They were good men, every one of them. He'd been pushing them all damned hard this week, and they'd responded well. If any men in the world could carry out this mission, these men could.
He just hoped that he was sharp enough to lead them. Usually, especially before combat, Murdock felt the supreme, egotistical, almost arrogant confidence of the athlete who knows he is ready to perform. This time, though, he felt... unsure of himself, despite the pre-combat excitement. It was an unfamiliar sensation. Was it his father's visit that had done this? Or was he simply nervous about jumping into action with thirteen men who were still near-strangers? He didn't know, and he didn't know how he could go about finding out... except, possibly, by surviving these next few hours.
"Lieutenant?"
He started. MacKenzie was standing over him, huge in his combat harness and rig. "Yeah, Mac?"
"Can I talk to you for a second?"
Rising, Murdock followed MacKenzie forward, to a place where they could talk without being overheard by the rest of the platoon.
"What's on your mind, Master Chief?"
MacKenzie's teeth gleamed briefly in the cargo hold's red lighting. "I just wanted to say, sir, that I think you've done a pretty fair job of pulling the guys together this last week. You've worked their tails off, and there's some of them that think you're a son of a bitch. But you're their son of a bitch, and they're pretty proud of that."
Murdock nodded. "Thanks, Mac. The hardest thing about this job, you know, is competing with Lieutenant Cotter. If the men don't follow me instead of him, this platoon doesn't have a chance in hell."
"Roger that, sir." He hesitated. "I, uh, just wanted to say one thing more."
"Spit it out, Master Chief. Off the record."
"These guys are not raw recruits, sir. Except for Jaybird, who hasn't pinned on his trident yet, they've paid their dues and they know their shit. Every man except Jaybird has been in combat."
"You're telling me to get off their backs and let them do their jobs."
MacKenzie's eyes widened slightly. "Well... yes, sir."
"Don't worry, Mac. I'd already reached the same conclusion. When we jump tonight, I'm not going out that door leading this platoon."
"No, sir?"
"Nope. I'm going out as part of the platoon. Part of the team."
"And the Teams." MacKenzie grinned. "Yes, sir!"
Hours later, the C-130 neared the planned drop site. The U.S.S. Santa Fe, motionless on the surface in a slight swell, signaled with an IR-beacon, and the Hercules pilot replied in kind. They were going in at eight thousand feet so that they wouldn't need high-altitude breathing gear. The pressure on the cargo deck had already been adjusted to match the air pressure outside.
The Hercules crew chief passed the word that the sub was in sight and that the pilot was circling in toward the drop zone. Five minutes.
"Stand up!" Murdock called.
As one, the platoon stood up, looped swim fins over their right arms, gathered up their rucksacks, and made their way in two lines toward the rear of the aircraft, bunched up on either side of the paradrop package. There, the cargo ramp was coming down with a grumbling whine; beyond that opening, the night was darkness and the shrill thunder of wind and engines. Murdock felt the bite of cold, surprising this close to the equator.
"Check equipment!"
The equipment check was carried out in three phases. Each man checked his own gear, making sure buckles were fastened, straps and weapons secure, equipment snug. Next, he checked the gear of the man in front of him in line, and finally he turned around and checked the man behind him. "Sound off for equipment check!"
"One okay!" Kosciuszko called from the head of the port-side stick.
"Two okay!"
And so it went down the paired lines, until Murdock completed the litany with "Fourteen okay! This is it, SEALS. Stand in the door."
The Hercules's rear door was gaping wide now. Stars gave illumination enough that the waves a mile and a half below were intermittently visible, a glint of pale illumination in the darkness below the arc of the Milky Way. Murdock's heart hammered beneath his rebreather pack. It always pounded like this before a jump. Like more than one guy had said on similar occasions, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is neither a sane nor a natural act.
A light on the forward bulkhead flashed from red to green.
"Go!"
As one, the two lines of men grasped the equipment package and slid it aft on the cargo rollers set into the deck. With a heavy rumble, it slid down the ramp and into space, its static cord popping its drogue almost at once, the main chute appearing seconds later, then vanishing into the night.
Almost the moment the cargo was clear, Third Platoon rushed down the ramp after it, plunging headfirst into space. The mob rush allowed the platoon to free-fall close together, enabling them to stay together for the descent and splash down in a tight group.
The excitement that had been building inside Murdock exploded behind his eyes like a magnesium flare. The wind blasted at his face and wet suit as he spread his arms and legs and arched his back, assuming the classic free-fall position that actually let him turn his body into an airfoil and fly... at least for a few precious, fantastic moments. In the darkness, his companions were visible as mere shadows, sensed more than seen as their bodies occluded the stars around him. Free-fall was glorious, a buoyant weightlessness, transformed to literal and ecstatic flight by the lack of any fixed reference point save his own body suspended in space.
Together, they fell through the night until the luminous dials of their wrist altimeters read five hundred feet. Then they pulled their rip-cords; Murdock could hear the pops and cracks of the other chutes around him an instant before his own parasail deployed, yanking him upright with a sensation that felt like he was heading straight back into the star-strewn sky.
His chute clear, he released his rucksack, letting it dangle at the end of its tether. Hauling on his risers, he guided the parasail into a gentle turn against the wind, killing his forward momentum. He could see the submarine now, a long, black shadow against the luminous sea.
He prepared for the landing, loosening the left side of his reserve chute, donning his swim fins, and readying his quick release by turning it to the unlocked position and removing the safety clip. One hundred feet above the water, he steadied his chute with his face into the wind and put his fingers over his Capewell Releases, which secured the parachute straps to his harness at his shoulders.
Moments later, he splashed into the water, pressing the left-side Capewell Release and releasing the chute before he was fully submerged. Underwater, he released the second Capewell, then hit the quick-release box to free the leg straps. The harness fell away, leaving him free in the ocean.
The Santa Fe rose like a black steel cliff from the sea, less than fifty yards away. Pushing his rucksack before him like a swim board, Murdock headed toward the sub. Around him, he heard the gentle splashes of other members of the unit. Third Platoon, SEAL Seven, had arrived.