Sky Hunters: X-Battalion

CHAPTER 1

Grenada

October, 1983

THE CLIFF WAS CALLED BLUE SKY POINT, BUT ON THIS clear Caribbean day it was hidden by clouds.

Dense, black, with torrents of rain falling, it was no weather to fly a helicopter into. Yet that was exactly what Captain Bobby Autry had to do.

It was the third day of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, an attempt to wrest the small tropical island from the hands of a brutal communist regime. Autry was a pilot in Task Force 160, the top-secret U.S. Army unit whose mission was to transport special operations troops to and from the fighting. Members of TF-160 had been among the first U.S. troops to land on the island. The unit was barely two years old, though, and this was its first real combat. They’d already taken some casualties.

Autry’s aircraft was an MD-530, an extremely fast helicopter that, at just 24 feet long, wasn’t much bigger than a Chevy stretch van. Basically a glass bubble with a rotor, it carried no weapons. Its size and swiftness was all the defense it was supposed to need.

Strapped into the seat beside him was a civilian named Gary Weir. He was CIA, a photo recon specialist; that’s all Autry knew about him. Weir had three cameras with him; two Nikons and one contained in a small metallic briefcase, like something from a James Bond movie. He was also carrying a waterproof blast bag.

Autry had been tasked to take Weir and his cameras over Blue Sky Point, this after reports of some very unusual activity up on the cliff. Fighting was still raging all over Grenada. Fighter-bombers from U.S. aircraft carriers were carrying out air strikes. Marines and Army special forces were combing the jungle looking for both Grenadian troops and their Cuban allies. Navy SEALs were onshore too, doing God knows what. But the overall operation had not been the cakewalk some had envisioned. Earlier, six helicopters belonging to TF-160 had been shot up trying to land troops at the Richmond Hill prison. An MD-530 similar to Autry’s had been downed the first day of fighting. The Cubans were defending parts of the island with suicidal ferocity. The U.S. brass was beginning to wonder why.

Earlier that day, a high-flying SR-71 spy plane had taken pictures of Cuban soldiers breaking up large sections of concrete on the flattened-off top of Blue Sky Point. Even when an AC-130 Spectre gunship was dispatched to fire on these soldiers, they continued banging away at the cement platforms, almost ignoring the withering fire from above. This behavior was so strange, a close-in photo mission was ordered.

The CIA already had a team aboard the USS Guam, the amphibious landing and command ship lying just off the coast of the embattled island. Autry’s squadron was on board too; they’d been flying Special Ops troops in and out of the action for the past seventy-two hours. The photo mission was thrown together in just fifteen minutes. As Autry watched his colleagues load Army Rangers into their Black Hawk helicopters, he took off in the tiny MD-530 with the CIA spook on the shoestring reconnaissance mission.

His orders were simple: Go in low over Blue Sky Point, beneath the storm clouds, get some snapshots of whatever was going on up there and then get the hell out. Autry was both excited and anxious as they rose above the command ship. As the youngest member of TF-160, he’d been serving as the unit’s maintenance pilot up to this point, flight checking copters that had been recently repaired. This would be his first taste of combat.

They were soon out over the open sea, about two miles off the edge of southeast Grenada. Blue Sky Point was squarely in their sights; Weir was giving his cameras one last check-through. The rain had ceased falling over the target, but the ominous clouds were still in place. This was good though. The strange cumulus would give the little chopper the extra cover it might need. After all, this was supposed to be a secret mission.

But all hopes that they could go in quietly were gone in a flash. A fishing boat that appeared abandoned and drifting about a thousand feet off the beach was actually hiding a Russian-made Zuni anti-aircraft gun, a very powerful, large-caliber weapon. It opened up on the small copter at two hundred yards.

Autry saw the fusillade at the last moment and yanked the copter to the right. Its engine screamed in response, but his quick reaction saved their lives. A half dozen shells did hit the copter. Three pinged off the spinning rotor blades; one hit the starboard landing strut, one blew a hole in the starboard door. The last round went right through the floorboard and shattered Weir’s 007 camera case.

