A few minutes later Captain Zertiz came down to the SEALs.
“You going to do this night pickup from the water or the deck?”
Murdock laughed. “Hey, Captain, anybody can board a chopper off a destroyer deck. We won’t have that option on a mission. The dark-water pickup is more dangerous for the chopper crew as well as us, but it’s the only way we can exfiltrate on some missions.”
“Going to jump in?”
Murdock shook his head. “Nope, we’ll ask you to come to one knot forward so we can go down the lines and stay together with glow sticks. We’ve done it before.”
A seaman came to the captain and talked a moment.
“Commander,” Zertiz said, “looks like the chopper pilot wants a word with you. He’s on his way.”
Murdock went to the communications center and took a mike.
“Yes, CH-46, this is Murdock.”
“We’ll be landing on the destroyer, correct?”
“Negative, Forty-six. We’re SEALs here. We want a water pickup with your ladder out the rear hatch. You’ve done it before.”
“Never at night, Commander.”
“No sweat. Turn on your down landing lights, keep six feet off the water, and let out the ladder. My boys do the rest.”
“Do I have an option? If I think this will endanger my helicopter and my crew, I will refuse to do it.”
Murdock waited a minute to let the pilot think it over. He came back on the air.
“What the hell, Commander, let’s give it a try. If it doesn’t work we can always get you off the rear-landing pad on the destroyer. Out.”
It went by the book. The destroyer slowed to one knot forward. The SEALs went down the lines, tied them to the IBSs to be hauled on board, then congregated around light sticks to wait for the chopper. It came in high the first time, went around, and came in at six feet with the ladder trailing in the water.
Jaybird went up first, followed quickly by three more SEALs. Then the fifth man lost his footing and fell off the ladder. He hit his head on one of the swinging steps. Murdock saw it, and dove to where he figured the SEAL could be. He bumped into something in the dark water, and grabbed hold of cammies and kicked for the surface.
Two more SEALs were there to help. It was Van Dyke, the new man, who had fallen. Murdock slapped him in the face gently until he came around. By then all but the four at the ladder had gone up. Murdock put Vinnie over his shoulder and with Bill Bradford, Quartermaster’s Mate First Class, right behind him holding the man in place, the three of them went up the unstable rope ladder to the end of the hatch, where six hands grabbed them and pulled them inside.
Kenneth Ching, Quartermaster’s Mate First Class, followed them up the ladder quickly, and the chopper crewman pulled in the ladder and closed the hatch.
“Home, James,” somebody said, and half the SEALs hooted.
Vinnie shook his head. “Hey, I don’t know what happened. I slipped, I guess, and that damn ladder slammed into my fucking head.”
Jack Mahanani, Hospital Corpsman First Class, and the platoon corpsman, knelt beside Vinnie and checked him out. He used his pencil flash and had Vinnie lie down on the floor of the chopper.
“You’ll be fine. Stay down until we land.”
Murdock let out a held breath. He looked at DeWitt, who sat nearby. “Second, have we ever made a nighttime ladder pickup like this before?”
DeWitt grinned. “Not that I can remember. May be sometime before we try another one, unless we’re getting away from a hot firefight somewhere.”
4
Not far outside the limits of Benghazi is the regional airport at the small town of Baninah. The international airport serves many airlines, and at the far side, well away from the civilian terminals, sit four large hangars that are patrolled by Libyan soldiers.
Inside one of the hangars final preflight checks were made on a MiG-23 Flogger E, Russian-made and one of the best aircraft of the aging Libyan Air Force. Major Akbar Andwar sat in the cockpit fighting himself. He knew the mission. He knew that he would be closely monitored by three other MiG-23’s. He must perform flawlessly.
Akbar also knew that today within a few hours, he would kill thirty thousand people — not soldiers, but civilians, men, women, and children. Even small babies who could not yet speak.
He slashed at sweat beading on his forehead. His colonel climbed up the steps to the cockpit and smiled.
“Today, Major, we make military history. We use a nuclear weapon as an instrument of peace, not war. We use the bomb to avoid killing many thousands in an all-out ground war to rid the world of the cancer that is Chad.
“Our children and our grandchildren will forever be in our debt for this glorious act of honor and justice.”
“Yes, my colonel. It is time. I should order the doors rolled up and get my engine started.”
“Do it now,” the colonel said as he saluted Major Andwar and stepped down from the plane.
Before he wanted it to happen, Major Andwar realized that he was rolling along the access route to the main takeoff runway. In minutes he and his three buddies would be in the air, working up to thirty thousand feet and ripping almost due south toward the Chad border.
In an hour’s flying time at Mach 1, the planes would cross the border. Then, a hundred miles on south, they would be at the small town of Yebbi Bou. It would take only ten minutes after crossing the border. Then, at the correct point, he would release the nuclear bomb and he and his wingmen would swing round and blast north until they saw the flash behind them.
Major Andwar checked his controls. They were almost at the border. The land below looked the same, the unending Sahara Desert. Not even a fence showed where the border was. There were no roads, no towns, only sand and more sand.
Even as he thought that, he had slammed through another ten miles.
No. He was closer. His radio chattered, but he didn’t understand. The transmission came again.
“Just checking, buddy. We’re three minutes from release point. Wind drift has been noted and punched into the computer. Now we are two minutes and forty-five seconds from release. You read?”
“Ah, yes, I read. All is good here. Ready for release. I make it slightly over two minutes, at thirty thousand feet. I’ll tell you release time and then we turn right and get out of here.”
He waited a minute.
“One minute to release. Is everyone on board?”
He listened to the three radio check-ins. Then one of the men began a countdown on the radio.
“Retribution Leader, I have forty-five seconds to release.” There was a pause. “I now have thirty-five seconds. By five second intervals: thirty… twenty-five… twenty… fifteen… ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…”
“Release!” Major Andwar said, his voice rising with the emotion. “I have release, showing a clean separation from the aircraft. Do you have visual?”
“Yes, visual, it’s on its way, let’s do our right turn now.”
The four Libyan jets turned to the right 180 degrees and slanted north at thirty thousand feet.
Twenty seconds later a brilliant flash filled the cockpits of the four jet aircraft, slashing at them from the rear and blasting forward to the horizon. A few seconds later a shock wave jolted the four planes sideways through the sky as if they had been swept away by a giant hand.
“Hold on to the controls,” Major Andwar shouted into the microphone. “It’s the shock wave, it will be gone quickly, don’t lose control.”
The planes did a little dance in the sky, but because they were a half mile apart, did not slam into one another. Then the shock wave was past and they flew straight and level again.