Brass Monkey: A James Acton Thriller Book #2 (14 page)

“Okay, let them out!”

Two of his men standing near one of the trucks opened the rear doors. Cole watched his two al Qaeda “observers”, Shokat and Rahul, jump to the ground and walk toward him and the crate. “What is the meaning of this?” demanded Shokat.

“What do you mean?” asked Cole, disguising his delight in what was about to happen. “I could hardly let you be seen by the Russians. They never would have sold us the weapon knowing it was going into Muslim hands.”

“I understand that completely,” said Shokat. “But why are they two hours early?”

Cole glanced at his watch. “Are they?”

Shokat glared at him. “You know very well that they are.”

Cole stared straight at him, dropping all pretenses. “Yes, I suppose I do.”

“And your explanation?”

“Well, if your men were here, then I couldn’t do this.”

He reached behind his back and pulled his Glock from his belt, placing a bullet in Shokat’s chest. An expression of shock spread over his face as his eyes and mouth opened wide, then his eyes squeezed shut in pain, his mouth narrowing into a grimace as the shock seared through his system. Cole smiled. Rahul turned to run, but Cole aimed and fired, hitting the man in the shoulder, dropping him to the ground.

He stepped over to Shokat and straddled the man, staring down at his gasping form.

“You didn’t really think I was going to give some damned camel jockey a nuclear weapon to use against Americans, did you?” he snarled.

The man muttered something.

“What was that?” asked Cole as he dropped to one knee, the other leg still straddling the man’s chest. He leaned in to hear Shokat.

“The Hassassins will find you,” Shokat whispered hoarsely, blood gurgling in his throat.

“Hassassins?”

Cole stood and fired two more bullets into Shokat’s chest.

“Who the hell are they?”

He walked over to Rahul who had now struggled to his feet.

“Who are these Hassassins?” demanded Cole.

“I-I do not know,” stammered the man as he winced in pain.

Cole raised his Glock and then pressed it into the man’s wound, twisting the weapon as he pressed harder and harder. The man cried out in pain and dropped to his knees.

“Who. Are. The. Hassassins?” growled Cole, punctuating each word with another twist of his weapon.

The man dropped his head to the ground, and extended his arms, muttering something in Arabic.

“Are you fucking praying to your Allah?” yelled Cole in disgust. He kicked sand in the man’s face, then pointed at the back of his head. “Fuck a virgin for me.” He squeezed the trigger twice, spraying the man’s brains across the desert sand.

“Hassassins? Sounds like a Stallone movie to me!” he said to his men now surrounding him. They laughed with him, kicking more dirt on the dead men.

“The French version!” yelled another.

Even Cole roared with laughter as the tension of the entire exchange blew off. After a few minutes of joking with his men, he clapped his hands together, changing the mood entirely.

“Okay, clean this mess up, we can’t leave any evidence we were here. We’ll get rid of the bodies at sea.”

Cole stepped over to the crate that housed Christianity’s deliverance from the tyranny of Islam, and stared at the weapon. Excitement coursed through his veins as the power it represented surged through his body, the hairs on his arms stood up, goosebumps covering his flesh as he read the markings for the first time.

He stepped back, then motioned to his men. “Put it in the truck.” He turned around and started for the communications truck when he noticed one of his men stare and point behind him. Cole turned to see what he was looking at.

“What the hell?”

Somewhere over the Red Sea

Dymovsky stood in the cargo area, his legs spread apart, his arms held out to the sides, shoulder high. Koslov was tugging on his gear, making sure everything was secure, then dropped a helmet over his head, attaching it to the black pressure suit he now wore. As soon as the seal was complete, a light flicked on in his visor and his altitude and GPS location appeared in a display at the bottom of the visor. Koslov snapped his own helmet on and activated the comm by pressing a button on the control pad on his left wrist.

“Can you hear me?”

Dymovsky gave him the thumbs up and activated his comm. “Da.”

Koslov turned to Chernov who was already at the back of the plane. “Da, da, I can hear you,” he said before Koslov could ask. “Leave your comms activated for the entire jump so we can communicate,” said Chernov. Both Dymovsky and Koslov nodded.

