"Yeah," he said, "You would have taken the bullets and not me."
"Exactly," I said, "I’m willing to bet that the three of them were gomers who were supposed take the fall. I bet the other two had a way out of here."
"Parachute?" Jim asked me.
"Too risky for a plane of this height," I said, "They’d never survive."
"D.B. Cooper did it," Jim said thoughtfully, "Though nobody knows if he lived or not."
"A professional might be able to do it if they ordered the plane low and slow," I said thoughtfully, "We could do it, but it wouldn’t be a barrel of monkeys."
Karen came down the stairs and found us sitting there. She had a distressed look on her face. I looked at her and she came over and crouched down next to us.
"What’s up?" I asked her.
"Is Jim ok?" she asked.
"I’ll live," he said with a shrug, "Why the strange look on your face?"
"They are redirecting the plane to Paris," Karen said, "They’re going to have some questions for us."
I jumped up in alarm at that. The last thing on Earth I wanted to do was deal with the French authorities. We had run into them about ten years before on another matter, an experience that I truly would prefer not to remember. Not to mention the fact that we had nearly a hundred witnesses to my death and Jim’s death. I really wasn’t in the mood to explain immortality to the French.
"This is not good," Jim said with the same sense of alarm that I felt, "We’ve got to get off this plane before then."
"We can exit while they taxi?" Karen said, "And hope we get away before the French find us."
"I’ll pass on that," I told her, "Too much chance of getting caught. We need to leave before then."
"I doubt we can ask them to stop the plane and get off," Jim replied sarcastically.
"No," I said with an evil grin as the thought formed, "But we can ask them to slow down and let us jump out."
"Would you care to repeat that?" Karen asked incredulously.
"You aren’t thinking about your hypothesis that the leaders were going to jump out?" Jim said, dreading my answer, "If you think I’m going to jump out of a goddamn Jetliner you have to be out of your bloody mind!"
"Let’s see if we can find the chutes first," I said amicably, "It’s not like we have anything else to do right now."
"I agree with Jim," Karen said, "You’re crazy. But then again, it might be better than dealing with the French cops."
"You go up and make nice with the pilots," I instructed Karen, "I’ll try to find the parachutes."
She nodded and went back upstairs. Jim just sat where he was on the floor while I went through the cargo looking for parachutes. I was about ready to give up when I got to two rather large bags. They were shaped oddly, so I opened them up. Inside were not three, but five parachutes and a box filled with weapons. I had hit the mother lode.
"Damn I’m good," I said, "Though I miscalculated. They all planned on jumping out."
"That’s nice," Jim put in bitterly, "I don’t intend to follow their plan."
"Parachuting is fun," I grinned and taunted him, "Look at it this way guy. Do you want to spend the next two years dealing with the French government?"
"Not really," he said glumly, "I don’t much like my choices right now."
Karen came back down and looked at what I had found. She looked at me in horror realizing that I was considering using the parachutes.
"Are you out of your mind, Mason?" Karen asked me, "We’re five miles up in the sky!"
"So we request that they drop down altitude for the rest of the flight," I said with a shrug.
"I hate to tell you this," Karen said, "I have no idea how to use one of these things."
"It’s easy," I said, "You jump and then pull the cord and then glide right down to the ground."
"And if the chute doesn’t open?" Jim asked me.
"You hit the ground," I said bluntly, "Fairly hard in fact. You’ll wake up in a few days sore as hell, I’d imagine."
"I’m not doing it," Jim said, "I’ll take my chances with the French."
"Karen?" I asked her.
"You’re going to do it?" she asked me.
"Yes," I said, having already made my decision.
"I’ll go," she said, "You just have to show me what to do."
I nodded and looked at Jim. I figured that he would come around in a few minutes when he remembered what the French cops had been like the last time. I climbed the stairs and went to the cockpit to talk to the pilots. Karen followed me to act as an interpreter. We talked in German to each other to avoid being identified as Americans.
"There’s a bomb on the plane," I told Karen to tell them, "I want them to go down to 6000 feet so that if I make a mistake in disarming it, they can still make an emergency landing."
Karen looked at me for a second and then repeated it to the pilots in French. They looked alarmed for a few seconds and then immediately began complying. I also had her tell them that if we couldn’t defuse it we would be dumping the bomb out one of the doors and not to send anyone down unless the light had been on for twenty minutes.
Karen did a good job of translating and adding a few other things in for believability. They called in to the French air traffic control and brought the plane down to 5500 feet. We quickly went down into the cargo area again. Jim was standing again and looking at us.
"You seriously intend to jump out of this airplane?" Jim asked us.
"Why not?" I said, "Come on, suit up!"
I tossed one of the packs to him and then put one on myself. Karen took one of the smaller ones that I had tossed to Jim and put it on, trying to make out like she was unconcerned. I checked the straps and found it a snug fit. Being the only one of the three of us who’d actually parachuted before I helped Karen and Jim get ready for the jump.
I gave them a quick lesson on the aerodynamics of jumping and how to keep your fall in control. I warned them that if they lost control of their body before pulling the ripcord they would hit the ground extremely hard.
