Pandora's grave

His SF-10 parachute billowed above him, the shock of the canopy opening transmitting itself through his body. He gritted his teeth against the pain-the wound in his side was far from healed.

There was no time to think about that now. His hands reached up, grabbing hold of the guidelines, his body swinging gently beneath the canopy of nylon as he descended toward the sea.

Hamid heard, rather than saw, the splash of the Zodiac hitting the water. The parachute was designed to disconnect from the Rigid Inflatable Boat or RIB platform on impact, to prevent the boat from being dragged through the water or capsized.

Altimeter: Two hundred feet. Time to brace for landing. Landing in water bore no resemblance to its ground counterpart, as the swim flippers replacing jump boots on his feet bore witness. And along with the difference came dangers.

Water engulfing his body. Cold water. Thomas came down hard, the force of the landing driving him beneath the surface. His gloved fingers seemed to burn with the cold as he clawed his way to the surface, spewing out salt water as he came up.

His left hand tangled in the parachute rigging as he struck out, hindering his efforts to find the release button.

Don’t panic. It would kill him if he did. He knew that with the certainty of death. He had trained for this.

The facility at Souda Bay had only been able to provide wetsuits for the team, not the dry suits they would have preferred for cold water operations. He had only minutes before his fingers would become too numb to operate the release. His right hand groped blindly toward his side, drawing the dive knife from its sheath. Slashing at the chute entangling him.

There was no way to build momentum in the water, and his knife brushed against the cord in a sluggish, impotent motion.

The canopy billowed once more in the breeze and then collapsed over his head, trapping him between wet fabric and the water. He went under once more.

A loud humming filled his ears as he resurfaced, gulping air into his starved lungs. Something, close by. A motor, perhaps. Or was he hallucinating?

It was impossible to say. The knife was gone, slipped from his fingers at some point. He didn’t remember letting go. Letting go.

He couldn’t remember how long he’d been in the water. Not long. His fingers were numb, wooden stumps as they brushed against the release. No strength.

A hand grasped his shoulder, holding him up in the water, and he fought against it. “Easy there, Thomas.”

Davood’s voice. He looked up and saw the Iranian’s face against the blackness of the night. Warning bells sounded through his mind, a deafening clangor. He felt the canopy being pulled from around his head, the harness slipping from his body.

Another moment and he was being hauled up, his hands scraping against the cold rubber of the Zodiac as he was pulled aboard like a landed fish. He coughed, water trickling from his mouth as he lay in the bottom of the raft. Once again, he heard the humming and realized it was the Zodiac’s outboard. His vision cleared and he saw Hamid sitting in the stern of the craft, manning the tiller. Safety…

1:18 A.M.

The cruiser

“Roger that, Sergeant White,” Harry nodded, holding the TACSAT close to his ear. “Popping white, red, green.”

The binoculars in his other hand, he scanned the night, looking for the telltale glow of the chemlights. There! White, red-and green.

Harry grinned. “Looks like a spec-ops Christmas, bro. We’ve got you at our eleven o’clock, maybe two klicks out.”

“Good to hear it,” Hamid’s voice came back. “We’ll be waiting on you.”

“Everything copacetic?”

“Yeah. Sergeant Brown had a little bit of trouble with the landing. We fished him out before his chute could take him under.”

“He doing okay?”

There was a moment’s silence, then a voice in the background, indistinct. When he came back on, Hamid was laughing. “He says if you’ve got any brandy, he could use it.”

Harry chuckled. “Take five and we’ll be alongside.”

2:31 A.M. Tehran Time

The Ayatollah’s Residence

His name was Samir, but he was referred to by his American handlers as XENOPHON. Had he known the origins of the name, he might have been amused by the irony of the choice, but the madrassa at which he had received his formalized education had failed to cover the march of the Ten Thousand.

The Americans had turned him five years before, after a business trip to Paris. In a Parisian gentlemen’s club, as he remembered the scene, all flashing lights and beautiful women. Agreeing had seemed to be the thing to do at the time.

Whether he had agreed out of disillusionment with the theocratic regime of Qom, or out of interest in the money, was a question he still could not answer. At one time, he might have thought it was for the excitement, but there had been precious little of that through the years. Unless one called living a double life exciting.