by Jack Du Brul
The Himalayan massif quickly came into range. The barometric altimeter showed fifteen thousand feet, but the plane was only a thousand above the ground. Trained for this kind of flying, the pilots were relaxed in their seats as the sophisticated controls moved of their own accord. The Spirit followed the path mapped by its GPS and radar, rocketing through steep valleys, slewing around ramparts that towered ten thousand feet above the bat-winged plane. It was a ride on the ultimate roller coaster, one in which the car determined where to put the tracks it was to follow.
The plane ate the distance across Nepal in twenty minutes and was a dozen miles from the Chinese border when the computer detected the first antiaircraft radar. In minutes a CRT screen in the cockpit lit up with dozens of radar contacts. The coverage appeared solid, a veritable minefield stretching the length of the frontier and projecting fifty miles into the country. Added to this was the presence of microwave towers built intentionally to detect a stealth bomber penetration. The towers emitted an invisible barrier of energy that the plane would have to fly through.
The idea behind the barrage of microwaves wasn’t to find the plane directly but rather to detect the hole it created when it cut across the net, much the same as sonar operators focus on quiet spots in the otherwise noisy seas to find modern noiseless submarines. Detractors of the B-2 had called this low-tech solution reason enough to scrap the $2 billion planes.
The veteran pilot watched the terrain map unfolding on the screen in front of him, trying to guess their route before the computer found it. There were several radars in the H and E bands to their west and a powerful microwave tower directly ahead. The tower appeared to be on a mountaintop. The computer banked the bomber so it steered close to the tower but a thousand feet below it in a valley only five hundred feet wider than the plane’s 172-foot wingspan. The pilot would have made the same maneuvers, although his solution came seconds after the computer’s.
Jagged crags of granite seemed to reach for the plane as it plunged into the steep valley seconds before breaking the microwave beam. She hugged the canyon floor, flying low enough to blow snow off the ground. Once the threat board showed clear, the heavy bomber shot out of the gorge, passing directly over a sleepy little village.
“There’ll be a story or two down there come morning.”
“If they knew comic books they could tell the local commissar that they were buzzed by Batman.”
“They were.”
With their clear view out the cockpit and ample time to prepare, the violent maneuvers seemed routine for the flight team. In the bomb bay, it was quite different.
Mercer was certain his shoulders would be black and blue. The sudden jukes and jinks slammed him around inside the MMU, straining his safety harnesses with each furious bounce. And if it weren’t for an iron stomach, he would long ago have lost his lunch.
The wild ride went on for twenty minutes, with changes of direction, attitude and speed coming with dizzying regularity. The fact that the men were horizontal in the pods and couldn’t gain equilibrium made it all that much worse.
“This is the flight deck,” the pilot called after a moment of relatively level flight. “We just penetrated the heaviest concentration of SAM sites and radar installations anywhere on earth and as far as the Chinese know this bird’s sitting in a hangar in Missouri. We’ll be over the drop zone in ten minutes. This ship’s at her most vulnerable when the bomb bay doors open. To minimize the risk the rotary launcher’s gonna spit you out like watermelon seeds. If you think the past few minutes were rough, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
For Mercer the waiting had become easier. He’d spent so much time worried about finding a way to save a planet full of people that it was almost a relief to only worry about saving one, Tisa. With that goal so close, his blood felt charged. The others were feeling it too. The bad jokes were beginning again.
“Five minutes to drop,” the pilot announced what seemed just seconds later.
“Okay, people,” Doc Sykes called out. “Tighten those straps, stow your relief and water tubes and button those flies. Once we’re on the ground, I want Dopey to rig the MMUs’ demolition charges with a four-hour delay. Sneezy’s his cover. The rest gather on me ASAP and we’ll make the assault on the wall. The two of you can catch up when you’re done. By then, Happy and Bashful will have finished their ascent and we’ll be ready for the climb. Turn on your external cameras and everyone give me a status report.”
