The sudden change in pressure alarmed the pilots in the cockpit. Copilot Rataczak got on the intercom. “Can you hear me?” he called. “Is everything okay back there?”
“Everything is okay.”
The hijacker reached around and grasped his own attaché case—the one containing the fake bomb—and threw it out the hatch into the thunderous darkness. Next, he selected several pieces of luggage at random and tossed them out as well. Finally, using shroud lines cut from a parachute he wasn’t planning to use, he took the brown briefcase he had removed from the overhead bin and securely tied it to his midriff opposite the money bag. He now bore a faint resemblance to the Michelin Man: parachutes on the front and back, the money tied on one side and the briefcase on the other. It may have looked comical, but it was secure.
This accomplished, he stepped carefully onto the stairs and then, a moment later, jumped into the night. In the cockpit, everyone noted the sudden lift caused by the release of weight, and the captain recorded the time: 8:13 PM. But they weren’t sure what it meant. They had no way of knowing if the hijacker was still in the plane, and so they flew onward to Reno.
Cooper hurtled out into the blasting wind. He waited a moment to clear the two engines, which on the Boeing 727-100 were mounted aft; stabilized his free fall; counted a full sixty seconds—and then released the drogue. This action pulled out a ten-foot bridle, which in turn yanked the parachute out of the deployment bag. Cooper noted all these stages by feel, with satisfaction. As soon as the chute was fully open, he oriented himself, making out the faint lights of the town of Packwood, his fixed point of reference—dimmed by the storm but still visible.
Then he reached down to where he had tied the bag of money, tugged open the drawstring, and reached into the bag. With the chute open, the wind had lessened considerably and movement was easier. He grabbed a fistful of cash, yanked it out, and tossed it away. Then he began emptying the bag as quickly as possible, throwing handfuls of money off into the night.
Suddenly, he felt a jerk on the lines. Looking up, he saw that several bundles of money had been swept upward and were interfering with the main canopy, partially deflating it. At the same time, he felt his fall accelerate toward a fatal rate of descent.
He did not panic. In a practiced move, he cut away the main canopy by pulling the release handles on the shoulder straps. He now went into free fall. He quickly pulled the second handle to manually deploy the reserve chute. But when it snapped out and open, he realized there was something wrong with this, as well; it had deployed but not cleanly. Maybe it had been sabotaged or, more likely, it had simply become stiff from sitting too long without being repacked. A not uncommon problem.
But it was a dire problem for him.
Cooper felt an unfamiliar surge of panic as he dropped through the darkness, the wind tearing loose the bag with the rest of the money. Nothing he tried could correct the deployment of the reserve chute. He continued to fall, the partially collapsed reserve chute juddering in the turbulence, a final cloud of twenty-dollar bills bursting like confetti and fluttering away into the night as the struggling figure plummeted down toward the forest below, soon lost from sight in the howling storm.
4
Present Day
THE AGUSTAWESTLAND 109 GRAND shot northwest, powerful rotors humming, flying so low that its landing skids almost seemed to brush the azure-blue surface of the Atlantic. It rose as it cleared the reefs, barrier islands, and bays that led to mainland Florida.
In the luxurious cabin of the helicopter sat three people: a man in torn jeans and a plaid shirt; a young woman in a pleated white skirt and blouse, wearing dark sunglasses, with a large sun hat on her lap; and a spectral figure in a severely cut black suit, who sat looking out the cabin window with a remote expression on his sculptural features. Despite the tinting of the window, the brilliant sunshine outside turned his silver-blue eyes a strange platinum color and gave his light-blond hair the sheen of a snow leopard’s fur.
This was Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With him in the passenger cabin were his ward, Constance Greene, and his partner, Special Agent Armstrong Coldmoon. They were departing the scene of a successfully concluded case on Sanibel Island, Florida, and though relatively little conversation was taking place, there was a sense of closure in the cabin and a feeling that it was time to get on with their lives.
Now the helicopter climbed and banked right, to avoid the hotels and luxury condos of Miami Beach, glistening like an alabaster Oz against the line of sand and the blue water beyond.