The First Glimpse of A Leap Into Hell

A bunch of you have asked me for more about the book I'm working on now, so here's the first DRAFT chapter (draft means it's not done yet and probably has bloopers). Before you ask, I don't know if this novel will actually be called A Leap Into Hell, but I had to call it something for the moment, and that's what my demented fingers typed.

So here's a small taste of what's to come – I hope you enjoy it!

June 6, 2004

The old man shuffled painfully through the crowd, wincing as a young boy bumped into him while rushing past, racing his sister to reach the Spitfire fighter, sitting on the tarmac of the airport. It was one of a dozen warbirds from the Second World War that had flown in to this former Royal Air Force airfield as part of the sixtieth anniversary celebration of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy.

Sixty years, the man thought, shivering with the memory of the horrors of that night, so many years ago. He was eighty-five now, his body bent and broken, just as his mind was. No one was more surprised than he that he had lived this long. Only one person, if she were still alive, knew how undeserving he was of those years, unkind as they had been to him.

He moved on, passing by the shining fighters, the Spitfire and Hurricane, the P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang that were proudly displayed under the warm sun of early June. The names of the rest of the planes on display, he neither knew nor cared. They were not why he had come.

Beyond the warbirds were vehicles and weapons used during the war. Around them stood a group of young men, reenactors, dressed in period uniforms representing British, American, and Canadian troops. There was even a small contingent of men wearing Polish uniforms. More Allied reenactors were on the nearby green, laying prone, weapons at the ready.

Intermingled with them were veterans of the war, men his age who wore their service caps or uniforms with pride, and talked to the reenactors who were dressed as they once had been all those years ago.

The uniforms worn by the aging veterans made a mockery of his own threadbare and ill-fitting dark gray suit. His heart filled with shame, he avoided their eyes as he limped by.

Someone bellowed in German, and the crowd gave a collective gasp as a group of men wearing Wehrmacht uniforms suddenly burst from one of the nearby hangars, running toward a series of sandbagged defensive positions.

The man stopped, his heart hammering with terror. It had been nearly sixty years since he had last heard German spoken, and he would have died happily never having heard it again. He watched as the reenactors playing the part of the Nazis began a mock battle with their Allied opponents. Both sides fired what he knew were blank rounds from their weapons, the shots reverberating from the hangars and the air filling with smoke and the distinctive smell of gunpowder. Some of the men shouted orders. Others screamed as they acted being hit by enemy bullets. Large firecrackers went off, simulating grenades, and after a brave charge, the Allied soldiers drove off the Germans. The crowd was captivated, the illusion sufficiently realistic that many of them imagined themselves right in the thick of the scaled-down fight.

"No." The old man staggered back, seeing not the mock battle, but the memories of sixty years ago, colored with a dreadful sense of déjà vu. Like some of the veterans here, he had flown this very airfield. Unlike them, however, he didn't remember this place as it had looked back then. His memories of it were as it appeared now.

"Are you all right, mate?"

The man felt a gentle but firm grip on his arm, steadying him. He turned to find one of the veterans beside him, a concerned look from the piercing blue eyes set into the craggy face.

"Yes…yes, I'm all right. Thank you." He gave a half-hearted smile. "It's just a bit of a shock to see them." He nodded at the reenactors in the Wehrmacht uniforms, who had joined their Allied counterparts and were mingling with the eager crowd.

"That's true enough. The buggers give me a bit of a start every anniversary when I come here. You sure you're steady, now?"

The old man nodded, and the veteran let go and offered his hand. The old man took it, wincing at the strength of the veteran's grip. He did his best to return it, gritting his teeth against the pain. All of his fingers had been broken, as had his toes, arms, and legs, after he had been taken prisoner by the Nazis, and had never been properly set. The slightest effort was painful, and days of bad weather brought with them throbbing agony.

"Lance Corporal David MacKenzie, 8th Battalion, 3rd Para Brigade I was back then."

"2nd Battalion of the 508th PIR," the old man said quietly, averting his eyes, quietly wishing the well-meaning MacKenzie would leave him be. He didn't offer his name.

MacKenzie nodded, and released the old man's hand. "Well, look, mate, if you…"

The rest of what MacKenzie said was lost as the old man glanced in the direction of his destination, a group of six graceful twin-engine C-47 transport planes that were lined up on the taxiway. Known to American servicemen as the Skytrain, and Dakota to the Commonwealth forces, these very planes and hundreds more just like them had dropped the Allied airborne troops into Normandy. These were painted now as they had been then, in olive green with the distinctive "D-Day stripes" of alternating black and white on their wings and fuselages.

