T he flight deck was bathed in red light when Allston leveled off at 28,000 feet. He checked the navigation display– thirty miles to go — and retarded the throttles, slowing to drop airspeed. He looked around the flight deck. Everyone was wearing an oxygen mask and breathing easily. He keyed the intercom. “Oxygen check.” His voice sounded tinny, but he credited that to the microphone in his mask. The crew checked in. The loadmaster was the last, verifying the forty-one heavily clothed legionnaires in the rear were all on oxygen and okay. “Depressurizing, now,” Allston warned. He gave the high sign to the flight engineer. A whooshing sound filled the flight deck and he felt the change in pressure.
“Five minutes,” the copilot said. In the rear, the loadmaster motioned for Vermullen and Loni Williams to stand. They shuffled into position and stood together, back to belly with the short and stocky American in front. Vermullen snapped the sergeant’s harness to his. The loadmaster tugged at the connections, making sure they were secure. He double-checked their masks and portable oxygen bottles. At their altitude, their time of useful consciousness was less than thirty seconds without oxygen.
“Jumpers ready,” the loadmaster said over the intercom.
The seconds ticked down. “Two minutes,” the copilot called. “Lowering the ramp.” His hand moved over the right console, lowering the ramp to the trail position. At the same time, the flight engineer turned the cargo compartment and flight deck heat to full on. But they could still feel the bitter cold invading the aircraft. “One minute,” the copilot said. Vermullen and Williams shuffled to the edge of the ramp.
“Jumpers on the ramp,” the loadmaster said. They waited as the seconds ticked down, their eyes riveted on the red jump light at the rear door. The jumpmaster watched as Vermullen lifted Williams. The red light blinked to green and Vermullen stepped into the night. “Jumpers away,” the loadmaster said, stepping back from the ramp as it raised into position, sealing them in from the cold. The aircraft pressurized as they waited.
~~~
The two men plummeted earthward, reaching a terminal velocity of 120 MPH. Vermullen checked the altimeter strapped to his left wrist. They had to get out of the freezing cold and to a lower altitude before their oxygen bottles were depleted. He had practiced high altitude jumps before, but never with a passenger strapped to his harness. At twelve thousand feet they dropped through a layer of clouds and the world spread out below them in a beautiful panorama of sparkling lights and darkness. They were west of the town, exactly where he wanted to be. He pulled the ripcord. The big parafoil, a parachute-like fabric wing developed for special operations, deployed with a slight jerk. The Legionnaire looked up and scanned the canopy with a red-lens flashlight. He grunted in satisfaction. It was not a traditional round parachute but a highly maneuverable airfoil that resembled a mattress.
But something was wrong. Vermullen checked his GPS. They had encountered a wind-shift below the cloud deck and were drifting to the south, not the way he wanted to go. He had deployed the canopy at too high an altitude. He tugged at the risers and spiraled down to get out of the wind. He tugged his thick gloves off and let them dangle from wrist straps. Next, he pulled his oxygen mask free and let it hang around his neck. He pulled the NVGs, night vision goggles, on his helmet into place and turned them on. He tapped Williams on the top of his head to see if he was conscious. “You can remove your oxygen mask. But don’t drop it.” There was no response. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Vermullen checked the GPS strapped to his right wrist, and again tugged at the risers, trying to turn northward, but they were still too far south of their desired landing point. He released his equipment bag and let it dangle from a ten-foot lanyard. “Release your FAMAS and be ready to use it,” he told Williams. He felt Williams move as he freed the stubby, eight-pound assault rifle strapped to his chest.
Williams swung the FAMAS to the ready position, its sling around his neck and over his left shoulder. He charged a round. Like Vermullen, he snapped his NVGs into place. “Ready.”
“The wind is stronger than expected,” Vermullen told him. “It’s blowing us to the south.” He searched for their original objective, the bridge on the north side of town leading to the airport a mile to the north. He found the river and followed it, finally seeing the bridge. His GPS confirmed they were still drifting to the south. He checked his altimeter — 4500 feet. With the unexpected wind out of the north and their rate of descent, they would never make it. He pulled a riser, and they cut a huge swooping turn around the town as he searched for a new place to land.
