly game and disciplined. He was beyond proud of the unit. Rodgers did not believe in prayer, though he hoped that even if some of the Strikers missed the target they would all survive.
August glanced at Rodgers and gave him a thumbs-up. Obviously the colonel could see the small plateau. That was good. It meant there was no snowfall in the drop zone. They would not be jumping directly over it but to the northwest. The copilot had calculated that the wind was blowing to the southeast at an average of sixty-three miles an hour. They would have to compensate so the wind would carry them toward rather than away from the target.
They passed over the plateau. August held up both thumbs. He had spotted the cell. Rodgers nodded.
A moment later Rodgers got the word from the cockpit.
"Go!"
Rodgers motioned to August. As the team started moving through the hatch Rodgers shifted to the back of the line. The copilot emerged from the cockpit. He literally had to hug the port-side wall to get past the hatch before cutting to the starboard side to shut it.
Rodgers hoped he made it. The last thing the general saw before jumping was the small-built Indian flyboy tying a cargo strap to his waist before even attempting to crawl toward the sliding door.
Rodgers held his legs together and pressed his arms straight along his sides as he hit the icy mountain air. That gave him a knife-edged dive to get him away from the plane so he would not be sucked into the engine. He immediately reconfigured himself into an aerofoil position. He arched his body to allow the air to flow along his underside. At the same time he thrust his arms bac
k and dipped his head to increase his rate of descent.
The general was now looking almost straight down. Almost at once he knew he was in trouble.
They all were.
THIRTY-SIX
The Great Himalaya Range Thursday, 4:42 P.M.
At 4:31, Major Dev Puri's spotter, Corporal Sivagi Saigal, saw something that concerned him. He reported it to Major Puri. The officer was deeply troubled by what he heard.
Prior to leaving, he had been assured by the office of Minister of Defense John Kabir that reconnaissance flights in the region had been suspended. Neither Kabir nor Puri wanted independent witnesses or photographic evidence of what they expected to transpire in the mountains: the capture and execution of the Pakistani terrorists and their prisoner from Kargil.
The flyover of the Himalayan Eagle AN-12 transport was not only unexpected, it was unprecedented. The transport was over a dozen miles from the secure flight lanes protected by Indian artillery. As the spotter continued to watch the plane, Puri used the secure field phone to radio Minister Kabir's office. The major asked the minister's first deputy what the aircraft was doing there. Neither Kabir nor any of his aides had any idea. The minister himself got on the line. He suspected that the flyover was an independent air force action designed to locate and then help capture the Pakistani cell. He could not, however, explain why that mission would be undertaken by a transport. Kabir told Puri to keep the channel open while he accessed the transport's flight plan.
As he waited, Puri did not believe that the presence of a recon flight would complicate matters. Even if the cell were spotted, his unit would probably reach them first. Puri and his men would explain how the cell resisted capture and had to be neutralized. No one would dispute their story.
Kabir came back on in less than a minute. The minister was not happy. The AN-12 had gone to Ankara and had been scheduled to fly directly to Chushul. Obviously the aircraft had been diverted. The transport's manifest had also been changed to include parachutes in its gear.
A few moments later, Puri understood why.
"Jumpers!" he said into the radio.
"Where?" Kabir demanded.
"They're about one mile distant," the spotter told Puri.
"They're using Eagle chutes," he said when the shrouds began to open, "but they are not in uniform."
Puri reported the information to Kabir.
"The Eagles must have spotted the cell," the minister said.
"Very possibly," Major Puri replied. "But they're not wearing Eagle mountain gear."
"They might have picked up an outside team in Ankara," Kabir replied. "We may have been compromised."
"What do we do?" Puri asked.
"Protect the mission," Kabir replied.
"Understood," Puri replied.
The major signed off and told his unit commanders to move their personnel forward. They were all to converge on the site where the parachutists were descending. Puri's orders were direct and simple.
The troops were to fire at will.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The Great Himalaya Range Thursday, 4:46 P.M.
Ever since they competed on the baseball diamond back in elementary school, Colonel Brett August always knew that he would rise above his longtime friend Mike Rodgers. August just never expected it would happen quite this way and in a place like this.
Striker's delicately ribbed, white-and-red parachutes opened in quick succession. Each commando was jerked upward as the canopies broke their rapid descent. Some of the Strikers were hoisted higher than the others, depending on the air currents they caught. The wind was running like ribbons among them. Separate streams had been sent upward by the many peaks and ledges below. Though Mike Rodgers had been the last man out of the aircraft the general was in the middle of the group when the canopies had fully unfurled. Brett August ended up being the man on top.
