by Seeley James
“Do you want Jenny back or not?” Nema snarled.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get her back—over your dead body.”
“Nice threat for a guy who has no idea where she is.” Nema snickered. “I have a job for you, Jacob. You turn yourself over to me, no tricks, no phones, no tracking. You’ll take over the mission from Ace and Diego. The kickoff to ROSGEO, the first attack. We’re going to live stream it. Do it right, and little Jenny walks away. Do it any less than right and … BOOM!”
Nema laughed out loud.
Mercury appeared in front of me. Worse than we thought, bro. She has a dead man’s switch in the hands of one of her henchmen. He’s in the room with Jenny. His finger is on the trigger. If he lets go, like if you shoot him, the whole room explodes.
I said, I know what a dead man’s switch is.
Mercury said, Oh. You don’t need my help then?
I said, I’m sorry. Thank you for the information. You’re a good and loving god.
Mercury said, That’s better. Now you guys have to decide if you’re up for doing what needs to be done. Go ahead, talk amongst yourselves.
I glanced up at Tania and Miguel. After so many years together, we knew where this ordeal would lead. We knew what we would do next. We knew each of our roles in making our unspoken plan work. The three of us could overwhelm Nema. It would take some doing, and some courage, and some luck. But killing her along with the first few people who tried to stop us, would cause the rest of them to melt away. We nodded at each other. We were ready to go, no matter what.
“One more video for you, Jacob.” Nema sent a new clip. “It’s not just Jenny’s life at stake. No one cares about a murderous billionaire.”
In the second video, the camera panned across the same stone basement. A shaft of daylight streamed in a small window. In the shadows surrounding Jenny were seventeen small children. Kindergartners. All tied together. All crying. The video stopped.
“Meet me in Plantsoen Park in two minutes.” Nema cackled. “You’ll need to run.”
“Wait!” I looked at my companions.
The children forced a change in plans. No longer a shoot-em-all-and-sort-it-out-later plan; we had a tougher commitment to make.
Nema’s evil genius had us in a vice. This whole time I thought she kept me alive because she was afraid of witnesses, but that wasn’t the case at all. From the moment I tackled Diego in Saint-Sulpice, she planned to force me into leading the first terrorist attack. By putting me in the starring role, she destroyed what was left of my credibility with the authorities. With the lives of children at stake, Miguel and Tania were neutralized as well. Even the extensive resources of Sabel Security were sidelined until the kids were safe.
There was no choice. We had to make a complex plan work with zero planning and no time for discussion. Tania whispered, “Attu Island.”
The operation on Attu had been successful. Each of us had played a dangerous role that relied on a deadly choreography. She was right—it was the only way out.
We each took a deep breath and silently nodded our agreement. A pact with each other. I knew they would do their parts. They would count on me to do mine. If anyone failed, we all died. And so would Jenny and the children.
Tania reached in her fanny pack and slid me a thumb-sized pill, a GPS locator. I took it and hoped for water. My friends shrugged. I swallowed it dry. I hate those things.
Miguel put his hand between us, flat. He said, “For the children.”
Tania and I put our hands on his and repeated the vow.
I pulled the phone back up. “Nema, my friends will trade places with the kids. You can have Miguel and Tania as hostages.”
“No deal. We’re going to kill them anyway.”
“OK then, they’re coming for you.”
Tania and Miguel ran to the canal bank, rifles slung over their shoulders. They jumped up on the stone railing and dove into the water to hunt her down.
“Good luck, Nema. They’ve spent years killing people like you. They’ll have five bullets in your body before any of your Hungarian goons see them coming.”
“I have fifteen men in the alley,” she said. “And I’ve already left. Get to the park, Jacob. If anything happens to me, the timer goes off, and Jenny escorts those kids to hell.”
CHAPTER 44
They didn’t take the hood off until we were on the plane. The drugs had worn off an hour earlier, but the hangover was still pounding away. I sat in a four-engine turboprop with an interior that looked a lot like a C-130. I would know—Rangers jump out of them all the time.
