She jumped.
The wind whistled along her, and the roar of the plane above careened off to the side as she plummeted toward the ground. Irina’s chute expanded with a whoosh above her, and her free-fall stopped abruptly, then began to ease down.
She flexed her fingers, moved her ankles, rubbed her arms. It seemed forever that she fell, in the dark and silent world of billowing snow and gusting wind.
She thought about her companions and hoped that they, at least, would survive the fighting. They were tenacious and skillful flyers. Only two days ago, her comrade Lilya Litvyak had become the first woman to shoot down an enemy aircraft. She had shot down not one, but two Ju-88s.
As she descended, Irina thought only of Lilya, and her other comrades — not of her parents, or her sisters, or especially Kostya, her husband. If Marina Raskova, Irina’s mentor and the woman who had commandeered the all-female fighter regiments, had survived in the mountains by living on berries and chocolate bars for ten days, Irina could do the same.
She would.
Her feet slammed into ground, one after the other, catching her by surprise. Her knees buckled as she landed on them, her hands following to press palm-flat on the swampy earth. It was still dark, but as she struggled to her feet, she stripped off the parachute’s silk and fumbled for her flashlight strapped to her waist.
Irina pulled it free, her frozen fingers still aching with every movement, and fought with the switch. A beam of yellow glowed in the darkness and she turned in a circle to survey her surroundings.
Her light cut through the dimness and suddenly illuminated three tall figures. They stood, wrapped in furs that covered their faces and arms and legs so that Irina couldn’t even guess at their gender.
One of them brandished a gun.
Anything she might have said died in her mouth.
Another of them stepped forward to snag her arm, yanking her toward the group. Alarmed by his sudden movement, Irina stumbled and tried to pull away, losing the flashlight. But the grip on her fatigued muscles was too firm. He pulled her after him as they started to trudge, silently, into the darkness.
The third figure picked up Irina’s flashlight from the ground and led the way.
They did not speak, even to each other, as they prodded her through the darkness. The flashlight had been turned off. They needed no illumination to find their way. Silent, Irina stumbled along in their midst. They hadn’t left her for dead; they hadn’t used the gun. Perhaps they meant her no harm.
She tripped over tree roots and stones, while the men around her walked smoothly and carefully. At last, they came to darkness that loomed in front of them. The base of a mountain.
Before she knew what was happening, Irina was shoved through a small crevice in the wake of the leader and found herself inside: safe from the elements, but in darkness and closeness and in the presence of strangers.
They hustled her between them deeper into the mountain, down into the darkness of the earth.
1
Police Chief Vince Bruger launched his fishing line with a smooth, practiced stroke. He sent two more lines sailing into the water, then, after settling the last of the three rods in its propped holder, relaxed against a fallen log.
Other than the constant movement of the river water, and the occasional bird song, silence reigned. Just the way he liked it on a Friday afternoon. Maureen had the kids down to Philadelphia for the day, shopping and visiting with her mother, and Vince had been glad for the excuse of not joining them.
Not that he didn’t like his mother-in-law. She was fine as they went, but he’d wanted to finish staining the woodwork around the living room. It was a lot easier to do that when two kids and a wife weren’t underfoot, wanting to help and wondering when he was going to be done so she could find something else for him to do. On his day off.
It had taken all of thirty minutes for him to finish that task (not that he’d ever admit it to Maureen) and now he could kick back and relax.
It had been one hell of a week at police headquarters in Allentown. Not anything as bad as a homicide or even any major accidents or fires; but with the new computer system upgrade, and the move to a new building, and the Fourth of July coming up next week ….Vince’d had enough on his hands to just want a day of peace by the river.
After all, next week they’d be managing all kinds of amateurs with their fireworks, as well as bonfires and picnics and parades. Celebrating the independence of his country was important, but one hell of a lot of work went into it for him and his law enforcement team. And there was a full moon coming. He’d been in law enforcement for twenty years, give or take, and call him loony, but a full moon always meant more trouble, more fires, more accidents and injuries. More crazy things happening.
He reached for the cold beer nestled in the small cooler. And he felt the ground tremor.
One of his fishing poles fell from its perch, and a few leaves fell from the trees above. Then the earth was still again. Strange.
He gulped down a couple swigs of Rolling Rock, then set the green bottle back in the cooler. As he shifted forward to readjust the pole that had fallen over, the earth rumbled beneath him again.
What the hell? An earthquake in Allentown?
The shifting and trembling became stronger, and he could hear the heavy, deep roll of the earth moving beneath him. Or something.
All of his poles clattered to the stone-strewn beach, and the rumbling got louder, and stronger. Vince was on his feet by now, and good thing, too, for a large branch crashed to the ground where he’d been sitting.
The river water churned and sprayed, more branches fell, and, to his horror, Vince saw cracks appearing in the earth beneath his feet.
He bolted away from the crevices and dashed toward his black S-150 parked a hundred yards away, digging in his jeans pocket for its key. Forget the fishing poles, the cooler … he needed to get his ass into town and find out what damage was happening there.
So much for a relaxing Friday afternoon.
Sirens wailed and disaster warnings blared. The earthquake had ended, but left the town center buildings in shambles and people acting hysterical. Trees and buildings were ruined; rubble, branches, spikes of metal, and concrete littered the city center.
He didn’t even try to get to his office; instead, he headed for the city’s disaster command center that had been created in the wake of 9/11. It was underground near the outskirts of the city off Route 145.
Inside, the trained staff was calm and organized, hectic and determined. Since all appearances indicated it was an earthquake, they could at least rule out terrorists, and, despite the disaster and its consequences, an earthquake was preferable to believing the town was under attack by some suicidal terrorist group.
A quick meeting with Mayor Fullton, a touch-base with his team, and then Vince was back out into the center of the furor. He’d learned that the new chemical plant on the outskirts of town was completely leveled, and that was where most of the rescue efforts had of necessity been focused. Assistance was coming from Philadelphia and Princeton, and other places as well. Interestingly enough, no other communities had felt more than slight tremors during the disaster. It was all contained in the fulcrum of Allentown, and the epicenter appeared to be directly beneath that new chemical plant.
It was an odd-looking mess for an earthquake, Bruger thought. He’d seen pictures on television; never seen one in person before, of course, because they didn’t have earthquakes on the East Coast. It looked like a whole island of ground had erupted from the earth, as high as ten feet in some places. And in the perimeter around it, ground had sort of fallen away. Deep, rugged crevices and chunks of earth, some fifteen, sixteen feet deep. The buildings and vehicles around the area had tumbled to the ground, crashing on top of each other and into the deep pits and cracks, making more of a mess.