The Fall (46 page)

It took four people to start the long filling process, as the balloon slowly rose from the ground.

Angela worked a tablet computer, confirming the number of cubic feet required to strike the delicate balance between pumping enough helium to achieve the desired ascent rate and option altitude, but not so much that the expanding helium would prematurely stretch out the fabric to its limit before reaching the OA.

Jack watched them work while using one of the oxygen delivery systems he and Dago had secured at a medical supply store to conduct his one hour prebreathing of pure oxygen to eliminate the nitrogen from his blood and tissues.

Almost forty minutes later, as the first traces of orange and yellow forked skyward across the eastern horizon, Angela had Dago cut off the helium as it reached the calculated number of cubic feet, watching the balloon assume its long and thin launch shape, reaching almost seven stories high, just over ten percent of the height of the Baumgartner balloon. But then again, Jack's total weight was also quite lower than that successful jump.

Dago had already rigged the connecting mechanism using five Kevlar and nylon ropes to anchor Jack's platform to the five metallic grommets at the bottom of the balloon, which rose quickly to an altitude of fifty feet, stretching the ropes while four men kept the crate secured with chains connected to the backs of three pickup trucks. Below the aluminum structure hung three weights, each fifty pounds, representing his ballast to keep his initial ascent rate below 1500 feet per second to avoid expanding the balloon too fast. As he reached the lower stratosphere and his ascent rate decreased, Jack could release them individually should he require additional lift to reach the OA before his oxygen supply ran out.

It would be cramped quarters, with Jack occupying the center of the aluminum seatlike frame, flanked on one side by three oxygen tanks and the pressurization pumps and on the other by three sets of car batteries inside an airtight vessel connected to the inverter that would power the pumps. It was rudimentary but effective, again providing the essentials for his survival beyond the protection of the lower atmosphere. On top of that, Jack kept his SOG knife, a side-arm, and his trusty M32 grenade launcher loaded with a mix of fragmentation and incendiary grenades to have something to defend himself upon returning to his world. This time around he planned to land with more than his knife, especially since he had a very strong feeling that his sudden return would not be welcomed by General Hastings.

But first he had to jump.

And that meant it was time to suit up.

Angela read out the checklist on her tablet as Dago helped Jack get into the suit while continuing to breathe pure oxygen.

Jack stared at the heavens for a moment, as the indigo skies fought the dawning sun's wan light.

He donned the inner thermal layer before once again putting on his trusted battle dress, which although not required for the jump, would provide an additional layer of thermal insulation.

Next came the suit, already incorporating the glass token and the membrane, which Angela had positioned just as she had found them in the original OSS.

Dago held it up while Jack backed into it, working both feet down the built-in boots before running his hands through the bulky sleeves.

Dago zipped him up and folded the airtight flaps over the zipper, securing them with a Velcro strap.

Angela reviewed the procedure on the tablet one more time as she paced around him, checking every item one last time, tugging here, pulling there, before standing in front of Jack and testing the firmness of the ceramic tiles on his shoulder pads. The jump would be from a lower altitude than his last one, meaning much less heat, but he would still need some protection.

Walking on his own to the crate already floating two feet off the ground, held in place by the chains, Jack gave the towering balloon a quick look, watching it sway in the breeze while Angela and Dago strapped on his parachute harness, securing it to the rear of the suit in six locations. Finally, they fastened a narrow canister to his right thigh, which would provide him with oxygen during the jump.

Sitting down in the crate, he closed the simple lap belt, similar to the ones in airliners, easy to open, even with the Russian gloves, which locked in place just as they had during the pressurization test.

Next came the helmet, which Angela held in her hands.

And that's when it hit him.

He was leaving her.

Just like that.

And just as it had happened many times before since meeting this amazing version of Angela Taylor, Jack found himself unable to speak.

Leaning down, she removed his portable oxygen mask and kissed him one last time as they stared into each other's eyes.