Near one of the hangers, a group of men wearing uniforms of the American, British, and Canadian airborne troops from those bygone days stood in formation. Their part in the day's celebration and remembrance would be in playing the role of the thousands of airborne troops who dropped into Normandy to seize and hold critical bridges and other targets before the main force landed on the beaches. It was always a spectacular display that never failed to please the crowds.

The old man had given up what little he had to come here and see these men. And to see one of them in particular, one who didn't wear a uniform, but was busy with a video camera, shooting footage of the preparations.

But the sight of the paratroopers wasn't what had caught the old man's attention. It was the woman standing only a few paces away. Dressed in black and wearing a veil as if she were attending a funeral, she stood rigid, staring at him. His mouth went dry, and he felt a prickle of sweat break out on his back.

Ignoring MacKenzie, the old man turned and hobbled as quickly as he could in the opposite direction, pushing his way through the crowd. He turned around and saw that the woman in black was following behind, easily keeping up. With a moan of fear he kept going.

Gasping for breath, he made it to the small terminal building and pushed through the door leading inside. He stopped and turned around to look for her, but the woman was nowhere in sight.

"Leave me alone," he whispered, hoping that he had only imagined her. He had dreamed of her often enough, always waking up in a cold sweat.

Turning away from the glass, he found the handful of people in the waiting area staring at him. Martial music blared from the speakers overhead, so loud it made his head throb.

He made his way to the men's room before any of them could get up and offer their help.

Leaning against the sink, he looked in the mirror, aghast at how wan his face was. He was old and sick, terrified and alone. Just as he had been for the last sixty years.

Before the tears of self-pity and shame could come, he turned on the cold water and splashed it on his face.

As he blinked his eyes open, he looked in the mirror again to find her standing behind him. She held a small pistol, the unwavering muzzle pointed at his back.

Surrendering to the inevitable, he slowly turned to face her.

"I always wondered when you'd come for me."

She took a step closer, raising the veil with her free hand. Time, he saw, had been much kinder to her. She was no longer young as she had been back then, of course, but it didn't take much imagination to see the beauty that lingered in her still. And the fire in her dark eyes.

"You have been a difficult man to find." Her voice carried an unusual French accent. The old man suspected he was the only person alive who knew that French wasn't her native tongue. She had been raised speaking Romani, the language of the Gypsies. "I have searched for you all this time. But I knew that you would be here today if you still lived."

He laughed, a bitter, brittle bark of a sound. "I've hardly lived. I spent the last year of the war rotting in a POW camp, and then most of the years after that in mental wards. No one believed me or who I was, so they put me away." He blinked rapidly and rubbed wrapped his arms around himself as if he were freezing. "I only got out a couple months ago, and begged and borrowed the money to make this trip."

"A pity," she scoffed. "It is the last trip you will ever make."

He glanced down at the gun, then back up to meet her eyes. "You'd be doing me a favor." He swallowed, and involuntarily rubbed his abdomen with one hand. "I've got pancreatic cancer. I've only got a month or so left, if that. That's the main reason they let me out. So I could come here."

If his words had any effect on her, he couldn't tell. "All these years have you lived, when the others died." She stepped closer, and he saw her eyes suddenly mist over. "Even the one who saved your life. The one you shot and left to die while you ran away."

"I didn't mean to shoot him!" He backed up against he wall, suddenly overcome with self-loathing at the memory of what he'd done. It was a nightmare that had visited him every night since it happened. "That's why I came today. To keep it all from happening. I have to warn them. They mustn't go!"

"And if they don't go, many more will die." She stepped even closer, her eyes boring into him. "I would give all I have, even my life, for them to not have to go, but they must. Even you, to play your own despicable role in what is to come. In what happened."

"I know. I know, but…" He burst into tears and slid down the wall, crumpling to the floor.

She shook her head in disgust as a dark stain spread across the front of his pants. "I see nothing about you has changed."

When he finally stopped sobbing and looked up, she was still standing there, but had lowered the gun to her side.

