The pilots continued their struggle to control the eighteen-thousand pound aircraft. They peered through the windshield and the curtain of water. Finally, they spotted the outline of the island ahead of them. The pilot called back to the team over the radio, “Three minutes to LZ.”
Parris pressed the headpiece to his lips and shouted back to the pilot, “Roger.” He made a circling motion with his hand to the team. “Three minutes.”
No one had to be told what to do as they began securing their weapons and equipment, attaching everything tightly to themselves. Wiler and Marchetti managed to get a heavy rope out of a locker and tied one end to a brace overhead. The pilot fought the controls to steady the helo as it flew a few feet above a jungle canopy. “One minute,” he spoke into the microphone. He heard Parris respond in kind through the headset.
Parris and Roy stood on either side of the round “hell hole” hatch in the center of the floor and looked down at the jungle. The trees pitched wildly and sheets of rain drenched everything. They looked at each other across the open hatch. It was time.
“Beautiful day for dropping in on friends,” Roy shouted across the hell hole.
Parris grinned, and then turned to the men. “Ten seconds,” he called out. He looked again down to the trees as the helo flared. He kicked out the heavy rope and watched as it tumbled down through the high branches, then disappeared in the thick foliage.
Parris and Roy helped each man as he made his way to the hatch. Marchetti grabbed the heavy rope with his gloved hands, glanced down, then winked at Parris just as he dropped through the hole. In a moment, he had disappeared into the greenness below. Singh, Ali, Jackson, and then Raj followed Marchetti’s example without incident.
Sand stepped up to the hellhole and grabbed onto the rope. “See you guys down below,” he called out, then dropped toward the jungle canopy below. But a heartbeat after he dropped through the hatch, the helo suddenly lost altitude, and then just as rapidly jerked back up. Sand was yanked roughly up and down like a yo-yo. He tried to fast rope down through the trees, but the helo was out of control, dragging him behind it.
Sand’s body flipped up and down like a rubber toy soldier being dangled from a string as it was being pulled through tall weeds. He crashed through trees trunks four or five feet thick in a wild, dangerous and potentially deadly ride. Sand kicked himself clear of one huge tamarind tree, and then crashed headlong through the branches of several cedars.
