Chapter 37

Mihail Kogalniceanu Military Air Base, Romania
April 13, 0130, 2030 Local Time

The three Delta Force soldiers flew into the Romanian airbase on a GulfStream jet, arriving fresh after the unaccustomed luxury and the opportunity to sleep onboard. Jackson went to report to the Rangers headquarters, while Allen and Pasco checked their kit, and registered with the Jumpmasters.

After asking for Colonel Saltvitz, Sergeant Jackson was kept waiting, and then taken to an office where an Army Captain was speaking on the telephone. Jackson waited while the officer finished.

The Captain said, “Sergeant Jackson, you will meet Colonel Saltvitz shortly, but first, I am Captain Freedman, 75th Rangers headquarters staff. I have been informed of your mission to verify the status of some classified equipment.

“I need to stress that we are allowing you to accompany the Rangers as a courtesy, and your mission is in all respects secondary to the Ranger mission. As part of that mission, we are bringing in a replacement system for the destroyed equipment and you are required to ensure that there are no radio transmissions from the existing system that might interfere with the replacement equipment.”

The Captain had Jackson attention. He knew there wasn't a replacement system. “Where is the replacement coming from, sir?”

“I can tell you an aerial vehicle has been flown in from Azerbaijan, and is in position over the terrorists currently. More than that you don't need to know.”

Jackson said, “So, its just an aerial vehicle, no robots or control unit?”

He saw the Captain display the momentary disorientation that people show when they realize someone else is in possession of facts, they themselves don't have.

“An aerial vehicle will fly in, and a second vehicle will fly in to replace it when the first runs low on fuel. They will be controlled remotely, and you are required to ensure the existing equipment is no longer transmitting, as that may interfere with the equipment. That's all, Sergeant. Now, if you follow me, I'll take you to Colonel Saltvitz.”

Sergeant Jackson had taken a dislike to the Ranger Captain, who seemed to have an inflated notion of his own importance. He had assumed Sergeant Jackson had no direct experience of MAADS and was some kind of glorified janitor, responsible for cleaning up the pieces after an accident. The Captain obviously hadn't been told that Jackson had been selected for the mission because of his knowledge of the technology. Jackson saw no reason to enlighten him.

The MAADS team must have brought the two petrol engined aerial vehicles to somewhere in Azerbaijan and flown them in to provide aerial surveillance. Jackson knew those vehicles had the range to fly in from the lowlands, and then stay on station for several hours, although they couldn't use the control unit's automated refuel and launch facility.

After Jackson's briefing, Colonel Saltvitz had been left with the impression the soldier knew a great deal about the classified equipment. Sergeant Jackson had not volunteered the reason. In his experience, Delta Force rarely volunteered any kind of information.

***

The Army Rangers waited in line to board the pair of C130 transport planes. Each man wore a parachute, and carried a heavy pack and personal weapons. A number of men without parachutes, who would not jump, were waiting to load the heavier equipment, including the mortars. All the equipment had been checked and rechecked.

This would be a nighttime HALO drop – High Altitude Low Opening - the standard way of covertly inserting parachute troops. The men would land on a GPS location, with a hundred-meter latitude in where they landed. If they were off-target by more than that amount, then they were in trouble. Parachuting onto steep mountain slopes was a good way to break bones. Altimeters were set to show 1041 meters, the drop zone's elevation above sea level. This would ensure parachutes automatically deployed at the right height if the wearer didn't pull the ripcord.

One of the biggest risks in this kind of operation was landing on one of your own people. The men with the heavy equipment attached to them by long lines jumped first for this reason.
NCOs called orders, and the two columns of men began to move up the loading ramps of the aircraft.

Ten minutes later, the Rangers were aboard the aircraft. Fifteen minutes after that, the preflight checks complete, the first aircraft rolled forward to the runway, closely followed by the second.

