Honaker signaled the team that they were approaching the drop zone. They got into line near the door and Honaker snapped them onto the static line. He didn't seem anxious in any way and acted as if he had done this a hundred times. Maybe he had. He gave them a thumbs up. Then he slid open the jump door. The wind shrieked like a banshee.
“You got to be kidding me!” Vaccaro shouted.
If anyone heard him, they ignored him.
When the green jump light came on, Cole felt his insides liquify. Cole was not easily rattled, but looking out an open hatch at the darkness beyond would give anyone pause. He had reached a point where it was too late to second guess what he was about to do. It was time to go — now or never. He’d be damned if he let Honaker see him look too scared to jump.
It was somewhat reassuring that they were jumping with a static line using a T-5 parachute. In their brief training, he had been reassured that all he had to do was get out the door — the parachute would do the rest.
Samson went first. His shoulders were so big that he had to pivot sideways to get through the hatch. He tumbled out and dropped like a boulder.
Vaccaro was next. He reached the door easily enough, but then froze with arms on either side of the opening. He even took a step back.
Cole gave him a mighty shove and Vaccaro was gone. The wind barely drowned out his scream of pure terror.
Cole knew just how he felt, but he wasn't about to give that son of a bitch Honaker an excuse to give him a shove out the door. They had been told to jump within a second of the man in front. The idea was to land close to one another, and with the C-47 still moving at around ninety miles per hour, any delay meant the jumpers would be spread out over hundreds of yards on the ground below.
Cole closed his eyes and leaped.
He went out the door all wrong, the weight of his pack throwing him off balance. When he looked down at his feet, expecting to see the ground below, he saw the plane beneath his boots instead — which meant he was upside down. Honaker still hadn’t jumped.
The static line pulled his parachute, and snapped Cole upright with a jerk better suited to a hangman's rope. It was not a pleasant experience, but he felt a sense of relief as the parachute deployed. Now all he had to do was ride it down.
The darkness was disorienting. Rushing air took Cole's breath away. The cold felt brittle and sharp as an old stone arrowhead. Beneath the circular parachute, he found himself swinging in circles, which did not do much to improve his mood.
It was hard to see the ground, but he knew it was down there, waiting. The question was, how hard was he going to hit? He felt like an egg headed for the hard bottom of a cast iron skillet. Was he going to end up sunny side up — or scrambled?
Then all at once he saw the ground. Images took shape — lighter patches that might be dried grass or brush. The thought that he might be headed toward the trees was more worrisome. The last thing he wanted to do was get hung up like a treed coon. It was all coming toward him way too fast and he braced himself for the impact.
He hit the ground and rolled, but the shock still knocked the breath out of him. It was a thing he'd heard of, but that had never really happened to him before. One second he could breathe, the next he couldn't — he was like a fish tossed up on a river bank, gasping. Fortunately, it was not a sensation that lasted long. His lungs started working again.
Somehow, he had managed to get tangled up in the parachute and the cords. It was damn near impossible to tell what was what in the dark, so Cole unsheathed his big knife and chopped at whatever lines he could reach. The knife was razor sharp, and the chute fell away.
He bundled it up as he had been taught, then shoved it under a bush. Then he crouched down and looked around as he got his bearings.
He seemed to have come down in an expanse of emptiness. Although it was dark and he could see no more than his hand in front of his face, he could feel the barren landscape surrounding him. He had the sensation of being in a vast, open space. He stood still, just listening. He heard the noise of the C-47, fading away. He wished those flyboys luck getting home on one engine. Then all he heard was the sigh of wind.
He definitely didn't hear any warning shouts in Russian, which was a good sign. They had been told not to worry about the Russians — nobody was expecting them, and their landing zone was just about exactly in the middle of nowhere. For once, the so-called intelligence seemed to have been correct.
He just hoped that the other three men had landed in the general vicinity. How the hell were they supposed to link up? It all sounded so much more sensible back in the warm, well-lighted planning room than it did here.
He decided to take a chance and click on his flashlight. He flicked the switch on and off a couple of times. He was relieved when he saw a light flick on and off in answer about three hundred feet away. An even more distant light appeared, then clicked off again. That accounted for two of the others, but what about the third? He waited tensely, wondering if anyone hostile had seen the light. There were no warning shouts or gunshots. With any luck, nobody had seen them arrive.
Cole flicked his light again and then began moving in the direction of the nearest answering light.
He had not gone more than a dozen steps when he realized he was not alone. It was hard to say how he knew, exactly. You couldn’t spend time in the woods without experiencing that feeling at some point — and learning to trust it.
Cole froze. He unslung his rifle, being careful not to make any noise. There was nowhere to run or hide out here in the open, so he got down low, where he would not be silhouetted against the sky. Then he held his breath.
Someone went past him in the dark. He could just see the figure in the starlight. Definitely one person. It was not a body type he recognized as another team member. He had the impression of someone a little older and thicker — not a soldier, then. But stealthy all the same.
He rose up, took three silent steps, and put his rifle muzzle between the other man's shoulder blades.
The man halted. Slowly, he raised his arms from his sides. One held a rifle. "Do not shoot Vaska," the man said in heavily accented English.
Cole pulled the rifle back. "Turn around and keep your hands just like that."
The man did as ordered, swiveling slowly around to face Cole. "I am to be your guide," he said.
"I like blueberry cobbler," Cole said, remembering the first part of the password.
