And that was just what happened. The big chopper landed with a tremendous thud. The downwash from its huge rotors caused the interior of the cabin to fill with smoke and exhaust, but this did nothing to dampen the Marines’ verve. No sooner had the chopper stopped rolling when the big rear doors opened up and the Marines went running out. The copter’s engines were still screaming, and Smitz was sure he heard gunfire as soon as the Marines hit the ground. He checked the clip in his own gun a second time, noted the time, took a deep smoky breath, then ran out of the copter’s tail. This would be first time he’d ever been in combat.
He tripped coming down the ramp, of course, landing ass over teacup and sending his Fritz helmet flying off his head. Now came a bizarre piece of business as the Halo’s rotor wash started blowing his helmet down the runway, away from the airplane, which was sitting about fifty yards away in the opposite direction.
It was weird because Smitz’s first instinct was to chase his helmet—and that was what he did. But the damn thing was traveling faster than he could run. Still, he pursued it, not wanting to be without it when the bullets were flying, and not thinking that he was presenting himself as a very easy target to the hundreds of gunmen who could be hiding anywhere.
So he ran and tripped and got up and scrambled in a crouch some more, until he finally caught up with the helmet. Snatching the damn thing by its strap, he slammed it back down on his head. Then he turned around and focused his attention back to the matter at hand.
But something very odd was happening here. He was sure he would see the Marines storming the ArcLight airplane, and maybe hear the sounds of a fierce gun- fight in progress. But when he turned back to the action he was surprised to see that the Marines were more or less… standing around.
This wasn’t right.
Smitz got back to his feet and began running towards the airplane. He met one of the platoon leaders running for him in the opposite direction.
“What the fuck is happening?” Smitz yelled at him over the roar of the waiting chopper.
“It’s the wrong airplane!” the Marine yelled back.
Smitz stopped dead in his tracks. He grabbed the Marine by his collar.
“It’s what!?”
“It’s the wrong airplane,” the Marine yelled again. “It’s not the gunship.”
Smitz let the Marine go and together they ran up to the aircraft. The other team members had stripped off the tarpaulin covering, and Smitz could see the plane was definitely a C-130. And it was painted just like the ArcLight aircraft, or at least the same as the pictures he’d seen of the rogue gunship. But the numbers on the side of the fuselage and the tail appeared to be very crudely painted on. And many of the cockpit windows were either smashed or gone completely.
Smitz’s heart sank to his feet. He climbed inside the airplane and saw it was completely empty. No guns. No computers. No nothing. Just an empty cargo bay.
“Jessuz, did you check the numbers up front?” he asked the Marine.
The soldier nodded. “They don’t match,” he replied. “Nothing does. This plane doesn’t even have portholes for any guns. See?”
Smitz felt the air just go right out of him. He couldn’t believe it.
They had come all this way… for the wrong airplane?
There were tears in the eyes of the Marines when Smitz arrived at the prison building.
When he scrambled through the blasted-away front door, the first thing he saw was a bunch of Team 66 men hunched over, turned away from each other, silently crying.
Smitz passed by them slowly—his first thought was that many of their comrades had been killed in the attack. But when he reached the area where everyone else was gathered, he took one look at the nine bodies and knew this was a different horror they had to face. It was unreal for a second or two. No one was talking. No one acknowledged his presence. Everyone was just milling about. And the nine dead Americans didn’t look dead at all. They looked like they were asleep. All lined up in a perfect row. With small parts of their skulls blown off. And tiny trickles of blood flowing out. Some with eyes open. Some with smiles frozen on their faces. It was almost as if they had been expecting what had killed them—yet did not resist.
How strange a thought was that?
Smitz staggered back for a moment, catching himself just as he was about to fall over. It was starting to sink in now. All those long days. All the stress. All the training. All the bullshit. And for what? To come after the wrong airplane? To be fooled by a dupe set up to foil them? And to get nine countrymen they were supposed to rescue killed in the process?
No wonder the Marines were crying.
Smitz felt a lump growing in his throat as well. His eyes were glued on the nine corpses as a very distinct fear gurgled up from his stomach. How could he ever sleep again after this? And what dreams would come to him if he did?
He finally sucked it up and cleared his throat to speak.
“Have… have you checked this place for booby traps?” he asked Chou.
The stoic Marine officer just nodded once. “It’s clean as far as we can tell. Plus, I dispatched three antiambush teams to watch the outside. But I believe we are the only fools at this place. Live fools, that is.”
Smitz then told the others about the decoy airplane. No one was surprised to hear it. It had been just too easy from the beginning, they were mumbling now. Getting into Iraq undetected. Finding this place on the first try. Happening upon it while the AC-130 was supposedly on the ground. Things just didn’t go that smoothly in combat. Usually, if there was any luck floating around, it was bad luck.
And now the unit had a ton of it.
“Yeah,” Smitz heard Norton whisper to no one in particular. “Someone definitely knew we were coming….”
Smitz and Norton stayed with the video man.
They wanted to make sure every inch of the prison was caught on tape. Delaney stayed with the doctor. He supervised getting the dead airmen loaded into body bags. As the grim process began, the vibes inside the prison building began to change. Shock and sadness were turning into anger and fury. Team 66 had been in tight spots before, but never had they been compromised. And never had they had such a failure. But to be fooled so completely—the whole unit had to share the blame. What really twisted the gut was that the culprits had gotten away unscathed. That was why there were no enemy bodies anywhere. There had been no enemy. The Marines and the Hinds had done all the shooting. Whoever was responsible for the grand deception had left the hidden base before chopper unit arrived.
That was probably the worst of it. It was obvious the nine Americans had been dead for only a short while. After enduring ten long years of captivity, they had been killed when help was just minutes away.
Tragic heroes in all senses of the term.
Or so it seemed…
They loaded the nine bodies onto Truck One. Then Team 66 dynamited the prison building, the dupe C-130, and anything else they could find of value. Norton and Delaney climbed back into their choppers and were soon airborne. The Marine choppers took off and met Ricco and Gillis at 1500 feet. Per the alternate plan, each aircraft quickly took on fuel, then turned as one for the long ride back to the Bat Cave.
For the entire flight, in Norton’s eyes, everything had turned a shade of red.
Chapter 22
Maybe the oddest thing that happened to Norton that day occurred shortly after they returned to the Bat Cave.