SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

The no-smoking, seat-belt, and exit lights flashed on and off three times. Rowdy’s right hand swung downward, pointing toward the exit. And then the jumpers began to move up the aisle. The stick’s progress was far faster than Wei-Liu had thought it would be. In fact, the constant movement gave her very little time to think about what she was about to do, because it was enough of a challenge simply to put one boot in front of the other without tripping over all the gear. She tried to remember all the things Ritzik had told her, all the things Rowdy had told her, but her mind had suddenly turned to mush.

And then Ritzik’s voice burst into her brain. “Goggles secure?”

Her head bobbed up and down. There was a red chem-light jammed into the seat on her right. “Gloves on?”

She wiggled her fingers at him. She saw a second chem-light jammed into a left-hand seat cushion.

“Remember—?? control us immediately after we exit the aircraft. As soon as we’re facedown, extend into the Frog position.”

She raised her right thumb.

“Do what I do.”

And then Bill Sandman vaulted feetfirst onto the slide, shoved himself forward, grabbed the two thin aluminum banister rails at the top of the stairway, launched himself down the slide, and vanished into the darkness. And there was nothing between her and the void but the open doorway.

All of a sudden Wei-Liu felt an enormous measure of fear; a visceral, instinctive, primeval animal terror she had never before experienced.

She pulled up short like a horse refusing a jump. “Michael, don’t let me die.”

Ritzik’s voice exploded inside her brain. “Tracy — sit.”

She did as she was told. She felt Ritzik’s body up against hers; felt his legs on her hips, her back against his chest. Well, okay, against his reserve chute. He wouldn’t let her die.

“Tracy, let go of the banisters.”

She hadn’t realized she was holding on to them; holding on for dear life. She tried to let go, but her hands wouldn’t budge.

Ritzik’s gloved hands pried her fingers open one by one. “Make fists,” he commanded.

She obeyed the voice in her brain, cursing her damnable instinctive compliance. And then his hands grasped the banister, and he was tight against her and he was pushing and pushing and all the while her legs were pumping, too, except she was trying to go backward, not forward. And then his arms were wrapped around her so tight she couldn’t budge and all of a sudden they were traveling down the slide going faster and faster and even though there was a huge amount of noise in her ears she could hear her heart pounding even louder than the wind and it was freezing cold and the mask lens began to fog and she started to see spots in front of her eyes and then and then and then Oh … My … God she shot off the end of the slide into the abyss.

14

27,220 Feet Above Artu, China.

2024 Hours Local Time.

“Don’t hyperventilate.” That was Mike Ritzik’s voice in her head. He was still there. She was, too.

“Okay, okay, okay.” She struggled to keep her breathing under control.

“Frog position, Tracy — Frog. Help me. Help me.”

Wei-Liu’s scrambled brain searched for input and finally achieved a rough synapsis. She arched her back, extended her arms, bent her knees, and tried to hold her legs apart.

“Good girl.”

Above her, Ritzik’s head turned slightly left so he could read the altimeter dial. He was delighted with how she’d performed, although he wasn’t about to say anything right now. She hadn’t panicked, causing the pair of them to tumble, or worse, go into a flat spin. And although he could feel her trembling under him, she was performing like a trouper — or more to the point, like a trooper. Even in the freezing air he could sense the warmth of her body pressed close up against him.

He felt Wei-Liu shift slightly. He used his thighs to keep her exactly where she was. Movement was dangerous. They were still well above terminal velocity — the maximum constant miles-per-hour rate for a falling object — because the plane’s forward speed had thrust them into the sky at more than 200 miles an hour. They would have to fall more than 2,500 feet before their airspeed would drop to 125 miles per hour—180 feet per second — at which point it would be safe to deploy the parachute.

They’d left the plane at twenty-seven thousand five and would open at twenty-five thousand. That gave them about twelve seconds of total free fall.

Trying to maintain the arched, Frog stable-flight position, Wei-Liu wasn’t sure she’d live that long.

Ritzik took a look at his compass. They were still heading due east. “I’m going to turn us to the south.”

No one had told her how to make turns in free fall. “What do I do?”

“Hold your position. Don’t change a thing.”

Above her, Ritzik bent his torso and head to the right, brought his left arm six inches closer to his body, and extended his right arm out by six inches.