By the time the Delta operators and Mercer told Doc they were ready, the pilot informed them the drop was in one minute.
Mercer’s sense of well-being evaporated. Facing a thirty-thousand-foot plunge in what amounted to a futuristic life-sized tin can, he knew that once the rotary launcher released the MMU his fate was out of his hands until the pod touched down. Sykes had said the first forty or so drops hadn’t been survivable. He’d later confided that a few of those that were survivable would have resulted in broken limbs, internal injuries, or worse. Mercer tried to recall his frame of mind when he’d blackmailed his way onto this mission and cursed the person he’d been then.
“Okay, boys, doors open in five, four, three, two, one.”
The hydraulic whine was drowned instantly by the screaming torrent of air that whipped into the large bomb bay. Mercer had only a second to sense the buffeting when the rotary launcher engaged. He couldn’t feel the other MMUs being jettisoned, but every two seconds the launcher advanced one slot and another was gone. After three quarter-rotations of the launcher it was his turn.
The mechanism spun to the lock position and the clamps holding Mercer’s MMU released.
The instant the monkey bomb was free of the Spirit it began a four-g deceleration that shoved Mercer’s internal organs toward his feet. Somewhere high above he felt his stomach calling for him to come back. Winglets deployed from the sides of the MMU to prevent the pod from tumbling as it transited into free fall. The drop was like a runaway elevator, only there seemed to be no bottom. Reaching its terminal velocity of one hundred twenty miles per hour, the stealthy MMU plummeted from the sky, unseen, unheard and completely undetectable. Clutched so tightly, one of the plastic handgrips on the side of Mercer’s body snapped off. He could barely force air into his lungs. At some point he became aware that he was screaming and probably had been since the MMU fell clear.
He remembered the television screen, but it showed nothing but blackness. He could only hope the GPS system was keeping the MMU on track, otherwise he’d have no chance of hitting the target and would likely crash into the side of a mountain.
“Come on,” he silently prayed. The chute should have deployed by now.
The designers had mistakenly not installed altitude displays for the soldiers inside the monkey bombs. He was sure he’d already passed the minimum safe distance above the ground and nothing was happening.
Jesus, the thing had malfunctioned.
What he didn’t know was that the MMU was working flawlessly, the stabilizing fins making constant adjustments to keep the weapon on target while the laser range finder knew to the inch how close it was to the ground.
At a thousand feet the onboard computer released the drogue chute to ease the shock of the main parachute deploying a moment later. As the MMU drifted downward, the range finder switched to secondary mode and began searching for the flattest place to land within a three-hundred-foot target area.
The strain of the chute billowing open came as sweet pain. Mercer took his first deep breath since the initial release and felt the adrenaline spike subside. He let go of the handgrip and heard it clatter down toward his feet. The closed-circuit screen flushed green as night-vision enhancers activated. Details on the ground were hard to make out, but even the murky glimpse was a welcome relief.
As his view resolved, Mercer could feel the MMU make adjustments to his flight path by controlling the ram-air parachute. In a moment he saw a flat plain immediately below his feet. It drifted out of view as a crosswind caught the pod,
then came back as the computer made automatic corrections.
Sykes had trained him not to watch the landing to prevent himself from tensing. He closed his eyes at what he thought was the last second and had to wait almost fifteen more before shock absorbers at the bottom of the MMU touched down. As designed, the pod fell onto its back and the chute rigging was sheered away so the yards of black nylon couldn’t act as a sail and drag him across the landscape.
Mercer flipped a protective cover off the button that opened the pod and mashed it with his fist. The seal maintaining pressure in the pod hissed and the door opened slightly. A cold wind exploited the tiny opening and whipped the hatch all the way open. The first breath of the icy mountain air seared his lungs. Mercer coughed.
