Arctic Storm Rising by Dale Brown (readera ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Force HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopterflew low across the desolate wastes of southern Libya. Specially designed for service with CSAR (combat search and rescue)squadrons and named in honor of the HH-3E Jolly Green Giant made famous during Vietnam War rescue missions, this was the newestvariation of Sikorsky’s versatile UH-60 Black Hawk series. Like its predecessor aircraft, the HH-60G Pave Hawk, the JollyGreen II was equipped with a hoist and retractable midair refueling probe. But upgraded avionics, engines, weapons, armor,and larger fuel tanks dramatically increased its capabilities, including extending its unrefueled range to more than sevenhundred miles.

The helicopter’s nose dropped sharply, descending fast as it sped down a bleak slope of black volcanic rock and sand. Alongthe horizon to the southwest, the terrain shifted dramatically—morphing into a seemingly endless, golden-orange sea of Saharansand dunes. Heat waves rippled across a landscape baked by the harsh rays of the desert sun high overhead.

Seated behind the HH-60’s cockpit and facing outward, Captain Nicholas Flynn felt his stomach floating as the helicopter raced downslope at more than 160 knots. Through the cabin window in front of him, he caught blurred glimpses of massive boulders zipping past not more than a few feet below. That only increased the sensation of uncontrolled speed. He swallowed hard and crossed his arms over the straps holding him in his seat. “Oh, what fun,” he muttered, realizing too late he was on the intercom.

“What’s the matter, Nick?” the cheerful voice of the pilot, Captain Scott “FX” Dykstra, asked through his headset. “Don’tlike flying?”

Through gritted teeth, Flynn shot back, “Flying, I don’t mind. I just prefer my sky with a little less ground in it.”

Dykstra chuckled. “See, there’s where I gotta disagree with you.” The helicopter banked hard left and then right again, ashe steered around a massive ledge of basalt jutting out at an angle from the softer soils around it. “Clouds are pretty andall, but high altitude’s a happy hunting ground for hostile interceptors and missiles. Down here just above the dirt is thesweet spot, where any bad guys only get a couple of seconds to react before we scoot on past and out of sight.”

“Oh, I understand the theory,” Flynn said, bracing himself as the HH-60 slewed sharply upward again and then leveled out ahundred feet off the desert floor. “It’s the practice that scares the shit out of me.”

A new voice came on the intercom circuit. This one belonged to Technical Sergeant Carl Zalewski, one of the two PJs, or pararescuejumpers, riding with him in the Jolly Green II cabin. “Please tell me you’re not being literal, sir. Our guys just washedthis bird before we took off from El Minya. If we bring it back all dirty, they’re gonna be seriously upset.”

Flynn found himself grinning. “Just talking figuratively, Zee. Fear not, my camos retain their pristine nature, without anyunsightly new brown blotches.”

That drew a quick laugh from the rest of Wizard One-One’s crew. There were five of them all told: Dykstra; his copilot, CaptainKate “Ghost” Kasper; their flight engineer, Staff Sergeant Bill Wade; Zalewski; and the other PJ, Technical Sergeant MikeCamarillo.

“Geez, Nick, if you’re gonna freak out, I might have to assign Wade to monitor you in between engine checks,” Dykstra joked. “It’ll give him something to do besides wail and gnash his teeth about his missing guns.”

“I am not wailing, sir,” the powerfully built flight engineer said in mock protest. “Just sitting here sobbing quietly.”

Before they’d lifted off from El Minya, an Egyptian Air Force training base in the Nile Valley, ground personnel had hurriedlyremoved the helicopter’s two door-mounted .50-caliber machine guns. Stripping the weapons and their mounts shaved off closeto a thousand pounds of weight. Even with the HH-60W’s larger fuel tanks, every option to lighten its load and extend itsrange counted. This emergency search-and-rescue mission to a crash site in southern Libya was at the very outer edge of thehelicopter’s capabilities—already requiring one midair refueling just to get them this far.

Up to five hours ago, the crew’s primary focus as part of the Sixty-Fourth Expeditionary Rescue Squadron had been on weeks-longjoint training exercises with their Egyptian and other allied counterparts. That had changed the moment they received a flashtransmission reporting the crash of a U.S. Air Force C-130J Super Hercules deep in the Sahara Desert, some miles from thenearest inhabited place, the Wath Oasis. Despite being nearly nine hundred miles away, they were the closest trained CSARgroup. Parachuting in a team might have been faster, except that no one in their right mind wanted to drop a handful of rescuersinto the unknown without a way to pull them out in a hurry if trouble erupted. So now the Jolly Green II and its specialistcrew was en route to do what they could for any survivors from the aircraft that had gone down. Of course, as hours went bywithout radio contact from the crash site, it was looking less and less likely that anyone had made it out alive. But someonestill had to go check.

Wizard One-One’s pilots, Dykstra and Kasper, were combat-tested veterans of several daring missions to extract wounded U.S. and allied personnel under fire and deep in hostile territory. Bill Wade was along to keep the helicopter’s engines, hydraulic systems, and other equipment operating smoothly during an extraordinarily long and grueling flight. And as pararescuemen, Zalewski and Camarillo were graduates of one of the toughest training programs in the entire U.S. military—nearly two years’ worth of rigorous courses covering emergency medicine, parachuting, mountaineering, combat diving, wilderness survival, tactics, helicopter operations, and half a dozen other valuable specializations. If there were injured survivors still trapped in the wreckage of the C-130J turboprop, their expertise would be crucial to extracting the wounded and getting them back to base alive.

Nick Flynn’s own role in the mission was less clearly defined. After graduating from college with an ROTC scholarship, he’dundergone intensive training to qualify as a Special Tactics Officer in the Air Force Special Operations Command—earning theright to a scarlet beret, similar to the maroon beret worn