The cart stopped. Then Heat felt herself being lifted and tilted until she slid out of the cart and landed roughly on the floor of the aircraft. The cargo door slammed behind her, then she heard two other doors opening, both of them at the front of the aircraft.
“Are you in?” Null yelled over the roar of the engines.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Lindsy Gardner replied.
The whine of the turbines grew louder, then Heat felt herself being pressed downward. They were airborne.
Heat’s range of motion, there on the chopper floor, was limited. She could roll left or right, not that it helped her much.
When she was on her left side, she could see into the cockpit, where Null was at the controls and Gardner was belted into the copilot’s seat. On her right side, she could only see the underside of the rear seats.
She tugged against her constraints, which were made of thick twine. But that only made its scratchy burrs dig deeper into her skin. Likewise, working her fingers to try and get a grip on the ropes or something else useful didn’t accomplish anything.
Heat studied her immediate surroundings, looking for something sharp that she could rub her ropes against. If she could get even one hand free, it might make a difference. But all she could see were the rounded rectangles of the stainless steel chair legs, which had been bolted into the floor.
A panic rose in Heat as she felt the chopper gain altitude. She had been in some tight spots in her life. But they usually had emergency exits, however small.
There was no getting out of this one. She had only the vague hope that Storm might properly interpret that text as a distress call.
But then what? Of all the vessels in the sky at any moment in the New York metropolitan area, how would he figure out which she was in? And then what could he do about it?
The minutes passed like hours. Heat couldn’t help wondering if they were among the last she would ever experience. Hitting water after a five-thousand-foot drop would be like hitting concrete. Her body would shatter on impact.
Even if, by some absurd miracle, she survived the fall—which was incredibly unlikely—it sounded like she would be in the ocean, more than a hundred miles from land, out where there would be very few boats to come along, and without the use of her hands or feet.
She might be able to do a dead man’s float. But, realistically, how long would she last out there? The Atlantic Ocean in October was probably no more than fifty-five degrees. The human body cools twenty-five times faster in water than in air. She had seen those charts of survival times in water. At that temperature, hypothermia would set in within an hour or two. At some point, she would fall unconscious. Then it would be all over.
Macabre thoughts flooded Heat’s mind. She imagined Rook, Raley, and Ochoa tirelessly probing every aspect of her disappearance until, slowly, and with great agony, they came to recognize they were really investigating her death. Would they be able to pin it on Gardner in any meaningful way?
Probably not. The Gardner campaign would surely spin the whole thing as Nikki Heat mysteriously disappearing. A great tragedy, Gardner’s spokesman would say. But, ultimately, it had nothing to do with the candidate.
Officially, Nikki Heat would be a missing person until, at some point in the future, the city would issue a death certificate. Would they even have a funeral? Would they bury an empty box? Would her mother come to the ceremony in disguise? That would be some kind of irony.
Heat jolted herself back to the present. There had to be some way she could give herself a chance of survival. She searched the underside of the backseat until she found a slim glimmer of hope. A screw had come slightly loose. If she scooted herself in just the right position, might she be able to rub the rope against it and get it to fray just a little?
It might not accomplish anything. But it was better than nothing.
Heat began working as furiously as her constraints would allow— which was not much. Her range of motion was small. She couldn’t really get a lot of leverage. She plugged away all the same.
There had been no conversation from the front of the helicopter, at least not until they had been in the air for about forty minutes. Then:
“We’re being followed,” Null yelled.
“What are you talking about?” Gardner demanded.
“There’s been a blip on the radar screen that has been shadowing our exact course. It’s getting steadily closer.”
“What is it?”
“Couldn’t tell you. I don’t think it’s a helicopter. It’s moving too fast.”
“How long until we’re over the deep water?”
“Another five minutes or so.”
“Should we just drop her now?” Gardner asked.
“We could,” Null said. “But there would be a better chance her body would be found. It could float and then be swept in on the tide.”
“Then keep flying,” Gardner said. “They’ll probably veer off.”
Heat felt a surge of panic that had her rubbing the ropes even faster. They had warmed from the friction she was generating. Now and then, the screw would catch just right and another small hair of the twine would fray.
If she had another half an hour, she was sure she could work free. But she didn’t have that kind of time. She rubbed anyway.
“They’re not veering off,” Null said two minutes later. “We’ve got maybe four or five minutes until they intercept us.”
“Change course,” Gardner ordered. “See if they follow.”
“You got it,” he said.
Heat felt the chopper bank then even out again. She was still rubbing the ropes, even as her muscles ached from the effort. She reminded herself sore muscles wouldn’t be a bother when she was dead.
Every now and then, she would test her bonds. They were as firm as ever.
Two minutes later, Null said, “They changed course with us. They’ll be on us any moment now.”
“What is that thing?” Gardner asked. Heat could see she was craning her neck by the window, having made visual contact with their pursuers.
“There’s no landing gear. It’s some kind of seaplane.”
“Do you think they know about our extra passenger?”
“Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. Either way, what are we going to do about it?” Null asked.
“Get rid of the evidence, of course. Do you think the water is deep enough?”
“Yeah. It changed color about a minute or two back. We’re definitely off the shelf now. It drops off quickly after that. But wait.”
“What?” Gardner asked.
“Won’t they see us?”
Gardner paused over this. “Put us into a hover. I’ll wait until just after they pass us. Unless their plane is equipped with rearview mirrors, they won’t be able to see the body falling.”
“But they’ll certainly know this is the campaign’s chopper.”
“We’ll say someone stole it, took it for a joyride.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Put us into a hover.”
The helicopter’s forward movement slowly came to a halt. The aircraft was now floating in midair. Heat abandoned her efforts with the ropes and flopped her body in the direction of the front, just in time to see Gardner un-belting herself from the seat.
The senator contorted herself so she could pass through the narrow opening between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats. She knelt over Heat for a moment.
“It’s really nothing personal,” Gardner said. “You would have made a fine director of Homeland Security.”
Heat didn’t give her the pleasure of a response.
Gardner stood, grabbed the length of rope that bound Heat’s hands to her feet, and slid Heat’s body along the floor. Then Gardner opened the cargo door.
The terror was even more real now. The wind whipped into the cabin of the helicopter. Heat could see the ocean spread out far below them, looking flat and blue and endless in all directions until it bent over the horizon.
Gardner had switched sides and was now shoving her from behind, ever closer to the edge.
Heat’s feet and hands went out the door first. Another shove and her arms and legs were out, too. There was nothing Heat could do to stop what was about to happen.
“Is it time?” Gardner yelled.
“They’re about to pass directly overhead,” Null replied. “I’ll give you a countdown.”
For a few sickening seconds, Heat was perched on the edge, feeling the abyss underneath her. She thought perhaps her life would be passing in front of her eyes. Instead, all she could see was the helicopter’s fuselage.
She strained impotently against her restraints one last time.
Then Null said, “Okay, here goes. Three . . . two . . . one.”
Gardner pushed. Heat felt her body tip over the edge.
She was falling. And there was nothing but cool October air between her and the ocean, five thousand feet below.
THIRTY-FOUR
STORM
For most of the flight, there had been little discussion aboard the Seawind 300C.
Captain Tyler was concentrating on getting every last bit of speed he could churn out of the aircraft. The passengers were alone with their thoughts.
The Bell helicopter, which had at first only been a blip on the radar, eventually came into sight. At first, it was little more than a pinprick of darkness against the blue sky. Then, slowly, it grew larger as the Sea-wind gained on it.
It was still a mile or so off when Derrick Storm broke the silence.
“I feel like a dog who is chasing a car,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do once I catch it.”
“I just assumed we were going to follow them and improvise once we figure out where they’re going,” Cynthia Heat said.
“Yeah, but why are they going so far out to sea?” Rook asked. “I don’t know the range of a bird that size, but there’s nothing out here to land on. If they go too much farther, they won’t have the gas to get back to land. What are they even doing out here?”
This was met with silence until Carl Storm spoke up.
“They’re heading for deep water,” he said. “Then they’re going to drop Nikki out of the helicopter.”
Cynthia Heat gasped. Rook blanched.
Derrick didn’t miss a beat. “Dad’s right. If you toss a body in shallow water, it sinks at first, but then floats to the top as the decomposition gasses begin to build up. And then there’s no telling where it goes. In deeper, colder water, decomposition is much slower. The body goes down and stays down.”
This was too much for Nikki Heat’s mother and husband.
“How long until we’ve passed the continental shelf?” Derrick said, pointing the question toward Captain Tyler.
“Not far now,” Tyler said. “Probably around the time we catch up to them, actually. They changed course about two minutes ago, so I changed course with them. Another two or three minutes and we’ll be over top of them.”
“So what are they thinking right now?” Derrick said, again looking at his father. “How are they going to do it?”
“Well, they have to know we’re following them at this point. They changed course and we changed course. Besides, there’s really nothing else out here in this airspace, especially at this altitude. It’s not like we can hide in the clouds, Red Baron–style, and then swoop down on them.”
“So they know we’re onto them,” Derrick continued. “Which means they’re going to wait to drop the body when they think we can’t see it.”
“And that happens right as we pass over them. They’re in our blind spot at that point. That’s about as good a time as there would be.”
“Well, then,” Derrick said. “It seems like I need to be ready to go after her. Captain Tyler, show me to your skydiving equipment.”
Carl grinned. “I guess maybe it’s good you’re into that action-adventure hero crap after all.”
Captain Tyler verbally directed Derrick to a compartment in the back of the plane that contained a full complement of top-of-the-line skydiving equipment. Derrick selected a Javelin Odyssey, which had a large enough chute to handle a tandem jump, and quickly shrugged himself into it. He checked it over. Twice. Everything seemed to be in order.
