The 34th Degree

35

I t was cold in the fuselage where Andros sat beside a pile of stores and the trunk that would be dropped with him. For most of the flight, they were in a cloud, although every now and then Andros could glimpse the bright Mediterranean moon lurking behind the black shadows. His jumpmaster, Cecil Cates, a young rogue who claimed to be the illegitimate son of a British lord, was too busy jiving to popular tunes from Radio Algiers on his earphones to hear the intercom when it crackled.

“Feel like a smoke, Joe?” It was the captain. “Come up to the flight deck.”

A minute later, Andros stood behind MacDonald and Rainey. To Andros, the pilot looked like a red-haired devil and his copilot a cherubic hostage hanging on for dear life. Andros smoked a Varga while MacDonald went over the details of the drop.

“The plan is that we follow the formation up the Rhone,” MacDonald began, referring to the river below them. “When the other bombers near their target, we’ll peel away toward Switzerland while enemy radar and antiaircraft artillery are focused on them.”

“This ruse works?” asked Andros.

“Sometimes. Other times the Luftwaffe sics night fighters on the formation, and we get caught in a flak barrage and have to scrub the mission. Last week we lost one of our best pilots when the Jerries shot him down over Greece. Good man, too.”

“Greece? What was he doing there?”

“Reconnaissance,” MacDonald replied. “He was photographing enemy coastal defenses and artillery positions on the Ionian islands when antiaircraft fire brought him down. That’s why the Pegasus here is hitting the ceiling at twenty-eight thousand feet. The Swiss have set some of their antiaircraft batteries on the mountains to boost their range. They don’t have radar and almost never score a hit. But I’m not taking any chances, seeing as we’re about to violate their airspace.”

They were flying high over France now, the Rhone River below them to their left, the Alps to their right. Andros thought he could make out Mont Blanc in the distance and, beyond that, the Matterhorn.

“We’ll be approaching the target soon,” MacDonald said. “You better get back and make final preparations.”

Andros put out his Varga and turned to leave.

“Hey, Joe,” said MacDonald. “The woman back in Blida. She your girl?”

“No. Mine is in Greece.”

“So they send you to Switzerland. Figures.”

Andros left the flight deck as the bomber peeled off from the rest of the formation. The sharp banking must have alerted Cates, because the jumpmaster had removed his headphones by the time Andros made his way to the back.

A few minutes later, Andros was hooked to the static line while Cates checked his parachute pack. They sat around the rectangular escape hatch in the floor through which Andros would jump.

“Obey the system of lights,” Cates told him. “Red to get ready and green to go.”

Cates lifted the cover of the hatch, and Andros felt a violent rush of freezing air and the deafening roar of the four engines. “Now, when the green light flashes,” Cates shouted, “wait for my ‘Go.’ I’ll signal by dropping my hand on your right shoulder.”

Andros nodded and looked down through the chute. He could see mountain peaks and deep gorges shrouded in snow and realized this was a far cry from his practice jumps over West Point.

The aircraft started banking steeply. Andros realized that MacDonald was looking for the signal fire. As the plane circled, Andros could see the T formation of bonfires flicker in the darkness below, looming larger as the Pegasus cut its speed and lost altitude.

The “action stations” red light flashed. Andros swung his legs over the hole and into the void. He was numb with cold.

The green light flashed, and Andros felt Cates’s hand drop onto his shoulder. “Go!” shouted the jumpmaster.

Andros pushed his trunk over the chute and watched it disappear into the night. Then he stiffened over the hole and dropped into the wind-slip of the four engines.

A second later, he was free-falling in space.