The Mingrelian (29 page)

“JUBA to PECOS, tallyho,” Emmet says over the rescue radio, indicating they see the rescue aircraft.

The aircraft flies over a thousand feet above them and a drogue chute pops out the back, followed quickly by a pallet. They seem to hang there for a moment as the chute stops the pallet’s forward progress, then the pallet falls and yanks the chute fully open and together they swing to the ground. The wind blows the chute up the mountain, and it hits several hundred yards above the broken hulk of the crashed C-130B. The Combat Talon turns and circles to the north for another pass, coming in a little higher this time. Four jumpers emerge from the jump door in front of the tail and their parachutes open almost simultaneously. Floating down they turn into the wind, which is coming from the north, and drop quickly by letting air out of their canopies, then circle the pallet, descending quickly, and drop effortlessly to the ground. Each one is no more than 20 yards from the pallet. Within minutes, the chutes are secured, snowshoes deployed and the four PJs are unwrapping the pallet. Half an hour later, Boyd hears the sound of snowmobiles.

“Welcome to Mount Damavand!” Boyd calls out gaily as the snowmobiles approach, each pulling a sled. Like dust from an arriving posse in an old Western movie, a cloud of snow follows them as they swing widely into the lee behind the aircraft. Boyd and the entire crew are standing at the back of the old C-130 in their parkas and cross-country ski boots, packed and ready to go. The bodies of Raybon and the Ayatollah’s secretary are lying together in the snow at the side, wrapped in tarps.

“Major Chailland?”

Boyd raises his hand. He’s just found out about his promotion, and now these PJs know it already. He feels the long arm of Ferguson. This time, Boyd appreciates knowing that Ferguson is running the show, not because he cares anything about the customs and courtesies due a field grade officer, but because if they get that little detail right, they’ll get all the other little details right.

“Uh oh,” the PJ says under his breath as he pulls the bandage off of the wounded insurgent’s right shoulder. The bullet wound is just below the collar bone, but the whole arm is blue and cold and the fingers on that hand are turning black. He gives the man a shot of morphine, washes it with disinfectant soap, tries and fails to find a pulse at the wrist, gives the man an antibiotic shot and immobilizes it in a sling. “There, we’ll tend to that at the hospital at Kandahar.”

The Ayatollah translates to the man in Farsi. The man nods appreciatively.

Another PJ tends to the wounded Marine. His bandage covers a red swollen lower leg with a shrapnel wound just below the knee. He does have a good pulse in his foot, but the wound is draining foul smelling pus. He can’t bear any weight on it. He gets morphine, a washing, and an antibiotic shot, then an air splint for the lower leg.

The third PJ examines the Ayatollah. He finds a sick old man, shrunken by starvation and abuse from what would have been a large vigorous man a year before. Scars and recent bruises are on his back and shoulders, and several fingers have been broken, then healed crookedly. He is wheezing and short of breath. He declines medication.

“We can carry one or even two seated behind, in addition to the sleds,” the lead PJ tells Boyd above the sound of four idling snowmobiles. In half an hour, they are ready to leave.

Ekaterina, a Marine and Emmet choose to ride behind a PJ on a snowmobile while the Ayatollah, wounded insurgent, the wounded Marine and the two frozen bodies ride on a sled. Davann, a retired Marine himself, had at first insisted he could ski down, but his fused hip made that impossible. He agrees to ride on a snowmobile, but the hip causes his leg to stick out to the side and it catches snow as they go down. He ends up supine, wrapped in blankets on the fourth sled with the wounded Marine as the little band roars off down the hill, snowmobiles breaking trail, skiers following.

The snowmobiles traverse the hillside back and forth to break a trail so the cross-country skiers can get down the mountain in a series of controlled turns. Within an hour, another Marine is riding, exhausted by his inability to turn the skinny skis and stay on the track, causing him to fall down the hill and have to break trail to get into the snowmobile’s track on the next traverse.

Just beyond the first ridge below the crashed aircraft, the first snowmobile falls off a crest of fresh snow overhanging a steep hillside. Emmet and a PJ cry out as the snowmobile and sled containing the wounded insurgent cartwheel down the mountain.

