Shattered Bone (5 page)

He worked quickly to prepare for his water landing.

Canopy. He looked overhead to make sure his parachute was fully deployed and that none of the nylon canopy lines had wrapped themselves around the top of the parachute.

Visor. He needed to remove the visor that protected his eyes so that it wouldn't shatter if he fell during landing. Too late, he thought, as he reached up to disconnect the visor. It was already broken and gone.

Mask. He reached up and pulled off his oxygen mask so that he wouldn't suffocate from sucking water through the airhose and into his mask. After disconnecting the mask, he let it drop to the empty darkness below.

Seat kit. His survival raft was now hanging in a small pouch under his parachute. By pulling the D-ring by his left hip he activated a cylinder of oxygen that would immediately inflate the raft. He listened with relief as the raft hissed and crackled, spreading out below him.

LPUs. Life preserver units. These were the inflatable life preservers attached under each of his arms. Sensors would inflate them automatically when they were submerged in salt water. At least they were supposed to. Ammon felt for the inflation tube under his chin that would allow him to manually inflate the life preservers if necessary.

Looking around now, he tried to judge how high he was above the water. The moon still reflected on the open sea, but everything looked exactly as it had a few minutes earlier when he had stared down from his jet as he circled at 23,000 feet. He felt from the warm temperature and humid air that he was quite low, and guessed that he had only a few thousand feet to go.

Suddenly he was engulfed in the cold and salty water of the Yellow Sea. He had completely misjudged his altitude and the air was knocked out of him when his body slapped the water. The complete blackness and brutal chill made him nearly panic. As he kicked his way to the surface, he felt his arms being forced above his head as his LPUs inflated. Spitting and coughing, he found himself on the surface of the water gasping and sputtering for air. But what was this slimy sheet above him? It took a moment for him to realize that he had surfaced under the canopy of his parachute. Taking a deep breath, he ducked under the water and swam out from under the chute, being careful not to get himself tangled in its many canopy lines. Once he was clear, he released the parachute from his harness. The chute would soon become waterlogged and sink and he didn't want to be strapped to it when it did.

Looking around, he saw his life raft bobbing in the four-foot waves. It was securely tied to his harness by a twelve-foot lanyard, and it didn't take much time to pull the raft to him and hoist himself inside. As he fell into the tiny raft, he lay back and rested his head against its side. He could feel his heart still racing in his chest. Suddenly he felt exhausted. For several minutes he lay motionless, his feet dangling in the water as he listened to the waves lap against the side of his raft. Staring into the darkness, a heavy weight seemed to spread through his body. He felt very tired and very alone.

The salt water began to sting Ammon's lips, and he was very thirsty. Reaching into his leg pocket, he took out a small water bottle and took a long drink. As he put the container back into his pocket, he felt the wrapping around his knee and hoped the microfilm was not getting wet.

Finally, he sat up and looked around him. Nothing but water and the open sky. Occasionally he could hear the sound of an aircraft in the distance, but it seemed to come and go with the wind, and he never could get a good fix on its location. That would be the tanker, he thought. They are already looking for me. Hc was opening his survival kit to take out a signal flare when he suddenly figured it out.

He wasn't supposed to signal the tanker. They were supposed to think he was dead.

Ammon shook his head in disgust and rage as he realized that his ejection had been a setup—a carefully thought-out plan to convince the United States government that Capt Richard Ammon no longer existed.

They would never know the truth. Richard Ammon was not dead, he had simply been called back home.

When he had been told that he would be brought in, he had expected instructions to land in North Korea. Or maybe a simple early morning kidnaping on his way home from work. He had imagined any number of ways they could have brought him in, but not this.

What idiot had come up with this plan? Didn't they know that people died in airplanes that exploded at twenty thousand feet? Didn't they know that ejecting from an aircraft could break your back? And now what was he to do? Bobbing around in the Yellow Sea, he felt completely helpless. Did they have a plan to recover him before the Americans did?

Even now, the tanker would have reported the accident and Ammon's last known location to the rescue forces that were stationed at Osan. Even now, an emergency locator beacon in his life raft was broadcasting his location to every aircraft flying within a hundred miles. The rescue forces would easily find him. It wouldn't even take until morning.

But his friends would find him first. Surely they would. They would have it all worked out. He had to trust them. At least for now.

Ten thousand feet above him, the crew of the KC-135 tanker was busy. It had taken some time before the boomer had calmed down enough to tell the pilots what had happened to the F-16. For a second they didn't believe him. But the obvious panic in his voice soon convinced everyone that he wasn't playing around. They listened in stunned silence as the boomer described the explosion and fireball. Then they acted together in a flurry of activity.

The pilot immediately banked the tanker into a steep descending turn. The boomer began searching the night sky for a parachute. He watched the burning F-16 spiral into the darkness. As the fireball descended, the boomer followed it as long as he could, but eventually he lost sight of the trailing flame. He never did see Capt Richard Ammon eject or the splash of the F-16 impacting the sea.