A crewmember stood at the control panel, an oxygen mask covering his face and ears to protect him from the depressurization he was about to initiate. He turned and shouted, holding up two fingers. “Two minutes!” He hooked his flight suit to the fuselage and pressed a button, depressurizing the hold. An indicator flashed, and he pressed another button to lower the ramp.

Chernov led the way down the descending ramp, Dymovsky behind him, and Koslov taking up the rear. Dymovsky heard Koslov’s voice over the comm.

“Remember what I told you, just follow the Colonel out, arch your back, and extend your arms and legs, just like in your training. This will just last a lot longer than you’re used to.”

“No problem.” Dymovsky’s voice didn’t betray his fear. He had never liked his parachute training, but to do this from ten thousand meters was insane. He hadn’t even known it was possible, and was stunned to find out Chernov had all the equipment as part of their standard gear. His explanation?
Most people don’t let Russian transports get too low, if they even let them cross their territory. We do this all the time to get where we need to go.

They had lost precious time due to that very reason, trying to get clearance to cross Egyptian airspace to get to the Red Sea. That had proven fruitless, so some favors were called in by the Foreign Ministry and they landed in Libya to refuel, then crossed the Sudan, Eritrea, and were now over the Red Sea. Luckily the intel had proven correct, with the MS Sea Maiden indeed in the Red Sea. If it hadn’t, they had likely lost their last lead out the back of the damned transport plane. Dymovsky shook his head, still not believing what Chernov had done.
Fucking Spetsnaz, they’re crazy!
And the fact they were about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane in the middle of the night, from ten thousand meters, into the Red Sea, proved it. They had a Russian battlecruiser in the area due to the ongoing piracy from Somalia, and were going to rendezvous with them.
If we survive this jump. If we don’t get blown off course. If we don’t drown first. If we don’t get eaten by sharks If! If! IF!
Dymovsky took a deep breath.

“Now!” he heard the muffled yell of the crewman as he waved a thumbs up toward the door.

Chernov simply walked over the edge and disappeared from view. Dymovsky jerked forward as Koslov shoved him from behind, toward the edge. He stumbled then jumped, and was ripped away from the aircraft, as if the hand of God had thrown him, as his body, travelling at almost 400 miles per hour in the aircraft, suddenly hit a wall of air, slowing him dramatically. He gasped at the sensation of having the wind knocked out of him. And totally forgot to arch. He tumbled through the air, completely losing his orientation in the dark. Every split second he thought he saw stars, but then again, they could be spots in front of his eyes.

“Arch!”

He heard Koslov’s voice through his comm but wasn’t sure what he was saying.

“Arch now or you will pass out and die!”

Dymovsky tried to concentrate.
Arch. What the hell is arch?
Then it clicked. He thrust his chest out and extended his arms and legs. Almost immediately he stopped tumbling. His head slowly stopped spinning as he regained his equilibrium.

“Good! Now look to your left.”

Dymovsky carefully turned his head and saw the silhouette of what must by Koslov, giving him the thumbs up. The figure then pointed below them.

“Do you see the Colonel?”

Dymovsky looked down and for a moment saw nothing, but as his eyes adjusted he spotted the dark figure below, spread out like a starfish on the ocean floor. “Yes, yes, I see him!” he yelled.

“Keep him in sight. As long as you can see him, you are on target. If he starts to go behind you, raise your arms slightly, and you will go back. If he gets too far ahead, bring your arms to your sides and lean forward for no more than two seconds, then extend your arms again. Lower your left arm slightly to go left, your right arm slightly to go right. Keep doing small adjustments. Up here at this speed that is all you need.”

Dymovsky nodded, then realized Koslov probably couldn’t see that. “Acknowledged.”

As he relaxed, his eyes glued to the figure below, he started to enjoy the sensation. The pressure against the front of his body as he cut through the air was tremendous, but after a few minutes of getting used to it, not that uncomfortable. His pressure suit rustled against his body, the fabric snapping against him like thousands of gentle, and occasionally not so gentle, whips. It was oddly quiet. All he heard was his own breathing, and that of the others over the comm.

“Check your altimeters,” he heard Chernov say over the comm.

He glanced down.
6042 meters.

“At one thousand meters, pull your ripcord. Acknowledge?”

Koslov didn’t say anything, and Dymovsky realized these instructions were for his benefit. “Yes, acknowledged.”

