Only 250 feet to go.
He pulled down on the risers to swap his canopy speed with a bit more air for the flare, which slowed down his rate of descent tremendously. He was in the flare. Ford was nearly down to the ground and landed relatively gently. He was able to do a small run, then a quick trot. Ford came to a complete stop, got down on a knee, and took a breather for a second. He let out a sigh, then started reeling his chute into a ball so the wind didn’t fill up the chute again and drag him across the ground.
He looked around to see where Tosca was, and saw he was walking towards Ford. He arrived at Ford’s position, smiling, as he pointed and nodded at Ford’s primary chute already on the ground and near the both of them.
“Secondary chute? Motherfucker! You must have had one hell of a time up there. What the fuck happened?” Tosca asked.
“Primary didn’t take. Holy shit. Didn’t capture any air. Rolled around in it until just a few hundred feet above the ground, then… ah… was able to get my hand around and….yank….ah, yank the secondary,” answered Ford.
“You are one lucky son of a bitch. Whoo we. Fuck! I love it. Can you believe we get paid to do this shit?” said Tosca, laughing.
Ford nearly died, and here the SEAL was laughing at the situation. Ford was not nervous, but was indeed sweating, and thankful, that the secondary chute worked. It was only the second time he had ever had issues with jumping. "Yeah, all this and a paycheck. Well… the wingsuit kicks butt, though. Yeah. That was one hell of a ride."
"Yup. Welcome to the club. I knew you’d like it. Well, sir. You made it,” Tosca said, smiling at Ford. “Let’s do it again."
Jason looked at the electronic Outlook schedule and dialed the conference call number that Mark had given him. Wearing a starched white collar shirt, cuff links, in a clean and air conditioned executive office, he most likely never spent a day out in the field. A tone was heard, announcing his arrival on the call. He was the first one in the virtual room.
Down in Suffolk, Ford had walked into the lounge area, carrying his chute, and seeing Mark and Emily huddled together over the phone.
“Yo! How’s it going?” Ford asked.
“Dude! How’d it go? You made it?” Mark said. He looked back down at his phone. “Suit worked well?”
“Suit, terrific. Chute? Had to use the secondary. My primary failed to open.”
“Really? Ford. Are you okay, love?” asked Emily.
“Yeah, yeah. Fine. Secondary was good to go. Have to tell you… it was scary for a moment, but the wing suit made it worth it. Fantastic ride,” Ford said, as he put his hand on her shoulder.
“Jason, Mark here. I’m here with Emily and Ford. Just moving to a little room here at the airport. I’m in the green… ahh… Robert should be on shortly,” Mark said. He stood and waived everyone over to the jumper classroom where the ground lessons were given. It was quiet, and provided just the atmosphere for the call.
“Got it. I’m green, too. Deputy will pick up once Robert gets on,” Jason told him.
Emily and Ford sat next to one another at a small grey metal table with six chairs, while Mark sat at the head. Mark placed his phone down in the middle, and put it on speaker. They heard a tone, and Robert was checking in.
“Robert here, in the green, anyone on?”
“Hey, man. Yup, nearly all here. Waiting on Wu,” Mark said.
BEE BOPP. Another tone.
“Hello? Hello? This is Wu. Anyone on here?”
“Hi Wu, this is Ford. Yes, we nearly all on here. Just waiting for Mr. Burns to pick-up,”
Jason walked in and told the Deputy everyone was on the line, and suggested he pick-up on the line when he was ready.
“Ok, Ford. Hello. Jojo rising,” Wu said.
Everyone in the little classroom smiled and looked at each other. They could tell by the tone of his voice, and saying their little phrase, that the engine fire Wu had must not have been that bad.
“Jojo rising, Wu. You doin all right there?”
There was some noise on the speaker, and no one said anything. No reply from Wu, either.
“Hello. Mark, you on the call? This is Calvin Burns.”
“Yes, sir. Hello. In the room with me is Emily and Ford, and, ahh, from Savannah is Robert, and from afar is Wu,” said Mark, opening up the meeting.
“Great. Thanks for dialing in everyone. Mark, go ahead,” the Deputy said.
Emily stood up and walked over to the white board on the wall, and picked up the black dry erase marker. She wrote up the words “Phase 1”, “Phase 2” and “Phase 3”, with vertical lines separating the groups. Perhaps it would help the team’s thinking in sharing the plan with Wu, as well as the Deputy.
“Sir, the premise of our call today is to share where we are to date, along with the plan, since we all last met and talked. As a summary, we’ve split up our plan into phases. Phase 1 is getting Ford into the country. Phase 2 is linking up Ford with Wu. And Phase 3 is getting the Devil Dragon out of the country and into a safe location,” Mark shared. He was looking up at the white board while talking into the phone, and Emily was writing away.
“Understand,” replied the Deputy
“Sir, for Phase 1, we have borrowed a Gulfstream 650ER from our friends up at Corning, Incorporated. We were all up there in Elmira, and Robert stayed with the jet. He then brought it to Savannah where it sits at the moment. Gulfstream, via your friend Reggie, has bent over backwards to make modifications to the jet for us. Of course, Reggie says hello.”
“Reg-gie, my man! Oh, sure. I knew he would take care of you,” Deputy Burns replied.
“So… yes, sir. He did. We generated a plan… to, ahh, to cut a hole in the fuselage and make a ramp in the bottom rear of the bird that would open up at altitude. This ramp allows Ford to parachute out of the Gulfstream using a wing suit,” Mark said.
“A ramp and a wing suit? Wow. Really?” Wu said.
“Yup, we’re coming to help, buddy,” Ford answered.
“Sir, the G650 will start its descent with the international flight plan destination listed as Beijing. On approach to Beijing, the Gulfstream will be overhead Tianjin Airport. With the appropriate timing, Ford will jump in order to parachute into Tianjin. Wu, for you, the plan is for you to get the Devil Dragon into Tianjin Airport. Can you do that?”
Wu silently thought about it. “Tell me more.”
“Yes, of course. Ford, again, you’ll exit the jet descending into Tianjin. You’ll use the wing suit to laterally maneuver into the airport. From there, the Corning jet continues to Beijing for a normal landing. We don’t see the Gulfstream jet again.”
Wu spoke up. “Yes, I can get in there. I know the area pretty well, and the airspace,” Wu said. He thought some more, then coughed a bit. “What I’ll do is… stage a fake maintenance issue. Maybe another engine fire, or hydraulics issue. Something that makes us land unexpectedly. My co-pilot will ask plenty of questions. Ahh, although we had a real fire this last flight, there was no major damage. I’ll come up with something that will force us to land, and… I’ll select there.”
“Great. Okay. Ford, you’ll land as close as you can to the airport firehouse and…” Mark briefed.
“Firehouse? Why there?” Ford asked.
“Wait, we’ll explain. Once you land and get settled, combat crawl to a position where you can see inside the commercial hangars. We can show you where those are located. Emily, over to you,” Mark said.
“Hello everyone. Ford, you’ll crawl or move from your position pretty easily for night time operations and get a good, solid view of the hangars for China Air. They are in enormous white hangars with massive doors that are usually wide open. You can’t miss the bright lights on the ramp and…”