Unfortunately, the view from that height was not what Colonel August had expected.
Almost at once, visibility proved to be a challenge. When the parachute tugged Colonel August up, perspiration from his eyebrows was flung onto the tops of his eyepieces. The sweat froze there. That was a high-altitude problem neither he nor General Rodgers had anticipated when they planned the jump. August assumed that frost was hampering the other Strikers as well. But that was not their greatest problem.
Shortly after jumping, Colonel August had seen the line of Indian soldiers converging in their direction. They were clearly visible, black dots moving rapidly on the nearly white background. He was sure that Rodgers and the others could see them too.
The Strikers knew enough to defend the perimeter once they landed. With the stakes as high as they were the Americans would not surrender. What concerned August was what might happen before they landed. Striker was out of range of ordinary gunfire. But the Indian soldiers had probably left the line of control well prepared. They were expecting to fight an enemy that might be positioned hundreds of meters away, on high ledges or remote cliffs. The Indian infantrymen would be armed accordingly.
There was no way for the colonel to communicate with the other members of the team. He hoped that they saw the potential threat and were prepared for action when they landed.
Assuming they did land.
As the seconds passed the descent proved more brutal than August had expected.
Seen from the belly of a relatively warm aircraft, the mountains had been awe-inspiring. Brown, white, and pale blue, the peaks glided slowly by like a caravan of great, lumbering beasts. But seen from beneath a bucking parachute shroud those same mountains rose and swelled like breaching sea giants, frightening in their size and rapid approach. The formations practically doubled in size every few seconds. Then there was the deafening sound. The mountains bellowed at the intruders, roaring with mighty winds that they snatched from the sky and redirected with ease. August did not just hear every blast of air, he felt it. The wind rose from the peaks two thousand feet below and rumbled past him. The gales kicked the shroud up and back, to the north or east, to the south or west, constantly spinning the parachute around. The only way to maintain his bearings was to try and keep his eyes on the target whichever way he was twisted. He hoped the winds would abate at the lower altitudes so that he and the other Strikers could guide their chutes to a landing. Hopefully, the peaks would shield them from the Indian soldiers long enough to touch down and regroup.
The mountains rushed toward them relentlessly. The lower the Strikers went the faster the sharp-edged peaks came toward them. The colors sharpened as the team penetrated the thin haze. The swaying of the chutes seemed to intensify as the details of the peaks became sharper. That was an illusion but the speed with which the crags were approaching was not. Three of the soldiers around him were on-course and had a good chance of reaching the plateau. The others would have to do some careful maneuvering to make it. Two were in danger of missing the mountain altogether and continuing into the valley below. August could not tell which Strikers were in danger since the winds had lifted some of the chutes more than others and thrown them out of jump order. Whoever they were they would have to contact the rest of the team by radio and link up as soon as possible.
As they neared to within one thousand feet of the target, August heard a faint popping sound under the screaming wind. His back was facing the Indian infantry so he could not be certain the sound came from them.
A moment later August was sure.
The air around them filled with black-and-white cloud-bursts. They were flak rockets used against low-flying aircraft. The shells were fired from shoulder-mounted launchers like the Blowpipe, the standard one-man portable system of the Indian army. They fired metal pellets in all directions around them. Within a range of twenty-five meters, the fifty-seven shots in each shell hit with the force of .38-caliber bullets.
August had never been so helpless in his life. He watched as the first shell popped among the parachutists. It was followed moments later by another, then by one more. The ca
nopies obscured his view of the Strikers themselves. But he saw how close the bursts came. There was no way his people were not being peppered with the hollow steel shells.
It did not occur to August that the shrapnel could take him down. Or that he could miss the plateau.
He forgot the cold and the wind and even the mission.
All that mattered was the well-being of his team. And there was nothing he could do to ensure their safety right now. August's eyes had darted from canopy to canopy as the rockets burst around them. Five of the lowest shrouds were heavily perforated within seconds. They folded into their own centers and dropped straight down. A moment later the chutes turned up, like inverted umbrellas, as the Strikers below dragged them through free fall.
Two parachutes in the middle of the group were also damaged. They dropped with their cargo onto another two canopies directly below. The shrouds became tangled in the swirling winds. The lines knit and the jumpers spun with increasing speed toward the valley below.
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