Rampert watched an officer and his radio operator come charging from the woods and join the fray. He recognized the man. They had been scouting him as a candidate for the Joint Special Forces Command. He knew the soldier’s record; this man was a warrior.
The radio operator was shot in the chest, spinning him backward. The man grabbed his M4 carbine and fired it until it went empty. He pulled his pistol from his holster, shooting it until he was out of ammunition. Pulling his bayonet from its scabbard, he fought hand-to-hand.
The rain was moving to the north in a typical thunderstorm pattern. Rampert was vectoring friendly aircraft into the fight using his high-frequency radio. One minute away. But one minute and the fight might be over. He gave the radio to his assistant team chief, grabbed his M4 carbine, and began to suppress the enemy near the officer. He moved slowly from the creek bed under the cover of a row of bamboo shoots. He changed magazines.
Artillery and mortar shells began to rain upon them. The explosions were deafening, and he thought he could feel his ears bleeding. Wasn’t the first time.
He saw the officer take a bullet in the lower abdomen. Then an enemy combatant rammed a bayonet through the officer’s shoulder. Rampert shot the enemy soldier from twenty feet. He raced to the officer and slung him into a fireman’s carry at the same time that he saw another company of infantry emerge from the creek bed two hundred meters to his south. The diversion gave Rampert enough time to move the wounded officer over a small rise where several American soldiers lay dead or wounded.
He removed the man’s uniform and dog tags and then called the team medic to his location. They performed life-saving measures and guided in a Pave Low medevac for the man. Rampert sent the medic with the wounded officer, while he and the rest of his team stayed and fought with the others. A mortar shell landed on one of his best friends, who had been with the team for over ten years, cutting the veteran operator into so many pieces it took them an hour to collect the barely identifiable remains.
Rampert held the dog tags of the decimated operator and the severely wounded conventional-force officer in his hand. Looking down, he said, “Goodbye, Winslow,” dropped the shredded shirt and identification tags on his dead friend, and boarded the helicopter.
As he looked at Boudreaux, these unpleasant memories came rushing back to him. What have I done? he wondered.
Boudreaux felt the plane level at the drop altitude.
“Ten minutes,” Tedaues shouted to Rampert. Tedaues had climbed down from the cockpit and walked toward them. He and Rampert were both wearing B-11 square parachutes used for high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) jumps. Neither Tedaues nor Rampert were jumping, but they wore their parachutes in case they either needed to jump or fell from the airplane while performing jumpmaster duties for Boudreaux. Boudreaux had the same suit but was outfitted with a reserve that would automatically deploy if his altimeter read 600 feet above ground level and his main had not deployed. Rampert decided setting the altimeter was the moral thing to do in case Boudreaux mentally froze on his descent. But 600 feet was not very high.
The three men were standing at the back of the aircraft as the ramp began to lower. Boudreaux watched the platform separate itself from the top of the aircraft, making him feel like Jonah in the stomach of the whale. Pitch-black night greeted them as the ramp leveled even with the floor of the aircraft.
“You’ll break through a thin layer of clouds at about two thousand feet. After that, you should be able to pick out the drop zone. When you’re under canopy, take about five seconds with your night-vision goggles and search for an infrared marker. There should be one at the southeast portion of the drop zone. From there, you’ll find the boat.”
“I’m ready. I know what you’re telling me; you don’t have to keep repeating it, sir.” Raising his voice above the din of the aircraft, Boudreaux sounded like he was shouting. Rampert and Tedaues looked at each other, a sign of acknowledgment. It was time.
“Good luck,” Rampert said.
Boudreaux thrust his arms outward, practicing his flair as he walked onto the ramp. Hindering his movement was a dark green rucksack rigged behind his buttocks. Once his parachute deployed, he would use a twenty-foot nylon line to lower the rucksack beneath him prior to landing. In it he had packed a tactical satellite radio, one hundred and fifty rounds of 5.56mm ammunition for his M4 carbine, six MRE combat rations, two gallons of water in his Camelbak, an assortment of smoke grenades, star clusters and other pyrotechnics, a Berretta 9mm pistol with four magazines of ammunition, and a set of fishing clothes hand-picked by Rampert out of the North Face catalog. He wore an outer tactical vest where the other half of his M4 ammunition was stored in five 30-round magazines.
“One minute!” Rampert shouted. They were jumping on time and azimuth, not really needing to see any reference points. Boudreaux was leaning over the ramp watching the earth pass beneath them. Small dots of light, a few glimmers of moonlight skidding off oxbow lakes. Then he saw a lone car driving from north to south on a road. That road was the one-minute mark. Rampert’s call was right. They were on schedule and on target.
“Thirty seconds!”
Boudreaux stood and practiced his flair a final time, stretching his chest muscles, splaying his hands to either side. He looked over his shoulder at Rampert and Tedaues. He flashed them a thumbs-up. Rampert moved toward the ramp, holding both hands forward, fingers spread. Five seconds passed and he dropped his left hand, then counted down with his right. Four, three, two, one.
The green light flashed. Rampert howled, “Go!”
Boudreaux jumped, spreading his body into flair position, catching the wind and riding it into the night. He slipped into the silence not unlike the coma he had emerged from several months earlier. One second ago, he was bouncing in the noisy, manmade machine; the next, he was floating effortlessly in quiet solitude through the thin air, rushing toward the ground.
Seconds passed into perhaps a minute. The wind beat against his chest, the air rushing around his helmet, forcing his head back. He fought to maintain balance against the turbulence. He turned his left wrist inward and glanced at his altimeter: 6,000 feet.
Formations on the ground grew larger. Single lights were now small groups of lights. He could distinguish buildings. He slipped on his night-vision goggles to search for the flashing infrared light that marked his optimal touchdown point, turning the world green. Once-indistinguishable lights were suddenly bright flares. He pivoted his head from left to right. He noticed an area that appeared to be a clearing, but there was no flashing light.
He spun his body 180 degrees and saw another larger clearing. In the back of his mind, he was counting the seconds. Too many had passed. He was plummeting now, probably 2,000 feet, only a few seconds away from having to deploy his main canopy.
One final scan. A blip. Two blips. Could be a flashlight, even a firefly at this height, but he would aim for it. He had to go somewhere.
He lowered the night-vision goggles and stuffed them inside his outer tactical vest. He had to stow his night-vision goggles to prevent damaging them during the opening shock of the parachute. The metal rip cord grip felt cool to his grasp. He looked at the altimeter one final time: 700 feet. Too low.