"No." She shook her head as she saw him stare at the gun. "I am not going to kill you. You do not deserve such mercy." She spat on him. "I hope every day remaining to you is filled with agony, and that you burn in Hell for what you have done."

Then she turned and left him there, alone in his misery.

***

Standing at the head of the small formation of men dressed in uniforms of the 82nd Airborne Division's 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, or PIR, James Owen watched the finale of the reenactment between the Allied and German soldiers with a smile on his face. His uniform bore the rank of captain, which happened to be his final rank in the U.S. Army before he left the service to pursue a less hazardous career as an IT consultant. He had enjoyed his time in the service, but one tour in Iraq, two in Afghanistan, a bullet wound, and a broken marriage had been enough.

"You're like a kid, Jim."

Jim's grin widened as he turned around at the quip from the jumpmaster for his team, or stick as they had been called, Carl Warburton. A retired sergeant first class who had served most of his career with the 82nd Airborne Division, Carl was a few inches short of Jim's six feet, yet outweighed him by thirty pounds, most of it solid muscle. His close cropped salt and pepper hair was a contrast to the younger man's light brown.

Jim had cut his in a "high and tight," with the hair shaved almost to the skin around the sides of his head, with a longer – slightly – mop of hair on top. He normally wore it considerably longer, but had cut it for the occasion.

And just as Jim was playing the role of senior officer for the American contingent, Carl played the role of senior NCO and jumpmaster on their flight.

"Hey, it's nice to watch a battle where you're not getting shot at." Both men were intimately familiar with being on the wrong end of a gun muzzle. Jim wasn't wearing it, but in the recreational vehicle that was his home he had a Silver Star for gallantry in action, the same action that head earned him a Purple Heart for being wounded.

Carl had him beat on that score: he had a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.

"I wish they'd let us jump with weapons," the older man grumbled. "Jumping with nothing but a knife makes me feel like a pansy."

"Battalion!" The ceremonial commander was a retired colonel of the British Army, who stood at the head of the six sticks, or chalks as the British called them, representing the Allied airborne force. "ATTENTION!"

Owen suppressed a smile. The sound that had come from the colonel's lips bore no resemblance at all to the word "attention," but it got the point across. As one, the six formations snapped to attention. With a handful of exceptions, they were all former military, and their bodies responded to the command with the force of ingrained habit.

The nearby crowd suddenly stilled, and all eyes turned to watch the paratroopers.

"Right…FACE!" The six groups of men did a smart pivot to their right, pointing toward the waiting aircraft. "Route step!"

The paratroopers began to march forward, each at their own pace, burdened with their parachutes and gear.

As each group reached its aircraft, it halted.

"Company…" Jim called, "Halt! Left, FACE!" The men stopped and turned to the left, facing away from their aircraft and toward the crowd, which had moved closer. They again stood at attention. "At ease."

"All right, guys," Carl said. "Let's check everything again before we board." Along with Jim and Carl, seven other men would be jumping today in their stick. During wartime, the C-47 would have carried twice as many paratroopers, but the aircraft's owner had restricted the number of men to keep the weight down. Like its surviving sisters, this plane had seen a lot of flight hours, and the owner wanted to keep stress on the airframe to a minimum to help extend the plane's operating life.

Followed by Jim, Carl moved from man to man, checking that his parachute and other gear was in order. Jim followed behind him, making his own checks. With one exception, the two of them had done training and demo jumps with the other members of the team in the past. They'd already checked everything in one of the hangers before forming up on the tarmac, and they'd check everything once more before they jumped. Safety was king.

Following behind them were Andrew Bullock and Sean Dodds, a videographer and sound man who'd be accompanying them on the flight. They wouldn't be jumping, but their footage would be incorporated with that taken by other video teams to make a full record of the proceedings. The two had been recording everything since the men had arrived at the airfield that morning, and would be taping segments of the flight until the paratroopers had jumped out of the aircraft.

"You ready, George?" Jim asked as he came to the first man in the rank. A tall, thin African-American, George Yates was a sergeant in the US Army Reserve and was jump qualified from the Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He had been a physics major at Caltech and joined the Army ROTC program, but had gotten bored with school and left to start a very lucrative web-based business selling t-shirts. But the Army had appealed to him, so he had enlisted in the Reserve as an intelligence analyst.

George smiled. "Yes, I am, but I think I'm going to throw off the demographics of the reenactment a bit."

