Chapter 72
“I hope the surface winds this station is reporting are accurate,” Harrison said from the right seat.
“They’ve been consistent,” Driscoll reasoned, checking the wind vector on his navigation display. “We’re showing fifty-two knots up here, but they’re almost always less at ground level. What’s the distance to our projected LZ?”
“Four miles. But I’m still not seeing the ice.”
Both men looked down and saw nothing but gray clouds. They had been stairstepping lower, a thousand feet at a time, trying to get beneath the base cloud layer.
“I’m going to take her down to fifteen hundred,” Driscoll said.
He kicked off the autopilot to hand-fly the Herc.
It turned out to be serious work. The controls gyrated his hands like a wobbly jackhammer as wind gusts battered the hulking aircraft.
He fought to keep their flight path steady, and slowly the altimeter edged lower.
At 1,800 feet the clouds went ragged. At 1,500 they broke into the clear, such as it was.
“I can see the surface,” Driscoll said, “but it’s pretty dark. There’s not much natural light up here on a good day and this storm is making it worse.”
“You want me to turn on the landing lights?”
This was a double-edged sword. They would need the lights in the endgame to see the landing surface. But turning them on now, in the mist, would be like flicking on the bright lights of a car in the fog—it might only wash out what they could see in the distance.
“Hold off on that. What’s the latest visibility at the station?”
“It was terrible an hour ago, but now it’s two miles.”
“That’s generous. I’d say one and a half at best.”
“I’ve got a solid beacon at the landing zone. Two point five miles to go.”
Driscoll eased the aircraft down to a thousand feet, thankful there was no terrain to worry about. The fog lessened. “Okay, give me the landing lights. I want to get the best possible look at what we’re going to touch down on.”
Harrison flicked on the landing lights. This aircraft had been upgraded to new LED bulbs and turning them on under normal conditions was like switching on the floodlights of a stadium. They illuminated in all their brilliance, reflecting off wisps of cloud above and the ice sheet below.
“A mile and a half,” Harrison announced.
“There!” Driscoll pointed slightly to the right.
Two rows of steady white lights were fronted by a single row of red lights.
Driscoll banked right and descended, flying directly over the LZ at 500 feet and two hundred knots.
Harrison marked the precise position of the front edge of the improvised runway in the navigation computer.
Both pilots tried to gauge the surface. The first 500 feet, which was illuminated by the edge lights on the ground, looked relatively smooth.
Beyond that, there wasn’t enough light to make a determination.
“Did you see anybody?” Driscoll asked.
“No, but that’s hardly surprising in this weather. Headquarters has been in contact with them, and they say everyone is positioned for the exfil. Do you want to make more low passes before we land?”
The aircraft commander considered it. “Normally I’d want two or three more, but we don’t have the gas.”
“One?”
It was a tough call. Before landing on any unprepared surface, it was a virtual requirement to perform multiple overflights at low altitude to gauge the conditions.
“Yeah,” Driscoll said. “We’ve gotta take one more look.” He banked the airplane and raised the nose higher, beginning a box pattern to the left.
“Even with one more, we’re putting a lot of trust in the guys who set up this LZ.”
“This ground team supposedly knows what they’re doing.”
A new message chimed via secure comm.
“What now?” Driscoll asked, unable to divert his attention from flying the airplane.
“Message relayed from JSOC. They say we need to land ASAP. There’s an enemy force inbound.”
“Enemy force? What enemy force?”
As if in answer, another chime sounded. Harrison read the follow-on. “It says enemy infantry approaching LZ. Take all necessary precautions and expedite exfiltration.”
“Precautions? What the hell does that mean? This isn’t a damned Spooky gunship. We don’t even have chaff or flares loaded in the dispensers.”
The pilots exchanged a brief glance.
The 109th Airlift Wing’s aircraft were rarely rigged with combat in mind.
The unit’s mission was, almost exclusively, to support research cold-weather stations in the Arctic and Antarctic.
There had been no mention of ground threats in previous communications.
Apart from all that, this seemed like the unlikeliest place on the planet to encounter an enemy force.
That said, the rushed nature of this mission, the risks they were being ordered to undertake—everything about this op was unique in both their experiences.
“I was afraid we might be looking at something like this,” said Harrison.
“Yeah, it was in the back of my mind too. But now we’ve got friendlies on the ground who are going to be in deep trouble if we can’t get them out. You up for giving it a try?”
“Let’s do it!”
“Then here we go.”
Harrison programmed navigation references to line them up with the improvised runway.
Driscoll gave Carruthers an update on their situation, telling the loadmaster to strap in tightly, and emphasizing that their time on the ground had to be kept to an absolute minimum.
The loadie acknowledged the order and then asked, “Want me to put up the flag in the cargo bay?”
“Great idea,” Driscoll replied. They kept an American flag on board to fly the colors on high-profile missions. And what better time than now?
Driscoll flew onto the programmed final approach referencing his instruments.
Soon they were below the clouds again, and the lights of the LZ emerged from the mist. From four miles away it looked impossibly small.
Both pilots alternated between their duties and scanning outside, paying particular attention for the telltale flickering of small-arms fire.
So far there was nothing. Only a tiny island of lights in the middle of a frozen wilderness.