Line of Control - Tom Clancy [15]
August turned him down twice. He did not want to spend most of his time on a base, working with young specialists. It. Colonel Charlie Squires got the post. After Squires was killed on a mission in Russia, Rodgers came to his old friend again. Two years had passed since Rodgers had first made the offer. But things were different now. The team was shaken by the loss and he needed a commander who could get them back up to speed as fast as possible. This time August could not refuse. It was not only friendship. There were national security issues at stake.
The NCMC had become a vital force in crisis management and Op-Center needed Striker.
The colonel looked toward the back of the plane. He watched the group as they sat silently through the slow, thunderous ascent. The quick-response unit turned out to be more than August had expected.
Individually, they were extraordinary.
Before joining Striker, Sergeant Chick Grey had specialized in two things. One was HALO operations-high-altitude, low-opening parachute jumps. As his commander at Bragg had put it when recommending Grey for the post, "the man can fly." Grey had the ability to pull his ripcord lower and land more accurately than any soldier in Delta history. He attributed this to having a rare sensitivity to air currents. Grey believed that also helped with his second skill-marksmanship. Not only could the sergeant hit whatever he said he could, he had trained himself to go without blinking for as long as necessary. He'd developed that ability when he realized that all it took was the blink of an eye to miss the "keyhole," as he called it.
The instant when the target was in perfect position for a takedown.
August felt a special kinship with Grey because the sergeant was at home in the air. But August was close to all his personnel. Privates David George, Jason Scott, Terrence Newmeyer, Walter Pupshaw, Matt Bud, and Sondra Devon the Medic William Musicant, Corporal Pat Prementine, and Lieutenant Orjuela. They were more than specialists.
They were a team. And they had more courage, more heart than any unit August had ever worked with.
Newly promoted Corporal Ishi Honda was another marvel.
The son of a Hawaiian mother and Japanese father, Honda was an electronics prodigy and the unit's communications expert. He was never far from the TAC-SAT phone, which Colonel August and Rodgers used to stay in touch with Op Center The backpack containing the unit was lined with bullet-proof Kevlar so it would not be damaged in a firefight.
Because it was so loud in the cabin Honda sat with the TACSAT in his lap. He did not want to miss hearing any calls.
When he was in the field, Honda wore a Velcro collar and headphones of his own creation. They plugged directly into the pack. When the collar was jacked in, the "beep" was automatically disengaged; the collar simply vibrated when there was an incoming call. If Striker were on a surveillance mission there was no sound to give them away.
Moreover, the collar was wired with small condenser microphones that allowed Honda to communicate subvocally. He could whisper and his voice would be transferred clearly to whoever was on the other end.
But Striker was more than just a group of military elite drawn from different services. It. Colonel Squires had done an extraordinary job turning them into a smart, disciplined fighting unit. They were certainly the most impressive team August had ever served with.
The plane banked to the south and August's old leather portfolio slid from under his seat. He kicked it back with his heel. The bag contained maps and white papers about Kashmir.
The colonel had already reviewed them with his team.
He would look at them again in a few minutes. Right now August wanted to do what he did before beginning every mission. He wanted to try and figure out why he was here, why he was going. That was