by Bob Mayer
The Talon was indeed a transport plane, but probably the most sophisticated one in the world. Built on the classic C-130 Hercules transport airframe that has been in service around the world since the late 1950s, the combat Talon was updated in every area. Four powerful turboprop engines pulled it through the air at 340 miles per hour. A large bulbous protrusion under the nose held sophisticated imaging equipment that allowed the pilots to fly low-level even in the worst conditions.
The twenty men of the Delta team were crowded into the rear half of the cargo hold, with about enough space to hold three cars end to end. The front half of the hold was blocked from them by heavy black curtains. Behind those curtains were the stations for the electronic warfare specialists who manned the equipment that helped them evade, confuse and, if need be, jam enemy radar.
Ungainly and slow, the Talon was often mocked by other pilots, especially those who flew jets, but the aircraft had proved its worth time and time again. Talon crews pointed to the fact that a Talon had once penetrated the U.S.S. United States' battle group unnoticed to within fifty meters of the massive carrier.
"Where's the Lear?" Thorpe asked.
Dotson tapped the map. "AWACS has it here, south of us, just going feet wet off the coast of Egypt over the Red Sea."
"And when they land?" Thorpe asked. "What's our plan?"
"Plan?" Dotson repeated. "We just got alerted. We have no idea what the objective will look like. They could land at the international airport at Medina Mecca, in which case, presidential sanction or not, I don't think we really can do much."
Thorpe shook his head. "I think they're heading for Nabi Ulmalhamah, wherever the hell that is. I don't think they'd try to bring VZ in through an airport. They'll land at a private strip."
"I hope so," Dotson said. "We can go in a couple of ways—we've got HALO and HAHO gear—although it might take some convincing to get the pilots to go that high. More likely we'll go out LAQO."
Thorpe had never heard of that one. He knew about HALO—high altitude, low opening—and HAHO—high altitude, high opening—parachuting and he agreed that the pilots would never take them up to altitude to try that infiltration technique. "What's LAQO?"
"Low altitude, quick opening," Dotson said. He pointed to the back ramp, where a pallet of gear was tied down. "We got special chutes. You step off the ramp at two hundred feet altitude, they open within a second with three main canopies. Slow you enough so you don't die when you hit the ground."
That didn't sound very encouraging to Thorpe, but he'd jumped as low as four hundred feet with a regular canopy.
"The only problem is that there is no reserve," Dotson continued. "Your chute don't work, you won't have time to deploy a reserve."
"So you plan on simply jumping right on top of the target?" Thorpe asked. "That is the plan?"
"It's the start of a plan," Dotson said. "We'll use a couple of Hummingbird cruise missiles to give us a couple of seconds’ advantage when we need it."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that advantage," Thorpe muttered, his words unheard in the roar of the engines. One thing he had learned in the army was it was easier to critique something than do it. His critique of the Delta/SEAL assault on the oil rig in the Gulf was hanging over their head now, as they were in a similar situation and essentially coming up with the same plan and Thorpe had no advice to offer on how to make it any better.
***
"Still over the Red Sea, passing Al Wajh now," Dilken reported. "And descending," he added, which caused a stir of interest.
"Toward where?" Gereg asked.
Dilken hit some keys on the computer in front of him. The map on the display changed scales, focusing on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, northwest of Mecca. "Somewhere along the coast here."
Parker could see that the Talon was less than sixty miles behind the Lear. There were other symbols moving on the screen.
"We've got a flight of F-14 Tomcats closing from the south," Dilken added.
"If they jump in," Parker asked, "how are they getting out?"
"Already thought of that," Colonel Giles said. He pointed to the left side of the screen. "We've got the multinational peacekeeping force in the Sinai scrambling two of their Black- hawks."
"That's a long trip," Parker noted.
"It's the best we can do," Giles said. "They know the situation and it's part of their job."
