Vital Force

by Trevor Scott

  “Why not just fly there?” Fisher asked.

  Jake leaned in and pointed to a spot along the route. “The rail line follows the Ussuri River. Cross the river and that’s the Manchurian frontier. We sure Li isn’t heading there to make the drop?”

  Bailey shrugged. “We aren’t sure of much.”

  “No, no,” Fisher said. “That woman is a control freak. She’ll place the DVD in the buyer’s hand herself.”

  “That’s why we need the both of you to head them off,” Bailey said, emphatically.

  “How the hell can we catch up with them?” Fisher asked.

  Bailey smiled. “Follow me.”

  The three of them left the building, piled into Bailey’s Humvee, and then crossed the base toward the hangars. He parked outside the same hangar where they had parked the B-2 earlier in the day. Two security policemen guarded a secure door off to the side of the main hangar doors, and Bailey parted them with Jake and Fisher at his tail.

  The inside of the hangar was now in subdued red lights. The B-2 sat in the center as technicians scurried about, preparing the aircraft for flight.

  Bailey stopped next to a service lift used to load bombs into the internal bay of the B-2 and other aircraft. Sitting on the lift was two black cylinders that resembled sleek coffins. An air force technical sergeant opened one of the rounded containers for them to view. Inside, there was padding, but instead of the white satin of a coffin, this interior was entirely black. There were tubes and a mask at one end of the structure. Both ends were rounded.

  Fisher’s mouth seemed to hang open.

  The pilot who had flown Fisher across the Pacific came out from a back room, fully dressed in flight gear, and stopped alongside the coffin. “You boys ready?” the pilot asked.

  “Ready for what?” Fisher said, confused.

  “Where’s the oxygen connection?” Jake asked the pilot.

  The pilot leaned over and pointed to a receptacle near the head of the container.

  “And you’ve done this before?” Jake asked.

  Bailey took the question. “That’s classified. Let’s just say it’s been thoroughly tested.”

  “Whoooh. . .” Fisher said, his hands up in protest. “You mean to tell me you put people in here?” He glanced over his shoulder at the B-2 and then back to the other men. “Then drop the bastards like bombs?”

  The pilot smiled.

  Bailey said, “That’s the idea.”

  “No fuckin’ way,” Fisher yelled. “Flyin’ across the ocean on a Goddamn air mattress is one thing, but this—”

  Jake checked over the inside of the container more carefully. “Let me guess. Altimeter chute release.” Then he moved down to the end of the container, where he suspected the feet would go. “What you use to cushion the fall.”

  “You got a smart one here, Stan,” the pilot said. “It’s basically a collapsing spring. You hit the ground and this outer case pretty much disintegrates around you. It’s made from a tempered Plexiglas.”

  “So all that’s left is the chute, a few pieces of cloth, and a couple of fittings,” Jake said.

  “Exactly,” Bailey said.

  Fisher swished his head from side to side. “No fuckin’ way. What if the chute doesn’t go?”

  “Then you’ll never know what hit ya,” the pilot said.

  Now Jake was a bit confused.

  “What’s wrong, Jake?” Bailey asked him.

  “How do you control this to the drop zone?”

  “Satellite guidance,” the pilot said, pointing to slits along the upper end of the black container. “Control fins pop out of here after it drops; GPS satellite controlled. Once it reaches the set altitude, the drogue chute deploys to slow you down, followed closely by the main chute, and then you’re in a free fall.”

  “And trees?” Jake said.

  “It could be a rocky fall. But there’s an inside release if you get tangled. You pop this, take a look, and then release the chute. You’re cushioned for a drop of at least thirty feet without the chute. Shouldn’t happen, though. We’ll aim for a nice opening. Low winds. You should be fine.”

  Jake put his hand on the colonel’s shoulder. “The Agency better have a nice chunk of money waiting for me in my account.”

  “Already been taken care of, Jake.”

  “You in, Fisher?” Jake asked him.

