The Peacemakers (30 page)

Vermullen was dressed in civvies when he arrived at the two waiting C-130s. He got out of his Panhard P4 utility vehicle, pulled on a heavy jumpsuit, and strapped on a parachute harness while talking to his officers, Major Herbert Mercier and Captain Paul Bouchard. They were all in full battle dress and ready for an airdrop. “If anything goes wrong,” Vermullen said in French, “you will not wait for me. Is that understood?” The two men reluctantly agreed. “Good. What do the Americans say
, mes amis?
Let’s do it!” He laughed, enjoying the moment.

Allston joined them. “We’re loading the last truck. I hope four is enough.”

Vermullen assured him that four would do. “Where is Sergeant Williams?”

Allston pulled a face. “On the other side of the plane, puking his guts out. He’s never jumped before.”

Vermullen was worried. “Can he do it? He will be strapped to me.”

“He’ll be okay.” Allston hoped it was true. Williams had eagerly volunteered for the mission, claiming that only he and Vermullen were the right color and spoke the right language. Vermullen was ready to go. “You sure about all this?” Allston asked.

Vermullen shrugged. “One is never sure.”

“Let’s do it,” Allston said. His butterflies were gone.

FIFTEEN

Bentiu, Unity, Sudan

T
he flight deck was bathed in red light when Allston leveled off at 28,000 feet. He checked the navigation display– thirty miles to go – and retarded the throttles, slowing to drop airspeed. He looked around the flight deck. Everyone was wearing an oxygen mask and breathing easily. He keyed the intercom. “Oxygen check.” His voice sounded tinny, but he credited that to the microphone in his mask. The crew checked in. The loadmaster was the last, verifying the forty-one heavily clothed legionnaires in the rear were all on oxygen and okay. “Depressurizing, now,” Allston warned. He gave the high sign to the flight engineer. A whooshing sound filled the flight deck and he felt the change in pressure.

“Five minutes,” the copilot said. In the rear, the loadmaster motioned for Vermullen and Loni Williams to stand. They shuffled into position and stood together, back to belly with the short and stocky American in front. Vermullen snapped the sergeant’s harness to his. The loadmaster tugged at the connections, making sure they were secure. He double-checked their masks and portable oxygen bottles. At their altitude, their time of useful consciousness was less than thirty seconds without oxygen.

“Jumpers ready,” the loadmaster said over the intercom.

The seconds ticked down. “Two minutes,” the copilot called. “Lowering the ramp.” His hand moved over the right console, lowering the ramp to the trail position. At the same time, the flight engineer turned the cargo compartment and flight deck heat to full on. But they could still feel the bitter cold invading the aircraft. “One minute,” the copilot said. Vermullen and Williams shuffled to the edge of the ramp.

“Jumpers on the ramp,” the loadmaster said. They waited as the seconds ticked down, their eyes riveted on the red jump light at the rear door. The jumpmaster watched as Vermullen lifted Williams. The red light blinked to green and Vermullen stepped into the night. “Jumpers away,” the loadmaster said, stepping back from the ramp as it raised into position, sealing them in from the cold. The aircraft pressurized as they waited.

The two men plummeted earthward, reaching a terminal velocity of 120 MPH. Vermullen checked the altimeter strapped to his left wrist. They had to get out of the freezing cold and to a lower altitude before their oxygen bottles were depleted. He had practiced high altitude jumps before, but never with a passenger strapped to his harness. At twelve thousand feet they dropped through a layer of clouds and the world spread out below them in a beautiful panorama of sparkling lights and darkness. They were west of the town, exactly where he wanted to be. He pulled the ripcord. The big parafoil, a parachute-like fabric wing developed for special operations, deployed with a slight jerk. The Legionnaire looked up and scanned the canopy with a red-lens flashlight. He grunted in satisfaction. It was not a traditional round parachute but a highly maneuverable airfoil that resembled a mattress.

But something was wrong. Vermullen checked his GPS. They had encountered a wind-shift below the cloud deck and were drifting to the south, not the way he wanted to go. He had deployed the canopy at too high an altitude. He tugged at the risers and spiraled down to get out of the wind. He tugged his thick gloves off and let them dangle from wrist straps. Next, he pulled his oxygen mask free and let it hang around his neck. He pulled the NVGs, night vision goggles, on his helmet into place and turned them on. He tapped Williams on the top of his head to see if he was conscious. “You can remove your oxygen mask. But don’t drop it.” There was no response. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Vermullen checked the GPS strapped to his right wrist, and again tugged at the risers, trying to turn northward, but they were still too far south of their desired landing point. He released his equipment bag and let it dangle from a ten-foot lanyard. “Release your FAMAS and be ready to use it,” he told Williams. He felt Williams move as he freed the stubby, eight-pound assault rifle strapped to his chest.

Williams swung the FAMAS to the ready position, its sling around his neck and over his left shoulder. He charged a round. Like Vermullen, he snapped his NVGs into place. “Ready.”

“The wind is stronger than expected,” Vermullen told him. “It’s blowing us to the south.” He searched for their original objective, the bridge on the north side of town leading to the airport a mile to the north. He found the river and followed it, finally seeing the bridge. His GPS confirmed they were still drifting to the south. He checked his altimeter – 4500 feet. With the unexpected wind out of the north and their rate of descent, they would never make it. He pulled a riser, and they cut a huge swooping turn around the town as he searched for a new place to land.

“Do you have Bard in sight?” Allston asked his copilot. The two C-130s were stacked in a racetrack pattern twenty miles north of Bentiu. At 28,000 feet, they were still above the cloud deck but it was starting to break up and he caught an occasional glimpse of the ground. It always amazed him how many lights marked the barren land at night. But he couldn’t see the second C-130 piloted by Bard Green, which should be stacked a thousand feet above him. For a moment, he wondered if he had misjudged the first lieutenant. No way, he told himself. After Marci Jenkins and Dick Lane, Green was his best aircraft commander. But where was he? For a moment, Allston considered breaking radio silence but discarded that as premature. He forced himself to wait for the one-word radio call from Vermullen that would set the next phase in motion.

It was a quiet moment and, like so many, thoughts of home captured him. He hoped Ben, his sixteen-year-old stepson, turned out as well as Bard. As for Lynne, his beautiful daughter, he was sure she would set the world on fire, much like Marci. What happened to Marci? he wondered, coming back to the overwhelming reality of his life. The pilot had been gone fifteen days and was due back. The raw hurt of G.G. was still there and he would never shake a feeling of responsibility for his death. He forced it aside, promising that he would always remember. He was grateful that Marci had volunteered to escort G.G. home. In the quiet lull, he mused how the Air Force had changed. Twenty-years ago as a second lieutenant, he never would have believed he would be relying on two women so much. Make that three, he told himself. His chief of maintenance, the difficult and irritable Susan Malaby, was indispensable. He laughed out loud over the intercom.

His copilot looked at him. “What’s up, Boss?”

“I was just thinking about the ‘indispensable woman theory,’” Allston replied.

“Colonel Malaby?”

“Yep. It amazes me how she keeps these crates flying.” Ahead and above them, a rotating beacon flashed in the night and then disappeared. Bard Green had just announced his presence and then went back to running with lights-out. “Good man,” Allston murmured. It was time to pay attention to business. He called the loadmaster. “MacRay, how the jumpers doing?”

“They’re ready to go. Getting kind of antsy.”