There was a long moment of silence. “All right. Your contract is over.” The phone went dead.
Sergeant Chong was wearing a headset that allowed him to communicate with Captain Lim in the cockpit. Chong stood next to the rear passenger door, his hands on the opening handle. A rope was wrapped around his waist, securing him to the inside of the plane. The plane itself was being buffeted by winds, and the men tried to keep their balance as the floor rose and fell. Up front the pilots were flying blind, eyes glued to the transponder needle, praying a mountainside didn’t suddenly appear out of the swirling clouds.
“One minute out, sir!” Chong called to Major Pak.
Pak turned and looked over his shoulder at the men. “Remove the coverings on your canopy releases!” The jumpers popped the metal covering on each shoulder. These metal pieces protected the small steel cable loops that controlled the connection of harness to parachute risers; pulling that loop would release the risers on that side, separating parachute from jumper. Doing this in the air would result in death, but Pak had a reason for taking this dangerous step prior to exiting the aircraft.
Pak shuffled a little closer to the door, his parachutes and rucksack doubling his weight. “Open the door!” he ordered. He reached down and activated the small transmitter/receiver attached to his right forearm, as did the rest of his team.
Chong twisted the handle and the door swung in with a whoosh. They’d depressurized a half hour ago and were flying in the middle of the storm, Lim keeping the plane on track with the transponder. They were at an estimated altitude of 1,500 feet above the ice.
Snow swirled in the open door, along with bone-chilling cold. Pak didn’t even bother taking a look — he wouldn’t have been able to see more than a few feet anyway. The plan was to jump as soon as Lim relayed that the needle focusing on the transponder had swung around from front to rear, indicating they’d flown over the beacon. The one-minute warning was Lim’s best guess, meaning the needle had started to shiver in its case in the cockpit.
Pak grabbed either side of the door with his mittened hands, his eyes on Chong, waiting for the go. The seconds went by slowly. Pak realized he was losing the feeling in his hands, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Chong suddenly stiffened. “GO!” he screamed.
Pak pulled forward and threw himself into the turbulent white fog. Behind him, the other eight men of the team followed.
Pak fell to the end of the eighteen feet of static line, which popped the closing tie on his main parachute pack. The pack split open and the parachute slid out, struggling to deploy against the wind. Pak felt the jolt and looked up to make sure he had a good canopy.
He couldn’t tell what the wind was doing to him, nor could he see the ground. With numbed hands, Pak reached down to find the release for his rucksack so it would drop below him on its deployment line and he wouldn’t land with it attached.
He was still trying to find it when he hit the ice. His feet had barely touched when his sideways speed, built up by the wind, slammed his head into the ice, the helmet absorbing some of the blow.
Pak blinked as stars exploded in his head. Now the lack of feeling in his hands truly started working against him. He scrabbled at his right shoulder with both hands, trying to find the canopy release; he’d never have been able to find and pop the cover under these circumstances, thus the release in the plane before the jump. The wind took hold of his parachute, skiing him across the surface, his parka and cold-weather pants sliding along the ice, his head rattling on the bumps.
Finally his numb fingers found the cable loop. Pak pushed his mittened right thumb underneath, grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, and pulled with all the strength in both arms. The riser released and the canopy flopped over, letting the wind out. Pak lay on his back, trying to gather his wits. He knew he should be up and moving but his head was still spinning.
Pak had no idea how long he’d been lying there when a figure appeared out of the snow, right wrist held before his face, the receiver guiding in on Pak’s transmitter. The small face of the receiver blipped a red light along the edge, indicting the direction of the team leader’s device. By following that red dot, the team could assemble on Pak.
The bundled-up soldier immediately ran to the apex of Pak’s canopy and started S-rolling the parachute, gathering it in. Pak finally turned over and got up on one knee. He popped the chest release for his harness and slipped it off his back. He pulled out his weapon from the top of the reserve and made sure it was still functioning.
As Pak was stuffing his parachute into his rucksack, other figures appeared out of the blowing snow. He could see that two men were hurt: Sergeant Yong had a broken arm that the medic was working on and Corporal Lee was limping. Pak counted heads. Seven. One was missing.
“Where is Song?” Pak yelled above the roar of the wind.
When there was no immediate answer, Pak quickly ordered the team on line. ‘Turn off all receivers!” He pushed a button on his transmitter and it became a receiver, picking up the different frequency of Song’s wrist guidance device.
Pak headed in the direction the red dot indicated, his team flanking him on either side. His first priority was to account for all personnel. He broke into a trot, his men keeping pace, Yong and Lee gritting their teeth in pain. Pak was actually very satisfied that eight of the nine-man team had survived the jump. He’d expected at least 25 percent casualties.
They found Song; fortunately his body had jammed between two blocks of ice, otherwise it might have been blown all the way to the mountains. As two men ran to collapse the parachute and gather it in, Pak knelt down next to his soldier. Song’s eyes were unfocused and glassy. Pak unsnapped the man’s helmet. As he pulled it off he immediately spotted the caked blood and frozen, exposed brain tissue that had oozed through the cracked skull.
Pak looked up at Senior Lieutenant Kim. “Have two men pull him with us to the target.”
Pak took off his mitten and quickly reset his wrist transmitter/receiver to the transponder frequency. He turned his face into the wind. The target was in that direction.
“Don’t stay too long,” Riley called from the stove as Vickers zipped up his parka. “The food will be ready in about five minutes.”
Vickers picked up his radio. “Who wants to go with me?” he asked as he headed for the door.
Devlin hopped up from his chair. “I’ll join you. I’d like to take a look outside. Feeling a little cooped up in here.”
“I’ll go too.” Kerns grabbed his parka and hurried out after the other two.
Riley glanced around the mess hall at the remaining members of the party. Lallo had recovered the instruction manual for the nuclear reactor from the control room and was poring through it. Conner was staring intently at whatever was displayed on the screen of her portable computer. Swenson was kicked back in a chair, slowly sipping a cup of hot chocolate. Sammy was sitting at the table reading Conner’s background binder, trying to keep her mind from black thoughts.
Riley lifted the ladle and blew on it. He’d learned the art of expedient cooking from his team; they had put together all sorts of concoctions inside number ten cans and cooked them over a fire in the field. He tasted his stew. It needed more Tabasco sauce.
Pak stopped abruptly and peered through the driving snow. Something large loomed directly ahead. He moved forward ten feet on his hands and knees until he could identify the surface shaft, about forty feet in front of them. Using hand and arm signals, he sent two men scurrying around each flank to encircle the entrance.