5)
The Ties that
Bind
High above the Emerald Coast of Florida
“You’re the only person I know that can turn a perfectly
good beach weekend into some stupid training evolution,” screamed Marcus Tolar
from one side of the old C-47 Skytrain’s fuselage. Tolar, call sign Toad, was a small black man that stood about five feet five inches
tall. Despite the lean, ropey muscle he
worked hard to keep, he may have weighed one hundred sixty pounds after a solid
meal. But, the size of the man – or lack
thereof – is not what made Toad special.
It was the size of the man’s heart, desire, and determination. That’s not to mention that as a former SEAL
and Section 8 sniper with hundreds of combat operations under his belt, he was
probably one of the deadliest marksmen walking the planet. All that was before being recruited to SKUL where
his talents were once again put to good use turning furry werewolf faces into
mists of green ichor.
And right this second, he was
pissed.
“Dude, settle down and try to enjoy
yourself, Toad,” said his teammate and assistant team leader - ATL, Jed Blackmoor, coolly from the
other side of the lumbering plane. Jed
Blackmoor, call sign Jed Blackmoor because
that sounds tough enough, was a former Delta Force hitter who spent his
formative military years growing up in the Ranger Regiment during the mid-to-late
nineties. Best described as a high
order, no-nonsense ass-kicker, Blackmoor was a leathery sheath of
wiry, Texas muscle framed by a Brillo pad’s worth of short-cropped brown hair
that was growing out in Mohawk fashion.
Legend had it that Jed wore his hair in a Mohawk during his Unit
days. He also groomed his facial hair
into a long, Sam Elliot inspired biker ‘stache.
As visually intimidating as Jed was, it was his tactical skills and
knowledge that made him so deadly. As a
master of multiple martial art disciplines, he could, quite literally, kill a
man with his pinky finger. He also loved
planes; and more specifically, he loved jumping out of planes. Long ago, while on his way to earning his
Ranger scroll, Jed learned how to stomach bailing out of perfectly good
airplanes at high altitudes. Later in
his career, while operating as a Unit troop leader and jump master, he learned
to love it. In fact, for nearly a decade,
when a new guy showed up in B squadron’s team room and went up in a plane with
the intent of jumping out of it, he did so under Jed’s watchful eye.
“Nineteen forties, man! The forties!
This floating beer can had holes punched in its ass during World War fuckin’ Two, Jed!” In an ill-advised attempt to prove his point
concerning the plane’s current condition, he prodded a wire and tape
combination in rhythm with, “Dubya.
Dubya. Mother. Fuckin’.
TWO, Jed.” Evidently completing
the connection, blue sparks ignited the surrounding air and, along with it,
Toad’s fingers. The sniper looked at his
finger nails which were now black and attempted to shake out the sudden
pain. “Dammit! That hurt!”
The pungent scent of ozone wafted across the plane.
Blackmoor simply shrugged
nonchalantly while checking to make sure one of the pockets of his cargo pants
were secure.
“That’s duct tape, Jed. Duct tape…on a plane!” For the life of him, Toad could not
understand why none of this concerned Jed.
“What do you have to say about that, huh?” the sniper’s voice rose to a
belligerent level.
“Ah, cowboy up,” Jed answered simply while checking that his knife was
properly secured. Toad, stunned to
silence, scrunched his face in thought while he tried to place the saying. He’d heard it before, he was sure.
“That’s from 8
Seconds, dude,” Jed explained. When
it was apparent it was still not registering with Toad, he clarified, “Rodeo
movie, early nineties.”
Toad looked dramatically over each
of his shoulders like there might be someone standing behind him. Obviously, there was not. “Oh, you’re talking to me? You really think I would know some hick,
redneck movie. I’m black, Jed. Black. I probably skipped it for Boyz N the Hood.”
Despite himself, Jed laughed, “Point taken. Look, man, we’ll be on the ground in a few
minutes. What are you complaining about
anyway? You’re wearing a chute, right?”
“Yes, but that’s hardly the point,
man.”
The pilot – their
pilot – looked back, held a beer can up by a flexed arm, and screamed something
in gibberish that sounded a lot like Cannonball!
before turning back to his controls.
