The trouble was he knew exactly what he was doing here, and he tried to imagine the big long-range bomber heading south toward him. He glanced at his watch every thirty seconds. It was 2334. He did not know it, but Colonel Jaxtimer was out over the northern end of the lake. And Chuck Ryder was counting. The laser marker had just started “painting” on the aircraft’s receiver, the final seconds now ticking automatically.
Lieutenant Ryder quietly, professionally, helping to keep his Colonel on track, confirmed, “Red light, sir. Bomb doors open…
“Looking good, sir…on track…left…left…on track…on track…6238, sir…that’s it…bombs gone.” No elation. No emphasis. Just quiet information.
Beneath the great bulk of the US Stratofortress, the doors of the weapons bay, in the central fuselage section, between the fore and aft sets of wheels, began to close behind the falling canisters, which were already hurtling through the darkness, straight down the laser beam.
The eight mighty Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofan jets powering the B-52 on toward Moscow left behind a deafening, throaty growl, but it was still not quite audible to the SEALs waiting in the mud below.
Lieutenant Commander Hunter and his men, hunched away from the driving rain, stared at the sky to the north, alert for any warning they might get of the arrival of the canisters. It was almost impossible to see more than about twenty feet above them, and right now there was only blackness. “Should have been here minutes ago,” thought Rick. “Useless fuckers. Have they missed us? Jesus Christ…There’s no way I’m gonna see anything before one of these containers fucking well kills me. But if they don’t drop real close, we’ll never find them. Jesus Christ.”
But then, he suddenly heard the first whisperings of the big Air Force jet engines, high above. “That’s gotta be them,” he thought, his heartbeat rising. And then he saw it — a ghostly shape, almost directly above and very close, falling slightly to one side, jet black. It seemed to swing against the wind. Fast, now slow, silent, and menacing, like a dreadful hooded vampire, swooping low out of the night.
Before the SEAL leader could move more than three paces it was down, landing with a heavy thud in the soft ground not ten yards from where they stood. The field shook, and the parachute billowed and rustled in the wind as Rick wrestled it under control. He called softly into the dark, “Got one. Heads up for the other two.” To himself he muttered, “Holy shit! How
He heard Chief Cernic say softly, “Here’s one right now…LEFT…LEFT…right there.” And the second canister hit the field almost simultaneously. The third followed five seconds later, twenty yards farther to the south.
“That,” thought Lieutenant Commander Hunter, “was the goddamndest thing I ever saw.” Even more startling, he decided, than the day he and his team blew the engine of General Noriega’s yacht three hundred feet into the air by mistake.
Rick and Ray headed for the nearest canister. “What d’you think, boss?” asked the Lieutenant from Massachusetts. “Do we open it and take a look, or do we just rush all three of them right back over to the woods?”
“The latter,” whispered Rick. “Let’s just get ’em the hell out of this exposed field. Fred, you take the parachutes. Get over to the wood and look for a good spot to bury them with the canisters…leave another chemical marker at the edge of the wood. We’ll start on the first load right away. What are the handles like?”
“Good. Well balanced right in the center,” said the Chief Petty Officer. “Wide with padded leather grips. Big enough for a two-handed hold if necessary.” He grabbed one and lifted. “Christ,” he said. “These things are
Rick’s soaking wet brow furrowed. And he prayed the guys back at Coronado had not misjudged the weight, prayed that he and Ray could lift the canisters. He slipped his big farmer’s hand into the grip of the handle and heaved. The canister came off the ground easily. “Not too bad,” he said. “We can get these over the field and into the trees, but it ain’t gonna be easy — the grass is so damned slippery.”
“Okay, sir,” said the Chief. “I got the first ’chute free. You’re off.”
“Beautiful,” thought Ray. “You’ve made it possible for me to get a hernia…I’ll probably have died from exposure and pain before we get to the next one.”
