Red Zone Son

Chapter 13

The militia didn’t actually deliver his gear paperwork until the next day, but that was still pretty timely for them. They made a mistake and delivered Rithvik’s paperwork at the same time, so Solomon knew he was selected too. He wasn’t part of Solomon’s jump group, though, so he had to be going in later. At least that was what Solomon figured when he didn’t see Rithvik at the warehouse he went to with his paperwork to pick up, one item at a time, all the gear he needed. Left bootlace, check, right bootlace, check, left sock, check, right sock, check…

It took forever. Solomon was glad to be done, to be getting into the cattle truck later that night. To his surprise, Wilson climbed in with him and two other soldiers. When they got to the departure airfield, they were paired up to help adjust and check each other’s parachutes.

Wilson helped place Solomon’s harness container onto his back. He bent forward so Wilson could push it up higher while Solomon threaded and fastened the chest strap. Then Wilson prepared Solomon’s leg straps. “Left leg strap,” he called out, and passed it to Solomon, who grasped it with one hand. With his other hand, Solomon felt along the length of it to make sure it was not twisted and turned anywhere before he inserted it through his kit bag handle and then fastened it. Then it was time for the right leg strap. Wilson helped him tighten everything, and when he was done they changed positions and repeated the procedures.

He could tell Wilson was excited. He was grinning even as the jumpmaster signed for them to put on their helmets. Then it was takeoff time, and before Solomon knew it they were at 1000 feet above ground level, and it was time to unfasten their seat belts. They kept climbing up. 2000 feet, 3000, 4000…

They were almost at 10,000 feet when the jumpmaster put his right thumb on his right cheek and rotated his palm across his nose and mouth, signing for them to put on their oxygen masks. Between the roar of the aircraft, his helmet’s hearing protection, and now the mask, Solomon couldn’t hear much, so he kept his eyes on the jumpmaster. He also adjusted the mask and tested it for a proper seal, as he’d been trained.

Then it was time for thirty minutes or so of pre-breathing oxygen while the cabin depressurized. He took a deep breath, enjoying the sharpened night vision that came with it. He pitied those of his fellow soldiers who had to rely on dumbgoggles; those things would seriously mess up your depth perception.

12,000 feet. 13,000. 14,000. The jumpmaster signed for them to check their oxygen, though Solomon’s AR goggles already displayed the prompt to do so. He double-checked, then returned the signal with a thumbs up. 15,000 feet. 16,000. 17,000. A ten-minute warning flashed on his goggles. Then the cargo door was opening, and Solomon was glad he was wearing gloves and a jumpsuit over his layers of civilian clothes – lace-up sneakers, sweats, and a windbreaker – because the temperature drop was already noticeable.

As the jumpmaster raised his arm in an arc, palm facing up, Solomon’s goggles displayed the command to stand. Two minutes out. He checked his equipment as the digital countdown ticked away. Then the jumpmaster extended his arm straight out to the side, palm facing up, at shoulder level. His AR goggles flashed at the same time. Move to the rear. One minute to go. Solomon adjusted his goggles, disconnected from the oxygen console, activated his bailout bottles for oxygen during the jump, and moved to the hinge of the cargo ramp.

Now he was staring into a black abyss. The slipstream was tugging at his ankles and his adrenaline was soaring. They were almost at the release point. He’d done this a few times now, but his heart was pounding just as fast as on his first jump. Maybe it was because this time it was for real. Solomon wasn’t headed for the drop zone where the cattle truck driver would pick him up with more stories about how much he didn’t want to be doing what he was doing. Nope, it was the Susquehanna that was going to be under him, and then, if Solomon steered correctly, it would be behind him as he completed his insertion into the blue zone with no one the wiser.

In fact, that was the whole reason they were doing a high-altitude high-opening jump at all. They were so high up nobody would hear the noise of his parachute opening, and this way the plane could stay in red zone airspace the entire time. Instead of having to fly over a blue zone and get detected, it could just send Solomon out to silently glide the thirty miles or so to the drop zone, too small a figure for their sensors to pick up.

Fifteen second warning. He moved to the ramp. Nobody else was jumping with him. Wilson was off to his side. His face was all masked up but Solomon could tell from his eyes behind his goggles that he was grinning his head off. Then the light turned green and the jumpmaster crossed one arm across his chest and pointed at the exit. Solomon didn’t hesitate. He leapt. And he was free-falling into total darkness for ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero –

He pulled the ripcord, and felt the tug of his parachute opening. He heard the receding drone of the aircraft above. It was leaving him behind. He was alone in the void now, floating in the night sky. It was perfectly calm. Perfectly peaceful. There was no moon so it was just the starlit sky stretching above him, a vast canopy of shimmering constellations. For a moment it felt as if he’d entered a realm beyond Earth, as if the shining expanse all around him was the very footstool of God. He pulled on the toggles which dangled down from his canopy on either side of his head and pointed himself into the breeze. Then he was running with the wind, his path through the deep alive with light.