~~~
“Do you have Bard in sight?” Allston asked his copilot. The two C-130s were stacked in a racetrack pattern twenty miles north of Bentiu. At 28,000 feet, they were still above the cloud deck but it was starting to break up and he caught an occasional glimpse of the ground. It always amazed him how many lights marked the barren land at night. But he couldn’t see the second C-130 piloted by Bard Green, which should be stacked a thousand feet above him. For a moment, he wondered if he had misjudged the first lieutenant. No way, he told himself. After Marci Jenkins and Dick Lane, Green was his best aircraft commander. But where was he? For a moment, Allston considered breaking radio silence but discarded that as premature. He forced himself to wait for the one-word radio call from Vermullen that would set the next phase in motion.
It was a quiet moment and, like so many, thoughts of home captured him. He hoped Ben, his sixteen-year-old stepson, turned out as well as Bard. As for Lynne, his beautiful daughter, he was sure she would set the world on fire, much like Marci. What happened to Marci? he wondered, coming back to the overwhelming reality of his life. The pilot had been gone fifteen days and was due back. The raw hurt of G.G. was still there and he would never shake a feeling of responsibility for his death. He forced it aside, promising that he would always remember. He was grateful that Marci had volunteered to escort G.G. home. In the quiet lull, he mused how the Air Force had changed. Twenty-years ago as a second lieutenant, he never would have believed he would be relying on two women so much. Make that three, he told himself. His chief of maintenance, the difficult and irritable Susan Malaby, was indispensable. He laughed out loud over the intercom.
His copilot looked at him. “What’s up, Boss?”
“I was just thinking about the ‘indispensable woman theory,’” Allston replied.
“Colonel Malaby?”
“Yep. It amazes me how she keeps these crates flying.” Ahead and above them, a rotating beacon flashed in the night and then disappeared. Bard Green had just announced his presence and then went back to running with lights-out. “Good man,” Allston murmured. It was time to pay attention to business. He called the loadmaster. “MacRay, how the jumpers doing?”
“They’re ready to go. Getting kind of antsy.”
“I can’t blame them. Are the trucks still leaking?” The two rattletrap trucks they had on board were leaking gasoline and oil.
“We got the gas leaks stopped, but the fumes are still pretty heavy. It’s venting. Not a problem.”
“Stay on top of it,” he told MacRay. He checked his watch. Vermullen should have checked in. Is this turning into a goat rope? he wondered.
~~~
Vermullen forced himself to be calm as he searched for a place to land. The original plan called for them to land in the riverbed a mile south of the runway and destroy the bridge to seal off the airport and create a diversion. That could still happen, if they could land close enough to the bridge. He scanned the terrain through his NVGs, wishing the greenish image allowed better depth perception. Then he saw it. A branch of the Bahr el Ghazal cut around the southern side of the town, effectively making the town an island during the flood stage in two months. Fortunately, the branch was dry. Unfortunately, the town and another bridge was between them and their original objective. He pointed to a spot in the dry riverbed. “We land there.” He tightened up his turn and spiraled down.
“Relax, relax,” he told Williams, his voice barely above a whisper. He waited to hear the equipment bag dangling ten feet below his feet strike the ground. When he heard the soft whump, he pulled on the risers and stalled the parafoil. It would have been a near perfect, standing touchdown, except they landed on the equipment bag and stumbled, falling to the ground as the canopy collapsed behind them. Williams groaned under Vermullen’s weight. “I’m sorry,” Vermullen said as he stood. He pulled Williams to his feet.
“Pas de tout,” Williams replied. He gathered up the canopy as Vermullen shouldered the heavy equipment bag.
They hunched over and ran for the bank, finding cover in the heavy brush. They quickly shed their heavy jumpsuits and buried them along with the parachute and their harnesses. Vermullen checked his GPS. They were exactly 2.32 miles from the bridge. “Merde,” he breathed. It was further than he had hoped but he wasn’t going to quit. He motioned Williams forward, to the edge of the riverbed. Ahead of them, loud music he had never heard blared from a CD player and grated on his nerves. The two men stopped at the base of the steep bank the river had down-cut during flood stage and caught their breath. Vermullen silently crawled up the bank and got his bearings.
