by Jason Kasper
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the whole thing. Years of work leading up to this retirement. There were six of us when we started—”
“Matz,” Ophie said, “take it easy on the poor kid. He’s got enough to prepare for tomorrow.”
“He’s the single point of failure. He needs to hear it.”
“Fuck, Matz.” Ophie pushed back his chair and stood. “Whatever. I’m not sticking around for this.”
He left, and Matz and I were alone.
Matz continued, “There were six of us when we started, and Ophie wasn’t one of them. Boss and I were there from the beginning, and so were four others who died along the way. Caspian was just the last to get killed. There were a few new recruits who didn’t make it this far, either. This is bigger than all of us, and I don’t think you really understand that because we’ve kept so much from you.”
“And why would that be, Matz? I think I’ve done enough to earn my keep so far.”
“Don’t get any delusions of grandeur, you little shit. You don’t know a fucking thing about what this team has done since the beginning, and we haven’t told you because you’re the most expendable. Who do you think is the most likely to get captured alive before this is over? The three of us on the ambush, or you out there by yourself?”
“I’m not getting captured alive.”
“You better not. I don’t really care if you make it out, but you need to do your job out there. We’ve done dozens of missions against this organization, and now the leadership will be in one place, for one meeting, before we can disband the team and retire. None of that means fuck-all if you don’t fire those mortars on time, and me and Boss and Ophie haven’t gone through what we have in the past few years to watch you fuck it up. Do it if it kills you, you understand me? The survivors from this team deserve to retire in peace.”
“Matz, I think I’ve got a solution for all your concerns.”
“And what’s that?”
“Since you’re so worried about the mortars, why don’t you shoot them? I’ll gladly take your place on the ambush line. You go ahead and freefall out of a plane at sunset tomorrow—and figure out my wingsuit and BASE rig on the way down—then land your parachute on that postage stamp of a landing area without dying. Let me know how that works out for you.”
Matz’s face settled into a stony stare as I continued, “Until then, don’t tell me how to do my fucking job. I’m willing to die for this team just as much as you, Boss, or Ophie are. I don’t need any reminders from you that I’m the new guy, because no one else seems to have a problem with it.”
“Just don’t fuck it up, Suicide.”
“I won’t, Matz.”
He scraped back his chair, then rose stiffly and moved toward the hall.
I called after him, “Dinner was excellent, by the way.”
He continued walking away as he replied, “I know my pancetta is fucking gangster. I don’t need to hear it from you.”
He vanished down the hall, and I poured myself another serving of wine from the last remaining bottle.
* * *
Ophie strolled back into the dining room before I’d finished my glass.
He glanced into the kitchen before asking, “Did our resident asshole finally turn in for the night?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God.” Ophie pulled his chair back out, then poured himself another glass and raised it in the air to toast me. I mirrored the gesture, and together we took a sip.
I set down my glass and said, “Why did you get so upset over Matz giving me his little pep talk?”
Ophie shook his head, observing my expression with amusement. “You’re a big boy—you can handle Matz. I just needed an excuse to leave.”
“For what?”
He gave a sidelong glance over his shoulder and listened for a moment before reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a thin silver spike and slid it across the table toward me.
I reached out to grab it, holding it up to my face and turning it over in the light.
“Is this the firing pin for a Glock?” I asked, sliding it back to him.
He caught it and grinned. “Good eye, David.”
“Whose is it?”
“Whose do you think?”
I frowned, meeting Ophie’s level stare. “Matz isn’t going to do anything stupid. He’s already talking about getting his car.”
“His leg’s injured, David, and he’s not going to let himself slow us down if he can’t keep up after the ambush.”
“I don’t think Matz would do that.”
“You know, for someone who gives you so much shit for almost killing yourself, I think the same thought has crossed his mind a few times. I’ve found him before, just sitting on that back porch facing the range where we used to stuff you in that goddamn box. Just sitting there with a pistol in his hand, staring at the woods.”
