Payback

57

When he was a corporal, Charlie Dean had learned to parachute on the advice of a top sergeant, who said the skill would help him advance. The sergeant, a short, ugly man with a large heart and a very soft voice, was the smartest noncom Dean had ever had, and so he followed the advice even though he knew he would hate every minute of it. For a man who had served as a sniper in the waning days of the Vietnam War and witnessed the evacuation of Saigon, the training could not be honestly described as difficult duty. But Dean would have gladly swapped his weeks there for a year anywhere else, including Vietnam.

His three night training jumps — all successful, all utterly routine, all scary as all get-out — came back to him as he waited for Fashona’s signal to go. The aircraft had a specially rigged door on the right side that allowed it to slide out of the way, making egress easier for parachutists. Wind kicked through the cockpit like a hurricane, and Fashona groused about how hard it was to keep the plane on its circular course over the patio-sized field they had targeted for the drop. All three men had donned oxygen masks because of the thin air.

The area they were jumping into sat in the foothills between the Andes and the thickest parts of the tropical forest. Not as wet as the jungle to the east, nor as high as the peaks to the west, it mixed qualities of both — wide rivers divided green valleys; dusty plateaus were shaded by craggy rocks. Their targeted landing zone was a grassy field a mile and a half from a river; bounded on one side by a sharp drop and on the other by a dozen or so trees, they had about two and a half acres of clear landing zone.

It might just as well have been a square foot as far as Dean was concerned, looking out at the darkness.

“Five seconds,” said Fashona.

Karr stood next to a large equipment pack that contained most of their gear as well as an inflatable boat. Rather than using a static line to open the parachute, an altimeter trigger would open the chute at nine thousand feet above sea level, which was fifteen hundred feet above the ground, if, of course, the altimeter setting they had chosen was somewhere close to the true barometric pressure. The nylon canopy was designed so that the gear would fall in as straight a line as possible; Fashona had to fly the plane along a very precise line and the gear had to be ejected at the right moment for it to hit the landing zone.

Dean couldn’t recall the name of the top sergeant who had told him to learn to jump — Jones or Jacobs — but heard his voice in his head as if he were right behind him.

Well-rounded Marine is a good Marine. The way of the future, kid. Educate yourself.

What did jumping out of an airplane have to do with education, anyway?

“Now,” said Fashona.

Karr pushed the pack out. Dean leaned forward, hands still gripping the sides of the doorway.

“Geronimo!” yelled Karr, pulling Dean from the plane with him.

Caught off-balance, Dean’s left arm was grabbed and twisted by the wind. He focused on bringing it back, pushing his body into a flying wedge. The specially programmed goggles they were using worked with global positioning satellites as well as an altimeter reading to present visual cues as the parachutist fell. While the goggles weighed almost seven pounds, the weight was worth it — a green arrow appeared before him, telling him he was perfectly on course.

Good thing, thought Dean. At least if I splat I’ll do it in the right place.