Path Of The Assassin

Icy, subzero air blew across the open doorway as the Operation Phantom team lined up. Rick Morrell determined the order and had placed Harvath and Meg smack in the middle. As soon as Morrell gave the signal to jump, the line of bodies in front of them lurched forward, but Meg’s legs refused to move. She willed herself to follow, but it was no use. Either her brain was refusing to give the command, or her body was refusing to obey it. Whatever the case, it was imperative for the team to stay together and that could only happen by jumping at precise intervals. Harvath wrapped his arms around Meg, lifted her clear off her feet and made for the open door.

At the last minute, Meg tried to reach out and grab something to prevent their leaving the plane, but it was no use. Harvath’s grasp was too strong.

The frigid air burned their faces as they accelerated toward their terminal velocity of one hundred twenty miles per hour. Harvath glanced at his altimeter and watched the luminescent dial sweep off their rapidly increasing descent. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” he repeated over the radio to Meg. Harvath figured the temperature was at least thirty-five degrees below zero. It took only seventeen seconds to descend to twenty-seven thousand feet, but to Meg Cassidy it felt like a lifetime.

When Harvath pulled his silver rip cord and deployed the ram-air, high-glide-ratio parachute, the expertly packed material shot straight and high into the air and then snapped into an enormous square double canopy overhead. Though Harvath had told her he was about to deploy the chute and she had been forewarned about the jolt, Meg had no idea the shock would be so intense. It was like riding in a falling elevator, which had just found the basement. She knew the intense stab of pain she felt was nothing compared to what Harvath must be feeling. He had borne the brunt of the shock and had told her in the plane that he would probably be sore for several days. It was always like that with HAHOs.

The deafening rush of air that they’d heard as they hurtled through the night sky was now gone. It was replaced by a silence unlike anything Meg Cassidy had ever experienced, and the view was absolutely incredible.

Harvath was appreciating it too. Between glances at his altimeter and the positions of his teammates, he took in the beautiful starlit vista over the sea of desert far below. It never ceased to amaze him how peaceful the world looked from this height, even when he knew he was inserting into hostile territory.

The team formed a vertical column in the sky, each parachutist seeming to rest on top of the next. The lowest man in the airborne totem pole acted as the navigator, using a compass, GPS device, and barely visible terrain features to guide them into the drop zone.

They floated for forty miles, and a little over a half hour. Despite their high-tech jumpsuits and insulated Gore-Tex gloves, each of them was numb to the bone with cold. As they descended, the air began to gradually get warmer. At twelve thousand feet, they removed their oxygen masks and were able to breathe normally. The navigator continued to correct their course based on changes in wind speed and direction, until finally the signal came across the encrypted radios that they were coming within range of their DZ.

Meg fought the reflex to stiffen her legs as the ground raced up to meet them. At the last moment, Harvath pulled down hard on the parachute toggles, dramatically slowing their descent. They touched down in the soft sand and immediately rolled to their left. Harvath pulled in the rest of the chute and unbuckled Meg from where she was attached to his harness. The rest of the team members were already burying their parachutes and Chem-lights in the sand.

“Now that wasn’t so bad,” whispered Harvath with a smile as he finished covering their chute with sand and checked Meg’s equipment.

“Not at all,” she replied. “I can’t decide which I liked more-my heart beating through my chest or my teeth nearly cracking from almost forty minutes in the freezing cold air.”

“You’ll warm up. Wait’ll we get walking. It’s actually pretty warm in the desert tonight. It just takes your body a while to heat back up.”

Harvath did one last check of his own gear and scanned the horizon with his night-vision goggles before he and Meg joined the rest of the team. It was already well past one in the morning local time. It would take them at least two hours, maybe three, to hike into the rocky hills above the oasis, where they would wait until tomorrow night. They could sleep during the daytime, but for now they needed the cover of darkness to hide their movements. Not a moment could be wasted. When the team was gathered together, Morrell gave the order to maintain complete radio silence and then signaled them to move out.