Each man took his place in line. The fourth and final jumper closed the hatch on the pod they had just exited and sealed it for the return trip to Hickam. The pod itself was necessary for a mission like this. It contained four jump seats bolted to opposite bulkheads and four spartan bunk beds that had been lifesavers during the long flight. The four jumpers had boarded the pod at a warehouse in Honolulu, carrying with them their free-fall rigs and kit for the mission. Though each man carried supplemental oxygen, the pod contained its own life support system and was both heated and pressurized.
After the airline loaded the pod onto the plane, the men struggled to make themselves comfortable while they waited for the Boeing to take off and fly almost five hours before reaching the drop zone. Four hours into the flight, an alarm sounded, and the men began preparing for their jump. They added extra layers of clothing, checked and rechecked their rigs, then strapped into their parachutes and adjusted their kit bags.
Fifteen minutes after the first alarm, a second alarm sounded, and the lights in the pod extinguished and were replaced with a night vision — compatible faint, green glow. Each man grabbed a mask from the bulkhead next to his jump seat, placed it on his face, and inhaled pure oxygen.
Jumping from high altitude posed several challenges to a human body not designed to live at 36,000 feet, and each jumper spent forty-five minutes breathing one hundred percent oxygen to flush any residual nitrogen from his system. At sea level, nitrogen was harmless, but during rapid changes in pressure — such as when they depressurized their pod in preparation for the jump — any nitrogen in their system could cause decompression sickness and incapacitate the jumper.
But these men were experts. Each had hundreds of high-altitude jumps, and the routine of pre-breathing was second nature. Another positive result of breathing one hundred percent oxygen was that it increased their visual acuity, and as their eyes adjusted to the low light environment of the pod, they made out the shapes of the other jumpers around them. Their eyes were adjusted fully to the darkness by the time their pre-breathing cycle had ended and the pod depressurized.
“Thirty seconds,” the jumpmaster said. He didn’t shout. He didn’t have to. Each man wore a mask pressed to his face with a small microphone seated inside just below his nose.
With the pre-breathing cycle complete, each man removed the masks affixed to the bulkhead and replaced them with the supplemental oxygen masks they carried on their rigs. Each wore a heavy balaclava over his face, pulled down just below the chin to allow the oxygen mask a tight seal. Over that, they wore Peltor headsets and lightweight bump helmets with night optical devices clipped to a bracket on the front and flipped up to allow an unobstructed view through their thick goggles.
Graham reached up and tapped the helmet of the man in front of him. “Four ready.”
Ron repeated the gesture. “Three ready.”
“Two ready,” Todd said.
“Go,” the jumpmaster said.
“On me!”
Without hesitation, Senior Chief Dave White leaped through the cargo door. The wake of the massive Boeing 777 slammed into him, but he tucked into a streamlined shape and dove for the earth, seeking clean air below the jet.
As the air smoothed, he looked over each shoulder and grinned inside his mask. The entire team descended in a beautiful formation and tracked away from the jet directly behind them.
“Now,” he said over the radio.
As one, the four men steered ninety degrees to the left and flew west toward Hainan Island.
The phone at the first officer’s right knee rang and startled him. Although he and the captain were two of only six pilots in the Air Force qualified to fly these missions, it was only his second such operation. But it was the first real-world mission either could remember.
“Hello?”
“Jumpers away,” the jumpmaster said. “Cargo door sealed.”
“Fantastic!”
The line went dead, and the first officer unplugged the phone and secured it in his flight bag as the captain removed the offset and adjusted course back to the east and their assigned airway. He glanced at his watch and noted the time. The door light had been illuminated for two minutes.
27
The Air Boss’s voice boomed over the carrier’s 5MC flight deck public address system. “On the flight deck, aircrews are manning up for the twenty-two hundred launch. The temperature is eighty-four degrees, the altimeter is three zero one nine. It’s now time for all unnecessary personnel to clear the catwalks and the flight deck. All flight deck personnel are in a complete and proper flight deck uniform: helmets on and buckled, sleeves rolled down, goggles down. Check chocks, tie-downs, and all loose gear about the deck. Check your pockets for FOD. Check all rotor clearances for the go aircraft for the twenty-two hundred launch. Start ’em up.”
At the conclusion of the announcement over the loudspeaker, the calm on the flight deck became a flurry of activity. Charlie Mauzé and his copilot, Roger Rholdon, strapped into their seats aboard the Russian helicopter sitting on spot six, just forward of the two waist catapults on the port side of the ship. Two Super Hornets sat on the bow catapults in an Alert 5 posture, with two additional fighters chained to the flight deck aft of the jet blast deflectors.
Charlie selected the secure satellite channel for the Tactical Operations Center at Clark Air Base and keyed the microphone. “Scar Nine Nine, Dusty One, radio check, over.”
After a slight delay, he heard a calm voice reply, “Five by five.”
“Say status of QRF.”
Charlie knew Dave’s four-man fire team had already exited the jumbo jet and were on their way to the target, and he was committed to launching. Regardless of the Quick Reaction Force status, he would launch to reach the release point on timeline.
“Green, green.”
As the Mi-17’s twin turbine engines began turning, he shared a glance and exchanged fist bumps with Roger. On the deck of the America, two Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys were prepared to deliver a TRAP team or second squad of SEALs if they ran into trouble. Between them and the four Super Hornets, he felt confident they would reach the objective and make it back to the ship.
The two air branch pilots returned their focus to their systems and resumed functional checks to verify the former Soviet helicopter was ready to fly across open water to their release point off the coast of Fenjiezhou Island. Once there, they would loiter and wait for the signal to exfil.
They were at a critical moment in the timeline, and failure was not an option.
With the engines stabilized, Charlie signaled to the yellow shirt that they were ready to engage. The LSE relayed the signal to the tower as the ship started a turn to starboard.
“Dusty One, mother’s steadying up heading three five zero. Winds are straight down the deck at fifteen knots. Happy hunting.”
Roger gave Charlie a thumbs-up that he was ready to go, and Charlie keyed the microphone to reply. “Dusty One.”
Unlike the standard Soviet version, the Agency bird had been retrofitted to allow them the ability to start their motors while keeping the rotor brake engaged. An amber light illuminated, and the LSE gave the arm signal to engage rotors. The five-bladed single rotor started spinning, and Charlie again checked their engine parameters before turning on their infrared lighting. The LSE waved both wands in an upward motion, and Charlie pulled up on the collective and danced on the pedals, making slight corrections with the cyclic to establish a stable hover over the flight deck.