Joint Task Force #4: Africa (3 page)

The sergeant pulled the boy’s arms tight behind his back, and another soldier grabbed a handful of hair and pulled hard, drawing the head back, exposing a slender neck, tendons sticking out visibly.

Ojo held his hand up, waiting for the captives to focus on the scene. When he believed their attention was on the sergeant and their fellow student, he dropped his hand. Ojo braced himself. Not for what was about to happen to the boy, but the ear splitting wails that would burst forth from the other captives.

The broadsword cut through the summer air and dust, slicing cleanly through the boy’s neck, leaving the severed head swinging back and forth in the soldier’s hand. The soldier danced lightly back and forth, trying to avoid the blood pouring from the head and from the neck. The eyes in the head looked rapidly right to left, so fast they were a blur. The sergeant immediately released the hands. The boy’s body shuddered several times before it went limp and tumbled off the table. The soldier set the head on the boy’s chest, facing the line. The sergeant placed the sword, blade flat on the tattered short pants of the dead boy and drew it back, wiping the blood off one side of the sword. Looking at the boys, he smiled at them as he wiped the blood from the other side of the sword before slipping it back into its leather sheath.

The next few in line were shorter than the staff. They
were taken to the other side of the village center where they were corralled in the wooden stockade used for cattle. The cattle had been slaughtered earlier, and in a nearby field his soldiers were cooking the meat for their dinner. His soldiers will be very hungry after such a hard day.

CHAPTER 2

“ROCKDALE, YOU ASSHOLE. YOU THINK THAT PARACHUTE
is going to work with those loose straps hanging between your legs?” Chief “Badass” Razi said, reaching forward and grabbing Petty Officer Second Class Rockdale by the right shoulder, startling the young sailor. His other huge hand jerked the two straps dangling between Rockdale’s legs, causing the slender petty officer to reach forward and cover his crotch.

“You feel that, boy,” Razi said, his Georgia accent rolling the words out like a languid stream. He pushed the sailor away and immediately jerked him back. “You feel that between your legs, Rockdale?” He laughed. “Yeah, you better cover those nuts because . . .” He let go and pointed up. “The moment that canopy snaps open it’s gonna jerk those straps tight to stop your headlong rush toward mother earth. And, those two straps you haven’t tightened between your legs are going flatten those balls of
yours like pancakes.” He held up two fingers about a quarter-inch apart. “Thin pancakes aren’t as much fun to play with, but you’ll have a hell of conversation topic as to why you make a slapping sound whenever you walk.”

The young dark-haired sailor reached down and pulled the straps tight, his eyes never leaving Razi. “Sorry, Chief.”

Razi took a deep breath as he watched the sailor tighten the straps. He reached up and rubbed his chin, cocking his left eye at the sailor as he watched. Rockdale finished and straightened up. Razi let his eyes roam over the young aviation technician for a few seconds before he said, “Good, Rockdale. You pay attention to the little things, big things like having children will take care of themselves. Now, go take the thing off and store it properly. Don’t forget to let the straps back out. You’ll need them loose to put it on.”

Razi watched for a moment as Rockdale walked around him toward the rear of the aircraft.
Rockdale was going to make a fine chief petty officer if he keeps improving like he is doing. By the time the petty officer is a first class, he’ll be a crew chief on one of the mission crews
.

Razi drew his attention to the rest of the crew, all of them in various stages of putting on their parachutes. Bailout training was important for an aircrew to know and understand. Just as you fight like you train, you respond to emergencies just like you train, and as the chief petty officer responsible for conducting these drills, Razi had no intention of letting the officers think he didn’t take it seriously. He glanced around the fuselage of the EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance aircraft, focusing on the more junior aircrewmen. Some were fumbling in the aisle with their parachutes, tightening straps, helping each other by pushing the parachutes higher on their buddy’s back, and most were making sure the lanyard and survival vest were clear of the straps. All the best parachute packing and tightening of
straps were useless if you couldn’t pull that lanyard, plus what little bit of survival stuff you have in that vest. Those straps can puncture the small plastic bottle of water or rip open the energy bars, exposing them to the environment. He started moving toward the front of the aircraft, stopping at each crewmember to check their rigging. Once he was sure everything was right, he’d say, “Looks good,” and then instruct them to take it off and store it properly.

