Brannon flexed his fingers like a piano player and smiled. "I shall orchestrate the throttles like a concerto."
Stafford switched to the cargo bay intercom. "Two minutes, Major. Sergeant Hendricks, begin opening the ramp."
"Ramp opening," came back Hendricks's steady voice.
Stafford turned to Brannon. "I'll take the controls. You handle the throttles so I can concentrate on timing the drop."
After monitoring the transmission, Cleary stood up and moved to the port side of the ramp, keeping his back turned to one side of the fuselage so he had a clear view of his men, the jump/caution lights, and the ramp. He raised and extended his right arm in an arc, palm facing from his side to a perpendicular position. This was the command to stand up.
The men rose from their seats and stood, checking their rip cords and equipment again, adjusting the heavy rucksacks they wore to the rear below their main parachute container. The huge ramp began to creep open, allowing a great rush of frigid air to sweep through the cargo bay.
The next seconds passed with cruel sluggishness.
In grim determination, they gripped the steel anchor line cables with gloved hands for support against the immense whirlwind they expected when the ramp fully opened, and as guides as they moved to the edge of the ramp to execute their exit. Although they exchanged self-assured glances, it was as if they didn't see their buddies around them. No words were needed to describe what they would experience once the ramp opened, and they dove into air so cold it was unimaginable.
In the cockpit, Stafford turned to Brannon. "I'll take the controls now, so I can concentrate on timing. The throttles are yours."
Brannon raised both his hands. "She's all yours, Cap."
"Cap? Cap?" Stafford repeated as if in pain. "Can't you show me at least a smidgen of respect?" Then he switched the intercom aft. "One minute warning, Major."
Cleary did not acknowledge. He didn't have to. The alarm bell rang once. He gave the next signal, right arm straight out to his side at shoulder level, palm up, then bent it at the elbow until his hand touched his Gentex helmet, giving the command to move to the rear, the men in front coming to a stop three feet from the ramp hinges. He lowered his goggles into place and silently began counting off the seconds until exit. Suddenly, he sensed something out of place. The aircraft was noticeably slowing.
"Ramp opened and locked, Captain," Hendricks informed Stafford.
The sergeant's voice took Cleary by surprise. He immediately realized that he had forgotten to disconnect his communications cord from the intercom jack.
Cleary gave the men the hand and arm signal indicating fifteen seconds from exit. His eyes were fixed on the red caution light. The sixty-five-man team was massed into a tightly compressed group, with Sharpsburg now perched inches from the edge of the ramp.
Simultaneously, as the crimson caution light blinked off and the jump light flashed a vivid green, Cleary pointed to the open ramp.
As if jolted by a shock of electricity, Lieutenant Sharpsburg dove from the aircraft, soaring off into cloud-shrouded nothingness. With his arms and legs spread, he was swept out of sight as swiftly as if he'd been jerked by a giant spring. His team was no more than a few feet behind as they were also swallowed up in the clouds, followed swiftly by Jacobs and his SEAL team. Then came Garnet and his Marines. As the last Marine stepped off the ramp edge, Cleary leaped and was gone.
For a long moment, Hendricks and Joquin stood and stared into the white oblivion, unable to believe what they had just witnessed. Almost as if mesmerized, Hendricks spoke into the intercom on his oxygen mask. "Captain, they're gone."
Brannon lost no time in easing the throttles forward until the airspeed instruments read two hundred knots, half the C-17's cruising speed. The cargo door was closed and the oxygen system in the cargo bay replenished. Stafford's next act of business was to switch to a secure frequency and radio the U.S. South Atlantic Command Headquarters to report that the jump went as scheduled. Then he turned to Brannon.
"I hope they make it," he said quietly.
"If they do, it will be because you sent them out into a blast of air a good two hundred and fifty miles an hour less in strength than our normal cruising speed."
"I hope to God I didn't give them away," said Stafford, without remorse. "But it seemed certain death to subject them to such an explosive gust."
"You won't get an argument from me," Brannon said somberly.
Stafford sighed heavily as he reengaged the automatic pilot. "Not our responsibility any longer. We dropped them right on a dime." Then he paused, staring into the ominous white clouds that whipped past the windshield and obscured all view. "I pray they all get down safely."
Brannon looked at him askance. "I didn't know you were a praying man."
"Only during traumatic times."
"They'll make it down," said Brannon, with a sense of optimism. "It's after they hit the ground that hell could break loose."
Stafford shook his head. "I wouldn't want to go up against those guys that just jumped. I'll bet their attack will be a walk in the park."
Stafford had no idea how dead wrong he was.
The radar operator in the security building headquarters next to the control center picked up a phone as he studied the line sweep around his radar screen. "Mr. Wolf. Do you have a moment?"
A few minutes later, Hugo Wolf walked briskly into the small darkened room filled with electronic units. "Yes, what is it?"
"Sir, the American supply aircraft suddenly reduced its speed."
"Yes, I'm aware of that. Our radio intercepted a message from them saying they were having engine trouble."
"Do you think it might be a ruse?"
"Has it strayed from its normal flight path?" asked Hugo.
The radar operator shook his head. "No, sir. The plane is ten miles out."
"You see nothing else on the screen?"
"Only the usual interference during and immediately after an ice storm."
Hugo put a hand on the operator's shoulder. "Follow her course to make sure she doesn't double back, and keep a sharp eye for a hostile intrusion from the sea or air."
"And behind us, sir?"
"Now, who do you think would have the powers to cross the mountains or trek over the ice shelf in the middle of an ice storm?"
The operator shrugged. "No one. Certainly no one who is human."
Hugo grinned. "Exactly."
Air Force General Jeffry Coburn laid the phone back in its receiver and looked across the long table in the war room deep beneath the Pentagon. "Mr. President, Major Cleary and his unified command have exited the aircraft."
The Joint Chiefs and their aides were seated in a theaterlike section of a long room whose massive walls were covered with huge monitors and screens showing scenes of Army bases, Navy ships, and Air Force fields around the globe. The current status of ships at sea and military aircraft in the air were constantly monitored, especially the big transports carrying the hastily assembled Special Forces from the United States.
One huge screen that lay against the far wall held a montage of telephoto images taken of the Destiny Enterprises mining facility at Okuma Bay. The photos in the montage were not from an overhead view, but appeared to be pieced together and conceptualized after being shot from an aircraft several miles off to one side of the facility. There were no overhead images because the military had no spy reconnaissance satellites orbiting over the South Pole. The only direct radio contact with Cleary's assault force came from a civilian communications satellite used by United States ice research stations on the Ross Ice Shelf that was linked to the Pentagon.
Another screen revealed President Dean Cooper Wallace, six members of his cabinet, and a team of his close advisers, who were seated around a table in the secure room deep beneath the White House. The directors of the CIA and FBI, and Ron Little and Ken Helm, were also present on a direct link with the war room, along with Congresswoman Loren Smith, who had been invited because of her intimate knowledge of Destiny Enterprises. While they acted as advisers to the President on what had been given the code name Apocalypse Project, Admiral Sandecker sat with the joint Chiefs at the Pentagon and acted as consultant on their end.