Jayden dove head-long from the gliding airplane, keeping the parachute bundled until he cleared the wing. Then he let go of it and the fabric billowed out into shape, like a blooming flower in time-lapse. Hunt and Maddy bailed out next, with Hunt orienting his body to dive beneath the wing after Jayden. He was surprised to see himself falling below Jayden, and for a split second he wondered if the paracord harness Jayden had rigged had come loose, that he and Maddy were going to fall to their deaths.
But then he felt a sharp pain under his shoulders as the resistance of the open parachute took hold and he, the piggybacked Maddy and Jayden above them were jerked skyward with sudden and violent force. The entire jump was strangely silent since there was no airplane motor. The only sound was the wind through their ears, until Jayden started screaming, that is. No sooner did Hunt feel himself and Maddy begin to descend than he felt the treetops against his feet and ankles. Barely enough time, his inner voice screamed. Yet there was nothing more he could do about it now. He had played his hand and now it was time to see the results.
Hunt watched the seaplane crash into the jungle perhaps a half-mile away, watching as the left wingtip hit a tree branch stout enough to cause the plane to spin in a circle like an out of control boomerang. The cracking of branches was heard as the earthbound vehicle shattered tree limbs on its way to the ground.
And then they were in the sky alone. But not for long.
Maddy’s screaming brought Hunt’s attention back to his immediate plight: they were dropping through the jungle canopy, right now. He felt Maddy press her face into his chest, shielding it from the whipping leaves and branches as they plummeted at breakneck speed through the trees. It’s a controlled fall, Hunt thought — the ‘chute was producing drag — but it would be just barely enough. He tried not to think about how fast they were moving as they crashed through the understory.
Hunt saw dirt coming up from below and braced for the impact…
…but it never came. A few feet above him, Jayden swore like a sailor who just found out shore leave was cancelled. “The ‘chute’s hung up! Tangled up good.”
Hunt looked up and saw Jayden dangling there with the parachute’s white fabric snared across two or three trees a few feet higher. “We’ll just have to cut ourselves free and drop.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re only ten feet over the ground. I’m more like twenty.”
“Be glad it’s only twenty. We Jumped from the plane around 100.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Hunt told Maddy to hold on while he untied part of the makeshift harness until he could slip out of it. “Three, two, one…drop!” The two of them landed on the forest floor in a heap, their fall thankfully cushioned by a bed of fallen leaves.
“Clear the drop zone,” Jayden called down, and Hunt and Maddy pushed up to their feet and moved out of the way. Jayden faced a twenty-foot fall, but was able to dangle down from part of the rigging Hunt and Maddy had left behind. Still, his fall was a potentially ankle-breaking fifteen feet, but realizing it wasn’t going to get any more favorable, Jayden let himself drop.
He landed on his feet, but leaning too far backwards. To his credit, he transitioned into a smooth backward roll, ending up on his knees in an upright position.
“Wow, it’s nice and cool in here, not so sunny. Great day for a nature walk!”
Hunt wasted no time. They had illegally entered a foreign country run by a communist dictator, and were already on the run from police after damaging at least one boat, and crashing a plane into the jungle. At least it hadn’t started a fire, Hunt thought; that was the plus side of running out of gas, he supposed. He was also aware that none of them had any food or water, and barely any gear. He pointed toward the mountain.
“Let’s get to that, climb up as high as we can — it didn’t look all that steep — so we can get a view of what’s down on the other side. Then we’ll make a plan.”
Jayden and Maddy agreed, and without further delay the trio set out across the forest. The ground was level and solid, with only the occasional rock or exposed tree root to watch out for. To take their minds off their predicament, Hunt engaged Maddy in conversation as they trekked. “So you were saying something about there being another pyramid?”
“That’s right,” Maddy said, falling into step with Hunt while Jayden walked point a few yards up ahead. “They refer to it in Plato’s lost Critias pages as ‘the distant pyramid’.”
“How do we know that’s not the one we already found under the Bimini Road that had nothing in it?” Hunt asked.
“Because it mentions the distant pyramid being in the ‘southerly manifestation’ of Atlantis, which, due to the mirror image similarities with the island of Crete, as well as topographic contours of the islands and surrounding seabed, I took to mean Cuba, even though Cuba is many times larger than Crete.”
“But that would have been a plus for the Atlanteans, right?”
“Yes, more land, and it’s an island protected by an ocean on all sides, with high mountains from which to observe approaching ships.” She nodded up at the looming green mountain they were at the base of.
Hunt pointed up at the mountain, which sloped gradually upward for the first one-third of its height, but then became steeper. “It still looks to me like we can basically walk our way up to the summit without any climbing gear, which is a good thing, since we don’t have any.”
Jayden removed a balled up wad of paracord from a pocket. “I did manage to salvage this. Paracord always comes in handy. Hopefully we won’t need it, though. I’m ready when you two are.” He looked to Maddy as he said the last sentence.
“I’m ready, too.”
Hunt nodded emphatically. “Up we go.”
The going was easy enough until abut one-third of the way up the mountain, where the incline became substantially steeper. Hunt suggested they take a short break to rest, and the three of them sat on a grouping of boulders. Jayden found some water cupped in the bulb of a tropical plant, and drank from it. Assuring the others it was good, they also availed themselves of the hydration.
That done, the group continued their ascent. Although it was steeper, they could still walk on two feet most of the time, here and there needing to use their hands to maintain balance. The tall trees became less frequent and shorter, while the understory of ferns, mosses and other smaller plants became thicker. Jayden remained point man while Hunt and Maddy ascended side by side. Hunt remarked at one point that at least they had heard no aircraft in the area.
“I guess that means they’re not pulling out all the stops to find our plane,” Jayden said.
“Or they’re looking in the wrong place,” Hunt offered.
“Speaking of looking in the right place,” Jayden said as he slipped on a mossy rock and regained his footing by gripping the trunk of a small tree, “when we get out of here, maybe we should get back to the Bimini Road before our friend Daedalus claims that golden pyramid for himself. Or just takes it apart to sell the gold.”
“Definitely,” Hunt returned. “When we get out of here.”
They continued working their way up the mountain, which became wetter the higher up they progressed. About three-quarters of the way up it became even steeper still and Hunt had to stop frequently to assist Maddy when she slipped. He told her he would stay with her while Jayden made the rest of the ascent to check the view if she wanted, but she insisted she could make it and that they go on as a group.
On they went, their clothes now sticking to their skin with sweat, faces and hands scratched from passing through thick foliage. Numerous biting insects plagued them as well, but these became somewhat less in number the higher they went. Jayden remarked more than once that he was simply glad to be alive at all at this point, whatever happened from here on out.