Amid the Shadows (30 page)

57

At the ten-minute
warning, the bright lights went out in the C17 and were replaced by the plane’s
low, red, combat lights.
 
The Jumpmaster
standing near Clausen cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled as loud as he
could over the deafening engines.
 
“TEN
MINUTES!”
 
He held up both hands and
flashed all ten fingers.

The paratroopers near
the front nodded and turned to the men directly behind them, repeating both the
message and hand signal.
 
One by one, the
message was passed down the line with a nod from each paratrooper.

Both planes thundered
forward, continuing to hug the ground through every fold of the terrain below
them.

Zahn turned when one of
his men stepped into the room.
 
He was
dressed in black fatigues with his face painted to match.
 
Zahn looked past Christine at him.
 
“What is it?”

The man glanced briefly
at the monitors behind Zahn and then replied.
 
“Something just showed up on radar and disappeared again.
 
Something big.”

The look on Zahn’s face
changed instantly.
 
“How big?”
 

“Very big.
 
Probably four engines.”

Zahn narrowed his
eyes.
 
That meant a transport plane,
probably a C17.
 
And if they saw one, that
meant there were probably two.
 
“Paratroopers,” he said.
 
They
were coming in with a company of paratroopers, which was one of his most likely
scenarios.
 
But how did they find him
so quickly?

“How far away?”
 
Zahn asked.

“About eight minutes.”

Zahn looked at his
watch and thought for a moment.
 
“Get
your men ready.
 
They’ll drop about
twelve to fourteen kilometers out and in the dark it should take them three or
four hours to hike in through this terrain.
 
They’ll want to strike about 4:30 a.m. so the sun is rising by the time
it’s finished.
 
These men are some of the
best in the world, and they’re going to come in hard.”

The man nodded and left
the room, leaving Zahn staring at the empty doorway.
 
They must have somehow tracked down his old
NAFTA transport plane.
 
He shook his head
and pushed it out of his mind.
 
It didn’t
really matter how; he had known this was one of the possibilities.
 
It just happened faster than he thought.
 
Either way, this would be their only
chance.
 
The Stux 2.0 attack was well
underway.
 
There wouldn’t be enough time
for a second attack; this was it.
 

Paratroopers were very
tough, and Zahn had a big surprise for them.
 
What he hadn’t noticed was Christine furtively loosening the rope’s knot
located below her chair.

The large red and green
jump lights lit up next to the plane’s large, metal door as it opened into the
howling wind outside.
 
The door continued
turning outward and locked into place, becoming a shield for the paratroopers when
jumping into 180-mph winds.

The Jumpmaster moved
next to the door and yelled again.
 
“Inboard personnel stand up!”
 
Instantly the line of men closest to him stood.
 
“Outboard personnel stand up!”
 
The rest of the men on the far side of
fuselage stood.
 
“Check equipment!”

All of the paratroopers
checked the front of their equipment and the back of the equipment of the man
before them.

Near the front of the
plane, Clausen watched Bazes struggle to help keep Rand on his feet and run
through the checks they had been shown.
 
Rand gritted his teeth and gripped the overhead strap tight.

“Hook up!” yelled the
Jumpmaster.
 
All of the paratroopers
reached up and hooked their static lines to the overhead cable, then pushed the
cotter pin through with the other hand to secure it.

Bazes did the same at
the front and then reached for Rand’s line but couldn’t find it.
 
He tried to keep himself steady with one hand
and checked around Rand’s leg for the strap.

“Oh, for Christ’s
sake!” growled Clausen watching them.
 
Keeping a hand pushed against the ceiling, he quickly crossed over to
them and pushed both of their hands out of the way.
 
He reached around the right side of Rand’s
leg and immediately brought his hand forward with the strap.

“Three minutes!” yelled
the Jumpmaster.

Clausen immediately
reached up and attached Rand’s clip to the cable, closing it with the cotter
pin.
 
He then checked Rand’s gear, both
front and back, to make sure it was secure.
 
Like the rest of the paratroopers, these two men were jumping with full
rucksacks too.

When Clausen finished
checking Bazes, he leaned in close and yelled in his ear, “You go last!”

Bazes nodded his head.

“We’re all out of here
in 35 seconds!
 
Understood?”

Bazes and Rand both
gave a thumbs up.
 

Zahn picked up the
phone again and held the receiver to his ear, waiting.
 
After a few moments, he spoke.
 
“Get the MANPAD’s ready and get them as close
as you can to the path and direction of the object your radar spotted.
 
Don’t forget those planes are flying low and
fast which means they’re going to fly past you and your men in the blink of an
eye.
 
As soon as you hear them, fire the
missiles immediately.
 
If you wait for a
visual, it will be too late.
 
And save
half for the second plane.”

Zahn hung up and stood
calmly thinking.
 
His first surprise was
going to deal the paratroopers a terrible blow.
 

It was not unlike the
blow that Zahn was too distracted to see coming from behind him, when an untied
Christine raised her chair up and smashed it over his head with everything she
had.

58

Bazes noticed that the
shaking in Rand’s arms and legs was getting worse.
 
He leaned in and yelled to him, “How are
you?”

 
Rand winced.
 
“Never better.”
 

Bazes smiled back.
 
That was as far from the truth as it could
be.
 