He pulled the CD out of his pocket and thrust it at Rook. “Do me a favor and hang on to this. I’ve gone through too much trouble to get it to go jumping out of a plane with it.”
“Of course,” Rook said.
Then Derrick turned to Captain Tyler. “I hope pickup is part of this package if I end up in the drink.”
“That’ll be extra, actually,” Tyler said, grinning. “I usually don’t tell customers about the up-charge until they’re already wet.”
“Bill it to Jedediah Jones.”
“You got it,” Tyler said.
They flew in silence for another few moments. The tension inside the cabin was palpable. It was still entirely possible the Lindsy One was simply choosing a very roundabout way to get to, say, Delaware.
Then came evidence the craft and its operators had a more pernicious plan after all.
“They’re slowing down,” Tyler called out.
“Because they’re getting ready to do the drop,” Carl said.
“Okay. Get that jump door open, Captain,” Derrick said.
“Hang on, everyone,” Tyler called out. “It’s going to get windy in here.”
Tyler pushed a button, and the door on the port side of the plane slid open. As promised, a rush of air poured forcefully into the plane, which lurched a little until Tyler compensated for the change in aerodynamics.
Derrick gripped the straps near the door and leaned out. He could see the chopper lose its forward tilt and go into a hover.
He quickly brought his head inside the cabin. “Okay, Captain. I want you to pass over them with as little room to spare as you can. Make them feel like you’re buzzing them, trying to harass them. But do it just to the right. I want a good view of what’s happening out my side of the plane.”
“Yes, sir,” Tyler called.
Derrick returned to his spot by the door, grabbed a strap, and hung himself perilously out. He had to squint against the rush of air, but he could see that the plane was approaching the now stationary helicopter very quickly. Ominously, he noted that the cargo door—which was on the helicopter’s starboard side, in plain view—was now open.
His father had been right. They were going to throw Heat out of the vessel.
As the Seawind passed directly overhead, no more than a hundred feet above—an eyelash in the world of aviation—Derrick kept his attention squarely on the chopper’s cargo door. He could see someone’s arms and legs already dangling out.
Derrick leaned even farther out the door once the Seawind passed by, giving him a good view as the arms and legs suddenly tilted down, falling out the side of the helicopter. Then the body—Nikki Heat’s body—followed.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Storm leapt after her.
* * *
There are all kinds of physics involved in a free fall from five thousand feet.
Start with the mass of the falling object. For whatever Galileo may have thought about the matter, heavier objects really do fall faster— because gravity acts on them more.
Advantage Storm: a two-hundred-twenty-pound man falls faster than a one-hundred-forty-pound woman.
On the other side, there are things that can slow the object down, like its surface area and drag coefficient. A skydiver who spreads out her body reaches a terminal velocity of about one hundred twenty miles per hour. A skydiver who assumes a smaller profile can reach two hundred miles per hour or more.
Again, advantage Storm: he went headfirst, pinning his arms to his sides and pointing his toes to minimize wind resistance as he plunged toward the earth.
Except, to his horror, he realized it might not be enough of an advantage. He quickly located Heat, roughly one hundred twenty feet below him. Had she assum
ed the classic spread-eagle skydiving position, he would have caught up to her in no time.
But Heat was more like a parabola. She was falling butt-first, with her arms and legs pointed skyward, almost like a diver in pike position. Her surface area, mostly her back, was only barely greater than Storm’s.
Which meant this was going to be close.
Storm remained as coolheaded as was possible under the circumstances. He was a veteran of many jumps, from training to some of the most difficult operational conditions imaginable. The old joke in skydiving was that if something went wrong, you had the rest of your life to fix it.
But that still meant, even during a plunge from the relatively low height of five thousand feet, you had some time to make things right.
Storm set a timer in his head. He had roughly fourteen seconds before they reached one thousand feet—the lowest he dared go before pulling the rip cord. If he didn’t deploy his chute at that point, the chances of survival began diminishing greatly. At five hundred feet, they would be very small. Any lower, they would be nil.
After three seconds, they had reached 50 percent of their terminal velocity. But they were accelerating quickly—Isaac Newton’s 9.8 meters per second squared never feels so fast as when it’s working against your interests.
Storm could feel the air tearing at him. He steered himself so he was directly over Heat, so he would literally fall on top of her if he managed to reach her in time. He could now see why she was falling in such a strange position: Her hands and feet were bound together.
There was nothing Storm could do about that now. He willed himself to go faster, flattening himself even further. He was gaining on her. Some. But he was starting to have real doubts about whether it would be enough.
After eight seconds, they were at 90 percent terminal velocity, closing in on top speed very fast. Heat was still sixty or seventy feet away.
At nine seconds, Storm realized he wasn’t going to get there in time. He was too far off. She was falling too fast.
At ten seconds, he began the debate: Did he just pull the rip cord? Or did he die trying to save her?
He didn’t bother looking at his altimeter. He had done enough jumps that he had a feel for where the one-thousand-foot ceiling was. And he was closing in on it altogether too quickly. Decision time was coming.
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