“Pull the ripcord on the right. You will feel one hell of a snap. Stay calm then check for a good chute. If there’s a problem, stay calm, and pull the release cord, count to two, then pull the emergency reserve ripcord on the left.”

“Acknowledged.”

The indicator had already dropped to 3413 meters during the instructions.

“Pull when I do!” yelled Koslov. Dymovsky glanced over to his left and saw him less than fifty meters away at the same altitude.

“Deploying chute!” yelled Chernov. Dymovsky glanced down and saw a chute open below him. The differential in speed sent him hurtling toward it, and for a moment he thought he was going to hit him, when he heard Koslov yell.

“Deploying chute!”

Dymovsky looked down at his chest and with both hands, gripped the ripcord, and pulled. He heard a fluttering behind him, then a tremendous yank as his chute opened, as if a long rope still attached to the plane had reached the end, pulling him back toward it.

“Check your chute!” he heard Koslov order.

Dymovsky looked up, and saw all four corners fluttering in a perfect rectangle, his lines apparently untangled. “It looks good!”

“Now grab your toggles!”

Dymovsky searched but couldn’t see them.
Where the hell are they!
His heart thumped in his chest as panic set in.
There’s something wrong with the chute! There’s no toggles, I won’t be able to steer!
He reached for his release and gripped it.
Wait!
He took a deep breath. He glanced at his altimeter and saw he was falling very slowly now.
You’ve got time. Look again.
He looked up. Where the toggles should be, was nothing, just the risers attaching him to the chute mechanism above. Then he saw them–neatly velcroed to the risers. He took a deep breath and reached up, detaching them and gripping them tightly in his hands. He let out a long sigh of relief.

“Are you okay?” asked Koslov. Dymovsky glanced over and saw Koslov floating nearby, expertly guiding his chute with the toggles Dymovsky had just managed to find.

Dymovsky nodded to himself. “Yes, yes I’m okay.”

“Follow the Colonel in. When you see him flare his chute, get ready to pull down as hard as you can on your toggles when I tell you.”

“Acknowledged.”

Dymovsky could now make out the water below. The only light was still provided solely by the stars and a quarter moon, but his now adjusted eyes made out the wave caps below, and then something else, a dark mass with a dull red glow coming off of it from several points. Then it snapped into focus and a flashing red light on a masthead or communications tower came into focus, then telltale lights appeared.

“Get ready!” he heard Koslov yell.

Dymovsky saw Chernov’s chute had flared, the two ends drawn in toward each other.

“Get ready to flare, then when you feel yourself begin to fall, pull the release, then tread the water.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Get ready...!” he heard Koslov’s voice drawn out. “Flare! Flare! Flare!” he yelled. Dymovsky yanked on the two chords and looked up. His chute collapsed, the air pulled out as the shape changed. His stomach was suddenly light, as if a thousand butterflies were attempting to keep it in place as the rest of his body dropped, his chute’s lift gone.

“Release! Release! Release!” he heard Koslov order.

Dymovsky released the toggles and looked down at his chest for the release. He grasped it with both hands and yanked. He was weightless for a moment, as if floating in place, but it was merely his imagination, as he dropped even faster, the little drag his chute had provided removed. He plummeted to the water far below, then hit it a second later, far before he thought he would, the water much closer than it appeared. The smack as he hit the water was jarring, and he sank below the water surface. His heart started to race, panic setting in again as he took a deep breath and held it.

He heard Koslov laughing over the comm. “Breath, Dymovsky, you’re in a pressure suit. That means waterproof!”

He took a deep breath, realizing he wasn’t going to drown. But he was still sinking.

“Better start kicking those feet of yours or we’ll never find you,” he heard Koslov say.

He began kicking frantically, then calmed himself, and slowly kicked. He saw lights playing over the water surface that appeared impossibly far above his head. As he kicked toward them, his head suddenly broke the surface, again sooner than expected. Nearby he saw his two fellow jumpers floating.

“Welcome to the party!” said Koslov, laughing as he swam toward Dymovsky. Chernov was waving, but not at him. Dymovsky followed his gaze and saw a small boat with a search light, the source of the light he had followed up to the surface moments before, trained on them as it rapidly approached.