"That's a good thing, I think," Jim told him, slapping the younger man on the shoulder. There hadn't been any black paratroopers jumping into Normandy on D-Day.

Next up was Jeremy Brett, a hulking twenty-five year old who had played tackle for Arizona State University, and had taken a job with a company that ran sports programs for kids. Carl always commented that he was surprised the parachute was big enough to carry him.

Jeremy grinned as he lifted his helmet to reveal his copper red hair that he had trimmed into a mohawk that morning.

"Of, for God's sake, Jeremy." Carl shook his head in mock disgust. "Some of the weenies in the 101st Airborne did up their hair like that. Not the 508th PIR."

Grinning wider, Jeremy put his helmet back on. "You're just jealous because I have hair, Carl. Admit it."

"Gotcha," Jim chimed in, hustling Carl along to the next man.

"Punk." The older man laughed. "At least Mr. Duesterhoeft here knows how to respect his elders."

"Yes, I do, sergeant first class!" Eric Duesterhoeft was an auto mechanic by trade, but had spent five years in the Army, the last year of it with the 101st Airborne Division. Like Jim and Carl, he had done combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The shortest man of the group, he was also the most physically fit, and ran at least four marathons every year.

"Diego, you're looking good to go, as always." Carl wasn't a man to be stingy on praise, but every time he jumped with Diego Vega he complimented him. Diego did everything perfectly, every time. Looking around at the others, he said in a louder voice, "If the rest of you were like this guy, I could actually sleep at night."

The other men laughed and tossed out a few good-natured catcalls.

"I'm just trying to lead by example, sarge." Diego was in his mid-thirties and had a well-established legal practice in San Antonio. Another veteran of the 82nd Airborne, he had spent ten years in the Army, had seen combat in Afghanistan, and then used the GI Bill to finish his education. He grinned. "But can we change the jump order? I want to go last so none of these clowns runs into me."

"Too late." Owen checked him over, if anything more thoroughly than he did the others. It was easy to be complacent about Diego, and complacency all too often led to misfortune. "You're stuck. But I'm sure Mr. Luck won't run into you."

"I won't bonk him as long as he gets outta my way." Sean Luck was lean and tan, with blond hair bleached almost white by the sun. A twenty-three year old high school dropout, he worked odd jobs to support his two passions in life: surfing and skydiving. Alone in the group, he had never served in the military. But his jump experience was second only to Carl's, and he had done every kind of jump a civilian could do, legally or otherwise. "Lawyers are slow at everything but sending the bills."

"You got that right," Diego said, smiling. "Have to send collection agents after guys like you, too."

"Boys, boys." Jim shook his head as he moved on behind Carl to Lance McLoughlin. Lance was the only man they hadn't jumped with before. "Lance, this is the big day. How are you feeling?"

"God, I still can't believe I'm here." Lance couldn't keep the grin off his face. The youngest of the group, the twenty year-old was on active duty with the 101st Airborne Division. Some of his buddies would be participating in another jump today from a modern-day C-130, but he had been given permission to take leave and participate with Jim Owen's group. He had found out about the reenactment drop from Eric, with whom he'd served briefly in the 101st before Eric had left the service. Lance's great-grandfather had been in the 502nd PIR under the 101st Airborne Division, and he wasn't about to pass up the chance to do this. Across the channel his family, including his great-grandfather, was waiting at the drop zone in Normandy with thousands of others. "I've got goosebumps."

"And well you should." Jim clapped him on the shoulder.

"Just don't screw up your landing and embarrass your great-gramps, kid. Might give him a heart attack." Carl smiled to make sure Lance knew it was a joke. "Focus on what you need to do, right?"

"Right, sergeant first class." Lance blew out his breath and nodded.

"Brandon, you got all your bandaids ready?" As they moved to the last man in the stick, Brandon Schirru, Jim pointed to the medical kit the man carried. Brandon wore the same uniform as the others, but with a medic's insignia, a red cross overlaid on a white circle, painted on the front, back, and sides of his helmet. He had served in the U.S. Air Force as a pararescuman, or "PJ", as they were often known. He'd seen combat in Iraq, but had never spoke about what he did there. After leaving the service he had gone on to become a paramedic in his home town of Jacksonville, Florida. He was a quiet man in his early thirties, quick to smile, and always volunteering to help others, because it was what he really enjoyed doing. And he loved jumping.

