Rogue Element

There was room for thirty or more soldiers in the cavernous space. The aircraft had been well thought out. It could airlift a platoon-size force plus gear. And it didn’t require a landing strip at its destination because it could land and take off vertically. Wilkes saw the sense in such an aircraft immediately. With its range and speed, the V22 also gave the US marine and navy ships the ability to stand off a troubled coastline further than ever before, way out of the destructive reach of the enemy’s missile envelope. And, with its obvious cargo-carrying ability, the V22 would make an ideal resupply vehicle. It allowed the marines to get in and out quick, and hit harder and more effectively when and where it counted.

The LM handed Wilkes and his men abseil harnesses. Wilkes climbed into the webbing, fastened the straps comfortably, and then checked the assembly for error. He identified the rope on which he would exit the rear of the V22. It was colour-coded to the wrap-rack on the harness and already fastened to a hard point over the rear door.

Wilkes was directed towards a seat. Ellis sat on his right with a place for McBride on his left. McBride handed out headphones with boom mikes to the soldiers. Low-powered interior lights winked on as the tail ramp closed shut on heavy hydraulic struts.

Wilkes and Ellis glanced around. ‘Do you think they’ll be serving snacks?’ enquired someone through the phones. The seats were almost luxurious. And it was relatively quiet. The Black Hawk was god-awful noisy and, with the sliding doors opened, windy. Being inside a Herc was like someone putting a metal garbage can over your head and beating it with a stick. The V22, however, felt almost like travelling first-class. It was even air-conditioned!

The vibration through the seat coupled with the change in sound pitch that he could feel rather than hear told Wilkes that the giant propellers whirling overhead were synchronised. There were only a couple of small porthole-style windows in the side of the fuselage so there wasn’t much of a view. Wilkes felt the aircraft rock gently from side to side on its undercarriage, settling back on the deck of the carrier before it lifted clear.

The feeling in the pit of his stomach and the pressure popping in his ears told him the aircraft was going straight up. On the flight deck, the pilot took the Osprey from helicopter to aircraft mode with the flick of a switch. The wingtip nacelles rotated through ninety degrees until they were aligned with the plane’s longitudinal axis. Wilkes felt the change of direction in the muscles of his neck as the aircraft accelerated briskly towards its cruising speed. One moment it was a helo, the next a fast transport aircraft. Bloody Yanks had all the good shit, thought Wilkes. A few babies like this would give the SAS real kick-arseability.

The captain’s voice through the phones interrupted Wilkes’s train of thought. ‘We’re going to climb to 18 000 feet and hold that cruise altitude over East Timor. Then we’ll drop down to wave height under Indon radar. The AV-8s will ride shotgun for us.

‘We’re going to skirt around to the east of Sulawesi. We’ll have to RV with a KC-135 tanker out of the Philippines a couple of times — those AV-8s are thirsty mothers. When we do pop up to refuel, there’ll be an EA6B Prowler orbiting to fry any hostile radar and keep us stealthy, ’cause you can never be too careful on these kinds of ops. We’ve also got an AWACS bird to direct the whole show when we get closer to Sulawesi.

‘And if things really go to shit, we’ve got a flight of three Super Hornets on station with the tanker that we can call in on fifteen minutes notice,’ the captain added reassuringly, reading off a computer printout.

Christ, thought Wilkes. This is a covert mission? It sounded like the whole goddam United States cavalry was riding on in. But this was something the Yanks had a lot of practice doing in theatres all around the world — they called it CSAR, Combat Search and Rescue — and he wasn’t going to argue.

‘What about when we get to Sulawesi?’

‘Okay, as I said, we plan to come in from the east rather than the south. That way, we can ride the wave tops for longer and stay under their noses. Also, we want to avoid Hasanuddin AFB in the south of the island.

‘Once we get abeam of the plane crash site we’ll turn inland flying nap of the earth. It’ll get bumpy. We’re not sure exactly where we’re gonna put you down just yet. We’re hoping for more up-to-date intel. That should come through about an hour and twenty into our flight time. We’ll go over deployments then.

‘Total flight time to insertion is updated to one hour, fifty-four minutes, plus or minus one minute.’

Jesus, that was quick, thought Wilkes. ‘Comms?’

‘I’ve talked to your radio guy already. You’ve got HF, sat phones and TACBEs?’

Wilkes nodded.

‘Okay. An AWACS will stay on station at all times to relay communications. Your call sign is Ferret, ’cause we’re stickin’ you down a dirty black hole. That okay?’