Things Fall Down Read online

  After a hundred yards at high speed she spun the wheel to the right, throwing the car into a tight turn onto Fremont Street to a backdrop of Emily’s shrieking. The back end gave out, kicking the Corvette into a wild spin, and Ramos yelled with alarm as Karen slammed the brakes in a panic.

  When they finally ground to a halt Karen saw that they were pointing in almost the right direction, south towards Fremont Street, but that wasn’t the first thing she noticed. Shrouded in a cloud of tire smoke, his eyes wide as saucers, a terrified young man stood with his hands flat against the hood, as if he was trying to hold off the Corvette. The car had come to a halt just a couple of inches from his feet.

  Karen cursed under her breath, rolling down the window. “Get in!” she yelled over the rumble of the engine, but the man had already set off at a sprint back in the direction of 1st Street.

  “Damn it,” she sighed. “He’s not gonna make it in time.” She shifted back into first and roared off down Fremont, the cracked bodywork scraping against the asphalt as the car pulled away.

  Ramos shot her a look. “What do you mean, he’s not gonna make it?”

  Karen shook her head. Not now. Emily was on the verge of a panic attack, crouched low in the footwell by Ramos’ legs. She didn’t want to say anything that might push her over the edge, but she knew that the abandoned military truck could only mean one thing.

  If the Army was leaving valuable hardware behind it meant there wasn’t time to get it out safely before an attack came. That would be bad enough on its own, but the rifles on the ground were the clearest sign that the countdown to whatever was coming was in the minutes, not hours. Rifles on the ground meant that military order had broken down completely.

  Karen had spent much of her childhood on US military bases around the world, and she'd learned enough to know that a soldier who lost his weapon didn’t just get a slap on the wrist and a couple of days peeling potatoes. Leaving a rifle in the field was an Article 15 deal. An enlisted man could lose three ranks with the snap of a finger, along with a couple months on half pay and maybe some jail time. If an officer dropped his weapon he might as well start putting in applications for civilian jobs, because his military career was over.

  Karen had seen at least five rifles on the ground. For five soldiers to decide to abandon their weapons on the street in an American city… that meant they’d gone way beyond worrying about their careers. They were running for their lives, and they had a head start.

  “Emily, honey, hold onto something, OK?” She nodded to Ramos. “You too, Doc.”

  Ramos opened his mouth to ask why, but he only had to look out the windshield to figure out what Karen was planning. “No,” he muttered, staring at the road ahead.”

  At the south end of Fremont Street lay another ramp for the Bay Bridge. This one wasn’t blocked by a snaking line of traffic, but there was a good reason. This was the off ramp from the closed upper level, and the entrance was blocked by a heavy chain link fence. In its center was a locked gate, sealed with a padlock and thick chain.

  “You can’t be serious!” Ramos gripped his seat belt with both hands. “We’ll never make it through!”

  Karen grimaced and shook her head, lowering her voice. “If we can’t, it’s over. We’ve only got a few minutes.” She planted her foot to the floor and gripped the wheel tight. “OK, brace yourself.”

  The Corvette picked up speed along Fremont Street, the engine roaring like a wounded animal, and as they reached the intersection with Harrison Street Karen aimed squarely at the center of the gate.

  From a distance she’d imagined it bursting open easily, just as gates always opened in the movies, but as it began to loom closer her confidence sapped away. Up close it suddenly looked much stronger than it had from a distance. She could feel her foot easing off the gas, her fear trying to take control of her body, but at the last moment she forced herself to double down, burying her foot to the floor and giving the Corvette a final burst of speed.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The car came to a grinding, shattering halt in the space of a few yards. Crashing into the gate felt like hitting a solid concrete wall. Karen was thrown forward against her seat belt, sending a shooting pain through her bruised ribs that left her too breathless to scream. Ramos doubled over in his seat, cracking his head on the dash before bouncing back against the headrest. The hood crumpled, popped loose and slammed against the windshield, shattering the glass before slowly falling back down as the stalled engine ticked and hissed.

