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At the back of the plane, he knelt to release the latch on one of the straps on the weapons container. When the latch popped loose, he grabbed the second strap, but the buckle was stuck, held tight by the tension. As he struggled with the latch, a hand holding a knife shot past his head and cut the strap. He looked up to see the smiling face of Private Autumn Eaglemoon.
Eaglemoon tapped the side of her helmet, over her right ear. Alexander checked his comm switch; it was off.
“Damn,” he whispered, “the door must’ve hit it.” He flipped it on. “Can anybody hear me?”
Several soldiers responded.
The aircraft jerked to the left, flinging the weapons container out the back. The static line then yanked tight, pulling the ripcords on the container’s two orange chutes.
Alexander signaled his soldiers to follow him as he jumped out, but as soon as he cleared the aircraft, he realized he’d forgotten to connect his static line to the overhead cable. He rolled to his back to see his people streaming out like a family of olive-drab chicks following their mother hen. Their chutes billowed out as they opened one after the other.
God, I hope they all make it.
The right wing of the C-130 tore loose and pinwheeled toward them. Half of it was gone, including the outboard engine. The remaining engine was on fire, leaving a spiraling trail of greasy smoke.
“Holy shit!” Alexander watched in horror as the burning wing spiraled toward his troops. “Look out! The wing!”
The soldiers craned their necks, but their billowing canopies blocked their view above. Like a whirling reaper, the wing spun through the air, passing just ten feet beneath one of the soldiers.
“Joaquin!” the soldier yelled into his comm. “Bank right!”
Private Ronald Joaquin pulled his right control line and started a slow-motion turn to his right, but it wasn’t enough. The jagged end of the burning wing caught four of his shroud lines and yanked him sideways with a violent jerk. His chute collapsed and trailed along behind the spinning wing.
“Hit your release buckle!” Alexander yelled into his comm.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Joaquin yelled.
He flailed at his parachute buckle while being slung around by the spinning wing. Finally, he grabbed the buckle and yanked it open to release the shroud lines tying him to the deadly wing. He fell for ten seconds, then rolled over to be sure he was clear of the wing before releasing his reserve chute. When his reserve chute popped open, he began to breathe again.
“Whew! That was close,” he said.
“Good job, Joaquin,” Alexander said.
He watched the descending wing with the collapsed chute trailing behind as it fell toward the trees below. He then yanked his ripcord and heard a whoosh as the small pilot chute pulled the main parachute from his backpack, then the violent jerk as the main chute opened.
The crippled wing hit the treetops at an angle, slicing through the upper branches, then tumbling to the ground. A wisp of smoke drifted up, then the fuel tank ruptured, sending a cloud of flames and black smoke billowing above the trees.
Alexander scanned the horizon. “That’s strange,” he said as he twisted around, trying to see his soldiers and count the parachutes, but he couldn’t see anything past the canopy of his own chute. “Who’s in the air?” he yelled into his mic. “Sound off by the numbers.”
“Lojab,” he heard in his earpiece.
“Kawalski,” Private Kawalski called out. “There goes the plane, to the southeast.”
The C-130 trailed fire and smoke like a meteor as it careened toward the mountainside. A moment later, it exploded in a ball of fire.
“Holy crap,” Alexander whispered. “All right, by the numbers. I got Lojab and Kawalski.”
He counted the soldiers as they said their names. All the soldiers had an assigned number; Sergeant Alexander was number one, Corporal Lojab was number two, and so on.
More of them called out their names, then there was silence. “Ten?” Alexander said, “Goddamn it!” He yanked his right control line. “Sharakova!” he yelled. “Ransom!” No answer.
“Hey, Sarge,” Kawalski said on the comm.
“Yeah?”
“Sharakova’s comm is still not working, but she got out. She’s right above you.”
“Great. Thanks, Kawalski. Can anybody see Ransom?”
“I’m here, Sarge,” Ransom said. “I think I blacked out for a minute when I hit the side of the plane, but I’m awake now.”
“Good. Counting me, that makes thirteen,” Alexander said. “Everyone’s in the air.”
“I saw three crewmen from the C-130 get out of the plane,” Kawalski said. “They popped their chutes right below me.”
“What happened to the captain?” Lojab asked.
“Captain Sanders,” Alexander said into his mic. He waited a moment. “Captain Sanders, can you hear me?”
There was no response.
“Hey, Sarge,” someone said on the comm. “I thought we were jumping through clouds?”
