Specter

16

In near-total darkness the fifteen SEALs sat facing one another across the cargo bay of the MC-13 °Combat Talon aircraft. The drone of the four turboprops had been steady and unchanging since they'd lifted off from San Vito thirty minutes before. The aircraft's crew chief had ducked his head into the cargo deck moments before to announce that they'd just gone feet-dry.

Murdock turned and glanced at one of the small, round cabin windows, but there was nothing at all to be seen outside. The night was as black as the bottom of the sea. Perhaps later, when they got above this crap, he would be able to see some stars. For now, though, safety lay in flying low. Somewhere down there in that darkness, he knew, was Albania… yet another tiny Balkan nation with a bitterly unhappy past.

Under the tyrant Enver Hoxha, the tiny country — only about the size of Maryland — had closed itself off from the rest of the world, a small and bankrupt hermit kingdom in some ways more paranoid about contamination from without than North Korea. A hard-line Stalinist, Hoxha had ended relations with the Soviet Union in 1960 when Khrushchev had demanded a naval base at Vlord. His close relationship with Mao's China had ended in 1978, as China drifted toward liberalization. With Hoxha's death in 1985, however, rule had passed to Ramiz Alia, who slowly had begun to open the country to the West, privatizing industry and carrying out economic reforms. It was possible that Albania's long, self-imposed exile was nearly over.

In the meantime, Operation Alexander was taking direct and highly illegal advantage of the near-primitive state of Albania's military, especially their radar and tracking networks. Despite the rhetoric of Hoxha's ultra-Communists, the vast majority of the tiny country remained undeveloped. It had exactly one city of any real size — its capital, Tirand — and one seaport, Durrds. Most of the land was mountainous and covered with pine forests, while twenty percent of the country's land area was coastal plain, swampridden, and infested with malarial mosquitos. The Albanian military consisted of a 40,000-man force of regulars, with another 155,000 in the reserves, but that included just one tank brigade and eleven infantry brigades. Their air force was equipped with old J-6s and J-7s, purchased years ago from the Chinese, and they had only three squadrons of those, a total of about thirty fighters. Murdock had read once that Hoxha's idea of defending his country against invasion — or against contamination by foreign ideas, which for him amounted to much the same thing — was to build thousands of small, round pillboxes along his nation's borders with Greece and what was then Yugoslavia, and along the seacoast all the way from Konispol to the Buna River. Murdock had heard that the thirty-seven-kilometer highway from Durrds inland to Tirane was lined with hundreds of bunkers that looked exactly like whitewashed igloos with gun slits.

Stone igloos, however, were no match for an invasion by the technological magic of late-twentieth-century America. The first invaders had been purely electronic, powerful jamming transmissions directed at coastal and inland radar installations by EA-6B Prowler electronic-warfare aircraft flying off the Jefferson. Soon, the invaders took on a more tangible substance, racing in from the sea, going feet-dry less than five hundred feet above the salt marshes behind the Karavastasd Lagoon.

They flew in tight groups of four aircraft, three F-14 Tomcats protecting each Prowler, and as they penetrated Albanian airspace, they spread a blizzard of fierce electronic snow that jammed every radar from the airport at Tiran south to Berat. Albanian radar operators, both military and civilian, were used to near-constant breakdowns in an economy where new equipment was impossible to come by, and most simply logged the interference and ignored it. A few alerted superiors; a few of them actually wondered about the widespread breakdown. According to reports transmitted from circling Hawkeye early-warning radar planes, several flights of Chinese-made fighters were scrambled.

None of them found a thing.

Traveling at just below the speed of sound, the U.S. aircraft flew up the valley of the Devoll, across land that was empty for the most part of anything but mountains and pine forests. Behind them, traveling more slowly but still sheltered within their pattern of electronic jamming, came the night-black MC-130. North of the town of Gramsh, just before the mountains reared ahead into the twin peaks of Mali Shpat and Guri Zi, the Combat Talon began climbing, lifting up off the deck and grabbing for altitude.

The optimum height for HAHO operations was 30,000 feet.

"Ten minutes, Lieutenant!" the jumpmaster yelled back at Murdock. "Met report's still clear. Report for the target is low overcast, wind from the northwest at five. We have a go from Olympus."

Murdock nodded, then signaled to his men. "Stand up! Equipment check!"

Each man went over his own equipment, and then, when he was through checked the gear of the man beside him, looking for loose straps or releases, checking pack bodies, watching for Irish pennants — hanging lengths of tie-off cords — or improperly positioned gear. Murdock and DeWitt then personally went from man to man, giving each a final, all-over inspection.