The Free Origins people wore HALO gear. Paladin stepped in front of me with everything I needed to join them.
“You know she expects you to die,” I said.
“All you need to do is show these guys how it’s done.” Paladin gestured at four others behind him.
“You’ll go down as one of the most hated people of the twenty-first century.”
“You were kind enough to give them lessons on HALO jumps. We sent those videos to the media already.”
“Your own mother will deny your existence,” I said.
“Put on your rig, we’re about to depressurize.”
“Nema has it set up so she walks away without so much as a fingerprint on the whole evil plan. People will come from miles around to spit on your grave, and none of them will know she was the brains of the outfit.” It was my best gambit. But Paladin remained unmoved.
“The guys will be happy to knock you unconscious and put it on you. If you want.”
I grabbed the rig and noticed it was light. No chute. I stepped into it. “Were you with her when she called me? She laughed about your leadership. She thinks you’re a joke. The fool who tossed her brother in the Seine.”
Paladin stepped back. His head tilted.
“How did I know about that?” I asked. I could only hope Fake-Zack told me the truth. “She has pictures of you dumping his body in the river. She’s so far ahead of you, you’ll never get out of it. You’re in worse than Arrianne.”
“Shut up and button up. Get your oxygen mask on.” He craned over his shoulder at the others to determine if they’d heard me. He raised his voice with his movie star chin. “These guys are looking to you for leadership, Jacob. You’re the best killer the USA ever produced. It’s an honor to serve with you on this mission. You’re going down there to lead an assault on Muslims, the scourge of the human race.”
The other men hooted their approval. Caleb stood among them. He had a Go-Pro on his helmet recording Paladin’s speech for posterity.
I faced the camera. “You’re nothing but a bunch of murderers. You took children hostage to make me go on this jump. You think that’s clever. But I promise you. Only one of you will be alive by nightfall, and he’ll regret it. I’ll kill one of you on the way down. Another on the way in. The rest as soon as the opportunity arises.”
They laughed. Caleb said, “Don’t worry, we’ll edit that part out before we send it off.”
The loadmaster depressurized the cargo bay. Then he lowered the loading ramp.
Paladin grabbed my shoulder. “You’re going to stick the landing, Jacob.”
The others grabbed my arms and legs. They carried me to the back and out to the end of the ramp. We were a little less than 30,000 feet over an arid coastline. It was midday on a Friday, almost time for Jumu’ah, the weekly service for Muslims. The locals would be gathering in great numbers.
They heaved me back and forth three times, then tossed me out.
They made a fatal mistake with my lightened pack. While they took out the main and backup chutes, they wanted the appearance of a functioning rig, so they left the drogue chute attached.
As I fell, I carefully pulled the drogue out without letting it open. I hadn’t used a wingsuit in three years, but the aerodynamic principles behind them hadn’t changed. Besides, I didn’t need to fly to an exact spot. I only needed to fly to one of the Free Origins guys.
Mercury flew alongside me. This is the life, right bro? Face first from high altitude, only an oxygen mask to land on. But you got this. You know Caleb is the one with the dweeb-looking camera on his helmet.
I said, I’m taking the first one I come to. If it’s Caleb, all the better.
I managed to get a good grip on both ends of the material. I spread it out under me and pushed my arms out wide. At 120 miles per hour, a great deal of strength is required. It didn’t work well. But it worked well enough. I flew in a circle that cut my descent by a good margin. The Free Origins men fell toward me.
The material began to slip from my fingers. I had to hold on a little longer. My fingers ached. My arms grew weak from the strain. The circle began to spiral. I was going into the equivalent of a tailspin. Only I was both the tail and the spin. The g-forces were making me dizzy.
A surprised Caleb came at me going twenty miles an hour faster. I dove into his path.
We collided. I dug my arms into the straps of his gear and hugged him chest to chest.
