As the plane’s engines were warmed up for takeoff, Brittany escorted him to the aircraft’s hatch. She couldn’t help but feel responsible for sending him, and tears filled her eyes as she wished him a safe flight.
Out on the tarmac, a kiss would have been as inappropriate as at the White House. They stood a moment facing each other, then Agent Kellogg saluted the Naval attache. She returned it smartly. He wanted to make her some sort of promise, but as her salute barely quivered as she continued to hold it, Thomas saw he didn’t have to. She trusted him. He snapped his hand down and turned away.
Climbing into the Combat Talon was like returning in time. The sights, smells, and sounds were all too familiar, and regathering his nerve, he strapped himself into his current seat and prepared himself for takeoff.
Once they were safely in the air, he got a chance to visit the flight deck. When he was in active duty, this particular model of the Combat Talon was only in the planning stages. First deployed in June 1991, the MC130H model was one of the most modern platforms in the Air Force inventory.
Thomas was impressed with the manner in which the cockpit’s highly automated controls and digital displays were designed to reduce crew size and workload. Unlike the MC-130E Combat Talons on which he flew, the H model’s cockpit was fully compatible with night-vision goggles.
Basic aircraft flight, tactical, and mission-sensor data was displayed on a compact video monitor that had its own data-entry keyboard.
The navigator electronic-warfare-operator console was situated on the aft portion of the spacious flight deck. It too was designed around several mounted video screens filled with a wide assortment of flashing data.
One console here was of special interest to Thomas. This was the display screen on which the Talon’s HARP radar system would be projected. Short for High Altitude Release Point, HARP was another one of those high-tech marvels that were only in the planning stage when Thomas saw service. It was used to drop off a HALO jumper at his optimum release point. As the aircraft neared the LZ, it would make a low altitude pass in order for HARP to gauge the crosswinds. Upon their return to altitude, HARP would assimilate this data to determine the most favorable release point.
By the time Thomas completed his tour of the cockpit, they were well on the way to their objective. For the most part, the Combat Talon would be following the QE2’s original route, up America’s east coast and continuing over the southern tip of Newfoundland to the seas above the mid-Atlantic ridge.
Since leaving Op Center Bravo much earlier in the morning, Thomas was able to rest a bit easier knowing that Command now had a firm lock on the hijacked ocean liner. A number of space-based reconnaissance satellites were in position to give them a constant update on the QE2’s exact location.
Command had also managed to establish communications with the USS Polk.
A TACAMO aircraft would be constantly airborne, to guarantee that this radio link wasn’t broken.
One peripheral element that was proving a bit more difficult to control was keeping a complete press blackout on the crisis. This was vital to avoid a public panic. By restricting all news access to a need-to-know-basis only, the Pentagon had so far been able to keep a lid on the hijacking. This was in spite of the fact that emergency ham transmissions were continuing to be broadcast from the QE2.
All this would have to be addressed in less than two days from now, when the QE2 was scheduled to arrive at Southampton. Command’s hope was that through Thomas’s efforts, and those of SEAL Team Two, the terrorist threat would be nullified before they’d have to inform the public that a crisis had ever existed.
Another pocket of turbulence shook the Talon, and Thomas once more grabbed the edge of the bench. The painful knot that had gathered in his stomach earlier further tightened, and he tried his best to ignore the first nauseous hint of airsickness. As his anxious glance strayed to the light gray HALO rig that hung from the bulkhead, he considered the strange sequence of events that had presaged this moment.
He supposed that the first presentiment of this unthinkable duty arrived on Labor Day, as he watched his nephew shoot his parachute toy into the air. This was followed by the arrest of the trespassing teenage parachutist on the South Lawn of the White House.
When seen as a whole, surely these diverse experiences hadn’t been mere coincidence. They were rather a sign; a cosmic warning, that another life-and-death struggle with the ageless demons of doubt and fear was about to be reinitiated.
Had it been cowardice on his part that precipitated his traumatic decision to leave the Air Force and never jump again? Try as he could for the last ten years to answer this simple question, Thomas knew that he was still unable to do so.
Courage and bravery had been two all-important qualities instilled in Thomas by his father from early childhood. A retired career Army officer, the elder Kellogg had made certain to leave his sons with one piece of advice above all others that there could be no greater honor than selflessly sacrificing one’s life in defense of country.
On the day that Thomas received his Air Force commission, his father was at his side, beaming with pride. Shortly thereafter, a brief taste of combat in Southeast Asia fooled Thomas into thinking that he was the fearless soldier his father wanted him to be.
The first crack in this false perception became evident in 1983 off the coast of Grenada. Fear, revulsion, horror; these were the real impressions of war that Thomas brought back from the Caribbean, as he found himself struggling with the realization that he’d never be the hero that his father wanted.
Two years later, in October 1985, Thomas was to experience the traumatic event that would lead to his premature retirement from the Air Force, and his decision never to strap on a parachute again. The terrorist hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro resulted in a call to duty for his special-tactics unit. They had been temporarily stationed at Comiso Airfield in Sicily when word reached them to begin training for a possible rescue attempt.
The aircraft carrier USS Saratoga was made available to practice the difficult task of landing on a ship by parachute. The initial training package was for six HALO jumps. An acronym for High Altitude, Low Opening, a HALO jump guaranteed a covert insertion, as the aircraft responsible for dropping the jumpers couldn’t be seen or heard.
His teammate for this final HALO jump of the series was Jack Dempsey Mackey, his closest friend and confidant. They had attended the Air Force Academy together, where they were members of the Wings of Blue parachute team. Their paths parted after graduation, when Thomas picked special operations for his career specialty, and Jack chose to become a fighter pilot.
At about the same time that Urgent Fury was coming down, Jack made an unusual career change and transferred into the special-operations community. After a brief stint flying AC-130 Spectre gunships, he decided to see if he had the right stuff to pass the combat-control/pararescue indoctrination course. Not only did he pass with flying colors, but he sincerely enjoyed himself doing so, and this led to his decision to give up flying and join the elite special-tactics group.
Jack was in turn transferred to Hurlburt, where Thomas was based. The two continued their friendship right where they left off. When Jack married and their first son was born, Thomas became the godfather. They spent weekends together, boating and fishing, and even shared ownership of a battered cabin cruiser that Jack chanced upon while attending air-traffic-control school at Keesler Air Force Base in nearby Biloxi.
When Command assigned them to Sicily, they could hardly believe their good fortune. They looked upon this duty as a Mediterranean vacation at Uncle Sam’s expense, and for the first couple weeks, it was everything they had hoped for. They were able to spend several days in Rome, enjoy a weekend in Venice, and travel up to the Italian Riviera, where both of them visited their first nude beach.