***
The sky outside the Talon was growing dark, the sun aglow on the western horizon over Africa. The Red Sea below was a dark, flat surface, barely fifteen feet below the belly of the plane. In the cockpit, the pilots were watching their low-light-level television monitor in conjunction with their various radar readouts to fly the plane. Their major concern, given they were over water, was running into a ship.
In the rear of the plane, Thorpe was rigging his gear. He had a combat vest with extra ammunition and grenades. A pistol was strapped to his right thigh, a double-edged Fairburn on his left. An MP-5 submachine gun with a silencer was strapped to his right side under his armpit for the jump.
Master Sergeant Grant tapped Thorpe on the shoulder, yelling to be heard above the rumble of the engines. "Here's your chute." He held up an OD colored pack with a harness attached. The harness was the same Thorpe was used to for regular static line jumping and he quickly strapped it on. Then Grant showed him what was different as he tapped a small plastic pod on the upper part of the left vertical chest strap.
"No static line. That's your drogue. Remember how you warn jumpers to make sure their reserve doesn't deploy in the plane?"
Thorpe nodded.
"Well, you get to the edge of the ramp and pull this." He touched the red handle on the outside of the pod. "It deploys the drogue and—whoosh—you're out of the plane and then the drogue deploys the three main chutes." Grant smiled. "At least that's the theory." He turned to get his own gear ready.
***
"The Lear is under two thousand feet and still descending," Dilken reported. He pointed with the laser. "Glide path says they'll touch down here."
The red dot highlighted a small, triangular-shaped island just off the shore of the Saudi Arabian mainland.
"Give me imagery on that island," Gereg ordered.
"Coming up live from the KH-14," Dilken said. The screen cleared, then a black and white image appeared. A runway next to a compound, a large building set inside a wall. A dock with a large yacht and a smaller powerboat tied up was about two hundred meters away from the palace on the Red Sea side of the island. Eight hundred meters of water separated the island from the mainland.
"Nabi Ulmalhamah," Parker said.
"How come we never saw this?" Gereg asked.
"The runway is clear under thermal imaging," Dilken said, "but we never picked it up on regular imaging because it's painted to match the surrounding terrain." He shrugged. "It's not in a strategic location, so there never was a request to do thermal imaging."
"Aside the Red Sea shipping lane?" Gereg retorted. "The Red Sea is part of the Suez Canal choke point. The channel is as narrow in most places as the canal. Shut the channel, you shut the canal."
"There was no—" Dilken began, then stopped as Gereg glared at him.
"I think you knew exactly where Nabi Ulmalhamah was, didn't you?"
"Ma'am—" Dilken began, but she cut him off again.
"Do your job now, that's all that counts. Is that clear?"
Dilken swallowed and nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"Do you have any intelligence on the compound that we can forward to the Delta team?" Parker asked.
Dilken shook his head. "This is the first time I've seen this."
"Forward the imagery we're seeing to the Talon," Gereg ordered.
***
Thorpe and the others crowded around Major Dotson, staring at the imagery just brought back to them by an air force officer from the forward half of the cargo bay.
"We've got to jump fast," Dotson yelled. "The plane will be over this island in six s
econds."
Thorpe knew it would be very difficult to get twenty men out of the plane in that short a time.
Dotson grabbed the air force officer's shoulder. "I want an HE hummingbird in the wall, here and here." He tapped a spot on either side, on both wings of the palace. "I want a flash-bang Hummingbird to be launched at the same time. The HE to go off exactly one minute after we jump, the flash-bang five seconds after that. Can you do that?"
The officer nodded.
"I also want an HE hummingbird on top of the Lear at that time." Dotson turned to the men in black. "We'll have one minute on the ground. Those of you who land outside the compound, wait for the Hummingbirds to blow gaps in the wall. Those on the inside, try to get into the palace. When the wall blows, shut down your goggles for the flash-bang and keep your ear plugs in. Take them out right after."
"They're going to hear the 130 go by overhead, so we won't have that much surprise, and every second will count. Everyone stay up on the FM frequency. Kill everything that moves."
