They could only pray it would stay that way.
The Hinds were finally pushed out of the cave and into the dim sunlight at 0530 hours.
There was still an hour before sunrise. A sweep of the area proved their position had still not been compromised. The picket line of Marines on the cliff’s edge reported no activity in evidence, no traffic on the road to their south. Nothing flying anywhere overhead.
Norton and Delaney started their engines. The Russian choppers responded with the usual bang and storm of fire and smoke. But within seconds, the big rotors began turning, and soon were whirring with unbridled Russian efficiency.
They took off cleanly. Using extra power and the hard sand in front of the cave as their runway, they were up and away in less than 250 feet. The pair of Hinds immediately climbed up to five hundred feet and turned northwest. The first of what would probably be many recon flights was under way at last.
The desert now spread before them like a vast, golden vista. Norton had seen it before, of course. Nearly ten years ago, during Desert Storm, he’d flown over some of this same landscape. It was flat hard terrain in this region mostly, interspersed with rugged low hills. Moonlike. Desolate. Beautiful in the oddest way.
They flew northeast, following a course suggested to them by Smitz’s CIA bosses. They passed over a few scattered villages, some goat herds, some wheat fields, the occasional roadway. It was still very early in the morning, and very few people could be seen about. Those that did see the choppers had no noticeable reaction, even though flying as low as they were, the racket they were making must have been unbearable. Maybe this was what the people had come to expect from the Iraqi military. Waking up early to the sound of helicopter gunships was the least of their problems.
The open spaces and the sparseness of the land aided Norton and Delaney greatly in preserving their cover. And again, their disguise was simple. The sight of two Hinds roaring through the sky at sunrise was nothing new to anyone who spotted them from the ground.
Just as long as they acted like they were Iraqis, they would stay out of trouble.
They flew for forty minutes. Hugging the contours of the earth, following the flight plan, Delaney was leading the way, Norton off his wing.
Over the lowest of the Bala Ruz Mountains, between the Tariq-sum Hills, up and along the A1 Vzayn River, skirting the edge of Baghdad’s suburbs, and then moving northeast towards the Divala River basin.
It was odd, because it would have seemed that in a combat-imminent situation, one’s mind would be focused to the max. But this morning, for whatever reason, Norton’s thoughts began to wander.
What would happen if he and Delaney returned to the cave after this recon to find their position had been compromised and everyone butchered? A grisly thought, Norton told himself. Almost too grisly to enter his mind. Besides, if they had been compromised, wouldn’t they have been intercepted by now? Or would they find Fulcrums waiting for them when they returned to the hiding spot?
How about the gunship’s original crew? What were the chances that they’d all survived ten years of captivity? Would they be like Buchenwald prisoners when they were finally freed? Would they be insane? Brainwashed? Would their families still be waiting for them? Would they be heroes once they got home? Would they be hounded by the press? Asked to write books? Do the talk show circuit? Make movie deals?
Norton blinked, and suddenly he was inside the accursed Tin Can simulator again. In all those hours of training he never did figure out a way to nail the T-72 tank before the Fulcrums—or the SAMs or the AAA guns—nailed him. Maybe that was the reasoning behind the simulator training after all. Maybe that was a problem that just couldn’t be solved. Maybe he was actually on a suicide mission here, just another piece of fodder given up so the U.S. military could get back something it should never have lost in the first place.
Maybe, he was just a damn…
“Jazz! Jazz? You awake, man?”
Norton’s headphones were suddenly filled with the sound of Delaney’s very excited voice. He hit his silent-scramble-mode key and responded.
“I’m here… what’s up?”
“What’s up?” Delaney came back. “Open your eyes, man. Dead ahead.”
Norton shook the last of his morbid thoughts away and took Delaney’s advice. His jaw dropped.
“Damn. Will you look at that…”
About five miles straight ahead was exactly what they were looking for. The shadow-filled valley. The prison building. The smoke-belching factory. The high, sharp-peaked mountains. Everything. It was the Ranch, just as it had been presented to them.
And sitting out on the highway that doubled as the runway was the ArcLight gunship. It was partially covered in tarpaulin, but Norton could see its elongated nose and its extra-wide fuselage poking out of the covering. Figures could be seen moving around the airplane and at various points on the base itself. The suspected AA guns and SAM sites were in evidence. There was even a T-72 battle tank sitting alongside the asphalt roadway.
“We just hit a home run,” Delaney was telling him through his headphones. “On our first at bat!”
Norton was so surprised by their sudden luck, he yanked back the throttles and slowed down a bit to take a better look. It had been almost too easy, but there was no denying that the CIA’s directions had brought them precisely to where they wanted to be. All the pieces fit. The buildings. The runway. The mountains. The billows of black from the factory smokestacks. And best of all, there was the gunship, sitting so fat and pretty, Norton felt he could reach out and touch it.
“Damn,” he said again. “This must be the place.”
Smitz was checking his NoteBook when he got word that the Hinds were returning.
He alerted Chou, and quickly a dozen Marines began clearing the opening to the cave. It was now 0830 hours, and the sun was up and visibility extremely clear. Getting the Hinds out of sight would be their number-one priority.
The two gunships came in for bumpy landings. No sooner had they stopped rolling when the air techs flooded out of the cave and began pushing them towards the opening.
Because of the Hinds’ long, low still-turning rotors, many of the techs had to lie down and push the choppers’ big wheels by hand. But finally the rotors stopped turning and both aircraft were pushed completely inside. The cave opening’s covering was put back in place. A check with the perimeter men confirmed that the landing and recovery had gone unnoticed.
Norton was out of his Hind even before the cave opening was sealed off. Smitz and Chou were waiting for him.
“We found the place,” he exclaimed to them. “First time. Just like that.”
Delaney was right beside him. “It was just where they said it would be. Right on the fucking money.”
“Damn, really?” Smitz breathed.
“Your office got the number of blades of grass right. And the ArcLight is there. Ripe for the picking.”
Smitz was having trouble absorbing the news. No way did he expect the timetable to be moving this fast.
“Either my office is getting real good, real quick,” he muttered, “or we’re just the luckiest bastards on God’s Earth.”
“Either way,” Delaney said, “we know where the place is. And the gunship is on the ground. I say we get our asses in gear and do this thing right now—so we can get the fuck out of here.”
Smitz bit his lip. There was nothing in the plan that said they couldn’t move fast once the target was established. But this fast? After everyone assumed that finding the hidden base would take more than just one recon flight?