“He’s been to combat. Who knows what goes through his head.”
“I’ve seen flashbacks, and that wasn’t it. There are things worse than war, David. And for the type of man who has seen those things, combat can become a respite.”
I took another drink, rotating my hand to look at the glass. “You think anyone’s going to die on this one?”
“From our side?” He shrugged. “I can tell you one thing: if anybody bites it out there, it ain’t going to be me.”
“I don’t think God’s going to protect you after your dinner sermon.”
He smirked. “Hell, a few missions ago we were on the objective for about ten minutes flat, and it was one of those days where I came inches from death a few times. Later, when we were driving to meet Joe at the airport, we saw a minivan that had rolled over and was surrounded by cop cars. The family was already in body bags. Happened on a straight stretch of road with another car wrecked off to the side. Who knows what the fuck happened. Why’d they die and I survive? Because I deserved it and they didn’t?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because God doesn’t care about us. It’s all random and meaningless, boy, and I think you know that much by now.”
I released a weary sigh. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I am right. You know, I started my career being certain I’d get killed. After enough missions, I started to think maybe I’d make it. And by now, I know I’m going to die of natural causes.”
“Not a bad way to go.”
“Eh, it’s so-so. It kind of takes the fun out of things—half the thrill of combat is not knowing if you’re going to get killed or not, right?”
I watched his expression, trying to ascertain if he was serious or not. “So why’d you use a .22 to kill Peter?” he asked. “You had a bear gun for yourself, but hit him with a peashooter. I never asked you why.”
I grinned sheepishly, my eyes dropping to the table. “To be honest, Ophie, I… I wanted him to survive long enough to talk a little bit. I wanted to see what he had to say when he met me.”
Ophie smiled at this, absentmindedly observing the contents of his glass as he swirled it. Then he stopped abruptly, swallowed the rest, and said, “Well, better get some sleep before the big day. You’re the star of the show tomorrow, David.”
He rose without waiting for a response. I sat alone, listening to his footsteps moving down the hall. After finishing my glass, I went to my room, swung the door open, and closed it again with a bang.
Then I went to Karma’s room and slid inside, gingerly easing her door shut behind me.
PROMISED LAND
Post tenebras lux
-After the darkness, light
CHAPTER 18
I pulled up the sliding cargo door and cold wind spilled inside, roaring above the sound of the plane’s engine. I set my left hand, bearing a luminescent altimeter, on the bottom edge of the exit door and my other hand against the lead corner, then settled my knees on the aircraft floor and leaned my head outside.
The blast of air pushed my clear wraparound goggles tight again
st my face, whipping my hair into disarray as I watched the wrinkled landscape easing by fourteen thousand feet below us. The ground was bathed in the neon orange of oncoming dusk, and the irregular outline of the approaching lake resembled a loosely coiled serpent; the final rays of sun beamed off its spiked tail, which pointed almost directly toward my landing area 2.8 kilometers away.
Sticking my head back inside, I saw Matz feigning disinterest on the seat across from me. Karma looked at me with concern, and Ophie, beside her, tilted his head to hear me.
“Five left!” I called to Ophie.
Ophie yelled toward the cockpit, “Five degrees left!”
I stuck my head back outside the plane, watching our line of flight adjust slightly toward the crease in the shoreline that I had chosen as my exit point.
For the majority of the flight, I had been staring out a right side window, tracking the roads, lakes, and hills leading up to a tiny landing area that I wouldn’t be able to see until seconds before deploying my parachute. As we neared the lake, my only focus was ensuring that our line of flight remained perfectly aligned with the left shoreline—aside from our altitude, my exit point was the only factor I could control in advance. Once I jumped, everything depended on my reflexes and being able to maintain my body position to fly the wingsuit beneath my BASE rig.
Pulling my head back into the plane, I rose to a crouched position and shuffled toward the cockpit, catching high-fives from Karma and Ophie along the way. As I approached the front, Boss looked at me from his position in the copilot seat.