They said little. With the Combat Talon now climbing to drop altitude, the men had all switched to bottled oxygen from their bailout bottles; their faces were completely encased in breathing masks and helmet visors that gave them the look of fighter jocks.

Fighter pilots never flew as burdened as these SEALS, however. Each man wore both his main parachute and his reserve on his back, with a bundle consisting of his rucksack, an inflatable raft, and his secondary equipment load in front, secured between his waist and his knees by a quick-release harness. His bailout bottle, the size of a small fire extinguisher, was strapped to his left side; behind that, secured to the side of his chute pack and to his leg, was his main weapon. For most of them, this was either an M-16 or an HK MP5SD3. Mac and Bearcat, however, were both carrying hogs — M-60E3 Maremont GPMGs — while Magic Brown sported a Remington Model 200 sniper's rifle and Doc and Rattler both were lugging HK CAW automatic shotguns. Four of the men carried M203 40mm grenade launchers attached to their M-16s.

Besides all of this bulky gear, each man carried numerous smaller packages and parcels — a HAHO compass on his left wrist; a digital altimeter on his chest above his ruck; a tactical radio; a secondary weapon — for most a 9mm Beretta pistol with an extended magazine; an inflatable life vest; an Eagle Industries Tac III assault vest with pockets bulging with extra magazines, chemical light sticks, first-aid kit, and hand grenades; rappelling gear and line; night-observation gear; knife; all of this worn over black nomex coveralls and heavy gloves. The temperature outside was something like thirty below, and frostbite of unprotected skin was a serious danger.

Besides the gear every man carried for himself, there was special equipment divided up among the team, mostly extra ammunition for the 60-guns, but including Higgins's HST sat-comm and KY-57 encryption gear, and batteries. Sixty pounds was the recommended equipment load for a combat jump, but each SEAL on the Combat Talon was packing at least one hundred.

Murdock went to each man, gave his load a tug or a pat to make sure it was secure, and tried to think of something light or encouraging to say. He didn't care for pep talks, and he knew his men didn't either. Still, it helped if they knew he cared.

"Doc," he said, shaking his head in mock despair. "What the hell is a noncombatant doing with a damned shotgun?"

It was an old joke. Theoretically, hospital corpsmen didn't fight and didn't carry weapons, but no SEAL was a noncombatant, no matter what his rating had been before he'd volunteered for BUD/S.

Doc grinned behind his mask and shrugged — a difficult maneuver under all that gear. "What the hell, L-T," he said. "Doc Holliday packed a shotgun, so I reckon I will too."

Murdock moved to Stepano, standing next in line. "You okay, son?" was all he could think of to say.

"I am fine, Lieutenant," the Serb said. "Do not worry about me. Kick ass and take names!"

"That's the spirit, Steponit," Roselli called. "We're gonna hop and pop tonight!"

They were ready.

"Okay, people," Murdock said, shouting so that all of them could hear. "The weight's going to be the critical factor. Remember, if any of you pop your canopy and find yourself descending at more than eight meters per second, reach down and jettison your secondary gear. Just let it go. I'd rather do without the equipment than have to do without the man. You read me?"

"Loud and clear!"

"Roger that!"

"Affirmative, L-T!" the voices chorused back.

"DeWitt and I both have strobes. Watch for them when you're going in and guide on us. If you don't see us, for whatever reason, aim for the midpoint of the lake, right opposite the castle if you can manage it, then make for the beach below it. If you end up too far north or south, or if, God help you, you overshoot and touch down on the mountain somewhere, get down the best you can and rally at the castle. If you undershoot, well, I sure hope you've brushed up on your Albanian." When their laughing stopped, he added, "You might try 'Mefalni,' which I'm told means, 'I am very sorry I fell out of the sky and killed your cow.'"

"Ha!" Papagos shouted over the laughter. "And what if we land on the guy's daughter?"

"Well, you could also try, 'Une jam student,' which means 'I am an innocent student traveling in your beautiful country.' Who knows? Maybe they'll believe you. If not, try to make it to the castle. If you can't, sit tight and put out your Mayday call. Somebody will be along to pick you up sooner or later."

"Right," Doc said. "Probably to make you pay for that cow."

"Or marry the daughter," Roselli added.

Humor, even the often obscene or grim gallows humor favored by SEALS, was a good measure of the men's spirits. Murdock noticed that neither Mac nor Kos joined in, but that was to be expected. They were older, and made steadier by their authority as the platoon's two senior NCOS. Stepano hadn't laughed either, though he'd smiled at the part about killing a cow.

"Two minutes!" the jumpmaster called to them. "Skipper says your approach vector will be zero-five-zero, range to target fifteen miles."