  “Like I have a choice? Sure the Agency will say it’s entirely up to me. Then I say hell no and I end up in Duluth. Fuck that. How far is it to Russia?”

  “About a thousand miles by air to your drop point,” the pilot said.

  “Why not just fly commercial?” Fisher asked. “A little beer and peanuts. Lousy food.”

  “No can do,” Bailey said. “First, the schedule wouldn’t get you there until morning. By then the Asian woman could have made the drop and boarded a plane to damn near anywhere. As you know, she killed a bunch of folks back in the States. And second, we don’t want anyone knowing you’re on your way. Somehow they found out you were at the Seoul airport. You could be tracked all the way into Russia.”

  “And we can’t fly a military plane in without filing a flight plan and getting major clearance,” Jake said.

  “Exactly.”

  “But with the stealth bomber,” Fisher said. “Nobody sees us coming.”

  “Right,” the pilot said. “We slip in, drop you two off, literally, and continue on to Alaska. Hell, we don’t even need fly over rights.”

  Jake looked at the containers one more time. “These must cost a good chunk of money for a one-use system.”

  “They’re a bargain,” Bailey said. “We can drop a SEAL team into any location, they take out a target or capture someone, and then we set up extraction. It’s what we need more of in these times. Human intelligence. Folks on the ground. Even our smartest bombs can’t compare to that.”

  Jake had to admit that was a helluva deal. Yet, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a Guinea pig. Regardless of his old friend’s recitation of the familiar classified argument, Jake had a feeling they would be the first to use these flying coffins. Chimps notwithstanding.

  46

  Feeling like a man in his own grave, Jake shifted his body sideways to keep from cramping. The idea of enclosing him in that human bomb, at first, had seemed quite absurd. Put into practice, the idea became almost laughable, and he wondered how in the hell they would lock someone into these contraptions for longer than the two-hour flight they were on before being dropped from twenty thousand feet?

  The air force technicians had locked them into the pods, lifted them into the internal bomb bay of the B-2, connected the oxygen and heating tube, and then towed the aircraft outside. He remembered the strange sound and rumbling as the jet engines turned over; he felt the slight bounce of the craft moving down the taxiway; he experienced the surge of power as the B-2 lifted off; and then there was the almost tranquil sensation of cruising flight.

  He felt that now. Like he was floating.

  In the briefing before their departure, Bailey had equipped them both with cold weather clothing, helmets with communications, goggles, and, most importantly, his favorite handgun, the Czech CZ-75 in 9mm, with three extra clips. He moved his left arm against the gun now, strapped between his biceps and ribs. Bailey had also returned Fisher’s 9mm Beretta to him.

  Jake had no idea what was in store for the two of them. They had gotten briefings and words of encouragement from the pilots for the past couple of hours, but they had been silent for the past fifteen minutes. He guessed they had to be getting close to their drop zone.

  He wondered how Fisher was doing one rotation up on the rotary bomb rack. Jake had explained that he would be the first to go, but the Agency man had not been comforted much by that fact. He had gone screaming and kicking into the darkness of the pod.

  “You boys still with us?” It was the pilot, Major Cox, on the headset.

  There was heavy breathing in his ear. “Get me the hell outta here,” Fisher said, a
lmost out of breath.

  “Maybe a little valium next time,” Jake said. “How long?”

  “Two minutes ‘till the drop. Oh, one more thing.”

  “Not a surprise,” Fisher yelled.

  “Once you drop,” the pilot continued, “you’ll feel a stream of air into the case. That’s normal. You won’t be on oxygen anymore, so we had to have a way to give ya some air. It’s awfully thin up here.”

  “What about the cold?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah, you’ll get cold for a while. But that’s why we gave you those clothes.”

  Jake guessed the two minutes were almost up. “Anything else?”

  “Enjoy the ride.”

  “Right,” Fisher said. “That’s gonna happen.”

  Suddenly, the sound of hydraulics moving echoed through the bomb bay, along with the gush of air. Then it happened. That sensation of floating was replaced by Jake’s feet pointing downward, and he was lunging through the air in the position of an Olympic luger.

