Skeleton Coast

Five minutes out Tiny turned on a yellow warning light that told the men to don their supplemental oxygen. The cylinders were strapped across their chests and fed air through heavy rubber tubes. Cabrillo and the others slipped the masks over their mouths and noses and adjusted the airflow, then do

Gunderson closed the cockpit door, and a moment later the motor that controlled the rear ramp began to whine. The noise was instantly overwhelmed by the roar of freezing air that scoured the cargo hold like a hurricane. A loose piece of paper whipped past Cabrillo and was sucked out into the night sky.

He could feel the subzero temperatures on his cheeks, the only ex posed part of his body. He adjusted the thick scarf he’d wrapped around his neck to protect his skin.

When the ramp was fully deployed the rear of the plane was an inky black hole with nothing to delineate the sky from the featureless desert except for the blaze of stars visible above the horizon. From this altitude Juan felt he could almost reach out and touch them.

“Comm check,” he called into his throat mike and one by one his men answered on the tactical net.

The yellow light began to blink. One minute to go.

For the hundredth time since getting onto the plane Juan mentally went through the steps he’d take exiting the aircraft, how he’d move forward and let himself fall and immediately arch his back, spreading his arms and legs to maximize his resistance through the air to lessen the jolt of the chute deploying. He could tell by the closed eyes and concentrated looks that the others were doing the same mental exercise.

The engines changed pitch as Tiny began a slight climb, and as the deck started to tilt, the yellow light winked off and was replaced by a green one.

Unlike any other type of commando drop, the men didn’t need to leap from the aircraft in a tight bunch.

With so little free fall, HAHO jumpers had ample time to regroup in the air and avoid becoming separated. One by one the men shuffled forward and disappeared out the stern ramp. The lightweight motorcycles dropped from under them as each arched his back before pulling his rip cords. When Juan got to the lip of the ramp he could see four tiny lights mounted on top of the chutes indicating their successful deployment. When they neared the Devil’s Oasis the lights would be switched to infrared globes they could discern through night vision goggles.

Cabrillo rolled his bike into the void like a rock star doing a stage dive, his arms outstretched and his back arching in a perfectly executed jump. The slipstream buffeted him but he was able to maintain his pose, and when he felt himself begi

The drogue shoot sprang free and filled with air, its resistance drawing the main chute out of its bag.

Juan knew almost immediately there was a problem. The chute snagged for an instant coming out of its sack and the expected jolt of it blooming open didn’t come. Air resistance against the partially inflated chute snapped him vertical but he continued to plummet with the rippling of nylon over his head sounding like a sail luffing in a stiff breeze.

Looking up it was too dark to tell what had happened, but he’d made enough jumps to know that the riser lines had tangled.

While his next movements were unhurried, his mind was racing. He was silently cursing himself as he tried to jimmy the lines free by torquing his body and yanking on the cords. He’d packed the chute, so its failure was entirely his fault; if he couldn’t get the risers sorted out he’d put the entire mission in jeopardy.

He had plenty of altitude so he continued to struggle with the lines, but as he approached twenty thousand feet he had a decision to make. If he fell much further and managed to deploy the chute he’d never be able to glide all the way to the prison. Even with the built-in safety factor Eddie had determined using their glide to fall ratio he’d land well short of the Devil’s Oasis. On the other hand, if he had to cut it away and rely on his much smaller spare he’d be too low to paraglide close enough to the coast for George to pick him up in the chopper.

He glanced at the digital altimeter strapped to his wrist. He’d passed through nineteen thousand.

With a curse he cut away the motorcycle’s tether, hit the releases, and fell out of the fluttering main chute. Dropping free automatically popped the drogue for his auxiliary and for the first time since pulling the rip cord Cabrillo allowed himself to consider his circumstances. If the spare fouled he had roughly three minutes to contemplate what barreling into the desert floor at a hundred and twenty miles per hour would feel like. Whatever the feeling, he knew it would be brief.

With a whoosh his backup parachute blossomed like a black flower and the pain of the straps tightening between his legs and across his shoulders was the most sublime of Cabrillo’s life.

“Beau Geste to Death Valley Scotty,” he called over his mike. The call signs were Max’s idea of humor and had been his contribution to the mission.

“Either you are in one hell of a hurry to get on the ground,” Eddie replied, “or you had a problem.”

“Main chute fouled. I had to cut it away.”

“What’s your altitude, Beau?”

“Eighteen thousand five hundred.”

“Give me a second.”

“Standing by, Scotty.”

It was Eddie’s job to lead the team to their target so he carried a portable jump computer as well as their GPS.

“Okay, Beau, using maximum brake you’re falling about fourteen feet per second. That gives you twenty-two minutes aloft.” Even carrying the dirt bikes, the rest of the men would be airborne for twice that amount of time due to their large ram-air chutes. “Winds at your altitude are still hitting about fifty knots but that’ll slow as you get closer to the ground.”

“Roger that.”

“I estimate you’ll land about four hundred miles inland from the coast.” Because the prevailing winds ranged east to west the men had jumped when the plane was almost to the Botswanan border. Juan would land well beyond the Robinson helicopter’s ability to reach him and return to the ship, even with drop tanks.

“I’ll have to wait for a land recovery,” Juan said. “Scotty, with one of the bikes so much junk down below, your number one priority is Merrick and Donleavy. You won’t be able to carry one of the kidnappers so just forget it.”

It was losing the opportunity to interrogate one of the kidnappers that angered Cabrillo the most. That and the fact his men were going into harm’s way without him.

“Understood, Beau.” Already the distance between the main group of men and Juan was taxing their tactical radios’ range. Eddie’s voice sounded ti

Juan tried to think of anything else he needed to say before he could no longer speak with the team, but they had gone over everything enough times so all he said was, “Good luck, Beau Geste out.”

“Same to you. Death Valley Scotty, over and out.”

Though he didn’t expect any more communications with his men Juan left on the radio just in case.

To maximize the amount of time in the air and thus distance over the ground Cabrillo had to fly the parafoil so it teetered on the edge of stalling. He had to force the toggles that controlled the chute’s aerodynamic shape to his waist. It took strength and coordination, but mostly it took will to ignore the bitter cold and the pain that began to build in his shoulders and quickly spread across his back and the rippled muscles of his stomach.