Alexander quickly lowered himself into the safety of his seat. The plane was jerking from side to side and bouncing up and down as the pilots skimmed the margin of safety that kept them from splattering into a mountainside. The plane crested over the mountains and started heading down, flying so low that the pilots could look up out of the cockpit at the ridgelines on either side of the aircraft.
Getting another signal, Alexander stood for the last time and hooked up his static line. He held six fingers aloft. "Six minutes!" he shouted into the roar of the aircraft. He extended both hands, palms out. "Get ready!" The team members unbuckled their safety straps.
With both arms, Alexander pointed at the team seated along the outside of the aircraft. Then he pointed up. "Outboard personnel stand up." The members of Eyes Two staggered to their feet in the wildly swaying aircraft, using the static line cable and side of the aircraft for support.
Curling his index fingers over his head, representing hooks, Alexander pumped his arms up and down. "Hook up!" He watched as each man connected his static line, snap hook gate toward the skin of the aircraft, into the static line cable, and secured the gate shut with a safety wire.
The loadmaster held onto Alexander's static line and tried to keep him from falling over while he used both hands to pantomime the jump commands. "Check static lines!"
Each jumper checked his snap hook and traced the static line from the snap hook to where it disappeared over his shoulder. He then checked the static line of the man in front, from where it came over his shoulder to where it disappeared into his parachute. The last man, Captain Vaughn, turned and allowed the man in front to check him.
"Check equipment!" Each man made sure one last time that all his equipment was secured and the connections made fast on his parachute harness.
Alexander cupped his hands over his ears. "Sound off for equipment check!" The last man slapped the man in front on his rear and yelled "OK," then the yell and slap were passed from man to man until the second jumper, just behind Alexander, yelled, "All OK, Jumpmaster," giving the thumbs-up.
With all his jump commands done except the final "Go," Alexander gained control of his static line from the loadmaster and turned toward the rear of the aircraft. He waited for the ramp to open, ready to lead the team off into the dark night. He swayed to the front as the aircraft slowed down from 250 knots to 125 knots. Three minutes out.
The noise level increased abruptly as a crack appeared in the ramp and widened into a gaping mouth. As the ramp leveled off, Alexander stared out into the dark. Fighting the rucksack hanging in front of his legs, he got to his knees and, grabbing the hydraulic arm on the right side of the ramp, peered around the edge of the aircraft looking forward. He blinked in the wind. It took a few seconds to get oriented.
He could see the lights of Medellin off to the left under the aircraft. The Cauca River was passing underneath. Alexander at least knew that they were in the right neighborhood, and that was as good as it got with a blind drop.
The loadmaster leaned over Alexander's shoulder and stuck an index finger in his face. Alexander clambered awkwardly to his feet, looked over his shoulder at the team, and screamed, "One minute!"
Ten seconds later his knees buckled as the plane rapidly climbed the 250 feet to the 500-foot drop altitude. Glancing out, Alexander could see the lights of Medellin passing by off to the left. He yelled over his shoulder as he shuffled out to within three feet of the edge of the ramp. "Stand by!"
Alexander stared at the red light above the top of the ramp; as soon as it turned green, he'd go. He moved a few inches closer to the edge.
The green light flashed. "GO!" Alexander was gone. The rest of Eyes Two followed.
In less than three seconds these things happened to Alexander and his equipment: His fifteen-foot static line uncoiled off the back of his parachute, tearing open the pack-closing tie on the chute itself and pulling out the pack-opening loop. The parachute, encased in a deployment bag, pulled free from Alexander's body. The nylon of the parachute was connected to the harness around his body by four risers extending into numerous suspension lines. Reaching the limit of the suspension line, the weight of Alexander's falling body broke the loops of eighty-pound test webbing that connected the apex of the canopy with the deployment bag and static line. The static line, with deployment bag attached, was left trailing behind the Talon still attached to the static line cable, twirling in the prop blast. The parachute, freed of the deployment bag, exploded open and Alexander went from a forward speed of 125 knots and a downward free fall to a zero forward speed and a sixteen-foot-per-second descent.
Feeling the opening shock try to jar his chin through his chest, Alexander quickly looked up and checked in the moonlight to see if he had a good canopy. He reached up on his risers to gain a modicum of control. Steering the T-10 canopy consisted simply of reaching high on the risers, grabbing as much as possible, and hauling it in; this tilted the canopy, and it would slip in the direction of pull.
Satisfied with his canopy, Alexander quickly took a look below. All he could see was a great darkness rapidly approaching. He reached down below the reserve that covered his stomach and searched for the handles to his eighteen-inch attaching straps. He fumbled briefly, cursing to himself. The two straps held the rucksack, which was hanging from the reserve down to his knees. Landing with a ruck still attached was a good way to break a leg. He located one strap and held that tight in his left hand while he forced his right hand between the ruck and reserve searching for the other strap. Finding it, he quickly jerked both straps at the same time. The ruck sprang free and dropped to the end of a fifteen-foot lowering line, where it dangled beneath him.
All that effort had cost him his remaining time in the air. The ground was rushing up. Less than twenty seconds after leaving the aircraft, Alexander reached up, grabbed his risers, rotated his arms in front of his face, bent his knees with his feet together, and said a brief prayer. The prayer turned to curses as his feet hit branches.
Alexander crashed through the branches of a small tree and slammed into the ground. He lay still for a second, mentally inventorying his body and giving thanks that he was alive. There was no evident pain, and everything still seemed to be attached and working. He unhooked the releases for his harness and slid his rifle off his shoulder. He checked to make sure his weapon was functioning and then quickly reeled in his parachute, cutting it out of the branches where it had been stuck. He stuffed the chute and his Kevlar helmet in his ruck.
Upslope from him Alexander could hear someone else wrestling with a parachute. Putting his ruck on his back, he clambered up the hill toward the sound. After two minutes he came upon Atwaters between two trees, rolling up his chute in the dark.
"You all right?"
Atwaters nodded. "Yeah. But this sure don't look like no DZ."
Alexander nodded. He was glad he had followed Riley's advice. He pushed a button on the large watchlike device on his wrist. The two-inch face lit up and a small light started flashing at a point along the edge. Alexander rotated his arm but the light stayed in the same direction, uphill and to the south.
"The captain's thataway," he whispered to Atwaters. "You got all your stuff? All right, let's go." The wrist device could be used as either a homing instrument or a means to home in on another similar device. Only the captain's was set to transmit; the rest of the team's were set to receive. The plan was that they would all converge on the captain. Vaughn had activated his homing device just prior to jumping so it would be the first on, once they hit the ground.
Alexander led the way. He knew that the captain shouldn't be too far away, only a few hundred meters at best. They had jumped too low to be very spread out, unless someone had hesitated going off the ramp.