All Necessary Force

“That’s what took me so long. There’s nothing for miles around here. We’re good.”

I smiled at her, getting a nod in return. Without a word, she turned and began to dig into a bag. Jesus. Melt the glacier a little.

She pulled out what looked like a small calculator and a penlight. “You want to rope?”

“Yeah, hook up the radio.”

She disassembled the antennae to her truck until she could get at the cable leading to the radio. She stripped the insulation until bare wire showed. Opening the battery box to the calculator, she pulled out two alligator clips and snapped them into the wire. She powered up the device, getting a series of ones across the screen.

“We’re secure.”

I dialed the radio to 88.9, hearing soft static. We couldn’t talk to the bird, but he could now talk to us. He’d transmit on a standard FM frequency, which would come in encrypted but would be decrypted by the device Jennifer had just attached and come out through the stereo speakers just like a DJ.

We spent the next thirty minutes in uncomfortable silence. I was on the verge of doing a perimeter recce just to get away, when the radio crackled to life.

“Prometheus, Prometheus, this is Stork. Do you copy?”

I turned on the penlight. Nothing visible happened, but I knew an infrared beam was now stabbing into the night, looking like a spotlight at a car dealer’s to the men flying with night vision goggles. I began to do slow loops in the sky, like I was working a lasso.

“Roger, Prometheus, got your rope. Stand by.”

Retro saw the jumpmaster touch his wrist where a watch would be and hold up two hands, fingers spread. Ten minutes. He felt the adrenaline start to rise. There was always a chance the jump would be called off, but the call told him it was a go. He saw the jumpmaster key his radio, and his earpiece crackled to life. “Retro, this is Decoy, you hear me?”

“Yeah, I got you.”

“Help the loadmaster with Buckshot’s bundle. We’re closer than I thought.”

“Roger.”

To his front was a six-foot-by-three-foot tube full of the team’s equipment. Another man on the team, Buckshot, would strap himself to it and ride it out into the night tandem, parachuting with the entire team’s gear. He saw Buckshot begin working the myriad of clips and buckles on the bundle and knew he was grinning under his oxygen mask, the whites of his eyes stark against his ebony skin. Crazy fucker. Strapping himself to a death ride.

Buckshot was one of those guys who loved jumping, and did it on the weekends just for kicks. Retro was not. He despised it. Even when it was just a “Hollywood” jump, with no equipment on a crystal-clear day. Especially when it was in the dead of night at 26,000 feet. With another man strapped to a torpedo. Into a blind drop zone. At least you’re not jumping equipment. With the exception of a Glock 30 in a pancake holster on his hip, all other team gear was in the tandem bundle — ammunition, long guns, beacons, and whatever other special equipment they thought they’d need — which Buckshot would ride. In Retro’s mind, there was a reason HALO parachute infiltrations were classified as a “life support activity” by the military. Because people fucking die doing this shit.

He cinched down his leg straps and did a final check of his parachute harness, touching his rip cord and cutaway pillow while mentally going through what he would do if his main parachute failed. The jumpmaster, Decoy, cleared the loadmaster to open the ramp. Retro watched it lower, each inch escalating the sense of dread, his breath now coming in rapid pants, his goggles beginning to fog. Soon. Going soon.

Buckshot tapped his arm and motioned to the small drogue parachute container on the enormous pack he wore, something that was necessary to keep him above the bundle as he hurtled to earth. Retro secured it, waiting on the inevitable follow-on commands that would cause them to leave the safety of the aircraft.

He looked out the ramp and could barely make out the distinction between the earth and the sky. The night was huge. A black pool waiting to swallow him. He saw the stars blinking, the frigid air from the altitude mixing with the sweat of his fear. He calmed himself down like he always did, by remembering he didn’t have to worry about the part where he jumped off the ramp. The two minutes of free fall are painless. It’s the sudden stop at the end that hurts.

Kneeling at the juncture of the ramp and the aircraft frame, Decoy stuck his head into the wind, making sure the pilots weren’t two grid squares off. He stood up and gave the two-minute warning. Retro saw the jump light go green, and barely noticed the loadmaster unhooking his oxygen tube from the floor-mounted console, allowing him to breathe straight from the bottle on his harness. He inched forward with his hand on the drogue as Buckshot pushed the bundle toward the open chasm.

Decoy looked off the ramp again, making sure they were in the correct location for the release. He pulled back into the aircraft and extended his arm, his hand giving a thumbs-up. He bounced the hand off the floor and stood. Retro’s adrenaline skyrocketed.

Here we go. Here we go.

Buckshot checked to make sure Retro still had control of the drogue chute. He locked eyes, nodded, then pushed the bundle to the end of the ramp, inches from the abyss.

Decoy looked off the ramp for the last time, then faced into the plane. He extended his arm and pointed into the night, like Death ordering them into the grave.

Retro watched Buckshot push the bundle off the ramp like a NASCAR crew pushing a car out of pit row, the line from the drogue chute snaking out of the pack on his back. He disappeared into space, pulling the drogue chute from Retro’s hands. Retro took two quick steps and followed suit, diving headfirst into the black sky.

The subzero temperature immediately turned the fog in his goggles to ice. The wind punched him, attempting to flip him on his back, and within seconds he was traveling at one hundred and twenty miles an hour. The feeling finally relaxed him — as it always did.

He located the ChemLights of the bundle, with Buckshot attached, then the ChemLight of the jumpmaster, Decoy, both farther away than he wanted. He tucked his arms into his side and began to dive, his speed increasing until he was overtaking their fall. Before he slammed into them, he spread out and arched his back, now falling flat and stable next to Decoy, the bundle below them and to the left.

Ninety seconds later, he checked his altimeter and broke away, the adrenaline firing back up. Moment of truth.

He waved off and looked for his ripcord, a feeble light coming from the half-inch baby ChemLight he’d taped to it, a relic from a jump when his ripcord had floated free from its pocket, forcing him to find it while he hurtled to earth, the slim piece of metal whipping around in the darkness. This time, it was right where it was supposed to be. He hooked his thumb and jerked, then looked over his shoulder, feeling the pilot chute pull out the main. He felt the satisfying yank in his groin as he decelerated to a sane speed. He looked up and saw a perfect rectangle against the night sky.

One more piece of luck I’ve used up.

29

Kurt sat outside the Oval Office, waiting on President Warren to get a spare moment. He’d done this ritual more times this month than he had in his entire career, but the HALO infiltration was the topic of the day, and President Warren had demanded to know immediately if anything had gone wrong. After the secretary of state’s outbursts, Kurt secretly thought the president wanted to talk about Taskforce activities outside the view of the Oversight Council and was using the parachute infiltration as an excuse to get Kurt alone.

Not a good sign. The council itself had been created by Kurt and the president to keep Project Prometheus from turning into an American Gestapo. The Taskforce was a powerful, powerful organization that operated completely outside of U.S. law. Both men knew that having it answer to a single man was asking for abuse, so they had created the Oversight Council, bringing in trusted advisors who were both for and against its use, thereby guaranteeing a balanced approach. Now Kurt worried that the president might be short-