"What's the range?" a senior Aussie NCO asked.
"Up to ten miles, or fifteen thousand meters, a little longer if you have line of sight. After that, it breaks up some. The batteries are rechargeable, and every set comes with two spares. The batteries will hold their charge for about six months in the spare holders you have, but we recommend recharging them every week. No big deal, the charger comes with every set, and it has a universal plug set. It'll fit into a wall socket here, or anyplace else in the world. You just play with the little fucker until you get the right plug pattern here-" He demonstrated. Most of the people in the room looked at theirs for a few seconds. "Okay, people, let's put them on and try them out. Power on/off switch is here…"
"Fifteen kilometers, eh?" Malloy asked.
"Right," Noonan said. "This way you can listen to what we're doing on the ground, instead of waiting to be told. It fits inside your aircraft headset and shouldn't interfere much with what you need to get over your intercom. This little switch can be attached, and the control button goes down your sleeve into your hand, so you can flip it on or off. It also has a listen-only mode. That's the third position here."
"Slick," Sergeant Nance observed. "Be nice to know what's happening on the ground."
"Damned right. If you ground-pounders need an evac, I'll be halfway in before you make the call. I like it," Colonel Malloy noted. "I guess we'll keep it, Tim."
"It's still experimental. E-Systems says there may be a few bugs in it, but nobody's found them yet. The encryption system is state-of-the-art 128-bit continuous, synchronized off the master set, but hierarchicalized so that if a set goes down, another automatically takes that function over. The boys and girls at Fort Meade can probably crack it, but only twelve hours after you use it."
"Any problem with being inside an aircraft-interference with any of the onboard systems?" Lieutenant Harrlson asked.
"Not that we know of. It's been tested on Night Hawks and Stalkers at Fort Bragg, no problems discovered."
"Let's check that one out," Malloy said at once. He'd learned not to trust electronics-and besides, it was a perfectly good excuse to take their Night Hawk off the ground. "Sergeant Nance, head out to the bird."
"You bet, Colonel." The sergeant stood and moved toward the door.
"Tim, you stay here. We'll try it inside and outside, and get a range check, too."
Thirty minutes later, the Night Hawk was circling around Hereford.
"How's this, Noonan?"
"Loud and clear, Bear."
"Okay, good, we're about, oh, eleven clicks out, and you are coming through like Rush Limbaugh across the street. These digital radios work nice, don't they?"
"Yep." Noonan got in his car, and confirmed that the metal cage around him had no effect on performance. It turned out that the radios continued to work at over eighteen kilometers, or eleven miles, which wasn't bad, they thought, for something with a battery the size of two quarters and an antenna half again the length of a toothpick. "This'll make your long-rope deployments go smoother, Bear."
"How so, Noonan?"
"Well, the guys on the end of the rope'll be able to tell you when you're a little high or low."
"Noonan," came the irate reply, "what do you think depth perception is for?"
"Roger that. Bear," the FBI agent laughed.
CHAPTER 28
The money made it far easier. Instead of stealing trucks, they could buy them with cashier's checks drawn from an account set up by a person with false identification papers, who'd also been wearing a disguise at the time. The trucks were large Swedish made Volvo commercial vehicles, straight or nonarticulated trucks with canvas covers over the load area that proclaimed the names of nonexistent businesses.
The trucks came across the Irish Sea to Liverpool on commercial ferries, their interiors laden with cardboard cartons for refrigerators, and passed through British customs with no trouble, and from there it was just a matter of driving within the legal limit on the motorways. The trucks traveled in close formation through the West Country, and arrived near Hereford just before dusk. There, at a prearranged point, they all parked. The drivers dismounted at the local equivalent of a truck stop and headed for a pub.
Sean Grady and Roddy Sands had flown in the same day. They'd passed through customs/immigration control at Gatwick with false papers that had stood the test of time on numerous previous occasions, and again proved to their satisfaction that British immigration officers were blind as well as deaf and dumb. Both of them rented cars with false credit cards and drove west to Hereford, also along preplanned routes, and arrived at the same pub soon before the arriving trucks.
"Any problems?" Grady asked the Barry twins.
"None," Sam replied, accompanied by a nod from Peter. As always, the members of his unit made a show of sangfroid, despite the pre-mission jitters they all had to have. Soon everyone was there, and two groups, one of seven and one of eight, sat in booths, sipping their Guinness and chatting quietly, their presence not a matter of interest to pub regulars.
"They work pretty good," Malloy told Noonan, over a pint in the club. "E-Systems, eh?"
"Pretty good outfit. We used a lot of their hardware at HRT."
The Marine nodded. "Yeah, same thing in Special Operations Command. But I still prefer things with control wires and cables."
"Well, yeah, Colonel, sir, but kinda hard to do two paper cups and string out of a chopper, ain't it?"
"I ain't that backward, Tim." But it was good enough for a grin. "And I ain't never needed help doing a long wire deployment."
"You are pretty good at it." Noonan sipped at his beer. "How long you been flying choppers?"
"Twenty years-twenty-one come next October. You know, it's the last real flying left. The new fast-movers, hell, computers take a vote on whether they like what you're doing 'fore they decide to do it for you. I play with computers, games and e-mail and such, but damned if I'll over let them fly for me." It was an empty boast, or nearly so, Noonan thought. Sooner or later, that form of progress would come to rotary-wing aircraft, too, and the drivers would bitch, but then they'd accept it as they had to, and move on, and probably be safer and more effective as a result. "Waiting for a letter from my detailer right now," the colonel added.
"Oh? What for?"
"I'm in the running for CO of VMH-1."
"Flying the president around?" Malloy nodded. "Hank Goodman's got the job now, but he made star and so they're moving him up to something else. And somebody, I guess, heard that I'm pretty good with a stick."
"Not too shabby," Noonan said.
"Boring, though, straight and level all the time, no fun stuff," the Marine allowed, with a show of false distaste. Flying in VMH1 was an honor for a captain, and command of it was the Corps' way of showing confidence in his abilities. "I ought to know in another two weeks. Be nice to see some Redskins games in person again."
"What's up for tomorrow?"
"Right before lunch, practice low-level insertion, paperwork in the afternoon. I have to do a ton of it for the Air Force. Well, they own the damned aircraft, and they are nice about maintaining it and giving me a good flight crew. I bet airliner pilots don't have to do this, though." Those lucky bastards just had to fly, though their brand of flying was about as exciting as a paint-drying race, or maybe a grass-growing marathon.