Boyd skis cautiously up to the drop off, aware that the unstable fresh snow might extend back beyond where he is now standing. The other PJs cautiously approach and stand on their idling snow machines to peer down the hill. It is noon. Their pickup is scheduled in two hours. Clouds are thickening.

“SNOWDOG one to SNOWDOG two,” a nearby PJ’s radio crackles. “Back up, you’re on an …”

“… overhang,” Boyd hears as the snow beneath his feet gives way and he falls 30 feet. He hits on his side and tumbles head over heels a hundred yards, losing skis and poles. Then he hits a patch of ice and slides 50 more yards into a narrow chute in which he accelerates for a bit before being thrown out into deep snow on a flat.

“In a hurry?” Emmet asks, sitting in the snow a few feet away, laughing at Boyd sitting in the snow. The PJ is repacking the wounded insurgent into the sled.

“Fast way to go down a mountain,” Boyd says, trying to stand. There do not seem to be any bones protruding anywhere.

“There may not be another way to get down this thing,” Emmet says, standing and looking back up the hill.

Boyd follows his gaze. There is a steep rock wall to the east, and the shelf they are on drops off even steeper farther to the west. The only way around would be to return to the aircraft and try to find another route, not an option as Boyd and Emmet and the PJ would never be able to climb the hill they’ve just fallen down. The PJ approaches to stand and look up the hill.

“Got any magic?” Boyd asks.

“It’s that first 30 feet,” the PJ responds thoughtfully, looking up the hill.

“Yeah, and then the next hundred yards.”

“And then the ice,” Emmet adds.

“You’ve got three skiers left. Put them on snowshoes,” the PJ says, thinking as he talks. “Then have the first snow machine run fast along the overhang. It’ll collapse.”

“Yeah,” Boyd says, thinking the PJ exhibits a keen grasp of the obvious.

“He can just ride it down, keep his balance and hit soft at the bottom.”

Boyd looks at him, brow furrowed.

“You ski?” the PJ asks. “Downhill?”

“Yeah,” Boyd responds, still not seeing how this could work. He’d done a lot of skiing at the Academy.

“When you go down a steep slope with moguls , your skis kind of slide down the downhill side of the mogul. It slows you down but you maintain control.”

Boyd looked back up the hill. It was a soft pile of snow at the top and an icy drop-off, steep but not straight down.

“As long as he has good forward motion, he can run his snow machine down the side of the drop off just like you’d slide your skis down the side of a mogul.”

“I’d like to see that.”

“We’d better see that. There’s no other way to get down.”

“Can he do that with a passenger?”

“Maybe.”

      
*****

The snowmobile bursts over the top of the crest and falls into the chasm in a torrent of loose snow. Ekaterina is clasping the PJ like a scared scooter witch on the back of a runaway Harley Davidson motorcycle. The PJ leans into the hill, throttle wide open, and the snow machine maintains its forward motion, spinning loose snow and ice behind it as it traverses the hill and falls the 30 feet at the same time. It catches traction as the slope decreases and makes a quick turn and stops.

The sled with Raybon and the dead insurgent slides off the ledge and is lowered to the snow field below; then the Ayatollah, then the wounded insurgent, then the wounded Marine and Davann. The remaining two snow machines crash down the dropoff leaving Rick Shands and three Marines to jump into
the now enhanced pile of fresh snow at the bottom. Wearing snowshoes, they tramp down the soft snow field Boyd had tumbled down, then they slide through the chute on their butts, flying out at the bottom and landing laughing in the soft snow below.

Reunited, the merry band descends the mountain another mile to the rendezvous point.

Chapter 53: The White House

adies and gentlemen, the president of the United States!”

The press corps stands. The president emerges from the hall from the Oval Office and strides purposefully to the microphone.

