“Yet in the center of this vortex is the eye. The eye can be anywhere from twenty to forty miles across. It’s perfectly clear. Almost windless with no rainfall. That’s because the eye wall, which is composed of the dense clouds creating the hurricane, is swirling counterclockwise so fast it can’t break away from itself.”
“And you know this how?” she asked.
Gunner furrowed his brow and a bewildered look came over his face. “Whadya mean?”
“How do you know all of this?” Cam pressed him. “Have you ever been in the eye of a hurricane?”
“Well, no. But everybody knows—”
“Knows what? What they read on the internet or what that guy Chapman Boone spews on the Weather Channel?”
Gunner chose to remain silent, a technique Bear should learn when dealing with Cam.
She continued. “Okay, flyboy, let me ask you this. Do you know of anyone who has actually tried this?”
Gunner grimaced. “Well, not personally, of course. But I’ve read about skydivers who’ve looked at dropping through a tornado or a hurricane, you know, like those extreme sports things. But trying to drop through a tornado would be crazy.”
Cam burst out laughing and wandered around the table. The airmen preparing their gear stopped what they were doing to see what was so funny. Well, it wasn’t actually funny.
“And this isn’t? Look, Gunner. I’m all in. You know that. I’m just sayin’ I’d feel a little bit better knowing that someone has done this before.”
“I’m sure somebody has, and after we do it, we might actually be the first. Think of the YouTube video we’re gonna create. We’ll be famous.”
Cam rolled her eyes and shook her head. Men, strike that, boys were confounding.
“Well, let’s just say I’ll feel better when my feet hit the water.”
Gunner slapped Bear on the back and extended his fist to bump Cam’s. At first, she hesitated and then finally relented.
“That’s my partner. Seriously, no worries. What could go wrong?”
Chapter Fourteen
Hurricane Archie
03 GMT 07/29/2030
Saffir-Simpson Scale: Wind 110 mph, Pressure 968 millibars, Category 2 Hurricane
Latitude 25.1 N, Longitude 95.8 W
One Hundred Miles East of Brownsville, Texas
Gulf of Mexico
“Well, hell,” Gunner calmly said into the comms. He didn’t think he was going to die. He’d faced worse. He’d cheated death on more occasions than he could count. Ejecting from a disintegrating test aircraft in the stratosphere hadn’t really frightened him. He had been in a weird headspace at the time, so the fall back to Earth was almost calming. Being chased by the remnants of a destroyed asteroid had been another matter. It was the lack of control that caused him to fear death was imminent. As his Starhopper came soaring through Earth’s atmosphere, he’d felt completely at the mercy of a higher power, one that would determine his fate.
Now, that same feeling had overtaken him. It was if the hand of God had reached through the eye wall of the hurricane and plucked him out of the sky. However, if he didn’t do something quick, he’d not only be carried away by the massive cyclone churning up the warm waters of the Gulf, but he was gonna land somewhere between the Victory and Brownsville a hundred miles away. Regardless of where he landed, it was gonna hurt like actual hell.
“Gunner! Gunner! Come in!”
Gunner’s eyes darted around inside his helmet as he saw the landing zone and Cam’s radar blip begin to move off his screen. The centrifugal force generated by the incredible power of the storm dragged him away. The accompanying low pressure within the eye wall threatened to crush his skull and his internal organs.
The air was thinning, making his breathing difficult. It was if he’d been hoisted many thousands of feet into the air, only his helmet telemetry read otherwise. He had to break the storm’s grip on his chute, and the only option was to cut the ties that bind, as they say.
At the speed he was being pulled by the hurricane, he was unable to engage the main parachute’s quick-release clip. Gunner reached for his right thigh, unzipped the leg pocket, and retrieved his Morakniv fixed blade from its sheath. Using the serrated edge, he worked to cut through the military-specification Type III paracord attached to his chute.
With the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he made it through the cords just as he was being pelted with the rain from the intense thunderstorms within the eye wall. Now he was free of its grip and was free-falling back to Earth.
Lightning raced down the eye wall just to his left, temporarily blinding Gunner as it sent the bright white flash of light through the night-vision lenses of his helmet. The combination of the bright light and his tumbling downward made him nauseous.
“Don’t puke, asshole,” he said aloud.
“Gunner? Where are you?”
Cam’s voice helped him get it together. “Slight problem. Off course.”
“No shit. You took off in the wrong direction.”
“Not by choice,” he said as he cranked the arch, a skydiving term referring to achieving the most stable body position during the descent. The shape of a banana resembles the ideal position whereby the skydiver pushes his pelvis forward while keeping his chin high. This allows for a stable free fall toward the target and prevents a head-over-heels, vomit-inducing ugly descent.
Having found a stable belly-to-earth position, Gunner easily reached terminal velocity of one hundred twenty miles per hour. He used the air-cooled feature of the Devtac helmet to steady his breathing. His pulse rate slowed as his body calmed itself. The atmospheric pressure in his head equalized, causing his ears to pop. The relief helped him focus on his telemetry.
Gunner used his right hand to search his chest rig for the main parachute’s risers. After he jettisoned his main parachute, he’d have to rely upon his reserve. He always looked at the reserve chute as a top-safety-rated minivan. It wasn’t as stylish as that Porsche, but it would save your life when hit by a Mack truck.
He found
