Cut Out (3 page)

“Eagle, this is Bear Six. Eagle, this is Bear Six. Break, any station this net, this is Bear Six. Over.” Murphy let go of the transmit button. “Shit. Jackson, bring your radio over here.” The other commo man obeyed, carrying his backpack, from which an FM radio antenna protruded. “What frequency are you set on?”

“Thirty-three forty.”

“Shit,” Murphy muttered. “Take it off.”

Jackson removed the heavy rucksack, and Murphy tore open the flap, exposing the top of the radio. He pulled a minimag light off his load-bearing equipment and shined the light on the small dials. With clicks that sounded abnormally loud in the dark, he switched frequencies. “Eagle, this is Bear Six. Over.”

Still no response. Riley checked his watch: 0200 exactly. Time for exfiltration. He tapped Murphy on the shoulder. “Is the LZ marked and lit?”

Murphy turned to the man who had met them here. “Are the bean-bags lit?”

“No, sir. We were waiting for you all to come.”

Riley rolled his eyes, the gesture unseen in the dark. “Turn them on!”

The guard sprinted off into the dark to turn on the infrared (IR) lights that the marking party had laid out to designate the touchdown point for the incoming aircraft.

“Eagle, this is Bear Six. Over.” Murphy’s voice was tinged with panic. Riley looked up—he could faintly hear the distant mutter of an engine. Whether it was the airplane or a truck with enemy reinforcements he couldn’t quite tell. He scanned the sky, knowing he would be very lucky to spot the blacked-out plane against the stars.

“Eagle, this is Bear Six. Over.”

The entire team was leaning inward, straining to hear a reply on the radio. Murphy pulled the handset off the radio, then licked his finger and ran it around the inside of the connection, cleaning off any possible material that might be interfering with the transmission. He quickly reattached the handset. “Give me the long antenna,” he ordered.

The commo man obediently reached into the carrying case on the side of his ruck and pulled out the long rigid antenna while Murphy unscrewed the short whip. Riley checked his watch: 0201. The exfil window would close in one minute. He glanced over at the rescued prisoners, who were sitting in the dirt. The man, Davis, had leaned over and was whispering in his wife’s ear. The man who was supposed to be guarding them had his attention on the radio crisis.

“Eagle, this is Bear Six. Over.”

Lights pierced the darkness a mile to the south, on the ground along the airfield. The commo man tapped Murphy on the shoulder and pointed in that direction. “Trouble coming!”

Murphy looked at the headlights, up at the empty night sky, over at the nominal safety of the tree line on the other side of the airstrip, and then at Riley, who could almost see the captain’s mind working in those glances.

Another buzz caught their attention. With surprising speed a twin-engine Caribou swooped out of the sky, wheels touching down exactly where the marking party had laid out the rectangle of IR lights. A fierce wind of blown dirt and grass swept over the team, and the plane roared down the runway and jerked to a halt within a hundred yards. As the team stood up, the pilot spun the plane around and bounced back toward the rectangle, the back ramp lowering while the aircraft was still moving.

The pilot locked his brakes, the engines screaming and throwing out a strong backwash. The team grabbed the prisoners and ran, heads lowered, toward the ramp and into the darkened interior. Glancing over his shoulder as he went in, Riley could see the headlights turn toward the runway.

Riley counted heads as he moved up the interior of the aircraft. All the seats had been taken out, and the team members and rescued prisoners were sitting on the floor with their backs against the skin of the plane.

Riley reached the open cockpit, where the pilot sat, peering out his windshield through a set of PVS-7 night vision goggles. All the lights on the controls were muted to a dim level.

“Got ’em all?” the pilot yelled above the props and engines.

“All here. Go!” Riley replied.

The pilot didn’t hesitate. Releasing the brakes, he pushed forward on the throttle and pulled back on the flaps. Riley was thrown backward onto the laps of those behind him. He scrambled up and peered out a window. The truck had halted, and he could see the twinkling of muzzle flashes from the back of the vehicle.

