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speed of sound in one of these things was unnerving, especially when your
speeding toward your enemy at that rate with no control except for computer
calibrated trajectories. It wouldn t be until after he passed through 1000
feet that he would disembark from the capsule with his parasail and his
weapons. Then the Captain would feel in control again. He knew that the Master
Sergeant that was making the insertion with him felt the same way, in fact, if
anything, the Master Sergeant would be even more antsy than Captain Adams. He
also knew that they both would professionally do what had to be done to
"Charlie Mike", or "continue the mission" in any case.
HAHVIC stood for High Altitude, Hyper-velocity Insertion Capsule. It was a
small, aerodynamically shaped flying wing made entirely of composite stealth
material that could hold one man and his gear. Each
SR-77 could carry up to four of the devices, two in each of its large
instrumentation bays if needed. In this case, two HAHVIC's were being carried
in two bays while the other two bays were devoted to a normal mix of
reconnaissance and electronic warfare instrumentation. Conceptually, launched
from a stealth reconnaissance aircraft at extremely high altitude and gliding
down to low altitude before the operative exited the capsule at less than 1000
feet, the insertion would be wholly undetectable by any enemy force.
But that concept and theory had been shot full of holes just over a week ago
with the loss of Mac
Mendenhall and his HR-7 Thunder Dart over Mongolia. The pilot and his RIO had
been briefed along with the Captain and the Master Sergeant regarding the
ramifications. Intelligence and the entire command chain was almost positive
that the devices used in Mongolia were prototypes and could not possibly have
been deployed yet on this side of the world.
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"
Almost positive are the operative words there," thought Riley Adams as he was
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informed over the communications channel that they were only sixty seconds
from release.
"Of course those guys who are almost positive that it couldn t possibly be
deployed here are not the ones strapped into this baby making the decent into
Indian country.
"Oh well, that's why we get the big bucks, hah!" concluded Adams as he
mentally counted down the seconds and did one final radio check with the
sergeant.
"You ready Master Sergeant?"
The Master Sergeant, who was an eighteen year veteran and had been expecting
one final check from his commanding officer, responded immediately.
"Yes sir, about as ready as I can be& and very ready to get down on the ground
and to the task at hand, Captain."
"I roger that. Well, here we go in three, two, one & separation!"
Both men heard and felt the
CLICK
of separation and then the almost complete quiet associated with an
un-powered, faster than sound transit through the high altitude air they were
released into. Neither men saw the SR-77 that had released them bank to the
left and back out over the Black Sea on its way to more friendly skies. Those
skies were a long way away at this stage of the conflict and there was no
margin for loitering to see how the special forces personnel faired.
Captain Riley and his Master Sergeant were now two American Special Forces
personnel being inserted deep into enemy territory on the highly classified
and critical mission that they had been assigned personally by the Director of
the Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Ballard. They would ultimately exit
their HAHVICs at low altitude and the insertion devices would then impact the
water and sink beneath the waves of the Black Sea. After separation, the two
operatives would parasail into the water two miles off of a remote portion of
the Georgian coast. There they would use the small inflatable raft that the
Master Sergeant carried and paddle the two miles to the designated spot on
shore where they were scheduled to meet up with Captain Luke Hansen and his
partisan force of resistance fighters.
Captain Hansen and his force had been mounting resistance efforts behind enemy
lines in Turkey, the former Iraq, Armenia and now Georgia since early 2006.
That was when Hansen, the commander of the security forces at the U.S. Air
Force base at Incirlik, had been cut off while performing a diversion for
retreating American forces when the air base had been overrun by GIR forces in
January of 2006. His efforts behind enemy lines for all of this time were the
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