SWANSON SLAMMED BELLY first onto the downward sloping side of a small sand dune and skidded, rolled, and bounced over and over before his tumbling body came to a stop at the bottom of the wadi. An explosion that would be heard for miles detonated behind him, and pieces of the disintegrating helicopters whizzed overhead and whiplashed the sands. He lay dazed, almost unconscious, trying to get some air into his lungs.
He lay motionless for about thirty seconds before coming out of his stupor, choking and gasping while his brain reeled and his face felt as if he had been punched by a young Mike Tyson on his best day. He pushed into a sitting position and used two fingers to dig gobs of sand out of his cheeks, then found his canteen and poured water over his face, sluicing it in his mouth and spitting it out. He doused his bandanna with water and rubbed his aching eyes. Blood came away on the cloth, and he explored his face until he found the gash across the bridge of his nose where the helmet had cracked him. In times of dire emergency, he knew, it was best to take a moment to gather his wits before doing anything at all, so he pressed the bandanna against the cut, flopped back against the sand, and took deep breaths, repeating his personal mantra softly: Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.
When he felt able to move, he crawled to the top of the dune and looked in horrible fascination at the wreckage that only moments before had been two powerful transport helicopters loaded with combat-ready Marines. It was hard to tell one of the birds from the other now because they had come down in a heap, cutting each other into chunks and merging into a single pile of smoldering wreckage. Twisting columns of red and yellow and orange flames spun into the dark sky.
Swanson dropped his gear and ran to the wreckage, stepping through the hot, sharp metal and pockets of burning debris to check for signs of life and finding only bodies and parts of bodies. There were no moans, no cries for help. Had the Marines been seated and strapped in, some might have survived, but he found nothing but carnage. The machines had slaughtered each other as well as every human being aboard except him.
Almost thirty men had been killed, and the scene sickened him. “Fuck me,” Swanson said. He turned away, took a few steps, and threw up.
It was a fiery end for the ambitious plan that the briefers had predicted would be a cakewalk. Motherfucking Mr. Murphy and his bad-luck law had shown up early on this one, and Kyle, breathing deeply, forced himself back into the cold reality of the moment. Get your shit together!
He could see if there was a workable radio and call the Fleet, where everyone would be listening to the net. But Washington probably was also plugged into the radio chatter, and the White House would simply hand the assassination job to someone else. If Swanson called for help, General Middleton would surely die.
Think, damn it, think! If he didn’t call, everyone would think that he was dead, too. But that would allow him to work alone, and although Buchanan would probably still assign another assassin, Kyle stood a good chance of reaching the general first because he was already on the ground.
Hell, he should be dead anyway, so why not continue the mission by himself, in total secrecy? The odds were astronomical, but Kyle would not allow himself to think of it as a suicide trip. That’s it, then. Just get on with it! Go! New confidence surged through him like electricity.
He looked toward the village, which was about fifteen hundred meters away. That distance had not been changed by the crash. The helicopters had come down right where they were supposed to, just in a terribly wrong way. With the crash, the jig was up as far as surprise went, and everybody in the village might be temporarily stunned by what happened, but they would be coming his way in a hurry. Time was not his friend.
He went back into the wreckage and gathered canteens of water, more ammo, plenty of blocks of C-4 explosive, a couple of Claymore mines, a portable satellite telephone that still had power, and a survival radio from one of the pilots. He snapped them both off. Even when not in active use they would still send electronic signals, and when the little green power lights vanished, Swanson could no longer be tracked. On the screens, he was dead. He found an M-16 rifle, locked and loaded.
A glance at his watch showed him that three minutes had flown by, and he still had two more important chores.
Kyle stepped over bodies and debris until he was beside the little Kawasaki motorcycle. He gave it a quick check and it seemed undamaged, having been held tight on the deck throughout the disaster. Unlike the Marines, it had been professionally secured, and Kyle unsheathed his big knife, cut away the loading bands, and pushed it out. He loaded everything he had on it and rested it on the kickstand.
Now came the hard part, leaving a clue for Shari, something only she would recognize. She was in the informational loop about the mission, and would assume that he had died in the crash. He wanted to let her know he had survived, but also to provide some misdirection for anyone else.
He scanned the dead Marines and found one in the jumble of corpses, someone whose face could not be recognized but was about Kyle’s size. The rubber-rimmed dog tag identified the man as Lance Corporal Harold McDowell, and his neck had been snapped when he was thrown against the bulkhead. A Marine Corps tattoo was inked on his right forearm. The kid had been proud to be a warrior and would not object to doing one more job.
Kyle exchanged the neck dog tag with his own. “It’s this way, McDowell,” Swanson whispered while he untied the kid’s left boot, then his own, speaking to the pale face. “I need your help here. The bad guys are going to be looking for survivors. If they figure out some crazy sniper is missing, they’ll really start hunting. If a radioman is missing, no offense, they won’t give a rat’s ass and think you will holler for help and get picked up sooner or later. You would pose no threat to them.”