She put a hand on his face, a tear running down her cheek, before the scientist took over and lowered the helmet, her eyes never leaving his.

She locked it in place and flipped on the pumps in the lowest setting to start the flow of oxygen and to keep him from overheating until he reached colder temperatures.

Internal pressure quickly reached 4.3 psi, which didn't cause the suit to inflate because outside pressure was still at sea level, or 14.7 psi. But as the air thinned and external pressure dropped during ascent, the suit, like the balloon above him, would slowly stretch out.

Listening to his own breathing now, Jack forced his body to relax, checking the four key instruments on his wrist: altitude, outside temperature, oxygen level, and internal pressure, before giving his small launch party a thumbs-up.

And with a final wave and kiss that Angela blew at him—and just as the sun loomed over the horizon—they released the chains.

Jack felt the familiar upward tug, as the balloon pulled him away from the ground quickly, at a projected rate of one thousand feet per minute.

He watched her wave at him as the world shrunk beneath him, as Angela turned into a tiny dot in the otherwise green and brown expanse of marshes making up the Florida Everglades, making up this very strange world he was leaving.

And he was alone again, even more so than during prior jumps.

He had no one to talk to. No CapCom. No Mission Control.

Jack's breathing, the hissing oxygen and the whirling pressurization system were the only sounds as he rushed above twelve thousand feet, as the nylon and Mylar layers began to creak when the suit slowly inflated in the thinning atmosphere at twenty thousand feet, then thirty thousand.

His hearing became hypersensitive again, a primary sense as he listened to every sound this rigged suit made while keeping tabs on the atmospheric lapse rate, which marked the temperature decrease of roughly 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit for every thousand feet of altitude for the first ten kilometers, until he reached the edge of the troposphere, when the temperature stabilized for a while, before it would slowly warm back up through the middle of the stratosphere, above the ozone layer.

The balloon reached a maximum ascent rate of almost 1400 feet per minute somewhere near forty thousand feet or around twelve kilometers, as OAT, or outside air temperature, dropped to negative seventy degrees Fahrenheit.

He kept scanning his pressurization level as well as listening to the smaller pump circulating the fluid through his thermal suit, stabilizing his body temperature.

Jack continued to rise, watching the Earth's horizon become curved, dotted with white clouds above expanses of greens and blues as the tip of Florida resolved beneath him, angling ever so slightly to the southwest by the collection of islands making up the Florida Keys.

He kept his gaze on the horizon, watching for any sign of aircraft deployed by Pete to shoot him down.

*   *   *

“We just got an FAA report of an unidentified object climbing above forty thousand feet, sir,” reported one of his men while Pete sat in his office, where he had spent the past three hours deploying every possible resource to locate Jack. “The radar signature suggests a high-altitude balloon drifting north of the Everglades.”

Pete slowly made his way to the windows, arms crossed while staring at the dawning skies, wondering if it was actually happening, if Jack was indeed trying to perform a high-altitude jump to return to his own world.

“Did you check with NOAA to make sure it isn't one of theirs?” Pete asked, referring to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Yes, sir, and it isn't them. Plus the radar return is quite large, suggesting a larger object than one of their standard weather balloons.”

“Get me Patrick Air Force Base on the line,” he said after a moment to consider his options.

*   *   *

Jack started to relax when he reached fifty thousand feet. The ceiling of most American fighter jets was sixty-five thousand feet, which at his current ascent rate meant he would be almost out of their reach in another six or seven minutes.

He felt the M32 strapped next to him, deciding that if the time came, he could easily reach it in a few seconds. On the ground, he had practiced dry firing it with the bulky Russian gloves. The hardest part had not been squeezing the trigger but actually holding on to the weapon as it recoiled against his right shoulder.

He checked his gauges. Fifty-four thousand feet, OAT at a steady negative sixty-five Fahrenheit, pressure at 4.7 psi, and oxygen supply at eighty-seven percent. He had already consumed thirteen percent of his supply in the first forty-five minutes of his ascent, which continued at around 1300 feet per minute—according to his mental math.

