"Where's the Lear?" Thorpe asked.
Dotson tapped the map. "AWACS has it here, south of us, just going feet wet off the coast of Egypt over the Red Sea."
"And when they land?" Thorpe asked. "What's our plan?"
"Plan?" Dotson repeated. "We just got alerted. We have no idea what the objective will look like. They could land at the international airport at Medina Mecca, in which case, presidential sanction or not, I don't think we really can do much."
Thorpe shook his head. "I think they're heading for Nabi Ulmalhamah, wherever the hell that is. I don't think they'd try to bring VZ in through an airport. They'll land at a private strip."
"I hope so," Dotson said. "We can go in a couple of ways — we've got HALO and HAHO gear — although it might take some convincing to get the pilots to go that high. More likely we'll go out LAQO."
Thorpe had never heard of that one. He knew about HALO — high altitude, low opening — and HAHO — high altitude, high opening — parachuting and he agreed that the pilots would never take them up to altitude to try that infiltration technique. "What's LAQO?"
"Low altitude, quick opening," Dotson said. He pointed to the back ramp, where a pallet of gear was tied down. "We got special chutes. You step off the ramp at two hundred feet altitude, they open within a second with three main canopies. Slow you enough so you don't die when you hit the ground."
That didn't sound very encouraging to Thorpe, but he'd jumped as low as four hundred feet with a regular canopy.
"The only problem is that there is no reserve," Dotson continued. "Your chute don't work, you won't have time to deploy a reserve."
"So you plan on simply jumping right on top of the target?" Thorpe asked. "That is the plan?"
"It's the start of a plan," Dotson said. "We'll use a couple of Hummingbird cruise missiles to give us a couple of seconds’ advantage when we need it."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that advantage," Thorpe muttered, his words unheard in the roar of the engines. One thing he had learned in the army was it was easier to critique something than do it. His critique of the Delta/SEAL assault on the oil rig in the Gulf was hanging over their head now, as they were in a similar situation and essentially coming up with the same plan and Thorpe had no advice to offer on how to make it any better.
"Still over the Red Sea, passing Al Wajh now," Dilken reported. "And descending," he added, which caused a stir of interest.
"Toward where?" Gereg asked.
Dilken hit some keys on the computer in front of him. The map on the display changed scales, focusing on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, northwest of Mecca. "Somewhere along the coast here."
Parker could see that the Talon was less than sixty miles behind the Lear. There were other symbols moving on the screen.
"We've got a flight of F-14 Tomcats closing from the south," Dilken added.
"If they jump in," Parker asked, "how are they getting out?"
"Already thought of that," Colonel Giles said. He pointed to the left side of the screen. "We've got the multinational peacekeeping force in the Sinai scrambling two of their Black- hawks."
"That's a long trip," Parker noted.
"It's the best we can do," Giles said. "They know the situation and it's part of their job."
The sky outside the Talon was growing dark, the sun aglow on the western horizon over Africa. The Red Sea below was a dark, flat surface, barely fifteen feet below the belly of the plane. In the cockpit, the pilots were watching their low-light-level television monitor in conjunction with their various radar readouts to fly the plane. Their major concern, given they were over water, was running into a ship.
In the rear of the plane, Thorpe was rigging his gear. He had a combat vest with extra ammunition and grenades. A pistol was strapped to his right thigh, a double-edged Fairburn on his left. An MP-5 submachine gun with a silencer was strapped to his right side under his armpit for the jump.
Master Sergeant Grant tapped Thorpe on the shoulder, yelling to be heard above the rumble of the engines. "Here's your chute." He held up an OD colored pack with a harness attached. The harness was the same Thorpe was used to for regular static line jumping and he quickly strapped it on. Then Grant showed him what was different as he tapped a small plastic pod on the upper part of the left vertical chest strap.
"No static line. That's your drogue. Remember how you warn jumpers to make sure their reserve doesn't deploy in the plane?"
Thorpe nodded.
"Well, you get to the edge of the ramp and pull this." He touched the red handle on the outside of the pod. "It deploys the drogue and — whoosh — you're out of the plane and then the drogue deploys the three main chutes." Grant smiled. "At least that's the theory." He turned to get his own gear ready.
"The Lear is under two thousand feet and still descending," Dilken reported. He pointed with the laser. "Glide path says they'll touch down here."
The red dot highlighted a small, triangular-shaped island just off the shore of the Saudi Arabian mainland.
"Give me imagery on that island," Gereg ordered.
"Coming up live from the KH-14," Dilken said. The screen cleared, then a black and white image appeared. A runway next to a compound, a large building set inside a wall. A dock with a large yacht and a smaller powerboat tied up was about two hundred meters away from the palace on the Red Sea side of the island. Eight hundred meters of water separated the island from the mainland.
"Nabi Ulmalhamah," Parker said.
"How come we never saw this?" Gereg asked.
"The runway is clear under thermal imaging," Dilken said, "but we never picked it up on regular imaging because it's painted to match the surrounding terrain." He shrugged. "It's not in a strategic location, so there never was a request to do thermal imaging."
"Aside the Red Sea shipping lane?" Gereg retorted. "The Red Sea is part of the Suez Canal choke point. The channel is as narrow in most places as the canal. Shut the channel, you shut the canal."
"There was no—" Dilken began, then stopped as Gereg glared at him.
"I think you knew exactly where Nabi Ulmalhamah was, didn't you?"
"Ma'am—" Dilken began, but she cut him off again.
"Do your job now, that's all that counts. Is that clear?"
Dilken swallowed and nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"Do you have any intelligence on the compound that we can forward to the Delta team?" Parker asked.
Dilken shook his head. "This is the first time I've seen this."
"Forward the imagery we're seeing to the Talon," Gereg ordered.
Thorpe and the others crowded around Major Dotson, staring at the imagery just brought back to them by an air force officer from the forward half of the cargo bay.
"We've got to jump fast," Dotson yelled. "The plane will be over this island in six seconds."
Thorpe knew it would be very difficult to get twenty men out of the plane in that short a time.
Dotson grabbed the air force officer's shoulder. "I want an HE hummingbird in the wall, here and here." He tapped a spot on either side, on both wings of the palace. "I want a flash-bang Hummingbird to be launched at the same time. The HE to go off exactly one minute after we jump, the flash-bang five seconds after that. Can you do that?"
The officer nodded.
"I also want an HE hummingbird on top of the Lear at that time." Dotson turned to the men in black. "We'll have one minute on the ground. Those of you who land outside the compound, wait for the Hummingbirds to blow gaps in the wall. Those on the inside, try to get into the palace. When the wall blows, shut down your goggles for the flash-bang and keep your ear plugs in. Take them out right after."
"They're going to hear the 130 go by overhead, so we won't have that much surprise, and every second will count. Everyone stay up on the FM frequency. Kill everything that moves."