The Pave Low’s blades chopped the air, its FLIR-forward-looking infrared sensor — guiding it over the corrugations that on the radar were the ridges radiating out of the Hentiyn Nuruu Mountains fifty miles northeast of Ulan Bator. The helicopter’s vibrations could be felt in the bone. Aussie Lewis and Salvini were asleep, Aussie snoring so loudly that, because of the Pave’s relatively quiet rotors, he could be heard by the others.
David Brentwood and Choir Williams were reassured by their colleague’s apparent cool, but David had seen it often enough before — something that civilians never believed, how men, going into harm’s way, in this case flying over hostile territory, about to land on a dangerous mission, could manage to fall asleep. But they did. For like mountain climbers who were sometimes able to strap themselves to the pitons on a narrow ledge and take a nap, their nervous energy had been exhausted by the meticulous preparation, the adrenaline put in reserve as the body demanded rest before the final push. David had seen SAS and Delta commandos catnapping with only a few minutes before the descent or the drop. David shook the Australian awake, then Salvini.
“What time is it?” Aussie asked.
“Oh four hundred hours,” David said. “Dark as pitch. No moon. Pilot must be sweating it.”
Aussie Lewis began strapping on his gear: haversack containing his Mongolian herdsman’s outfit, two three-and-a-half-pound Claymore mines, ten top-feed mags of 5.7mm ammunition for the P-90, a canteen of water, six hand grenades, folding spade, and furled “washing line” satellite antenna. They were still on radio silence and would remain so until they accomplished their mission and/or were back at the insertion point. Should their mission have to be aborted, a radio burst — an SOS giving their position — condensed into a fraction of a second would be permitted, plus any information on Siberian troop movements into Mongolia. The latter, often called the sixteenth Soviet republic, still had Siberian advisers and their units along the railroad from Ulan Ude near Lake Baikal south to Ulan Bator, the rail being a branch off the Trans-Siberian.
The stony terrain being too risky for a landing at night, the Pave Low would hover as Brentwood, Salvini, Aussie Lewis, Choir Williams, and Jenghiz fast-roped down with their heavy packs. Aussie Lewis was putting on rubber gloves to prevent rope burn.
In preparation for the mission that would take them through the foothills and down to the pasture-rich plain before Ulan Bator, none of the men had been permitted to wash or shave for several days, and the air in the chopper was, as Aussie Lewis put it, “like a bloody parrot cage.” But better this than the smell of aftershave, which could cost them their lives. Jenghiz swore that a plainsman could smell foreigners a mile off. The cabin’s red glow gave way to an eerie green, and the Pave Low’s ramp opened, the rope uncoiling fast like a huge snake frantically descending into the abyss.
Jenghiz was the first to touch ground, and the dusty smell of cold wind and of a few spring bushes that had flowered high in the Hentiyn Nuruu, together with the rushing sound of water nearby, flooded him with a nostalgia that brought tears to his eyes.
“Right,” David Brentwood said as they all regrouped. “Jenghiz, lead the way.”
“Okay, roger,” Jenghiz said cheerfully. David had told him several times that the double affirmative wasn’t necessary, that either “okay” or “roger” would suffice, but Jenghiz would simply smile and still say, “Okay, roger.”