Operation Pink Elephant Read online

  ‘Wind south by southwest, thirty-five knots,’ the pilot immediately replied from the flight deck. ‘Rely on me to get you onto the flat-top, Sergeant. I have done this once or twice before, you know.’

  Charlie smiled. ‘Roger to that, ma’am.’

  ‘Commencing first run in sixty seconds,’ said O’Shay. ‘Seven minutes to green light.’

  ‘Copy that. Seven minutes.’

  ‘Good luck with your mission.’

  ‘Thanks for the ride, ma’am.’ Removing the headset, Charlie pulled on his Kevlar combat helmet. Once he’d tightened the strap under his chin, he moved toward the rear of the aircraft and the open tailgate.

  Five men hand-picked by Charlie were waiting in line. Charlie now took his place at the head of the line. He would be leading the first group to jump. Turning to the men behind him, he raised seven gloved fingers to indicate it would be seven minutes until the jump. Then, raising his eyes, he locked his gaze on a red light glowing on the fuselage wall beside the open tail. The remaining members of the team, those who weren’t jumping this time, stood back and waited their turn. Six of them would be jumping on the second pass over Canberra, and Ben and Caesar on the last pass.

  The Hercules had been losing altitude for several minutes. It now levelled out at 1000 feet and flew into the wind. The pilot throttled back until the plane seemed to creep over the ocean. The minutes passed. And then Canberra’s bulk was passing below the plane. In that instant, the red light on the fuselage wall turned to green. As one, Charlie and his group ran along the ramp and jumped out into midair. Baz came immediately behind Charlie, then Bruce, Banner, Mortenson and Major Jinko. Moments after each man jumped, he pulled his ripcord. Soon it was possible for those remaining inside the Hercules’ vast cargo cabin to see six deployed chutes floating back toward Canberra in neat single file, each one a little lower than the next. Carried by the wind, and guided by each parachutist, the rectangular chutes sank slowly and precisely toward the ship.

  The Hercules’ engines began to roar loudly as the pilot applied more power. The plane’s nose came up and the Herc began to climb, banking gently to the left. The aircraft was gaining height and commencing a long circular flight path, ready for run number two. Sergeant Duke Hazard was now talking to the pilot via the intercom. Leading the second group, he waited until Squadron Leader O’Shay told him that the green light was just minutes away, then joined his group as they formed a line by the open tail. Coming down to 1000 feet once more and levelling out, the Hercules again flew a course that put Canberra directly ahead.

  The first six parachutists dropped toward the Canberra’s deck, which had looked worryingly small from the air. But as the GRRR team members got closer, it began to look the size of a football field. All six men were highly experienced parachutists and, guiding their chutes with control lines in each hand, they were able to steer them as if they were gliders.

  Even so, their speed and the ship’s momentum in the opposite direction meant that their landings would be swift. To counter this, Charlie and those following him executed a tight manoeuvre. They steered their chutes to the right of the fast-approaching ship, then made a rapid left-hand turn and came in from the side, partially into the wind, so that they landed going in much the same direction as the ship and at little more than Canberra’s speed. Only hugely experienced jumpers could pull off a landing like this – precise and without injury.

  Charlie touched down first, slap-bang in the middle of the flight deck. His carbon-fibre Zoomers had a little give in them – but more give than human legs – and he was able to land on the deck and run along it for several metres with an almost bouncy gait until, still on his feet and letting the air out of his chute, he came to a standstill. Most of the others, including Major Jinko, made similarly perfect touchdowns.

  Casper Mortenson was the exception, losing his balance and falling to the steel deck, where he was dragged along for some distance until he smacked the emergency release in the middle of his chest. The harness immediately came away, releasing the Dane from his parachute. It caught the strong breeze, billowed and blew over the edge of the flight deck, dropping into the ocean.

  With the size of the swells, no boat could be launched from the Canberra to recover the lost chute. And the helicopter hovering behind the ship could not afford to divert from its paramount mission of being ready to zoom in and lower a line to any jumper unlucky enough to miss his flight deck landing and go over the ship’s side. The chute would float in the ocean until it was washed up on some distant shore, where locals might treasure this silken bounty from the sea.