  Seconds later, Jake heard a protracted scream and he imagined Fisher was also on his way.

  Air immediately streamed in, cold and biting his only exposed skin along the outside of his goggles and mask.

  Jake tried to remember the briefing. Dropped from twenty thousand feet. Rate of descent and terminal velocity, based on weight and gravitational force. Drag coefficient and resistance. Force equals mass times acceleration; Newton’s second law of motion. Shit. Just hang on and enjoy the damn ride. Hope like hell the first altimeter releases the drogue and slows the descent before the second altimeter releases the parachute.

  He didn’t have to wait long. With a sudden lurch, he was seemingly pulled at his shoulders, like a giant hand grabbed him from the air and shook him before letting him go again. Seconds later there was another pull on him, and Jake guessed the chute had deployed properly. The air that had been rushing in was now a slow stream, barely noticeable.

  Remember the briefing, Jake. What next? Then he heard it in his headset. The beeping came slow, seconds apart. Then the beeps increased. A second apart.

  Just as the beeps became a solid, high-pitched sound, his legs collapsed, taking his breath away for a second.

  The pod shattered into thousands of pieces. Jake found himself rolling around in a foot of snow, the parachute attached to his shoulders, pulling him slightly. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, his eyes spinning around his new environment. It was as if he had just come from the womb into a cold new world.

  He hurried to wrap his parachute around his arms, rolling it into a ball. Then he dug a hole in the snow and buried it.

  Wandering back to the spot he had hit, he looked around at what was left of the pod. There wasn’t much. It had been like dropping a light bulb.

  His eyes started to adjust to his new surroundings. He was in a snowy field no more than a kilometer long by a half a kilometer wide. Damn nice drop, he thought. How in the hell had they done that?

  Jake took off his helmet, returned the headset to his disheveled hair, and covered that with a wool hat from his pocket.

  “Fisher. You there?” Jake whispered into the mic.

  There was a slight grunt and then, “Yeah. I think I’m alive.”

  “Where the hell are ya?”

  “I don’t know. A field of snow.”

  Jake turned around, scanning the entire field in the darkness. “Can you flash your penlight once?”

  There. About two hundred meters to the north, alongside the pine forest. He had missed the trees by only a few meters. “Got ya. Be there in a second.”

  Jake trudged through the foot-deep snow, lifting his feet high as he hurried toward Fisher’s location. When he got there, he found Fisher laying in the snow among the remains of the pod.

  “You all right?” Jake asked him.

  Fisher turned on his light for a second, revealing his ankle.

  “Is it broken?”

  “Don’t think so. Just a bad sprain.”

  Jake looked around and settled his eyes on the black cloth that had lined the container. He ripped that into long strips and then wrapped it around the Agency man’s ankle and foot. Then Jake helped him to his feet.

  “Give that a try.”

  Fisher stood and put pressure on his ankle. “Hey, you do good work.”

  Jake helped him bury his chute and helmet. They were about to start walking when Jake sensed that something wasn’t right. Maybe he saw a flash of movement. Perhaps there was a slight sound, like a crack of a twig.

  Fisher started to walk, but Jake stopped him with his hand to his chest.

  Then came the familiar sound of a pistol sliding a bullet into a chamber, echoing through the night air. That was followed by a dancing red dot bouncing about Jake’s chest.

  47

  Jake thought about going for his gun, but he knew the shooter could pull the trigger before his right hand reached inside his coat.

  “Jake Adams?” came a voice from the darkness.

  Damn. Jake rushed toward the woods, Fisher hobbling up from behind.

  “What the hell are you doin’ here, Turner?” Jake asked.

  “What the hell ya think? Just like last time, pulling your ass out of the frigid Russian snow. That agent Fisher?”

  “Yeah. He hurt his ankle in the drop.” Jake introduced Agency external ops officer, Lance Turner to Fisher.

  “You out of Vladivostok?” Fisher asked.