While the pilot flew the aircraft, the copilot radioed for help. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” he cried, talking much too fast to be understood. “This is Air Force tanker call sign Kingdom four-six. No disregard. Disregard.” The copilot took a deep breath and started again. “This is Kingdom two-two. We've got a downed aircraft. I say again, we have a downed aircraft. We need an immediate rescue response.”

The air traffic controller's voice came back, much more calmly than the copilot's hurried call. “Aircraft calling Mayday, say again your call sign and state your position.”

“This is U.S. Air Force tanker Kingdom two-two. We are on the two-five-six radial, seven-three DME off of the Hung tacan. I say again, we've got a confirmed downing of an Osan F-16. Unable to confirm any ejection. Will you initiate a rescue response? We will orbit the area to assist in the coordination.”

“Roger Kingdom two-two, standby. Korean Air flight three-fifty-six, turn right heading onc-three-zero. Climb and maintain twenty-thousand feet. Air Japan flight, turn right heading three-six-zero. Proceed direct to Seoul when able.”

The controller was already starting to vector other aircraft away from the crash site. Not only would this make rescue efforts easier, but it was not unheard of for an aircraft to unknowingly hit a descending parachute. He had also motioned for his supervisor, who immediately called the command post at Osan Base Operations. On the north end of Osan's runway sat a small alert facility with an HH-60 rescue helicopter waiting outside. The rescue helicopter was airborne within minutes.

Meanwhile the tanker continued to orbit overhead. They had now descended to 2,000 feet and were searching the darkness for any signs of a survivor. They listened on the radios for the sound of Ammon's emergency beacon and watched the sky for any flares. If the F-16 pilot had survived, he would surely try to signal them. If he was down there, they would find him.

So they continued to orbit. But the hours slipped quietly by, and eventually the sun began to break over the horizon. Finally, they were forced to return to Osan, for they were running low on fuel. For five hours they had loitered over the crash site, trying to find a survivor. For five hours they searched the dark sea and listened on the radios, but found only darkness and silence.

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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

A
BOUT THE TIME
A
MMON FOUND HIMSELF FLOATING AROUND IN HIS LIFE
raft, half a world away, the sun was just coming up and a light mist floated off the Santa Monica Bay. Jesse Monel had spent the last forty-five minutes walking along the boulevards and watching the sunlight filter through the huge oak trees that lined her neighborhood streets. Although she had started her daily walk in the deep shadows of early dawn, by the time she returned home, the morning sun was shining through her kitchen window.

Jesse was dressed in a bright blue jogging suit and white hightop sneakers. Her hair was tied back with a simple white ribbon. Around her wrist was a small silver chain attached to a two-ounce can of mace. Smart women didn't walk in the early hours without some form of protection.

She was tall and slender, with olive skin, high cheek bones, and dark eyes. She had the sharp features of her Italian father, though somewhat softened by her mother's Norwegian side. Shiny, brunette hair dangled from the thin white ribbon and bounced around her shoulders. A set of perfect white teeth flashed between her lips. Her eyes were clear and bright and generally sparkled, though they could become moody and narrow when shc was angry or sad.

Jesse kicked off her shoes and poured herself a glass of orange juice before she noticed the blinking light on her answering machine. She punched the play button and walked to the kitchen window as she waited for the tape to start playing. As the message started playing, she smiled. It was so nice to hear his voice.

Then she heard what the voice had to say. She hardly breathed as she listened to the entire message. She continued to stare out the window as the tape stopped playing, clicked, and rewound itself to accept another call. Without thinking, she poured the orange juice into the sink and walked slowly to the answering machine again. With trembling hands she pressed the play button and turned up the volume.

She listened to the message again, rewound it and listened once more. She could have listened to the tape a thousand times, but the message wouldn't have changed.

After listening to the tape for the third time, she turned the machine off. She left the kitchen and walked through the apartment's small living room. As she passed by the front door, she slid the dead bolt closed, then hurried down the hall into the bedroom.

Opening the closet, she rifled through the clothes until she found what she was looking for, shoved in the back of the closet under an old umbrella and yellow raincoat. It was an old flannel shirt. She hadn't worn it in years.

She took out the shirt and fingered its worn flannel as she walked over and sat on the bed. It was a man's shirt and much too big for her, but it was the most valued piece of clothing she owned. She fumbled with the shirt until she found the left breast pocket, which was buttoned closed and hard to get open. Finally she undid the button and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

She carefully unfolded the paper and looked at it for the first time in over a year. It had a line drawn down the middle, with words written on both sides in tiny but legible writing. She studied the paper closely, reading it one line at a time. It contained twenty lines of code words and phrases, along with their deciphered meaning. Quickly, she scanned down the paper, not finding what she was looking for until she got near the bottom of the page. She sucked in her breath just slightly as she began to understand what Ammon was trying to tell her.

After reading the paper, she folded it up again and put it back into the shirt pocket. Picking up the phone, she dialed a number and spoke in a pleasant voice. But she only talked for a minute. After hanging up the phone, she stuffed the flannel shirt into the one travel bag that she would take. Within minutes Jesse had packed and showered. On the way to her car she stopped at the manager's officc and asked him to check her mail. There's been a sickness in the family, she explained. She would be gone for a few days. Maybe even longer.