“We’re all counting on you, David, and I know you’re going to deliver. Fire those mortars on time, no matter what.”
I set a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not letting you down, Boss—not my style. Joe, this heading is perfect.”
Joe looked over from the controls. “I’ll hold it here. You’ve got about thirty seconds to the lake.”
“Nice flying with you again.” I squeezed Boss’s shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the linkup. You’ll see.”
He nodded to me, but said nothing.
I turned back to the cabin and moved toward the cargo door, yelling, “Matz! Boss needs you up front. Now.”
Matz hurried to his feet and slid around me, approaching the cockpit with his head bowed. Stepping around Ophie, I stopped in front of Karma, who was watching me intently. I lifted my hands as much as the wings of my suit allowed and pulled her face toward mine. I kissed her lips for one second, then two, before pulling back to look at her.
She said, “Be careful out there, David. Promise me.”
“It’s okay, I’m fucking immortal.”
At that moment, I heard Matz scream from the cockpit, high above the roar of the wind and the engine, “WHAT THE FUCK!”
I kissed Karma one last time, turned, and flung myself through the open door and into the blue abyss.
The buzz of the plane’s engine faded as the howling sky filled my ears like crashing waves. The wind tumbled my body as I fell, keeping my arms to my sides and my legs pressed together. As soon as I cleared the plane’s tail, I spread my limbs and felt the curved fabric cells of the arm and leg wings pressurize into a flying surface. I established stability and dipped my shoulder to bank in a right turn. Following the finger of the lake with my eyes as the wind pressed against my face, I picked up horizontal speed in the wingsuit as the ocean howl of the sky quieted to a whistling stream.
Once I was aimed in the right direction, I focused on adjusting my body position for optimum flight. My legs were locked straight out with toes pointed, and I rolled my shoulders forward to tweak the position of my arm wings. Slight bend downward at the waist, chin tucked to chest, and as soon as I ran through my mental checklist, I heard myself hitting the sweet spot of wingsuit flight, where the wind quiets and you can feel yourself surging forward at the best efficiency. Then, the sky became so quiet I could have talked to someone flying next to me.
I slid my chin sideways to sneak a glance at my altimeter, then peeked up toward the landing area. I was at nine thousand feet and gaining distance at a good pace. My eyes ticked off the landmarks beneath me and verified my heading. There was a particular hilltop that I wanted to pass over at five thousand feet, and I skimmed past it at 5,400.
As I soared over a small lake at 2,500 feet, my mind began screaming an alarm: I was passing through the hard deck of skydiving. I coasted through 1,500 feet, then passed a dirt road just shy of my landing area. I forced myself to hold my position, knowing the tiny field would be approaching in seconds. Then I tucked my hands to my sides, braced my knees and ankles together, arched my pelvis, and transitioned from flying to falling like a hawk diving out of the sky.
My right hand was clutching my pilot chute as I held this precarious position, trying to remain symmetrical and avoid rolling to one side or the other. I gauged when I was five hundred feet from impact, then pitched my pilot chute with my right hand before bringing my palms back to my chest.
I didn’t have to wait in that position for long.
As my eyes absorbed the treetops slicing toward me at a vertical angle, an explosive CRACK flung my legs up in front of my face. The opening was so sudden and violent that for a moment I was afraid I would flip backwards through my risers, and certain that I would then look up to see my parachute in shreds. I threw my eyes skyward; the canopy was fully pressurized and flying cleanly and crisply as the wind blew softly against my face. I unzipped the sleeves of my wingsuit to free my arms for steering and crossed my ankles to collapse the leg wing as treetops approached at chest level.
Piloting my canopy left, I passed between the spiky tops of two pine trees; the side of my parachute scraped against loose sprigs as I drifted downward into waves of long grass. A pink haze from the dwindling sun glanced between sharp shadows beneath me and I pumped my hands gradually downward to flare. My canopy leveled into straight flight, then went nose up and stalled when my boots were two feet off the ground. Then I touched down so softly that I could have landed on one foot.