"Hold on!" Thorpe yelled. "There's some girls being held captive there."
Dotson glanced at Thorpe, then back to his men. "Priority one is to secure the VZ. Priority two is to kill Jawhar and Akil. If you see some girls, grab them and bring them out."
"What about exfil?" Grant asked.
"North end of the island is our exfil PZ. Only problem is our choppers won't be there for two hours after drop. Let's hope we secure the island and the enemy's help doesn't show before then."
***
The Lear's tires touched the runway; the plane bounced very slightly, then settled down, racing down the concrete. Thrusters reversed and it slowed a quarter mile short of the end of the runway. The plane turned and taxied for the hangar to the left front of the palace.
The palace contained over twenty thousand square feet. A central three-story-high main structure made up the bulk of it, with two one-story wings coming off on either side. The entire compound was surrounded by a ten-foot-high reinforced concrete wall topped with razor wire. Several guards were awaiting the plane as it came to a halt and the door opened, extending stairs down to the ground.
Akil bounded off, a metal briefcase in each hand, Jawhar right behind.
"Is everything ready?" Jawhar demanded.
The head guard nodded. "Yes."
Without another word they strode through the gate.
Chapter Thirty-two
Dublowski checked the readout as he drove down Chicken Plank Road—the glowing dot was still centered, which meant the bug was still working. He glanced in his rearview mirror. Nothing there. Yet.
***
Terri reached out with her toe and nudged the body. There was no response. The man's eyes were open and unfocused, his chest still. A pool of blood surrounded him. She took the extra magazines from the pouch on his belt along with the ring of keys and turned to the door of her cell.
She took several deep breaths, then edged out of the door.
***
"One minute!" Master Sergeant Grant's yell was grabbed by the wind swirling in the open back ramp of the Talon and swept away, but every man's eyes were focused on the single black finger he held up in the air and knew what it meant. Everyone hit the timer on their watch, set for two minutes, the time the HE hummingbirds would hit the wall.
The light above Grant's head glowed red. Behind the plane, the surface of the Red Sea looked like a flat, unbroken, black piece of glass.
They crowded forward on the ramp, Thorpe in the middle of the group. He slid the night-vision goggles down over his eyes and turned them on. Everything now showed up in a brightly lit green world.
"Get ready!" Grant yelled.
Thorpe put his hand on the rip cord for the drogue.
The light flashed green, a searchlight in the goggles. "Go!" Grant screamed and then he was gone. In a flash the men began disappearing off the ramp. Thorpe pulled the cord, the drogue popped out and then he was pulled off the ramp in an instant.
He was immediately jerked upright as the three canopies were pulled out of the backpack by the drogue and opened. Thorpe barely had time to glance up and make sure he had good canopies before he looked down, seeing the top of the palace level with him and then the large pool in the back directly below.
He hit water, submerged. His boots touched the bottom of the pool and he pushed up, surfacing underneath one of the canopies. The night-vision goggles shorted out and he was blinded. He ripped the goggles off, then fought with the canopy as it settled down around him, trying to pull him under.
Thorpe drew his knife and sliced through the nylon. He kicked toward the edge of the pool.
It was very quiet after the sound of the plane and with the earplugs in. Thorpe pulled himself over the edge of the pool, started to stand, then fell over as some of the lines to the canopy were caught on his vest. He used the knife to cut the cords.
A light went on near the low wing of the house to his left. Two men came running out, yelling in Arabic. Thorpe fired a sustained burst, killing both, the only sound the working of the bolt and the expended brass tinkling onto the patio. He saw another abandoned parachute to his right, just inside the wall. A man dressed in black was moving parallel to Thorpe, toward the door the two men had just come out of.
Thorpe ran forward in the same direction. There was a rattle of automatic weapons fire from a watchtower on top of the wall near the main gate to the left. The team had the element of surprise for about forty seconds.
The Delta trooper hit the wall on the right of the door, putting his back against it. Thorpe hit on the left.
