The Army pilots slowed a bit and allowed Gillis and Ricco to take up a position just ahead and slightly above the two troopships.
Now there was only one piece missing….
Norton took the call from Smitz just seconds after Ricco and Gillis did.
He increased throttles and poured on the coals, and was soon approaching the three other choppers as they entered Box 31.
Once in sight, he radioed back to Smitz, reporting that he had spotted the trio of aircraft. Smitz quickly briefed him and Delaney on the fuel-filled Hook and two Marine-carrying Halos. Then he told Norton to take a position about a quarter mile in front of the big Hook.
Norton did so, and this was how they flew for the next thirty minutes.
So for the first time since the operation began and all the principals had reported to Seven Ghosts Key, the still-unnamed unit was one. They were aligned in a ragged, uneven formation. Heading into the unknown.
But they were flying together at last.
For the next seven days, Norton and Delaney did little more than eat, sleep, and drive the Hinds.
Most of this flying was done at night; most of it in Hind #1. The second Hind, while being nearly identical to the first, was actually a few years older and had more air miles on it. To preserve its operational status, it was decided that the majority of the initial orientation flights would be done in the younger model.
The two former fighter pilots had quickly settled into a routine. As soon as the sun set around 8:30 P.M., Hind #1 would be dragged out of the hangar after being prepped. By 8:45, Norton and Delaney would be suited up and ready for their preflight inspection. Going over the Russian-built chopper with flashlights, checking for leaks, making sure every bolt was still tight and every flying surface was still clean would take about fifteen minutes. Only then would they be ready for launch.
As each flight mandated that both pilots have equal time behind the controls, they would usually fly for three hours, land back at the base, switch positions, and go out again. To see who would serve as pilot first, though, they would flip a coin. In the first few days, Norton won every one of these coin tosses, much to Delaney’s consternation. Flying the first half of the night flight was much more exciting than the second half, and Delaney always seemed stuck with the second shift. At one point, he even accused Norton of having a double-sided coin. From then on, he insisted on flipping his own coin and doing it the full view of witnesses.
It was no surprise that the two fighter jocks were anxious to get behind the wheel and drive the Hind first. The massive chopper was butt-ugly, but it was a real gas to fly. It could do things an F-15 couldn’t. It could fly lower, turn sharper, slow down, speed up, all at a touch of the controls, which both of them knew by heart now.
Its powerful engines and its substantial wing area really did make it part jet fighter.
(One strange thing about the helicopter, though, was that it could not hover—or at least not for long. Putting the Hind into a hover for more than a minute would likely burn out its engines. Like the aircraft itself, the power plants were designed to be moving forward all the time. This was not an aircraft that wanted to stay still for very long.)
Most nights they were airborne by 2130 hours. From that point they usually had a six-hour satellite window during which they could fly just about anywhere within Box 31. Much of this time they spent flying below five hundred feet. Occasionally they were forced to change course to avoid getting too near to an off-course private plane or fishing boat. To be spotted might put the whole operation in jeopardy. But their proximity to Cuba actually helped in this regard. The Cubans were known to have Hinds. If one were spotted over these waters, there could be a fairly plausible explanation: The Cubans were simply doing night maneuvers. Over the ocean. In unmarked copters.
Riding up front in the Hind was not such a bad thing. You could shoot the guns from the front seat and the Hind was loaded for bear. Its wings supported two gun pods and two missile launchers, not of Russian design, but made to look that way. Hind #1 also had an outrageously long cannon attached to its nose. This monster was able to fire gigantic 76-mm shells at a very fast rate. Get caught in the sight of this big gun, and it would be the last thing you did.
After some flying and shooting, at fish mostly, they would usually land and switch places. That was when the boring part of the night began, for the next few hours would usually be concentrated on formation flying. The Halos and the Hook would launch around midnight. Together they would proceed to a predesignated spot where the Hind would be waiting. Then they would form up and fly around in circles until 2 A.M. or so. Flying in formation was not nearly as much fun as driving the Hind solo. Doing endless orbits over the fluorescent Caribbean waters tended to drag a bit. But the mission spec said flying together and learning how to stay close in the air at night was very important, so the formation flying was done, usually with Delaney grumbling behind the wheel of the Hind throughout.
During all this, Gillis and Ricco were getting the hang of their huge copter as well. The crazy sleeping hours being what they were, Norton and Delaney rarely saw the tanker pilots on the ground—which was good for both sides. But in the air, the refuelers never missed a rendezvous point, were always on time, at the right altitude, in the right spot. Always. The CIA had asked for the best in the aerial refueling business—and they had gotten their wish.
All of the copters were rigged with in-flight refueling probes, and usually at least one hour of a night flight was devoted to hooking and unhooking with Gillis and Ricco’s fuel ship. Taking on gas in the air between two choppers was not that much different from a fighter hooking up to a KC-10 tanker, except the speeds were slower and it was all done through hoses and not static booms. Still, it didn’t take much time at all for Norton and Delaney as well as the Army Aviation pilots flying the Marine-laden Halos to learn the art of connecting with the Hook and drinking in a bunch of gas.
But in addition to all this, Gillis and Ricco had another exercise to drill for—this the most dangerous one of all. For not only were they charged with keeping all of the unit’s choppers fueled up, they also had to learn how to take on fuel themselves. From a higher source.
According to Smitz, this aspect of the mission was extremely important. So every night that first week, a C-130 Marine Corps tanker was called down from Eglin Air Force Base. With Norton and Delaney riding shotgun and spotting for the fuelers, Gillis and Ricco would maneuver their giant copter up and under a fuel hose being let out from the C-130’s right wing. On connection, the fuel would flow from the C-130 to the depleted bladders in the cargo hold of the Hook. It took the refuelers some doing to get it right the first few times, but experience and intuitive flying skills eventually won out. By the third night, the two tanker jockeys had the difficult hookup down pat.
Each time Norton saw this, he felt a little bit better about recommending the National Guard pilots for this program.
But there was still one last sticking point: The operational details of the mission were still unknown to them. They knew pretty much where they were going. And why. But they didn’t know exactly what they were supposed to do once they got there. And more important, when they were going.
But because of events on the other side of the globe, these questions were going to be answered very soon.