Incredibly, though, the little copter was not mortally wounded. It could still fly, but for how long, Autry didn’t know.

He turned to Weir. The CIA man was in his mid-twenties, the same age as he.

"How important is this mission, really?" Autry yelled to him.

It has an A-One priority, Weir yelled back, his voice shaky as he examined his camera box, which was now a box of junk. Right from the top…

Autry himself was a little rattled. He’d never been shot at before, and it was as unpleasant as advertised. But he knew what he had to do: Get over the fear and press on.

OK, then! he yelled back to Weir, laying on the throttle. Hang on!

They rocketed over the coastline a moment later—under the clouds, grazing the treetops, seeing the very sharp rocks of the cliff lying dead ahead. The next barrage of AA fire was waiting for them up here.

This fusillade missed completely, but only because they were flying so fast and Autry was able to put the copter into another radical bank. The MD-530 nearly went over on its back, the remains of the shattered camera box flying around the cockpit, but a few deft touches on the controls quickly righted the copter again. In the middle of this, Autry saw the muzzle flash of the gun that had just fired at them. It was built right into the side of the cliff face leading up to Blue Sky Point. It fired on them again, but after another quick jink to the left, this burst missed the copter too.

But then a second gun dug into the side of the cliff opened up on them. And before this could register, Autry saw a third stream of tracers coming up at them, from yet another gun emplacement. Then came another, and another…

In that split second, Autry knew they were facing not just a few isolated anti-aircraft guns here, but a network of powerful AA weapons, possibly radar guided and very elaborately laid out.

What the hell are all these guns doing on this shitty little island? he wondered.

A second later they were up and over the cliff. But more AA weapons were lurking here. And these weren’t Zunis. They were much larger Shilka guns, one of the latest weapons in the Soviet arsenal. This was getting serious now. Shilkas were designed to shoot down high-flying, fast-moving jet fighters. They were extremely deadly and fired enormous shells. One hit would vaporize the tiny MD-530 in a flash.

Autry commenced evasive maneuvers again, causing a small storm of broken glass and pieces of the camera box to swirl around the cockpit once more. His engine was protesting loudly. Even worse, Autry could smell the distinct odor of aviation gas beginning to burn.

"You’re sure this is an A-One flight, right?" he yelled over at Weir again.

But the CIA man wasn’t listening. Instead, he’d unleashed his .45 caliber sidearm and was firing it wildly through the hole on the cockpit floor.

You assholes! Weir was screaming as he blindly pumped shell after shell into the jungle below. You fucking bastards!

Suddenly the cockpit was filled with gun smoke. The noise of the big .45 was more deafening that what was being fired at them.

Damn, Autry thought, he’s taking this personally…

They were quickly coming up on the target, a clearing in the jungle nearest the highest point of the cliff. There was indeed some kind of base up here. It was laid out in a six-point star shape with a web of concentric roads running through it. The layout looked vaguely familiar to Autry, but he just couldn’t recall why.

More anti-aircraft fire filled the sky. Then Autry spotted the telltale flame of a surface-to-air missile coming right at them. This was not some shoulder-fired SAM either—this was an SA-2, a large powerful missile that not many years before had been shooting down U.S. jets over North Vietnam. On sheer instinct, Autry jinked the copter to the left; the huge SAM went by them a moment later.

Suddenly they were right over the target. Weir began snapping pictures, one Nikon in each hand, his automatic film advances sounding like two machine guns. The overflight itself wouldn’t take more than five seconds. Autry didn’t want to hang around any longer than he had to.

He pushed the throttles to their limit, putting the copter on a parabolic arc, allowing the spook to photograph as much of the target zone as possible. The enemy fire intensified. Still, Autry could see Cuban workers below, shirtless and hot, using picks and shovels to tear up the concrete pads that seemed to be all over this place.

