“Can do,” Jett assured him.
She more than capably brought them around for two passes, both of which also included a flyover of the cabin just visible on the shore.
They got no response from inside either structure.
“Well, crap.” Jett eventually gained altitude again. “That means he’s either in the shack in trouble, in the cabin unresponsive, or somewhere in the woods, possibly lost.Because home base hasn’t called to tell us that the tracker on his truck has relocated.”
“Which also means I’m about to de-plane,” Trask told her, feeling much more upbeat about where they were at, despite the gravity of their mission.
Trask immediately began performing his pre-jump, gear check, making sure all straps and handles were secured, then gave one more look at his main and reserve chutes to see that they were on properly.
His clothing was another matter altogether, he thought, as he pulled on gloves. The weather was chilly, and it would be a cold jump. Given the time he’d had, he’d dressed as warmly as possible in extra layers that Jett had packed in her plane, and he felt he was as ready to roll as he ever would be.
“Take the first aid kit. You might need it,” Jett told him. “I’m not sure how much help it will be if there’s a huge emergency with Richard, but it’s better than nothing. It’s inside the compartment to your left.”
Trask fished it out and tucked it into a zippered bag that lay among all the other equipment Jett had amassed, then attached it to the front of his suit with a clip.
Trask hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.
“Ready?” Jett asked a few minutes later. “We’re approaching thirty-five hundred feet,” she told him.
A low altitude jump, but nothing he hadn’t done many times before.
“Twenty seconds.” She gave the warning, and he heard her slow her airspeed.
Trask pulled open the door and waited for Jett’s go, positioning himself partway out the door, facing forward with his left hand on the strut and his foot on the step.
“Okay. Geronimo,” she called out.
Laughing at her choice of words, and pumped up with the adrenaline that always accompanied a jump, Trask pushed off.
Freefall.
There was nothing like it.
He quickly oriented himself, flaring out his arched body and locating his target, now three thousand feet below.
Damn.It was cold. His face was already going numb.
Checking his watch-altimeter, Trask waited until he reached twenty-five hundred feet, then pulled his ripcord. His chute deployed, and using his steering lines as he slowly descended, Trask directed himself to within twenty feet of the shack.
And now, the tricky part was almost upon him.
If he’d been touching down in a field, he’d be landing on his feet, or he’d execute a tuck and roll if the ground was uneven.
But this situation was neither.
He’d never landed on ice before. When discussing it with Jett as they’d first taken off, she’d suggested he do a “butt landing”, and described the process.
It sounded fairly undignified, but who was he to argue? She was the PJ, after all.
So he did exactly as she’d suggested.
Lifting his legs at the last moment to form an L with his body, his backside hit the ice a little more aggressively than he would have liked.
“Ouch,” he yelped.
Damn, that burned.