  “Mommy!” Emily whimpered in the footwell, clutching Ramos’ leg like a life preserver. Karen fought past the pain to offer a comforting smile.

  It’s OK, honey, we’re safe,” she wheezed, struggling to suck in a breath. “Are you OK? Are you hurt?”

  Emily climbed awkwardly out of the footwell over Ramos, who groaned with pain. “I hit my head,” she said, gulping back tears as she climbed into Karen’s lap.

  “I’m so sorry, pumpkin. Come here.” Karen wrapped her arms around her daughter, wincing, trying to hide her pain. “Doc? You OK?”

  Ramos nodded, tears in his eyes and an angry welt already blooming on his forehead. He could barely speak, but he managed to point through the windshield at the fence beyond. “I think it opens the other way.”

  Karen looked through the broken windshield, and right away she saw that he was right. The heavy gate had barely budged with the impact of the car, and it was easy to see why. It was mounted to open out into the street. It wasn’t built to swing in the other direction. Driving into it could never have popped it open without tearing the entire gate out of its frame.

  Karen cursed her stupidity under her breath. She’d risked Emily’s life for nothing, and she’d wrecked the car in the process. Now they’d be trapped here in the city, just waiting for…

  She froze. Over the wail of the air raid siren and the angry hissing of the wrecked engine another sound struggled to compete. It was a loud, metallic clunking rattle that started slowly, then began to pick up speed.

  Clunk. Clunk. Clunk, clunk clunk clunk clunkclunkclunkclunk.

  As Karen looked on in amazement the heavy chain wrapped around the gate posts came tumbling link by link to the ground, rapping against the steel as it slipped. It seemed to fall for an age, but when the final link fell from the gate it was followed by a broken padlock, with a final loud metallic clunk as it hit the coiled pile.

  The gate began to swing open towards them, stopping when it hit the crumpled hood of the Corvette.

  Karen’s heart began to race as she realized what this meant. They could reach the bridge! They could escape!

  She turned to Ramos and lifted Emily into his lap, her voice trembling with fear and excitement. “Doc, if you’re a prayin’ man, now’s the time.” She whispered a quiet prayer herself then gingerly turned the key, half expecting the engine to explode in a cloud of steam.

  The ignition wheezed asthmatically, struggling to catch as Karen pumped the gas. “Come on. Come on, please please please start for us.” After a few seconds of painful grinding noises she turned the key back. She was afraid she might burn out the starter motor, so she counted slowly to ten, trying to block out the sound of the siren wailing in the background, and then turned the key once again.

  Again the ignition scratched and grated as Karen pumped the gas, still muttering under her breath, her voice growing louder and more desperate with each passing moment until finally she slammed the steering wheel with her fist and cursed at the top of her voice. “Just fucking start!”

  The engine coughed once, then again, half flooded and trying to clear its throat, and then, finally, a glorious sound echoed through the streets as the engine roared back to life.

  “Ohhhh, thank you thank you thank you, Lord,” she gasped, her eyes squeezed shut. She hadn’t prayed in months. She hadn’t even stepped inside a church since Robbie’s funeral service, but she was thankful someone up there still seemed to be listening. She turned to Ramos and Emil
y, her mouth locked in a manic grin. “OK, guys, we’re in business!”

  A judgmental seven year old raised eyebrow arced back at her. “Why are you swearing at the car, mommy?”

  Karen shoved the Corvette into reverse, ignoring the tortured grinding from the gearbox. “Sometimes cars respond to a little tough love, pumpkin,” she answered. “But I never want to hear you use that word. It only works on cars.”

  “Hey, Karen?” Ramos croaked, still clutching his bruised head.

  “Yeah?”

  He pointed to the gate, swinging wide open in front of them.

  “Can we please get the hell out of here?”

  ΅

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THAT'S YOUR RIPCORD

  JACK FELT HIS stomach turn as he watched Warren strap Boomer into a tandem harness at his chest, one hand on the dog and the other holding the yoke steady. Boomer fought against him, trying to wriggle free of the harness, but Warren brought her under control with a light tap and a stern warning. Jack wished the same would work on him.

