Chapter 24 Twenty-Three
Alaska in October meant eighteen hours of darkness. Good for killing, bad for staying sane. The last time I'd been here, I'd been in and out before the bodies went cold. This time I'd have to be careful not to burn the whole facility down with everyone inside.
"Final altitude check, preparing for jump in three minutes," the pilot shouted over the deafening roar of the tiny prop plane's engine. Diego had somehow convinced an old contact to fly us in covertly. No flight plan, no radio contact, high enough to avoid conventional radar. "Oxygen check!"
Northern Alaska lay dark and vast below us, the landscape spread out like a void. Somewhere in that frozen wilderness was the Project Icarus facility.
I double-checked my oxygen mask and the seal on my pressure suit. The thin air at thirty thousand feet would kill us in minutes without it. Free fall had a way of narrowing your priorities. Save those kids. Everything else was noise.
"This is my favorite part!" I shouted to Rafael, who was gripping the metal bench tightly. "First HALO jump?"
"Is this really necessary?" he yelled back, eyeing the open door. The wind whipped through the cabin, freezing cold at this altitude despite our pressure suits and thermal layers. "Couldn't we have driven?"
Diego laughed, the sound barely audible over the engine and through his own oxygen mask. "Where's your sense of adventure, Padre?"
Across from us, Jasper checked his oxygen levels like we were waiting for a bus.
"He's done this a hundred times," Diego called, catching my questioning glance at Jasper. "My man loves jumping almost as much as he hates talking."
Jasper rolled his eyes but didn't deign to respond. Instead, he simply checked his altimeter and held up two fingers. Two minutes to drop.
Diego cleared his throat, patting his pressure suit. He mimicked holding an invisible microphone, his voice muffled but still audible through his oxygen mask.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking," Diego announced, mimicking the soothing tones of a commercial airline pilot.
"You're not the captain," Rafael pointed out dryly, his voice strained. "You're not even flying the plane."
Diego waved this off. "It's my plane. I get to call myself captain if I want.
Julio's just the help." He glanced toward the cockpit, where his hired pilot was focused on the controls, before continuing.
"On behalf of Air Certain Death, I'd like to welcome you to our express flight to the Project Icarus facility.
Weather conditions at our destination are a brisk negative twenty degrees Celsius with light snow.
Perfect visibility for our night jump operations. "
Rafael rolled his eyes, but I could see the corner of his mouth twitching.
"We'll be reaching our drop zone momentarily," Diego continued, gesturing like a flight attendant now. "Please ensure all lethal weapons are safely secured for the initial free fall."
He swept an arm toward the open door where frigid wind whipped through the cabin.
"Our primary exits are located here at the front of the aircraft.
When the light turns green, please form an orderly line and hurl yourselves into the void.
In the event of a sudden loss of courage, begging for mercy will not be acknowledged. You're on your own, amigos."
Even Jasper's mouth twitched in what might have been the ghost of a smile.
"Our in-flight service today includes certain death if you forget to pull your ripcord, probable maiming if you land in the snowdrifts, and complimentary PTSD for our first-time jumpers.
" Diego winked at Rafael. "Our estimated time of arrival at the landing zone is approximately three minutes of free-fall terror followed by a lifetime of questioning your life choices. "
I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. Even in the face of a mission this serious, Diego's ability to cut through tension was exactly what we needed.
"Thank you for choosing Certain Death Airways for your infiltration needs," he finished and took a theatrical bow. "We hope you enjoy your flight and look forward to seeing those who survive at the rendezvous point."
The pilot signaled from the cockpit, holding up one finger.
Diego checked his oxygen one final time. "Seriously though. Facility approach from the north ridge. Rendezvous at the drainage culvert. Comms check on landing. Remember, don't deploy your chutes until you hit one thousand feet. We need to stay off the radar and invisible as long as possible."
I adjusted my night-vision goggles and checked my knives one final time. My hand moved back to the blade strapped to my right thigh and checked it again. The handle was exactly where it should be, the same as the last three times I'd verified it. I needed to focus.
"Don't worry, I'll be right behind you," I assured Rafael, squeezing his shoulder.
"That's what worries me," he replied and gave me a weak smile. "You'll be watching my ass the whole way down."
"Damn right I will," I grinned. "Best view in Alaska, even in a pressure suit."
The plane's red interior light switched to green.
"Go, go, go!" Diego shouted.
Jasper was first out the door, disappearing into the night without a moment's hesitation. Diego followed immediately after, his whoop of joy swallowed by the howling wind.
"Together?" I asked Rafael, holding out my hand.
He took it, squeezing tight enough to grind the bones. "Together."
We jumped.
The first moment after stepping into nothingness was always the most intense. The wind hit hard, tearing at my suit, my mask. The roar was deafening even through my helmet. The temperature cut through every layer of protection.
Then training kicked in. Arms out, legs slightly bent, body positioned for maximum control during free fall.
I looked for Rafael. He was maybe five meters to my right. We'd separated the moment after jumping, but he was close enough if something went wrong. His silhouette was stark against the void, his form textbook perfect despite the terror that had been written all over his face thirty seconds ago.
Our eyes met through our goggles. Even at terminal velocity, even through the plastic and the darkness and the howling wind, I could read his expression. He trusted me. Trusted that I'd get him through this, that we'd land together.
At this altitude, the air was so thin our oxygen masks were the only thing keeping us conscious. Through my night vision goggles, Alaska spread out in shades of green and black below.