The view through his goggles filled up with floating numbers: a compass direction hovering beside a mountain peak, an altimeter reading ascending as he climbed on the breeze, a display of his location and trajectory provided by the inertial navigation system. With the wind as calm as it was now, it would take him maybe an hour and a half to get to the drop zone. He pulled the toggles to slow down as he went through a layer of clouds and found his vision cut off by dense white fog. It was distractingly cold and wet inside the clouds. He focused on maintaining the compass heading until he was through. Now he was low enough to see city lights, twinkling and beaming out into the night.

Solomon flew over the city. They had no idea he was right there above their heads. They had no idea an enemy was coming.

After gliding for a little over an hour, he checked his compass. In his mind’s eye, the broken pieces of dim grayness ahead of him resolved into the Tamakwa Lake. This meant that the darker patches must be the woods surrounding a clearing where he was supposed to land. He began braking, pulling in the toggles so that the trailing edge of his parachute deflected downward, creating additional drag. His altimeter read 200 feet. Time to get ready to bring her in.

He went for a flared landing. After clearing the treetops, at about ten feet above the ground, he slowly pulled both toggles downward, timing his movement to coincide with the full-brakes position at touchdown. He hoped he wasn’t conducting it too low. There was very little wind which meant he had to slow down enough to land safely.

Maybe this time he’d actually pull off a textbook five-point parachute landing fall: feet first then immediately throw himself sideways to distribute the landing shock along his feet, calf, thigh, hip and side of his back. The falls were easier to do when flying light, which he was. He didn’t even have a combat pack since the agent he was meeting was supposed to have everything he needed. The only weapon he was carrying was a pistol in a strapped-on container. And he’d practiced falling correctly so many times, going back to the trainer so he could let loose the cable and drop him again and again until he got it right.

I will do this without breaking a bone, Solomon told himself. I will not land on my feet then fall on my face as I did after my first jump.

He succeeded. He was winded, but his momentum bled off as he hit the ground in the correct posture. Then he was on his feet and gathering up the parachute before the wind could grab it and yank him through the brambles, which would not be fun at all. He removed his harness, opened up his kit bag, and placed the canopy, deployment bag, suspension lines and risers into it. Within half an hour every piece of parachuting equipment, from his oxygen mask and the bailout bottles to the pilot chute, was inside the zipped-up bag. This was called recovery. It, too, was something he’d practiced, many times.

He’d just finished when he heard a car. It was coming up the road nearest to him, the one he’d flown over. Solomon hauled everything to the nearest tree and hid behind it, pulling out his pistol as the headlights cut through the leaves and trunks. He heard a door open, then close. He was still behind the tree, waiting, when he saw the dim shape of someone coming out into the clearing through the trees on the other side. Even in the dark he could tell it was a neon-colored shirt of some kind, but he couldn’t read the letters until whoever-it-was came close enough for him to see RUN CMD printed across the front.

It was the right letters, it was the right color, so Solomon lowered his pistol as he went out into the clearing. He was barely an arm’s length away when the designated agent turned her face toward him, and he saw that she was a girl. “Landon?” she called softly.

His mind was spinning. I thought Manal was a guy’s name – is this going to be – what are we going to – why is the agent a girl –

He forced himself to stop. “Thunder,” he replied, giving her the pre-set challenge.

She smiled. She was pretty. Short, dark hair, and looked as if she was around Wilson’s age, so five years older than Solomon. He couldn’t quite tell if she was White or not. Maybe Latina? Or Arabic?

“Quartz,” she replied. “I’m Manal. Where’s your parachute?”

“Back there.” He nodded toward the trees behind him.

“Is it disassembled yet?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll help you bury it.”

She followed him into the woods as he put his pistol into the shoulder holster underneath his windbreaker. Out of her purse came two garden trowels. She handed him one, then gestured at him to follow her to a flat patch of grass beside one of the trees. “Here,” she said. She knelt down and began cutting out the turf.

Solomon crouched down next to her. He wanted to tell her that it was okay, he could do it by himself, but he found himself unable to speak. So he joined her and worked fast, until the hole was large enough to fit the kit bag. After he smoothed the dirt over the buried bag Manal placed the turf she’d cut out on top so that it looked as if nobody had dug there at all. She stomped the patch down, pulled out a bottle, and splashed water all over it.

“Let’s go,” she told him. She led him to the road where a compact hatchback was parked, and pulled out a key fob. “Get in the front,” she said. “I’ll drive.” She smiled at him again after he buckled his seat belt, and then picked up what looked like an AR visor from the center console and put it on. “Our cover story is that we’re at Hershey Park to celebrate being together for three months. I booked a hotel room for us; we’ll go there now.”

“Being together?” Solomon repeated.

“Yes, like we’ve been dating for the past three months.”

He was glad it was dark in the car because his face was flushing. As Manal started to drive, he couldn’t help but feel that somewhere, in some other drop zone in northeastern Pennsylvania, Wilson was laughing at him.