The plane lifted within fifty yards of the takeoff point and climbed at a very steep angle, everyone inside grabbing onto whatever they could to keep from sliding out the still-open back ramp. As they gained altitude—and the pilot found the time—the back ramp slowly slid up and closed.

Riley looked around the interior of the aircraft. The ambient light from the stars and the ground glow dimly lit up the cargo bay. He could sense, more than see, the relief each team member felt. They were smiling and talking excitedly to each other. Riley looked at Davis, who returned the glance blandly. His wife and the nanny sat on either side of him. Riley twisted around and got up on one knee to look out a window. The lights of several small towns sparkled a half mile below. Riley tried to orient himself along the flight path of the aircraft, which he remembered from the isolation brief. They were heading south-southwest. Sure that he knew where they were, Riley turned away from the window. No one else on the team had bothered to look out. They were all too busy clapping each other on the back, congratulating themselves for a job well done.

Seeing a gesture out of the corner of his eye, Riley made his way up to the pilot.

“I’ve got trouble with my left engine. Don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m going to have to shut it down.”

Riley nodded. “You might have taken some rounds in it when we took off.”

“Yeah, right.” The pilot turned his attention back to the control panel. The roar of sound on the inside of the aircraft lessened slightly as the pilot began to turn off one of his two engines. Riley could see that a couple of the team members noted the change but had no idea what happened. Riley leaned over and yelled in Murphy’s ear. “The pilot had to shut down one of his engines.”

Murphy was startled and looked up at Riley with questioning eyes. He sat there for a few moments, then leaned to the man next to him to pass along the information. Riley turned his attention back to the pilot.

Five minutes later, the pilot shook his head. “I’ve got problems with the hydraulics. My primary is down and the secondary is sluggish. I’m going to have to set down. If I lose my backup hydraulics, we’re history.”

Riley looked over the pilot’s shoulder, scanning the landscape ahead. “Any idea where you can put down?”

The pilot gestured with his chin, both hands on the controls. “There’s a landing strip up ahead there to the left. See the control tower?”

“An airfield?” Riley said. “That means there will be people there.”

The pilot shook his head. “It’s blacked out. There’s nobody there this time of night. It’s all automated. If I was a friendly I could turn on the airfield landing lights by dialing up the correct frequency and just breaking squelch. But I ain’t a friendly. Fortunately. I don’t need the landing lights to touch down there. We’ll get down all right. After that, it’s your show.”

Riley immediately passed the news to Murphy. He then sat down and braced himself as the plane descended in abrupt jerks. The ride was so rough that the only way Riley knew they had touched down was when the back ramp started opening and the pilot applied the brakes. The plane came to a halt as the ramp touched the concrete of the runway.

“Everyone out!” Murphy yelled. The team ran down the ramp in a muddle of confusion, the rescued prisoners in their midst. Riley followed them off as the pilot shut down the aircraft.

The team was spread out behind the aircraft in an unorganized arc. One of the men took charge: “Assemble here! Two hundred meters back of the tail. Let’s go! Let’s go.”

Riley joined the group. They were all gathered around, staring at Captain Murphy. The team leader took a few moments to collect himself, shifting from the exhilaration of an apparently successful mission and exfiltration to this emergency landing in enemy territory. He shook himself out of his stupor. “Let’s get a perimeter here, off the runway in the grass.” The team members turned and hastily set up a loose perimeter, then lay down and faced out in all directions.

Riley knelt next to Murphy, who turned and asked, “Do you know where we are, Chief?”

Riley nodded. “I do. Do you?”

Murphy shook his head.

Riley pointed to the west. “See that? What does it look like?”

“A control tower for an airfield.”

“Good. What airstrips lie along the planned exfil route?”

Murphy’s brow furrowed in concentration.

Riley didn’t wait long. “Do you have your one to two-fifty map covering the exfil route?”

“No.”

Riley took a deep breath and held it, then slowly let it out. He reached into his pocket and took out his own 1:250,000 scale map. He spread it on the ground, pulled a poncho liner out of his rucksack, and threw it over both Murphy and him. Shining his red-lens flashlight on the map, he pointed at the location where they had made the snatch.

