Murdock moved to Stepano, standing next in line. "You okay, son?" was all he could think of to say.
"I am fine, Lieutenant," the Serb said. "Do not worry about me. Kick ass and take names!"
"That's the spirit, Steponit," Roselli called. "We're gonna hop and pop tonight!"
They were ready.
"Okay, people," Murdock said, shouting so that all of them could hear. "The weight's going to be the critical factor. Remember, if any of you pop your canopy and find yourself descending at more than eight meters per second, reach down and jettison your secondary gear. Just let it go. I'd rather do without the equipment than have to do without the man. You read me?"
"Loud and clear!"
"Roger that!"
"Affirmative, L-T!" the voices chorused back.
"DeWitt and I both have strobes. Watch for them when you're going in and guide on us. If you don't see us, for whatever reason, aim for the midpoint of the lake, right opposite the castle if you can manage it, then make for the beach below it. If you end up too far north or south, or if, God help you, you overshoot and touch down on the mountain somewhere, get down the best you can and rally at the castle. If you undershoot, well, I sure hope you've brushed up on your Albanian." When their laughing stopped, he added, "You might try 'Mefalni,' which I'm told means, 'I am very sorry I fell out of the sky and killed your cow.'"
"Ha!" Papagos shouted over the laughter. "And what if we land on the guy's daughter?"
"Well, you could also try, 'Une jam student,' which means 'I am an innocent student traveling in your beautiful country.' Who knows? Maybe they'll believe you. If not, try to make it to the castle. If you can't, sit tight and put out your Mayday call. Somebody will be along to pick you up sooner or later."
"Right," Doc said. "Probably to make you pay for that cow."
"Or marry the daughter," Roselli added.
Humor, even the often obscene or grim gallows humor favored by SEALS, was a good measure of the men's spirits. Murdock noticed that neither Mac nor Kos joined in, but that was to be expected. They were older, and made steadier by their authority as the platoon's two senior NCOS. Stepano hadn't laughed either, though he'd smiled at the part about killing a cow.
"Two minutes!" the jumpmaster called to them. "Skipper says your approach vector will be zero-five-zero, range to target fifteen miles."
"Zero-five-zero, and fifteen miles. Affirmative. Everybody got that?" Helmeted heads nodded, gloved hands gave thumbs-up signs or clenched fists meaning got it.
"Okay!" the jumpmaster shouted. "We're opening up! Clear the aft compartment!"
With an ominous, grinding noise, the rear deck of the transport began dropping away, a hatch opening into the blackness of space. From where he was standing, Murdock could see that the waning moon had not yet risen, but there was sky-glow enough to illuminate the clouds far, far below. It reminded Murdock piercingly of a snowfield, perhaps a scene on a Christmas card he'd received once. It was noisier now, both from the thunder of the Combat Talon's engines and from the roar of the wind rushing past the gape-mouthed opening. Murdock checked his altimeter — 32,800 feet — high to allow both for the altitude of the lake, and for the fact that since they were higher to compensate for the target's altitude, they would be falling through slightly thinner air.
The jumpmaster gave a signal. "Ten seconds! Get ready! Good luck, you guys! And good hunting!"
"HAHO! HAHO!" Doc sang. "It's off to work we go!"
The seconds passed… a light on the bulkhead winked green.
"Go! Go! Go!"
This was no one-at-a-time airborne leap like the static-line jumps of World War II. The entire platoon rushed down the broad ramp in two close-arrayed squads, each flinging itself as a single organism headlong into the night, then breaking up as its members spread arms and legs and snagged the currents of the sky. Murdock was last off the ramp, hurling himself headfirst into the darkness after his men. Wind battered and tugged at him, snapping at the sleeves and legs of his coveralls and at the equipment secured to his vest, threatening to yank him out of position and send him into a sprawling tumble, but he held himself poised against the storm, arms swept back, legs bent at the knees, back arched. The glorious, buoyant, flying sensation of free fall thrilled within, like a favorite piece of martial music… no… like Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries."
For a HAHO jump, free fall lasted only eight or ten seconds, just enough time to clear the aircraft and to get clear of the other jumpers. Murdock watched the luminous flick of the seconds on his watch, then yanked the ripcord on his primary. A drogue popped free, fluttering behind him, steadying his fall… and then his chute unfolded after it, deploying slowly at first, then snagging the wind with a crack like thunder, the harness snapping at Murdock's thighs and chest and shoulders, yanking him upright, yanking him so hard it felt as though he'd just reversed course and was on his way back to the Combat Talon.
Silence. After the roar of the wind passed his helmet, the silence was shocking in its intensity, its completeness. Murdock dangled beneath the rectangular wing shape of his ram-air chute, suspended between a crystalline, star-powdered heaven and the faintly luminous clouds below.
HAHO — High Altitude, High Opening — as opposed to the more usual HALO — High Altitude, Low Opening. With HALO, a SEAL could leap from an aircraft at 30,000 feet, too high for anyone on the ground to hear the plane's engines, then ride thin air in free fall all the way to 2500 feet or less — about a two-minute trip, express only, no waiting. The chute jerked you up short within spitting distance of the ground and let you glide in the last few feet in death-dealing silence.
With HAHO it was different. His steerable chute let him extend the jump with a very favorable glide ratio, literally flying like a tiny, unpowered aircraft for as much as fifteen miles cross-country, a flight that would typically take seventy-five minutes… definitely life in the slow lane. His coveralls and much of his equipment were radar-absorbent, and the chute would reveal only a tiny cross section to watching enemy radar. They should be able to fly silently right across the border, and on this mission the decision to violate Albanian airspace provided a bonus. The planners back aboard Jefferson had thought it most unlikely that the enemy would be expecting an airborne assault from the direction of Albania. Nobody paid attention to Albania, especially these days with its increasingly nonexistent military. Likeliest would be an airmobile assault by helicopter coming out of the southeast, mountain-hopping across the rugged, forested border with Greece. Most of the enemy's attention, Murdock was willing to bet, would be focused in that direction, not to the west.
And he was betting on that… with the lives of himself, his men, and the hostages they'd come to rescue as the stakes.
Course… course… Checking his compass, he determined that zero-five-zero was that way, about eighteen degrees to the left. Reaching up above his head, he grasped his steering toggles and lightly tugged downward on the left-hand control, watching the point on the horizon he'd picked swing around until it was directly ahead. To extend the range of a HAHO jump for as long and as far as possible, the rush of air across his chute had to flow unhindered between its two panels. That meant he had to leave the toggles in the extreme up position for as much of the trip as possible; each maneuver, left or right, cost him precious altitude. Stabilized, he seemed to be descending at about six meters per second, not bad at all considering how much gear he was carrying. Some of the others — the Professor and Mac and Bearcat — were packing much heavier loads. He hoped they didn't have to jettison.
It was astonishing, now that his free-fall flight was ended and he was drifting to earth, how alone he felt. The Combat Talon was gone, already lost in the night. Looking around, he thought he could make out several other chutes… though most of the fourteen other men were invisible, jet-black canopies against the blackness of the night. Looking up, he might, if he were lucky, catch one of his men when he occluded a star. Below, the cloud glow was so faint he would have to be pretty close to see a chute silhouetted against it. He wished he could talk to them, and they to him. Radio communication was possible, certainly, and the encryption gear would guard their words from eavesdroppers. But radio silence was the order of the day. Even encrypted, radio chatter might tell listeners that something was happening. They would save the radios until the fun began at the target.