by Tom Wilde
“You wanted a ride, you’re gonna get a ride,” was all Smith said in reply.
As we followed the military escort around the base, I noticed the solid, blocklike uniformity of the buildings, painted in shades of brown or beige. I was surprised by the number of civilian people and vehicles I saw along the way, their colors standing out in stark contrast to the drab, muted greens of the military. The route our miniature parade followed appeared to be circumnavigating the base, and I could see wooded hills in the distance as we approached the enormous concrete runways. My eyes were drawn to the behemoth aircraft, painted in camouflage or dusty olive drab, slumbering on the runways. Even at this distance, I could tell how monstrously huge they were, and it made me wonder all over again just how something so much larger than a whale can fly like a bird. I also wondered if one of these airborne titans was going to be my chariot.
Smith followed the lead vehicle to a hangar, smaller than most of its kind, that housed a twin-engine propeller job. I saw our escorts continue on their way as Smith pulled up beside the open cavernous maw of the structure. Smith and I pried ourselves out of the tiny Renault and stretched our limbs as two people approached from the hangar: a dark-haired male and a blond female, both in plain green flight suits. Smith retrieved his metal briefcase and approached the duo. “I’m Smith,” he announced, and then said with a nod toward me, “And this here’s the cargo. You can call him Blake.”
The couple came and stood at a polite semblance of attention. I could see now that the man’s face had dark, solid features that were belied by a ready smile. The woman was just flat-out beautiful, with blue eyes that graced a face already blessed with subtle perfection and full, promising lips. Looking at her almost distracted me from noticing that neither jumpsuit displayed any rank or insignia, just bare patches of Velcro where the symbols would normally appear. The woman spoke first, with a musically husky voice that was made for a blues piano. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m Captain Arden. Since we’re supposed to be informal on this trip, you can call me Nicole. This is Tech Sergeant Vega.”
“Call me Don,” her partner said as we shook hands all around.
“You’ve been briefed?” Smith asked of the pair.
Nicole nodded. “Affirmative. Don and I have been detailed to panty raids before.”
“Panty raid” must have been some kind of military spy speak for “drop some poor bastard out of a plane over hostile territory” or some such. I looked up at the airplane in the hangar. “Is this our ride?” I asked.
Nicole smiled and looked over. Men would kill to have her look at them the way she gazed upon that airplane. “That’s my baby,” she said. “C-12 Huron. She’s rigged for medical transport. And, of course, other things,” she added slyly.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I couldn’t help but notice the air force insignia. I take it all the stealth aircraft were tied up?”
Nicole laughed. “We’ll be flying so high no one’s going to notice. Plus, we’re going to dogleg our approach, so we’ll look like we’re transiting east toward Turkey.”
Don Vega asked, “How many HALO jumps you got under your belt?”
I knew the term, a military acronym for high altitude, low opening. “Would this be a good time to admit I have none?”
Vega’s smile dropped off his face. “None?” He looked over to Smith. “What the hell is going on here?”
Smith shrugged. “Ask Blake. He’s the one who said he could parachute.”
“What’s your rating?” Vega demanded.
“Well, officially I hold an A license—”
Vega was incredulous. “A? That’s it? Twenty-five lousy jumps? You need at least two hundred jumps to qualify for a HALO.”
I ignored the interruption. “I’ve actually made quite a few jumps that never made it into any log book. Most of them at night.”
“I bet you have,” Smith murmured.
“You ever done any high-altitude jumps?” Vega asked quickly. “Ever had to use a bailout bottle?”
“No.”
Vega threw up his hands. “This is supposed to be a covert mission, not assisted suicide. I didn’t sign up for this.”
Nicole looked straight at Smith as she asked, “Is that it? Are we scrubbed?”
“Well, Blake?” Smith asked. “It’s your call.”
I had all eyes on me. “I’m going.”
