The storm hadn’t abated a bit, and everyone knew it.
“It isn’t safe to fast-rope down in this weather, so hook up the rappelling equipment and descend in pairs. Eagle Two will be covering you from starboard. Go down with weapons at the ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
Murat turned to the pilot and pointed to the boat.
“Take us as far aft as you can.”
Murat watched the altimeter while the pilot maneuvered until he was about one hundred feet above the boat.
“You have to get lower,” said Murat. “The rope is only ninety feet long.”
“It’s too windy, Captain. One gust of vertical shear could plunge us down on top of that boat.”
“It could,” Murat replied dryly. “And, that would be one way to keep them from getting away. Bring it down another fifteen feet.”
“But, sir . . .”
“Just do it! That’s an order,” snapped Murat, removing his seat belt and moving to the back of the helicopter to man the .50 caliber machine gun so that his entire team would be free to board the vessel.
><><><
C
AIRO
Jabbar hung up the phone.
“Captain Demir has been arrested. He was running the op alone. We’re working on how he got into the building.”
“Excellent. He had to have help.”
Adnan’s voice burst into the room over the speaker.
“Sir, it looks like the helicopter is preparing to board.
“Hang tight,” said Ahmet, “Babek? Do you copy?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Adnan needs a little assistance. Take them out.”
><><><
B
LACK
S
EA
C
OAST,
N
ORTH OF
I
STANBUL
On the hill overlooking the beach, Babek sprinted towards the clearing with a shoulder-fired launcher and three infrared surface-to-air missiles. The helicopters were approximately a kilometer away. Time-To-Impact would be less than three seconds. The choppers were more like hovering hummingbirds than sitting ducks. The result, though, would be the same. The second helicopter would have almost a full minute to take evasive action before he would be ready to fire again. It didn’t matter. They were so close their chance of getting away was less than one in ten thousand.
He raised the launch tube to his shoulder, took aim and partially depressed the trigger to activate the coolant on the infrared device. When the light flashed green, he depressed the trigger fully. The booster fired, and without even looking to see whether or not it would hit the target, he began preparing the second round.
><><><
Murat had just strapped himself into the door gunner’s seat and was watching the first two of his men rappel down to the boat when it happened. He heard the captain shout in the headphones, “Shit!” and less than a second later, the night sky was lit up by a fireball to his right. He spun around to see the burning Sikorsky list to starboard for a couple of seconds before losing power completely and plunging into the water below. All the while, the pilot was yelling in his ear, “Infrared SAM! The warning system went off right before it struck. Cut those men loose. We have to move NOW! We’re too close for the counter measures to deploy in time.”
Murat had seen his captain improvise a hundred times. Now, it was his turn, and he knew he had about a minute to make it happen.
“You can’t outrun them either,” said Murat. “Put that boat between us and the beach.”
“Sir, that won’t . . .”
“Do it, you son of a bitch, or I’ll turn this .50 caliber on the cockpit. These bastards aren’t going to get away.”
The helicopter swung left as Murat continued giving orders.
“Maintain your elevation, keep us at two o’clock and about one hundred meters out.”
“He was already giving the ‘Go’ signal to the other team members.
“Get in the water. Now!”
He turned the gun on the boat. He knew only seconds had passed, but his senses were so finely attuned that each one had seemed like an hour as his mind recorded every detail with the precision of a high-def camera.
“Let’s see if we can give their infrared missile a bigger target.”
Murat knew that, like every cruiser in its class, the hull of this vessel was made of fiberglass. Sinking it with a .50 caliber gun wouldn’t be a problem. A concentrated stream of fire at any point would create an irreparable hole. But, he needed more than that. He needed to create an infrared signature big enough to cover their own. He needed an explosion.
Murat aimed toward the aft of the boat and pulled the trigger. The gun roared to life, firing at a rate of seven hundred and fifty rounds per minute, shredding the hull and sending debris flying everywhere. When five seconds and sixty-two rounds hadn’t produced the explosion he sought, he moved to the other side of the vessel for another five seconds, in a determined search for the fuel tanks.
Murat didn’t hear the shot, but he saw the muzzle-flash and felt the bullet hit him in the chest. His body-armor saved his life, but the impact was so powerful it would have thrown him from his chair if he hadn’t been strapped in. Before he could turn the gun to take the man out, there were two more bursts of flame from the barrel of a handgun. The first one hit the outside of the helicopter right beside his head. He didn’t know where the other shot went.