  He’d always had what he’d describe as a healthy respect for heights. It was nothing so dramatic as a phobia. He didn’t freeze up in gut wrenching horror at the sight of a long drop, but he felt a sensible caution. Stay away from cliff edges. Watch your step on tall ladders… Oh, and don’t ever, whatever you do, jump out of an airplane.

  These had always seemed like solid rules to live by, and he wasn’t all that eager to break them. His fists were clenched so tight he could feel his fingernails digging into his palms.

  “I… I don’t think I can do this, Warren,” he said, his voice more high pitched and fearful than he’d like.

  Warren tightened the straps on Boomer’s harness, tucking in her legs so she couldn’t scratch at him on the way down. He let out a mirthless chuckle and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Jack, but you’re gonna be on the ground in about five minutes either way. Your choice is a soft landing beneath a canopy or… well, you really don’t want to imagine the other option. I’m told it doesn’t hurt all that much, if it brings you any comfort. If the plane hits the ground just right you might get lucky and die quick.”

  “Gee, thanks for the pep talk,” Jack snapped, clasping his hands together to keep them from trembling. It didn’t help settle his nerves, but he knew Warren was right. Out the window the ground was coming up fast, and without the engine they were only moving in one direction. If he wanted to survive this there was only one way to go.

  He looked down at the chute strapped over his shoulders, taking in every frayed thread and loose stitch in the sun bleached gray material. “How old are these things, anyway? Do we know they still work?”

  “Try not to worry about it, Jack,” Warren growled impatiently, pulling back on the yoke and sending the Otter into a juddering, gliding climb. The plane almost seemed to be standing still in the air, it was moving so slowly, and when Warren leveled off he looked back at Jack with a sigh, noticing the terror in his eyes.

  “Look, they’re a little old, OK? They came with the plane, but right now we can’t be picky about our equipment.” He glanced at the altimeter with a concerned eye. “We’re at five thousand feet, and in a couple of minutes we’ll be too low to jump. I don’t have time to hold your hand through this, so you’re just gonna have to trust me. Deal?”

  Jack forced himself to nod. “OK… OK, I can do this,” he muttered, though there was no confidence in his voice.

  “Attaboy. Now I have to hold this old crate steady, so you’re gonna have to go first, understand?” Jack began to protest, but Warren cut him off. “Now there’s no time to teach you all about skydiving. We’re gonna have to go with the quick and dirty thirty second approach, so listen carefully. You ready?”

  He waited for Jack’s nervous nod before continuing.

  “As soon as you jump I want you to spread your arms and legs out wide, like you’re doing jumping jacks, OK? Just hold that position and you should flatten out, face down.” He glanced at the altimeter and his voice quickened, with an edge of panic creeping in. “The very second you’re stable and facing the ground I want you to pull that steel handle with your right hand. Look down, right there on the left side near your waist. See that handle? That’s your ripcord. That’ll deploy your chute. Now this’ll probably hurt a little because you haven’t been fitted for your harness, but hurt’s better than dead.” Warren’s eyes flitted back to the altimeter, and he jerked his chin towards the back of the plane. “OK, get the door open. We’re running out of time.”

  As Jack climbed reluctantly from his seat Warren continued. “Now, once your chute has deployed just let yourself hang. Don’t try to steer it, ‘cause you’ll only screw it up. You’re a passenger on this ride. Just let it float you down, and when you see the ground coming up you should hold your knees together, bend your legs and tuck your chin to your chest. Land on the balls of your feet, then fall to the side. Don’t try anything fancy. You try to run it off on your first jump and you’ll end up with a broken ankle, so just fall down like a rag doll, OK? When you’re on the ground try to pull your chute in by the cords, and I’ll come get you as soon as I’m down. You got all that? Ready to jump?”

  Jack nodded uncertainly. “I think so. But what if I come down over water, or—”

  “We don’t have time to worry about what ifs, Jack,” Warren interrupted. “We’re losing our jump window here. You have to go. Now! Open the door and jump out of the damned plane!”

