63

Johan felt the aircraft leave the earth, and it had a feeling of finality. They were in the air, and the mission was a go. He looked at the men around him and had confidence in their abilities, but he was losing conviction in what he was about to do.

The men sat in the web seats of the C-130 aircraft, already in their parachutes. The flight was only an hour and a half, and it wouldn’t be long before they exited into the black night. He leaned over to Chris and said, “You sure you’re good to go?”

Chris was American Special Forces and had proven to be a good man during the rehearsals. One of the few who understood the limitations of the indigenous men they were training.

“Yeah, I’m good. My ankle is cinched tighter than a virgin’s cunt. I’ll be fine.”

Johan nodded, and, curious, he said, “How did you get into this?”

“What do you mean?”

Johan leaned back and said, “I mean, this doesn’t seem to be your skill set. How were you hired?”

Confused, Chris said, “You’ve seen my skill. I can outshoot anyone here. My ankle doesn’t matter. What the hell are you talking about?”

Johan said, “We aren’t training anymore. We’re taking over a country for money.”

Chris squinted his eyes and said, “We’re removing a despot. That’s what I do.”

Johan laughed and said, “When? Where have you removed a despot?”

“I served in Iraq. Afghanistan. I did what was right then, and I do it now.”

Johan nodded and said, “Keep telling yourself that.”

“What does that mean?”

Seeing he’d hit a nerve about Chris’s past service, and not wanting to fight, Johan let it drop, saying, “Nothing. Just do your job and earn the paycheck.”

He moved to the front of the aircraft, feeling Chris’s eyes on his back. He reached the loadmaster, hearing him talk to the pilot on a headset about the altitude. With the short flight time, they’d spend most of it below ten thousand feet to avoid wasting the oxygen the men held on their HALO rigs.

He sat down in the web seat next to the loadmaster, away from the men, not wanting to think about what he was doing. He closed his eyes, and it was almost pure, the vibration of the aircraft, the smells, the cinch of his harness bringing the memory of just such a flight, on a team that believed in what they were doing, and an end state of something worth gaining. Back when he cared.

He was jolted awake by the loadmaster. “Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes.”

He turned to the back of the aircraft and relayed the command, the men standing up and beginning the laborious process of hooking rucksacks and weapons to their gear. He went to the rear to do the same. Ten minutes later, the loadmaster gave him the mask signal. They were climbing.

He relayed, and the men closed the oxygen masks on their faces, checking bottles and making sure they could breathe in the rarefied air of twenty-five thousand feet. The group began doing pre-jump checks on one another, making sure they’d connected all the various attachments correctly and that the container pins were ready to deploy the lifesaving parachutes. Johan talked to the loadmaster one more time. He should have had someone check over his gear, like the others, but he’d done this so many times he didn’t bother. Better to focus on his duties as the jumpmaster.

He went to the ramp at the rear of the aircraft, his adrenaline starting to pump, his senses becoming hyperalert. This was it. What he lived for. No matter the outcome or purpose, this moment in time was why he did what he did.

The loadmaster pressed a button, and the ramp began to lower, the sky outside huge. The wind began to rocket into the back of the aircraft, and he glanced back at the men, all now looking at him, their faces covered with goggles and oxygen masks.

He was the single person on earth they trusted now, the focal point of their entire existence. They would do what he asked without hesitation, because he was the jumpmaster. He gave them a thumbs-up and then awkwardly took a knee at the corner of the ramp, fighting his rucksack and the wind, looking for the terrain features he’d memorized.

The beacon he’d emplaced would guide in the aircraft for the jump run, but it was his job—his duty—to corroborate the information. If he couldn’t find the landmarks, he wouldn’t give the release.

He craned his head out into the wind and stared down, seeing nothing but scrolling hills in the blackness. He waited, then saw a river. The five-minute landmark.

He turned around and gave the command to stand up. The men shuffled upright, crowding to the rear. He could feel the adrenaline, see the vibration in their bodies. He returned to the wind, craning out of the side of the aircraft for the release point.

He saw the lights of Maseru ahead, then the rotating spotlight for the airport, at twenty-five thousand feet looking like a toy flashlight. They were on track.

He turned around and gave the signal to stand by.

The men crowded closer to the edge of the ramp, eyes wide. Sweat pouring. Goggles starting to fog.

He saw the crest of a butte, the release point. They crossed it.

He stood up, turned to the men, and pointed off the ramp, into the vastness of space. They exited without hesitation, the entire team spilling out of the back of the aircraft like lemmings with a death wish.

The last man passed him, and he followed, leaping out of the aircraft with a faith born from a thousand jumps before.

He felt the buffeting wind from the slipstream of the aircraft, then entered the clean air left behind, arching his back and falling flat and stable, looking for the team. He saw the blinking strobes, all in front of and below him, and relaxed, checking his altimeter.

There weren’t any Hollywood stunts like linking up and turning points. They were twenty-five thousand feet above the earth at night, each carrying more than a hundred pounds of equipment and breathing oxygen from a tank. If they could all open their parachutes at the designated altitude, that would be success.

All too soon, he reached four thousand feet. He cleared his airspace, making sure nobody was around him, passing through three thousand feet. He arched hard and pulled his rip cord.

He felt the chute kick out but knew immediately something was wrong just by the way it deployed. It partially inflated, whipping him hard to the right. He looked up and saw a tangled mess. He seized the toggles, jerking them down, attempting to fully inflate the canopy. It did no good. He began spinning in a circle, the rotation becoming more and more violent, to the point that the centrifugal force was about to make him black out.

Flying through the air with half lift, falling to earth like a fidget-spinner toy, he felt the rucksack between his legs begin to twist. It caught enough air to flip him on his back, the weapon at his side punching him hard in the jaw.

He shook his head, squeezed his knees, and forced the rucksack back below him. It caught the wind again, flipping him back onto his belly, still spinning. He frantically traced his harness to the cutaway pillow, yanking it out like he was pulling Excalibur from the stone.

The bad parachute jettisoned, and he was briefly in free fall again, a sickening sensation, causing his stomach to lurch. He grabbed his reserve rip cord and ripped it free. The parachute inflated, and he had a brief moment of respite, then saw he was within two hundred feet of the ground and flying fast. He had no time to lower his rucksack. He saw the earth racing to meet him and yanked deep on the toggles. He hammered the ground, bashing his knee into a rock. He screamed, rolled over, and realized he was alive.

He lay in the dirt for a moment, savoring the act of breathing. He worked the fasteners on his rucksack, put his weapon into operation, then stood up, his chute splayed behind him. He realized he was on the plateau, but way off the designated mark.

He saw trucks in the distance and thought, Not all bad. At least that asshole found the drop zone.