They were on the edge of an open area with brightly lit buildings on the other side. A tanker truck was parked in the open area. They watched as a car drove out of the town and stopped beside the tanker. A man got out of the car and pulled a hose from the side of the tanker. Within a few minutes, he had refueled his car and banged on the door of the truck. A hand came out the window and the man pressed a wad of money into the open palm. He walked back to his car and drove off, leaving the hose on the ground. Because of the angle of the hose, Vermullen realized they were on high ground and the terrain sloped down and northward, away from them and into town. He smiled. It was almost too easy.
Vermullen stood up, handed his FAMAS to Williams. “Cover me,” he said. He ambled towards the buildings and looked around until he found an open sewer. He hid in the shadows as another car drove up and went through the refueling routine. Again, money exchanged hands with the sleepy driver in the cab. The car drove off. They had found an ambitious entrepreneur selling stolen petrol. Vermullen pulled the fuel hose out as far as it could go but it didn’t reach the sewage ditch. He thought for a few moments, drew his knife, and walked back to the truck. He pounded on the door. This time, the sleeper stuck his head out and slurred a fine curse in Chinese about chicken-legged whores mothering misbegotten black bastards. Vermullen’s hands flashed. His right hand came up, driving his knife into the soft skin under the man’s jaw as his left hand slammed the man’s head down onto the blade. Vermullen jerked hard and severed the man’s thorax before dragging him out the window.
He dropped the twitching body on the ground and rolled it under a wheel. Without a word, he got in and backed the tanker up twenty feet, rolling over the man. He got out and fiddled with the hose nozzle before getting it to lock on. He laid it in the open sewer and watched for a few moments. Not satisfied with the rate of flow, he went back to the tanker and started the engine. He played with levers and valves until fuel gushed out of the open nozzle and into the ditch.
A small pickup drove up for fuel and the driver got out. The man looked around, confused, and then followed the hose, picking it up as he went. He reached the nozzle and shut it off. He dragged it back to his car and jammed the nozzle into the filler neck, cursing loudly. Vermullen ghosted through the night and closed on the man from behind. His hands flashed as he grabbed the man’s jaw, jerked back, and cut his throat. He threw the body under the pickup. He grabbed the nozzle, this time disconnecting it. He dropped the gushing hose into the sewer, and walked back to the waiting Williams. “What happens now?” the American asked.
“We wait,” Vermullen replied. He checked his watch. “The tanker is full so it will take at a few minutes to empty. By then, the sewer should be full.”
“What happens then?” Williams asked. Vermullen didn’t answer. It was a dumb question. “Oh, I get it,” Williams finally said.
~~~
Allston checked the time: 0243. Three hours to daybreak, and they were running out of time. The sun comes up quickly in the tropics and he wanted to be as far from Bentiu as possible when it did. But it all hinged on Vermullen blowing the bridge, sealing off the operation. The big Frenchman had delighted in explaining how he would fall back on the airport leaving a string of explosive booby traps behind to discourage any pursuers while his legionnaires parachuted in and secured the airport in the confusion. But Allston had serious doubts that he was going to hear the radioed codeword from Vermullen initiating the attack, much less see the explosion. He decided to give it a few more minutes. If he didn’t hear the codeword soon, he would break radio silence and call the mission off. Vermullen and Williams would have to escape and evade out of Bentiu but that shouldn’t be too difficult. They could make their way to a refugee camp where a C-130 could pick them up. The plan was simple enough in concept and, as any plan had a life expectancy of thirty seconds in combat, easy to modify. Allston wasn’t ready to give up. Not quite yet.
