“The first and most important rule is the one that beginners find hardest,” Jerry said. “When you jump, you’ve got to wait as long as possible before you release the canopy. The longer you wait, the further you travel away from the side of the cliff. And you must keep your shoulders level. The last thing you need is a one eighty onto a hard- core object.”
“What’s that in English?” Alex asked.
“It’s what occurs when you get an off-heading opening. Basically, it means you go the wrong way and hit the cliff.”
“And what happens then?”
“Yeah. Well… you die.”
Alex was wearing a helmet, knee pads and elbow pads. Jerry had also lent him a pair of sturdy hiking boots.
But that was all. He would need to react instantly as he fell through the sky, and too much protective gear would only slow him down. Besides, as Jerry had pointed out, nobody had ever made a BASE jump without basic training. If something went wrong, all the protective clothes in the world wouldn’t do him one bit of good.
And the difference between life and death?
For Alex it boiled down to two hundred and twenty square feet of Fill nylon. Skydivers need on average one square foot of parachute for every pound of their body weight and equipment. But BASE jumpers need almost half that again. Alex’s chute had been designed for Jerry, who was heavier than he was. He would have plenty of material.
He was carrying a seven-cell Blackjack canopy which Jerry had bought second hand for a little under one thousand American dollars. An ordinary parachute normally contains nine cells—nine separate pockets. The larger BASE canopy is thought to be more docile, easier to fly and land accurately. Alex’s own weight would drag it out of the deployment bag as he fell, and it would inflate over his head, taking the shape of an aerofoil, the ram-air design of all modern parachutes.
Jerry stood next to him, pointing a black gadget about the size and shape of a pair of binoculars at the ground.
He was taking a reading. “Three hundred and fifty-seven metres,” he said. He took out a laminated card—an altitude delay planner—and quickly consulted it. “You can do a four,” he said. “It’ll give you approximately fifteen seconds under canopy. A six max. But that’ll mean landing almost at once.” Alex understood what he was saying. He could free-fall for between four and six seconds. The less time he spent dangling underneath the parachute, the less chance he would have of being spotted from below. On the other hand, the faster he arrived, the more chance he would have of breaking most of his bones.
“And when you get down there, remember…”
“Flaring.”
“Yes. If you don’t want to break both your legs, you have to slow yourself down about three or four seconds before impact.”
“Not three or four seconds after impact,” Tom added helpfully. “That’ll be too late.”
“Thanks!”
Alex looked around. There was nobody in sight. He half wished a policeman or somebody from the villa would come along and put a stop to this before he could actually jump. But the gardens were empty. The white marble heads stared past him, not remotely interested.
“You’ll go from nought to sixty miles an hour in about three seconds,” Jerry went on. “I’ve put on a mesh slider, but you’re still going to feel the opening shock. But at least that’ll warn you you’re about to land. That’s when you get both feet and knees together. Put your chin on your chest. And try not to bite your tongue in half.
I almost did on my first time.”
“Yes.” Single words were about all Alex could manage.
Jerry looked over the precipice. “The roof of Consanto is right beneath us and there’s no wind. You won’t have much time to steer but you can try pulling on the toggles.” He rested a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “I could do this for you, if you like,” he said.
“No.” Alex shook his head. “Thanks, Jerry. But it’s down to me. It was my idea…”
“Good luck.”
“Break a leg!” Tom exclaimed. “Or rather—don’t.”
Alex moved to the edge between two of the statues and looked down. He was right over the complex, although from this height it looked tiny, like a silver Lego brick. Most of the workers would have left by now but there would still be guards. He would just have to hope that nobody looked up in the few seconds it would take him to arrive. But that was what he had observed earlier, outside the gate. Consanto faced the sea. The main road and the entrance were on the same side. That was where all their attention was focused, and if Alex was lucky, he would be able to drop in—quite literally—unnoticed.
His stomach heaved. There was no feeling in his legs. He felt as if he were floating. He tried to take a deep breath but the air didn’t seem to want to rise above his chest. Did it really matter to him so much, penetrating Consanto, finding out how it might be involved with Scorpia? What would Tom and his brother say if he changed his mind, even at this last minute?
To hell with it, he thought. Lots of teenagers did BASE jumps. Jerry himself had recently jumped off the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia. It had been Bridge Day, the one day in the year when the jump was legal in America, and he had said there’d been dozens of kids waiting in line. It was a sport. People did it for fun. If he hesitated for one more second, he would never do it. It was time to get it over with.
In a single movement he climbed onto the parapet, checked the line from the pilot chute, took one last look at the target and jumped.
It was like committing suicide.