"What the hell is that down there?" Autry finally yelled to Weir.

It’s an unfinished ICBM base! the spook yelled back, still clicking off dozens of pictures a second. Just like back in Cuba in sixty-two. And the last thing the Russians want us to know is that they were building it up here…but now we’ve got the goods on them!

No sooner were the words out of Weir’s mouth when there was a tremendous explosion off to their left. Autry was immediately blinded; his eardrums seemed to burst. Right away he knew it was bad. This was not just a few bullet rounds bouncing around the ship—a large AAA fragmentation shell had exploded right next to them.

They were just pulling out of the photo run when it happened. The storm of missiles and AA fire followed them as they exited the area, roaring back through the clouds and over the outer part of the cliff. Suddenly, the crystal blue water of the Caribbean was below them again.

Only then did Autry look down at his control panel expecting to see every warning light blinking red. What he saw was actually worse. Nothing was blinking on his panel because the panel was no longer there. It was gone. No dials, no levers, no readouts. The brains of the aircraft had been blown away. Smoke was pouring into the cockpit through the massive hole left behind.

Autry turned to Weir, half expecting to see him blown away too. But the spook was still alive, still strapped in. He gave Autry a valiant thumbs up, but he knew too they were just moments away from crashing. The copter had been reduced to an airborne car wreck; pieces were falling off of it all over. Certainly there was no way they were going to make it back to the Guam or any other American ship.

Did you get what you needed? Autry yelled to the spook, trying to be heard over the fire now engulfing the copter’s engine.

I got enough! Weir yelled back.

Can you swim? Autry asked him.

The spook looked down at the sea. Harvard championship team—1978… was his cautious reply.

That’s good, Autry told him. Because I think you’re going to need it.

With that, Autry put the copter into a fierce dive. Weir held on for dear life as they fell out of the sky. Just as it seemed they were going right into the water, Autry pulled the copter back and leveled off. There was a small Navy ship about a mile away. Those on board had spotted the crippled MD-530 and were already turning toward them. But the rear of the copter was completely engulfed in flames by now. The little bird wouldn’t be able to stay airborne much longer.

Weir looked over at Autry, bewildered. At that moment he realized Autry was saving his life.

He hastily shook hands with the pilot, at the same time stuffing his film into his waterproof blast bag.

If there’s anything I can ever do for you! Weir yelled as he went out the door, leaping to the water fifteen feet below.

I’ll get back to you on that… Autry muttered, pulling back on the controls and putting some air back under the burning copter.

He could not ditch himself. The AA gunners on the cliff were still firing at him and would follow him all the way down. Both he and the spook would be like sitting ducks then. So he turned back toward the beach, the stream of enemy fire following him, leading it away from the CIA agent and the valuable film he was carrying.

Autry was back over land in a matter of seconds. He was now about a quarter mile south of Blue Sky Point. Intense jungle was below. Still on fire and still attracting a lot of attention, he headed inland.

He had no intention of riding the copter into the ground. He was not that heroic, nor was he suicidal. But he had to set it down somewhere, before it blew up. And he knew he had about fifteen seconds to accomplish this, if that…

It was getting hot inside the cockpit. The fire around the engine was raging and getting closer. Autry had been driving military copters for just two years. But he knew some tricks of the trade—if he could only find someplace soft to set down.

Suddenly, Autry was surprised to see what looked like Buckingham Palace lying almost straight ahead. What such an ornate structure was doing hanging off the edge of this island, he didn’t know, and at the moment, he didn’t care. The building had a huge back lawn and an even larger parking area out front. He might have a chance to set down on either one of them.

Autry hastily turned the burning copter toward the palace. He opened the throttle to full power, counted to three, then shut down his doomed craft’s engine. Those last three seconds gave him the forward motion he needed to make it at least part of the way to the open area around the castle. More important, the copter’s rotor was still spinning—or auto-gyrating—as all helicopters do if their power plant should become disengaged somehow. So, he was still flying, but he was still also on fire, and in increasing danger of blowing up at any second.