Every flight, Razi ran the flight crew through the bailout drill. That was his job on each mission. He glanced up as he moved, frowning when he noticed Lieutenant Commander Peeters wasn’t watching. This was important, and it was something he did well.

Others had the fire drills and ditching drills, but right after becoming airborne, he always had a bailout drill. Wasn’t required for every mission, but with this young crew deployed from Rota, Spain, he wanted to make sure they knew what to do in an emergency. And he wanted to make sure that those who provided input to his performance evaluations were aware how professional he was.

He pushed his way down the fuselage toward the cockpit, checking each and every one of the crew, including the officers. No one had ever bailed out of an EP-3E. Urban legend had it that the antennas stretching from top of the four-engine turboprop would slice you in half as you jumped out the lone entry hatch to the aircraft, but NATOPS—the acronym for Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization—said you could do it. Therefore, someone somewhere must have tried it. EP-3Es had been around longer than computers, so someone had to have actually bailed out and lived for them to put it in NATOPS. Chief Razi may question others, but
if the “ by-God” United States Navy put it in writing, then “by-God” it had to be true.

Even so, Chief Razi doubted they would ever bail out unless the aircraft was on fire, pieces were falling off of it, and it was nose-down heading toward the ground. He had these “Walter Mitty” moments where he fantasized how he saved fellow shipmates from a burning aircraft, receiving a hero’s recognition and fawning attention. He stopped in front of a sailor who was already in the middle of taking off his parachute. The man’s helmet was already off, laying on its top along one of the narrow operating shelves. It tittered back and forth to the vibration of the aircraft.

“MacGammon, what in the hell are you doing?”

“Chief, what the hell I am doing is taking off my parachute,” the second class petty officer snapped. Sweat-soaked hair hung down, matted across the stocky man’s forehead.

“I can see you’re taking it off, but if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you thousands of times: Wait until I tell you to take it off before you decide you know it all and don’t need someone to check.”

Razi waited for the smart-ass to say something. One of these days he was going to take MacGammon to Captain’s Mast and teach him that the United States Navy wasn’t the great liberal state of New Jersey.

“How’s it going, Chief?”

Razi glanced up. Lieutenant Commander Peeters stood there. Razi straightened, almost to full-attention stance. “Going very well, sir.” He jerked his thumb at MacGammon. “Just giving Petty Officer MacGammon some additional instruction on his rigging so he’d understand why we have these bailout drills.”

Peeters nodded. “Keep up the good work, Chief.”

Razi thanked the mission commander as the lieutenant commander stepped by them.

“Hey, Chief. Peeters wasn’t wearing his parachute. . . .”

“Shut up, MacGammon,” Razi said in a low voice. “You ain’t an officer, and the way you’re going you aren’t even going to be a petty officer.”

“Look, Chief, I’ve got nearly three thousand hours in the EP-3E, and I’ve done more bailout drills than most of these people have time in the Navy.”

“Just take the damn thing off, MacGammon, and quit giving me a rough time every time we do this. If you’re so damn good, then set a good example.”

Razi stepped past MacGammon, feeling good about Peeters acknowledging his great work and feeling pissed-off because MacGammon didn’t recognize that he—Chief Petty Officer Razi—was in charge. He cleared the next two aircrewmen quickly, letting them shed the bulky gear. His eyes arched as he stepped in front of the new third class, female, officer. He reached up and jerked the center strap crossing her chest, letting the back of his hand rest for a moment on those huge, beautiful tits.

“Good job, Petty Officer,” he said to her, taking his hand away.

“Thanks, Chief,” she said.

He smiled. A bubbly reply, one full of promise, he said to himself, but he wore khaki and wearing khaki meant not fooling around with the junior help. Of course, what the Navy doesn’t find out—

“Chief, would you bail out, if you had to?” she asked.

“Petty Officer, if they ring that bailout alarm, I’ll probably be right after you.”

She smiled and blinked her eyelashes. “I think I might like that.”

“Um . . . um,” he muttered, shaking his head and moving past her.

Well, you may bail out, young lady,
he thought, but no way was he going to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft,
and with three-backup avionic systems, it would take a lot of damage to knock one of these aging warriors out of the sky. Ditch the plane was his mantra. Halfway down the fuselage, he did a double take.

“Sorry, sir,” he said through clenched teeth. “The moment you jump out of the aircraft you’re going to be some thirty pounds lighter because that parachute is going to go one way while you go the other.”

