Command Authority

85

The grass field helicopter flight line at the JSOC base on the northern end of Kiev’s Boryspil International Airport was alive with activity at one a.m.

Two MH-6 Little Birds already had their rotors turning, and Black Wolf Two Six, the Kiowa Warrior operated by Conway and Page, had already gone through its preflight checklist, although the pilots were still in Flight Ops getting last-minute intel.

Both Ding Chavez and Sam Driscoll had sat on the outside of a moving helicopter before. Dominic Caruso, on the other hand, had not, nor had he ever had much of a desire to.

He saw the tiny little bench bolted onto the side of the Kiowa, and he realized this was where he was supposed to sit. Then he saw the small restraining cable that would hook to his body armor to keep him from plummeting to his death, and his first thought was No fucking way.

He looked at Ding. “I’ve got a better idea. How ’bout I take a bus and catch up with you guys?”

Ding patted him on the pack. “Mano, I learned a trick a long time ago. I just strap myself in, then I tell myself I’m watching a really awesome movie on a really awesome big-screen TV with a really awesome audio system.”

Caruso looked at him doubtfully. “And that works?”

Chavez shrugged noncommittally. “It did when I was young and dumb.” With a wink, he added, “You should give it a try.”

As the three men strapped themselves in, two figures in dark uniforms and body armor walked over from the JOC building. From the HK416s on their shoulders, it was obvious they were Delta Force operators.

One of the men looked at the Kiowa. “We drew the short straws, so it looks like we’re on the other side of this old piece of shit.” He shook Ding’s, Dom’s, and Sam’s gloved hands with a gloved hand of his own, and the other Delta man did the same.

“Who are you guys?” one of the Delta Force men asked Chavez.

Ding smiled. “You are probably more used to people asking you that.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Do you ever answer that question?”

The man shook his head. “Negative.”

“Well, then,” Ding said. “There you go.”

There was an obvious presumption by the Delta Force operatives that Ding and his men were CIA Special Activities Division officers, which was exactly what Clark and Chavez used to be. Chavez did nothing to dispel this notion, and Clark had even mentioned that Midas was on board with keeping up this ruse with his men.

Before the Delta operators went to the other side of the helo, Conway and Page came out of Flight Ops and introduced themselves to the men they would be flying in to the operation.

Conway said, “We’re going to depart to the southwest, away from the city. We’ll be right behind the two MH-6s. We’ll pick up the Dnieper River and then turn to the north, go low and shoot straight up into Kiev. With the route we’re going to take, it will be thirty-one miles to the target. We are going to do everything we can to keep everyone from knowing who we are, where we are going, and what we are up to.

“That means we’re going to fly really fucking low and really fucking fast. I just want to let you dudes know, this is going to be a wild ride. You see bridges or power lines in our path, then it’s a good bet I see them, too, so don’t freak out.”

The five men just nodded back at the helo pilot. Dom Caruso’s nod was the least sure of them all.

Conway continued, “Like I said, we’re going in behind the Little Birds, but I’m not a Night Stalker and this is not a Little Bird, so if they have some capabilities to keep the men on the outside of their aircraft from shitting their pants and puking up their MREs, then the guys on the other helos will be better off than you, because, frankly, I’ve never done this before.”

Caruso was already turning green with the thought of what was to come.

Ding said, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be strapped in. As long as you don’t slam this into a wall or into the ground, then we’ll be okay.”

Conway nodded. “When we get there, the guys on the other helos will fast-rope to the roof exits and the Little Birds will get out of the way. I’ll land on the roof, and when I do, I want you guys off my helo PDQ. I’ll take off and head back over the river, and I’ll wait for your comms to come back and pick you up.”

Ding said, “That sounds good.”

They talked another minute or two about the possibility they might be leaving with a prisoner, and also about the possibility for evacuating wounded after the raid. Ding didn’t think it sounded like there were many feasible options to get out of that hotel from the roof with a gunshot wound, and he got the impression from everyone that a downed American might have a better chance at survival just waiting for a Ukrainian ambulance there.

He did his best to put those concerns out of his mind, told himself it would be best if he didn’t get shot or let any of his buddies get shot, and then he sat down on the narrow bench.

Five minutes later the Kiowa Warrior was airborne, flying slow and low across the airport grounds. It soon climbed into the night sky, following the MH-6s a few hundred yards ahead.

For Dom, the first couple of minutes weren’t nearly as bad as he thought they would be. His earplugs kept the rotor noise to a minimum and the fact he was sandwiched between Sam and Ding meant he wasn’t rocking around as much as he’d feared. As they raced over flat farmland, his main issue was the incredible cold brought on by the wind. He was wearing a lot of clothing and gear, as well as a Kevlar helmet and goggles, but his cheeks felt like they would freeze solid.