  ‘Untidy, Casper,’ Charlie called over to the Dane, as he reeled in his deflated chute.

  Mortenson shrugged. ‘I’m a better diver than I am a parachutist,’ he retorted.

  Canberra sailors now appeared, running across the deck to help the parachutists free themselves from their chutes. They then led each man to the ‘island’, the tall section of the ship’s superstructure that rose on the starboard side like a grey office tower. Via the island, they would enter the bowels of the ship.

  The deck officer looked down at the scene from the bridge. ‘First party of parachutists recovered, Captain.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Captain Rixon. ‘So far, so good.’

  ‘Sea State 5 edging into Sea State 6, Captain,’ the navigation officer warned, reading the data from a screen in front of him.

  ‘Do we recall the heelo, sir?’ the air division commander asked anxiously. ‘And tell Blue Orchid to abort its remaining passes?’

  Rising from his chair, Captain Rixon walked to the bridge window and studied his ship’s flight deck. A little up-and-down motion was visible as the ship pushed its way into the increasingly larger swells, but in Rixon’s opinion the Seahawk should be able to land in such conditions with comparative ease. His new ship was performing above expectations. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Prepare to receive the next airdrop.’

  From inside the Hercules, Ben and Caesar watched as Duke Hazard led the second GRRR group out the back of the plane. McHenry, Cisco, Harada, Lyon and Wolf followed right behind the American Green Beret. Once again the Hercules climbed after the jumpers had exited, then came around for its third pass over the LHD.

  The C-130’s loadmaster now came to Ben, who was kneeling to fit Caesar’s doggles. ‘Good to go, Sergeant?’ yelled the loadmaster.

  Ben nodded and stood up. ‘Yep. Let’s do it.’

  The loadmaster picked up Caesar and held him up against Ben. The loadmaster had flown with EDDs before and knew exactly what was required when an EDD and its handler made a parachute jump. The labrador wore a jumping harness made especially for war dogs, and Ben now clipped this to his own harness. As the loadmaster let go of the labrador and stepped back, Caesar was left hanging sideways across Ben’s stomach. The arrangement looked inelegant, and Caesar appeared out of his comfort zone, but it was the only way that he and Ben could jump together.

  Ben ruffled the labrador’s ears. ‘We’ll soon be in the water and having a lovely swim, mate.’

  Caesar’s tail wagged, but not as enthusiastically as before. He had a look on his face that seemed to say, Let’s just get on with it, boss!

  Laden with Caesar, parachute and equipment packs, Ben moved to the open rear of the plane and stood with his eye on the signal lamp on the wall, which had been glowing red since the second GRRR group jumped. The loadmaster spoke to the pilot via his headset, then held up two fingers – two minutes to go. Before long, Canberra was passing below, smaller than it had appeared on the two previous passes, because the Hercules was making this final run at the higher altitude of 2000 feet.

  The light turned green. Ben waddled forward and dropped from the end of the ramp. The moment he cleared the aircraft, he pulled his ripcord. The small pilot chute shot up, dragging the main chute with it. Within seconds, Ben and Caesar’s rapid fall was checked, as the main chute opened. Ben grasped the toggles at the end of two lines dangling from the de
ployed parachute and tugged gently on the one on the right. The parachute angled in that direction, and man and dog turned to the south of the approaching Canberra. The ship’s flight deck had by this time been cleared of the six jumpers from the second pass; all had landed without incident. Now it was just a matter of recovering Ben and Caesar to complete the warship’s reception of the GRRR team.

  Ben didn’t have to be as accurate as the first twelve jumpers. All he had to do was land in the sea 300–400 metres off the ship’s port side. The lower the pair descended, the rougher the sea began to appear – and the higher the swells. To slow their impact with the water, Ben followed the example of the previous jumpers, angling his chute in a shallow turn to his left, toward the ship, so that they were almost into the wind.

  ‘Here we go, Caesar!’ Ben called, as the surface of the water rushed to meet them.

  Ben entered the water feet first. Their combined weight plus the speed of their fall meant that he and Caesar were plunged under the waves and disappeared from view. Ben’s parachute crumpled on the surface of the water. His lifejacket deployed automatically with a whoosh! Within seconds, the inflated jacket propelled them upwards. As soon as Ben’s head broke the surface, he leaned back so that Caesar’s head was also above water. Methodically, Ben punched the parachute release, and he and Caesar were instantly freed of the dragging chute.

