David Golemon - Legacy

Before Carl could react, Jack grabbed his arm-it was too late. They all watched in stunned silence as three streaks of white-hot exhaust broke free of the tall trees lining the battlefield below. They shot upward at Mach speed. The first Cobra never knew what hit it. Its entire forward section disappeared in a ball of flame. The second had time at least to terminate its covering run of the ground troops. It tried to pull up as the second radar-guided missile struck just aft of the two-man cockpit, splitting the old attack chopper into two pieces as it fell into the trees near the troops it had been trying to defend. The third Cobra banked hard and was actually able to bring its twenty-millimeter Gatling gun to bear on the third missile team that had shot at it. The Cobra peppered the site with a thousand rounds, sending the shooters into oblivion. As Jack continued to watch, a fourth missile came out of the trees, tracking the third Cobra as it pulled up into the still gray sky of early morning.

“Jink right, go right,” Jack hissed between his teeth.

The pilot never saw it coming. By the time the Cobra had gained altitude, the threat receiver was too late in picking up the radar pulse that had locked on to it. The missile slammed into the spinning rotors and sheared the twin blades off the transmission hub. The chopper fell into the trees like a rock. The explosion and black smoke marked their crash site. As Jack scanned the area below, he saw more mercenaries advance through the trees. The remaining Ecuadorians were scattering after seeing their air support vanish in a split second.

“Mr. Everett, take the science team and secure them inside the mine,” Jack said as he lowered the field glasses. “We’re going to have a lot of company soon.”

“Respectfully, Jack, send someone else to baby-sit them, I want to stay on the line.”

Collins looked at his friend and shook his head. “If they don’t get in there and find something useful soon, this is all going to be for nothing. Don’t argue with me, Captain. It’s too early in the morning for that. If the worst happens, I’ll let you know. Use the escape route we utilized last week and get them the hell down the mountain. Take that idiot German with you. That’s all I can spare.”

“I heard that,” Sebastian said, as he picked up three extra magazines from one of his manned positions.

Everett looked at Collins angrily, and then he looked at the lightening sky above.

“Remind me to thank the president for all of that help he sent.”

Jack nodded his head and watched as Niles and the others approached.

“Move these people into the mine,” he said, as he shook hands with Niles and Pete.

Charlie Ellenshaw walked up to Jack and held out his hand.

“Colonel, I would very much like to stay and help out,” he said, as he pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up his nose. “They don’t need me in there.”

“Thanks, Doc, but I disagree. They do need you down in that mine. You have a way of helping that you could never understand.”

“I can fight Jack,” Crazy Charlie said, looking pleadingly at the colonel.

“I know you can, Doc, but Sarah, Will, and Ryan need that information, and you can help get it. I need you down there,” he said, nodding toward the shaft.

“Colonel, the enemy is only a thousand yards away,” one of the German commandos called out.

Ellenshaw finally nodded his head of white hair and slowly turned away. Niles looked at Jack and smiled sadly, then he too turned toward the mine’s entrance and left.

“Good luck, swabby,” Jack called out to Everett, who had stopped to hear what he had to say.

“Letting you do the hero thing is getting real old, Jack. This time you may just get your ass shot off,” Carl said as he turned away. “That’s going to leave me with an awful lot of paperwork to do back at the complex, and that is not what I signed up for.”

The Mechanic was very pleased with the way his men had performed.

As he scanned the small contingent lining the front wall of rocks in front of the mine opening, he had to smile. If he had the time, it would be easy to just stand pat and lob grenades into the rocks above. It would decimate the defense line. However, he knew that eventually the Americans would react.

“Commence the attack. Kill them all, and do it quickly.”

As he watched, 256 men advanced through the trees. Then he gestured. Four mortars opened fire. “Take them fast and make sure none escape.”

The lone Air Force C-130J-30 Hercules had flown through the night, refueling once in midair on its long flight from Fort Bragg. The pilot could swear he felt the tops of the trees brush against his underbelly as he hopped over small rises at the base of the Andes. He was sweating while his copilot manipulated the four throttle controls of the venerable old aircraft. As he allowed the yoke to steady, he pushed forward and sent the Hercules into a shallow dive. They had reached the last valley before the drop point. He heard the flight’s engineer open the cabin door.

Lieutenant Commander Scott Englehorn USN, team leader for SEAL Team Five and temporary leader for SEAL Team Eight, stepped up in back of the pilot’s ejection seat.

“Three minutes to IP, Commander. Tell your boys back there good luck,” the Air Force pilot said as he pulled the nose of the Hercules up again in a flurry of motion.

“Hell, besides the other SEAL team, only five of those kids back there speak English, but I’ll pass on your sentiment anyway.” The SEAL patted the pilot on the shoulder. “Thanks for the lift, Air Force. It was a smooth ride.”

“Good luck, Navy,” the pilot said again, feeling for the men that he was about to drop into harm’s way.

The Navy commander stepped out of the cabin and slid quietly down the small set of stairs. He looked at the four lines of men lined up in the hold of the Hercules. His SEAL teams would be the first out of the aircraft. They would be followed by the one hundred men of the main assault element. This young group was what was passing for soldiers nowadays in Europe. They and their nation had just been accepted into NATO and had been on station in the United States for training at Fort Bragg when they were recruited by the president on a purely voluntary mission. As he scanned the eager faces of the men, he saw they had no fear, a sign that they had never faced combat before. He shook his head, sliding among the lines of men. As he moved, the red light appeared in six different areas of the cargo hold.

“Two minutes-two minutes,” he shouted as loud as he could.

He saw the young captain who led the foreign element and the SEAL nodded his head.

“Is Poland ready for this day, Captain?”

“Poland has always been ready, Commander,” the young man said. He looked determinedly into the Navy man’s eyes just as the commander placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I believe you are, Captain. Shall we go and rescue some people on the ground?”

“Yes, Commander, let’s do that.”

“One minute,” the commander shouted as he took his place at the head of the jump group.

The aircraft cargo master started lowering the giant ramp. The men would jump four abreast at seven hundred feet, an extremely low altitude jump. Their parachutes would barely have enough time to open before the tops of the trees would be at their feet. This is what SEALs were used to doing, but the Polish element was making the low altitude jump for the first time. The Navy just hoped the president knew what he was doing. Not only were his SEALs working with an Army element, they were working with a foreign army to boot. The world was becoming a strange place indeed.