Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

Because they were already traveling forward at about seventy miles per hour, the effect of the sudden acceleration was considerably reduced, though understandably, this was of little comfort to the six people dangling daisy-chained from the nose of the aircraft.

King had imagined that being jerked out of his seat would feel a little like what happened when his parachute opened during a jump—a sudden bone-jarring snap. He would later reflect that his erroneous assumption had been for the best; if he’d actually known what to expect, he never would have gone through with it.

For several long seconds, he struggled through a barrage of sensory inputs, all of them unpleasant. Biting cold ripped into him, blasting his face with such intensity that he couldn’t breathe, much less open his eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that he was spinning uncontrollably, but the accompanying disorientation, coupled with the relentless assault from the wind, confounded his efforts to take any sort of action to arrest the spin. Mustering his last vestiges of will power, he unclenched his limbs from the protective fetal curl he had instinctively assumed, and extended his arms.

The sense of vertigo started to abate after a few moments, emboldening him to stretch his legs out as well. Now, instead of corkscrewing through the sky, he felt himself bouncing up and down, buffeted by invisible currents of air. He felt like he was trying to swim up Niagara Falls, but there wasn’t a single thing he could do to end the ordeal.

Then, almost without being aware of the transition, the pervasive Arctic blast and the jarring turbulence stopped, and he felt something solid beneath him. His face felt like a frozen mask, but he managed to open his eyes enough to see two men in cold-weather flight suits dragging him up a metal ramp and into the relatively protected interior of the stealth transport’s cargo hold.

There was a loud whine and a deep rumble as the ramp began moving, and then a metallic thump, completely cut off the howling of the wind.

At first, he didn’t see anyone except the crewmen, and a wave of panic crashed over him. He tried to ask them for an update, but the words wouldn’t come out. One of the men said something, a reassuring comment that barely registered through the lingering fog of the experience, and then King was wrapped in a heavy blanket. There were other blankets strewn about the floor of the hold, and after a few more seconds, he realized that nestled within each of the shapeless heaps was one of his companions.

He did a quick count. Five altogether.

They’d made it.

He huddled his arms around his torso, pulling the blanket tight, and savored the warm feeling of relief that came with that realization.

Eventually, they emerged from their cocoons, imbibed hot beverages supplied by the flight crew and displayed fits of outrage at the nightmare they had just gone through—some of it was directed at King, and not all of it was playful. King kept his distance, focusing his attention on Sasha, who seemed practically comatose; he wondered if she actually understood that she had been rescued.

When the plane touched down at Incirlik Air Base half an hour later, and the team members roused themselves and prepared to disembark. Rook loudly announced that the first thing he was going to do was kiss the tarmac. Sasha just sat in her seat, staring blankly ahead, as if she was waiting for further instructions. King gently grasped her arm and coaxed her to rise.

As they descended the ramp, a van rolled up and Daniel Parker jump out to greet them. King felt a moment of apprehension at the sight of his old friend. He had been so focused on the mission in Maragheh that he had completely forgotten about their earlier tense exchange.

But if Parker was nursing a grudge at having been cut out of the mission into Iran, he gave no indication. In fact, he barely seemed to notice King at all. He raced up the ramp and homed in on Sasha like a moth to a flame, his earnest face concealing none of his eagerness. He managed to stop himself before crashing into her…or hugging her.

“Sasha!” he said, unable to contain his excitement. “I did it… Well, you did. Your program and al-Tusi’s writings.”

She regarded him like he was crazy. “What are you saying?”

“The Voynich manuscript! You solved it!”

For the first time since meeting her several days earlier, King saw something like life in Sasha’s eyes.





FORTY-FOUR


Incirlik Air Base, Turkey



King had the distinct impression of being a third wheel. On a unicycle.

Parker had always been an open book emotionally. He wanted to be alone with Sasha; King could read that in his friend’s face as clearly as he could discern that Parker was mostly over any resentment at having been sidelined.