  Much like Casper Mortenson’s chute, this one would also remain in the sea. In his head, Ben could hear Josh and Maddie scolding him for littering the Indian Ocean. But he knew that the parachute would end up making someone’s day. He had seen such discarded chutes used by villagers in the Maldive Islands to make tents, or to make dresses for the poor in Bangladesh. One man’s loss was another man’s gain, he told himself. Besides, this mission was all about saving lives.

  Normally in a jump into water, Ben would promptly disengage the clip that held Caesar to his torso, and Caesar would slip off him and begin paddling at his side. But for what lay ahead, man and dog needed to remain attached.

  ‘Won’t be long, mate,’ Ben assured his partner.

  Ben tried to spot the ship but the rolling waves, now more than four metres high, blocked it from his view. Water washed over the pair of them in sheets. It covered Caesar entirely for long seconds and filled Ben’s mouth, leaving him coughing and spluttering. In trying to keep Caesar’s head above water, Ben was leaning back so far that he was regularly receiving a ducking and gasping for air. They couldn’t stay in such rough water for much longer. Both man and dog could drown.

  Ben reached for his lifejacket and freed a flare from its clip. Yanking on one end of the flare, he set it off. An orange light burned bright as he held the flare aloft, its orange smoke trailing away on the strong breeze. The flare was impervious to the water that continued to wash over Ben and Caesar; nothing would put it out until the flare ran out. After just a few minutes, a hulking shape appeared just twenty metres above the pair. Attracted by the flare, Canberra’s ASR Seahawk had arrived.

  From the heelo’s right side, a wire was winched down. There was a basic harness at the end of the wire, and once this reached the water’s surface, the Seahawk’s pilot manoeuvred his hovering machine until the harness was within Ben’s reach. Ben expertly hooked the harness under both his arms, then gave a thumbs up to the winchman leaning out of the helicopter. The electric winch began to turn, and Ben and Caesar were lifted from the water just as a wave crashed over them. Dripping wet, the pair was hauled up to the Seahawk’s open rear compartment. The winchman dragged them in, and soon Ben and Caesar were sitting on the heelo’s floor.

  ‘Recovery complete, skip,’ the winchman informed his pilot over the intercom.

  ‘Roger,’ the pilot responded.

  The Seahawk rose and turned, banking around toward Canberra, which was now some distance ahead. Rapidly, the chopper overhauled the ship and approached it from astern until it was hovering ten metres above the deck of the moving vessel. On the side of the flight deck, a navy batman in helmet and iridescent jacket waved his bats to guide the pilot in. The pilot, unable to see directly beneath his aircraft, had to rely on the batman for directions. Down the Seahawk slowly came, until its wheels touched the deck. The machine bounced back up into the air slightly, then settled firmly on the steel, and the batman signalled that the heelo was down. Only now did Ben unclip Caesar from his harness.

  All around the heelo, members of the ship’s deck team were appearing – men in helmets whose vests of different colours signified their departments, from fuel to armaments to maintenance. They quickly took charge of the helicopter from the aircrew.

  Above the whine of the dying engines, one of the deck crew yelled to Ben, ‘Need a hand, mate?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Ben replied, jumping down to the deck. Turning back to the helicopter’s cabin, he saw Caesar standing on the edge, looking down at the deck and assessing this strange new environment.

  ‘Come on, Caesar,’ Ben called. ‘It’s fine. Down you come.’

  Trusting Ben implicitly, Caesar jumped down. One of the deck crew, a big smile on his face, went to give Caesar a pat.

  ‘Hold on,’ Ben cautioned him.

  As the sailor, frowning, looked up at Ben questioningly, Caesar shook himself vigorously from head to tail. The sailors nearest him received a spray of water, bringing laughs from their companions. Ben smiled – he’d known what was coming. Clipping Caesar’s two-metre galvanised steel leash in place, he looked at the crew chief. ‘Okay, where to?’

  ‘Follow this man,’ the crew chief replied, patting the back of the sailor beside him.

