He yanked hard and listened as the main parachute deployed and snatched him, slowing his descent to a manageable rate.
400 feet.
Deployment had taken three hundred feet. Perfect. He would soon be below the horizon.
He began steering the square toward the spot where he had last seen the flickering light. He raced about three hundred meters, then began to spiral down. The ground was nearby now: tree tops, a lake about a half mile away, then level with the trees, open field, a ditch, some high scrub. He released his rucksack and then yanked down on both steering toggles. He let the ground come up to him as he kept his feet and knees together. The ground smacked him, and he rolled with it. His landing was soft enough for him to stand quickly and roll his parachute, stuffing it into an aviator’s kit bag. On one knee, he retrieved the necessary equipment from his ruck.
He snapped his night-vision goggles onto his head harness, screwed the silencer on his M4 carbine, attached his night scope, then chambered a round, putting his weapon into operation — the first priority.
He quickly broke the brush toward the wood line. Instinctively, he walked toward the lake he had seen out of his periphery on his way down. Chest-high ferns swayed in a cool breeze, brushing against his gear. He walked in the green world of the night-vision lens. Pale greens were lighter objects; dark greens and blacks were darker. The ferns and shrubs reached up toward him like the hands of begging children. The trees were about fifty meters to his front.
A sudden brightness raced across his field of view. It appeared to come from his right. He waited. There it was again. Another flash. He lifted his goggles and looked in the direction of the flash. He waited. Nothing. Snapping the goggles back on, he immediately saw the infrared beacon. He walked toward it, secured it, and switched a small button to turn it off. He extracted the small map Rampert had given him, and using his infrared light, he read the instructions.
Two hundred meters, 349 degree azimuth. Hit a small stream, follow it on azimuth of 11 degrees. Equipment at stream and lake intersection. That was it. Simple note. Simple job.
After twenty minutes of walking, he found the boat tied to a tree with pine branches draped across its bow. He found the plug sitting loose and replaced it.
So far, so good. Everything was just like the rehearsal. Nagging at the back of his mind was the fact that, as he descended through the sky, there were flashes of memory, things he couldn’t recall outright.
He would deal with that later.
He checked his watch: 0200 hours. He had about five hours until daylight. He wanted to use the night to his advantage. If he could take the shot tonight, he would. The sooner, the better, Rampert had told him. But he needed to find the operations center and shut it down.
All the right things were going through his mind. He was aware, like a panther. He could feel the wind against his skin. He could pick out the different smells: the pine needles, the bream going to bed in the lake shallows. The night sounds were amplified in his ears: a squirrel jumping from branch to branch, an anonymous animal burrowing in the underbrush, the smack of a fish against the water’s surface.
Lying in the prone, he tested the AN/PAQ-4C night lasing device using his night-vision goggles. The small device attached to the muzzle of the weapon pulsed an infrared laser to the point of aim. He sighted on a distant shore line, picked out a log rising above the water, steadied his aim, and then lowered the weapon. It seemed okay.
Time to move. He switched the infrared beacon on and placed it in the nook of a branch in an oak sapling. Focusing his night-vision goggles, he depressed the azimuth indicator on his monocle.
Turning until the indicator read 36 degrees, he struck out through the woods in search of Ballantine.
CHAPTER 18
Ballantine watched the rhythmic motion of her breasts as she slept. The sex had been great, starting in the kitchen and finishing in the bedroom, her black body grinding against his olive skin. They had fallen asleep after two hours of ravishing each other. It was better than a good workout. Hell, it was a great workout, he thought. He wished they could do it more often.
But he had other priorities now.
The red numbers of the clock told him it was three in the morning. Ballantine was normally a heavy sleeper, and it wasn’t like him to rise before sunrise. But something had told him to wake up — instinct maybe. He leaned on his elbow, watching Virginia. Her soft skin glowed in the moonlight. He had never truly loved any woman. Virginia, though… she had beauty, power, and raw sensuality. She acted with a controlled abandon that continued to attract him. Love, he didn’t think so. But perhaps.
He had met her shortly after his release from the POW camp in Riyadh. They shipped him back to Baghdad in the back of a five-ton truck, having gained an early release by cutting a deal with his interrogator, an American military officer who ironically was still serving the U.S. government. Ballantine had remained in intermittent, coded contact with the man until recently. Once Ballantine was back in Baghdad, Saddam had given him an award and asked him to stay to remain in command of the Tawalkana. He declined, telling Saddam he wanted to return to Paris to think about his life without Henri. Today, he was satisfied with both his decision and the instructions Saddam had given him since his departure.
As he stared at Virginia’s mocha skin, Ballantine recalled meeting her in France. He had resumed his painting and started writing once he returned to Paris. He was on the River Seine doing a watercolor.
He was unhappy with the blue he had put into the river. Too light. He tried to darken it with some browns, but that didn’t give him the contrast he wanted with the sandy hue of the ivy-shrouded villas sitting on the bluffs. Frustrated, he stood and walked away from the easel to clear his mind. Pacing across the concrete path that bordered the river, he spotted a young black woman watching him from a bench.
He sensed her following him with her large brown eyes, tracking him as he paced away from his easel, then back toward it. He scratched his head and slowly turned toward her. He was wearing his standard painting garb — an old blue T-shirt with multiple paint stains and olive army pants cut off at mid-thigh. His hair was almost shoulder length at the time, and he had grown a black mustache that drooped down on either side of his mouth. After that terrible moment in the desert, he had altered his appearance to the point that sometimes even he didn’t recognize himself in the mirror.
He wasn’t sure what she was seeing or thinking, but she was definitely looking. She was dressed in a bright yellow halter top that revealed ample breasts and a taut stomach. A matching hair band held her straight black hair away from her forehead. She was wearing black shorts that, with her legs crossed, showed her slim brown legs all the way up to her buttocks.
He approached her, and as he did, she flashed a large grin of white teeth.
“Hello. Jacques. Jacques Ballantine.” He offered his hand in greeting, and she shook it firmly as she stood.
“Virginia. Virginia Winfield.” She laughed as she spoke. “I think we both just sounded like James Bond.”
He stared into her eyes, realizing she was as tall as he. She had a thin but muscular body, part natural, part honed in the gym.
“You are more beautiful than any of the Bond women,” he said, smiling.
“That’s quite a compliment. Is painting your profession or your hobby?” They had begun slowly, carelessly walking toward the easel.