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Connor
We had to access the cargo hold and jump from there in order to avoid getting sucked into the engines, so we removed an access panel in the Gulfstream’s cabin wall and set it aside. Cold air blasted out of the dark hole at hurricane force.
While the others prepared to jump, I unzipped one of the tiny pouches sewn into my black fatigues and pulled out the wedding rings. I rubbed them again, felt the embossed patterns in the metal, and kissed them once more.
Today was supposed to be our wedding day, not the day we both might die.
No,I told myself. That’s NOT going to happen.
I’m putting this on your finger TODAY, Lily. I swear it.
Then I replaced the rings and zipped them up tight and secure.
Everyone else was finally ready. Leo grabbed his AR-15 and disappeared through the hatch. Exactly twenty seconds later, Juan crawled in after him.
Twenty seconds after that, Johnny slapped my shoulder. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”
My heart pounding, I crawled into the darkness and tried to remember what Johnny had drilled into me over the last two hours.
First, push out the storage crate with the scuba sled.
I used my handheld flashlight and found the metal storage crate. There was a parachute rigged to it that would deploy at 2000 feet above sea level. My job was to keep far enough from the crate so I didn’t hit it when I landed in the water. Otherwise I might break my legs, or worse, my back.
I grunted and shoved the crate out the hole. It went tumbling into the void and immediately disappeared.
Jump out after it.
I felt like I was about to have a heart attack – but I clutched my AR-15 like it was my only hope at salvation and dove headfirst into the darkness.
The world spun crazily as I tumbled through pitch black. First came panic – and then, as I righted myself and stopped spinning, exhilaration.
I was doing it.
I angled my body and drifted to the left, far enough away from the crate that I would be safe when my parachute deployed.
Check your altitude gauge.
There was a glow-in-the-dark LED counter attached to my parachute rig – the only thing I could see in the darkness. I watched the numbers decrease rapidly in 100-foot increments.
9700… 9600… 9500… 9400…
Pull your chute at around 3000 feet.
As the number reached 4000, I grabbed the ripcord and held it loosely.
At 3200, I held my breath and pulled.
The chute unfurled.
Suddenly the hand of God reached down and yanked me violently upward.
I was floating instead of falling. Well, actually, I was still falling – just slower. On my LED screen, the numbers clicked down at a less dizzying pace.
It was gorgeous. A crescent moon soared high above me. Thousands of stars were flung across the sky like tiny diamonds on black velvet.
Several hundred feet to my right and hundreds of feet below me, a small circle bloomed in the darkness. The scuba sled’s parachute had deployed. The only reason I could see it was the glow-in-the-dark stripes sewn into the parachute cloth.
