"How do you get out of the plane, Jeff?" asked Breanna. There was fear in her voice-she was worried for him.
"He goes out from one of the auxiliary seats up here," said Dog. "Right, Zen?"
"That"s exactly what I"m thinking, Colonel. What do you say?"
"I say it"s up to General Samson," said Dog. "But I think it may be our best bet."
"Get moving," said Samson. "Let"s do it now."
IN OUTLINE, THE PLAN WAS SIMPLICITY ITSELF. ZEN WOULD eject at 30,000 feet, five miles from the hill, far from sight and earshot of the troops below. He"d then glide down to the president and his family, and use the MESSKIT to fly them to another spot four miles away, where the Osprey would arrive to pick them up.
The details were where things got complicated.
Because Zen couldn"t walk, he"d to have to land as close to the president as possible. The large bare spot near the crest of the hill would be the easiest place for a rendezvous; if that didn"t work, there were two places farther down that might. One was an elbow turn in a dried-out creek bed about halfway down the hill; the opening was roughly thirty by twenty feet. The other was a gouge close to the base of the hill, fifty yards in from the road. The gouge was probably the remains of a gravel mine, and was much wider than either of the other two spots. But it was also very close to a makeshift lookout post set up by the soldiers surrounding the area.
To make the pickup, Zen would need to be in direct communication with the president. The technical side of this was difficult enough: Zen would trade his Flighthawk helmet for a standard Dreamland flight helmet, swapping in the MESSKIT guidance and information system, a piece of software that connected to the helmet"s screen functions via a program card about the size of a quarter. He would then hook the helmet into a survival radio to communicate with the Johnson rather than the Bennett, since it would be easier to coordinate communications aboard the pressurized ship. The Johnson, meanwhile, would capture the president"s mobile phone call through the Dreamland channel and then relay it to Zen. The need to communicate presented an inherent risk: While they would use an obscure frequency rather than the emergency band commonly monitored, there was nonetheless a chance that it could be intercepted. Its sixty-four-bit encryption would be difficult to decipher, but the radio waves could be tracked.
The field where they would meet the Osprey was well west of the house, and could be approached without running past any of the antiaircraft guns, most of which were closer to the house. Zen would fly by two of the guns, but the radar experts believed that his profile would be small enough, and low enough, that the radar used by the weapons would completely miss him. The guns could be visually sighted, but that took time and would be hard in the dark.
Three trips. In theory, Zen could do it all in an hour, once he landed.
The question was how close together would theory and reality fall.
Voda hadn"t called back. The mission would be scrubbed if they didn"t hear from him.
As Dog flew EB-52 Bennett into position, Zen got out of his specially designed flight chair and slipped to the deck of the Megafortress. Then he crawled to the ladder at the rear of the compartment and climbed to the flight deck.
"Hey, Zen, why didn"t you tell us you were on your way?" said Spiff, getting up from his radar station as Zen crawled toward him.
"I didn"t think it would be worth the trouble."
"Jeez, let me help you."
Zen knew from experience that the sight of a grown man crawling along the floor unnerved some people, and sometimes he got a twisted pleasure from seeing them squirm as he did it. But Spiff"s worried expression took him by surprise, and he let Spiff help him as a way of putting him at ease.
"I just need a hand getting strapped in," he said, pushing up into the seat. "I"m hoping I fit."
As Zen pressed himself into the seat, he glanced up at the outlines of the hatch he was going to be shot through. It looked terribly small.
He turned his attention back to his gear, taking one last inventory. He slapped his hand down to the survival knife in the scabbard pocket at his thigh, then slipped his hand into his vest, making sure his Beretta was easily accessible.
"Let"s get this show on the road," he said. "I"m ready to fly."
"SECURE ANYTHING LOOSE," DOG TOLD THE CREW. "MAKE sure your oxygen masks are nice and snug. Get your gloves on. Not only is it going to get noisy and windy in here, but it"ll be cold too."
"We"re ready, Colonel," said Sullivan.
"We have to work our way down to alt.i.tude gradually. There"ll be no rushing," added Dog. "Everybody check your gear one last time, make sure the oxygen is tight and you have a green on the suit system."
He checked his own restraints, then glanced at his watch, intending to give the rest of the crew a full minute.
"Sullivan, you ready?" Dog asked.
"Ready, Colonel."
"Spiff?"
"Good to go."
"Rager?"
"Ready, sir."
"Zen?"
"Roger that."
"All right. Let"s find out where the h.e.l.l our rescuee is," said Dog, tapping the Dreamland Command line.
Presidential villa, near Stulpicani, Romania 0130 A CLUMP OF p.r.i.c.kLE BUSHES HAD GROWN UP AROUND A fallen tree about fifty yards from the bald spot on the hill. The brush formed an L, with the long end extending almost straight down. Not only did the bushes provide cover, but they also cut down on the wind, which seemed to Voda much stronger on this side of the hill.
The pain in his knee had settled to a sharp throb that moved in unison with his breath. He pa.s.sed the cell phone from one hand to another, staring at it. His fingers were numb.
"What"s going on?" Mircea asked.
"I"m calling the Americans back," he told her.
Now he couldn"t remember any part of the number. He could feel the panic rising in his chest. Part of him wanted to fling the phone down and simply run up the hill. He"d shout, make himself a target, run at the soldiers, let them kill him. It would be a relief.
