captain. 'Don't worry, Mr Carpenter. One plane isn't going to do us any harm. And if it looks as though it is, we'll shoot it down.'
The cloud was disorienting. Shepherd couldn't see more than ten feet in front of him. The parts of his face that were exposed were ice cold and the surface of the black thermal suit was soaked. His body was dry, though, and surprisingly warm.
There was no sense of movement. He felt as if he was suspended in fog. And other than the occasional static through his earpiece, it was eerily silent. He looked up but could barely make out the black canopy above his head. It was a GQ-360 nine-cell flat ramair canopy that was designed to be virtually silent as it moved through the air. He checked his watch: forty-four minutes since he'd jumped out of the Nimrod. He checked his altimeter: eight thousand feet. They should reach the ship in sixteen minutes. Give or take one minute, and they'd miss it by a quarter of a mile.
He wiggled his toes inside his boots, then worked his fingers in his gloves, keeping the circulation going. The last thing he needed was cramp as he came in for landing.
'Comms check,' said Gannon, in his earpiece. 'Alpha One.'
'Alpha Two,' said Shepherd.
One by one the remaining eight troopers sounded off.
Shepherd looked down past his feet. He saw wisps of cloud, and then suddenly he was through it, hanging in the darkness. Above him, there was cloud, and far below, the blackness that was the sea. In the distance he could see Gannon's canopy, a dark shape in the night sky. He checked his LCD display. Their forward speed had slowed while they'd been in the cloud, but that had all been calculated for. Hopefully. According to the computerised display, the target was eleven miles away.
The captain swept his binoculars right, then stopped. 'I see it,' he said. 'It is a jet. Four engines. It's big, too.'
'Any markings?' asked Carpenter.
'Can't see any. And I can't make out the number.'
'Not Army or Customs?'
'It looks like a Nimrod, but it's flying close to stall speed,' said the captain.
'I thought Nimrods were for high-altitude surveillance,' said Carpenter.
'They are. Six miles and above.'
One of the Colombians said something in Spanish and the other four laughed. Another took out a cigar, but before he could light it the captain spoke to him. The Colombian glowered and put away the cigar.
'So what the hell's it playing at?' asked Carpenter.
'Could be lost,' said the captain. 'Navigation system might have failed and they've dropped down below the cloud to get their bearings.' He muttered to one of the crewmen, who reached for a radio microphone. 'We'll try to make radio contact with them,' said the captain.
Carpenter stared into the darkness. He was getting a bad feeling about the plane.
'Alpha One, I have visual on the target.' Gannon's voice crackled in Shepherd's earpiece.
Shepherd peered into the darkness. He could see Gannon's black canopy in the distance, swooping down like a giant bat. But he couldn't see the tanker. He looked down at his LCD display. The red dot was less than a mile away. He checked his altimeter. Two thousand feet. That should be more than enough height to reach the target. He looked back to Gannon, then beyond. Lights. Red, green and white. As he stared at them he could make out the shape of the tanker. It was sailing towards them at an angle. The superstructure was at the rear.
'Alpha Two, I have visual,' said Shepherd, into his mike.
Then Shepherd saw movement in the air, several miles beyond the tanker. It was the Nimrod, flying low. If Gannon's plan worked, everyone on the ship would now be staring aft and the troopers should be able to land without being seen.
'Alpha Three has visual.'
Gannon's chute swung to the right, lining up with the tanker. Shepherd waited ten seconds, then did the same. He concentrated on keeping his breathing slow and even. It was easy to hyperventilate under stress.
'Alpha Four has visual.'
Shepherd flexed his fingers on the toggles that controlled the direction of the chute. The key to landing without getting hurt was all down to the toggles. Getting the direction just right, slowing the descent, emptying air from the chute so that it deflated. Done right, it should be as easy as stepping off a chair. Done wrong, he'd slam into the deck or, worse, miss it.
'Alpha Five has visual.'
The troopers were stacking up behind Gannon, drifting down towards the tanker. Shepherd wondered how many had done a similar jump before. The SAS regularly trained at HALO and HAHO, but during his days in the Regiment they'd never jumped on to a ship.
'Alpha Six has visual.'
By the time the last trooper had the tanker in his sights, Gannon was only two hundred metres from the prow. Shepherd used small tugs on the toggles to keep his descent even. Suddenly he was no longer flying over waves but over metal plates, glistening wet, pipes and manholes, welds and rivets. Ahead he saw Gannon's chute flare, then heard a thump as Gannon hit the deck and rolled, the chute flapping like a huge, dying bird. Gannon had hit midway down the length of the tanker, more than a hundred metres from the superstructure.
Shepherd pulled hard on both toggles and let his knees give as his boots hit the deck. He let go of the toggle in his right hand and hauled on the one in the left, deflating the canopy. He heard a dull thud behind him. Alpha Three. He grabbed armfuls of black silk, rolled it up tight and unclipped his harness. Gannon ran over, bent low. They shoved their chutes under a pipe and unclipped their oxygen masks. 'Nice job, Spider,' said Gannon, clapping him on the back.
Shepherd took off his mask and unclipped the oxygen cylinder. 'Hell of a ride,' he said.
'You should knock the cop job on the head and come back to the Regiment.' Gannon's face hardened and Shepherd realised the major had remembered why Shepherd had left the SAS in the first place. Sue.
Shepherd waved away any apology that the major was about to make. 'Let's get to it,' he said.
Another bump. Alpha Four. Shepherd looked up. The six remaining troopers were lined up in formation, coming in to land.
Shepherd unhooked his MP5 from the webbing. Gannon had made it clear at the briefing that no one was to be hurt unless absolutely necessary. The mission was to apprehend Carpenter and take control of the vessel. The tanker was then to be sailed into US waters. The Americans would take it and the drugs, the British would apply for Carpenter to be extradited to London. Everybody would win. Except Carpenter and Carlos Rodriguez.
Gannon waited until all of the troopers had landed, stowed their chutes and oxygen tanks, and checked their weapons. Then he motioned for them to head towards the superstructure. He and Shepherd led the way. Four of the troopers moved across to the port side, and the second brick took starboard. They moved slowly, keeping low.
It took them several minutes to reach the base of the three-storey superstructure. Three hatches led from the deck into it, one each on the port and starboard sides, and one in the centre, facing towards the bow. Four men headed for the port, four went starboard, and Gannon and Shepherd took the centre. They opened the hatches and slipped inside, Heckler & Kochs at the ready.
The captain took his binoculars away from his eyes and spoke to the communications officer in Ukrainian. He replied tersely.
'No communication,' the captain translated for Carpenter's benefit but the officer's shaking head had already told him that much.
In the distance, the plane was climbing again, showing that it wasn't having engine problems.
'Whatever the problem was, they seem to have sorted it,' said the captain.
'And there's no ship heading our way?'
'Nothing within fifty miles,' said the captain.
'And they weren't talking to anyone?'
'No radio communications,' said the captain. 'The direction they were heading, they might not even have seen us.'
Carpenter nodded thoughtfully. He still had a bad feeling about the plane. He left the bridge and headed down
