valley about the site. Besides, the slopes between the range of mountains and Lake Nam being only three to five miles wide meant that for such a high jump there was always the possibility of wind shears moving off the sides of the twenty-thousand-foot mountains. Freeman had decided that they should have high-opening, for this way they would have more time to steer themselves down, and also the drop planes could then turn off and so not encounter the worst of the triple A that festooned the ICBM site further along the southern end of the valley.
As Choir Williams was checking his nine-cell Ram-Air GQ chute, which had cross-port venting as well as both inside-outside stabilizers to help steady the chute in crosscurrent turbulence, Aussie Lewis made some disparaging remark about HAHO. “Oh, I don’t know, Aussie,” Choir said. “I prefer a little time going down to catch the scenery.”
At twenty feet per second, the high-opening descent from twenty-five thousand feet could take up to twenty minutes to half an hour, depending on how much glide was involved.
“We’ll be old men before we get there,” added Aussie, who was checking his insulated Gore Tex battle smock and trousers before getting into his overlay of SAS/D gear.
“All right,” Brentwood said, going down the checklist. “Oxygen masks, wrist altimeter, tether line…”
There were a hundred and one details that had to be checked, particularly the oxygen masks which, because of the danger of altitude sickness, would have to be used not only on the way down but for many on the ground as well after the freezing descent. David Brentwood was finishing getting into his all black SAS/D antiterrorist gear with his combination SF/10 respirator with oxygen tank behind. Even the eyepieces of the mask were blackened so as to withstand the flash of the famous SAS stun grenade. As well, he was sporting a Kevlar vest in black, a black Browning high-power thirteen Parabellum shot pistol, and his stockless Heckler & Koch MP5K belt kit of pouches holding extra magazines, stun and smoke grenades. Now he pulled on his Danner boots. He was pulling on his black leather gloves and checking to make sure his upside-down knife in its sheath was hanging properly from its tether in the middle of his vest.
“Wish I could come along with you boys,” Freeman said, and they knew he was telling the truth. Choir had told the youngest of the commandos how Freeman had led the night raid on Pyongyang in North Korea and on Ratmanov Island. “That was a party, that was,” Choir said. Ratmanov Island was now part of the Freeman legend — how he’d led his men on the drop over the barren wastes of the Bering Strait and fought the special CIS Spetsnaz troops to a standstill in the tunnels.
“He likes tunnels,” another paratrooper said as they waited for Freeman to reach the impromptu dais made up of a wooden loading pallet.
“You think there’ll be tunnels on this one?” a trooper asked.
“Oh no,” Salvini answered. “Don’t think so. What would they be doing with tunnels? Nah, they can just disappear whenever they want. They make themselves invisible, see, and walk straight through the fucking mountain.”
“Hey — no need for the fucking sarcasm.”
“Gentlemen!” It was Freeman, putting on his reading glasses and pulling out an extension pointer that, recessed, looked like a .45 bullet casing. “… your attention.”
Salvini checked the magazine release catch on his HK MP5 and looked at the seven-by-four-foot stand map Freeman was pointing to. The general placed the pointer on central Tibet then let it slide to latitude 30.4 north and longitude 90.62 east near Mount Nyainqemtanglha Feng. Immediately to the south of Lake Nam there was a fifty- mile-long east-west range of mountains twenty thousand feet high running parallel with the lake, a small town called Damquka on the other side of the mountains on the China-Lhasa road. The whole map shuddered and dust spilled from the prefab hangar as more heavy Chinese artillery or a warhead from one of the ICBMs exploded in the distance around the Orgon Tal railhead. “… Between this part of the mountain range that runs southwest to northeast,” Freeman continued, “is a narrow slope that is the land between the mountain range and the lake. The lake is fed by streams from the mountain range, hereafter referred to as me Nyain Range. What we have to do is come down in the valley and head along the base of the mountain until we find the launch site. Once the big door opens, we go in.”
“Sir,” Aussie called out. “Have they got any ground sensors? If so, they’ll hear us coming for miles.”
Brentwood was glad Aussie asked the question. It was at least getting his mind off Alexsandra.
Freeman shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Lewis. Only sensors they have up in there in that godforsaken place are a yak or two.” There was laughter.
“What we depend on, men,” Freeman said, “is surprise and speed. We’ll be in and out before they can get any PLA to us.”
“Why isn’t their PLA camp near the ICBM site, General?” another trooper asked.
“They’re not stupid,” Freeman answered, “that’s why. That’d be a dead giveaway to SATRECON. No, the nearest PLA camp is at Damquka — on the other side of the mountain range. Away from the site but close enough to help with helo gunships. But remember this — it will take them time to realize what’s going on and to send troops over in choppers. That’s twenty thousand feet of mountain they have there, and choppers will have to weave their way carefully through any of the passes, particularly if there’s any overcast. Anyway, the PLA site is over there not so much a guard for the ICBM site, which we weren’t supposed to know about, but rather to keep an eye on the Tibetans along the Lhasa Road. PLA are always hurrying them on through the valley — don’t want them messing around or camping too near the lake and seeing a missile launch. Besides, Beijing has an obsession about Tibet. It wants enough troops in there just to show them who’s boss.”
“Minor question, General.” It was from Aussie. It was a measure of the standing of the elite SAS/D corps that a man from the ranks could address the general in such an informal tone.
“What is it, Lewis?”
“Suppose we bring it off. How are we going to get out?”
“Trust the Aussie,” Freeman said. “Worried about getting home.” There was a general smattering of laughter. “You making book on this, Lewis, or you got some young filly you’re keen to get back to?”
There was an awkward silence, but Freeman, with all the cares of command, could hardly be expected to know how Lewis had fallen head over heels for Alexsandra Malof. Even so, Freeman, with that sixth sense of command, knew he’d made some kind of blooper. Salvini intervened diplomatically. “He’s making book on it, General — as usual.”
The polite laughter among the old SAS/D troopers— about forty out of the eighty — eased the tension, and Norton was speaking softly to Freeman about Alexsandra Malof. Freeman nodded. “Good question, Aussie. How do we get out? The answer is by chopper. We can get MH-53J Paves with drop tanks and in-air refueling.”
“How about triple A fire, sir?” David Brentwood asked.
“Let’s look at the map,” Freeman said. “Now, left to right — southwest to northeast — we have eighty miles of mountain wall. We’re talking here about peaks of twenty thousand feet plus.” There were a few low whistles. “Now the space — the valley between this line of mountains and the lake just to the north running parallel to them — varies between five and seven miles wide with a lot of short, fast-flowing rivers coming down from the mountains into the lake.
“The lake is salty, by the way, and it’s already four thousand meters high, so some of you might need oxygen from your tanks during the attack.
“Another thing — the bases of these mountains, as you can see, are splayed out like so many long, bony chicken feet reaching down toward the lake. SATRECON tells us that all of the AA is between two of these fingers — that is, around the ICBM site. Once we finish and get back out from between those two fingers and behind another one just next to it, their AA will be useless. It can’t fire around corners.
“Also, I want you men to know I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if there were any other way, but remember that after all the hoopla during the Iraqi war we learned that over 70 percent of all bombs dropped on Iraq failed to hit their target. And that, gentlemen, was in a desert, not in a chain of mountains like the Himalayas. We’ve got no other way of doing it. You have to go in there and take it out. You’ll be given fighter escort and support as far as weather allows. Triple A boys want to compete, then our boys’ 30mm cannon and ATG missiles
