Omega Sanction

Chapter Thirty-one

Dublowski prowled about the Delta Force Ranch like a caged bear, thinking about the information Parker had relayed. Finally, he went into the electronics shack. He found Chief Warrant Officer Simpkins working over the innards of a computer.

Dublowski told the warrant officer what he wanted to do and, as he'd hoped, Simpkins had just the thing.

Two metal suitcases in hand, Dublowski left the Ranch in his pickup truck.

Thorpe felt in his element for the first time since he'd put his uniform back on. The throbbing roar of turboprop engines from the nearby combat Talon filled his ears. The smell of JP-4 fuel burning was a familiar one that brought back memories of being at many other airfields preparing to deploy.

The twenty men of the Delta forward element wore black fatigues with no markings. They were loading their gear onto the plane, MP-5 submachine guns slung over their backs.

Thorpe walked up to the man directing the loading. "You in charge?"

The soldier, a tall black man with a completely shaved head, checked Thorpe out, taking in the SOCOM patch on the shoulder, the Special Forces branch insignia on the collar, the combat infantry, scuba and master airborne patches on his chest, and lastly the name tag.

"No, sir. I'm Master Sergeant Grant. Major Dotson is in charge." Grant pointed to a younger white man standing near the back ramp of the plane.

Thorpe walked over. "Major Dotson."

"Yeah?" Dotson looked over Thorpe in the same manner as Grant. "So you're Thorpe. Heard you screwed the pooch in the Ukraine and we've got to close this out."

"I'll be coming with you," Thorpe said.

"Great," Dotson muttered. "What am I, a cruise ship director?"

"The Israelis lost four men 'screwing the pooch,' as you say," Thorpe said. "We stopped two-thirds of the shipment. I would like to be there to help finish the job."

Dotson sighed. "All right. See Grant to get some gear. Make sure you're sterile. Last thing we want is to leave a body that can be identified as American on Saudi soil."

Thorpe noticed something he had never seen before on a combat Talon — two pods bolted to the body of the plane, just forward of the wheel wells.

"What's that?"

Dotson followed his pointing finger. "Hummingbirds. Mixture of high-explosive and diversionary loads."

Thorpe almost laughed. It had come full circle from the rig in the Gulf of Mexico to here. He hoped their assault went better than the previous one.

"They're staying over Egyptian soil," Parker noted.

"They're not stupid enough to even get close to Israeli airspace," Gereg said. "What's the status on Delta?" she asked Giles.

"They'll be wheels up in two minutes."

"What else do we have on call?" Gereg asked.

Dilken ticked off the firepower. "The U.S.S. John C. Stennis just finished transiting the Red Sea en route to relieving the Lincoln in the Persian Gulf." Dilken hit a key and the small image of an aircraft carrier's silhouette appeared in the Gulf of Aden, just out of the Red Sea. "It has a full complement of combat aircraft along with its battle group, armed with cruise missiles."

"Scramble some air support to be on station farther north in the Red Sea."

"Yes, ma'am."

Everyone turned as the back door to the ops center opened and the director walked in. He went directly to Gereg. "We have National Command Authority Sanction for this mission. However, we must avoid escalation to direct conflict with Saudi troops."

"That might be hard to do, sir," Gereg noted.

"I don't care how hard it is, you make sure we don't start World War III here or piss off the number one oil-producing country in the world."

Terri had made her decision and when she heard the door clang open at the end of the corridor, she quickly padded across her cell to a position to the right of her cell door. She heard another door open, a yell from Leslie as she was dragged out of her cell. Then Cathy's door opening. Both girls were dragged away and still Terri waited, pressed against the hard concrete, her eyes on the door, her ears listening for any movement.

Two men were speaking in a foreign tongue; they laughed; then heavy boots walked away, the door at the end of the corridor slamming shut. Then a lone set of boots came down the corridor.

She heard the key in the lock, then the door swung wide, covering her behind it. A man in sand-colored camouflage stepped in, pistol leading.

Terri pounced, grabbing the arm holding the gun and biting down just above the wrist, her teeth tearing through flesh and bringing a yelp of pain from the man. The gun hit the ground with a clank.

The soldier turned toward her, but she was already moving, pushing off the wall with all her strength, knee leading directly into his groin. A gargled yell came out of the man's throat, but Terri continued as her father had taught her, slamming the knee twice more into his groin. Then she swung her left elbow, hitting him in the face, snapping his head against the door.

The soldier staggered as Terri dropped to her knees, hands grabbing, wrapping around the butt of the pistol. She brought it up, business end pointing at the soldier's face. He was still moaning, hands over his groin.

Terri's finger curled over the edge of the trigger. She realized that the sound would bring others. She pushed forward, shoving the barrel into the man's ample stomach, and pulled the trigger, the flesh muffling the sound.

The man's eyes went wide, both in disbelief that a woman would shoot him and from the pain. Terri stepped back. She pulled back the slide — the pressure against the man's body having kept it from working properly after the first shot — and put another bullet in the chamber.

The man dropped to his knees, hands over his stomach, blood flowing over them. Terri waited, watching.

"This is the route we will take to the Red Sea." Major Dotson ran his finger along the map.

Glancing out the window to the left, Thorpe could see rocky outcroppings along a ridge at a height equal to that at which they were flying. The combat Talon was less than eighty feet above the ground, the plane bobbing and weaving to follow the contour of the earth along a canyon.

Dotson's finger had traced a route across southern Israel, where the country grew narrower and narrower until just a tiny part of it touched the Gulf of Aqaba between Egypt and Jordan.

"We go feet wet," Dotson continued. "The pilots will put us just about on the wave tops through the Gulf of Aqaba until we touch the Red Sea. Then we have to see exactly where our target goes."

"Won't we get picked up by Saudi radar when we go by Aqaba?" Thorpe asked.

"The Israelis run training flights along this route every day," Dotson answered. "The flights stay at least twelve miles from each shore, in international airspace. We'll get picked up, but the Saudis will assume we are just another training flight." The officer shrugged. "One aircraft — a transport plane, at that — flying alone will not raise much interest."

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 seconds."

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.