He sent a one-second burst of thirteen 225-grain bullets at the shadowy figure on the deck, perforating his body with enough holes to cause instant bleed-out. Before the man ever hit the ground, he had already returned to the stern of the boat, filling it with lead. In the light of the helicopter’s spotlight, he could see the bullets chewing up everything in their path as he raked it systematically from one side to the other. The fuel tank had to have been punctured by now, which meant it just needed a spark. He zeroed in on the area he thought was the engine housing and a blossom of sparks ricocheting off of metal confirmed his suspicion. This was the engine. He pressed the trigger harder, willing it to detonate the fuel he could not see but desperately hoped was leaking everywhere.
><><><
Babek stood up with the launch tube and raised it to his shoulder. He couldn’t believe the helicopter hadn’t taken evasive action. It was futile at this distance, of course, but the instinct for self-preservation and the training of the pilot practically guaranteed that this was how they would respond. For some reason, they hadn’t, and Cairo was not going to be happy about losing one of their best field ops teams. He pulled the trigger just enough to activate the coolant.
He could see the stream of tracer bullets disappearing into the cruiser. Their men were dead. He knew that. The .50 caliber gun would turn the boat into matchwood. He had seen what those guns could do first hand in Afghanistan, where he had fought for nineteen months with the Taliban against the Americans. He also knew this helicopter had to come down. The light in his sight turned green. He tightened his finger on the trigger and saw the explosion on the water a split second before his rocket booster fired. Babek let loose a string of curses and immediately began preparing his last round.
The second blast came just a couple of seconds after the first. If Murat hadn’t seen the rocket streaking towards them, he might have thought the second louder explosion was a propane tank in the boat’s kitchen. It had worked. The missile had been struck the burning boat. And he had carried out his captain’s final order. Alive if possible, dead if not. The gamble had paid off, giving him another sixty seconds to think about his own life.
“How are the men?”
“They’re all in the water.”
“Kill the lights, head straight away from the beach, put it on autopilot, stay low and keep it at ten knots. We need to bail. They won’t miss again.”
Murat unlocked his seat belt, grabbed the handhold above his head to keep his balance and stood up. Before he could even get to his feet, a searing wave of excruciating pain shot up his left leg. He felt the bone give way as he collapsed back into the seat with the sickening realization that the third bullet had found its mark. His femur was broken. He ran his hand down his leg. It was too dark to see, and everything was so soaked from the rain he couldn’t tell how bad the bleeding was.
Mechanically, but at lightning speed, he blocked out the pain and conducted the status assessment his training made second nature. Eight of his men dead, eight in the water. No backup. Possible pursuit. Unable to swim. Possible damage to the femoral artery, which would mean rapid bleed out. Five to six-foot seas, more than a kilometer from shore. The cover of darkness. He gritted his teeth and spoke into his headset.
“I’m hit. Bring a life-jacket.”
He looked out the door. It was hard to gauge how high they were. A five-year old son and eight-year old daughter. Their mother, Jale. Everything went black. He felt the pilot shove the life jacket over his head.
“We’ve got to go, sir.”
“How far is it to the water?” mumbled Murat through clenched teeth.
“As close as we dare.”
“How far?” he repeated.
“At least thirty feet, which means we’re going to have to knife the water.”
The thought of a jumping from that height with a broken leg made him queasy.
“You go first. I’ll follow.”
The pilot didn’t say a word. He simply moved behind Murat, grabbed him under his arms and heaved him to his feet. Murat screamed in pain.
“I can’t stand!”
“You can, sir!”
“I can’t jump.”
“We’ll do it together, sir.”
The pilot moved to Murat’s left side and pulled the man’s arm over his shoulders.
“Alright, on three. Remember straight as an arrow. You can’t tumble forward. You have to jump up and out. One…”
Murat closed his eyes. He felt like he was going to pass out from the pain. The anticipation of even more when his broken leg hit the water was even worse.
“Two . . .”
He thought of Jale, his children, his Captain, Fatih Gülben and his country.
“Three!”
With every ounce of strength and determination he could muster, Murat pushed up on his one good leg and jumped out the door into blackness.
><><><
Babek finished connecting the trigger on the missile and raised his head to look over the water. Rain was coming down in sheets. He couldn’t see a thing. He had seen the helicopter switch off its lights right after the explosion. The fire on the boat was already out. The stern had sunk low enough in the water for the waves to crash over it and douse the fire. He hastily pulled the infrared binoculars out from under his shirt and started scanning the darkness.
He spotted it almost immediately right over the top of the boat. Its powerful T700 engines were the only heat source strong enough to be detected in this storm. Because it was moving directly away from him, he couldn’t judge how fast it was going, but assumed it was moving at top speed. He was surprised though at how low it was flying.