  Jack nodded, wide eyed and terrified, and he turned to the door he’d pulled closed behind him just a couple of hours earlier. With trembling hands he lifted the locking bar and pushed hard against the door, and as it cracked open to reveal the endless sky outside he found himself wondering whether he’d have dared climb aboard if he’d known this is how he’d be leaving. Would he have taken his chances in San Francisco, or would he have had the balls to—

  “Now, Jack!” Warren’s voice was loud and panicked. The ground was looming up towards them by the second, and the drag from the open door was playing merry hell with the aerodynamics. In the pilot’s seat Warren pulled back on the yoke with all his strength to keep the plane steady and level, but it was a losing battle. There were only seconds left before he’d be flying a brick. “Jump!”

  Jack leaned both hands against the door frame, took a deep, calming breath and flipped the mental switch that activated his autopilot. It was a switch he’d learned to flip long ago, in the fifteenth hour of a split shift in the ER, that allowed him to turn off every part of his brain that wasn’t required to stitch a wound or insert a catheter.

  The switch took away all his fear, because it took away him. He just sat back and watched as his hands moved to grip the outside of the door frame. He barely felt the gale through the open door, and he looked out over the rolling hills of Oregon far below with a detached interest, as if he were watching a documentary.

  And then he fell forward. He didn’t do anything so manly and brave as jump. Even running on autopilot he couldn’t force his legs to do something so reckless. He simply stopped standing, let his body go limp, and a moment later he felt the gale beyond the door catch him.

  For a few seconds he had no idea what was going on, whether he was in the plane or in the air. He span like a top, buffeted by the gale from every direction, and then suddenly he was looking up at the shrinking Otter from below.

  In that moment, with the decision made and no way back, he felt oddly at peace. He even had time to notice that he was moving at the same speed as the plane. It didn’t shoot off ahead of him as he’d expected. It just hung there in the air above, growing smaller and smaller as he fell away from it.

  That’s when the switch flipped back, and the panic flooded in with a vengeance. Jack snapped out of his calm, zen state like a man waking from a nightmare, sitting bolt upright in his bed, drenched in sweat, but for Jack the nightmare came upon waking.

  I'm falling through the sky! What in the holy hell have I done?!

&
nbsp; He was blinded. Without a mask it felt like the wind was trying to crush his eyes like grapes against the back of his skull. He squeezed them closed and desperately tried to remember the instructions Warren had given him only a moment ago, but his mind was a complete blank. His memory was hosed clean by panic. All he could think about was the ground rushing up towards him at what felt like a thousand miles an hour, and what it would feel like to slam into it at terminal velocity. Would it be an instant death, like a bug splattered against a windshield, or would he feel it? Would he feel his bones shatter before the end? Would his final moments hurt?

  With what little breath he could muster he let out a strangled yell, trying to scream out the fear, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice. The air rushing by him as he fell stole away the sound before it reached his ears, and somehow that only made him more terrified. The thought that his final prayer might—

  Something suddenly popped into his head, a detail of the instructions Warren had given him. The ripcord! There should be a handle down by his waist to deploy the chute!

  He forced his eyes open, and immediately wished he hadn’t. He was falling backwards, the Otter now little more than a speck in the distance, and far above it the sun shone through the perfect circle of erased clouds. His arms and legs were flapping out in front of him, forced forward by the rushing air, his suit jacket and pant legs whipping back and forth like a canvas sail in a hurricane.

  He tucked his chin into his chest and looked down at the chute harness, the straps worryingly loose over his shoulders, and through squinted, tearful eyes he finally spotted the silver handle sticking out from a thick strap neat the base of his ribs. He pulled his right arm down to grab hold of it, and—

  Suddenly the world started spinning wildly. Once second he could see the clear blue sky and the next a flash of green, then the sky once again. He was tumbling end over end so quickly his vision became just a blur. Sky, ground, sky, ground, mingling together into a streak of color that made no sense at all. He wanted to yell out in terror, but he couldn’t find the breath to make a sound.