The man reached him and said, “Where’s Ulrich?”
Mustafa pulled his own mask up and said, “He might have COVID. He’s not sure. He came into contact with someone who’s come up hot and asked me to take this trip. To protect the client.”
“We don’t fly without Ulrich.”
Mustafa knew they’d conducted a background check on the man he’d killed, and understood this was the endgame, because he had no such check. He said, “Okay by me, but you still have to pay. Whether I fly or not, I’m getting my charter for this trip.”
The man fiddled with his mask for a moment, muttered, then went back up the hill. Mustafa held his breath.
And he saw Gideon shaking his head, wagging a finger, and then coming down the hill, the security man following. Mustafa exhaled, now feeling the adrenaline of what he was about to do. They both marched up to him and Gideon said, “Are you competent?”
“Yes, yes. I’ve done this as much as Ulrich. He’s my friend. We both work for the same company.”
The security man said, “Do you have the same safety equipment? Reserve parachute?”
Mustafa pointed at a bag on the ground and said, “Of course. I would never leave earth without it.”
What he didn’t say was the reserve bag had nothing but cloth in it. And a note.
The security man grunted, and Gideon started putting on the harness. Mustafa jumped forward saying, “Let me help you.”
Gideon waved him off with a laugh, saying, “I think I know how to do this now.”
Mustafa put on his own harness, then waited under the watchful eye of the security man. Gideon turned around to him and held his arms out. Mustafa pretended to check the harness, but honestly, didn’t know what anomalies or mistakes he was supposed to find. His limit of experience was flying solo, and he was beginning to panic about flying someone else.
The security man looked at him with some bit of concern, and Mustafa put his sunglasses over his eyes, shielding them. With the mask in place, he was now unreadable.
He stood up and said, “Looks good. You ready to go for a ride?”
Gideon said, “Yes, yes. Are we landing in the same place? In the field in the center of town?”
Mustafa really wanted to say, “Yes, but a lot harder than you’re used to.” But did not.
He said, “Yes, same place as all the others.”
He snapped the carabiners designed to hold Gideon to himself, tugged on them once to make sure they were secure, and glanced at the security man, seeing him staring at him like he wanted to use a knife. He turned forward and said, “Run, run, run!”
The old man started trotting down the hill, and Mustafa overtook him, almost falling on top of him. He staggered forward, the old man now dragging his legs on the ground, held up by the harness attached to Mustafa. In a panic, Mustafa leaned back, getting the man’s legs back underneath him, and then he began to fall forward. His worst fears realized.
He pumped his legs as hard as he could, dragging Gideon along, and then the canopy caught the air, lifting them off the ground. For a split second, Mustafa couldn’t believe it, dangling in the harness like a child in a bouncy chair. As the land fell farther away, he realized they were flying, and reached up for the toggles to gain control.
He swerved out over the valley, and his target said, “This is so beautiful. I never get tired of looking at it.”
Completely embroiled in controlling the canopy, Mustafa said nothing. Eventually, he calmed down, realizing that flying with a passenger wasn’t that different than flying alone. It just took a little longer for the controls to react. He began soaring over the valley, looking for his landing spot.
High over Lake Thune, he could see Interlaken to his left, but found the winds more than he expected. Try as he might, he couldn’t get back over the town. He realized that he should have started turning as soon as he was off the mountain, but didn’t have the experience to know better.
He completed a circle in the air, finding a thermal, and went higher. The target thought it was for his benefit, saying, “Yes, yes. Ulrich never does this.”
Consumed with his task and fearing failure, Mustafa thought about bringing out the hook knife right then, but that wouldn’t accomplish what his masters wanted. For one, they might actually remain alive after hitting the water. With the canopy still above them after the riser was cut, they would fall rapidly, but it would still slow the descent. For another, the letter in his reserve parachute pouch would be destroyed. The entire point of the mission gone.
He began to panic.
And then the wind died, falling away as if it had grown tired of the fight, allowing him to drive the canopy forward, over Interlaken itself. He saw the field smack in the center of town where he’d landed on his many individual training flights and steered toward it.
Gideon said, “So soon. So soon. I’d like to stay up here forever.”
Mustafa didn’t even hear him, entering another plane of existence. Knowing what was coming. He gritted his teeth and steeled himself, turning on the final leg of what would be the last controlled flight pattern he would ever do. His eyes closed, he withdrew a hook knife from his vest, similar to ones first responders use to cut seat belts. He opened his eyes and said, “Alluha Akbar.”
Gideon whipped his head around at the words, saw the knife, and began to rotate in his harness, trying to fight. Mustafa knocked his hands away, reached up, and sliced the nylon strap running from his harness to the carabiner of the left riser.
Gideon screamed, and they slipped to the left, the right riser still having some lift, the fall much slower than Mustafa expected. It wasn’t like jumping off a roof. The canopy lost air in slow motion, but eventually, they picked up speed, reaching terminal velocity at five hundred feet, both barreling straight to earth with the disabled sheet of nylon fluttering over them like a macabre flag celebrating the fall.
Mustafa screamed, “Alluha Akbar!”
And they hit the ground right where they were supposed to, only a lot harder than Gideon was used to, both bodies splattering open like watermelons tossed off a building.
Chapter 3
Aaron Bergman picked up the Guinness beers at the bar, paid the tab, and turned back to the table, ignoring the fact that the bartender recoiled at his mere presence. He’d seen that before. He did his best to hide it, but short of wearing a burka, there was no way to camouflage what he was. People just instinctively recognized him as a threat, like a pit bull growling at a visitor.
He saw his partner staring intently at the door, waiting on someone to enter. He unconsciously shook his head, hoping the man who came in didn’t have a problem for them to solve.
Anytime the Mossad asked for their help, it was because they didn’t want to risk actual assets. It was painful to admit, but they were expendable. But that did give them options. If they weren’t officially Mossad, they could solve the problem like they wanted, without the oversight.
Small blessings.
He went back to the table, set a beer in front of his partner, and said, “Irish bar. Irish beer.”
She scrunched up her nose and said, “Seriously? They don’t have any rum?”
He smiled at the inside joke. A good friend of theirs only drank rum and Cokes, and she’d taken to the drink to prove she had something to hold on to as a human being. Using his normalcy to prove she was normal. Which she was decidedly not.