Just when he decided the flight itself wouldn’t be so scary, the Kiowa lurched into the air suddenly and violently. Dom slammed his helmet into Sam, and Ding slammed his helmet into Dom.

They shot just over a set of high-tension wires across an open field, so close Dom thought his boots would catch a wire.

Then they dropped straight down on the other side, leveling out at less than twenty feet. Dom felt the vertebrae in his back compress, and he also felt the acid in his stomach churning.

He leaned forward and looked ahead, and his heart sank. There were more wires and hills between him and the river.

Fuck.

Now it felt, to Caruso, like he was reliving a horrifying plane crash over and over and over again. The Kiowa Warrior fired up a few hundred feet to climb above wires and buildings and hills, and then it plunged down, nose forward, picking up speed. Although Dom was strapped in to the narrow bench, his body felt weightless, his legs rose in front of him, and he had to squeeze the 416 on his chest tightly to his body to keep his arms down and the gun in place.

Then the weightlessness ceased, and he felt the pull on his straps and the pressure in his low back against the bench as the Warrior bottomed out and raced so low over the ground that, when Dom did open his eyes, he saw the roofs of small houses at eye level and treetops higher than the helicopter he was riding on.

He had no trouble convincing himself that the pilot was insane, and he suspected the pilot was personally trying to give him a heart attack.

The helicopter raced low over some sort of a strip mine in the middle of a forest. There was enough light to see pyramids of gravel all around them.

Without warning the aircraft turned on its y-axis, the tail shot out to the side, and the three men on Dom’s side of the aircraft were all pulled to the right. For a hundred yards or so it seemed to Dom as though he was at the front as the Kiowa raced along sideways, slowed, and then began flying forward again.

It was just a sudden change of direction, but the men on the bench had been rocked, pummeled, and spun by it. Dom looked to his right just in time to see Sam Driscoll lean forward slightly, then vomit violently out into the dark sky.

Caruso leaned away from his colleague. Getting Sam’s puke on his boots wouldn’t be the worst thing Dom had to deal with this evening, he was sure, but he kicked his feet out to avoid the vomit nonetheless.

When Sam was finished with his puking fit, he took a hand off his rifle and wiped his mouth and beard with the back of his arm. He turned to Dom, saw that he had seen the whole thing, and shrugged slightly, as if it was no big deal.

The helicopter plunged again on the far side of the hill, and Dom himself began throwing up.

CW2 Eric Conway raced his helo thirty feet over the cold water of the Dnieper River, his eyes darting between the two birds he was following into the target, the water and the boat traffic on it, and his various sensors that told him how far until his next waypoint and the status of all the aircraft’s systems.

The mast of a ship was just ahead, so he pulled on his cyclic to avoid it. He knew he was tossing the men on the outside of the fuselage around like marionettes, but he didn’t have the ability to focus on anything as unimportant as the creature comforts of his passengers at the moment.

Soon he saw the Fairmont ahead on his left; it was the tallest building along the water on the western side of the Dnieper. The Night Stalker pilot in the lead Little Bird announced “One minute” on the radio, and Page reported that he was getting no warnings of inbound bogeys on the radar.

Conway watched as the two small black helos rose above the water and slowed, then made one quick circle around the roof of the hotel. He saw the flashes of gunfire on the roof, and immediately he saw more flashes coming from the Little Birds.

He began climbing away from the river himself, and pitched up his nose to slow his speed.

Over the radio he heard: “Taking fire from the roof and balcony on southern side.”

Conway slowed further as he made it to roof level. Now he could hear the Delta Force guys on his side of the helo firing down at targets near the helicopters. Within seconds all the targets were down, and then, with a command from one of the other helo pilots, both Little Birds descended just above the roof. Conway kept his eyes flitting between his multifunction display and his outside environment, but he caught a glance of men sliding down ropes from the helicopters.

In seconds, ten men were on the deck and moving to the stairwells, and the MH-6s were climbing back into the sky. Conway wasted no time moving into position to drop off his passengers.

There was space on the roof enough for three helicopters. The two big Eurocopters were on helipads, but there was a wide-open area a little lower than the raised pads that was just enough room for him to put down.

He came in as quickly as possible, and while he watched the rotors during descent Page leaned outside the open door to count down the distance in meters to the deck.

“Five, four, three, two… one…” They touched down, and Page turned and yelled at the men on his side of the fuselage, “Go! Go! Go!”

Conway turned to do the same, but the Delta men on his side were already running for the stairs, stacking up with the men who fast-roped off the Little Birds.

The men on Page’s side got off the bench quickly, and Page told Conway they were clear. The Kiowa rose into the night and turned to the south, careful to avoid the MH-6s already positioning themselves to the north.