"Zero-five-zero, and fifteen miles. Affirmative. Everybody got that?" Helmeted heads nodded, gloved hands gave thumbs-up signs or clenched fists meaning got it.

"Okay!" the jumpmaster shouted. "We're opening up! Clear the aft compartment!"

With an ominous, grinding noise, the rear deck of the transport began dropping away, a hatch opening into the blackness of space. From where he was standing, Murdock could see that the waning moon had not yet risen, but there was sky-glow enough to illuminate the clouds far, far below. It reminded Murdock piercingly of a snowfield, perhaps a scene on a Christmas card he'd received once. It was noisier now, both from the thunder of the Combat Talon's engines and from the roar of the wind rushing past the gape-mouthed opening. Murdock checked his altimeter — 32,800 feet — high to allow both for the altitude of the lake, and for the fact that since they were higher to compensate for the target's altitude, they would be falling through slightly thinner air.

The jumpmaster gave a signal. "Ten seconds! Get ready! Good luck, you guys! And good hunting!"

"HAHO! HAHO!" Doc sang. "It's off to work we go!"

The seconds passed… a light on the bulkhead winked green.

"Go! Go! Go!"

This was no one-at-a-time airborne leap like the static-line jumps of World War II. The entire platoon rushed down the broad ramp in two close-arrayed squads, each flinging itself as a single organism headlong into the night, then breaking up as its members spread arms and legs and snagged the currents of the sky. Murdock was last off the ramp, hurling himself headfirst into the darkness after his men. Wind battered and tugged at him, snapping at the sleeves and legs of his coveralls and at the equipment secured to his vest, threatening to yank him out of position and send him into a sprawling tumble, but he held himself poised against the storm, arms swept back, legs bent at the knees, back arched. The glorious, buoyant, flying sensation of free fall thrilled within, like a favorite piece of martial music… no… like Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries."

For a HAHO jump, free fall lasted only eight or ten seconds, just enough time to clear the aircraft and to get clear of the other jumpers. Murdock watched the luminous flick of the seconds on his watch, then yanked the ripcord on his primary. A drogue popped free, fluttering behind him, steadying his fall… and then his chute unfolded after it, deploying slowly at first, then snagging the wind with a crack like thunder, the harness snapping at Murdock's thighs and chest and shoulders, yanking him upright, yanking him so hard it felt as though he'd just reversed course and was on his way back to the Combat Talon.

Silence. After the roar of the wind passed his helmet, the silence was shocking in its intensity, its completeness. Murdock dangled beneath the rectangular wing shape of his ram-air chute, suspended between a crystalline, star-powdered heaven and the faintly luminous clouds below.

HAHO — High Altitude, High Opening — as opposed to the more usual HALO — High Altitude, Low Opening. With HALO, a SEAL could leap from an aircraft at 30,000 feet, too high for anyone on the ground to hear the plane's engines, then ride thin air in free fall all the way to 2500 feet or less — about a two-minute trip, express only, no waiting. The chute jerked you up short within spitting distance of the ground and let you glide in the last few feet in death-dealing silence.

With HAHO it was different. His steerable chute let him extend the jump with a very favorable glide ratio, literally flying like a tiny, unpowered aircraft for as much as fifteen miles cross-country, a flight that would typically take seventy-five minutes… definitely life in the slow lane. His coveralls and much of his equipment were radar-absorbent, and the chute would reveal only a tiny cross section to watching enemy radar. They should be able to fly silently right across the border, and on this mission the decision to violate Albanian airspace provided a bonus. The planners back aboard Jefferson had thought it most unlikely that the enemy would be expecting an airborne assault from the direction of Albania. Nobody paid attention to Albania, especially these days with its increasingly nonexistent military. Likeliest would be an airmobile assault by helicopter coming out of the southeast, mountain-hopping across the rugged, forested border with Greece. Most of the enemy's attention, Murdock was willing to bet, would be focused in that direction, not to the west.

And he was betting on that… with the lives of himself, his men, and the hostages they'd come to rescue as the stakes.

Course… course… Checking his compass, he determined that zero-five-zero was that way, about eighteen degrees to the left. Reaching up above his head, he grasped his steering toggles and lightly tugged downward on the left-hand control, watching the point on the horizon he'd picked swing around until it was directly ahead. To extend the range of a HAHO jump for as long and as far as possible, the rush of air across his chute had to flow unhindered between its two panels. That meant he had to leave the toggles in the extreme up position for as much of the trip as possible; each maneuver, left or right, cost him precious altitude. Stabilized, he seemed to be descending at about six meters per second, not bad at all considering how much gear he was carrying. Some of the others — the Professor and Mac and Bearcat — were packing much heavier loads. He hoped they didn't have to jettison.