Alexander stared at the ground—the layer of clouds was gone.
That’s what was strange; no clouds.
“And the desert?” another asked.
Below them was nothing but green in every direction.
“That don’t look like no desert I ever saw.”
“Check out that river to the northeast.”
“Damn, that thing is huge.”
“This looks more like India or Pakistan to me.”
“I don’t know what that pilot was smoking, but he sure didn’t take us to the Registan Desert.”
“Cut the chatter,” Sergeant Alexander said. They were now below fifteen hundred feet. “Anyone see the weapons container?”
“Nothing,” Ledbetter said. “I don’t see it anywhere.”
“No,” Paxton said. “Those orange chutes should show up like you white boys in the ghetto, but I don’t see ‘em.”
None of the others saw any sign of the weapons container.
“Okay,” Alexander said. “Steer for that clearing just to the southwest, at ten o’clock.”
“Got it, Sarge.”
“We’re right behind you.”
“Listen up, people,” Sergeant Alexander said. “As soon as you hit the ground, pop your chute and grab your banger.”
“Ooo, I love it when he talks dirty.”
“Can it, Kawalski,” he said. “I’m sure somebody saw us, so be ready for anything.”
All the soldiers glided into the clearing and landed without mishap. The three remaining crewmen from the aircraft dropped in behind them.
“Squad One,” Alexander ordered, “set up a perimeter.”
“Roger that.”
“Archibald Ledbetter,” he said, “you and Kawalski go climb that tall oak and set up a lookout, and get some weapons to the three crewmen.”
“Right, Sarge.” Ledbetter and Kawalski ran toward the C-130 crewmen.
“All quiet on the eastern side,” Paxton said.
“Same here,” Joaquin said from the other side of the clearing.
“All right,” Alexander said. “Stay on your toes. Whoever shot us down is bound to come after us. Let’s get out of this clearing. We’re sitting ducks out here.”
“Hey, Sarge,” Kawalski whispered into his mic. “You got two peeps coming at you, double-time.” He and Ledbetter were halfway up the oak tree.
“Where?”
“On your six.”
Sergeant Alexander spun around. “This is it,” he said into his mic as he watched for the two people. “Everybody get out of sight and ready your weapons.”
“I don’t think they’re armed,” Kawalski whispered.
“Quiet.”
Alexander heard the people coming toward him through the brush. He pressed himself back against a pine tree and cocked the hammer on his Sig automatic.
A moment later, they ran past him. It was a man and woman, unarmed except for a wooden pitchfork carried by the woman. Their clothing was nothing more than short, ragged tunics, and they were barefoot.
“Not Taliban,” Paxton whispered over the comm.
“Too white.”
“Too what?”
“Too white for Pacs or Indians.”
“They’re still going, Sarge,” Kawalski said from his perch in the tree. “They’re jumping over logs and boulders, running like hell.”
“Well,” Sarge said, “they definitely weren’t coming after us.”
“They didn’t even know we were here.”
“Another one,” Kawalski said.
“What?”
“There’s another one coming. Same direction. Looks like a kid.”
“Get out of sight,” Sarge whispered.
The kid, a boy of about ten, ran past. He was pale white and wore the same type of short tunic as the others. He, too, was barefoot.
“More,” Kawalski said. “Looks like a whole family. Moving slower, pulling an animal of some kind.”
“Goat,” Ledbetter said from his position in the tree beside Kawalski.
“A goat?” Alexander asked.
“Yup.”
Alexander stepped out in front of the first person in the group—a teenage girl—and held out his arm to stop her. The girl screamed and ran back the way she’d come, then veered away, running in another direction. A woman in the group saw Alexander and turned to run after the girl. When the man came along with his goat, Alexander pointed his Sig pistol at his chest.
“Hold it right there.”
The man gasped, dropped the rope, and hurried away as fast as he could. The goat bleated and tried to nip Alexander’s sleeve.
The last person, a little girl, gave Alexander a curious look but then picked up the end of the rope and pulled the goat away, in the direction her father had gone.
“Weird,” Alexander whispered.
“Yeah,” someone said on the comm. “Too weird.”
“Did you see their eyes?” Lojab asked.
“Yes,” Private Karina Ballentine said. “Except for the little girl, they were terrified.”
“Of us?”
“No,” Alexander said. “They were running from something else, and I couldn’t stop them. I might as well be a cigar store Indian.”
“A tobacconist’s carved Native American image,” Private Lorelei Fusilier said.
“What?”