In a blink he was above the grand house. He tried to turn the aircraft to the right, hoping to set down on the soft back lawn. But the helicopter had other ideas, for at that moment, Autry lost all steering and a second after that, all his forward motion suddenly drained away. Autry heard a ghastly tearing sound. Looking over his shoulder, he saw what was left of the charred tail rotor finally fall away.

Now he was going down, very fast. The copter lurched to port and Autry went with it. The rotor was still spinning on its own, but lamely now, and with nowhere near enough verve to keep him from crashing. Like it or not, he was heading not for the building’s lawn but for its parking lot. Already the asphalt and gravel was rushing up to meet him.

Then, some luck. The spinning rotor blew itself off the power stem. With the whirling blades suddenly gone, Autry really was like a Chevy van falling out of the sky. But losing the rotor stalled the aircraft’s forward momentum long enough for it to hit the ground not quite as hard as it might have.

Still, it was a violent crash, his only break being that he didn’t go straight down but came in at an angle, nearly parallel to the ground. The parking lot’s exterior wall quickly came into view, though. He went into it hard, the impact catapulting him through the windshield, most of which was already gone, over the wall, and, much to his good fortune, right into a lily pond on the other side.

He went in mouth open head first and with a great splash. A long moment went by. It was his helmet that saved his life. Lying there in the shallow pool, koi fish wiggling in and out of his boots, Autry couldn’t quite believe he was still alive. He even began to laugh.

That’s when he heard gunfire…

He was up on his feet and out of the pool in an instant. Looking over the wall in the direction of the gunshots, he was hoping that all he was hearing were the rounds in his M-16 going off in the fire of his wreck. No such luck. The burning copter was right in front of him, and his M-16, a little scraped, a little dented, was lying about fifteen feet away. The gunfire was coming from somewhere else.

He vaulted over the wall, badly scraping his knees, and immediately went for the M-16. The fire from the wrecked copter was furious by this time. It singed his face and eyebrows as he retrieved the weapon. The M-16 had a full magazine of ammo, plus he still had his .45 sidearm. But the weapons gave him little comfort. The gunfire was getting intense as it drew closer. Even as he was figuring his next move, a stream of tracer bullets went over his head.

There was only one place he could go: inside the ornate house itself. He was through the front door before he knew it. He’d assumed because the parking lot was empty that the big house was empty too. He was wrong. As soon as he burst through the door he was confronted by the sight of two Cuban soldiers in the center of the building’s grand ballroom, burning documents in a large trash barrel.

They were as surprised to see him as he was to see them. How the sound of his crash just outside had not attracted them, he would never know. At that moment, the only thing that mattered was that he was armed and they were not. Their rifles were leaning against the wall in a far corner. Autry shot both of them in the knees before they could dive for the weapons, the first time he’d ever fired at another human being. The two men collapsed to the floor, screaming in pain.

Another line of tracer bullets went by his ear. He turned to see a small army of Cubans pouring over the parking lot wall. These weren’t regular Cuban soldiers. They were Cuban Especial Forces, a very ruthless bunch.

It was at that moment Autry realized he was going to die. Time suddenly stood still. His legs unable to move, bullets flying all around him, his life did a quick flash before his eyes. His childhood in rural Virginia. The first time he drove a copter. His lovely wife, just two years married, waiting for him back in Georgia. All soon to be gone. It came to him with grim, if startling calmness. There was just no way he was going to get out of this one.

Somehow he got his legs moving again. He launched himself up the grand staircase, firing behind him as the first group of Cuban special forces burst through the front door. They began shooting back at him intensely, especially after seeing their two wounded comrades. By the time Autry reached the top of the stairs, bullets were ricocheting all around him.

He ducked into the first doorway he came to, firing off a short burst from his M-16. This made the Cubans put their heads down, but it also wasted four more rounds in his magazine. Finally he tried the door. It was locked.

