Line of Control - Tom Clancy [92]
"Which means that if we can't smuggle the cell through we will have to repel a much larger force," August told the group.
"For various reasons negotiation is not an option," Rodgers added.
"We have to get past them one way or the other."
The general looked at the faces of his troops. With the exception of the medic, all of these soldiers had been in battle. Most of them had killed. They had shed the blood of others, usually at a distance. They had seen the blood of their teammates, which typically fanned their rage and made the blood of the enemy invisible. They had also faced superior odds. Rodgers was confident that they would give this effort everything they had.
Rodgers listened as Colonel August talked about the strategy they would employ upon landing. Typically, they would go behind enemy lines carrying mines. Two or three operatives would form a subgroup. They would go ahead and plant the mines along the team's route to protect them from enemies.
They would also throw out substances such as powdered onion or raw meat to confuse and mislead attack dogs.
They did not see dogs in the photographs and hoped that the animals were not part of the army units.
Since there were apparently four members of the cell, plus Friday and the two Indians, August had decided to go forward in an ABBA formation.
There would be a Striker in front and behind each group of two Pakistanis. That would enable Striker to control the rate of progress and to watch the personnel they were escorting. Neither Herbert nor Rodgers expected any resistance from the cell. From everything they had been told, both groups wanted the same thing. To reach Pakistan alive.
As for the Indian force, the American team was prepared to move at nightfall, wage a guerrilla campaign, or simply dig in, wait them out, and execute an end run when possible. They would do whatever it took to survive.
Striker had drilled for this maneuver high in the Rockies.
They called it their red, white, and blue exercise. During the course of two hours their fingers had gone from red to white to blue. At least they knew what they would be facing. Once they reached the ground they would know how to pace themselves.
The only uncertainty was what might happen on the way down. That was still what concerned Rodgers the most.
They were approximately ten thousand feet up. That was not as long as most high-altitude, low-opening jumps. Those operations typically began at thirty-two-thousand feet. The HALO teams would go out with oxygen-heavy breathing apparatus to keep from suffering hypoxemia. They would also use barometric triggers to activate their chutes at an altitude of roughly two thousand feet above the target. They did that in case the jumper suffered one of two possible ailments.
The first was barometric trauma, the result of air being trapped in the intestines, ears, and sinuses and causing them to expand painfully. The other was stress-induced hyperventilation, common in combat situations.
Especially when jumpers could be aloft for as long as seventy or eighty minutes. That gave them a lot of alone-time to think, particularly about missing the target. At an average drift rate of ten feet for every hundred feet of fall, that was a concern for every jumper. Breathing bottled oxygen at a rapid pace due to stress could cause a lowering of blood carbon dioxide and result in unconsciousness.
Though neither of those would be a problem at this lower height, it was two thousand feet higher than they had practiced in the Rocky Mountains.
And even there, then-Striker Bass Moore had broken his left leg.
Lean Sergeant Chick Grey was chewing gum, un flustered as always.
There was a bit more iron determination and aggression in the eyes of waspish privates David George, Jason Scott, and Terrence Newmeyer.
Corporal Pat Prementine and Private Matt Bud were popping gloved knuckles and shifting in place, as full of rough-and-tumble energy as always. And the excitable Private Walter Pupshaw looked as if he wanted to tear off someone's head and spit down the windpipe. That was normal