Vega just shook his head and muttered something about “hypoxia” and “insanity” as he turned and walked into the hangar. Smith hefted his metal briefcase and followed Vega, saying, “I’ve got to make a call.” I was left at the mouth of the hangar with Nicole Arden, who was staring at me with her electric-blue eyes. “You’ll have to forgive the sergeant,” she said with a matter-of-fact tone. “He’s with Pararescue. He’s used to saving people’s lives, not helping them kill themselves.”
“Point taken.”
“I was just wondering whether you’re brave, or just crazy,” she said levelly.
“Let’s just assume I’m enough of both to get by.”
Nicole just nodded slowly. “I’m going to go and revise the flight plan,” she said. “You better get with Sergeant Vega. He’ll do what he can to get you up to speed.” She turned, but before she walked away, she added, “I just hope whatever it is you’re going after is worth it.”
I let the good captain walk out of earshot before I answered, “She is.”
I walked into the hangar, toward the back wall. Smith had his laptop set up on a workbench and was busy typing away, probably writing my obituary. Sergeant Vega stood near a covered tarpaulin laid out on the concrete floor. “You really going through with this?” he asked seriously.
“Yes.”
He nodded like a man who’d received bad news he already expected. “Okay then,” he said. “Let’s see what we can do.” He bent down and whipped the tarpaulin off like a magician before an audience, and I was amazed at what he made appear. Laid out with careful precision was an array of equipment that could cover every possible contingency on land, sea, or air.
I shook my head as I surveyed the sleek, compact parachute and the scuba tanks colored in flat black, arranged next to a set of climbing gear. There was so much stuff I almost overlooked the shortened M-16 commando assault rifle with the collapsible stock, but I was instantly drawn to one singular item on the mat. I picked up the knife and freed it from its sheath. It was a bowie-style blade, at least seven inches in length with a serrated section near the hilt that had wicked, sharklike cutting teeth. I hefted it once, twice; the balance was excellent and the edge felt razor-sharp as I lightly stropped it on the back on my hand. “Well, well, well,” Smith said as he came to join us, “found another knife to break?”
“Okay already,” I grumbled. “Just as soon as I get back, I’ll replace that one of yours I busted up back in Paris. Crybaby.”
“Easy bet to make since I highly doubt you’ll be coming back, so pardon me if I don’t hold my breath. I just updated Mr. Jonas on your lack of parachute qualifications.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He said to throw you out of the plane anyway.”
He handed me the silver wedding ring Caitlin had given me, the one I now knew contained a homing device. “This doesn’t mean we’re going steady, does it?”
“No,” Smith replied easily. “It just means we’ll know where to find your body.” He then looked over the display of equipment and whistled. “Well, if you can’t get the job done with all this G.I. Joe crap, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
“There is one thing I don’t see,” I said.
Vega frowned. “What?”
“Lunch. I’m starved.”
It was Sergeant Vega to the rescue on that score, as he went and produced some military cuisine: bottled water and plastic packages marked MEAL, READY TO EAT, INDIVIDUAL, the armed services version of camping food. I’d been on enough wilderness treks with similar provisions to be impressed with the variety of foodstuffs each package containe
d, although I was warned to avoid the chili and beans entree since I was destined for a potential gut-wrenching high-altitude, low-pressure experience. I settled on a selection of pot roast and vegetables, and Smith and I prepared our repast with flameless chemical heaters while Vega explained that the military acronym for the food, MRE, actually stood for “Meals Rejected by Enemy,” though Smith disagreed and said it stood for “Meals, Rarely Edible.”
After lunch I started reviewing the equipment I’d be taking. The parachute and heavy-duty lighted altimeter were necessities, along with the small green bottle of pressurized pure oxygen, “Just to keep you alive long enough to make it down to the water and drown.” Vega also informed me that the chute was called a HAPPS—High Altitude Precision Parachute System, otherwise known as the “stealth chute.” As Vega drilled me on the chute’s operating systems, I was relieved to see that everything was arranged like its civilian counterparts. Vega also insisted I use a computerized automatic opening device preset for four thousand feet, just in case I happened to forget how to pull a ripcord on the way down. I acquiesced, of course, but inside I knew I wouldn’t trust my life to any gremlin-prone electronic devices.
