Bill Bradford, Quartermaster First Class, waved. He was a hulking six-two, and did marine oil paintings in his off time. “When do we start to use our portable oxygen?” He was the new man in the platoon, taking over Magic Brown’s spot after the machine gunner had been knocked out of action in the Deathrace operation in Iran.
“We’ll turn on our personal oxygen system in about three minutes, as soon as the red jump light goes on,” Murdock said. “That will put us ten minutes from our jump point. We have two hours of oxygen in each bottle, which should be plenty.”
“How long to touchdown?” Ron Holt, Radioman First Class, asked.
Holt was a rabid Dodgers fan. When baseball wasn’t on, he’d rather go deep-sea fishing than eat.
“We jump on this HAHO at about thirty-two thousand. We’ll be on static lines to open our chutes automatically to keep us bunched as close as possible. Then we should have seventy-two to seventy-five minutes gliding down.
“By then we should be about fifteen miles inside Iraq, and near the small town of Osadi. That’s the objective. This High Altitude High Opening routine should put us down within half a mile of the target.
We’ll use the Motorolas, and if we see we’re overshooting, we’ll circle so we can come down close to the target.”
The red jump light came on.
“Let’s turn on your portable oxygen and have a radio check. Second Squad first.”
Murdock listened to the earpiece as the Second Squad chimed in to Dewitt.
“First Squad report,” Murdock said into the lip mike. It was connected to a wire that went under his shirt collar, and down inside his cammie shirt to a waist transceiver unit clipped on his belt.
Another wire led to an ear speaker. The seven men responded with their last names, and the Platoon Leader nodded.
Murdock watched his men. He’d been with some of them for two years now as Platoon Leader. They were his guys. They had bonded together in live-or-die combat situations more than a dozen times and were closer than blood brothers. They would die for each other. He remembered three of his men who had done just that. He shook his head, not wanting to think about those three.
The loadmaster came out of the cabin into the big hold, and motioned to Murdock.
“Sir, about six minutes from the drop. You better get the men hooked up and ready.”
Two minutes later the squads lined up, one on each side of the big cargo hatch at the back of the plane. Thirty seconds later they felt the whoosh of air as the nine-foot-long ramp lowered from the top of the plane. The jump light still showed red.
Murdock watched the loadmaster, boss of this phase of the operation.
Three minutes later, the light turned from red to green.
Murdock nodded. “Go, go, go,” he barked into the lip mike. The sixteen SEALs ran forward in two closely spaced lines, out of the big hold, and off the end of the ramp into the blackness of the Iraqi night.
The time was a little after 2100.
Murdock sensed the jolt of apprehension as he always did on a jump.
Then he took the last running step off the ramp, and surged into the darkness. The freezing cold hit him like ice-water in the face, jolting past the ski mask protection, icing his nose in an instant even under the oxygen device.
The moment he was free of the craft he went into an arch move, his arms and legs spread out like a bird so he wouldn’t tumble. After only six seconds he felt the drag chute pull from his main chute, then the gradual slowing as the rectangular, steerable chute deployed.
The air was so thin at 32,000 feet that the chute came out gradually and took some seconds to fill with the thin air. The steerable chutes lowered a man’s free-fall speed much more gently than a big round chute would do.
There was no disemboweling jerk on the parachute straps as a falling body slowed suddenly from free fall to fully supported. Murdock had experienced that quick stop on other jumps halfway upside down. The straps around his legs and shoulders would slam him upwards, bringing a groan; then the chute over him would take up the load, and the pain would ease into a slow throbbing. He always worried that he had crushed his balls in those regular jumps.
He grabbed the straps and looked around. He saw the bobbing glow lights. Each man had one and held it so it could be seen by the others.
This was one way to help them stay somewhere near each other. Murdock swallowed and tried the lip mike. He hoped it hadn’t frozen up.
“Platoon, use your compasses. We’re on a bearing of three-forty degrees. Let’s hit it dead in the chops. Radio net report First Squad.” Murdock listened as seven men responded. He heard Dewitt check in his men. Sixteen SEALs primed and ready to go. His fingers screeched in pain even through the special gloves as the cold bit into them. At thirty thousand feet it must be well below zero. More than an hour more of gliding, but it would get warmer.
The Platoon Leader looked at his altimeter, and punched up the small light. It showed 30,100 feet. He wasn’t sure what the ground-level height was here, but it couldn’t be more than five or six hundred feet. A long ride down.
He looked around, and spotted six of the glow lights. Ingenious little devices. A plastic tube with two compartments each containing a separate chemical or element. Bend them and break the seal inside, and the two substances combined to give off a healthy glow. Most of the six-inch-long tubes were good for six to eight hours.
As they glided toward the Iraqi village, Murdock went over the briefing. Their objective was a modest house in the small village of Osadi. It was controlled by a local war chieftain who was a renegade from the Iraqi Army. He was known as El Raza. Saddam Hussein hadn’t tried to catch him, probably deciding it was too much trouble. El Raza ruled like a bandit lord over the locals. His house was heavily defended, according to the latest reports. He had troops, machine guns, maybe even land mines. The house would be a fort.
Two days ago, El Raza had slipped into Kuwait at night with a dozen men, and captured a well-known Kuwait leader in a small town only five miles from the Iraqi border. The kidnapped man was highly placed in the Kuwait government. He had come to his relative’s home at this border town for a holiday.
Kuwait was powerless to get him back. They couldn’t afford to invade Iraq. They had no special forces who could rush in and break him free. El Raza had demanded two million American dollars as a ransom for the man, Fayd Salwa. He said if the ransom wasn’t paid within forty-eight hours, Salwa would be sent home a body part at a time in a basket.
Don Stroh, the SEALs contact with the CIA and main order-giver, had been clear.
“You go in HAHO as silent as a SEAL. You take down this El Raza and rescue Salwa and we’ll pick you up outside the town with a chopper.
Maybe a six-hour mission from drop to pickup. All done at night and the Iraqis won’t know who hit them, especially El Raza.”
When the SEALs received the orders, they had hung up their close-quarters shoot-out weapons, and left from North Island Naval Air Station four hours later.
A gust of wind rocked Murdock’s steerable chute, and he felt the drift, but quickly pulled the glide chute back on course. He saw the glow lights of the other men making the same correction.
“Halfway down,” he heard Dewitt say in the Motorola earpiece.
“Yeah and warmer,” David
“Jaybird” Sterling, Machinist Mate Second Class, said. Jaybird was the platoon noncom administrator and boss.
“Why the fuck does it stay so cold out here?”
It was clear and cool. Murdock was always surprised how cold it could get in a desert: 110 during the day and down into the forties at night.