I went into the back of the cargo hold and found the rear door that they used for loading and unloading. I pulled the emergency cord and the door opened up, the freezing air coming in from outside. I looked out over the landscape and saw it whizzing by extremely fast. I almost lost my nerve, but the remembered the French cops from last time. I looked at them and smiled and invited them out the door.
"You first!" Jim shouted.
"I’ve done this before!" I shouted above the wind, "If you go first and screw up, I can come to your aid!"
"I’ll go!" Karen shouted.
I gave her some last minute encouragement and watched her jump out the door. Jim watched her go and knew it was his turn next. He was hesitant and didn’t really want to go. Since I wanted to know where Karen went, I went over to him and threw him out the door.
I don’t think I’ll repeat what he called me when he went flying out the door. I didn’t wait any longer myself. I jumped out and did a few flips, feeling the exhilaration of free fall for the first time in nearly thirty years. I smiled and saw Karen in free fall. I wasn’t able to see Jim, which surprised me.
I used my arms to steer myself over towards Karen. She was doing all right, about forty yards below me. She managed to get herself upright and decided it was time to pull her ripcord. I was expecting to see a sheet of white cloth come out to carry her softly to the ground.
What I did see was an orange sheet fly out of her pack. I knew then that we screwed up. My initial hypothesis was right. The three gomers were not supposed to survive the mission. Their chutes were supposed to be the betrayal. I straightened up and dove for her.
All composure had gone away from her by this point. She was screaming and flailing her arms. I made up the distance quickly as she was inadvertently arresting her fall, while I was speeding mine up to catch up with her. I was nearly to her when she moved in the air again. I t
hought I was going to lose her when I finally managed to grab her left ankle.
I literally climbed up her body while we were in free fall. Finally I managed to get my arms around her and my head even with hers. I managed to stabilize our fall and keep hold of her.
"I’ve got you!" I yelled in her ear, "Follow my motions and turn around to latch on to me so we can glide down together when I pull the chute."
She managed to turn around and clamp her arms around under mine. I used my now free arms to turn us with my back to the sky. I warned her that I was going to pull and to hold on for dear life. She nodded and held on tightly. I managed to get my hand to the ripcord and yanked it as hard as I could.
The parachute opened, normally, and our descent slowed quickly. Karen nearly lost her grip once when the chute opened, but I managed to keep her on to me. As soon as our descent rate slowed to normal she climbed back up and stayed on me solidly.
"You OK kiddo?" I asked her in her ear as we glided down towards the earth.
"I’ll be ok when we actually land safely," she yelled back.
It was then that I remembered that Jim was probably in the same boat. I looked around for him and saw him hurtling towards the earth. I knew that he was going to hit the ground. I cursed and tried to direct our parachute towards his landing site in hopes of recovering his body before anyone else could.
The earth was coming up quickly and I started preparing for impact. We were coming down too fast because we had two adults on a parachute sized for a single human being. Karen lost her hold as soon as my feet hit the ground and she went tumbling hard. I lost my footing and went tumbling head over heels before coming to a rest in a really awkward position.
Chapter 4
I finally managed to right myself and crawl out of the parachute. Growling at myself for thinking that this was a good idea in the first place I walked over to Karen who was still lying sprawled out on the ground.
"Are we dead?" Karen asked when she looked up and saw me.
"Not hardly," I said with a chuckle, "Everything still connected?"
"My back is broken," she groaned, "Did you see where Jim landed?"
"Yeah," I said sadly, "I think he hit the ground a mile or so east of here."
"Go find him," she said through clenched teeth, "I’ll heal up in a few minutes. I’ll take the parachute with me and we’ll hole up when we recover what’s left of him."
"Ok," I said, "I’ll leave an X in the dirt every hundred feet or so. Follow them to me, ok?"
"That works," she said, "If I don’t show up, come and get me."
I nodded and made my way towards the hill I saw that I thought was between Jim and us. I knew Jim would be fairly easy to find, he’d be in a rather deep hole made by the impact of his body on the ground.
I walked slowly to the top of the hill, making sure to mark my path for Karen as I went. From the top of the hill I found I was right on the money. There was a nice fresh hole in the ground about a quarter mile south of my location. I hiked down the hill down to the hole and looked inside. What I saw certainly wasn’t pretty.
Jim was lucky in one respect, considering he hit the ground feet first. The lower half of his body was pretty well shattered, his blood making the soil rather red. I pulled what was left of the parachute pack off his body and found that it was one of the bad ones.
I pulled what was left of Jim out of the hole and laid him out on the ground. Karen came up behind me while I was doing that and gasped at the damage hitting the earth had inflicted on our old friend. I straightened him out so that the damage could heal a little faster, though I was fairly certain that he wasn’t going to heal up anytime soon.
"What do we do now?" Karen asked, "He looks like hell."
"We need to get out of here," I told her, "Did you bring the parachute with you?"
"Yep," she said with a nod, "But where are we going to take him?"
"Away from this hole," I shrugged, "I’m guessing we’re somewhere in France, but I’m not sure where. We need to find a place to hole up until Jim comes out of it."
