The Book of Spies

66

The Isle of Pericles
DRENCHED IN moonlight, the Library of Gold's private island rose suddenly from the dark sea, its high craggy ridges pale, its deep valleys eerily shadowed. Judd was studying it from the window of the Cessna Super Cargomaster piloted by Tucker's friend Haris Naxos. Night lights off, the craft was circling and would soon climb to jump altitude: ten thousand feet.
Time had run out, and they were going in without backup. All were hyper alert and not talking about the danger.
"There's the orange grove and the landing spot we picked," Eva said.
Eva and Judd were sitting together in seats that stretched along the cargo bin's side walls. Like Tucker, who was in the copilot's seat, they wore black jumpsuits and helmets. Infrared goggles dangled from their necks, and black grease covered their faces. They had come prepared not only with their pistols, which were holstered to their waists, but Judd and Tucker had grenades and mini Uzis lashed to their legs. Tucker wore a parachute pack on his back, while Judd had a larger one, holding a bigger canopy that would support both his and Eva's weight. The two men had additional packs containing supplies. Eva carried nothing on her back, since she would be strapped to Judd.
Judd nodded. "Yes, it should work well." He was loaded with painkillers and feeling only a dull ache in his side.
They had been observing the headlights of Jeeps roaming over the island, looking for patterns. One had driven past the orange grove. Now, a half hour later, another passed.
"How's the air clarity seem to you, Haris?" Tucker asked as the plane climbed.
"It is no change. Looks good for you to land." Haris Naxos was gray-haired, angular, and tough-looking; he still did occasional contract work. "You are no spring rooster, Tucker. Night jumping is dangerous. Be careful."
"I know. There are old jumpers and bold jumpers, but there are no old, bold jumpers."
Haris laughed, but no one else did. As usual Judd was planning what he would do if the chutes did not deploy, the lines became tangled, all the myriad events that could go wrong.
After a while, Haris asked, "You remember everything I told you, Eva?" He had given her a half hour of instructions and walked her through a video of tandem skydiving, at his hangar in the Athens airport. He owned a parachuting and plane rental business.
"There's no way I'm going to forget anything." A fleck of nervousness was in her voice.
"Excellent. Then I make the announcement--we are at jump altitude, and we are approaching the drop zone."
Judd and Eva stood up in the plane. She turned around, and he snapped their straps together and tightened his, then hers until her back was secure against his chest. Her body was tense. Her rose-water scent filled his mind. Quickly he dismissed it.
"Okay?" he asked curtly.
"Okay."
As they put on goggles, Tucker crawled into the rear cargo area. "I'll open the door."
He was moving agilely, his expression focused. As Judd and Eva hung onto the ceiling straps, he unlocked the door, swung the handle, and pushed. Cold air blasted in.
Turning on the visual altimeter that was secured inside his helmet, the reader in easy peripheral view, Judd positioned Eva so they were facing the cockpit. Their right sides were inches from the black void.
"Go!" the pilot shouted.
"Try to enjoy it, Eva," Judd whispered.
Before she could speak, he rolled them out of the plane. Abruptly they were in free fall, soaring at speeds in excess of a hundred sixty miles an hour, their arms and legs extended together like wings. The silky air enveloped him, and there was no sense of falling--air resistence gave a feeling of weight and direction. Checking their orientation over the island, he reveled in the exhilaration of complete freedom.
"This is one of those rare moments when you know what it's like to be a bird in flight," he told her. "We can do anything a bird can do--except go back up."
As Tucker jumped out of the plane, Judd repositioned Eva until they were sitting in a ball in the air. He somersaulted her, then straightened her out again, rolling them onto their sides, their backs, and around again, spinning freely. He felt her tense more, and then she gave a joyful laugh.
Returning them to a normal descent, he reached behind and threw out the drogue parachute, lines and small canopy black against the stars. All was well so far. The drogue slowed their free-fall speed from two people to that of a single skydiver. He saw Tucker was nodding, indicating his equipment was working properly, too.
At twenty-five hundred feet, Judd pulled a toggle, and the deployment bag fell out and released the main canopy--a black ram-air parachute. It caught the wind and spread out into the shape of a large cupped wedge. There were a few seconds of intense deceleration, and then they were skydiving at about twelve miles an hour. He studied the area beneath them. Noted the forest of citrus trees, the open space of weeds and boulders awash in shades of green through his infrared goggles, and the long ravine to the south. A Jeep was just passing the trees, so they had about a half hour until the next one arrived. Their biggest immediate risk was broken ankles, assuming they missed the trees and boulders.
As they continued to soar horizontally, lower and lower, he tugged on the lines, directing their flight. So far no more headlights showed near the drop zone.
At one hundred feet, he felt a huge downdraft, and it seemed as if they were heading into a black-green hole. Again Eva tensed. He drew on the lines, controlling their direction and silently gliding, gliding. Satisfied, he used his body to push Eva upright and his knees to angle her knees into a crouch. They swept between tall boulders and landed hard, stumbling to a stop just before they reached the road that skirted the trees. He could feel her heaving for air.
"You did it." He unsnapped the straps that joined them. "Good job. Now let's get the hell out of the way."
He released the drogue and ram-air chutes, and they hurried off. As they gathered the canopies, Tucker slid in low. He yanked his lines, barely missing a shoulder-high boulder. Knees bent, he landed and staggered, finally catching his balance.