Toad looked up to the cockpit, started to turn back, took
a second look, then asked, “How many beers has our pilot had, Jed?”
Jed stopped what he was doing and
looked up toward the cockpit. Blackmoor
shrugged, “Not sure.” Seeing the fury in
Toad’s normally placid eyes, he offered, “Calms his nerves.”
Toad’s jaw dropped though his mind
screamed, Am I on planet Earth right now?
“Calms his nerves?
Jed, say that again, and tell me if it makes any sense to you.”
Jed shrugged again, but this time
held his palms out in a what do you want
me to do about it gesture. “He
doesn’t like flying, Toad. Last I heard,
you didn’t either.”
Toad looked around, sure he had been dropped unwittingly
into another dimension. It was only when
he was certain he was, in fact, still on planet Earth that he hissed, “He’s a pilot, Jed!”
The pilot cut off any further rebuttal by yelling from
the cockpit, “Time to bail, boys!”
“See?” Jed said smugly while wrenching the plane’s side
hatch open. Salty air heavy with
humidity assaulted the inside of the old Skytrain. “On the ground in no time.”
Jed gave a thumbs-up and bailed out. True to his nature, Toad followed right
behind.
***
Once on the ground, the two SKUL
operators waved off the pickup truck sent to retrieve them. Together, Toad and Jed covered nearly five
miles of gravel roads and dirt trails at a jog.
When they entered the clearing surrounding the small, private airfield
and hangar complex owned by the sky diving company, Jed and Toad fell out of
their jog and began walking.
“Where’d you say you met this guy
again?” Toad asked as he worked to get control of his breath.
“Who, Curtis?”
“The pilot.”
“Curtis.”
“Dammit, Jed, yeah Curtis. Where’d you meet the beer swilling pilot.”
“Well, Toad, that’s kind of a long story,” Jed said in a
slow, Texas drawl.
“Dude, I just jumped out of a tin
can that had wings duct taped to its sides – for fun – and ran through enough sage brush and pine timber to ensure
I’ll be picking ticks off my nuts for months; so, humor me.”
“Alright, fair enough,” Jed began
with a chuckle. “I met Curtis while I
was with the Unit. He was a pilot for
SEASPRAY…”
“Wait,” Toad flashed the time out signal, “you’re telling me that
dude flew planes for the most clandestine aviation unit in the entire
military? Maybe the world?”
“Yep,” Jed said plainly as the two
hit the pavement of the airstrip.
“Anyway, Curtis was assigned to my recce troop during a mission along
the border between Somalia and Kenya.
This was either ‘99 or ‘00, I think.
Shit, it’s all running together nowadays. It’s just one mission after the other now.”
Toad was struck with the tired quietness in Jed’s
voice. There was also a heavy mix of
sadness there; and, quite frankly, that
scared Saber team’s sniper. After all,
Jed was the rock that everyone else lashed their ropes to.
“Anyway,” Jed said by way of shaking himself from his
thoughts, “we were on loan to the Activity to assist in a special
reconnaissance mission. Our objective
was to locate a terrorist training camp in the area. It was a find, fix, and finish type deal
where we’d photograph the place, paint the target, and then call in an air
strike to level the dump. Curtis and his
little Beechcraft were our way into and out of the country. We HAHO’d into the AO under the cover of
darkness about five klicks from the target.
Once on the ground, we patrolled to the target and set up two
observation points, one to the west of the camp and the other to the
north. They hit us right at sunrise, a
total surprise, and one helluva firefight ensued. They were nearly able to cut off our
positions before we had time to react.”
“Sounds like they were tipped off,” noted Toad.
“Yeah,” Jed agreed.
“The ISA guys had set up a safe house in Garissa. The only problem with that was that no
airlines actually serviced the airport; so, it basically just served the local
population. It’s important to remember
that, even though this was pre-nine-eleven, intelligence sources kept talking
about something big hitting the US. Hard
money was that it was going to come out of the Middle East or Africa; so, we
made certain concessions in our own security in order to accomplish the overall
mission. We figured the airport was
being watched which made for a dicey situation we were sure would bite us in
the ass before it was over, and it did.