He unsnapped his harnesses and rose unsteadily. Around him he saw a monochromatic world of grays and the outline of steep mountain cliffs. If not for the tough grasses growing along the rocky valley floor, the scene could have doubled for a crater on the moon. The air temperature was in the low thirties, yet he would occasionally feel the warm caress of steam from a geothermal vent.
A figure loomed out of the darkness. “You okay, Snow?” It was Grumpy. He had already donned his equipment and cradled his M-4, the stripped-down assault version of the M-16. Night-vision goggles covered half his face.
“Yes, just a little shaken.”
“Don’t sweat it. That was one hell of a ride. Get into your gear, we’re moving out.” He turned away quickly.
Mercer grabbed his arm. “Hold it, did everyone make it down safely?”
Grumpy didn’t look at Mercer when he said, “Sneezy’s chute tangled. He’s dead.” The noncom shook off Mercer’s hand. “This op better be worth his life, man.”
“It’s worth all of ours,” Mercer said to Grumpy’s back as he vanished into the darkness.
MONASTERY OF RINPOCHE-LA WESTERN TIBET
Sykes took the news of Sneezy’s death by ordering Sleepy to cover Dopey as he worked on each MMU to activate their self-destruct mechanisms. Now that they were on the ground, the mission took precedence. Grieving for the fallen man would come later. He led the team northward toward the monastery’s back wall, about a quarter mile from where the MMUs had dropped in a cluster.
Mercer expected to have trouble breathing at twelve thousand feet and knew his lack of altitude sickness symptoms like headaches, dizziness and pulmonary distress was due to the drug cocktail he’d consumed on the flight. The black fatigues he’d been given also protected him from the near-freezing temperatures and the wind that was beginning to shriek down the valley, corralled by the mountains and vectored like a jet into his face. Because of the constant streamers of steam that blew from the geothermal vents ringing the valley, his night-vision goggles could not gather enough ambient light. He left them dangling around his neck as he ran, exposing the area around his eyes to the biting cold. Soon his skin was numb.
The wall at the rear of the monastery was made of smooth river rocks mortared together with primitive cement. Through the streaming haze of steam high above them, they could see a portion of the building’s pagoda-style roof. With curt hand gestures, Sykes fanned out his men to cover the climbers as they unlimbered their rope and equipment. Mercer took a position on the far left flank, tight against where the stone wall met the cliff. He donned his night-vision goggles and scanned the top of the wall and the surrounding rocks, which had hundreds of crags that could easily hide observers. The barrel of his M-4 followed the smooth motion of his eyes.
In the center of the towering wall Bashful and Happy, whose real names were Bobby Johnson and Bruce Morrelli, were ready to start their ascent. They’d studied it for ten minutes, mapping their route with the practiced eye of professional climbers. They would scale the wall independently, carrying coils of rope and the necessary gear to secure the lines once they reached the top. Each also carried a silenced Beretta in case a sentry wandered by. Every member of the team was competitive to a fault, driven to surpass their comrades at all costs. But when it came to a mission, they knew this wasn’t a game and the two men began the climb with caution and little thought to the progress of the other.
As if gravity didn’t apply, Bashful and Happy seemed to float up the wall, their arms and legs in constant motion as they exploited the tiniest flaws in the mortar for finger- and toeholds. Mercer, who had done some climbing out of necessity rather than recreation, had never seen anything like it. In minutes they had traversed half the distance to the top and he had to force himself not to be distracted by the display. He turned away and checked his surroundings again. His weapon’s safety was off, though he kept his finger clear of the trigger guard.
“Doc, this is Dopey.” Mercer heard the voice over the hearing-aid-sized speaker in his ear. “MMUs are rigged. Three hours and fifty minutes to bingo. Sleep and I are on our way in.”
“Roger, Dope,” Sykes replied.
Bashful reached the top of the foundation wall a moment ahead of Happy. There was a squawking flurry as he rolled over the cornice. The men on the ground tensed as several owls exploded into the night. Bashful remained out of view and Happy froze a foot below the ledge. The seconds dragged.