After the parachute, I next had to decide what other gear I’d be lugging along. There was a forearm-mounted GPS device that would guide me to Vanya’s island once I had control of the parachute, and as I’ve come to distrust anything more complicated than a paper clip I added a luminous wrist compass as well. My plan was to hit the water close to the island and swim in, so the underwater diving mask would be worn in place of the skydiving goggles. Swim fins and a waterproof flashlight came next, and I chose to take the small pony bottle of compressed air instead of the full-sized scuba tanks. Since I wasn’t going to be diving at depth, I figured I’d get about twenty minutes of underwater time if I paced myself. With a helmet, jumpsuit, diving boots, and gloves, I’d be as ready as I could be.
As for all the rest of the gear, it would just slow me down, and I was planning to ditch all the equipment before I tried to contact Vanya anyway. And since every item was unmistakably military in origin, I didn’t want to have to explain where I got it. I was most reluctant to discard the compact medical kit that even included a mini-defibrillator and drug box. It was a real luxury item, considering that my first-aid gear usually consisted of a bandanna, some safety pins, a pocketknife, and my lighter.
As Smith watched me finish my selections, he said, “That it? What about firepower? You want that silenced Glock back?”
“No,” I answered. “The trick is going to be to get in close enough to Vanya to talk to him. Gunfire makes for a lousy conversational opener.” I held my new knife up. “Besides, I’ve got this.”
“Just what, pray tell, are you gonna do with one little knife? There’s an old saying about bringing one to a gunfight.”
I really shouldn’t have done what I did next. One of the first rules I ever learned was to never reveal your abilities until you actually have to use them. But I yielded to an instant impulse and whipped the knife out of its sheath and sent it flying over to a standing corkboard that held a map of the Mediterranean. The knife landed with a solid thump that rocked the board, almost knocking it over as it punched through the target down to the hilt.
Smith shot me a look as he walked over to the board, where he wrenched the knife free. “Great,” he said sarcastically. “You can throw away your weapon and disarm yourself faster than anyone I know.” Smith then looked at where the knife had landed, and then looked at me. “What were you aiming at?”
“Europe.”
He shook his head and walked back to me, handing me the knife hilt-first. Vega walked up to the map and ran his finger along where the knife landed. “Just what do you have against Corsica?” he asked.
“Oh? Is that where it landed?” I asked innocently. I didn’t look at Smith when I said this, and wondered how long it would take him to figure out that I had just literally pointed out my ultimate destination to him.
“Where’d you learn to do that trick?” Vega asked.
I just shrugged. The quiet little man from Thailand who taught me to throw everything from knives to scissors and screwdrivers wouldn’t appreciate being given public credit for my training. When he saw I wasn’t going to answer his question, Vega said, “Well, let’s see if you can learn any more tricks.” The next hour was taken up with Sergeant Vega drilling me on the finer points of high-altitude jumping. He was a good instructor, only raising his voice when he had to yell over the jet turbine screams or basso profundo propeller moans of the arriving and departing airplanes outside on the flight line.
Finally, Nicole Arden returned, clipboard in hand. “Okay, listen up, people,” she announced. She went to the map board as we gathered around. She spotted the gash on the map and turned a scornful eye on the rest of us, all of whom decided to look away, badly feigning ignorance. Nicole muttered something disparaging about “boys” under her breath, then said, “I’ve run the flight plan based on best possible speed, arriving at the drop zone at twenty-two hundred hours local time.”
Twenty-two hundred hours translated to ten o’clock at night. Way too early if I was going to try and sneak onto the island when most would be asleep, but I didn’t want to delay any longer than absolutely necessary. “Good,” I said. “I want to get there as soon as possible.”