"Hey, don't laugh," he said. "The medicinal brandy's in here, remember."

"Dibbs!" Jim called before Carl could open his mouth. "Rank hath its privileges and all that."

Neither Jim nor Carl expected to find anything wrong with Brandon's gear. While he hadn't made nearly as many jumps as some of the other men, his rigorous training as a PJ had made him a consummate professional. His training was also the reason Jim had positioned him last in the stick: in case anything went wrong during the jump, Brandon would be in a position to see what was happening and, with luck, be able to do something about it.

"Shocking as this may sound, Jim, everything looks good." Carl nodded, satisfied.

"Let's load up, then, shall we?"

The troop door at the rear of the old C-47 stood open, and the loadmaster for this flight, Victor Morrison, stood just inside.

"Welcome aboard, boys," he said as they clambered up in reverse order, led by Brandon Schirru. Carl counted them off as they entered the plane, before he climbed aboard himself.

Just as he put his foot on the ladder to follow Carl into the plane, Jim heard a woman's voice call to him.

"Captain Owen."

He turned to see an elderly lady dressed in black standing on the tarmac behind him.

Glancing at Carl, who pointed at his watch to remind him they didn't have much time, Jim stepped off the ladder and went to where the woman was standing. He figured she must have been a widow of one of the men who'd jumped into Normandy, and the sight of her tugged at his heart. "Yes, ma'am? Can I help you?"

He saw that there were tears in her eyes. Reaching a hand to his face, she whispered, "You are so young."

The first C-47 in the line of six aircraft started its engines. The other planes followed suit, and soon the air was filled with the roar of their Pratt & Whitney engines.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry." Jim leaned close to her so she could hear. "I don't mean to be rude, but I've got to go."

"I…I know," she shouted over the din. She opened her purse and took something out. "Here, you must take this." Dropping the purse to the ground, she reached up with both hands to put something around his neck. He caught a glimpse of a glittering, brightly polished stone suspended from a dark leather cord as she tucked it under the front of his olive drab t-shirt.

With her hands on his chest, she looked up at him, and he saw deep wells of pain in her dark eyes just before she stood on tiptoe and kissed him gently on the lips. Then she hugged him, holding him tight.

"Jim!"

He turned to see Carl in the doorway, gesturing impatiently for him to get aboard.

Not sure what else to do, he turned his attention back to the woman, wrapping her in his arms for a brief moment. He couldn't just push her away.

She put her lips to his ear. "You must save them, James."

Then she released him and turned away, her black dress fluttering in the air blown back by the plane's propellers. She knelt down to retrieve her purse, then walked toward the crowd that stood watching the spectacle.

He stood there just a moment, wondering how she had known his name, before turning and hurrying up the steps to the plane. The loadmaster grabbed the ladder and dragged it inside before closing and locking the door.

"You need to work on better timing and finding younger girlfriends," Carl told him.

"What was I supposed to do? Just ignore her?" Jim took his seat next to the older man, who sat closest to the door. When they neared the drop zone, Carl would make sure they were properly lined up, then would lead the jump, with Jim behind him. The others would follow them out the door.

The roar of the engines picked up as the plane began to taxi toward the runway. Jim turned to look out one of the windows and caught a glimpse of the woman in the front of the crowd. She raised a hand in farewell.

Turning back, he shook his head. "Crazy lady."

Carl leaned over. "So what did she give you?"

"Let's find out." Jim reached into his shirt and pulled out the polished stone. About as big around as a quarter, it had a swirl of blue veins through what he assumed was quartz. "You ever see anything like that?"

Leaning over so he could see, Carl peered at the stone. "Can't say as I have. But I guess you must be married to the old broad now."

Jim put the stone back in his shirt, content to think of it as a good luck charm. "Smart ass," he said as he felt the C-47 leave the ground.

Airborne, he thought with a smile.

***

The woman stood at the front of the crowd and waved at the plane as it moved past and turned onto the runway, following the other aircraft ahead of it.

After a moment, the engines ran up to full throttle, and the old C-47 began its takeoff run. Its tail lifted from the runway, and a few moments later the crowd cheered as the plane left the ground and climbed into the clear June sky.

That's when the tears came. She had held them at bay for sixty years, but it was finally time to let grief have its due. The woman wept, her heart breaking as she watched the plane carrying the young man she'd once known turn south toward the English Channel.

Toward Normandy.

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