With the LSE’s right wand pointed at the port side of the ship, his left wand motioned for the Hip to sidestep out over the water. Charlie complied but kept his focus on the LSE until he pointed both wands to the west, then he shifted his attention from the yellow shirt’s guidance to the empty blackness in front of them.
Remaining low over the water, he lowered the nose and accelerated toward the release point. Outside ten miles, Roger changed the radio from the Reagan’s tower frequency to the pre-briefed alert frequency, then selected the encrypted satellite channel.
“Scar Nine Nine, Dusty One is airborne. Proceeding to holding point Alpha.”
After clearing the flight deck, the Reagan immediately began a turn to the south to steam away from Chinese territorial waters. Although national waters only extended out twelve miles according to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China had notoriously — and illegally — claimed waters well beyond that. The United States Navy routinely challenged their claims and sailed in the disputed waters, but the Reagan wanted to draw as little attention as possible to the helicopter flying ever closer to Chinese airspace.
“Dusty One, Scar Nine Nine, green north. Continue.”
The operations personnel in the TOC monitored continuous satellite and drone feeds as well as real-time electronic surveillance emissions for indications the Chinese had been alerted. Labeling their direction of travel as green indicated it was safe to continue without expecting resistance.
But Charlie would have continued anyway. He knew there were Americans relying on him to get them home.
The amphibious assault ship bobbed in the dark waters with two Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft from VMM-265 (Reinforced) chained to spots four and five in an Alert 5 posture. In the back of the first Osprey was a squad of SEALs, relaxed and calm while their brothers hurtled themselves through the night sky at a darkened island. In the back of the second were Marines and sailors assigned to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. Specially trained, the Magnificent Bastards’ Fox Company served as the Expeditionary Strike Group’s TRAP team.
Normally, the team responded to requests from the Joint Personnel Recovery Center after a pilot had already gone down, but they were given a list of eleven personnel and their attached ISOPREPs to review before boarding the tilt-rotor aircraft. It was unusual, but given the short notice nature of the operation, most of the Marines didn’t give it a second thought.
The ISOPREP, or Isolated Personnel Report, was a classified document that personnel at medium to high risk of isolation were required to fill out. The information contained in the report included basic identifying information such as height, weight, hair and eye color, and descriptions of scars or tattoos with accompanying photos. In addition, each person required to complete one filled out four personal statements from which four separate questions could be asked to prove their identity to rescuing forces.
The Marines adjusted their body armor, wiped sweat from their camouflaged faces, and studied the reports while wondering who these people were. Most agreed that eight of the eleven were Navy SEALs — an assumption made because the second Osprey was filled with squids — but it was the other three that had them baffled. Two men — both of whom looked like civilians — and a beautiful older woman.
“She must be a hostage,” one of the Marines commented.
“Or a diplomat’s wife,” another suggested.
“Who ran off with some Chinese businessman,” a third grunt added.
The idle and irreverent chatter continued unabated as they waited for the call to spring into action. Most believed nothing would come of it, and they would get the order to stand down after being forced to sit in the back of the Osprey for several hours. But a few of the less jaded still believed this was their chance, and it didn’t really matter who they would be called on to rescue.
Colt craned his neck and looked over his shoulder as the Russian-made helicopter lifted off the flight deck and turned out to sea.
“Where do you think they’re going?” Lieutenant Anthony “Ducky” Golemi asked.
“No idea,” Colt replied, turning to look at his wingman on the other catapult. “But by the looks of it, they’re expecting some heavy resistance.”
“What makes you say that?”
A third pilot in the division spoke up. “Because they put four of us on an Alert Five to be ready for trouble?”
“But in the brief, they said they were just going to recover an isolated person and bring them back and that we were on call just in case.”
Colt shook his head. Ducky was one of the nicest and most competent pilots he had ever met, but it seemed he was having a hard time accepting the gravity of the situation. “Ducky, when was the last time you saw a helicopter like that taking off from the carrier without lights in the middle of the night?”
“With a bunch of frogmen on board,” the fourth pilot added.
To his credit, Ducky remained silent. Colt turned back to try and spot the Hip, but it had disappeared into the inky night. All that was left for him to do was sit and wait for a call he hoped never came, but one he was prepared to answer.
28
Dave looked down on the island through his night optical devices and tried ignoring the enormity of the challenge facing them. The uninhabited speck of land sat a little more than a mile off the coast of Hainan Island and comprised some of the most inhospitable terrain imaginable — something the overhead imagery and surveillance photos they had studied during the mission briefing failed to prepare them for.
But that was exactly why men like them existed.
Dense vegetation covered two hills at each end of the island. A narrow draw divided them and connected the rocky and cliff-like eastern side with a narrow, sandy beach on the leeward side. Scaling the cliffs to reach the objective would have provided them the greatest chance of avoiding detection, but it would have been treacherous under the best of conditions. Following a night HAHO insertion, it would have been foolish.
Dave continued descending around the southern tip of the island to approach the beach from the south. Without looking, he knew the others were stacked up behind him in perfect formation to land on the vacant beach. The island was blanketed in darkness, but a handful of lights glowed from the hotel villas dotting the southern hill.
She’s in there, he thought.
The sound of waves crashing beneath him grew louder as he descended below the crest of the hill and made his approach for landing. He made a brief turn away from the island, then reversed course and approached the beach from the west. He flared his canopy at the edge of the beach and slowed his descent while allowing his forward momentum to carry him into a slow walk.
Easy day.
He gave himself half a beat to feel pride in jumping into hostile territory from a Boeing 777 almost seven miles in the air and fifty miles away, then quickly collapsed and gathered his chute and moved inland to the edge of the jungle. He dropped to his knees and began burying the chute in the deep sand at the base of the sharply rising hill to the east. By the time the last SEAL touched down, he held his rifle at the ready and scanned the dark jungle for threats.