“So I figured,” Nicole said dryly. She took out a marker pen and traced lines on the map. “We’ll head south, then traverse Italian airspace to give us an approach due east toward the target. At one hundred and fifty miles downrange I’ll take us to twenty-four thousand feet. This will minimize your exposure to the altitude.”
Vega took over. “We’ll depressurize the cabin and have everyone use oxygen masks for thirty minutes prior to jump. This is the ‘pre-breathing’ stage to get all that nasty nitrogen out of your blood. At the two-minute warning, you’ll switch to your bailout bottle for the descent. During this time, you need to tell me immediately if you’re experiencing any headache, tunnel vision, tingling or numbness, faintness—in fact, anything out of the ordinary. I’ll be monitoring you for signs of hypoxia or cyanosis. Also, at this altitude, you’re gonna freeze your ass off during the descent. If all goes according to plan, I strongly recommend you deploy your chute at four thousand feet.”
I did some quick calculation—at twenty thousand feet, I’d be free falling for approximately two whole minutes. That’s a lifetime of worry, wondering if your damn parachute is going to open or not.
Nicole checked her watch and said, “You have just half an hour before takeoff. Let’s get packed up and squared away.”
Smith went back to his laptop on the workbench as Sergeant Vega attended to all the equipment I wasn’t taking with me. I watched Captain Nicole walk away toward the plane, leaving me on my own. I made some final preparations, packing my wallet, passport, and other items into plastic bags and taping them watertight. I was going to have to leave my shoes behind and wear the neoprene diving boots instead, but I kept the shoestrings, knowing how handy some strong, thin cord could be. I then cut off the sleeves and legs of my clothes; I’d need the extra mobility after exiting the water. If I managed to get that far.
I dressed in the black jumpsuit and shrugged into the Kevlar-lined leather jacket. With nothing left to do but kill time, I headed for the mouth of the hangar. I lit one of my few remaining cigarettes while standing under a “No Smoking” sign and watched a large, four-engine turboprop plane coming in for a landing, its motors rumbling low as it glided down from the leaden sky. I wondered if it was bringing soldiers home. I hoped so.
I’d never been a soldier myself, not in the honorable, conventional sense, but I was made to be a damn good unconventional warrior and had the skills and experience to prove it. And I had no doubts that I was going off to fight for a cause that was just; Vanya and his psychopathic pet killer Rhea were monsters. Monsters that scared the hell out of me. And then I thought of Caitlin. My feelings for her were as
surprising to me as they were strong, but I had no time to question myself. All I could do was see that Caitlin and I survived all this madness, and then we could see for ourselves what the future would bring. A poet once wrote that it was for the sake of a woman that a thousand ships were launched to war and a once-proud empire brought to ruin. All I had to do now was see to it that history got repeated.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I felt like I was dying by inches.
Prior to this, for roughly the first four hours after takeoff, I was left to my own devices. When we climbed aboard, I saw that the passenger section of the plane had been engineered to serve as an emergency medical transport. It was like being inside a low-ceilinged, tubular operating room. All the medical equipment was stowed away, leaving Spartan seating accommodations. Sergeant Vega went to the pilot’s cabin with Captain Arden. Not that I blamed him; she was a lot better-looking than either Smith or me. As soon as we were airborne and leveled out, Smith unstrapped from his chair, unlocked a fold-down patient stretcher, then made his coat into a pillow and climbed on. “Wake me when it’s time to throw your ass out,” was the last thing he said to me.
So I stared out the portholes, looking down at the magnificent Alps as we traversed Switzerland and into Italy, and then watched as we flew south along the Italian coastline. Eventually, we veered east, over some less impressive mountainous ranges, until finally we were over a blue Mediterranean Sea. All during this time I felt a gnawing in my gut as minute by minute I wondered and worried about Caitlin.
I felt the stomach-dropping sensation of our descent as Sergeant Vega appeared from the pilot’s cabin. He put on a heavy oversuit, complete with a hood that he left slung back, and then came astern to Smith and me. He woke Smith up and then proceeded to dress me in my gear like a mother with a backwards child getting ready to play in the snow.