Of course that didn't happen. The plane's engines had leveled off and everything was fine, and, just like now, the Cessna sailed straight up into the sky, nice and smooth. Conway felt that wonderful adrenaline-filled mix of fear and excitement burst deep inside his loins, electrifying his skin, and washing away his exhaustion and earlier paranoia.
Dix was no longer looking out the window. His head was bent forward and he was taking in quick breaths, his eyes locked on the altimeter strapped across the center of his small chest, watching for the magic number: 10,000 feet, the altitude at which they would jump. It would take the plane roughly twenty minutes to reach that height.
"Hey Dix," Conway said calmly, like everything was great. His voice carried over the headset, catching the, attention of Evans and the cameraman.
"Take in deep, controlled breaths, Dix. In and out, nice and slow."
"I'm fine," Dixon replied, his voice cracking. His head was bent over the altimeter.
Evans clamped his hand on Dixon's shoulder in a show of camaraderie.
"It's okay to be nervous. My first time, hell, I thought I was going to shit myself." Evans and the cameraman laughed.
"Do the deep breathing and you'll be fine."
Dixon nodded and then went to work on his breathing, taking slow and steady deep breaths. After a few minutes, the wired energy in his eyes abated. The tension melted out of his shoulders and his grip on the seat loosened. His face didn't look as pale. He seemed relaxed. Now all Conway had to do was to get Dixon through the next hurdle.
Twenty minutes later, the plane leveled off. Conway looked at his altimeter. 10,000 feet. Time to jump.
"Show time," Evans said, unbuckling his seat belt.
Dixon would be performing a tandem jump. With Evans attached to Dixon's back, they would jump out of the plane together and free fall for roughly ten minutes. Using his headset, Evans would talk to Dixon, telling him how to tuck in his legs and where to place his arms to increase wind resistance. At roughly 6,000 feet, Evans would pull the cord and deploy the chute.
The tandem jump was the way to go. You had the built-in security of having a professional jumper attached to your back. If Dix got sick or blacked out, Evans would be in total control. This was a much more appealing route than what Conway had performed for his first jump, the static line jump. With only a line attached to his chute, he stood at the jump door, his knees turning to jelly, the harness wrapped around his chest that had felt so tight on the ground now feeling loose and flimsy, his twenty-one years of life in control of what seemed like a piece of string. Conway couldn't remember how he had managed to jump, but when he did, he had blacked out for a good three seconds. The next thing he knew, the parachute had deployed, whoosh!" and with a hard yank he was sent back up into the sky where he finally leveled off and then sailed toward the ground. When his feet hit the grass, the adrenaline rush flooded his brain with such a high that he felt invincible, in full control of his life and thoughts, like one of those maniacal Tony Robbins disciples who walk barefoot over a bed of hot coals and emerge unscathed at the other side, jubilant and victorious.
With any luck, that's how Dix would feel today, and the disc exchange at the Austin airport would go smoothly.
Evans talked as he made the final attachments to Dixon's harness.
"Let's go through our checklist. When you jump, what's the first thing you're going to do?"
"Tuck my legs back like I'm trying to touch my butt with my feet. Keep my body loose and relaxed, like Gumby," Dixon said.
"Right. Now for the most important question: If you're in the air and have to blow chunks, what are you going to do?"
"I'm not going to puke."
"But if you have to, what's the plan?"
"Tuck my chin under my armpit."
"My man. How you feeling?"
"Nervous. A little light-headed."
"That's the adrenaline. It's going to make everything seem really vivid and intense. This is going to be the biggest rush of your life."
The pilot signaled Evans.
"Time to rock and roll. You ready?"
Dixon swallowed hard, nodded.
"Okay then, let's do it," Evans said, and then reached across Dixon's waist and slid the door open.
Air filled with the roar of the plane's engines rushed into the cabin, pushing Dixon away from the door. He grabbed each side of the door frame and steadied himself, his elbows bent, his eyes wide and unblinking behind the goggles as he stared past the infinite blue sky at the world below.