***

The klaxon sounded inside the aircraft's cavernous interior, and the pre-jump warning light flashed. The men were already in position, as the Jumpmasters made their final checks of each person's kit making sure there was nothing that might tangle the parachute when it opened.
At a signal, the men put on their oxygen masks for the high altitude jump. The aircraft’s rear ramp lowered, and the green jump light came on. Men shuffled down the aircraft, and off the ramp into the night. Fifteen seconds later, only the Jumpmasters were left. The aircraft’s ramp closed, and it started a slow turn to the left, back toward Romania.

An observer in those mountains would have seen nothing, as the men free-fell toward their parachute opening height. A keen observer might have seen parachute canopies open, and drift down, but the nearest people on the ground were many kilometers away. The first men to hit the ground immediately released their chutes, and looked to the sky through their night vision equipment as the others floated down.

Within minutes, all the men were accounted for, and moving to their assigned positions within a secure perimeter. Everything had gone to plan, the only casualty, an injured ankle.

***

A pink glow spread across the sky as night gave way to dawn.

Major Blacksten surveyed the pass through his binoculars. “Are we agreed, we prefer the right-hand side for the ambush positions?”

There were several 'Yes sirs'.

“I want a sniper team positioned on that ledge jutting out on the right-hand side. It will give visibility over most of the pass. Their job is to give us a visual on the terrorists.”

Rangers moved in single-file from their initial defensive position in the center of the pass almost to the mountainside on the right-hand side, and then along the base of the steep slope. At intervals, pairs of men moved a short distance away from the mountainside looking for a position that offered both a clear view of the center of the pass and concealment. Three men climbed up to the ledge.

The maneuver spread the men out over two hundred meters in a L-shaped ambush overlooking the trail. The mortar team setup behind the command post at the base of the L. Forty-five minutes after dawn, the Rangers were in position and waiting.

The communications officer relayed a report from Romania that the Intel still put the terrorists at their last reported position twelve kilometers away.

Clouds hid the mountain peaks and swirled down the slopes on both sides of the pass, as the three Delta Force soldiers proceeded to the destroyed MAADS system.

Sergeant Jackson's orders were to ascertain the extent of the damage, and if any of the equipment, especially the computers, was left in a usable or recoverable state. The second part of his orders were to collect evidence that might show why the MAADS system had failed to successfully deploy. Jackson could see a partial answer to the second part of his orders. The MAADS container had landed upside down, and both ends had substantial impact damage. It looked like it had tumbled down the mountainside before coming to rest.

Allen and Pasco stood guard while Jackson got to work. He circled the control unit's container, taking photographs with a digital camera before removing the GPS controller from the parachute rig.

When he had taken sufficient photographs of the container's exterior, he opened one of the canvas bags he had brought with him, and took out a large crowbar. He would need it to get inside the container to assess the damage.

Either the heat of the demolition charges, or impacting the mountainside, had buckled the ramp that lowered to launch the aerial vehicle, and allowed the tactical robots to drive out of the container. Jackson levered the ramp open with the crowbar. But with the container now upside down, the ramp hung vertically, and he would need to remove it entirely in order to access the container's interior.

He used the crowbar to lever the ramp where it attached to the container by a hinge. It came away on one side. Thirty seconds later he had detached the hinge on the other side. He removed the ramp and laid it on the ground. He photographed the burnt remains of the aerial vehicle from several angles.

Using his flashlight, he inspected the container's interior. Jackson knew where everything should be because Sammy had walked him through the plans that showed its internal layout, and how the robots were packed for deployment.

Everything inside the container was burnt and blackened. He could see the frame of a tactical robot and another behind it. They were upside down, and must have broken lose when the container impacted. He couldn't make out what was behind the two tactical robots, but assumed it included the two other robots. Jackson photographed the interior.

The most important part of his job was to get the control unit's computers. There was no real risk going inside the container. The heat of the demolition charges would have cooked off the ammunition, and the onboard methanol was not flammable. The propane was, but Sammy thought the demolition charges would have breeched the container and the gas burnt away. If not, Jackson didn't intend exposing a naked flame or discharging a firearm inside the container.

