Then Thorpe felt something slide underneath him. He looked down. In the moonlight he could see a large gray form lazily swim by. Glancing up, Thorpe saw the dorsal fin of an eight-foot shark less than two feet in front of him, slicing through the calm water. Thorpe kept his legs moving as he watched the fin turn and head back. Thorpe pulled McKenzie to his chest.
Putting his body between McKenzie and the shark, Thorpe pulled on his safety line, drawing them toward the SDV, expecting at any moment to feel the rip of razor-sharp teeth in his back.
Thorpe reached the edge of the SDV and with a surge of adrenaline, shoved the older man up over the side, rolling him into his cocoon. Thorpe swiftly scrambled up the same side. Clinging to the top, he sealed McKenzie's hatch, then climbed over into his own, sealing it behind him.
Grabbing the controls, he adjusted the radar to home in on the submarine's beacon and opened the throttle all the way.
Chapter Two
The combat talon came in low through the desert mountain pass, wingtips less than forty feet from the rock walls on either side. Inside the cockpit of the modified C-130 cargo plane, the pilots were flying by computer and long experience: watching their low-light television displays and terrain-avoidance radar while listening to the instructions from the navigators sitting in front of their computer consoles in the forward half of the cargo bay.
The flight south from the air base in Turkey had been easy, as had been the approach over Lebanon, but as the Israeli border drew closer, the Talon went lower and lower, until it was now skimming along, less than forty feet above ground level, well below even the best Israeli radar.
The Talon was just west of the Golan Heights in the jumbled terrain of northern Israel. It was uninhabited terrain and satellite imagery had confirmed this low-level course through the canyon was free of military forces.
There was near-total darkness outside, the moon having completed its cycle, and only the stars giving the faintest hint of light. Inside the cargo bay, behind the black curtain that sealed off the Talon crew from the people and equipment in the rear half, four black-clad figures waited, gathered around a canister that was rigged with a cargo parachute. The four also wore chutes, along with rucksacks rigged in front under their reserves and weapons strapped across their chests.
"Six minutes!" the loadmaster screamed, straining to be heard above the four super-charged turboprop engines that powered the plane.
One of the four kneeled down and unhooked the snap link from the cargo chute on top of the bundle and hooked it to the steel cable running over their heads along the right side of the plane. Then the four hooked up their own static line snap hooks right behind the bundles.
"Three minutes!"
The four were struggling to stay on their feet as the plane jigged its way through the canyon, the pilots staying below the rim of the walls. A particularly hard cut to the right threw all four against the other side of the plane, but their eyes were on the canister which teetered for a second, before settling back down in its specially designed holder.
The noise level increased even more as a horizontal crack appeared in the back, open to the chill night air. The crack widened as the back ramp lowered on hydraulic arms until it was level and the top disappeared into the cargo bay roof under the large tail.
They now had the pilot's view in reverse and watched as rocky walls flew by and disappeared as the plane shifted and turned. The deck slanted up as the plane gained jump altitude.
"One minute!" The crew chief knelt with a razor-sharp knife in his hand, the blade against the nylon strap holding the canister. With his free hand he cracked a chem light tied off on the apex of the cargo chute.
All eyes were riveted to the glowing red light above the opening. The seconds stretched out as adrenaline altered their sense of time, slowing it down, forcing the team into an agonized tension.
The light turned green. The knife sliced through the nylon and the canister slid out the back, its chute instantly billowing open. The four raced out, stepping off the ramp into darkness, their specially designed chutes opening within a second of exiting the ramp.
And they needed that quick opening as they were only two hundred and fifty feet above the canyon floor. Triple canopies exploded above each jumper, jarring their forward speed from the aircraft's hundred-and-twenty-five knots to zero in less than two seconds. Each jumper quickly pulled eighteen-inch attaching straps and their rucksacks fell to the end of fifteen-foot lowering lines to dangle below their feet. Just as quickly, each jumper reached up, found their toggles, and steered their chutes toward the green glow of the chem light on top of the bundle's chute. They barely had time to turn in the correct direction before the ground came rushing up and they rotated their elbows in tight against their faces, put their feet together and flexed their knees, waiting for impact.
The bundle hit sand and the four jumpers followed. Each rucksack touched down, followed by the hard slam of rapidly descending bodies all within forty feet of the bundle.
Three of the four were on their feet immediately, unhooking their parachutes while shaking off the shock of landing. Throwing rucksacks over their shoulders, weapons at the ready, they ran over to the canister, pulling their chutes with them.
"Where's Scanlon?" Brinn, the leader, asked, checking the other two faces.
They turned and looked at the fourth chute lying on the sand about thirty feet away, and the motionless dark form at the end of the suspension lines.
"Shit," Brinn muttered as they ran over. Brinn was tall and built like a linebacker. His face was weathered with age and stress and his crew cut hair was mostly gray. Like the others, he was dressed in black fatigues with a combat vest covering the top half of his body. Adorning the vest were the assorted tools of Brinn's chosen trade. A pair of night-vision goggles were looped around his neck and he pulled them up.
Reaching the body, Brinn unsnapped the man's helmet, grimacing as he was greeted by the sight of dark red blood mixed with gray brain matter. Looking aside he spotted the sharp boulder that had caused the injury. Scanlon's luck had run out. It could have been any of them, Brinn knew, but of the four, Scanlon was the one they could least afford to lose.
But there was a plan for that, an extra body for that contingency. He turned and stared at the person directly across from him who was looking down, ashen-faced, at the dead man. He had doubts about Scanlon's backup, never a good thing on a mission.
"You're primary weapons now, Parker," Brinn said. "Sanchez is your backup."
Parker looked up from the body without comprehension.
"You are primary weapons," Brinn repeated. "You got that?"
Parker slowly nodded, fighting the shock of Scanlon's violent death.
"Don't fuck up," Brinn added as he took off his helmet and placed it next to the body.
Parker followed suit. "I'll do my duty." Long brown hair, tied in a ponytail fell down her back as she shook it free of the confines of the Kevlar helmet. Parker was in her mid-thirties, five-and-a-half feet tall and slender. Her face had high cheekbones and was creased with worry lines around the edge of her mouth and eyes. At the present moment, those lines were furrowed as she turned from the body and looked at the canister.
"Let's move," Brinn ordered.
"Wait. What about Scanlon?" the third member of the party, Sanchez, asked. He was a wiry Hispanic, with dark skin and close-cropped black hair. He was kneeling over the body, his voice betraying his emotion.
"Rig a thermal grenade on the body to go off in four hours," Brinn ordered. "There'll be nothing left but bone and teeth. His gear is sterile anyway, so he's deniable. We sure as shit can't carry him with us." He tapped Parker on the arm. "Let's get the package and get ready to move."