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The aircraft itself wasn’t built for free-fall operations, and only had a hatch for use in extreme conditions, which this qualified. Instead of leaping out in a grand exit like a regular airplane, the jumper had to inch himself into the hole, then fall forward into space. It wasn’t elegant, as the jumper would basically squeeze himself into the hatch and then drop like he was doing a cannonball at a community swimming pool, but once in the wind, it would be like any other exit.

I knew, because I’d done it once.

I sent Jennifer to the cockpit for the countdown, then positioned Knuckles in the hole, the wind whipping into the aircraft, the land a far, far distance away. At seventeen thousand feet, we couldn’t do this for very long because of the lack of oxygen, but we could do it long enough.

Knuckles clamped a pair of night vision goggles to his helmet, and I heard Jennifer shout. I slapped his shoulder. He gave me a thumbs-up, then shouted at Brett, saying, “Ten thousand. Open at ten.”

Brett nodded, and Knuckles disappeared like he’d been flushed down a toilet, disappearing into the blackness of the night. Brett snapped on his own NVGs and then struggled to follow him, every second giving distance between the two of them. He flopped into the hole, wrapped his arms around his chest, and dropped out of the plane.

I began cranking the hatch closed, screaming, “Jumpers away, jumpers away! Pressure, pressure, pressure!”

The air stilled in the plane and I took a seat, exhaling. Shoshana sat next to me and said, “When we get to Israel, can we just land?”

Chapter 66

Knuckles hit the aircraft’s slipstream and began to tumble, the wind pulling him behind the plane as he fell. It wasn’t a surprise. He expected the turbulence, knowing it was going to happen, and rode it out until he was in clean air, the aircraft disappearing in the distance. On his back falling to earth, he threw out his arms and legs, then twisted until he was flat and stable, facing the ground.

It didn’t feel like falling. There was no sense of gravity, like he’d jumped off a high diving board or a cliff. Honestly, it felt more like standing up in the bed of a pickup truck speeding down the road, the wind trying to knock him over.

He gained control of his body, his hands and legs now acting like little stabilizers, each flick of his palm working unconsciously, just knowing what to do, like a person riding a bike, the shifting of weight without conscious thought coming naturally from many previous rides.

He glanced at his altimeter, saw he was passing through fifteen thousand feet, and rotated, doing a circle in the air looking for Brett. He saw nothing in the darkness, but that also wasn’t unexpected. He glanced at his altimeter again, saw he was passing through ten thousand feet, and reached for the ball at the base of his parachute container. He pulled it out, felt the satisfying, lifesaving blossom of his canopy, and he was suddenly in a quiet place, the wind gone, the adrenaline retreating.

He pulled down the handles to his risers, took a look at the GPSon his waist, and turned the canopy, aiming toward the location it highlighted.

In that moment, Knuckles felt free. Floating to earth, high above the land, he was doing what he loved. He lowered his night vision goggles over his eyes and scanned the horizon for Brett, knowing he could be up to a mile away. He saw a blip in the distance, a blinking on and off. He raised his NVGs, and the blip of light was gone, telling him it was infrared.

He pulled the NVGs down again, and definitely saw the light. It was Brett, but he was a long way off. He didn’t think that would be a problem, simply happy his teammate was under canopy. Brett would do the same thing he was—flying to the grid on the GPS. They’d eventually link up, either in the air or on the ground.

He passed through five thousand feet, still steering the parachute toward the grid on his waist, and felt the speed of his parachute pick up. The Javelin wasn’t something he’d typically want on an infiltration of this type because it was built for sport jumping, with an aspect ratio that required skill to land, something made more complicated in a night landing.

The parachute itself had a forward thrust of nearly thirty miles an hour in zero wind. Meaning if he did nothing at all, he’d hit the ground as fast as if he’d jumped out of a car doing that same speed.

Flying with the wind would exponentially increase his velocity. If he wasn’t careful, he’d slam into the earth at sixty miles an hour. He could, of course, control that speed right before he touched down, and if he did it right, facing the wind to counteract the forward thrust and stalling the chute, he’d touch down like a feather. The problem was he had no idea how the winds were flowing at ground level, and didn’t even know what the ground looked like.

Controlled correctly, the parachute could land on a dime, but atnight, flying blind, with no idea which way the wind was blowing, it was decidedly dangerous. The Javelin worked well in daylight, when one was landing on a football field full of cheering fans, but at night, with uneven terrain, it was dangerous as hell. The only good thing was that the aspect ratio of the parachute was one of the best in the world. For every foot he went down, he would go three feet forward, getting closer to the target.

He reached four thousand feet, the usual opening altitude for a HALO jump, and could dimly see the ground below him in his NVGs. He continued forward, letting the canopy fly, wanting to get as close as possible to the grid on the GPS.

He reached two thousand feet and began searching the ground for a landing spot. There were no lights at all, the earth completely dark. He passed one thousand, still letting the canopy do its work. At five hundred feet, he slowed the canopy down, trying to judge the wind.

He felt nothing. He continued to fly, still holding at half speed, and abruptly saw the ground directly beneath him, a hill rising up out of nowhere.

He had a split-second decision of lifting his legs and trying to clear the hilltop at speed, or jerking his risers down and stalling the parachute.

He opted for the latter, having no idea what was beyond the rise of earth. He slammed his handles down, tucked his legs for a landing fall, and met the hill. The parachute slowed, but not nearly enough for a championship landing on a football field. He slammed into the earth, his body pounding into the side of the hill.

He flipped over, landing on his back with the parachute settling behind him. He sat up, took stock of his body, and saw he was okay. The parachute caught the wind, billowing out behind him and tryingto jerk him backward. He pulled his cutaway pillow, releasing it to blow away down the hill.

He stood up, checked the grid to the location of the sat phone, and saw it was about ten kilometers away.

He thought,Great spot on that one, Pike.

He pulled off the parachute harness, released his MCX rifle, and shouldered his pack, starting to move to the GPS location, his night vision goggles still over his eyes.

He crested the hill and kept walking, moving slowly, looking left and right for any threat that might appear. He had no idea about any Russian, regime, or Hezbollah patrols, and didn’t want to be surprised. He went down and up one draw after another, resting at the top of each one to see if anyone was close. An hour later, he crested another hill, seeing the land flatten out ahead of him. And also saw movement.

He crouched down, brought up his weapon, and waited. The person was walking across from him, following the small ridgeline of the wadi, and if he continued to do so, he would pass right in front of Knuckles. Through his NVGs, Knuckles drew a bead on the body, seeing a rifle in the man’s hands. And knew who it was.