It was accurate in a bizarre way. It was not a threat anymore. It was happening.
Fitzduane put his hand inside his light cotton jacket and adjusted his holster. It was idiotic having to cart around a lump of metal at a social occasion, but he had been caught short on the Hill and did not feel like making the same mistake twice.
He could hear the buzz of a light aircraft. So could others. A ripple ran through the crowd. The aircraft drew nearer and then began to circle. A wind indicator was dropped and fluttered to the surface. There was little wind that evening. It would not be a factor in the drop.
The aircraft climbed until it was about 3,000 feet. All eyes were fixed on it, waiting for the first free-fall parachutist to emerge. They could see a small black dot and then a stream of pink smoke. The jumper had a smoke canister clipped to his boot.
Accelerating at 32 feet per second, the jumper fell through the air until he reached a terminal velocity of 120 miles an hour. At that point, wind resistance offset the tendency to accelerate. Seemingly liquid air fostered the illusion that it was providing a cushion and that you were really flying as surely as a swimmer was supported by the sea.
It was an illusion that had killed on more than a few occasions when a sky diver left pulling the D ring until too late.
The jumper hurtled toward the upturned faces below.
Suddenly there was a flash of color as the rectangular ram air parachute was pulled open by the miniature drag line ‘chute. At the same time, a second smoke canister on the jumper's other boot ignited.
He now presented quite a spectacle. His parachute, helmet, and jumpsuit were scarlet and he streamed pink and yellow smoke. As he came nearer, Fitzduane could see that the jumpsuit had been modified to look like a pantomime devil. The helmet had little horns and there was even a tail at the back.
Ram air parachutes were highly maneuverable, Fitzduane knew. Toggles on the left and right of the jumper allowed air to be spilled and the direction of the glide to be controlled. In some ways, ram-air parachutes were more like flying wings than the traditional umbrella-shaped model.
In this case the jumper was not doing anything too exotic. Now that his ‘chute was open he was merely spiraling around in large circles, trailing smoke. The plan, Fitzduane could now see, was to make the final approach over the parking lot at the back of the hotel and glide in between the two accommodation wings to land by the pool. Maybe even in the pool, if he really wanted to please the crowd, who, after over an hour's steady drinking, were in a boisterous mood.
Four more figures had emerged from the aircraft, but the focus was on the first sky diver as he commenced the last spiral ready to make his approach.
Kilmara was watching through military field glasses that gave him 10x magnification. Fitzduane was using a motor drive-equipped Nikon with a zoom lens. Boots would have loved this, he reflected. Still, since the Rangers trained on his island, his son was no stranger to spectacles such as this.
Up on the roof, Texas was doing what her security training had taught her. She was keeping her eyes moving. She glanced occasionally at the sky divers, but her main concern was the bigger picture.
The line dancers had stopped for the moment and were gazing skyward like everyone else, but the sound of music had not diminished. It had increased. The pool loudspeakers, turned up full volume, were now blasting out "The Ride of the Valkyries." It fit the mood of the exhibitors, many of whom were Vietnam veterans, since they associated it with the helicopter assault in Apocalypse Now, but it was so loud it was hard to hear yourself think.
It was too damn noisy for good security.
The first sky diver, still spewing smoke, was circling for the final approach. Everyone was looking toward the direction he was coming from.
Texas panned around to look in the opposite direction. More surprises! A helicopter flying low was heading straight for the center block of the hotel. Black masked figures wearing SWAT assault gear were standing on the skids to the left and right, ready to jump down.
It was a dramatic sight, and the audience below was going to love it. Just when they were looking in one direction, this mock helicopter assault would take them in the rear. She could see it now. Simulated explosions. Black-clad figures running into assault positions. The chatter of blanks from automatic weapons. Thrills for the crowd.
All of this had once thrilled her too, when she was doing it. Now she increasingly felt she would like to do something more constructive. Like make something. A baby seemed like a good place to start. She had fought against being stereotyped as a woman, but recently her hormones seemed to be telling her something.
She glanced down at Shanley. He was standing in the same group as Fitzduane and Kilmara. And Kilmara was shouting something and pointing.
At that moment, Shanley looked up at her and pointed also at the first sky diver who was coming in to land, and she saw the three men head behind a low wall as if diving for cover.
She turned again to look at the helicopter that was now almost at the hotel and she saw lights flashing underneath it. Then she half-turned back again to look down at Shanley as the long burst of heavy-caliber machine gun fire smashed into her and blew her off the roof in a mist of blood and flesh and bone.
Her body plummeted down and smashed into the barbecue area below, scattering hot charcoal in every direction.
Shanley died a little as he watched. Then his head hit the ground hard as Fitzduane knocked him down behind cover.
"Look at his arms, Hugo!" Kilmara had shouted. "They are strapped to his sides. He's not controlling his own ‘chute."
Fitzduane had snatched the binoculars. The sky diver's head lolled forward. He looked lifeless, like some full-sized puppet. There was a device on his chest with wires connecting it to the toggles.
And then the import of what they had seen hit them and, grabbing Shanley and shouting at the others, they dived for cover.
The sky diver floated in for what looked like a perfect landing.
The crowd made way as he glided in, then surged forward as he touched down.
It was at that moment that the flechette-packed bomb strapped to the radio-controlled corpse of the sky diver exploded, sending several thousands of miniature metal darts in every direction. The man's body was blasted into a fragmented pink cloud of blood and fragments of flesh and bone.
The flash of the explosion was followed by the noise of the blast. Confined and magnified within the confines of the pool area, it seemed to last for an eternity. The ground shook under them.
As the initial shock faded, there were further sounds of glass and other debris crashing to the ground in a rain of destruction.
Fitzduane was disoriented for several seconds. Then realization returned. He raised his head from behind the low wall that had saved their lives. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, and farther away from the main blast survivors were standing or slumped, dazed with shock. Many were bleeding from injuries, some superficial, some serious.
Others had been blasted into the pool, and some survivors went forward to aid them.
Fitzduane was just moving out of cover to help also when he saw the helicopter pulling away from the roof of the block where Texas had been and masked black-clad figures appearing at the parapet. For a moment he thought it might be the local SWAT team coming to help, and then he heard the chatter of automatic weapons and saw the helpers at the poolside cut down one after the other as if an invisible saw had sliced through them.
The water in the pool frothed as machine-gun fire from both the helicopter and the terrorists who lined the roof was poured down into the pool area. What had been the location for a poolside party was now a killing ground.