An alarm sounds. I return Teacup’s hand to her lap and shuffle forward. “What is it?”
“Company,” Bob says. “Six o’clock.”
“Choppers?”
“Negative. F-15s. Three of them.”
“How much time before they’re in range?”
He shakes his head. Despite the cold, his shirt is soaked in sweat. His face shines with it. “Five to seven.”
“Bring us up,” I tell him. “Maximum altitude.”
I grab a couple parachute rigs and drop one into Razor’s lap.
“We’re bailing?” he asks.
“We can’t engage and we can’t outrun. You’re with Teacup. Tandem jump.”
“I’m with Teacup? Who are you with?”
Bob glances at the other rig in my hand. “I’m not bailing,” he says. And then, just in case I didn’t hear or don’t understand: “I’m. Not. Bailing.”
No plan is perfect. I’d planned for a Silencer Bob, which meant my plan entailed killing him before we bailed from the chopper. Now it’s complicated. I didn’t kill Jumbo for the same reason I don’t want to kill Bob. Kill enough Jumbos, murder enough Bobs, and you’ve plunged to the same depths as the ones who shove a bomb down a toddler’s throat.
I shrug to hide my uncertainty. Toss the rig into his lap. “Then I guess you get incinerated.”
We’re at five thousand feet. Dark sky, dark ground, no horizon, all dark. The bottom of the lightless sea. Razor is looking at the radar screen, but he says to me, “Where’s your chute, Ringer?”
I ignore the question. “Can you give me a sixty-second ETA on their range?” I ask Bob. He nods. Razor asks the question again. “It’s math,” I tell him. “Which I’m three-quarters really good at. If there are four of us and they mark two chutes, that leaves at least one of us on board. One, maybe two of them will stay with the chopper, at least until they can take it down. It’ll buy time.”
“What makes you think they’ll stay with the chopper?”
I shrug. “It’s what I’d do.”
“Still doesn’t answer my question about your chute.”
“They’re hailing us,” Bob announces. “Ordering us to set it down.”
“Tell them to suck it,” Razor says. He stuffs a piece of bubble gum into his mouth. Taps his ear. “Popping’s bad.” Jams the gum wrapper into his pocket. Notices I’m watching and smiles. “Never noticed all the crap in the world until there was nobody left to pick it up,” he explains. “The Earth is my charge.”
Then Bob calls out, “Sixty seconds!”
I tug on Razor’s parka. Now.
He looks up at me and says slowly and distinctly, “Where’s your freaking chute?”
I haul him out of the seat one-handed. He chirps in surprise, stumbling toward the back. I follow him, squat in front of Teacup to remove her harness.
“Forty seconds!”
“How are we going to find you?” Razor yells, standing right next to me.
“Head for the fire.”
“What fire?”
“Thirty seconds!”
I haul open the hatch door. The blast of air that punches into the hold blows Razor’s hood off his head. I scoop up Teacup and press her into his chest.
“Don’t let her die.”
He nods.
“Promise.”
Nods again: “I promise.”
“Thank you, Razor,” I say. “For everything.”
He leans forward and kisses me hard on the mouth.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I tell him.
“Why? Because you liked it or because you didn’t?”
“Both.”
“Fifteen seconds!”
Razor maneuvers Teacup over his shoulder, grabs the safety cable, and shuffles back until his heels touch the jump pad. Silhouetted in the opening, the boy and the child over the boy’s shoulder, and five thousand feet beneath them, the limitless dark. The Earth is my charge.
Razor releases the cable. He doesn’t seem to fall. He is sucked out into the ravenous void.
73
I HEAD BACK to the cockpit, where I find the pilot’s door unlatched, the seat empty, and no Bob.
I wondered why the countdown stopped; now I know: He changed his mind about the whole bailing issue.
We must be in range, which means they don’t intend to shoot us down. They’ve marked the location of Razor’s drop, and they’ll stay with the chopper until I bail or it runs out of fuel and I’m forced to bail. By this point, Vosch has figured out why Jumbo’s implant is on this aircraft while its owner is in the infirmary being treated for a very bad headache.
With the tip of my tongue, I push the pellet from my mouth and lick it onto my palm.
Do you want to live?
Yes, and you want that, too, I tell Vosch. I don’t know why and, hopefully, I never will.
I flick the pellet from my hand.