safe zone, but they were already as low as they could safely fly.
“Fifty miles off the coast.”
‘ ‘Roger,” the pilot acknowledged. “How’re you doing?” he asked a sec-
ond later. Low-level penetrations were stressful on everyone, even with a
computer-controlled autopilot handling the stick work.
“No prob,” she replied. It wasn’t exactly true, but it was the thing she
was supposed to say. The most dangerous part was right here, passing the
elevated radar site at Aikawa. The weakest part of Japan’s low-level defense
perimeter, it was a gap between a peninsula and an island. Radars on both
beams almost covered the seventy-mile gap, but they were old ones, dating
back to the 19705, and had not been upgraded with the demise of the Com-
munist regime in North Korea. “Easing down,” she said next, adjusting the
altitude control on the autopilot to seventy feet. Theoretically they could fly
safely at fifty over a flat surface, but their aircraft was riding heavy, and now
her hand was on the sidestick control, itself another illusion that this was
actually a fighter plane. If she saw so much as a fishing boat, she’d have to
yank the aircraft to higher altitude for fear of a collision with somebody’s
masthead.
“Coast in five,” one of the electronic-warfare officers announced. “Rec-
ommend come right to one-six-five.”
“Coming right.” The aircraft banked slightly.
There were only a lew windows in the cargo area. First Sergeant Vega had
one and looked out to see the wingtip of the aircraft dip toward a barely
perceived black surface dotted with the occasional whitecap. The sight made
him turn back in. He couldn’t help things anyway, and if they hit and cart-
wheeled in, he’d have no time at all to comprehend it. Or so he’d been told
once.
“I got the coast,” the pilot said, catching the glow of lights first through
his goggles. It was time to switch them off and help fly the aircraft. “My
airplane.”
“Pilot’s airplane,” the copilot acknowledged, flexing her hand and al-
lowing herself a deep breath.
They crossed the coast between Omi and Ichifuri. As soon as land was
visible, the pilot started climbing the aircraft. The automated terrain-avoid-
ance system had three settings. He selected the one labeled Hard, which was
rough on the airplane and rougher on the passengers, but ultimately safer for
all concerned. “What about their AWACS?” he asked the EWOs.
“I’ve got emissions on one, nine o’clock, very weak. If you keep us in the
weeds, we’ll be okay.”
“Get out the barf bags, guys.” To the loadmaster: “Ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes,” the Air Force sergeant announced in the back. Just then
the aircraft lurched up and to the right, dodging around the first coastal
mountain. Then it dropped down rapidly again, like a particularly unpleasant
amusement-park ride, and Julio Vega remembered once swearing that he’d
never subject himself to anything like this again. It was a promise that had
been broken many times, but this time, again, there were people on the
ground with guns. And they weren’t Colombian druggies this time, but a
trained professional army.
“Jesus, I hope they give us two minutes of easy ride to walk to the door,”
he said between gulps.
“Don’t count on it,” Captain Checa said, just before he used his barf bag.
It started a series of such events among the other Rangers.
The trick was to keep mountaintops between them and the radar transmit-
ters. That meant flying in valleys. The Globemaster was slower now, barely
two hundred thirty knots of indicated airspeed, and even with flaps and slats
extended, and even with a computer-aided flight-control system, it made for
a ride that wallowed on one hand and jerked on the other, something that
changed from one second to the next. The head-up display now showed the
mountainous corridor they were flying, with red warning messages appear-
ing before the eyes of the pilots that the autopilot handled quite well, thank
you, but not without leading the two drivers in their front seats to genuine
fear. Aviators never really trusted the things, and now two hands were on
their stick controllers, almost flinching and taking control away from the
computer, but not quite, in what was almost a highly sophisticated game of
chicken, with the computer trying in its way to outgut the trained aviators
who had to Irusl Ihe microchips lo do things their own reflexes were unable
lo match. They watched green jagged lines thai represented real mountains,
tanks of them, fu/./.y on the edges from the trees that grew lo (he lops of
most, and for the most part the lines were well above the flight level of their
aircraft until the last second, when the nose would jerk upwards and their
stomachs would struggle to catch up, and then the aircraft would dive again.
“There’s the IP. Five minutes,” the pilot called aft.
“Stand up!” the loadmaster yelled at his passengers. The aircraft was
going down again, and one of the Rangers almost came off the floor of the
aircraft when he stood. They moved aft toward the portside passenger door,
which was now opened. As they hooked up their static lines, the rear cargo
hatch dropped down, and two Air Force enlisted men removed the safety
hooks from the palletized cargo that occupied the middle of the sixty-five-
loot cargo bay. The Globemaster leveled out one last time, and out the door,
(‘heca and Vega could see the shadowy valley below their aircraft, and a
lowering mountain to the left of them.
“Five hundred feet,” the pilot said over intercom. “Let’s get it done.”
“Winds look good,” the copilot announced, checking the computer that
controlled drops. “One minute.”
The green light by the passenger door turned on. The loadmaster had a
safety belt attached to his waist, standing by the door, blocking the way of
the Rangers. He gave them a sideways look.
“You guys be careful down there, y’hear?”
“Sorry about the mess,” Captain Checa said. The loadmaster grinned.
“I’ve cleaned up worse.” Besides, he had a private to do that. He gave the
area a final check. The Rangers were safely in their places, and nobody was
in the way of the cargo’s roller-path. The first drop would be done from the
front office. “All clear aft,” he said over his intercom circuit. The loadmas-
ter stepped away from the door, allowing Checa to take his place, one hand
on either side, and his left foot just over the edge.
“Ten seconds,” the copilot said forward.
“Roger, ten seconds.” The pilot reached for the release switch, flipping
off the safety cover and resting his thumb on the toggle.
“Five.”
“Five.”
” Three-two-one-now!”
“Cargo away.” The pilot had already flipped it at the proper moment.
Aft, the Rangers saw the pallets slide out through the cavernous door. The
aircraft took a major dip at the tail, then snapped back level. A second after
that, the green light at the door started blinking.
“Go go go!” the loadmaster screamed over the noise.
Captain Diego Checa, U.S. Army Rangers, became the first American lo
invade the Japanese mainland when he took his step out the door and fell
into the darkness. A second later the static line yanked his chute open, and
the Muck nylon timhrrlla came lo lull blossom a bare three hundred feet
from ihc ground The stiff mul often hurtful opening shock came as a consid-
erable relief. Jumping at five hundred feet made the use of a backup chute a
useless extravagance. He first looked up and to his right to see that the others
were all out, their chutes opening as his had just done. The next order of
business was to look down and around. There was the clearing, and he was
sure he’d hit it, though he pulled on one riser to spill air from his parachute in
the hope of hitting the middle of it and increasing the safety margin that was
as much theoretical as real for a night drop. Last of all he released his pack,
which fell fifteen feet to the end of a safety line. Its sixty pounds of gear
would hit the ground first, lessening his landing shock so long as he didn’t
land right on the damned thing and break something in the process. Aside
from that he barely had time to think before the barely visible valley raced
up to greet him. Feet together, knees bent, back straight, roll when you hit,
the sudden lung-emptying shock of striking the ground, and then he was on
his face, trying to decide if all his bones were intact or not. Seconds later he
heard the muted thuds and oofs of the rest of the detail as they also made it to
earth. Checa allowed himself a full three seconds to decide that he was more
or less in one piece before standing, unclipping his back, and racing to col-