“Let’s have a count-off up to the sixty-fifty and our rotation speed,” Ricco said, already battling the shaky controls.
“OK, we’re at one hundred feet,” Gillis called out, reading the distance indicator. “Speed at thirteen knots already.”
Ricco had a firm grip on the controls, his eyes glued to the bumpy potholed runway. The ride was getting rougher with each passing instant, however. He added more power.
“Why not spend a few hundred bucks and get yourself a new runway?” he complained back to Rooney.
“Two hundred feet, speed at twenty-two knots,” Gillis said. “You got the right power levels? We should be going much faster quicker.”
Ricco checked his board and was certain that the power settings were OK.
“It’s all green,” he said, his grip on the controls now giving him white knuckles.
“Three-fifty on the roll, speed at twenty-five knots,” Gillis said, his voice sounding more concerned with each word. “Maybe those recommendations were for high-altitude stuff.”
“You’re all right,” Rooney said, not knowing if in fact he was speaking the truth. “Just stay with it.”
“Four hundred feet on the roll, speed only thirty- two—make that thirty-one knots,” Gillis reported anxiously.
Ricco added a bit more power—but as a result everything in the chopper began shaking even more violently.
Five hundred on the roll…” Gillis intoned. “Speed holding at forty-one …”
“Shit, we’re not going make this,” Ricco said.
“Stay with it,” Rooney said again—but even he could tell they seemed to be standing still while the engines were screaming and every nut and bolt in the aircraft seemed to be coming apart.
“Six hundred on the roll—speed is not yet forty-five knots,” Gillis warned.
They were supposed to be at least fifty-five knots, or more like sixty, but it was no time to wonder why.
“What’s it say in that book about aborting takeoffs?” Ricco yelled back to Rooney, who was already madly flipping through the pages.
“Nothing!” he called ahead, his voice losing a bit of wind.
They continued rumbling along, engines screaming, fuel sloshing. The aircraft seemed ready to break apart at any second. But they were beyond the point of stopping. The rotors were so torqued up, to kill power now would most likely flip the copter on its side, blowing the fuel and no doubt killing them all in the process.
That was when Ricco, usually the more cautious of the two, had to think quick. Finally he just declared, “Fuck it!” goosed the throttles, and yanked back on the controls.
A second later, they were airborne.
It was amazing how well the aircraft smoothed out! Once its wheels had left the ground, the engines took on an almost symphonic hum. The fuel in the back stopped sloshing. The bolts stopped rattling.
All three men breathed a sigh of relief.
“Piece of cake,” Ricco declared, adding power and lifting the huge copter higher into the early morning sky. “A big piece of fucking cake…”
It had been a long night for Joe Cool’s Marines.
It started the previous afternoon, when they bivouacked on the northern end of the island, setting up tents among the rocks on the craggy beach and establishing a defense perimeter just as if they were in a combat situation.
They had spent the worst of the night’s rainstorm here, huddled in their ponchos, more concerned about their gear getting blown away than keeping themselves dry.
When the storm began dissipating slightly around 0330 hours, some of the Marines were finally able to go horizontal. But at exactly 0345, they were roused out of their tents by their sergeants, and told to muster up with full packs and be inside Hangar 3 in fifteen minutes.
Much rushing around ensued as men grabbed their gear and suited up. The entire contingent was lined up and ready in under four minutes, though. What faced them now was the mile-long hump from their present position down to Hangar 3.
There were eighty-two of them in all and as one, they began running. Across the beach, over the dunes, through the isolated maintenance area, past the “motels,” and over the main runway. The first of them were at the front door of Hangar 3 by 0358 hours.
There, waiting for them, was their CO, Captain Chou Koo.
The last man staggered in at 0402 hours, but Chou did not mind. Not many soldiers could endure near-hurricane conditions and be in full pack a mile away on strictly leg power on fifteen minutes notice. And Chou knew it.
He had trained them well.
Their official unit title was actually a secret. They were known instead by various nicknames, depending on the operation. Organized in 1991 to take care of some post-Gulf War messes around the Persian Gulf, the classified Marine unit had first been tagged Zebra Company. When the scene shifted to Bosnia, they were coded Company 801. In Somalia, they were known as Task Force 22. Since then they had bounced around Africa, Asia, and the subcontinent, putting out fires too small for the big units like Delta Force or taking on things the SEALs simply weren’t interested in, or were too busy to do. These days they were known as Team 66.
This was a good name because Chou likened the unit to a team of utility infielders. Indeed, most of them had just missed making the big leagues. Many were jarheads who couldn’t quite pass the training for the SFALs or Delta Force, or any number of other deep programs run by the U.S. military. Some had missed making it into these higher-echelon units simply because of things as minor as a 5-percent hearing loss in one ear or a rare allergy. One guy was missing the tip of his left hand’s index finger. Several others were color-blind. Many of the men wore glasses or contacts. Some had flat feet. This made them no less strong, no less capable, no less loyal or effective. They took on the jobs no one else wanted with gusto. As a result, their mission record, though little known, was full of success stories.
Chou had been in charge of them since 1996 and since becoming CO, he had emphasized their versatility. That was now their real forte. They could do wet operations with the best of them; they could do para-drops. They were as adept in the jungle as in the snow. They were excellent at hand-to-hand and silent combat; they could work the latest and biggest infantry weapons. They excelled at rescuing hostages, tracking terrorists, handling nuclear or biological threats.
They were a very special group and their handlers at the Pentagon knew it. That was why they never hesitated to loan them out to the CIA or the NSA or any other Spook outfit needing some quick firepower somewhere around the world.
But for all their successes and experience, there was one thing Team 66 had never done: They had never worked from helicopters.
And this worried Chou.
For many reasons.
Thus the need for this unusual drill.
He had them form up again, and then ushered them wordlessly into the huge hangar.
There they found two helicopters, the contents of the third and fourth C-5 deliveries earlier this stormy night. About the same size as the Hook, and also designed by the Russian military, they were Mi-26 Halos. They were pure, dedicated troop carriers with cargo holds nearly as big as that of a C-130 Hercules. The Marines just stared at the huge copters. Just about all of them could fit inside one. That was how big these choppers were.
“We will be conducting ingress and egress exercises with these helos for the next few hours, gentlemen,” Chou told them. “I suggest that in between, you familiarize yourself with these rather unusual aircraft. You will be seeing a lot of them in the future.”