Rafael's lips were moving behind his oxygen mask. Prayer or profanity, impossible to tell at this speed.
My altimeter counted down. I adjusted my trajectory, angling closer to him.
At precisely one thousand feet, I caught Rafael's eye and signaled. He nodded.
I deployed my chute.
The sudden deceleration was jarring, the harness digging into my body as I transitioned from free fall to controlled descent. Above me, the canopy bloomed black against the stars. I looked up and checked for tears or tangles, but the deployment was clean.
Rafael's chute opened a heartbeat later. He was maybe fifty meters to my right now, descending in a smooth arc toward our landing zone.
My boots touched down in a clearing exactly where planned, soft and controlled from years of practice. I rolled and dispersed momentum, then was on my feet in seconds. My chute was already gathering and stowing automatically thanks to Jasper's modified equipment.
I yanked off my oxygen mask and sucked in frigid air. My lungs burned. How long had I been holding my breath?
Rafael landed about twenty meters to my right, his greater mass making his impact more substantial. He stumbled only slightly before regaining his balance.
"Holy shit," he breathed, yanking off his oxygen mask and night vision goggles. "We're alive."
"Don't sound so surprised," I laughed quietly, moving to help him collect his chute.
Rafael glanced around the snow-covered clearing. "Where is everyone?"
As if summoned by the question, Diego materialized from the tree line, grinning like the adrenaline junkie he was. "Magnificent, wasn't it? Nothing like a HALO jump to get the blood flowing."
"Where's Jasper?" I asked, scanning our surroundings.
Diego gestured vaguely northeast. "Already moving toward the target. Man doesn't waste time."
"Man's on a mission," I observed, checking my weapons and equipment for damage from the jump. Everything was intact, ready for the violence to come. "Let's not fall behind."
Rafael fell into step beside me. "I am never doing that again, in case that wasn't clear."
"You loved it," I teased, nudging his shoulder. "Admit it. A little brush with death gets the blood pumping."
"All right, kids," Diego said, falling in. "Comms check. Let's hit the plan one more time. Make sure we're all on the same page."
"Jasper takes the east entrance, heading directly for the lower level," Rafael recited. "Diego sets charges at the predetermined structural points while maintaining our exit route. Lorenzo and I extract the remaining children through the drainage culvert to the rendezvous point."
"And if we meet resistance?" Diego prompted.
"Neutralize with minimal noise," I replied automatically, patting the knives strapped to my thighs. "No unnecessary casualties, especially around the children." The weight of my blades against my skin was comforting, familiar. "But anyone who stands between us and those kids is fair game."
Diego grinned. "Well put, though I'd have used more colorful language."
"I was exercising restraint," I replied and winked at him. "Didn't want to scandalize Rafael after his near-death experience in the upper atmosphere."
"I've heard worse," Rafael said, rolling his eyes. "Usually from you, in considerably more private settings."
Diego's eyebrows shot up, his smile turning wicked. "Oh? Do tell, Padre. What does our little feral cat like to say in the bedroom?"
"Nothing that concerns you," Rafael replied, a possessive edge hardening his voice that sent a pleasant shiver down my spine.
Diego laughed.
Rafael frowned at me so hard a crease appeared in the middle of his forehead. "You and Diego... You two ever...?" he left the question hanging, something possessive darkening his expression.
Diego and I exchanged a horrified glance before bursting into identical snorts of laughter.
"God no," Diego said, shaking his head emphatically. "That would be a disaster."
"Two bottoms in a relationship never works," I explained to Rafael and winked at him. "It's like trying to plug a power strip into itself and expecting electricity."
"Don't worry, Padre," Diego said and flashed a big grin. "He's all yours. I've got my sights set elsewhere."
The warmth in my chest flickered and died.
I wasn't anyone's. Not really. Not when we were walking into a building full of caged children who would look at me and see what I used to be. What I still was, underneath all the jokes and the knives and Rafael's hand finding mine in the dark.
I forced a smile back onto my face before Rafael could notice.
We cleared the immediate tree line, and there was Jasper, waiting for us.
"Five minutes of complete camera blackout," Jasper said. "Then rolling outages in sectors away from our position to draw security attention elsewhere."
"I love when you talk tech to me," Diego quipped, flashing a grin that could probably melt ice at twenty paces. "Your sexy brain is such a turn-on, guapo."
Jasper's murderous glare could have peeled paint off walls.
We moved through the trees in silence now. All the banter had burned away. The snow crunched softly under our boots. Our breath came out in white clouds that disappeared into the darkness.
Then we crested the ridge, and the facility came into view.
My breath stopped.
The facility was smaller than I expected. It was just a low concrete building half-buried in snow, ringed by a chain-link fence and floodlights. No movement. It could have been a weather station or a research outpost, but I knew better.
Somewhere inside that building were children in cages waiting for a rescue.
My hands curled into fists. The knife handles bit into my palms, grounding me, keeping me here in the snow instead of twenty years in the past.
"Lorenzo." Rafael's voice cut through the white noise building in my head. "Stay with me."
I couldn't look at him. I couldn't speak. If I opened my mouth, something would come out that I couldn't take back. I just nodded.
In my peripheral vision, Jasper was already halfway down the slope toward the east entrance. He moved like a man with nothing left to lose.
I sucked in a breath of frozen air and let it burn my lungs.
Time to finish this.