He wasn"t going to do that. He was going to get his family out of there. And then he was going to save his country.
Voda began working through the unfamiliar menus to find recently dialed calls. The number was there.
Reverse the last two digits. That was the problem.
He could just call the amba.s.sador, have him make the transfer again.
He tried reversing the digits first. A man answered immediately.
"President Voda, I"m very glad you"re able to call," said the man in a bright, southwestern-tinted American accent. "You are working with some of the best people in the business. We"ll have you out of there before you can sing your national anthem."
Voda didn"t know what to say, nor did he have a chance as the man continued breathlessly.
"My name is Mack Smith and I"m going to making the communications connections for you. We"re going to need you to stay on the line once it goes through. I know you"re worried about your battery, but we"re in the home stretch now. You"re going to be talking directly to the fellow who"s going to pick you up. His name is Zen Stockard. He"s got a bit of an ego to him, but don"t be put off by that. He is one kick-a.s.s pilot."
"You are sending a helicopter?"
"Not exactly. I"ll let Zen give you the dope. Now. You ready?"
Voda was confused by Mack"s slang as well as his accent.
"OK," he replied.
"Here we go."
There was a slight delay, then a new voice came on the line.
"President Voda, this is Colonel Tec.u.mseh Bastian. Do you recognize my name, sir?"
"Yes, Colonel. You are very famous. You head the Dreamland squadron."
"Yes, sir. I"m in a plane a few miles from the hill where you are. In just a few minutes one of my men is going to pick you up."
"By helicopter?"
"No, sir. We"re afraid it would be shot down. What"s going to happen is this: One of my men will rendezvous with you on the ground. He"ll be wearing a special device that you can think of as a jet pack. He"ll fly you and your family one by one to safety."
A jet pack?
"If it will work-" started Voda. He didn"t get a chance to finish the thought.
"It will work, sir. But we need your help. We"d like you to go to a point where it will be easy to find you. There"s a bald spot near the crest of the hill, on the far side of the hill, that is, from your house."
"I can"t go there. The soldiers are there."
"All right. We have alternatives."
He heard Dog take a hard breath.
"A little farther down the hill there"s a creek," said Dog. "It"s either completely dry or just about; it"s hard to tell from the satellite photo I"ve seen. But it"s wide, and it takes a sharp turn down the hill and there"s an open s.p.a.ce in the woods. Can you go there?"
"I-I don"t know where it is."
"If you were at the bald spot, it"s exactly 232 meters below it, and fifteen meters to the north, which would be on your right if you were looking downhill. Does that help?"
"Yes," said Voda. He could find it simply by going down the hill. The creak bed should be obvious; when they hit it, he would turn right.
"I need you to stay on the line," added Dog. "I know you"re worried about being found or running out your battery. But it will help us immensely. We may need you to guide us. I don"t want to have to call you back."
Mircea and Julian were huddled against him. He could feel them shaking. If this didn"t work, they would freeze to death.
"All right, I"ll try," said Voda, struggling to his feet. "We"re on our way."
Aboard EB-52 Bennett,
above northeastern Romania
0130.
EVEN THOUGH HE KNEW IT WAS COMING, THE JOLT FROM the seat as it shot upward took Zen"s breath away. The shock was so hard that for a second he thought he"d hit the side of the hatch going out. Zen hurtled up into a black void, the sky rushing into his head like the water from a bathtub surging into a drain. The seat fell away, the restraints cut by knives as he shot up, but he didn"t notice; to him, the only thing he could feel was the roar in his body, as if he had become a rocket.
A grayish grid ghosted on the visor of helmet. The MESSKIT"s activation light began to blink.
All right, Zen thought, let"s get this done.
He spread his arms, trying to frog his body. The screen altimeter lit; he was at 32,053 feet, a little higher than he"d expected.
Up until now, Zen had always tried to make his practice jumps last-he wanted to glide slowly to earth. Tonight, his goal was to get down as quickly as possible. So he instructed the MESSKIT to deploy at 10,000 feet, figuring it would be easier to fall to that alt.i.tude quickly than to fly to it.
The device didn"t like the instructions. It flashed the words beyond safety protocols on the screen.
"Override," he told it.
But the computer wouldn"t. Annie Klondike hadn"t wanted to take chances with his life, and so had programmed various safety protocols into the unit that would initiate deployment based not only on velocity, but on time elapsed and alt.i.tude drop. Zen was forced to open his wings at 21,500 feet.
He compensated by leaning forward and pushing his arms back, turning the exoskeleton as close to a jet as possible. His descent increased to 25 feet per second before the safety measures kicked in, once more preventing him from dropping any faster.
"This is Zen. Johnson, you hearing me?"
"We have you, Zen," replied Lieutenant Englehardt in the Johnson. "You ready to talk to President Voda?"
"Yeah, roger that."
"Be advised he"s hard to understand. And probably vice versa. Speak as slowly and distinctly as you can."
"Yeah, roger that."
"What am I hearing?" said a foreign voice, distant and faint.
"This is Zen Stockard, Mr. President. I"m going to help you. How far are you from the stream location?"
"I am still looking."
"I"m about twelve minutes away," Zen told him. "Do you think you can find it by then?"
"I will try."