  The seaman led Ben and Caesar across the deck, the labrador trotting along beside his handler with his nose to the steel, sniffing it out.

  A chief petty officer met Ben at a door to the island. ‘Welcome aboard Canberra, Sergeant,’ said the CPO, shaking Ben’s hand. ‘Good to have you aboard.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Ben. ‘Good to be aboard.’

  Before following the CPO into the ship’s interior, Ben turned and looked back at the helicopter. The three-man flight crew were walking his way while the deck crew folded the helicopter’s tail to one side and man handled the machine toward a large aircraft lift in the stern. Spray was regularly coming over the ship’s bow, and with each big wave that hit, the deck juddered. Ben reckoned the wind had picked up since he’d jumped.

  ‘Still Sea State 5?’ he asked the CPO.

  The CPO smiled wryly. ‘It’s increased to Sea State 6,’ he said. ‘You were lucky the captain decided to keep the heelo aloft, mate. Otherwise, you and your dog would be swimming to Africa!’

  Nearby, a rooster crowed. Lucky Mertz jerked awake. Flies were crawling around the corners of his eyes, trying to get into them. With a curse, he swatted them away. Lucky had always wondered why flies were so attracted to human eyes. He leaned against the wall and placed his akubra over his face in an attempt to keep the flies away.

  But the hat could not keep out the smell in the hut. Their captors had given the prisoners a single plastic bucket to use as their lavatory, only emptying it once a day. And several of the captives had developed diarrhoea from their diet of bean soup and green bananas. It was no wonder the hut was full of flies.

  Lucky had slept sitting upright, his arms tied in front of him at the wrists. He looked around the gloomy hut interior at his five companions, all of them native rangers from the Tanzanian Wildlife Service. Lucky hadn’t been working with them long, but had quickly grown to know and like each one.

  Julius, the oldest, grey-haired and in his sixties, was the senior man among them. He had been a ranger for many years, ever since the poaching of elephants had been made illegal in 1989. Three of the others, Simel, Nelson and Roadga, were young men in their twenties, each with a few years of ranger service under his belt. And then there was Koinet – or ‘the tall one’, as the local people called him. Just sixteen years of age, he had only been a ranger for several months.

  Young Koinet was findin
g captivity by the rebels harder to take than the older rangers. He had seen nothing of the world outside the bush, and his biggest dream was of one day visiting Dar es Salaam, the largest city of Tanzania. Koinet had confessed to Lucky after their capture by RAT that he had only joined the ranger service to get the fine pair of military boots that came with the job – boots that had been confiscated by the rebels after his capture. He’d had no desire to protect animals or to get into battles with poachers. Koinet was pining for his mother and regretting ever putting on his ranger boots. As the others around him sat up, stretching and yawning, Koinet lay curled up like a lazy kitten.

  Chickens outside the hut scattered with much frantic clucking before the hut door swung open. Two rebels in jeans and T-shirts entered, each holding an AK-47 assault rifle. Heedlessly treading on legs and feet to get to Lucky, they grasped him under the arms and dragged him from the group. His hat went flying as they pulled him out the door.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Lucky demanded. ‘Where are you taking me?’

  The pair remained mute. They merely threw him in the dirt full-length. Looking up, Lucky saw a short man with unusually pale skin approaching. A holstered automatic pistol was suspended from his belt, and a pair of binoculars hung from his neck. He wore green camouflage military-style trousers, and a red beret sat atop his curly white hair. Thick dark glasses covered his eyes.

  ‘Good morning, Ranger Lucky,’ said the man, folding his arms as he looked down at him.

  ‘Good morning, Colonel.’ Lucky struggled to his feet and found himself towering a good six inches above the man. This was Abraham Zuba – or Colonel Pink Eye, as the locals called him – Commander of the Revolutionary Army of Tanzania. After Julius and the other rangers had been captured by Zuba’s men, Lucky had tried to negotiate with Zuba for their release. Instead, Zuba had threatened to execute Koinet unless Lucky surrendered himself to the rebels. To emphasise his point, Zuba had fired a pistol beside Koinet’s right ear – Koinet had been deaf in that ear for days after. And so Lucky had voluntarily become a prisoner of the elephant poachers.