I released my drogue. It disappeared into the sky. I headbutted Caleb. He tried to push me off. I headbutted him a second time. I ripped his oxygen mask off, tossed it, then got hold of his chinstrap. His helmet, GoPro and all, flew off into the air.
Caleb’s eyes nearly poked me in the face when they bulged out of his head. He couldn’t believe what was happening. The cold air forced him to hyperventilate. He panicked a lot more and a lot faster than Aleksei.
“I promised to take one of you on the way down, Caleb.” I stuck my hand in his pockets as we hurtled toward Earth. “This is an honor for you, remember?”
I found what I was looking for, his map. I stuffed it in my pocket. Then I found his knife.
I gutted him.
He screamed and shouted. The worst thing about being gutted is knowing you’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it. But it doesn’t kill you right away. You have several minutes of life left.
“Save your breath, Caleb. Use your remaining time to reflect on your sins.”
As we fell at terminal velocity, I unhooked him from his rig and pushed him away. His arms worked furiously to stuff his entrails back in his body. I’d seen men do that on the battlefield. The image sticks with you for a long time.
I tried climbing into the straps. It was a difficult dance just to get one leg in. I was exhausted from the effort.
Mercury said, Get that other leg in. You’re nearing twenty-five hundred feet and don’t even have your chest buckled or your arms in.
I said, Leave me alone. I need to concentrate.
Mercury said, Then concentrate on his altimeter. He has his AAD set to deploy at five hundred feet.
That kind of message is why I count on the messenger of the gods. I turned off the Automatic Activation Device and finished climbing into the rig. I cinched the straps and checked the altitude. 400 feet.
I needed to deploy my chute before the ground rendered it unnecessary.
I looked around. The other men were a quarter-mile north of me. They’d deployed at two thousand feet and used the altitude to carry them to their destination.
When I deployed the drogue chute, it fluttered in the wind. It didn’t open, which meant it wasn’t going to pull the main chute out. Jostling a pack inflight can severely disrupt the folds. I held my breath as I fell below 250 feet. There was no time left to cut it loose and try the backup.
The instant I was about to say my final prayers, I heard Mercury’s voice. Who’s your favorite god?
I said with more impatience than gratitude, You are. Now pull the damn chute!
CHAPTER 45
I managed to land on a soccer field. Empty for Jumu’ah. My map said I was in Rabat, the capital of Morocco. The mosque in question appeared to be a good-sized one. It was a long way away, and the other guys landed a lot closer. The clock was ticking.
A lone cab drove by, the driver leaning to the passenger side, watching me untangle my gear. I flagged him down.
Being fluent in Arabic saved me several times in the war. Most of those times were on the eastern end of the Arabic-speaking world, Iraq, Syria, and Kuwait. I was on the western end. The farther west you go, the more the languages diverge from the core spoken in Saudi Arabia. The Moroccans had taken things a step further with a good mix of Berber and Spanish Latin mixed in. We could communicate, but not without some confusion.
The cab driver thought I was reporting an attack on the King of Morocco. I showed him the map I took from Caleb. He scratched his beard and shook his head. Finally, he did what I asked and called the police. They didn’t believe him. The mosque in question was an official state mosque with guards. They called. There was no attack in progress. The translation had fallen short.
I offered the cab driver the parachute rig in exchange for a ride. He decided I was a decent guy despite not having a wallet, passport, or any cash. And he didn’t like that the cops dissed him for believing an American parachuted out of nowhere. A significant factor in his decision to drive me was the fact that the HALO rig was worth more than his car.
I asked if he had any weapons. Which was not a good question for an American to be asking after he’d just reported a mass-shooting in progress. Half a mile later, I saw one of the Free Origins guys jogging down a hot, dusty street with an AR70/90 slung on his shoulder.