“Anti-collision light on,” Allston said. “Ten minute warning.” He checked the GPS and broke out of orbit, heading south for the airport. Bard Green checked in with two clicks over the UHF radio, followed by two more quick clicks. “Anti-collision light off,” he ordered. He was certain Green was behind him. He felt the aircraft shift slightly as the legionnaires in the back stood and shuffled aft. In front of him, a little box appeared on the navigation display. It was the computed air release point where the legionnaires would bail out. “Thanks, G.G.,” he said half aloud. The navigator was still very much part of the mission. He descended to 20,000 feet and checked the radar warning receiver. No radars were active.
“Five minutes,” the copilot called.
“Five minute check completed,” MacRay answered from the rear. The legionnaires were all standing, equipment checked, and ready to go.
“Depressurizing now,” Allston said. Again, he could feel the aircraft depressurize. He slowed the Hercules to jump speed. It was almost decision time. He would either hear the codeword and give the green light to jump or cancel the mission.
~~~
“It’s time,” Vermullen said. He scrambled over the edge of the riverbank and sauntered over to the tanker. The engine was still running but the tank was empty. He reached in and shut off the engine. He tapped the tank and slapped a small magnetic limpet explosive device against the outer hull. He set the timer and continued walking towards the buildings. When he reached the open sewer, he stood and casually lit a cigarette. He didn’t smoke and it was all show, just in case someone was watching. He dropped the burning match into the sewer, and walked casually away. For a moment, nothing happened. Suddenly, a wall of flame erupted out of the sewer. It moved with a will of its own and raced into town, feeding off the petrol-filled sewage ditch. He fell to the ground and rolled into a shallow depression. The tank truck exploded, sending a shower of flaming debris over the buildings and setting roofs on fire. Running figures emerged from the buildings, scrambling for their lives. Cars and trucks raced for safety, adding to the confusion.
Satisfied that he had a diversion in play, Vermullen unclipped the UHF radio on his belt and hit the transmit button. But the radio was dead. Because of the long fall and extreme cold, a drop of moisture had formed when it thawed at lower altitudes and shorted out the transmit circuit. He motioned for Williams to join him as he ran for the small pickup truck.
~~~
“Two minutes,” Allston’s copilot said, warning the crew and jumpers of the time to go. Allston peered into the night, willing the cloud deck below them to break apart. His left thumb hovered over the radio transmit button. He gave it thirty more seconds before he aborted the mission. “One minute,” the copilot said, giving the last warning.
“Jesus, mother of God,” Riley, the flight engineer said. “Look at that.” The cloud deck below th
em parted, and they could see Bentiu. It was lit up like a Christmas tree as fire spread through the town. A fireball lit the sky and shot skyward like a roman candle.
“Looks like an oil tank,” Allston said. He made the decision. It wasn’t the product of a logical, carefully reasoned process. It was just there, the end result of years of experience and training. Something had gone wrong and Vermullen was not able to establish radio contact. Instead, the fire was the signal and the diversion. Allston mashed the radio transmit button. “Picnic time, repeat Picnic time.” The raid was on.
The copilot counted the seconds down as the triangle, which marked their position in the navigation display, moved over the box in the center of the screen. “Green light,” Allston said over the intercom. The copilot hit the toggle switch on the right console, and, almost immediately, they felt the C-130 change attitude as the forty legionnaires bailed out.
“All clear,” the loadmaster called.
“Close her up,” Allston ordered as he trimmed the Hercules and turned to the left to enter a racetrack pattern high above the airport. Halfway through the turn, he saw Bard Green’s C-130 as another forty jumpers bailed out. He followed the plummeting bodies as they fell. It would be another high altitude jump with a low opening. While hazardous, it minimized the exposure of the legionnaires and insured they landed on their objective. Allston reached the end of the outbound leg and turned to the south, heading back for the airport. Ahead, he could see the town. The fire was generating so much heat that it had created a whirlwind and sparks and burning embers were showering the northern part of the town and setting it on fire. At the end of the leg, he turned again back to the north, hoping to see Bard’s C-130. On cue, the young pilot flashed his anti-collision light and promptly turned it off. As planned, he was still stacked in the same pattern, a thousand feet above Allston. “Lights out,” Allston ordered. He snapped his NVGs into place, and turned them on.
The Peacemakers Page 20