Kyle unbuckled the big radio from the dead man’s shoulders. He would dispose of it later, but he needed to take it along to complete the disguise and misdirection play. The pursuers would logically believe that a missing radioman would have kept his radio. “And for the good guys, well, Harold, some of them ain’t so good. For this plan to have any chance of working, we need those assholes to also think I’m dead. That’s where you come in, Harold. What did they call you: Hal? Mac? So convince them that you are me, okay, Lance Corporal McDowell?” Swanson stood and threw the youngster a quick salute. “Semper fi.”
He hustled over to the bike, hooked the radio pack over the handlebars, straddled the motorcycle, and, with a prayer, pushed the starter button. The little engine coughed once, then kicked to life, ready to run. His wristwatch showed that he had used up his time cushion, about six minutes since the helos went down.
He adjusted his night-vision goggles and drove away from the wreckage, the muffled exhaust helping avoid making any more noise than necessary. In the unlikely case that someone from the village figured out there was a survivor, Swanson steered the motorcycle to the east, leaving clear tracks that would indicate he was running to the Israeli border.
A minute later, he was on the paved road that ran through the village behind him, and far enough away from the wreckage to pile on a little more speed with the 1,200-cc engine. Dawn was coming, and he had to be invisible by then.
When radio contact was broken between the operations center aboard the USS Wasp and the TRAP team helos, several minutes elapsed while the sailors at the consoles tried to reestablish a voice link. A download from a stationary satellite watching the area showed a flash in the darkness and the lingering bloom of immense heat at the landing zone.
Colonel Ralph Sims, commander of the 33rd Marine Expeditionary Unit, chewed a fingernail. “Get the Harriers in there to take a look,” he ordered, and the pair of fighter jets broke out of their orbit over Israel, heeled over from 40,000 feet, dropped to the ground, and sped into Syrian airspace riding their afterburners. Nearing the scene, they saw the fire, cut their speed, coasted over the wreckage, banked into a sharp turn, and ran past it again.
Aboard the Wasp, the speakers crackled in the quiet commo room. “Henhouse, this is Rooster One. They’re down and burning,” a pilot reported.
“Survivors?” Sims asked. The radioman relayed the question.
“Negative. No sign of life or movement at the scene, but there are bad guys coming out from the target zone. Request permission to engage.”
Sims wanted to say, “Hell, yes,” but could not. An attack run by the Harriers would probably result in casualties among Syrian civilians, which would make a bad situation a lot worse. It was time to call it a day. “Negative,” he barked, and turned to the commander of the ship’s Marine Air Wing. “Get those planes back home.”
The Tactical Air Center sent the order. “Egress! Egress! Egress!”
The pilot hesitated. “Henhouse, Rooster One. What about a bombing run on the wreckage? I can torch the scene.”
“Negative,” came the immediate reply from Colonel Sims. He needed higher authority for that, and didn’t have time to get it. He would message Washington for permission to send in a Cruise missile for that demolition job. “Repeat. Negative. Return to base.”
“Rooster One. Roger that. I copy egress, return to base.” The Rooster Flight headed home.
He heard his wingman come on the air. “Rooster Two to Rooster One, push to Rooster freak.” Both pilots switched to another frequency so they could talk without being overheard.
“Go ahead, Two, this is Rooster One.”
“Boss, did I copy that last right? We really leaving these guys behind?”
“You heard the same thing I did.”
“I know, but what about ‘Marines don’t leave their own’?”
The flight leader’s temper was simmering. He felt the same way, but because he was in command, he could not agree with his friend over an open radio channel. “One to Two. You saw it as good as I did. They’re all dead!”
“Well, if they weren’t then, they are now. Or worse.”
“That’s enough, Rooster Two. Follow your orders. Rooster One out.”
The Harriers hugged the ground as they dashed back to Israeli airspace, where they would climb high for the rest of the return flight to the Wasp. The pilots remained silent, lost in thought about a rescue raid that had flipped into total disaster. Rooster One knew that by flying away, they were erasing any chance American survivors might escape captivity, torture, or death. “Please, God, don’t let me see one of those kids show up on Al Jazeera,” he said in a soft prayer, words that would never leave his cockpit.
Aboard the Wasp, Colonel Ralph Sims sent the message about the cruise missile to Washington, then walked rigidly out of the command center, seeking fresh air and a moment of privacy. He lit a cigarette and thought about his Marines lying entombed in the helicopters in Syria. There would be a lot of investigations, and people, including him, would probably lose their jobs. At the moment, he didn’t really care, for he had a bigger worry, one that was much more personal. What the hell am I supposed to tell their families?
The sky was losing its blackness, and the first rays of the new day crawled across the Middle East.