Nada hesitated.
“For fuck’s sake,” Moms said, a slight exasperation sliding in, “I know you go for the guy who’s gone the longest without a jump so he can maintain his jump status.”
Mac had a parachute rig out and was checking it.
“Last jumps?” Nada asked.
Each man rattled off the last time they’d stepped out of a perfectly good aircraft and done a free-fall parachute jump. Regulations required a jump every three months in order to keep jump pay at free-fall rate: a whopping $225 a month.
Not surprisingly, Eagle was furthest out from his last jump, twelve days away from losing his status.
“Well, that ain’t happening unless someone else on the team’s gone through flight school while I wasn’t watching,” Moms said. “Everyone else is pretty tight so let’s forget about pay and focus on mission. Roland. You’re taking point. Don’t kill everyone down there, please. Unless they try to kill you.”
“Yes, Moms.” The sincerity in his voice belied all his early songs and words. He’d wipe out the entire truck stop if Moms told him to; so with his promise one could assume the safety of dozens of civilians.
“Should I suit up?” Roland asked, looking at Doc.
Moms looked at Doc, indicating it was his call.
“Negative. They seal that stuff tight and it would take a big blast to get into the vault on the van. Such an event would have made the police scanners.”
That was good enough for Roland, although most might have had their doubts about jumping right on top of a superbug. Roland unbuckled and crouched next to Mac. The engineer put the parachute on the weapons man’s back.
“Left leg,” Mac said as he passed the first strap between Roland’s legs.
“Left leg,” Roland confirmed as he snapped it into place.
Eagle began to gain altitude, because the HA in HAHO stood for high altitude.
“Right leg,” Mac said.
“Right leg,” Roland echoed.
They went through the routine of rigging, then Mac sat back down. Nada got up and did the JMPI: jump master parachute inspection. Eyes and hands ran over the rig, checking everything. Done, he gave Roland a light slap on the shoulder, indicating he was good to go.
“Wait one!” Moms called out, an unusual display of surprise for her. “Correction. Correction on the Package. Support got the damn Package invoice number wrong but the right pickup location. The Package is not a virus.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Until her next words. “It’s the hard drive from the laptop from our Fun Outside Tucson.”
“Fuck me to tears,” Nada muttered.
CHAPTER 8
Roland stood on the open ramp, fifteen thousand feet above Utah, as calm as if he were waiting in line at Starbucks. Of course, Roland had never waited at a Starbucks, but one gets the idea. They were at fifteen thousand AGL because any higher and everyone inside would have to be on oxygen. As it was, the breathing was hard. Roland was looking down. It was easy to see I-15 running north to south. The glow of Salt Lake City was north of their current location. Eagle had offset a horizontal mile from the Flying H Truckstop where Ms. Jones told them the van was located. At least where the van’s GPS tracker was, Nada reminded everyone. The two might no longer be connected.
“Go,” Eagle announced.
Roland stepped off into darkness. He spread his arms and legs, got stable, then pulled the ripcord. The opening shock jerked him upright, and he looked up to make sure he had good canopy while he grabbed the control toggles for the chute.
Above him, Moms waited until the ramp was shut before issuing her next order. “Eagle, get us to five hundred AGL, into hover mode, and be ready to move in fast if Roland has any problems.”
Five hundred was the altitude at which the Snake could hover and not be heard at all by anyone on the ground.
“Don’t hit Roland on the way down,” Mac added, because Mac always had to add something.
It didn’t even occur to Roland that he might get hit by the Snake dropping altitude. He was focused on the truck stop and the area around it. So far, everything looked normal as he watched an eighteen-wheeler pulling out of the stop and turn onto the ramp for the interstate.
As he passed through eight thousand feet he spotted the van. Parked in the shadows, away from the bright lights of the truck stop and filling station. At least the Courier had done that according to Protocol.
“Eagle, thermals around the van,” Roland asked as he adjusted his descent.
“Very slight heat sigs coming from the driver’s compartment of the van,” Eagle said. “Doc, take a look. The sig isn’t right. I’m going lower.”
Roland was using a clockwise spiral to descend, checking all directions.
Doc’s voice came over the net. “You’ve got two warm spots in the front of the van.”
Two? That wasn’t good, Roland thought.
Doc continued. “But, ah, I’d say we have two corpses losing body heat. Not hot enough, even through the roof of the van.”
“Any other heat sigs?”
“Closest human is refueling over by the pumps,” Eagle said. “Couple of deer in the field to the west about five hundred meters out.”
Roland was about to pass through four thousand feet. He took a moment to ready his MP-5 on top of his reserve. The M-240 machine gun was on his side, rigged tight against his body. He reversed his spiral, because Protocol said he was to reverse directions after passing through four thousand feet. Why? He’d never thought to ask.
“Wind?” Roland asked.
“From the north-northwest at twelve knots, gusting to eighteen,” Eagle reported. “You’re still clear. We’re holding at five hundred, to the west, offset three hundred meters. I’m deploying the gun if you need backup.”
Roland didn’t bother to look in that direction. If Eagle said that’s where the Snake was, that’s where the Snake was.
When Roland hit two thousand AGL, he started dumping air, accelerating his descent because he was in range of someone firing from the ground and there was no point in taking his time. He made one last curve, had his approach set, and then aimed straight for the van, still dumping air. Roland had perfected the craft of driving a parachute into an art over the course of 1,342 free-fall jumps.
Thirty feet above the van, he flared the chute, breaking his rapid descent so that when he landed on the roof, the only sound was the thud of his boots like a heavy gong, and not the crack of bones breaking. There is a fine line between the two.
From the wind report, Roland knew he had to cut loose the chute or get blown off the top of the van by a gust. He popped the quick releases on his shoulders, then grabbed the MP-5 and did a quick three-sixty.
Nothing close.
Roland aimed the gun down. He knew the specs. The roof was armored. If anyone was alive inside they knew something had come down on top of them. Roland swapped out the MP-5 for the M-240, preferring the heavier firepower.
Roland jumped off the roof, turning in the air, peering in the windshield as he came down, machine gun at the ready.
He landed on the parking lot. “We’ve got what looks like two KIA in the front of the van. The Courier and some girl who got double-tapped.”
“Roger,” Moms said. “Inbound.”
Roland put his back against the front fender of the van, half-crouched out of sight of the interior just in case one of the apparently dead people wasn’t dead — or was perhaps a zombie — and somehow blew out the bulletproof glass and came after him. But he figured the priority was whoever had done the killing, and they were outside somewhere.
He heard the whine of the Snake, muffled by the trucks passing on the interstate. The fast ropes came down and then the rest of the team. The Snake went back out to hover over the wilderness to the west and provide cover.