The Icarus Prediction: Betting it all has its price by RD Gupta Read Free Book Online Page B

get this bastard in the kill zone! Now do what I tell you, or I’ll do it alone!”
    Redigo rolled his eyes and said, “It’s your funeral.” Then with the chute and suspension lines held taut, they advanced to the edge and peered over. The truck was almost underneath them. Sarah gauged the speed (slow), drop (high), and her resolve (waning). She waited for the truck to pass by a little so she could make her descent from the rear. Then she walked back in an arc as Redigo stood firm at the edge, holding the drogue chute in place. Sarah pulled off the two grenades from her belt and held them in her palms, then hooked her thumbs into the guidelines so she could steer. Then she nodded at Redigo, ran toward the edge, and leaped into space.
    The weight yanked the drogue out of Redigo’s hands as he watched, horrified and terrified, as the canopy fluttered for a moment before taking a big gulp of air to deploy in full.
    As the canopy gave her the tug, Sarah felt some updraft from the wind that hit the cliff face and funneled it skyward. The targets in the truck were unaware of her approach.
    She got the angle on the truck like a defensive back lining up a tackle downfield and positioned the parasail for the terminal maneuver. Manipulating the guidelines with her thumbs, she used her teeth to pull the pins on the grenades while holding the safety spoons fast as the truck rose up to meet her.
    And in a move that would go into Delta lore, she yanked hard on the right guideline that spiraled her up and around. For a split second, she was suspended above the hood of the truck, looking down at four al-Qaeda brethren gaping up at her, including the driver she’d compromised a week ago. Before they could react, she yanked the cutaway handles on her harness. This released her from the canopy and put her into a six-foot free-fall, and she landed on both feet on the hood of the truck. She lunged over the windshield. For a tenth of a second, her eyes locked with Bannihammad’s as she dropped the two grenades at the terrorist’s feet before lunging off the vehicle and hitting the ground in a roll. She drew up into a fetal position, offering her back to the retreating truck as a short stream of frantic Arabic was spoken. Then the two blasts went off, sending a shock wave against her spine like the hoof of a pissed-off mule.
    As debris fell around her, she gingerly raised her head to see the burning carcass of the truck veer off the road. Then the gas line ruptured, and a mushroom cloud rose in the sky.
    A moment later she heard the detonation cord erupt on the far side of the mesa as the kill team closed the loop.
    Slowly she picked herself up and surveyed the burning funeral pyre that held Ahmed Bannihammad, brother of one of the five hijackers on United Flight 175 that had slammed into the South Tower.
    “Another one down,” she said to the wind.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Bridgemount Yacht Club
    New York City
    Present Day
     

     
    “Sam, another Blue Label on the rocks, if you please.” The bartender nodded his acknowledgement to Jarrod and began mixing the fresh cocktail. He was sitting at the gargantuan bar of the Bridgemount Yacht Club on a barstool so high that you needed a rope and crampons to climb up to your seat.
    “The Bridgemount,” or “The Bridge” as its members knew it, was an enclave of staggering indulgence probably not seen since the time of the Vanderbilts. The large bay windows overlooked New York Harbor, and the rustic wide-plank hardwood floors were fashioned from the hull of the seventeenth-century British Warship HMS Resolution . Various eighteenth-century French Savonnerie rugs adorned the floors, while the handmade furniture—from the rare semicircle chaise in the lobby to the settee with gold-trimmed mahogany in the men’s parlor—was all courtesy of Karges. Even the paintings on the walls included originals from the likes of Matisse, Cézanne, and Caravaggio.
    “Jarrod, haven’t seen you here in a while.