In any case, we managed to break contact and evade the skinnies long
enough for both recce elements to link back up deep in the desert. Enemy movement and positions burned our primary
extraction point along with every other contingency we had. Our calls for air support and immediate evac
were denied. We weren’t supposed to be
there; so, it was probably the right call.
Still though, it sucked realizing we were on our own and walking out
while being chased down by a hundred jihadists looking to take scalps. I still remember looking around and seeing
nothing but hundreds of miles of Indian country on all sides. It was a lonely-assed feeling, lemme tell
you, but none of that bothered crazy ol’ Curtis one bit, though. Dude touched that Beechcraft down on the
freakin’ desert floor amid an unholy barrage of light machinegun and RPG fire
just long enough for us to jump on board and take back off.”
Jed chuckled softly after a second’s worth of thought,
“That crazy ess-o-bee didn’t even bring the plane to a full stop. When that door was thrown open, we all knew
that you either made the jump, or you didn’t.
One shot deal that, miraculously, we all managed. Funny thing was watching little holes of
light bloom along the interior of the plane.
Turns out the skin of that little prop plane was being turned to Swiss
cheese which made the flight to friendly air space pretty interesting to say
the least. Had Curtis not had the balls
to do it, we would have been toast. As
it stood, all four of us were shot up pretty bad, but everyone survived.”
“Damn,” was all Toad said. It was enough. He, more than most, could appreciate not
leaving your mates to an ill fate. One
of the only reasons he managed to complete BUD/S was because of Dane
Stackwell’s constant encouragement, something he never forgot.
“Yeah, damn,” agreed Jed.
“Unfortunately, the Activity’s knob-turners weren’t so lucky. Those guys stayed behind to sterilize the
safe house and massage their contacts before attempting to get out of the
country. For their efforts, they were
assassinated less than forty-eight hours later.” Jed became quiet as he led them into a
pristinely kept hangar that housed two other aircraft. One was a late model, completely
state-of-the-art Cessna Citation M2 while the other was a refurbished Grumman
F4F Wildcat. The Wildcat was a carrier based fighter
jet used by the US during the early stages of the Second World War.
Toad cut his eyes to Jed, “Dude...”
Jed shrugged, “What do you want me to say? Curtis likes restoring these old
clunkers. He makes a damned good living
doing it, too. That Skytrain we jumped
out of is his latest project. Obviously,
he hasn’t done much to it yet except get it flying, of course.” Toad could only manage to shake his head as
Jed continued with his tale. “As the
story goes, Curtis left SEASPRAY for the private sector shortly after our
mission. Just like a lot of us who turn
to the money private contract companies can offer, aviators have a pretty plum
post-military career waiting on them. I
ran into him again purely out of coincidence, about a year later. My recce troop had been invited down here to
train around Hurlburt Field with some of the Air Force JTACs we’d worked with,
and I bumped into him one night in a bar.
As you can imagine, given our history, it didn’t take long to strike a
friendship up with his crazy ass. Been
coming down here every chance I get since.”
Toad suddenly became incredulous of the backstory and
called him on it.
“Dude, you were an operator in one of the most elite
units in the world – and that was before SKUL – and your squadron’s jump
master. You could have gotten jump time
in with any company on the planet, and you’re telling me you came down here multiple times to enjoy the lovely
Redneck Riviera. Why? To jump out of planes flown by a drunk
pilot? I don’t buy that for a second.”
“I’m sure my charm had something to do with it,” replied
Curtis from just outside the hangar’s office door. “And, for the record, I don’t fly drunk or
while I’m drinking, for that matter.”
“But…” stammered Toad, thrown off by the man’s sudden
appearance. He’d obviously heard the
entire conversation.
“But, nothing,” Curtis interjected. “Those cans were filled with water. Jed thought it’d be fun to watch you squirm a
little and boy, was he ever right.
Haven’t had that much fun in years.”
Curtis’ laugh echoed off the sheet metal walls of the hangar, and all
Toad could do was look from one man to the other.
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