Frederick Forsyth: The Kill List

Jonah reached over him and flipped up the top of his para rucksack to check that the two wires in red cotton were present and correct. Seals unbroken. The veteran RAF sergeant clipped his oxygen mask into the aircraft supply and nodded. The Tracker checked his mask was a snug and airtight fit, and took a breath.

A rush of near-pure oxygen. They would be breathing this all the way to altitude to flush the last traces of nitrogen out of the blood. This prevents diver’s bends (nitrogen bubbling in the blood) when they hurtled back down through the pressure zones. Jonah switched off the oxygen and moved on to the captain to do the same for him.

From outside came a high-pitched whine, as the four Allisons turned on starter motor and then coughed to life. Jonah stepped forward and buckled the safety strap across the Tracker’s knees. The last thing he did for him was to plug the oxygen mask into the C-130’s onboard supply.

The engine noise increased to a roar as the rear ramp rose to shut out the last of the lights of Djibouti air base and closed with a clunk as the air seal locked in. It was now pitch-dark inside the hull. Jonah broke out Cyalume light sticks to help him and his two fellow PDs take their seats, backs to the wall, as the Herc began to roll.

The seated men, leaning back into their chute packs, forty-kilo Bergens on their laps, seemed to be slumbering in a nightmare of pounding noise, plus the whine of hydraulics, as the aircrew tested the flaps, and the scream of fuel injectors.

They could not see, but only feel, as the four-engined workhorse turned onto the main runway, paused, crouched, then leapt forward. Despite its deceptive bulk, the Herc accelerated fast, tilted its nose up and left the tarmac after five hundred yards. Then it climbed steeply.

The most frills-free airliner cannot compare with the rear of a C-130. No soundproofing, no heating, no pressurization and certainly no beverage service. The Tracker knew it would never get quieter, but it would become savagely cold as the air thinned. Nor is the rear leakproof. Despite the oxygen-delivering mask on his face, the place was by now redolent with the odors of aviation gas and oil.

Beside him, the captain unhooked his helmet, took it off and pulled a pair of earphones over his head. There was a spare pair hanging from the same socket, and he offered them to the Tracker.

Jonah, up against the forward wall, was already on earphones. He needed to listen to the cockpit to learn when to start preparing for P-hour— P for “parachute”—the jump time. The Tracker and the captain could hear the commentary from the cockpit, the voice of the British squadron leader, a veteran of the 47th Squadron, who had flown and landed his “bird” into some of the roughest and most dangerous airstrips on Earth.

“Climbing through ten thousand,” he said, then “P-hour minus one hundred.” One hour and forty minutes to jump. Later came: “Leveling at twenty-five thousand.” Eighty minutes passed.

The headphones helped muffle the engine roar, but the temperature had dropped to near zero. Jonah unbelted himself and came over, holding on to a rail running down the side of the hull. There was no chance of conversation; everything was hand signals.

In front of the face of each of the seven, he went through his pantomime. Right hand high, forefinger and thumb forming an O . Like scuba divers. You OK? The Pathfinders replied in kind. Hand held up, fist clenched, then a puff from the lips to blow the fingers open, then five raised fingers. Wind speed at touchdown point, estimated five knots. Finally, fist held high with five fingers splayed, four times. Twenty minutes to P-hour.

Before he finished his odyssey, David grabbed his arm and thrust into his hand a flat packet. Jonah nodded and grinned. He took the packet and disappeared into the flight-deck area. When he came back, he was still grinning in the darkness and resumed his seat.

Ten minutes later, he was back. This time, ten fingers held up in front of each of the seven men. Seven nods. All seven rose with their Bergens, turned and placed the haversacks on the seats. Then they hefted the forty-kilo burdens onto their chests and tightened the straps.

Jonah came forward to help the Tracker, then tightened the straps until the American thought his chest was being crushed. But the speed in the dive would be up to 150 mph, and nothing must shift by even an inch. Then the switch from the onboard oxygen to personal canister.

At this moment, the Tracker heard a new noise. Over the roar of engines, the aircraft’s speaker system was booming out music, fortissimo. The Tracker realized what David had given to Jonah to be passed to the flight deck. It was a CD. The cavernous hull of the C-130 was being drowned in the pounding clamor of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” The start of his personal chant was the signal: three minutes to P-hour.

The seven men were standing along the starboard side of the fuselage when the dull clunk of a breaking seal meant the ramp was coming down. Jonah and his two assistant PDs had attached their tether lines to ensure they could not slide out.

As the sinking ramp revealed a barn-door-sized opening to the sky, an icy blast of wind roared in, accompanied by the stench of aviation fuel and burning oil.

The Tracker, standing second in line behind Barry, the giant, looked past the lead jumper toward the void. Nothing out there, just swirling darkness, freezing cold, pounding noise, and inside the fuselage the raging brass of the Valkyries on their insane ride to Valhalla.

There was one last check. The Tracker saw Jonah’s mouth open but heard not a word. Down the line, Curly, the last out, checked Tim, the trooper, in front of him to ensure his chute and oxygen had no tangles. Then he shouted, “Seven OK.”

Jonah must have heard it because he nodded at Tim, who then did the same for Pete, the medic, in front of him. The mutual checking rippled down the line. The Tracker felt the clap on his shoulder and did the same for Barry in front of him.

Jonah was standing in front of the giant, facing him. He nodded as the Tracker made the last check and stepped aside. There was nothing left to do. After all the pushing and shoving and grunting, the seven free fallers could only hurl themselves into the night five miles above the Somali desert.

Barry took one step forward, lowered his torso into a dive and was gone. The reason for the line being tightly bunched was that wide separation in the air could be disastrous. A three-second gap in the blackness, and two fallers could be so far apart they would never see or find each other. As briefed, the Tracker went out within a second of Barry’s heels disappearing.

The sensations were immediate. In half a second, the noise was gone; the roar of the C-130’s four Allisons, the Wagner — all gone, to be replaced by the silence of the night, broken only by a gentle and rising wind hiss as his falling body accelerated past 100 mph.

He felt the slipstream of the departing Hercules try to flip him over, ankles above head, then onto his back, and fought against it. Though there was no moon, the desert stars, hard and bright, cold and constant, unmarred by any pollution for two thousand miles, gave a low illumination to the sky.

Looking down, he saw a dark shape far below. He knew that close behind his shoulder would be the para captain, David, with the other four strung out upward to the sky.

David appeared beside him, arms by his sides, adopting the arrow position to increase speed and close up on Barry. The Tracker did the same. Slowly the big black form ahead came closer. Barry was in the starfish shape, gloved fists clenched ahead of him, arms and legs half spread, to slow the fall to 120 mph. When they came level with him, the Tracker and the captain did the same.