Vaska thought a moment. "With vanilla ice cream."
Cole lowered the rifle. "Do you always go around making as much noise as a herd of elephants?"
The guide shook his head. "You must have the ears of a lynx. Where are the others?"
"Scattered around."
"Come, let us find them. There are only a few hours until daylight, and everything must be hidden by then."
Cole and the guide moved toward where Cole had last seen the light. That's where they found Vaccaro, still wrestling his way free of the tangled parachute lines. "You pushed me out of the plane, you son of a bitch."
"Shut up, Vaccaro. By the way, it's good to see you, too."
Vaccaro nodded at the guide. "Who's this?"
"This here is Vaska.”
Vaccaro flicked on his light. "No offense, Vaska, but you look old enough to be my grandpa."
Vaska shrugged.
"Come on, let's go find the rest of us," Cole said. He flicked the light and got another answer flash, so they moved in that direction.
Soon enough, they found Samson. He was limping, but otherwise no worse for wear.
Honaker was nowhere to be found. Cole flicked his light again, but got no response.
"What do you think if I give him a shout?" Cole wondered. "Vaska, are we near anyone who ain't supposed to hear us?"
"You are in the taiga," Vaska said, and offered another shrug, as if that explained everything. “Fire a cannon if you want.”
"All right then." Cole filled his lungs and shouted, "Honaker!"
They listened; when no one replied, he hollered out again. Cole had a high, ringing shout that could carry across a mountain valley back home, but the vastness of the dark plain around them seemed to swallow up the noise like padded velvet. He decided against firing his rifle.
"Maybe I'm not the only one who got cold feet and there was nobody to push him," Vaccaro said. "He was last."
"Nah, he got blowed off course is all. Vaska, are there any woods ‘round here?"
"To the west, about three kilometers away, there is a forest."
Cole nodded. "If he come down in them trees, he might have got hisself hung up. Vaska, how big is that there forest?"
"It would take many days to cross it."
They stood around, thinking about that. Honaker could be hung up in a tree, either tangled up or injured. There were stories about that happening behind enemy lines to paratroopers who managed to reach their jump knives and then cut their own wrists so that they could bleed out quietly rather than become prisoners, tortured for their secrets. Not to mention the fact that there were wild animals. A badly injured man was just another meal to some varmint.
The fingers were most vulnerable. Then the face. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
“Goddamnit," Cole said. “We ain’t off to what you’d call a real good start.”
"Listen, we can't wait around," Vaccaro said. "You heard Vaska. It's gonna be daylight soon. We can't be seen out here, but maybe Vaska can come back and look for him. He won’t attract attention like we would.”
"Da, da, I will come back," Vaska said. "For now, we must hide you."
First, they collected the parachutes. Vaska had already thought ahead and knew of a sink hole that they stuffed the parachutes into. Then they started off across the vast plain. It was still too dark to see much of anything, but Vaska led them confidently, keeping a brisk pace.
"He moves fast for an old man," Vaccaro muttered, panting.
After an hour, they came to the edge of a village. A dog came out and barked at them, but lost interest when Vaska fished around in his pocket and tossed him a scrap of dried meat. Vaccaro opened his mouth to make some comment, but Vaska cut him off by putting a finger to his own lips. They followed him to a small house — more of a shack, really. It reminded Cole of a Russian version of his own family's mountain shack, hammered together out of rough-cut lumber, scrap wood, and discarded metal sheeting.
But inside it was warm enough. There was an old-fashioned ceramic oven rather than a fireplace, over which an older Russian woman tended something good-smelling in a pot. She watched them without emotion, except for her eyes. They drifted over Vaccaro, narrowed at the sight of Cole, but grew large when Samson entered the house. He seemed to fill the tiny space.
“Vaska's house," their guide announced. "Now, you eat, and then you hide."
The woman, whom Vaska did not introduce, served them bowls of fish stew. It was a bland, almost tasteless fish. Lumps of potatoes and onions mingled with the fish. The stew needed salt, but they ate hungrily enough. Samson held out his bowl eagerly for a second helping, which seemed to improve the old woman's mood.
"Burbot," Vaska explained. "I catch them in the river here, from the riverbank in the summer and right through the ice in the winter. When I catch a little extra, I sell the fish to the camp. If not for burbot, we would starve. It is a blessing and a curse, you know. It is a blessing because it feeds us and a curse because it is all we have to eat."
"I thought you were a guide," Vaccaro said. "I thought that meant you were a hunter, too."
"Hunting is hard," Vaska pointed out. "In the winter, you must travel far from the village. Game is scarce. There are wolves. You don't always have something to shoot, but there is always a fish to catch. One burbot feeds us for two days, maybe three."
Cole saw the wisdom in that.
"Wolves?" Vaccaro wondered.
"Wolves," Vaska said with another shrug, although it may have been a shudder. He glanced at their empty bowls. The old lady didn’t offer seconds. “You have eaten. Now you must hide."
He took them to a pantry door in the tiny kitchen. They helped him shift bags of potatoes and a few canned goods marked with unidentifiable Cyrillic characters until the back of the pantry was accessible. Vaska pulled aside the boards to reveal an opening. They stepped through it into a tiny, windowless space just big enough for the three of them to lie down in. Vaska had already provided some blankets and a bucket.
Vaccaro looked dubiously at the bucket. "Is that for when the roof leaks? Wait, tell me that's not for—"
Vaska replaced the boards, sealing them in darkness.