The Lion

CHAPTER TEN

Even with the helmet covering my ears, the roar from the wind stream sounded like a freight train going through my head.

I forced my body into a medium arch, then extended my arms and legs, and the airstream began to stabilize my fall. I was dropping now at about 110 miles per hour, which was terminal velocity for the position of my body.

I expected to see Kate appear on my right, as we'd pla

Just as I was about to attempt another look, I saw in my peripheral vision that Kate was catching up to me. This should have happened much sooner, and she should have been much closer to me to do our relative work. I had the feeling that she'd delayed her jump by a second or two. But why?

Kate was about fifty yards off my right shoulder now, and I saw the skydiver in black, who I'd thought was too close to her in the plane, and I realized he was actually hanging on to her. What the hell…?

He had his right arm wrapped around her body, and he appeared to be holding on to the gripper on the left side of her jumpsuit with his left hand. I saw, too, that he had his legs wrapped around hers.

They were falling faster than I was because of their combined weight and because of how their bodies were positioned in the airstream. Within a few seconds, they were below me and falling farther away.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and my heart started to race. What was this? Maybe, I thought, one of them had a problem of some sort and grabbed on to the other. Maybe the guy panicked, or somehow he'd hooked up with the wrong skydiver for relative work, or-I couldn't understand this or make sense of it.

Kate and the guy were now a few hundred yards below me as they continued their joined-up free fall at an accelerating rate. It hit me that this guy might be trying to commit suicide and for some sick reason he was taking Kate with him.

Then I saw the small pilot chute stream out from Kate's pack, and it blossomed into an open position. The pilot chute lifted the main canopy out of its container, and her parachute began to fill with air.

Thank God.

Kate's white canopy with red markings was fully extended, and her rapid free fall ended in a jerk that reduced her drop speed to about a thousand feet per minute. As I continued my free fall, I could see that the hitchhiker was still attached to her, and they both swayed under her canopy.

I shot past them in a blur, then out of training and habit I glanced at the digital altimeter on my wrist: 8,400 feet. Why did she deploy her chute so soon? I grabbed my ripcord, arched my body, and looked around to be sure I was clear of any other chutes-then I pulled the ripcord.

I did the required count-one thousand, two thousand-waiting to see if I needed to go to my reserve chute. I looked over my right shoulder, as trained, and saw my pilot chute streaming upward. I turned back and felt a jerk as the pilot chute filled with air, then another jerk as the pilot chute dragged my main chute out of its container.

I looked up to visually confirm that the rapid deceleration I felt was, indeed, the result of my main chute being fully deployed, and that I had no need for the reserve chute.

I now had full control, and I sca

I spotted Kate and her passenger about two hundred feet above me, and about a hundred feet to my front. She was again descending at a slightly greater rate because of the weight of the guy holding on to her. The noise of the airstream had been reduced considerably now, so I shouted to her, "Kate!"

She seemed to not hear or see me, but the guy with her looked toward me.

"Kate!"

I needed to get closer before Kate's faster rate of descent caused her and the guy to drop too far below me-but canopy relative work is inherently dangerous, and a wrong move would get the two chutes tangled, which results in everyone falling like a rock. They'd shown us a horrifying film of this very thing in Deland, and everyone in the class got the message.

Just as they came abreast of me, I pulled on my front risers, which caused me to match their rate of descent and allowed me to maneuver my chute closer to theirs. In less than a minute, only about fifty feet separated our parachutes, which was almost too close.

"Kate!"

She looked at me.

I shouted, "What's wrong?"

She shouted something, but I couldn't hear her.

I carefully maneuvered closer, and now I could see that there was a short cord between them, attached to Kate's gripper and to the guy's gripper, and that explained how he'd stayed with her from the time of the jump, through the free fall, and during the rapid deceleration of her chute deployment. But what was going on? Who was this idiot?

"Kate!"

She called out to me again, but all I could hear was "John," and then something that sounded like "Eel."

I shouted at the guy, slowly, distinctly, and loudly. "What-are-you-doing?"

He seemed to hear me and waved.

I shouted, "Who-are-you?"

He reached up and pulled Kate's left riser, which caused her chute and them to slip toward me on a collision course.

Good God… I let go of my risers and my rate of descent slowed as theirs continued faster, and Kate's chute passed under my feet with only about ten feet separating us. This guy was crazy. Suicidal. My heart thumped and my mouth went dry.

Using my risers again, I increased my rate of descent, and within a minute we were again within fifty feet of each other.

I let go of my risers, pulled off my right glove, and unzipped the pocket that held my Glock. I had no idea who this guy was or what he was up to, but he'd done a very dangerous thing, and he was strapped to my wife; if I could get a shot off safely, I was going to kill him.

Kate, too, had her Glock in her jumpsuit, though I didn't think she could get to it with that guy all over her.

I was now just about where I was before that turd brain made a kamikaze run at me. I shouted at him, "Get-away-from-her! Now! Unhook! Unhook!"

The guy turned toward me, then lifted his face shield. He was gri

I stared at him.

Asad Khalil.

My heart started to race again.

I heard Kate shout, "John! It's Khalil! Khalil! He's got a-"

Khalil punched her in the face and her head snapped back.

I drew my Glock and took aim, but I was swaying under the canopy, and Khalil had twisted himself and Kate so that she was between me and him. I could not fire safely, but I could fire, and I squeezed off two rounds, wide to the right.

That got Khalil's attention and he positioned himself closer to Kate.

I pocketed the Glock and worked the risers until I was again abreast of them with about fifty feet separating us.

Asad Khalil.

Libyan terrorist. Known in international anti-terrorist circles as The Lion. Known to me as pure evil.

It had been my misfortune to cross paths with him three years ago, when I was new with the Anti-Terrorist Task Force. I never actually met him, though Kate and I did have some interesting cell phone conversations with him while we spent a bad week following the trail of blood and death he was leaving from New York to California.

Khalil pulled on Kate's risers, and again they drifted toward me. He called out, "I promised you I would return, Mr. Corey!"

I looked at Khalil and we stared at each other. Seeing him hanging there, floating in the clear blue sky, I recalled that Asad Khalil had demonstrated a high degree of showmanship and originality in committing his murders-in fact, he'd pushed it in our faces-and I was not surprised that he'd chosen this method of reappearing. Did I sense his presence today?