Pirate - Duncan Falconer [102]
‘You’ll have a chance to avenge him,’ the captain said.
Stratton wondered what he meant. It could have been a general ‘you’, as in the service. Or he might have meant Stratton personally. The captain had clearly been told about an operation of some kind.
‘Scopus inbound one minute,’ a voice boomed over the ship’s loudspeaker system.
‘That’s your boys,’ the skipper said.
Stratton looked in the direction the captain was gazing. The skies were cloudy but they were thin, streaky and very high. Typical for altostratus formations.
A helicopter started up. Stratton looked around to see the rotors beginning to turn on the nearest Sea King, several crew members climbing on board. Other Sea Kings came to life down the line.
‘There they are,’ the captain said above the growing high-pitched sound of engines.
The old man was looking skyward. Stratton followed his gaze to see a small, distant cluster of black. It wasn’t long before it separated into three aircraft. As they drew closer they became large cargo carriers, too big to land on the ship. That could only mean one thing. They were going to drop something. And the Sea Kings would collect the delivery.
Before long all but one of the Sea Kings had started its engines. Stratton thought about asking the captain to elaborate but decided not to. He would find out in good time.
As the three aircraft got closer Stratton decided they were C-130s, flying at around a thousand feet. The sound of the helicopter engines increased. The turbulence from the rotors reversed the direction of the wind that had been blowing in the men’s faces and whipped at the backs of their clothing.
The transport aircraft lost height as they passed down the length of the ship a kilometre away in a staggered formation. All had their tailgates open.
The lead Sea King lifted off the deck, turned its tail towards the superstructure, lowered its nose and moved away from the ship. The next craft carried out the same manoeuvre and the others followed in turn.
As the helicopters flew in a broad arc around the front of the vessel the sound of their engines and throbbing rotors decreased enough for the jet propellers that powered the fixed-wing cargos to be heard in the distance.
Stratton and the captain watched as the Hercules turned far beyond the stern of the ship before straightening up on a heading that would bring them down the port side. The two men stepped across to that side of the ship where they could see the drop take place.
All three aircraft had lost yet more height and were coming at the ship barely a few hundred metres above the grey, choppy waters.
When the lead cargo plane had got close enough to make out the pilots in the cockpit, a large parachute deployed from the back, which in turn dragged out a bundle the size of a small car. Closely followed by another and then a dozen more. Seconds after each chute fully deployed the bundle swung down and hit the water with a foaming crash.
The following aircraft released a similar load in a line alongside the first. The last aircraft roared by a little further out to sea but just as low. As before, the first thing they saw appear out of the rear tailgate was a parachute, smaller than those attached to the other bundles. But this time, on the end of each, dangled a man. Over forty individual chutes, the first man hitting the water barely seconds after he had deployed and long before the last chute had exited.
The sound of other powerful engines came from below as several launches sped from the Ocean in the direction of the drop.
Stratton wondered what the bundles contained. He assumed the squadron would be heading into Somalia and he considered how he might carry out an operation like that based on everything he had reported about the target location. Which would have to be the jihadists’ camp because that’s where the missiles were. If you were going to assault the camp, you couldn’t use helicopters. Not without pinging up on their radar. Choppers could be used to drop off teams far from the