He ran back out into the hallway. Another barrage came up from the Cuban troops. Some were making their way up the stairs too. Autry resisted firing back at them, just making the cover of a second doorway as half the wall behind him disappeared in a hail of bullets.

But this door was locked too.

More gunfire. The tracer bullets were sparkling all around him. The noise was deafening. Even more Cuban special troops were pouring into the building now, some by the back door, but others through the first floor windows as well. It looked like the last scene from the movie Scarface.

Autry had no choice but to keep running. He burst out into the hallway again, eliciting yet another storm of bullets. It was only that a huge marble banister was deflecting most of the high-angle gunfire that he hadn’t been shredded to pieces by now.

He just barely made it into the third doorway—the last along the hallway. He paused a moment, hoping for just a bit more luck. Then he tried the doorknob.

It opened…

He flung himself inside, only to find three Cubans standing in the middle of a small but lavish marble room with a jade glass ceiling and one very large, very dirty window. They too were destroying documents, using a hand-cranked shredder. But they were armed, no doubt alerted to the noisy battle going on right outside.

They were startled to see him, though, and Autry was able to get the drop on them. Firing his M-16, he shot two in the chest, splintering their weapons as well. This was becoming dreamlike now. Autry was running, firing, maiming, even killing people—but it was all happening so fast, he didn’t have time to be scared. It was like someone else was doing it, and he was just watching it all.

The third Cuban stood and fought. He fired two shots from his pistol at Autry. Autry emptied the last of his M-16 into him. Stunned by the blow, the Cuban stumbled backward and went out the open dirty window, crashing onto the pavement below and taking his rifle along with him.

Now Autry was trapped. More Cuban troops were coming over the parking-lot wall. More were coming up the stairs toward him. He threw the empty M-16 away. All he had now was his .45 pistol. There were nine shots in the clip. He grimly decided he would save the last bullet for his own brain.

He returned to the doorway, the door itself being slightly ajar. A Cuban SF soldier poked his head around the corner. Autry shot him in the face. The man fell away, only to be replaced by two hands holding an AK-47 assault rife. They belonged to another Cuban soldier, firing around the corner blindly.

Autry put his pistol muzzle on the guy’s knuckle and pulled the trigger. The man’s hand was blown away—but he did not drop the rifle as Autry had so dearly wanted. Instead, he simply fell away with a scream.

Next a small green grenade came around the corner—Autry slammed the door just in time. The device exploded a heartbeat later, reducing the door to dust and filling the room with smoke. Two Cubans came through that smoke—they appeared to have been pushed. Autry shot both with his pistol. Four bullets gone—he had just five left.

Now, a sound behind him. He spun to see a Cuban SF soldier coming in through the big, open dirty window. Autry fired at him, but his first bullet missed. It took another round to stop him, impacting on his forehead and sending him flying backward.

Now Autry had but three bullets left…

Another Cuban came through the door. He was a huge individual, three hundred pounds at least. Autry just aimed for his enormous head and pulled the trigger. His gun exploded and the round caught the giant in the throat. He went over like a bloody sack of bricks.

Two bullets left…

Another Cuban came through the door, and at the same time, another flew in from the window. Autry had no choice. There would be no last bullet for him. He shot the man in the doorway first, a slug right to his heart. The man in the window fired at him, but took Autry’s last bullet in the stomach. He too went back out the window, falling with a scream.

Then…everything went still. The Cubans must have known Autry was out of ammunition. Six of them waltzed in the door; for some reason they were drenched in blood. They looked like devils. Autry had a knife but he knew he’d never get to use it. He began backing into the corner.

The Cubans raised their rifles at him, saying something in Spanish that made it very clear that they had no intention of taking him prisoner. Bayonets suddenly materialized on the ends of their rifles. Autry felt his heart stop cold. The soldiers weren’t going to shoot him. They were going to butcher him instead.

My first combat and I’m KIA, he thought angrily. I hope the CIA likes their freaking pictures…

Then, suddenly there was a huge crash!