The cameraman reached up and turned on the camera, ready to record the moment, and moved behind Evans.
"All you've got to do is tumble forward, just like we talked about on the ground," Evans yelled over the headset.
Dixon didn't say anything. His body was frozen, his eyes wide and staring at an adversary only he could see.
"Nothing can happen," Evans said.
"I do this every day. You're golden."
Dixon's arms were shaking. At first Conway thought it was from the wind. Then he saw that Dixon's mouth was moving, his words inaudible, his head shaking, No.
"I can't," Dixon said, his voice small under the plane's engines.
"What did you say?" Evans yelled back.
"I can't, I I can't do this." His tone had a fevered pitch to it, each word growing louder.
"Dude, you can do this," Evans said.
"I can't."
"You going to puss out right here in front of your friend?"
Conway said, "Back off."
"Hey, once we turn around, no refunds," Evans replied.
"That's the deal."
Dixon pushed himself away from the door, knocking Evans back. Dixon looked over to Conway for a sign of support. When Conway didn't answer right away, Dixon's face turned red, his eyes shining with venom, the look of a man cornered and prepared to come out swinging.
"You were right, Steve, I didn't have the balls to do it! You fucking won! I'm a fucking pussy!"
Oh shit, he's having a panic attack. Conway said, "Dix, you're not a pussy."
"It's what you're thinking It's what you're all thinking!" Dixon spat through his clenched teeth.
"I can see it on your faces!"
"Dix, listen to me. It's no big deal. You're beating yourself up for nothing. It's all " A force like a brick wall slammed into Conway's chest and knocked him back against his seat. His body slumped to the floor. His head came to rest with a hard thump against the side of the plane.
Conway felt dazed. He tried to move and found he couldn't. His muscles weren't listening. They were limp and useless, and his eyes felt heavy. He could see Dixon clearly, could see the perplexed look on Dixon's face, Dix, unaware of the syringe in Evans's hand.
Dix, turn around, the guy's got a needle. Conway could hear the words clearly in his head, could feel the fear and urgency behind them. He wanted to push them out, but his throat wouldn't work.
"Steve, what's going on?" Dixon asked, frightened.
Evans sunk the needle deep into Dixon's neck and pressed down on the plunger. By the time Dixon felt the sting and moved his hand up to touch his neck, the needle was gone.
"Steve Help me, please."
Then Dixon's head slumped forward and the rest of his body went limp.
Evans jumped out of the plane with Dixon attached to him. Conway sat there, powerless to stop it. Dixon was gone.
The cameraman placed the end of the stun baton just inches from Conway's eyes. The charge dancing between the two metal prongs looked like an electric blue and white snake.
"When I'm through with you, they won't even be able to donate your organs," the cameraman said, smiling, and hit Conway in the waist with the charge. Conway's body writhed until his mind turned off and everything went black.
His own kidnapping that seemed the appropriate word came when he was only five weeks into a six-month planned vacation a sabbatical, really.
Conway was entitled to the time, he had earned it. Christ, he had been going nonstop since he graduated from college and that was… God, that was coming up on nine years ago. Time seemed to be moving at the speed of light. He blinked and the next thing he knew he was eight months away from turning thirty. The pull of his own mortality consumed his thoughts. He was coming to grips with the fact that his life was nothing more than a finite line held together moment to moment by chance and luck.
Of course the shooting had something to do with all of this. How could it not? Every time he closed his eyes he could see Armand's shaking hand, with its yellow nails and nicotine-stained fingers, reach into his briefcase and instead of pulling out the money, pulling out a nine-millimeter Clock and boom, it was over.
The operation went fine. There had been a good deal of blood loss, shattered fragments of bone that needed to be mended, but overall it was a clean wound, the doctor had said. You're in great shape, Steve, all that muscle helped save your life. You're very lucky to be alive.
Lucky. The word was a constant echo in his mind, even in his sleep.
