Phantom Squad Page 7

Chapter 7

  As Brent walked out of the hangar, he expected to see a military aircraft waiting to take them to the designated altitude. Instead, he saw a crop duster: a bi-wing, single prop, old piece of farm equipment.

  “Do you need help winding that thing up?” Jefferson joked.

  Seven looked at him with the eyes of a ghost, spit and said, “It gets the job done, that’s all that matters.”

  Fitz pointed to the ground beneath the fuselage. “Christ, it’s leaking oil. Can it take off and land in one piece?”

  “Don’t use the good Lord’s name in vane, Corporal,” Seven said, “and I don’t give a crap if it can land, as long as it can take off.”

  The four boarded the plane and began to ascend to the proper altitude. The diesel fumes were so thick they clung to their skin like the spray of a skunk. It seemed to permeate their pores. When the smell and taste didn’t seem they could possibly get worse, Seven slid open the door on the side of the aircraft.

  “Try to take shallow breaths,” he said. “If you puke in mid air, your lunch might hit the man above you, and that might be me.”

  He glanced at the men as he read the altimeter hanging from the inside of the plane. Jefferson and Fitzpatrick had their shirts pulled up over their noses, Brent squatted with his eyes closed.

  “We jump according to rank,” Seven said. Brent’s eyes opened as he heard the words. Seven smiled. “Officers off last.”

  Jefferson and Fitzpatrick deployed without issue.

  Seven waved Brent over to the opening. “It’s time you joined the party, Professor.”

  Brent scooted over to the opening and slid his legs out of the open door. The momentum of the plane pushed his legs toward the back of the craft. Brent’s heart rate increased and his respirations started to become shallow.

  “Looks like we found a weakness,” Seven yelled over the sound of the propeller.

  “I’ll be fine,” Brent said. “I’m used to getting flushed out of the butt end of a C-130. This is a bit more . . . voluntary.”

  Seven didn’t answer, he just pointed to the strut of the wing.

  Brent clung on to the fuselage of the plane, not sure what Seven was telling him.

  Seven leaned close to Brent’s ear. “Place your feet on the bar below the wing and reach out and grab the strut, the piece that attaches the wing to the body of the plane.”

  Brent did as ordered.

  “When I tap your shoulder, it’s time to fly,” Seven yelled. Brent nodded his affirmative. “On three,” Seven continued. “One, two, three. Go, go, go.”

  Brent felt the tap but held on tight.

  “Fly now or miss the drop zone.” Seven reared back and kidney punched Brent in his left flank.

  The punch had two effects. It cleared Brent’s head and forced him to let go of the strut. The next thing he knew, he was mid-air, arms and legs stretched out and back, in a classic free-fall position.

  Before his nerves could completely settle, he looked and saw that he was at eighteen hundred feet, the ordered altitude for chute deployment. He reached to the front of his harness and found the red handle on his chest. With one quick pull, he heard the chute unfurl. It sounded like a sheet being fluffed before it was laid on a bed. He looked up, through infrared goggles, and saw his parachute unfold against the black, moonless night. After what seemed an eternity, he felt a jerk as his open parachute caught the air and slowed his drop.

  Truth was, Brent didn’t mind jumping, but he wasn’t all that keen on the floating part. That was the best thing about high altitude, low opening— HALO—jumps made by Special Forces. There was no down time. You dropped, you opened, and you hit the ground. This was different. Too much floating.

  Seven had been right in his estimation of wind speed. It took all the concentration Brent had to keep the chute from veering off course. He pulled on the left and right toggle lines as if he were a marionette.

  Five minutes into his flight, he finally viewed the opening in the trees at the top of the ridge. He pulled straight down of the toggle handles in order to put the brakes on and slow his decent. Just above the tree line, he felt a strong gust of wind blow from behind. He had just enough time to cover his eyes before he smacked straight into the trees.

  Brent hung from a thick branch about thirty feet above terra-firma. As he surveyed his options, he thought, it doesn’t seem I have much choice. I either cut myself loose or hang here until Seven finds me and that’s not an option. He pulled his knife out of its sheath and started to cut the lines of his chute. He hoped that as each was cut, he would slip a little lower to the ground. That didn’t happen either. With the cut of the last line, he fell thirty feet to the base of the tree.

  He lay still and assessed his body for damage. After the initial assessment, he felt a warm, wet, trickle slide over his upper lip. Hoping that it was sweat, his tongue instinctively found the drip. He tasted the bitterness of iron and knew it was blood.

  Brent slid his large utility knife from its sheath and unscrewed the end of the handle. On the underside of the cap, there was a mirror. The gash, just under his right eye, was deep and a little over an inch long. He reached into his backpack and removed his first aid kit. Brent took a deep cleansing breath before pouring alcohol into the open wound. The last thing he needed now was an infection. He emitted a silent scream.

  As the pain subsided, he could hear Seven’s words in his mind. “Pain is a crutch. You need to figure out a way to eliminate it when you are hurt or you will fail your mission and worse yet, you will fail your squad.”

  Brent heated a needle with his lighter to a glowing red, closed his eyes, took slow deep breaths, and felt . . . nothing. He opened his eyes, and stitched the cut closed using his suture kit. He then wiped the area clean with some more alcohol and looked at his handy work. That will leave a scar, he thought.

  With no time to waste, Brent repacked his supplies, buried his chute, and began the land leg of his mission.