Direct Action

41

“Sir, message,” the communicator announced.

“God,” Miguel Fernandez moaned. He’d been sitting in that room for more than eighteen hours straight. The CIA men and the Army aviators had only dropped in occasionally during the day to check the message traffic. They’d only filtered back into the room as dusk approached.

Fernandez had remained, as if his commitment would will a successful conclusion. The other SEALs had brought him food and drink. One of the communicators, accustomed to standing late watches, had helpfully informed him that Mountain Dew contained the highest percentage of caffeine of any soft drink. Fernandez had pounded down cans of it. He’d been stepping out to make quick calls at the nearby head ever since. His stomach felt as green as the beverage, and he was like a single pulsing nerve ending, only precariously contained. One of the SEALs suggested he take a break. No one made any suggestions to Fernandez after that. Clean-cut young sailor types like the communicators and intelligence specialists were intimidated by SEALs under the best of circumstances. Now Fernandez had them so freaked out they shied like ponies every time he shifted in his chair.

Everyone crowded around the terminal. The message read:

One drawback to print transmission rather than voice was that it was difficult to convey a sense of urgency. Fernandez thought whoever had typed out the message, probably the lieutenant, had managed to do it just fine.

Fernandez rushed over to the map on the wall and plotted the grid coordinates. Damn, they were right on top of the mountain range. They’d covered one hell of a lot of ground. And “contacts all day.” Knowing the SEAL habit of understatement, in official communications at least, Fernandez could easily imagine what it had been like. And emergency was the highest of the three evacuation categories. One of the boys was hurt bad.

Don Stroh immediately got on the satellite hookup to CIA headquarters to report the message. After the fiasco of that morning, he’d spent over an hour explaining to his superiors that the Army Blackhawk helicopters, with long-range tanks and flight-refueling probes removed, were indistinguishable at night from the carrier air group’s Navy Seahawk helicopters. After wasting the better part of the morning, he’d finally convinced them. Just another in a long, dismal line of examples of people in power insisting on making military decisions even though they had next to no real understanding of weapons, tactics, or strategy. Except in their own minds, that is.

Even so, the George Washington had spent the entire day sailing back and forth across the eastern Mediterranean. Now they were charging toward the Lebanese coast, and would be in range to launch helicopters in fifteen minutes.

“Yes, sir,” Stroh was saying into the handset. “Yes, Sir, there may be enemy contact at the pickup. The fact that the Syrians are on alert and have presumably been pursuing the SEALs all day will most likely complicate the extraction. No, sir, I’m not being facetious, I’m simply stating fact. Yes, sir. Then we are clear to launch, sir? Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, I will keep you informed.” He set the handset down. “We’ll launch as soon as the ship is ready.”

The Army major commanding the 160th task force slapped his palm down on the table. “Finally! You people were about to give me colitis or something.” He picked up the phone to the ready room. “We’ll be in range to launch in fifteen minutes, and I want to go as soon as possible after that. LZ grid is 843591. Rig the short caving ladders and a stretcher on the hoist of each bird. One friendly WIA, emergency. No, I’m not going to send a message asking the SEALs to clarify the enemy situation. Why make the poor bastards lie to us? Look, I’ll be right there.” The major slammed the phone down and stomped out of the compartment, grunting, “Finally!”

Miguel Fernandez thought that all the major needed was a cigar butt between his teeth. He picked up the phone, got the ready room again, and had them put Radioman First Class Ron Holt on the line. “Ron? Yeah. I want to go with me and Red on the lead bird, you and Scotty on the number-two. Right. SAWs for everyone. And trauma kits. One emergency, I don’t know who. Have Red grab my gear and weapon, and I’ll meet you down in the hangar deck ASAP. No, fuck that; we’re going up the elevator with them. I don’t want anyone screwing up and leaving us behind. Okay, I’ll be right there.”

Fernandez charged out of the compartment. When the door slammed behind him all the sailors, even the officers, let out an audible sigh of relief.

Don Stroh almost broke out laughing. He picked up his pen and wrote quickly on a message pad. He ripped off the sheet and handed it to the communicator. “Send this now.”

The hangar crew rolled the lead Blackhawk onto the starboard aft elevator. They set the second Blackhawk beside it. The horn sounded, the gate rose, and the elevator whirred up to the flight deck. Once it was there, two carts swooped in and hooked onto the helicopters’ nose wheels, dragging them out on the deck.

The pilots boarded and started working through their checklists. They loaded the route and landing-zone coordinates into the navigation systems. There was an electrical whining as the main rotors unfolded and locked into flight position.

The two crewmen were checking out hydraulic lines and systems in the cabin. They were using the ANVIS-6 night-vision goggles attached to their helmets and infrared filters on their flashlights. Once in flight they would take up positions behind the two 7.62mm miniguns mounted in the port and starboard windows just behind the cockpit.

The two SEALs in each helicopter were dressed the same as the crew, in unmarked sage-green flight suits. But instead of helmets they wore intercom headsets. Gunners’ belts were buckled around their waists, with the long webbing safety straps snapped onto tie-down rings on the cabin floor. The belts would keep them inside no matter what violent maneuvers the pilots put the aircraft through. The SEALs were all armed with the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, as the Belgian Minimi light machine gun was called in U.S. service. It was chambered in 5.56mm, the same as the M-16, weighed fifteen pounds, and fired seven hundred to a thousand rounds per minute at the cyclic rate. A plastic box holding a two-hundred round belt clipped underneath the weapon. The SEALs were wearing night-vision goggles and had laser sights attached to the SAWS. They wore body armor and assault vests with two additional two-hundred-round belt boxes, grenades, and medical trauma packs attached to the back.

The Blackhawks’turboshaft engines gasped, and then began to scream as they powered up. The rotors engaged, and then came up to speed. Light signals passed across the flight deck, and back and forth between the helicopters.

On the deck in front of the lead Blackhawk the light sticks came together vertically. The Blackhawk rose from the flight deck, and hovered momentarily. The light stick pointed the way, and the Blackhawk banked left over the sea. The second aircraft followed right behind.

Miguel Fernandez, listening to the crisp professional exchanges over the intercom, felt his gut smooth out slightly. At least they were doing something.