John R. Monteith
Rogue Fortress
CHAPTER 1
Jake Slate stood beside the Philippine naval commander, his arm shielding his face from the pelting rain. As he watched the fantail of the Gregorio del Pilar jerk and shake the helicopter, he balanced himself by extending his free hand towards a handrail welded to the converted frigate’s superstructure.
“Let’s do this,” he said.
“This is the limit of safety for helicopter operations,” the commander said in accented English.
“That doesn’t bother me,” Jake said. “I’m sort of an adrenaline junkie.”
The commander remained silent, and as Jake glanced at him, he shrugged his shoulders.
“That means I like adventure.”
“Every man likes adventure. Your plans appear to be of an entirely different category.”
“Let’s just say I’m fearless, as long as I don’t think about what I’m doing.”
“I was warned about your demeanor,” the commander said. “From what I understand, you rarely think about what you’re doing.”
“You have a point.”
“Your safety is not my concern since it is apparently none of yours. However, the safety of my helicopter crew concerns me.”
“Come on! The weather isn’t that bad. We’re running out of time. We may not get another shot at this.”
As the commander turned and opened a door into the ship, he snapped a response over his shoulder.
“I will order the flight crew to take off before my better judgment makes me change my mind.”
Jake knelt and hoisted his Kevlar fabric equipment bag over his shoulder, and its straps pinched his wetsuit. He shifted the weight to his other arm, stooped, and yelled to the helicopter crew huddling in rain gear behind him.
Part of him, the invincible SEAL he had wanted to become two decades earlier at the United States Naval Academy, compelled him to scream out something audacious.
But dignity curtailed his bravado as he recalled that he might again kill, despite any merciful intent, and he choked out a stark command to the Filipino men flanking him.
“Follow me, gentlemen” he said. “It’s time.”
He trotted, fighting the rolling of the fantail to reach the AgustaWestland AW109 helicopter. A man in a flight suit that he recognized as the crew chief opened the door, and Jake ducked into the aircraft. The remaining team boarded, and the flight crew won the battle with the elements to lift the vehicle skyward.
As the helicopter gained altitude, the frigate’s slow rocking yielded to faster wind-whipped oscillations. The Philippine frigate, a revamped American Hamilton-class Coast Guard cutter, became a tiny toy tossed on wave tops as it receded over the horizon.
The aircraft reached ten thousand feet and cruised at one hundred miles an hour. Time advanced in quantum slices as a Filipino jumpmaster helped him don his gear.
Night vision goggles squeezed his wetsuit’s hood, and a parachute clipped to a rebreather strained a strap across his back. A reserve chute at his chest balanced him, and a belt and torso harness connected him to a nylon rope coiled beside him. Under the weight of the equipment, he labored to breathe at altitude in the unpressurized cabin.
“Raise arms high,” the jumpmaster said.
Jake reached for the overhead, and the straps pinched his shoulder. The jumpmaster, a full head shorter than him, buzzed around him adjusting fastenings and redistributing the equipment’s mass. He reached under Jake’s chin and wrapped a Velcro strip from his wetsuit’s neck through the dangling face mask.
“To hold it when you jump,” he said. “Raise arms again.”
Jake felt tugging, releasing, and tightening as the man gave his ensemble a final adjustment.
“That’s better,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Here,” the jumpmaster said as he handed Jake a carbon dioxide canister.
In his arms, the cylindrical container surprised him with its softness.
“It’s charged with the fentanyl-derived gas,” the jumpmaster said. “Wrapped in foam with industrial tape, to prevent banging against metal.”
Jake rolled the canister and saw the hose jutting outward and curving back into the wrapping where gray tape outlined the form of a conical nozzle.
“Looks great,” he said.
The jumpmaster pointed his gloved finger at an inflection point in the tape’s form.
“When you are ready, cut here with your knife.”
Jake slapped his left thigh to verify it held his blade.
“Got it,” he said.
“I am hooking it into your harness to assure that you do not drop it, but hold it while you descend. Make sure you hold it tightly when you enter the water, or else it will act like an anchor.”
The jumpmaster slipped behind him and probed his back. A click filled the cabin, and Jake glanced up at his parachute’s hook clinging to a static line.
Expecting his mouthpiece to render human speech useless, he relied upon a waterproof liquid crystal display wrapped around his forearm for communications with his jump partner. Shifting the canister under his arm and twisting his free wrist, he saw the green characters counting down the time remaining until his jump. It showed three minutes.
“The pilot has visual contact,” the jumpmaster said.
“Where is it?” Jake asked.
“On the horizon.”
Jake flipped his night vision optics into his view, looked through the open door, and scanned the green-hued seas.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“The helicopter’s system sees it. It’s right where it’s supposed to be.”
Jake glanced at his forearm display. Less than a minute.
“When do I jump?” he asked. “I mean how accurate is this countdown?”
“It’s time now,” the jumpmaster said. “Open.”
He lifted a mouthpiece, and Jake bit down to clamp it in place.
“Stand at the edge.”
His flippers dangling in the void outside the aircraft, Jake balanced at the door’s lip as his heart pounded.
“Ready?” the jumpmaster asked.
Jake nodded.
“Go!”
A slap on the back accompanied the order, and Jake leapt into rain that had receded to a trickle. The free fall ended with the whipping sound of unfurling canvas as his chute wrenched him upward.
The instant heaviness of the repurposed fire extinguisher surprised him, and it slid from his arm. He spat out his rebreather mouthpiece.
“Shit,” he said.
Cold droplets stinging his face, he bent forward and lowered his arms to the canister’s cord. Hand over hand, he lifted the cylinder to his arm and pinned it against his ribs.
“I hope nobody saw that,” he said.
His comment reminded him to scan the sky for his colleague. He flipped down his night vision, looked to his left, and saw a commando’s body trace a green outline that the anti-thermal coating on his partner’s wetsuit weakened.
Nylon at his belly yanked on his harness and pulled him towards the commando. A voice buzzed in the earpiece under his wetsuit’s hood.
“I am pulling you left,” the commando said.
Jake pressed a speaker under his hood against his throat.
“Can you see it yet?” he asked.
“No. But the helicopter crew is guiding us in. Don’t worry. I could land on a postage stamp.”
The view through Jake’s goggles remained uninspiring until the liquid crystal display showed an altitude of three thousand feet. He looked up from his forearm display and saw the dark vertical shaft.
“I see it,” he said.
“Can you see the feather?” the commando asked.
The tiny wake behind the submerged vessel’s snorkel mast shimmered in the night vision-enhanced moonlight.
“I think so,” Jake said. “Coming at us.”