"Is he still alive?" Karen asked, "I mean, he doesn’t look much better."
"His upper torso has healed," I pointed out to her, "He’s also breathing. He’ll wake up, and if we’re lucky his brain will be intact."
"Ok," she nodded, "How long do you think he’ll be out?"
"Could be a day, could be a week," I shrugged, "You’ve been dealing with this as long as I have. The most important thing is to find someplace warm and out of the weather. Look at the sky, kiddo. We’re going to get snow before long."
She cursed silently and looked at the darkening clouds in the sky. The temperature was moderately cold, but the day was coming to a close and temperatures were going to drop. I unwrapped the parachute and with Karen’s help made a respectable litter to carry Jim with.
I looked at where the sun was going down and took a guess on which direction was north. Since my French skills were nonexistent we really needed to get to Paris or even into Germany, where all three of us could communicate effectively.
We walked north for about an hour, covering probably about two miles, before seeing a house in the distance. It was beginning to get dark outside and we were running out of options. We decided to head towards it in hopes of figuring somewhere to go, or if nothing else scamming some food for us.
The closer we got, however, the more it seemed like the house was deserted. It wasn’t overly surprising. We got to the edge of the woods about two hundred yards away from the house. We unceremoniously dumped Jim onto the ground and sat down next to him.
"Do you think it’s empty?" Karen asked me.
"It’s worth checking out," I nodded, "Stay here with Jim and I’ll go investigate the place."
"Maybe I should go," she cautioned, "I can speak French, you can’t."
"If I see people I’ll come back and get you," I reassured her, "I’m better at sneaking around than you are. Plus, I’m still armed and can deal with a threat."
"You’re armed?" she asked me, "How?"
"I kept the silenced pistol from the plane," I reminded her, "I don’t like going out into territory I’m unfamiliar with unarmed."
She nodded and I approached the house quickly. I saw no sign of tire tracks anywhere, but since I didn’t know how common owning a car was in southern France I didn’t put anything to that. I heard nothing from the house as I walked around it. The pens in the back were empty and the whole place looked like it really wasn’t very well taken care of.
It was starting to get cold outside, so I figured another test would be to put my hand to one of the windows. I reached up and put my fingers on one of the windows and found it as cold as the outside was. I reached up onto the windowsill and pulled myself up so I could look inside.
I really should have done this first, as the house was definitely uninhabited. There was very little furniture and all of it was covered up. I walked around to the back door and went up the steps. The door was locked, but the lock was ancient. I used my knife to slide into the gap of the door and slip the lock.
I went back out to Karen and helped her up off the ground. She looked at me in question and I smiled and wordlessly encouraged her to grab her end of Jim’s litter. We dragged him up to the house and up the back stairs into the house. The furniture was sparse, but there was an old couch covered with a sheet that we unceremoniously dumped Jim’s dead weight on to.
"Looks like we finally hit a little luck," Karen said as she looked around, "You think it’s been abandoned long?"
"A couple years is my guess," I shrugged as I looked around, "I’m going to go through the rest of the house looking for ways to get heat in here."
She nodded and sat down in one of the other covered chairs. I stood up and walked into the other room, looking for anything that could help. The house was very old, and showed no signs of even having electricity. It was a large house, and from the looks it was
probably some rich family’s old country house.
The kitchen was equipped with an old wood cooking stove and from the looks of all the rooms I had gone into the whole house was heated by wood stoves.
I looked in the pantry and found some canned goods, all of them with labels at least five years old. I also found a couple pans and an old beat up pot. I put the pot in the pantry next to the old canned goods figuring that I’d come collect them later.
I found the stairs going up to the second level after a bit of hunting and walked up them slowly. They creaked like nobody’s business and felt like that it was quite possible that they could give at any minute. I checked out the upstairs bedrooms and found them in even worse shape than the rooms downstairs.
I found some old blankets in the closets, which I grabbed figuring that Karen and I were going to need them tonight. Nothing else was really looking useful, so I went into the last room carrying the pile of blankets. The room was completely empty, not even an old covered up chair hanging around.
I really wish I had left the blankets where they were and gone back to get them, because it would have saved me some pain. I didn’t realize until it was too late what was happening. The room I walked into was easily the most dilapidated in the house because it couldn’t hold someone of my size and weight. I had taken but four steps into the room when I felt a rather disconcerting sense of free fall.
The floor had let go under me and I felt myself crashing through down to the room under me. I let out a blistering scream as I went down and crashed onto the floor. Luckily, the lower floors were either better built or in better shape because it held my weight.
I didn’t pass out this time, though I’m not sure if that was a blessing or not. I had at least six broken bones and hurt like hell. Karen heard the crash and came running into the room to find me lying on the floor. She stood there for a second and looked first at the hole in the ceiling and then at me lying on the floor.
"I fall down," I said in my pathetic attempt at a Curly imitation.
"I see that," she said, "Are you ok?"
"Help straighten me out," I instructed her, "The bones will heal in an hour or so."
"At least you found blankets," she said as she helped me.
Night Strike Page 11