Still, Rand was stronger than when
they left, and Bazes was not entirely sure how, but he wasn’t about to start
asking questions.
 
“Are you going to be
able to make this?” he yelled.

Rand opened his mouth
to reply when they were interrupted by Clausen.
 
He was standing in the open doorway, facing out, and yelling at the top
of his lungs.
 
“Let’s take it to the
barn, men!”

Next to him, the
Jumpmaster smiled and called out, “Stand in the door!”
 
The line of men shuffled calmly and quickly
to the door.

Clausen peered out in
the howling darkness and gave one last look over his shoulder.
 
“Let’s go get these bastards!”

With that, the
Jumpmaster yelled “Go!” and Clausen was gone.
 
Immediately behind him, the paratroopers surged forward, pushing out the
door as fast as the Jumpmaster could repeat his command.

Nearly half of the men
had disappeared into the darkness when an explosion suddenly rocked the
airplane.
 
It was immediately followed by
a second explosion which ripped a giant hole in the tail and demolished its
fins and rudder.
 
The hole became
enormous as a chunk of the fuselage dislodged and fell away.

The plane’s yaw and
pitch were instantly lost without a working hydraulic system, and the nose of
the plane pitched up wildly.

The unexpected jolt
caused the remaining paratroopers to lose their balance, and the heavy weight
of their packs pulled them back toward the damaged tail.
 
The overhead cable came apart at the ceiling,
and over a dozen of the men tumbled backward out of control, right out the rear
of the plane.
 
Without their static
lines, their chutes did not deploy and they fell straight down, hitting the
ground at full force.

Those still inside,
including Rand and Bazes, grasped for something to hold onto as the plane’s
nose quickly changed direction and began to turn into a dive.
 

 
The rest of the paratroopers were already
pushing forward in a desperate attempt to exit the doorway, and the Jumpmaster
began grabbing each man and throwing him out as fast as he could.
 
Under normal circumstances, they would have
fifteen seconds before they hit the ground.
 
Now, the urgency was to get out while they still had time and the
control to deploy their chutes, and that window was closing quickly.

Rand and Bazes
struggled to get their clips off of the second overhead cable.
 
Other paratroopers took the faster way out, and
instead they unclipped, wrapped their lines in their hands and threw themselves
out the back.
 
Better to make it out with
enough altitude and try to manually deploy their chutes than to make it out
when it was simply too low to matter.

Rand unclipped his line
and turned to Bazes who was struggling.
 
His line was stuck, blocked by a protruding bulkhead support beam that
had dislodged in the explosion.
 
Over
Bazes’ head, the cable was taut against the beam, pinching his large metal
clip.
 
Rand tried to pry it out, but the
clip did not move.
 
He pried his own
shaking fingers between the clip and cable and tried to twist it, but it still
wouldn’t budge.

The nose of the plane
dropped further, heading into a terminal dive.
 

With only seconds left,
Bazes grabbed Rand’s shaking hand and pulled it away.
 
Bazes pushed him hard backwards, yelling over
the screeching and shaking of the plane.
 
“GET OUT!”

Christine swung the
chair hard a second time, but Zahn twisted and grabbed it in mid-air.
 
His eyes flared as he yanked it from her
hands.
 
He threw the chair across the
room, glaring at her as he touched the side of his head and pulled it back to
reveal a palm full of blood.

She did not cower as he
would have expected.
 
Instead, even
without a weapon, she stood her ground.
 
In fact, she looked like she was about to attack again.
 
“You’re quite the fighter,” he said, taking a
step closer.

Christine glanced past
him at the monitor showing Sarah sitting all alone.
 
She snarled at Zahn.
 
“I’m not afraid of you!”

“Oh, yes you are,”
smiled Zahn.
 
“And you should be.”

Christine gritted her
teeth.
 
“I’m not going to let you do
this, and I’m not going to let you hurt her!”

Zahn looked at her with
a fleeting glimpse of admiration, and then it was gone.
 
In one sudden movement, too fast for her to
even see, he struck Christine hard in the face, sending her several feet back
and into the stone wall.
 
Her body
crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.

Sarat stood high up the
mountain dressed in his black fatigues.
 
He watched through his binoculars as the distant fireballs rose high
above the jungle canopy, the smoke and flames slowly curling under to form
bright, yellow mushroom clouds.
 
Both
transport planes had taken direct hits by the surface-to-air missiles and
crashed into the ground in less than a minute.
 

Just minutes later,
Sarat could see the bouncing headlights of his three Humvee’s heading back
uphill through the thick terrain.
 
He had
told them to get out quickly.
 
The place
for engagement was not there.
 
It was
higher up where they had the advantage.

The question he was
wondering now was,
how many survived?

59

The lights were
blinding.
 
She painfully rolled onto her
side and tried to shield her eyes from the overhead lights.
 
Her face felt like it was on fire.
 
Christine worked her hand down and touched
her jaw.
 
The swelling felt immense which
meant it was likely even worse.
 

She groaned and peered
through her tight eyelids, watching the grey concrete floor slowly come into
view.
 
The outside edges in her vision
were still fuzzy when she saw a set of boots walk across the floor toward
her.
  
She remembered they were Zahn’s
just before he swung a boot and kicked her hard in the face again.
 

Blackness.