Each jumper would carry with him a Global Positioning System satellite receiver connected to him by a strong nylon cord. The coordinates of the field at Abéché were known within feet. A position one hundred yards off the north end of the runway had been fed to the device. The GPS device had two modes. Mode I showed a map of the area and the present position of the GPS receiver—the jumper—with regard to the selected destination. Mode II showed, with an arrow, the direction to the selected position and the distance in kilometers and meters. In Mode II, the GPS device also combined GPS position, GPS altitude, and topographical mapping to give the jumpers a remarkably clear picture of the terrain onto which they were dropping.
All of this data would be shown on the face mask of their helmets in a “heads-up” display very similar to that which is provided to pilots of high-performance fighter aircraft and advanced helicopters.
Although each man on the team had been allowed to select his own weaponry for the mission—Colonel Davenport didn’t think he should superimpose his notions of ideal weaponry on men who were almost as highly skilled and experienced in keeping themselves and their teammates alive as he was—when he had inspected the weaponry just before takeoff he saw that they had all chosen just about the same gear.
Everyone had a 5.56mm M-4 carbine, which was a cut-down and otherwise modified version of the standard M16A2 Army rifle. These carbines had had another modification: Special Warfare Center armorers had installed “suppressors. ” They didn’t actually silence the sound of firing but the sound was substantially reduced, as was the muzzle flash.
Each man had elected to carry from eight to a dozen spare thirty-round magazines. Everybody, too, had chosen to take eight to a dozen minigrenades. They weren’t anywhere near as lethal as the standard grenades because of their small size. But they were lethal up close, and they were noisy. They came in handy to encourage a pursuer to pursue slowly and to confuse him about the direction you were taking.
A relatively new, very small and light—about two pounds—antipersonnel mine also served as a fine tool to discourage pursuers. When activated, the mines threw out a very fine, very hard to see wire in five directions. Detonation came as a great surprise to anyone who stepped on any of the wires.
Colonel Davenport’s inspection had turned up twenty-four of the miniature mines among the team’s weaponry—in addition to the four he would jump with himself. He was also carrying a silenced (as opposed to suppressed) .22 caliber pistol in case it was necessary to take someone out silently. Davenport knew that Captain Stevenson was similarly armed, and, although he hadn’t seen any during the inspection at Pope AFB, he supposed that there were two—or more—silenced .22s in the team’s gear.
There was also a variety of knives strapped to boots, harnesses, or in pockets. Colonel Davenport personally was not much of a fan of the knife as a lethal weapon. He had been known to comment that if you were close enough to cut someone’s throat with a knife, you were also close enough to put a .22 bullet in his ear, and that was a lot less messy.
On this mission, it was devoutly hoped they could accomplish what they had been ordered to do without unsheathing a knife, much less using any of their other weaponry.
“Colonel,” the pilot’s voice came over the speaker, “I’m going to open it up in sixty seconds.”
“Go,” Colonel Davenport said.
“Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight . . .” the pilot began to count.
Davenport and the others, moving with speed that had come only after long practice, checked the functioning of all their Halo equipment—the oxygen masks and the flask that would jump with them; the functioning of the headsets for their man-to-man radios; the GPS receivers; and the umbilical they would leave behind on the aircraft. This was best done with the fingers. Only after everything had been checked and found functioning did anyone begin pulling on their electrically heated gloves.
“. . . Five, four, three, two, one. Depressurizing now,” the pilot ’s voice said.
“Radio check,” Colonel Davenport ordered.
One by one, everybody checked in.
“Compartment altitude fifteen kay,” the pilot reported.
“Everybody’s magic compass working?” Colonel Davenport inquired.
He got a thumbs-up from everyone.
“Compartment altitude twenty kay,” the pilot reported. “Airspeed four-two-five.”
“Check everybody,” Davenport ordered Stevenson, who nodded.
“Compartment altitude twenty-five kay,” the pilot reported.
Davenport walked to the rear of the compartment, where he got into his parachute harness and then helped Stevenson get into his.
“Compartment altitude thirty kay,” the pilot reported. “Airspeed three-zero-zero.
“Okay, that’s it. We’re decompressed,” the pilot said. “As soon as I can slow it down a little more, I’ll start opening the door. Airspeed now two-six-zero.
“Okay, here goes the door. Slowly. Indicating two-two-zero. ”
There was a whine of hydraulics, followed by a first blast of cold air as the door pushed into the slipstream, and then a steady, powerful rush of extremely cold air.
The door acted as sort of an air brake, slowing the aircraft now more quickly.
“One-ninety, one-eighty-five, one-eighty, one-seventy- five. One-seventy. Holding at one-seven-zero,” the pilot reported.
The door step was now open.