She took out her smartphone to look them up. She had an application that had all the constellations, on both hemispheres, and which could even identify them through the camera. She tried using it, but it needed to connect and she couldn’t get a signal. Weird, she thought. It had been working fine before, and the ship wasn’t moving at the moment.
That’s when she realized that there was a helicopter coming out of the darkness to land on the boat.
CHAPTER 27
Long Island coast, January 29
Morgan felt the rumble of the Embraer military cargo plane in his bones and checked his watch. Five minutes till the drop.
“Time to strap on the gliders,” said Bishop. Morgan and the three other members of the tactical team present, Diesel, Rogue and Spartan, motioned to indicate they understood. This wasn’t going to be a rehearsed grab of an unarmed civilian. They were dropping into an unpredictable situation with armed hostiles. Morgan would never do this with a team he didn’t trust completely. As he sat there, feeling the deep rumbling of the aircraft resonate throughout his body, he felt glad that he had these people by his side. They had seen action together before. They knew the signals and each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and knew how to work together like a well-oiled machine even in the absence of a definite plan.
“Cell phone and VHF radio signals on the boat just went dead,” said Shepard over the comm. “Can only be a jammer, meaning hostiles are on the boat. I repeat: hostiles are on the boat.”
Great, thought Morgan. “Any risk of us losing communication?” he asked.
“Negative,” said Shepard. “We’ve got spread spectrum transmission. Communicators should work fine.”
With little time to prepare or coordinate, they had taken the few minutes they had on the ground to stretch and warm up, standing right next to the aircraft that was to take them. The plane was a black behemoth with downturned wings with twin jet engines. And goddamn, the son of a bitch could move once it was up in the air.
They were going to do a HALO jump—High Altitude-Low Opening. This meant they’d have to descend the better part of twenty thousand feet with their parachute still tucked in their bags. But they weren’t going to do it unaided.
“Suit up, everybody,” said Bishop. Morgan took his Raptor glider and began to strap it on as the rest of the team did the same. This took a few minutes as they fiddled with the harness so that they were properly fitted, but soon enough, they were ready: five soldiers geared up to tear through the air to their target.
“All right, it’s drop time,” said Bishop. The cargo door opened with a loud whir of the engine, and ice-cold wind flooded the cabin.
Zeta team took position and dropped off the back, disappearing into the night one at a time: Spartan first, then Rogue, then Diesel.
“You’re up, Cobra,” said Bishop.
Morgan pulled down his helmet. The night vision came online simultaneously with the HUD overlay, showing a grid over the terrain. The boat required no overlay. It shone bright on the vast expanse of the ocean, visible even at such a high altitude. The other members of the tac team around him were colored blue in his display. It was a necessary precaution. Without it, they might easily hit each other, which could send two men in a tailspin into deadly cold water.
Tactical team Zeta circled the target below in their gliders. Morgan’s HUD told him they were losing altitude fast. The winds near surface level were mild tonight, so they would not need to fear drifting off course after activating their parachutes. Getting closer to the ship, he could see a shape like a huge black beetle on the deck of the mega yacht. A chopper. He glided to the other end of the boat, the aft deck. As he drew closer, he saw two men in black holding a rifle, patrolling the deck.
Morgan glided in circles above the ship, careful to keep a safe distance from the others. Even though the yacht wasn’t moving, and as enormous as it was for a yacht, it was still a relatively tough target to hit from the air. He made his way down in a matter of minutes, so that he was within range of deploying his parachute. He sailed over the boat, trying to bring his speed to a minimum. He timed it so the two men patrolling the deck were on its far side as he approached. He pulled the cord for the parachute, and the glider broke loose from his back, though still attached to him with a rope. The chute deployed, yanking him upward and arresting his fall. He drifted down, sailing above the boat, aiming for a spot of clear deck. A sudden gust of wind carried him farther than he intended, and sent him sailing toward one of the armed guards. The guard looked up and then called to the other, pointing straight at Morgan, who could see the whites of their eyes. He had been spotted.