Direct Action

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Murdock made sure Razor was still pretty well doped up when he told him who was standing in for him. Murdock didn’t want him to have an embolism or anything.

Razor’s evil smile was a little dreamier, but still a sight to behold. “Jaybird’ll get me back on the job if he has to take charge of my rehab himself,” he predicted.

Murdock spent the next three days limping around with his own evil smile well hidden as the responsibility, rather than the authority, worked its magic on Jaybird Sterling. Just as it had on Razor Roselli. And George MacKenzie before him.

Jaybird organized, cajoled, persuaded, and occasionally threatened. The gear was cleaned, inventoried, and packed, paperwork was started. The platoon was ready to go.

They flew off the ship on the 14th. The platoon was on one of the Chinooks, with Razor and Higgins strapped to stretchers and a Navy medical team attending. The other Chinook carried the Army maintenance people, with the wounded Blackhawk slung beneath it. The surviving Blackhawk flew off under its own power.

They landed at Sigonella after dark. C-5’s were waiting to take the helicopters back to Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

The SEALs and the medical team went from helicopters right onto an Air Force C-9 Nightingale. This was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 airliner specially fitted out as an aeromedical evacuation aircraft to transport casualties between theaters of operation. The Navy medical team disembarked and left Higgins and Razor in the care of the Nightingale medical crew.

The Nightingale lifted off immediately and flew from Sigonella to Rhein Main airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Higgins was taken off to the hospital there for more surgery. He was still unconscious, and for security reasons the platoon couldn’t accompany him off the aircraft. But a SEAL lieutenant commander and senior chief from Special Operations Command Europe were there to take care of one of their own.

At Rhein Main the SEALs dragged Razor Roselli and their equipment off the C-9 and onto a C-141 transport. That too took off immediately.

The C-141 stopped in Shannon to refuel. The SEALs ate foil-wrapped TV dinners and stared longingly out the windows in the direction of the duty-free shop.

From Ireland they stopped in Newfoundland to refuel. The SEALs were not allowed off the aircraft. The C-141 hopped across the U.S., finally touching down at North Island Naval Air Station.

Razor Roselli was taken off in an ambulance to San Diego Naval Hospital, and the rest of the very exhausted and jet-lagged 3rd Platoon boarded trucks for the short drive to Coronado.