Standing stationary, he lifted his head. "Screw you, Haris. This old rooster still has a hell of a lot of life left in him." Then he smiled and collected his chutes.
"Everything went right," Eva said excitedly. "The parachutes opened. No one broke a leg. I could get used to this."
Then a bird called from the trees. There was rustling in the grove--fast movement.
"Shit." Judd pulled out his Beretta. "They were waiting for us. Run!"
Weapons in hands, they tore south across the hard earth toward the ravine. Judd glanced behind and saw six men dressed in black swarming out of the trees, aiming M4 assault rifles. They had night-vision goggles. Shooting as they ran, the men poured out fusillades of rounds. The bullets whined and bit into earth and rocks. Tucker grunted. A round clipped Judd's ear. All three fell flat. Judd pointed, and Eva scuttled into the shelter of a tall rock formation. Judd and Tucker followed.
From the southwest, a Jeep's headlights came to life, and the vehicle rushed along the road toward them. The air reverberated with the noise of feet pounding and the engine's growl.
"Christ," Tucker grumbled. "I hate being ambushed."
"Are you hit?" Judd gazed at Tucker, then checked Eva's blackened face, saw the tightness of her mouth. She seemed all right.
Tucker shook his head. "I'm fine. That's a cute cut on your ear, Judd. Glad they didn't take your brains. The ravine isn't far. Eva, we'll cover you. As soon as we start shooting, stay low and run like hell. Can you do that?"
"Of course." She crouched.
The two men took either side of the rocky mound. Judd peered at Tucker. He nodded. They edged out, firing automatic bursts from their Uzis.
AS THE ear-bleeding gunfire continued behind her, Eva reached the ravine and dropped quickly at the edge, legs dangling over. From the NSA photos, they had calculated it averaged ten feet deep. It led around and down toward the compound. The shadows were a thick green. Only the top of her side of the nearly vertical slope was slightly illuminated, showing raw dirt, weeds, and rocks. Gripping her S&W in both hands the way Judd had showed her, in seconds she was plummeting down on her back into the abyss.
But as she slid deep into the green darkness her gaze was attracted to a boulder across from her at the bottom. Then she saw a small movement there, an arm. A man was squatting to make himself small. Fear started to take over her mind. She repressed it and aimed her pistol. Suddenly there was movement to her right. And she swung the gun, a mistake she realized instantly. A foot slashed through the air. Her pistol flew, and two very strong men were on her.
THE JEEP was just a thousand feet away. Judd saw one man in it, driving. For some reason the man stopped the vehicle, engine still running, and leaned across and opened the passenger door.
Eva had deployed safely, so Judd gestured at Tucker. Tucker grimaced and looked as if he were going to argue. Then he leaped up and ran.
Judd leaned out again and shot three bursts. They had managed to take down one man, and the others were lying flat, shooting whenever they thought they had a target and sometimes when they did not.
Before the guards had time to return fire, Judd sprinted, and Tucker vanished down the ravine. Judd did not look, just jumped and let his heels act as inefficient brakes as he slipped and careened down the steep incline into heavy green soup.
Tucker's head was rotating. "Where is she?"
"Eva," Judd called in a low voice.
There was no answer, but there was a yell from above.
"They're coming," Tucker said. "Let's move."
"Not without Eva. Eva!" Judd shouted.
"Dammit, son. They've probably got her. She'd be waiting otherwise. Maybe that's why the Jeep stopped with its door open--to pick up her and whoever captured her. You're not going to do her any good if you get caught or killed. Move."
Judd said nothing. Instead he turned to go down the ravine to the Jeep. To Eva.
But Tucker slammed the back of his helmet. "Dammit, Judson. The other direction."
Judd shook his head to clear it, then ripped off the helmet. They ran southeast, toward the compound. Tucker pulled off his helmet, and both replenished their ammo. The ravine was uneven, filled with rocks slowing their progress.
"This isn't working," Judd said, listening to the noise of the feet running along the top of the ravine, overtaking them. "We need to get rid of the bastards. You go. I'll handle them."
From a trouser loop, he unhooked a frag grenade and held it in his right hand. Tucker saw it and accelerated, while Judd slid low into the deep shadows on the ravine's north side.
He waited motionless as the guards approached.
"They're heading to the house," a confident bass voice said.
Radio or walkie-talkie, Judd thought.
"Sure," the man continued. "No problem. We'll get them."
They were almost above him. Judd inhaled, exhaled, pulled the safety pin with his left hand, rolled the grenade over the crest, and sprinted, his boots hitting rocks so fast his speed kept him upright. White light flashed. The explosion thundered. As dirt rained down, he caught up with Tucker, who had hiked himself up the side and was peering back.
"No one's upright," Tucker reported. "They've got to have some serious injuries. That'll keep them busy."
They jogged off, but Judd saw Tucker was tiring. Judd slowed them to a fast walk and took out the reader that followed the tracker in Eva's ankle bracelet.
"She's in the compound already. Looks as if she's a couple of levels down under the main house." He gazed at Tucker. "Did you see any Jeeps anywhere near us?"
"Nary a one."
"Too bad. I was hoping we could grab one. Okay, Plan B. When we get closer to the compound, I've got an idea how to get us inside."
"It'd better be a damn good one," Tucker said. "They sure as hell are going to be ready for us."