That's what life really came down to: people. Everyone's a victim of someone else's decisions. I suddenly don't like the look of your face and boom, you're bleeding to death on a cold basement floor, the pain is excruciating, and upstairs, two teammates from the Hazard Team, guys who you consider friends, John Murphy and Paul Devincent, men you respect and admire guys who have families and girlfriends and wives and kids have rushed in to save your life only to be ambushed, and guess what, Steve? There's not one fucking thing you can do to stop it. And the truth of the matter? The goddamn kicker? You should have died with them. Want to know why you didn't, Steve? Pure luck.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen. It was pure luck that Armand's gun jammed on the second shot, pure luck that Pasha came rushing in at just the right moment with her drawn handgun, pure luck that it took only one shot for her to cancel Armand's ticket before he got the chance to use the knife. Pure luck, ladies and gentlemen, no grand design or scheme, no divine intervention. It was simply pure luck.
The rehabilitation for the shoulder went fine. The physical therapist kept saying the word over and over again: Everything's fine. You're doing fine, Steve, that's it, keep moving, the shoulder's doing just fine. The scar's healing nicely, don't you think? Conway knew that the worst scars are always the ones you can't see.
All he wanted was to be left alone. That landscape was very familiar, the mental geography well defined. Safe. A mental harbor. When the physical therapy ended, he turned in his cell phone and pager and left no forwarding address, promising to wear the watch with the GPS transmitter at all times, pay for everything in cash and use the alias.
Conway knew the drill. Thank you, good-bye, and please don't call.
He rented a nice, small house in Vail, Colorado. A little expensive, sure, but he had some money put aside and man, it was worth every cent.
Mornings were spent mountain biking, a sport that had always bored him, but he couldn't pass up the scenery: steep cliffs holding rolling fields of green, snowcapped mountains everywhere he looked, the air so clean and crisp that when it filled his lungs he felt a renewed sense of energy, of rebirth. Maybe a short run later in the evening if he was full of that peculiar energy that had no place to go or better, some reading. Dennis Lehane's excellent novels got him through most of those long nights when he couldn't sleep. Sometimes he would look up from a book, the fire crackling behind him, and just watch the sunset, marveling at the way the sky would show shades of magenta and red and orange, casting the world below in a soft, warm glow. His mind would grip it and carry it with him to sleep. The next morning the same routine was repeated. He craved routine the way a junkie hurts for a fix. Routine kept him from thinking about the shooting, kept him from hearing his two teammates screaming, begging for it to stop.
For five weeks he had spoken to no one. He had no family not in the biological sense but what he did have was two close friends from college, two people he could trust who both lived in downtown Boston. Booker and Riley didn't know about the shooting or how close to death he had really come, and they had no idea what he really did for a living. He had been pretending all his life, trying on different lives, seeing how they fit under his skin. Now he got paid to do it professionally.
Funny how life prescribes exactly what you need.
A voice above him, far away, said, "Get rid of his watch."
A second voice, this one familiar The cameraman. The stun baton.
Dixon, he's gone. responded, "I fried it. No way can they hear us."
"We have to make this look authentic. Hurry up and get the syringe ready. We'll be at the drop zone any minute."
Conway's thoughts seemed disjointed, the torn pieces of a picture he felt he should have recognized. He was aware of someone touching his wrist. Then he remembered.
Friday night, late October, and a whopper of a storm blanketed Vail with ten inches of powder. The following morning he went skiing and came back to the house around six. Samantha Richardson, a twenty-six-year-old investment planner from Boston, blond hair with a plain face and thin, tight lips, pretty in that waspy New England way, was here on vacation. She knew him as Jeff Cotton, a Web designer from Los Angeles. Conway checked his watch. She would be over in less than an hour.
When he opened the door, he saw at least nine men moving about the living room, dining room, and part of the kitchen, their hands covered in latex, all of them packing boxes and wiping down counters with an electrified urgency. Standing in front of the lit fireplace was Pasha, dressed in a solid-black suit, cut with the kind of sharp lines and curves that made Con-way think of the sleek, powerful elegance of a Mercedes. A phone was pressed against her good ear, her right.