“All clear,” Bashful finally called over the tactical radio.
Happy finished his climb. They scouted the area immediately around them for five minutes to satisfy themselves that the birds hadn’t alerted anyone before using a muffled nail gun to drive spikes into the stone. They secured pairs of carabiners for the ropes and a moment later the thick lines tumbled to where Sykes waited.
“Grumpy on line one, Snow on two,” Sykes ordered. “Dope, what’s your ETA?”
“I’m fifty yards behind you, Doc.”
“You’re on rope one when Grumpy hits the top. Sleep, you take two when Snow’s secure.” As he spoke, Sykes clipped Bashful’s and Happy’s combat equipment to the ropes so they could be hauled up.
Mercer had been issued special clamps that would allow him to climb the rope as easily as ascending a ladder. He clipped them to the line, took a moment to stare up the rock face and marvel at the skill of the two commandos. To him the wall was as smooth as glass and angled near ninety degrees.
“Move it, Snow,” Grumpy prodded.
Mercer looped the clamp’s strap under his foot, lifted his leg and applied slight downward pressure for the clamp to bite. He stepped up, repeated with his other foot and was instantly two feet off the ground. He slid the clamps strapped to his wrists upward, took another step with his right foot and quickly found his rhythm. The thirty pounds on his back would have become an issue had the climb been higher, but he could take the added strain for a hundred-foot climb.
To his left, Sergeant Lopez, a.k.a. Grumpy, was twenty feet higher on the rope and climbing like a machine, his legs pistoning in perfect synchronization. Mercer didn’t even try to keep up.
At the top of the rope Bashful took a handful of Mercer’s uniform to haul him over the cornice. They were in a wide unsheltered terrace covered in square flagstones. Twenty yards away the monastery loomed above them, supported by a colonnade stretching the length of the building. The structure itself rose in tiers that vanished into the clouds. A soft glow filtered from the single arched doorway. Several upper rooms were also illuminated. To the left and right were small round structures he guessed were chapels. Other than the prayer flags ripping and snapping from atop dozens of poles, nothing moved on the courtyard.
In the minutes it took for the rest of the team to make the climb and haul up the equipment, Mercer kept his back pressed to the low wall surrounding the terrace and watched for movement. Once assembled, the team moved to the lee of one of the small chapel buildings for Sykes’s final orders.
“All right, my little dwarfs, from here on we run out of plan. We’ll go through that door over there and search floor by floor in teams of two. Snow, you’re with me. Grump’s the lone gun on the ground floor. The longer we avoid detection the more we can cover, but by the looks of this plac
e there are probably two hundred rooms in there and Snow thinks there’s a lot of underground stuff too. At some point we’re gonna be spotted. Be ready.”
“Hoo-yah,” the men whispered in unison.
Sweeping around the chapel, the men jogged to the rear of the monastery, rifles at their shoulders, eyes peering into the shadows around the ranks of columns. The double doors stood fifteen feet tall, made of some exotic wood bound with ornate iron straps. There were no locks. With six guns covering him, Grumpy pulled on one of the five-foot-long handles. No matter how well balanced, the door was massive and he had to change his grip to ease it open. The tongue of light that seeped under the door grew. Mercer saw he wasn’t the only soldier sweating despite the chill.
When the door was open wide enough, Sykes tapped Dopey on the head. The commando dropped to his belly and ducked his head for a second-long peek into the building. He looked again, more slowly this time, his head swiveling as he searched the interior.
“Clear,” he said as he crawled forward.
The men followed him in, with Grumpy taking the drag slot. The room was twenty feet square, lit by oil lamps, and had no discernible purpose. The walls were paneled in dark wood while the floor was dressed stone. Other than the lamps, the space was empty. A door on the far side was the only way out.
This time Sykes made the first visual reconnaissance. “This is it,” he whispered. “The next area is open, lots of doors and hallways and a big staircase.”