The Chief quietly confirmed that he now had all three canisters, and the chemical marker at the wall, set up on the GPS. “No one’s gonna get lost unless the GPS dies on us. If you two lose contact, make two short owl-hoots. But stay dead on 130, that’ll take you to the marker on the wall, and on to the wood, where there’s another. If there’s real trouble, that’s three owl-hoots, and we all head for the wall, no matter what.
“By the time I pick our burying spot and get back to the marker light, you two should be there with the first canister. Don’t crash into the goddamned wall like I did.”
“Okay, Chief. Take the left side for your right arm, Ray. We’ll swap sides at a hundred paces.”
The two SEALs lifted the 250-pound canister. Ray’s heart skipped a beat at the weight of it. When he thought of the trek across the slippery grass in the now-driving rain, the bravado drained from him. Rainwater streamed down his face, and he closed his eyes. “This is going to be hard,” he said to himself. “Pace yourself, Ray, old buddy. And please, please God don’t let me fail.” It was the same prayer that had sustained him through Hell Week.
“It worked then,” he thought. “It’d better work now.” He began to move forward, trying to find a rhythm, trying to settle into a regular stride, trying to ignore the fact that this huge weight was much easier for the massively strong Rick Hunter than it would ever be for him. The first twenty strides were not that bad, but the rain was coming down in sheets, and the wind was rising. Both men were shivering uncontrollably as they fought their way through the pitch black darkness, sliding on the muddy patches, struggling for a foothold. Rick was trying to keep one eye on the dim glow of the compass, trying to hold the flickering arrow on 130. He was also trying to adjust their direction, pulling the canister around, when he went down for the first time, thumping forward onto his knees.
The force of the huge, unbalanced weight heaved Ray Schaeffer forward, and he pitched heavily into the field, breaking his fall with his right fist at the last second. They had gone only forty yards, and Rick climbed to his feet and made two owl-calls into the night. They both heard the Chief answer, “What’s up?”
“Bring the clothes bag, will you. I’ll talk you in…Ray, we gotta stop assing around here like a coupla second- class mud wrestlers…gotta get our stuff off before it gets torn and filthy — that means trousers, shirts, sweaters, and parkas. We can get back in the ship looking a bit wet, but if we stay dressed we’re gonna look like a coupla walking shitheaps on the upper deck. We can’t risk it…We’ll finish this in shorts and sneakers.”
“You mean I’m about to contract pneumonia and a hernia,” said Ray. “Sweet.” He climbed back to his feet and stripped down to his undergarments and stuffed them into Fred’s plastic black garbage bag. And then he grasped the handle on the canister once more, and he and Rick Hunter set off again in driving rain, clad only in their shorts and sneakers. Course 130. The temperature had dropped to 37 degrees Fahrenheit. In the rain and wind, it felt closer to freezing. Neither SEAL mentioned the cold. They just kept moving forward, toward the three-foot-high wall.
After sixty more paces they changed sides. Ray was sweating and shivering at the same time. The cold water streamed down his body, and his left arm was throbbing. He turned to try and grab the handle with two hands, but as he twisted he fell forward into the mud. The canister came down heavily on the back of his thigh, shoving his knee into a sharp flint.
He heard Rick Hunter mutter “Jesus” and felt the great weight move off his leg as the Lieutenant Commander, with an outrageous display of strength, pulled the heavy metal cylinder off him.
“You okay, Ray?”
“Yup. Fine. Just lemme get a grip.”
He struggled to his feet, feeling the warm blood streaming down his leg, feeling the rain trying to wash it away. He hoped the cut was not deep, but there was no time to find out. He grabbed the handle again with his left hand and walked forward, counting the strides as he went. He knew the wall must be close, and he hauled at the canister with every ounce of his strength, trying to ignore the pain in his arm, to dig deep within himself, as he had done so often before, when the chips were down. He did not dare to question whether he could repeat this two more times. He
“Here’s the wall, Ray.” The welcome words were whipped away by the wind. And then Rick Hunter said, “Okay, let’s rest for one minute, then we’ll get this baby on top of the stones, and drag it down the other side.” Chief Cernic materialized out of the darkness and announced he was heading back into the middle of the field, where the two remaining canisters rested in the mud.