“Nice suit, Angie,” he said to no one, breathing in pure oxygen that smelled like plastic and his own sweat while staring at the thinning atmosphere as he continued to rise, alone, his life in the hands of his wife's expert work, on the tens of thousands of Nomex stitches, on the multiple layers of carefully selected materials that continued to creak under pressure. At this altitude, a breach of his pressure vessel would mean unconsciousness within ten to fifteen seconds and death a minute or two later. There would be no blood boiling as portrayed in movies, nor would he instantly freeze. Death would come rather anticlimactically, with Jack passing out.

Fifty-seven thousand feet.

He did a quick mental calculation and came up with 18.3 kilometers or just over eleven miles. OAT still holding at around negative sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

He checked all the pumps, including the smaller one removing his exhaled carbon dioxide to keep his blood properly oxygenized. The system wasn't nearly as sophisticated as the one in the OSS and lacked any kind of gauge to monitor its performance, but it seemed to be doing its job, otherwise he would have already blacked out from carbon dioxide poisoning.

Jack glanced at the battery meter connected to all three power sources and watched it pointing to the seventy-five percent mark.

“KSC this is Phoenix,” he said to himself, once again feeling the need to speak to someone. “All systems nominal.”

He didn't get the response he quite expected.

*   *   *

Major Benjamin Kelly, USAF, entered the coordinates provided by the FAA and punched through Mach two while rocketing to sixty thousand feet, before leveling the Lockheed F22 Raptor and engaging the autopilot, which flew the plane better than any human at this critical altitude, just below the fighter's operating ceiling, where the thinning airflow over its control surfaces rendered the fighter a bit sluggish and prone to stalls.

He scanned the horizon. According to the coordinates, as well as his radar, the target should be just a hundred miles ahead and climbing.

Kelly's orders were to force the balloon down, ideally by encouraging its occupant to vent helium and return to Earth. But if all else failed, he had approval to shoot it down.

At his current speed, he closed the gap within two minutes, spotting the balloon at his two o'clock, high.

Disengaging the autopilot, he banked the fighter by ten degrees in its direction, careful to avoid brusque maneuvers in the thin atmosphere.

*   *   *

Jack first noticed the glint of glass against the dawning easterly skies. It rapidly grew as a fighter, which he quickly recognized as an F22, coming up beneath him, leveling off just as Jack reached sixty thousand feet, which he guessed to be pretty darn close to the Raptor's service ceiling.

The fighter jet circled him twice, close enough for Jack to see the pilot signaling him to head back down.

*   *   *

Major Kelly tried every frequency in the book to make contact with the balloon operator, but all he got in response were a few friendly waves.

Damn,
he thought, not relishing the thought of taking out what appeared to be just some yahoo wearing a suit that looked homemade strapped to a similarly made contraption.

“Base, Red Leader.”

“Red Leader, Base. Go ahead.”

“Red Leader has target in sight. No response to my attempt to communicate.”

“Red Leader, Base. Did you use hand signals?”

“Affirmative. He … he just waved back. Looks unarmed, sir. I think he's just up here having a good old time. Permission to hold at a lower altitude until he comes back down.”

“Permission denied. Your orders are clear, Red Leader. He either comes down on his own, or you shoot him down.”

Kelly frowned inside his oxygen mask, his eyes watching the balloon rise above his service ceiling, approaching seventy thousand feet. Pretty soon, this guy would be beyond the range of Kelly's 20mm guns, and he really didn't want to take him out with one of his two AIM-9 Sidewinders or his even more powerful and radar controlled AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, of which the Raptor carried six.

“Roger that,” he replied, breaking his circle and heading out for a few miles to accelerate, before entering a shallow climb, coming back at the balloon from beneath while caressing the trigger of his gun system.

The Raptor trembled in the thinning air, making it difficult to lock the target in its crosshairs as he exceeded his service ceiling, the twin Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 engines wrestling with the nearly depleted air molecules.