Weston Ochse - Age of Blood

The C-130 powered into a right-hand turn, sending Laws ass over head until he came up against one of the parachutes. The engine whined as it was suddenly powered for ascent.

Scrambling to his feet, Laws was about to unleash a torrent of vernacular when Holmes noticed him standing beside the chutes.

“Good idea. Everyone except YaYa armor up and strap on.”

Jen and the other techs stood uncertainly, looking around for something to strap on to.

“SEALs,” Holmes said. “Every SEAL except YaYa. Ms. Costello, you and the techs will meet the senator. YaYa, you’re in charge.”

The Arab American SEAL made an act of looking relieved. “Thank Allah. I thought he was going to put the dog in charge.”

“At ease that shit. I could still change my mind.”

Hoover looked at YaYa, and if a dog could grin, she was doing it.

Finally Laws couldn’t take it anymore. “Boss, your plan. Please.”

Holmes joined them, putting on his body armor. When Yank began packing HK416 rounds into his vest, Holmes placed a hand on the young SEAL.

“No HK rounds. We’re going into civilian-heavy Mexico. Mexico City has nine million at last count. We don’t need them thinking they’re being invaded by an American armed force. Knives and pistols only.”

Walker held out his helmet. “What about nods?”

“No nods. No Pro-Tecs. No vests. T-shirts and combat pants and baseball caps. Armor beneath the shirts. And let’s break out the bone-conducting commo gear. I want something no one can really see.”

Developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency specifically for SOCOM, the BCCGs didn’t cover the ears, nor did they cover the mouths, freeing them of communications wires. Using Bluetooth technology, they came in three pieces. One transmitter, a quarter-sized listening device that fit behind the ear, and a piezoelectric vocalization square that fit beneath the lower jaw.

Yank was the first with his gear on. “Please don’t tell me we’re going to parachute onto a police-protected moving vehicle using these cargo chutes.”

“I thought the Marines used these,” Walker said, snapping down his legs.

“Like I said,” Laws said, “cargo chutes.”

“Dude,” Yank said, shaking his head and trying not to smile.

Laws was getting pissed. He was supposed to be second-in-command. How could he provide input to a plan that was already in effect? But there was nothing to be done at this point. “So is that the plan?” he asked in the most even voice he could muster.

The crew chief shouted, “Five minutes!”

Holmes pointed at YaYa and the techs. “Tie everything down that’s not attached to the plane. That includes Hoover. I don’t want her jumping after us without a parachute.”

The inside of the aircraft buzzed with activity.

Holmes gestured for everyone to gather around. When they did, he produced his own tablet with a map of an area north of Mexico City. “Here’s the plan. Costello, contact your people and get the stoplights changed at this intersection and this intersection.” He pointed. “I’ll be in contact with you and give you a ten-second countdown.”

She looked shocked. “You want me to arrange to have one of our government agencies break into a sovereign country’s transportation system and figure out the wire diagram for more than a million stoplights just so we can make it go from green to red at the appointed time?”

“Yep. Can you do it?”

She laughed suddenly. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good.” He smiled for the first time. “Hopefully it’ll come off without a hitch.”

Laws laughed, too. When did it ever work out like it was supposed to?

They checked each other’s rigs and attached their static lines to a ring in the floor at the base of the ramp. They were two minutes out. They’d be jumping from four thousand feet. The wind was ten knots, and the pilot corrected based on their selected landing zone, which was a soccer field.

Holmes had given Laws the map, while he and the other SEALs inspected each other’s chutes. The light near the ramp switched to amber. The crew chief pressed a button and the ramp descended. The rush of air overtook all sound as the ramp dropped level. Laws stepped out with one hand on the ceiling of the Hercules. He checked the ground for comparison to the map on the tablet in front of him, searching for landmarks. The plane was heading downwind and he didn’t want to overshoot the field. He seemed ready to give up when he saw a factory and a pond that matched exactly what was on the map. They had six klicks left. Doing the math, he realized they had less than twenty seconds before they had to jump.

“Ready, SEALs.”

One last check to ensure the static lines were secure. He stashed the tablet in his cargo pocket.

“Steady.” He nodded to the crew chief, who turned the light from amber to green.

“Go, go, go!”

And as one, four SEALs embraced the Mexican air and were sucked free, letting their static lines deploy their chutes and jerk the meters of fabric from each pack.

Almost at once, all the SEALs were jerked sideways; then they swung beneath their deployed canopies. Laws spied their drop zone far ahead. By his measure, they weren’t going to make it. He was used to much faster chutes and was worried he might have misjudged. Instead, it looked like they were headed straight for a sewage plant.

His heart sank as he realized that the circular ponds beneath him were pools of Mexican nastiness and the last place he wanted to begin swimming. He pulled on his risers and began to bicycle madly with his feet.

They cleared the sewage-treatment plant with a combination of skill and a heaven-sent updraft that tossed them past the ponds, over a school building, and onto their designated landing zone—the soccer field. They were thankful not to have been drenched in other people’s feces, but realized one small problem that the map had caused. The LZ was flat, it was wide, and it offered them plenty of space to land… had there not been a soccer match and several thousand spectators watching what was an obvious rivalry game between two equally matched teams.

Holmes flared and landed first. No stand-up landings in these chutes. It was a parachute landing fall (PLF), used to absorb the sudden impact on the ground—feet, knees, hip, then shoulder. The chute came down on a young man in a yellow and red soccer shirt doing a bicycle kick. The fabric completely covered him and several other players.

Next came Yank, who tried to flare enough to stand and almost made it, going to one knee instead. He quickly unhooked the chute from the harness so he wouldn’t get dragged, then shucked the harness.

Walker and Laws hit at the same time. By the time they were standing and removing their chutes, the crowd was in an uproar. A referee and several players were running toward them, shouting and cursing. Walker grabbed his hat from his pocket and slung it onto his head, pulling the brim low so it rested on his sunglasses. The other SEALs did the same.

Holmes searched for a way out, then headed toward a goal. The others followed, and soon all four SEALs were running Indian style, one behind the other, passing the stunned goalie, crossing a parking lot, then diving into a concrete culvert meant to catch water during monsoon season. They left the shouts and cries of the soccer game behind, and also left their chutes as souvenirs of the day four men rained from the sky. The culvert took them down below street level. Open at the top, the left was bounded by a wall and a railing to keep the cars on the road. The right side had another sloping wall. The floor was littered with trash, dead animals, discarded clothes, empty bottles and cans, and other detritus of one of the world’s largest cities.