Thorpe dimly heard a beep. He threw his arm across his eyes.
The first wave of hummingbird missiles hit. Two into the compound wall, hitting square on and blasting chunks of concrete into the air, leaving two gaping holes. The third hit the body of the Learjet. The secondary explosion from the refueling truck next to the jet lit the night sky with a tremendous fireball.
The Delta troopers who'd landed outside the wall poured through, breaking into assault teams as they'd been trained.
Thorpe kept his arm over his eyes through those explosions. Five seconds later a hummingbird flew over the compound scattering sixty flash-bang grenades. The cacophony of sound and searing light totally overloaded the senses of all the guards outside.
Thorpe pulled his arm away, looked across at the Delta solider, who whipped off his night vision goggles. The Delta man pointed at his own chest with one finger, then at Thorpe with two. Thorpe nodded, holding his MP-5 at the ready.
The Delta man dashed into the doorway, across to the left. Thorpe followed to the right.
***
"Who is it?" Jawhar demanded.
Akil was staring at the video screens that showed the outside of the palace. He could see parachutes draped here and there, dark-suited men closing on the building, his guards blinded, deafened and overwhelmed. The attackers moved with the precision of expert soldiers.
"Probably Israelis," Akil said. He could see that the Lear had been destroyed.
"They wouldn't dare!" Jawhar protested. The rattle of automatic gunfire came down the corridor. They were in a large room, about forty feet square. The two girls were locked down on gurneys; the doctor was nervously glancing up. Akil waved his gun in the man's direction and he continued with his delicate task.
Akil pulled out his cell phone and punched in a code, then he flipped it shut. "Help will be here from Father in forty minutes," he said.
The firing was getting closer.
"Forty minutes?" Jawhar had his titanium case out, running it nervously through his fingers. "They will be in here in a minute!"
"While you were away playing, I prepared for this," Akil said. "The vault is finished downstairs. We lock ourselves in, no one can get to us before help arrives. Are you done?" he demanded of the doctor.
"Yes."
"This way." Akil led them toward a set of double doors.
***
"The NS
A has picked up a SATPhone transmission from Nabi Ulmalhamah," Dilken reported.
"How far out are the Blackhawks?" Gereg asked.
"An hour and twenty minutes," Dilken answered.
"Too far," Parker said. "They're going to get caught on the island."
"The F-14s?" Gereg asked.
"They're circling over the Red Sea, five minutes’ flight time away," Dilken said.
"You can't send those F-14s in," the director said.
"We can't abandon those men," Gereg responded.
***
Thorpe fired a quick burst to suppress anyone who might be down the corridor. He moved into the corridor, muzzle of his weapon leading the way—the corridor was empty. Thorpe glanced at the Delta trooper who was with him. The man shrugged, then held up a finger for Thorpe to follow him down the short corridor. The few remaining guards were giving way quickly, withdrawing faster than the Delta men could clear their way in.
"Mask up!" Major Dotson ordered over the radio. Thorpe knew he was fearful that they were being drawn into a trap. He pulled the mask out and slipped it over his head, tightening the straps down. He covered the inlet and sucked in a breath. The mask compressed around his face, letting him know he had a good seal. He continued on his way.
***
Lieutenant Boorstin was watching his screens carefully. The AWACS rotodome was picking up everything in the air throughout the region. He had the combat Talon clear of the target area and heading back to Israel by the same route. The four F-14 Tomcats were holding in a very tight pattern over the Red Sea, burning fuel.
A new grouping of dots appeared on the screen. Boorstin adjusted the reading, but he already had a very good idea what he was looking at.
He keyed the radio linking him to Langley. "Ops, this is AWACS Eye. We've got four helicopters airborne out of the Saudi air force field at Al Wajh."
"This is Gereg. How long until they reach Nabi Ulmalhamah?"
The dots were moving and Boorstin made a quick calculation. "Approximately thirty minutes."