The young ensign, wide-eyed, ran his hands over his straps and buckles, trying to see what Razi saw. After several seconds, Razi reached over, “Allow me, sir,” he said, pulling the two straps running down each side of the chest. “See these, sir?”

“Yes, Chief. They’re suppose to run down the chest like this, aren’t they?”

“Yes, sir, they are. See this clasp here between the two straps? You’re supposed to snap them together, otherwise the wind blast from the bailout is going to whip that parachute off you like a nymphomaniac slams a man into bed. You’re not going to have time to react. You ain’t gonna have a chance to buckle that clasp once you’re out of the hatch.” He reached up, grabbed the clasps on the two straps, and buckled them. “Other than that, Ensign, your straps are tight, your lanyard’s clear, and your SV-2 is aligned. You’ll live until you get to the ground. Then, it’s up to terrain, vision, and God.”

Razi didn’t wait for the man to comment. For most chief petty officers, ensigns were fair game. Ensigns were a blank chalkboard upon which every chief petty officer was mandated to write the rules of leadership upon them. If your junior officer screwed up, the command master chief of VQ-2 always called in the chief petty officer and chewed him or her out for allowing their junior officer to fuck up.

He passed the aviation technicians to his left, stepped
by one of the techs, who with his parachute still on, leaned under a console, probably repairing some glitch before they reached track. The radioman stood beside his console on Razi’s left, one arm spread to the right, the other shielding his eyes as he posed looking upward. “What do you think, Chief Razi? Am I going to make a good chief petty officer or what? Damn, you guys are lucky—damn lucky the board choose me for chief. You think this is the right pose for my service record?”

“Devine, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were an arrogant son of a bitch.”

“Damn, Chief. You think maybe that’s why they call me ‘Little Razi?’”

“Eat my shorts, Devine. Get that parachute off and stored properly and bring lots of money for your initiation. You’re going to need it.”

The first class petty officer straightened, dropping his hands by his sides. His eyes narrowed. “I keep telling them, don’t call me ‘Little Razi’ because you’re not my dad and there’s not an arrogant bone in my body,” he said, then started laughing.

“September fifteenth. That’s your day, Devine. That’s the day we’re gonna initiate you, and we ain’t in Rota, Spain. We’re deployed to Monrovia, Liberia, so there ain’t no holier-than-thou types to tell us what we do at our initiation.”

“Ah, Chief. You guys can’t do anything I can’t take. I’ve been a chief for several years. It just took the Navy a few years to figure it out.”

“Make sure your page two is up-to-date, asshole,” Razi said with a smile, referring to the next-of-kin notification sheet every sailor had in their personnel record. He pushed the lanky radioman slightly, nearly knocking him down. “You know what, Devine. I think you just might make a fair
chief petty officer, if someone takes you under their wing and works really hard for twenty or so years.”

“Thanks, Chief. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Yuk yuk. Shit, Chief. I could even be like you if I gave up things such as modesty, humor, integrity.”

“Bite me, Devine.” Razi turned and jerked the curtain back from the small cubicle where the cryptologic technician communicator, hidden from prying eyes, sat. “Okay, Johnson. You gonna sit in there and not give me a chance to see your parachute.” He motioned to the passageway. “Get your ass out here!”

“But, Chief, I still have to raise Naples on the SATCOM,” the second class whined as he unbuckled his seat belt and slid sideways, extricating himself from the tight confines of his communications position.

“Johnson, cut me some slack. Have you managed to get Naples on satellite communications once in the thirty days we’ve been here? Besides, Naples ain’t going to be there much longer. Some flag officer is gonna shovel them out so he can have an office.”

Johnson grabbed the sides of the cubicle and pulled himself into the passageway. “Once, Chief. Did it the other day for a few minutes. Remember? I gave you the baseball results and you won several . . .”

Razi glanced behind him. Devine leaned back against the radio console, smiling and making a sharpening motion with his fingers.

“Johnson, you gotta lose some weight and learn when to keep your trap shut.” Razi touched the straps and checked the buckles as Johnson talked.

“I think I’m going to have to go HF to reach Naples.”

Razi stepped back. “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me? You’re fine, Johnson. You’ll live if you bail out, but I’ll be surprised if you don’t shit yourself when those straps
compress that big belly. Plus, I can’t guarantee you’ll survive the landing, but it’s not the fall that kills you. It’s that sudden stop when you reach the ground.”