The ceiling above Autry’s head exploded in a storm of broken glass. An instant later, it was raining U.S. soldiers.

Autry couldn’t believe it. Men of his own unit were coming through the ceiling, along with a lot of Army Rangers. They were all shooting their weapons as they rappelled down fast ropes. The noise was incredible. Bullets were flying everywhere. The gunfight that followed was very quick and one-sided. The Rangers mowed down the six astonished Cubans, causing the rest of them to retreat down the stairs, out the door and back into the jungle beyond the wall. Outside, two more TF-160 copters were spraying the fleeing Cubans with cannon fire and rockets.

Still standing in the corner, watching all this but still not believing it could be real, Autry finally collapsed to his knees. Two medics appeared. They kept him down until they could attend to his wounds—and he had many. Without knowing it, Autry had taken two bullets to the shoulder and one to the forearm. He also had many bullet fragments lodged in his hands, face and neck. The medics slapped bandages on his worst perforations and then got him back to his feet.

Suddenly Autry was staring at his squadron’s CO. The old man himself had led the rescue attempt, and some of Autry’s closest friends in TF-160 had come through the ceiling with him.

That’s when Autry just lost it and broke down. He couldn’t believe he’d been saved, so quickly, so unexpectedly.

Why? was all he could ask.

The CO laughed. So did the others.

Read Page One of the TF-160 manual, the CO said. "You should know it by now. We never leave anyone behind…"

CHAPTER 2

Mogadishu, Somalia

October 3, 1993

EVERYONE KNEW THIS WAS THE DAY.

The Army Rangers and Delta Force operators had been waiting long enough. They’d been sweltering in the broiling heat of Mogadishu Airport for nearly six weeks now. False starts, false alarms, false hope had plagued them all. They were two hundred highly trained, highly motivated Special Ops soldiers itching for action. None of them liked just sitting around.

They’d been ordered to Somalia to put an end to the activities of a local warlord named Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The East African country was literally starving to death. Thousands were dying every day. Food was pouring in from around the world—yet Aidid and his army of thugs had been confiscating tons of this relief, for use as a political weapon and to consolidate their power.

This sort of thing was unacceptable in the New World Order, so the United States had decided it was time to put the hurt on Aidid.

And today was the day they would do it.

The American base at the airport had been buzzing all morning. Van Halen boomed from camp speakers. People were cleaning weapons, pumping iron, double-checking their gear. The actual jump-off time was supposed to be top secret, but by first chow, just about everyone knew 1500 hours was zero hour.

It was to be a combined air and land operation. Four MH-6 Little Bird helicopters—descendants of the MD-530—would transport a Delta Force team to the Olympic Hotel, where it was reported some of Aidid’s top henchmen were meeting. They hoped to snatch at least a dozen of the warlord’s lieutenants and maybe even the Big Cheese himself. While Delta was getting into place, Black Hawk helicopters would carry the Rangers to the same spot, where they would repel from fast ropes and secure the four corners around the hotel. This would allow the Delta people to go in and do their thing.

As this was happening, a convoy of Humvees full of more Rangers would leave the Mogadishu Airport and also head for the Olympic Hotel just three miles away. Those mooks captured by Delta would be loaded into these vehicles and be driven back to the airport for interrogation and incarceration.

It was estimated that the operation would take less than forty minutes.

While Delta and the Rangers would be doing the heavy lifting during the raid, the helicopters would be flown by TF-160, now the Army’s premier SOF aviation unit. These days, whenever the Rangers or Delta had to go someplace, TF-160 got them there, gave them cover while they were on the ground and then got them out again. The 160 flyboys were just as anxious to go get Aidid as their more famous cousins were. The unit’s copters had been gassed up and loaded with ammo since early that morning.

This would be one of TF-160’s largest and certainly most visible missions since its inception a dozen years before. They were now known as the Nightstalkers, experts at flying low, at night, in all kinds of weather, a very dangerous business to be in.