It was astonishing, now that his free-fall flight was ended and he was drifting to earth, how alone he felt. The Combat Talon was gone, already lost in the night. Looking around, he thought he could make out several other chutes… though most of the fourteen other men were invisible, jet-black canopies against the blackness of the night. Looking up, he might, if he were lucky, catch one of his men when he occluded a star. Below, the cloud glow was so faint he would have to be pretty close to see a chute silhouetted against it. He wished he could talk to them, and they to him. Radio communication was possible, certainly, and the encryption gear would guard their words from eavesdroppers. But radio silence was the order of the day. Even encrypted, radio chatter might tell listeners that something was happening. They would save the radios until the fun began at the target.

An hour later, arms cramping from their grip on the control toggles, back aching with the dead weight of his rucksack dragging at his harness, he approached the clouds, which were rushing up toward him like a vast, fuzzy cotton floor. The cloud deck flashed past the bottoms of his boots, an indicator of just how quickly he was moving. The clouds were so thick, he almost expected to feel them drag at his legs as he sank into them, but there was nothing except a sudden close blackness that wiped away the stars and coated his visor with droplets of water that turned almost immediately to ice.

Damn! He couldn't see a thing… not even the altimeter on his chest. Releasing his riser, he scraped at his visor with his gloved hand, but there was ice on the glove too, and all he managed to do was smear the mess around. Finally, he reached up and unlocked the visor, sliding it up on his helmet. Blinking against the rush of cold, wet air, he checked his altimeter.

Sixteen hundred eighty-two meters… but that was set to register off sea level. Lake Ohrid was at an altitude of 695 meters, so he should be nine hundred eighty and some meters up — just over three thousand feet. Though his fall had slowed somewhat as he'd descended through increasingly denser air, he was still only about two minutes from touchdown.

Vision returned with startling suddenness as he punched out through the bottom of the clouds. Until that moment, he'd had no way at all of knowing whether he was steering a proper course, short of the rather abstract knowledge that he'd been steering the course given him before he'd left the aircraft, falling at a constant rate, across a known range.

"Damned if geometry doesn't work," he said aloud as the panorama swam into view below him. The scene was cloaked in darkness, of course, but that yawning, black emptiness below was water, and the lights of the castle were dancing off the surface eight kilometers — call it five miles — ahead. North, he could see the town of Ohrid, and beyond that, the lights of what must be the local airport. South were the lights of other towns, their glow outlining the vast, oval blackness of the lake. He'd fallen almost six miles across a distance of fifteen, with a lake seven miles wide and fifteen long as his target. With over one hundred square miles of water to land in, he was coming down almost perfectly on target, almost precisely in the middle of the lake.

Twisting in his harness, he searched for other SEALs but saw no one… not surprising given the night, their garb, and the fact that they were bound to have scattered a bit during the descent. Reaching up to his shoulder, he snapped on his strobe. The IR hood had been removed. While it was possible that someone ashore might see the pulsing flash of the light, the chances were slim across a distance of more than a mile or two, and in any case, an observer might well assume that he was watching a plane. Murdock looked left and right again. There! A flashing red light, and not very far off either, though range was next to impossible to estimate at night. DeWitt was flying parallel to Murdock to the north and just a little below. Gently, Murdock dropped his left toggle slightly, easing his chute into a converging course with the other.

Now, please God, everybody else made it through, and everybody else can see our beacons. Murdock began to concentrate on his landing.

He checked his altimeter again. One hundred ten meters to go. He thought he could see the surface of the water now, sweeping past his feet at an alarming speed. Reaching down, he unsnapped his rucksack and secondary equipment bundles, then let them go. The shock of their release rocked him alarmingly, setting up a nasty oscillation, but he kept control and paid out the rest of the line, allowing his gear to dangle some twelve feet beneath his feet. Next he turned the quick release box to the unlocked position, pulled the safety pin, then opened the safety covers on his Capewell releases.

Closer now… and closer. The water was rushing toward him now, and he could see just how fast he was descending. Ten meters up he pulled down on both steering toggles, curling down the upper rear edge of his canopy like a gigantic set of flaps. The change in aerodynamics brought the front of the chute high, and for a moment, Murdock hung there in the sky, seeking the balance between a gentle landing… and spilling too much air too soon, which would plunge him hard into the lake.

Forward speed arrested, he dropped toward the lake. His equipment bundle struck with a splash, and then the strap holding it gave him a savage tug. The last of his forward velocity was killed by the drag of his rucksack in the water.

The surface rushed up, his feet kicked up spray…