Turning to pull my parachute to the ground, I quickly looped the lines around one hand and threw them into the collapsing fabric, then balled that into a two-arm bundle before shuffling into the woods and out of sight. Once I had passed into the trees, I dropped the mass onto the mossy rocks at my feet. The thick, earthy forest air seemed overpowering after the scentless open wind of my flight. I sat to strip off the wingsuit and BASE harness. Stuffing everything into my stash bag, I cinched it shut and threw it onto my back, and then began moving toward the mortar firing point with what little daylight remained.
* * *
The night was black, with flickers of lightning from a turbulent sky illuminating the scene for split seconds at a time. Ocean waves crested violently, tossing a single ship in their wake, its masts sheared off and its sails in tatters. It pitched downward from the top of a wave and plunged toward the trough before everything went black. At the next flash of lightning, the ship was tipped upward once again, rising on the next wave. People clung to the deck as the sea flung the ship, now approaching a near vertical angle and beginning to skew sideways, before the lightning vanished and plunged the scene into blackness—
I burst awake to the sound of birdcalls and blinked at sunlight filtering through the treetops.
After unzipping my sleeping bag, I put on my boots and rose to begin the day’s work. Strapping on body armor and my Glock, I slung my M4 with suppressor and conducted a short patrol around the hilltop, peering down the slopes to ensure I was alone.
My surroundings were far more beautiful that morning than they had been days prior, when we had parked the two pickups on a desolate spot on the dirt road now far below me. Our stopping point was surrounded by a labyrinthine forest, and the ground dropped off to the left, the wooded face of the earth molded in a steep descent hundreds of feet to the growl of a narrow river. The hill to the right rose sharply and was far more concerning.
I hadn’t been able to appreciate the
view from the top the first time I saw it, nor on successive trips spent shuttling mortar equipment and ammunition uphill that day as Ophie set up the firing point and dialed in the systems. But the scenery was unrivaled when I wasn’t fatigued, and my mind drifted back to my wingsuit flight over the gloriously mottled sunset terrain and crystal bodies of water pooled amid foothills.
The view that morning was liberating in the crystalline sense of its beauty; it was reflective of the freedom I had experienced in the Smoky Mountains as a teenager. There was a certain tranquility to the majesty of nature that I could experience nowhere else, which captivated me regardless of my past or future. Before near-death experiences in combat and BASE jumping, before medicating myself with alcohol, and before memories of hiking with my best friend were tainted by his affair with my fiancée, those mountains had provided the greatest sense of freedom I had ever known.
After my patrol, I began uncovering the three mortars, removing first the camouflage netting that concealed them and then the tarps that waterproofed the systems. They were spaced a few feet apart, arrayed in descending order of height. The 120mm mortar was massive, its cannon standing as tall as a man. Together with its baseplate and bipod, the system weighed over three hundred pounds. The 81mm was slightly smaller, and the 60mm, with a cannon measuring less than four feet, looked like a miniature of both.
The effect of all three mortars shooting in succession would terrify those on the objective: a rhythmic sequence of distant thumps would sound over the hills, instantly recognizable to the war veterans among the security force. A brief period of abject disbelief and horror would lead to the first panicked cry to take cover, which would surely occur at some point in the fleeting thirty-eight seconds of flight time before the first mortar round impacted. The instant it did so, destroying everything at its point of impact and flinging shrapnel in a seventy-five meter radius, half a dozen more would be sailing through the air behind it.
Once the mortars were uncovered, I repeated the process with the ammo crates staged at the edge of the clearing and began laying out rounds. Whereas the 120mm rounds were monstrous and required two hands to hoist, the 60mm were toys by contrast. I laid them in neat rows by their respective mortar tubes, the rounds appearing as metal footballs with a length of tail emerging from the back and ringed with fins.