“We took off from here. What direction was the initial leg of the exfil route?”

“South-southwest.”

Riley drew a dirty finger along the map. “How long were we in flight?”

Murphy pushed the button on his watch and glanced at it. “Twenty minutes.”

“What’s a Caribou’s cruising speed?”

“I don’t know.”

“A hundred and eighty knots,” Riley said immediately. “How far is that in twenty minutes?” As he waited for the reply, Riley rolled his right shoulder in a circle, trying to work out the ache that had been bothering him for the last two hours.

“About sixty miles?” Murphy replied.

“About,” Riley confirmed. “So where are we?”

Murphy looked at the map. His finger tentatively poked at an airstrip marked in black. “Here?”

“Right.” Riley waited a second. “Well? What do we do now?”

“Call for emergency exfiltration.” Murphy didn’t wait for a confirmation. He threw aside the poncho and grabbed the handset for the radio. “Bear Base, this is Bear Six. Over.”

The reply was instantaneous. “This is Bear Base. Over.”

“Bear Base, this is Bear Six. We are down and request emergency pickup. Over.”

“Roger, Bear Six. What is your location? Over.”

Murphy turned to Riley and grabbed the map out of his hand. “Wait one.” The team leader turned on his flashlight and checked the lines on the map. “Uh, Bear Base, our location is—wait one.” Murphy looked around, then pulled out his compass and shot an azimuth to the control tower. He calculated for a few moments. “Bear Base, our location is grid Uniform Sierra one six eight three four seven. I say again, Uniform Sierra one six eight three four seven. Over.”

“I read Uniform Sierra one six eight three four seven for emergency pickup. Is that correct? Over.”

“Roger. Over.”

“What is your status? Over.”

Murphy frowned as he considered the question.

“Do you have any casualties?” the voice asked, more plainly. “Over.”

“Negative. Over.”

“Chopper on the way. Mark PZ with IR. Out.”

Murphy gave the handset back to the commo man and stood. “Potter, mark out an LZ with IR chem lights.”

“Who’s got the chem lights?” Potter yelled. Riley winced as he glanced around the airfield. They were more than half a mile from the darkened control tower and the hangars at the base of it, but Riley was still very uncomfortable with the lack of noise discipline. They were inside enemy territory. He looked over at the Caribou. The pilot was working on his plane.

Riley was surprised to hear the distant chatter of a helicopter so quickly. The aircraft must have been on station, not far from the border. Potter was standing about fifty yards away, in the open field where he had laid out his chem lights. Riley grabbed Murphy’s shoulder. “Tell the chopper not to approach from the south.”

“What?”

The bird was close, no more than a half mile out. Riley pointed to Potter. “Tell the bird not to approach from the south. You see that tree there?” A lone thirty-foot pine tree reached up into the night sky less than forty yards from Potter’s PZ. If the helicopter came in on a glide path from the south—which it most likely would—it would hit the tree.

Riley reached past Murphy and grabbed the handset. “Inbound helicopter, this is Bear One. Over.” A relaxed voice came back, the sound of the blades close in the background. “This is Stalker Four Three. Over.”

“PZ marked by IR chem lights. There’s a tree—thirty feet high—on the south side of the PZ. Otherwise your approaches are all clear. Over.”

“Roger. Tree on south side. We’re coming in from the west and we’ll stay on that. We’re about thirty seconds out. Over.”

Riley turned to face the west, and the MH-53 roared in just above the treetops on the other side of the runway. The double-bladed helicopter settled onto the PZ with a massive blast of air. The back ramp was already down, and the team began running for the bird. In the confusion, the three rescued prisoners were practically being ignored. One man remembered his assignment and grabbed Davis’s wife to lead her to the bird, but Davis and the nanny were on their own at the tail end of the pack. Riley grabbed the commo man, who had just begun to head for the bird. “Put your antenna down!” he yelled above the whine of the turbine engines. The radio operator sheepishly disconnected the long antenna, which was poking up high enough to get caught in the rotors.