AMMAN, JORDAN
At that moment, the recalcitrant schoolboy was performing his final weapons check.
"Mustapha, have they all been weighed? Full weapons gear?"
The Jordanian Pathfinder passed a clip board to Christopher with the team members' weights. "Yes, we have to begin the redistribution right now. Our ETD is forty-five minutes."
Both men carefully calculated the average weight required to ensure that all team members would weigh the same amount as they exited the aircraft.
From prior experience, the paratroopers knew that any deviation in weight would produce life threatening results. Heavier members would land short and the lighter members would overshoot the target areas.
The team began redistributing weapons, communications gear and other equipment in a practiced series of steps that would achieve the standard average weight that Christopher and Mustapha had just calculated.
**
Across the hangar, one of the paratrooper trainers casually deployed his training helmet's camera and took several photographs of the five men. "Hector Five One, transmitting unknown HAHO drop team. Please identify." He turned and entered the briefing room to begin instructing the waiting trainees.
LONDON
Sir William turned to Lady Catherine as they watched Alexandra departing for the RAF airbase.
"How did she take it when you told her that she was the Mission Controller?" Sir William asked. "Did you give her the line that no one else was available?"
"Yes, but I don't know whether she bought it."
"You didn't tell her that Christopher rejected her as a candidate, did you?"
"No. They are adults, William, and they will have to work out their differences ..."
"...or you'll use them as bait, won't you?" Sir William shook his head as he stepped away from the window. "When did you get so callous, Catherine?"
PERSIAN GULF
Ten hours later, as the Jordanian aircraft began its slow southern turn to join the war games; the pilot lifted his headset from his right ear and turned to face Christopher. "You can jump northwest of Bandar Abbas – here." He pointed a gloved hand at the digital display.
Christopher bobbed his head without tangling the gas tube feeding to his face mask. "Altitude?" His voice sounded like a movie alien from behind the oxygen mask
"Say again."
Frustrated, Christopher pointed upwards and held up his hands with three and five digits extended.
"Yes. You can exit at thirty-five thousand feet. We will pressurize and go to oxygen tanks at fifteen thousand. You'll be exiting from the back pod. The other trainees will be in the forward cabin, Colonel. Good luck."
**
In the aft cabin, the two medics completed the final oxygen level checks of the team. Two of the younger 'camel thieves' were feigning oxygen distress in an attempt to attract the female medics' attention as Christopher entered.
"We should have only selected married men," Mustapha grumbled. "These horny goats are not concentrating!"
12 ST. CHARLES STREET
LONDON
Lady Catherine stood up from the dining table and addressed the six men.
"We have narrowed it down to eight potential culprits. Robert, your Homeland Security has gone to high alert. All other countries have been advised and are taking the necessary actions. Now we have to start reducing the number within the next five days. I have divided the list so that each of you has one entity to investigate. I will take the remaining two items. Questions, gentlemen?" She turned to Sir William and Ronan. "I would like to see you in the library, please."
YOU ARE READING
The Shaddad Conspiracy
Adventure“Your murder victim was not an innocent, naive woman. She was on our terrorist watch list. The fact that she escaped from Basra and lived a normal life in London buggers belief, but she was planted here by a foreign government to wreck the Taliban p...