The computers were located underneath the roof, now at the bottom of the upside container. He would have to remove at least one of the tactical robots to access them.

Sergeant Jackson removed a thin steel cable from his bag, and unrolled it. He took one end of the cable, and crawled into the container. He pulled the cable around the frame of the nearest robot, and clipped the end over the cable forming a loop around the vehicle's frame. He crawled back out of the container, looped the cable around his body, and walked backwards trying to pull the remains of the robot out of the MAADS container. Initially, there was no movement, and he though he might have to get one of the other men to help, but the robot suddenly came free, and he stumbled backwards dragging it out of the container.

He repeated the procedure to remove the second robot blocking access to the computers.

Jackson took a pair of bolt cutters from his bag, and reentered the container. He found he could now access the steel box containing the computers. He intended to cut the bolts that attached the box to the container’s roof. There was a bolt at each corner and one halfway down each side. It was awkward and uncomfortable work, and he would be completely black by the time he finished.

After five minutes of effort, he concluded cutting through the bolts wasn't going to work. While he had managed to cut the three he could access, he needed to cut the bolts all the way around the steel box, and that meant getting to the other end of the container, which was a jumbled mess of burnt and broken equipment.

He put down the bolt cutters, exited the MAADS container, and picked up the crowbar he had left on the ground, Allen came over to him, and said, “You need to finish. Our orders are to be in position in twenty minutes, with no movement after that time. I don’t want us getting shot by some trigger-happy Ranger.”

“I should finish by then.” If necessary he would request more time.

Jackson crawled back into the container, and found a position to work from. He repeatedly speared the crowbar at a place where he thought he could separate the steel box, enclosing the computers, from the container’s roof. The heavy crowbar dented and deformed the metal roof of the container, and after several minutes, he had created a small gap.

He worked the point, at the curved end of the crowbar, into the gap, and after a couple of attempts, he got some purchase. He pushed down on the long arm of the crowbar, and the side of the steel box came away from the roof of the container as Sammy said it would. He shifted his position, levered down on the crowbar, and felt the bolts give way. He hooked the curved end of the crowbar over the back of the box, and simultaneously levered and pulled it free.

He used the bolt cutters to cut through the Kevlar-covered cables that ran into the steel box. Leaving the crowbar and bolt cutters behind, he dragged the heavy box out of the container.
Allen was waiting for him as he crawled out. “We need to get back to the command post. There have been calls for you to report to Ranger headquarters immediately.”

Jackson had turned off his comms. It was against regulations, but the net was full of talk about the planned ambush of the terrorists, and he had needed to concentrate on his mission.

He turned his comms back on, and then put the box containing the computers in the large bag. He found he couldn't get the aerial vehicle into the second bag he had brought because of its wings. This was classified equipment, and the fewer people who saw it the better. He tried to break off one of the wings, and found he could bend the flexible material sufficiently to fit it into the bag.

His final tasks were to photograph the two tactical robots he had dragged clear, and then remove their computers.

As he finished taking the photographs, he heard his name over the net. “Sergeant Jackson, report in immediately for new orders.”

He looked at the blackened frames of the tactical robots. On both, where the computer was located, was a mass of fused metal. 'There's nothing recoverable', he thought, as he took some final photographs of the robots.

He called to Allen and Pasco that he had finished, slung both bags over his shoulder, and began to make his way back to the command post, followed by the two other Delta Force soldiers.

Mist drifted across the pass, intermittently dropping the visibility to a few meters. Allen didn't want them to be blue-on-blue casualties and broadcast over the net. “Sergeants Jackson, Allen and Pasco returning to the Command Post. Heading in a southeasterly direction. Five hundred meters, over.”

He repeated the same message, alerting everyone to friendlies on the move. Sergeant Jackson's winter warfare outfit was mostly black, in sharp contrast with the pristine white of the other two men's gear.

Chapter 38