  “Yeah, but we need to get our asses in gear. Shit could be goin’ down right now. The car’s up the woods about half a click.”

  The three of them moved off into the woods following Turner’s tracks back toward the car. They got to the isolated road, barely a one-lane track between the tall pines, where Turner’s car sat against a snow bank.

  “A taxi?” Jake said. “That’s a step up from that crappy Volga you were driving.”

  Turning the key to enter, Turner said, “It’s a loaner I found at the train station.”

  They piled in, Turner driving, Jake in the front passenger side, and Fisher in the back. The car jumped to life and they waited for a moment before slowly driving off down the road.

  “How in the hell’d you find us?” Fisher asked.

  Turner raised a small device. “I set the DZ by G.P.S. I was briefed you’d be dropping by. They didn’t tell me how you did it, though. Didn’t even hear a plane. Heard this weird crash. Twice. Never heard anything like it.”

  “I take it they had you follow the Asian women,” Jake said. “Where’d they go?”

  Turner’s face was uncertain. “I found Chang Li in Vladivostok flying in from Seoul. She went directly from the airport to the train station-took the Trans-Siberian all the way to Khabarovsk. Had the pork and potatoes for dinner. No wine. I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink wine.”

  “What about the other woman?” Jake asked. “Chang Su.”

  “They related?”

  Jake hesitated and then nodded. “Sisters.”

  “They in it together?”

  Jake explained how Chang Su had helped him in China, and how she had been working as an Agency agent. Then Fisher told him about how he had been tracking Chang Li from California.

  Turner listened carefully before saying, “That Li is the one who jumped you in Khabarovsk, Jake. Her and her boss. I have nothing on that guy, though. No intel. I saw both women on the train. They weren’t traveling together. Li was in first class and Su was in third class, among the derelicts.”

  “Where are they now?” Jake asked.

  “A couple miles down the road. A dacha on a small lake. Very isolated.”

  “What the hell they doing there?”

  “No clue. Now, hang on a moment. I said they weren’t traveling together. When Li got off the train in Khabarovsk, the other woman stopped her. She looked pissed. That’s when the bald guy showed up.”

  “The guy who nabbed me,” Jake said.

  “I’m guessing so,” Turner said. “Strangest thing, though. “T
he bald guy kept yelling at Li. Something about an album. Where the fuck was his album. You forgot my fuckin’ album. Strange shit.”

  “Can’t help you there,” Jake said. “So you followed them up into the country. How you know they haven’t moved?”

  Turner thought about that. “I was told to leave them there and pick up the two of you.”

  Fisher stirred in the back seat, leaning forward against the front seat. “You know the two women have satellite tracking?”

  Looking in the rearview mirror, Turner said, “Yeah, that’s why I’m pretty sure they haven’t gone anywhere. Bailey in Osan said he’d call me if they started to move. Hell, it’s after midnight. They’re probably crashing. It’s just up ahead.”

  The car slowed and Turner pulled over to the side of the road, cutting the lights.

  Clouds slid from the moon, lighting the entire area. Something about this place seemed familiar to Jake. “I know this sounds stupid, but this looks familiar.”

  “It should,” Turner said. “I picked you up just a half a mile up the road last week.”

  “Shit.”

  Turner pointed across the road at a narrow lane that cut through an opening in the pines. “They went up that skunk trail. I drove along the entrance, crossing their tracks in the snow. Doesn’t look like they’ve come out. According to Bailey, the road curves around and stops at a dacha overlooking a lake. About a half a mile walk.”

  “One way in and one way out,” Fisher said.

  “My thought also,” Jake said. “Let’s pull in and block their exit. There’s no way in hell they could get around us.”

  Without saying a word, Turner cranked over the taxi and, without lights, pulled the car into the long driveway, lodging it behind a couple of trees.

  “There,” Turner said. “Now they can’t even push it with their car. Heard they gave you guys weapons. So, let’s rock and roll.”

  Before getting out, they discussed their plan. Without any knowledge of the dacha, though, their plan would have to remain flexible.