“Good morning. We are in the 10th day of nuclear war in the Middle East. There have been no nuclear detonations for one week, but conflict has continued all around the Persian Gulf. Today, we have received word from the government of Iran that hostilities are at an end and that they are suing for peace. This comes after the Ayatollah and Supreme Leader was killed yesterday in a border skirmish at the Sulaymaniyah border crossing into Iraq, and confirmation that the president of Iraq was executed last week. Insurgents have been battling the Revolutionary Guards since the beginning of the conflict, and they have taken control of the Presidential Palace and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting headquarters in Tehran, from which they’ve been broadcasting the cease fire message. The Iranian army and navy are returning to their barracks, remaining air force aircraft not destroyed in the fighting have been grounded, and Iranian missile and antiaircraft facilities have been rendered inactive.”

The president pauses to let the press corps digest his words, turns a page and continues.

“Casualty reports from attacks on our base at Al Udeid, Qatar, this past week are updated to 55 killed and 400 wound
ed. Though heavily damaged by medium- and long-range missiles fired from inside Iran, the base continues in its command-and-control role for all of our forces in the Middle East. Evacuations of the wounded are underway with most flying directly into Germany for care at our medical center at Landstuhl.”

He pauses to let the print reporters catch up, then turns the page and continues.

“We have casualty figures from Israel of 55,000 killed and 200,000 injured. More than a half a million are homeless there. We have delivered 20,000 tons of relief supplies with more on the way. I am told by the Israeli ambassador that the people of Israel send a message of thanks to their friends in the United States and assure us that they remain in control of their homeland and are caring for their wounded and homeless.”

He pauses again, and turns another page.

“The government of Saudi Arabia and the House of Saud, the royal family, confirm that the king of Saudi Arabia was killed in the assault on the Presidential Palace on the first day of hostilities with Iran. In addition, his brothers, the remaining sons of Ibn Saud, the first king of Saudi Arabia, perished with him. A successor will be chosen by the remaining family members.”

The president scans the audience, turns a page and continues.

“As this crisis has developed, I have been in constant contact with our allies in the region and around the world. We have depended on the leadership of the United Nations and other world bodies to bring an end to the suffering and destruction of this war. I have tried to mold a consensus within our government to provide a unified solution to this world crisis, but certain elements within our Congress have obstructed my efforts, even during these difficult times. Hopefully, the future will
restore the sense of cooperation across political parties as our administration addresses the issues of a rapidly changing world environment.”

He turns the page and pauses to let his words sink in.

“Sensors from our ships in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, satellites, scientific aircraft flying in the area and around the world, have detected increased radiation in the atmosphere. The plume from the nuclear detonations has already circled the Earth, and increased radiation will be falling in rain and snow for the foreseeable future. Health experts tell us to filter our drinking water if it derives from surface water, such as rivers and reservoirs. They advise keeping children indoors during rain and snow events, and to wash all fruits and vegetables before eating. The Department of Agriculture is working diligently to monitor our food sources and will quarantine any material found to contain unsafe levels of radiation.”

He pauses again and looks benignly at the reporters, now fidgeting to get their questions in first.

“I’ll take questions now.”

As the room erupts with a hundred questions at once, he nods to a preselected reporter.

“Is it true that an American diplomat was killed with the Ayatollah in the battle at Sulaymaniyah, and that she was instrumental in negotiating this cease fire?”

The answer to that question has been carefully crafted beforehand and is written on the top sheet of paper before the president. He answers it from memory, not looking at the paper.

“Dabney St. Clair, the deputy chief of mission in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, was involved in high level discussions with the Ayatollah and his staff in Tehran before and during the nuclear conflict. Her bravery and sacrifice will serve as an example to diplomats serving around the world. Next question.”

Chapter 54: Mount Damavand

he MV-22 Osprey does a low, slow approach to check out the landing zone. Boyd and his band of warriors, wounded and evacuees stand huddling by the side. The snowmobiles are parked in a line.

“That is one weird aircraft,” Boyd says to Ekaterina, watching it circle as the engines rotate from horizontal to vertical overhead. The Osprey slows its forward motion and slowly descends into the landing area. Snow flies in all directions as it settles onto the nearly level landing site.