I asked the cabbie if he liked Fast and Furious movies. He did. At my request, he drove close to the armed American. I threw the door open, slamming him in the back. I leapt from the cab, landed on his shoulders, rode him to the ground, and smashed his face into the tiled sidewalk. I put my boot on his head.
One of these guys needed to live so he could explain the plan to the authorities. But I couldn’t leave him in a state that would allow him to commit another act of terrorism in his lifetime. Taking his rifle, I pressed the barrel to his spine. “What’s your name?”
“Thompson.” His words mushed into the dirty sidewalk with his drool.
“Want to know the sad truth about your future, Thompson?”
“What?”
“I’m going to put a bullet through your thoracic spinal cord. That’s the part between your neck and belt. I’m going to angle it so it won’t kill you. I’ll be sure the bullet exits through your lungs. Allah gave you extra lung capacity so you could survive this type of injury. But, you’ll never walk or screw again. And that sad part I was telling you about? It’s that you’re going to lie here begging Africans to save your life.”
I sent the round as promised. I failed to warn him it was an excruciatingly painful injury. Probably the worst this side of childbirth. But he discovered that on his own quickly enough.
I left Thompson howling like a werewolf.
The cabbie waited for me. Not because he was a loyal cab driver, but because he was in such a state of shock, he couldn’t move. I asked him if I should take a different cab. He shook his head, looked at my new rifle with big eyes, then put it in gear. In English, he said, “We go, fast and furious.”
When we arrived at the mosque, the first thing we saw was a uniformed man lying on the sidewalk, bleeding out. I pointed to the injured man and told the cabbie to call an ambulance and the cops who didn’t believe him.
I went inside.
The last two Free Origins guys huddled in the center of a crowd of old men and young boys. They held a rifle and pistol in each hand, aimed at the heads of the men. On the left, a street cop held a 9-mil aimed at the Americans, but he was shaking too much to be effective. On the right, a civilian, also shaking, held a revolver aimed in the general direction of the Americans.
On the floor were three dead bodies and four wounded men.
The Free Origins men had lost their nerve when the reality of blood and guts slapped them in the face.
Mercury strolled around the Americans. Classic, homie. A standoff. You can work this out in Arabic.
I said, My Arabic is the wrong dialect. I’ve been having trouble getting a handle on past
tense and present tense. That could make a mess out of any plans.
Mercury spread his arms wide and grinned. Those Christian posers weren’t the only ones who can speak in tongues, brutha. Trust in your god in your hour of need.
I said, Promise me the end result will be two dead Americans and no one else.
I so promise, Mercury said. Probably. I can’t control everything.
In Arabic, I said, “I’m going to kill those two terrorists. I’m going to need everyone’s help.”
“Hey, motherfucker,” the more eloquent terrorist said, “what are you saying to them?”
He aimed his pistol at me, then put it back to the head of an old man.
“I told them I’m going to kill you,” I said. “They seem to like that idea.”
Mercury said, There’s only one way to get out of this alive. But you can’t miss. You hurt one of the locals, and you’ll spend eternity with Dante in that inferno he cooked up.
I looked down the iron sights on my rifle. The margin of error was close. I could do it, but I couldn’t hit two small targets in rapid succession. One of the victims could move into the line of fire for the second shot. Or the second man might pull his trigger on full auto. Too many innocent people could die. The only thing that would work would be a complicated dance move.
In Arabic, I said to the group, “When I give the word, everyone must do the Sujud faster than you’ve ever done it before.”
All the Moroccans gave me odd looks.
Outside, distant sirens fired up. Music that was fast becoming the soundtrack to my life.
I repeated the instruction. I was asking the faithful to do something they considered culturally insensitive. Continuing in Arabic, I said, “Allah wants you to live, and this is what you need to do.”
The Imam observed me for a moment, then understood my idea and agreed in Arabic.
“What are you doing, Stearne?” one of the terrorists said. “You try anything, and I’m going to kill you first.”
I said, “Go for it. It’ll be the last move you ever make.”