A Knife Edge

THIRTY-FIVE

I slept the restless sleep of a dead man fighting his way back to the light. I didn't dream, I just wrestled with my adrenal glands, coming half awake with a racing heartbeat and aching muscles, and then falling back into the pit, exhausted. I finally woke in the dark to a voice that said, “Let's go, Major.” It was Sergeant Fester. “We got us some running to do.”

The following three days were a blur of sweat, lactic acid burn, and a desire to drown Master Sergeant Fester. There was no room for talk in the schedule — just running, climbing, swimming, crawling, marching, and swearing.

On the morning of the fourth day, I was waiting for Fester in the dark, laced into the Nikes and ready to go. All the work done to regain some strength after the long stretch in rehab had been a big help. The investigation into the deaths of Tanaka and Wright had put me off my schedule, but now I was getting on top of things. I waited but Fester didn't show, so I went off on a run anyway — just for the hell of it.

I'd showered and just put on a clean ABU when the sergeant finally arrived, pulling up in a Humvee. I wasn't sure what he wanted. I pointed to myself and then at the door on the off chance he wanted me to get in. The sergeant gave a nod. Mystery solved.

“Where'd you get to this morning, Sarge?” I asked as I got inside. “Sleep in?”

No answer.

“You know, you make it damn hard for a guy to get a word in edgewise,” I said.

“You haven't had the breath to waste on talk, Major,” he replied. After a while, he said, “Yesterday in the pool. Saw you'd been wounded.”

“Afghanistan and Washington.”

“Washington?”

“Don't ever get between a congressman and his reelection contributors,” I said.

Fester gave me a look like he'd just whacked his thumb with a hammer. I realized he was smiling, something he didn't seem to do much of. “I also served in Washington.” He pulled up his shirt. There was a chunk out of his ribcage the size of my fist.

“You got that in D.C.?” I asked.

“No. Somalia. But I've done a tour of Washington.” The sergeant smiled again. Twice in one day. Maybe Fester was losing control.

“So, what's going on?” I asked when he'd regained a little composure. “You decided to go easy on me because I've stopped a few slugs?”

“No. You passed the physical. Now it's time for a change.”

“Passed?”

“You're on the edge when it comes to your age, sir. Major Cummins and I wanted to make sure you were up to the job.”

“What job?”

Fester shrugged.

I knew I wasn't going to get any further. Even if Cummins or Fester knew what job they were training me for, which I doubted, they'd never let me in on it. “So, where're we going?”

“You'll see.”

Around half an hour later I was wearing a black jumpsuit — my watch and all loose articles stowed in a locker — and I was standing in an octagonal-shaped room. I could hear my breathing and my heart beating because, for one thing, the room was heavily insulated for sound, and, for another, my ears had plugs in them. The place reeked of leather and sweat.

Five other people in the room were similarly dressed. Another five, the instructors, wore bright pumpkin-colored suits. Above us, in the ceiling, the seventeen blades of the 3500-horsepower Babcock fan began to rotate and an ominous vibration came up through the floor. Within minutes the room was filled with the roar of a column of air screaming toward those rotating blades at close to 150 miles an hour. Fester took a couple of steps forward and launched himself into the center of the Sergeant Maj. Santos Alfredo Matos Jr. Military Free Fall Simulator, otherwise known as the VWT — the vertical wind tower. Seeing it in action still made me gawk. Fester flew. The newcomers were openmouthed. The sergeant immediately assumed the classic high-arch position and maneuvered about the space by altering his body shape and using his hands and fingers to steer in the same way a bird uses the feathers on its wingtips. After a couple of minutes of demonstration free-falling, he exited the column of air, rolling on his back and letting the thick cushioning around the circumference take his fall.

He tapped me on the helmet. My turn. I did what I'd been briefed to do — took a step and dived out into midair above a wide mesh safety net, arms and legs spread-eagled. Unlike Fester, I kept going, the hurricane wind spitting me out the far side. I hit the padding like a fastball smacking into the sweet spot of a catcher's mitt. Nice bit of demonstration flying there, Streak, I told myself as I rolled off the padding.

I got back on my feet and adjusted the helmet a notch tighter. From across the chamber, Fester told me with hand signals to do it again, only with a little less this time. So I took a step and jumped. This time I managed to stay caught in the roaring column, my body arranged in the high-arch position as it had been trained to do so many years ago, the forces of gravity and wind resistance in balance.

The air pressure rushing past my mouth and nose made breathing difficult, just like in a real free fall. In fact, the overall sensation was almost identical to falling through the air at terminal velocity, which is to say, it didn't feel like I was falling at all; more like lying on top of a few hundred fists pummeling away on the underside of my legs, body, and arms. I used my hands and fingertips to spin, and then altered my body position to rise and fall in the column. MFF — it was all coming back. I was having fun. Too much, apparently. Fester was gesturing at me to come on over. I noticed Major Cummins had made an appearance and was standing beside him, wearing the kind of scowl he might have worn if I'd just told him I was dating his daughter. He was in the process of biting off a fingernail which he then spat out. I landed a little less like a gooney bird in a storm the second time around. Cummins and Fester were already heading for the exit. Fester motioned at me to follow.

Outside the chamber where it wasn't so noisy, Major Cummins shouted, “We just got word from SOCOM. There's been a change of plan.”