The Thieves of Darkness

The Thieves of Darkness Read Free Page B

Book: The Thieves of Darkness Read Free
Author: Richard Doetsch
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and precise, even the angle at which he had parked his Aston Martin.
    “Hi, Michael,” Stephen Kelley said.
    “Hey, Dad,” Michael said with surprise.
    “Are you alone?” his father asked as he peered into the house.
    “Mmmm, you might say that. Come on in. What’s up?”
    “It’s about Simon.”

CHAPTER 1
    The gale-force wind whipped back Michael’s hair, buffeting his clothes, rippling his cheeks. His body was prone, his arms and legs extended to control his fall. It had been five seconds since he left the safety of the plane and Michael was already at the terminal free-fall velocity of 120 miles per hour.
    Michael glanced at the altimeter on his wrist, watching the numbers fall toward his deployment height of four thousand feet. Though comfortable with skydiving, he was never foolish; he didn’t want to deal with that fatal free-fall injury, SDT: sudden deceleration trauma—what some people called hitting the ground.
    Michael pulled the rip cord; his chute fluttered out of his para-pack and jerked him to a halt. The parafoil spread above him, capturing the air and guiding it across its airfoils, allowing Michael to control his descent and direction as if he were flying.
    Every time he released his chute he said a little prayer and made sure he could easily reach the hook knife that dangled at his side. Though he packed his chute himself, he dreaded becoming entangled, having to cut away his main chute in time to deploy his reserve. He knew it was rarely the novice who was killed skydiving; more often than not, it was the overconfident expert.
    He gripped the guidance handles of his parafoil and directed himselftoward the far edge of the outcropping. The prison sat upon a ledge that was more akin to a Wyoming mesa than an Akbiquestan mountain. The lights of Chiron Prison were the sole sign of civilization for fifty miles. It was an imposing structure, seeming to grow out of the earth, out of hell itself. There was no barbed wire, razor wire, or fences. Its location and height served that purpose far more effectively. At three thousand feet, surrounded by desert, the prisoners would be imposing their own death if they attempted escape.
    The half moon on the cloudless night painted the world blue, softening the sharp rock outcroppings, dyeing the desert so it appeared as comforting as the sea.
    Michael landed softly on the far edge of the mesa, a quarter mile from the prison. He immediately pulled in and balled up his chute, removing the chute’s container harness and tucking it under a tree. He unclipped the black sack off the front of his chest, knelt on the ground, and opened it.
    He removed two 9mm Sig Sauers—oiled and holstered—and affixed them to his body. Michael hated guns; he had never used them until Simon taught him how and even then it was always with great reluctance. He had become proficient only through necessity, and he much preferred his knife. But coming into a prison alone, against a group of armed guards, he had no choice.
    He pulled out two small backpacks: BASE jump chutes. Different from the chute he’d just worn, these were designed with a small primer release chute that would be deployed by hand from a low altitude.
    He extracted three blocks of C-4. He tucked a timer remote in two of them and stuffed the other block in his pocket. He opened the side pouch and removed a small electrical box, a frequency jammer that would render not only portable radios but all cell phones useless.
    Michael had stolen art, he had stolen diamonds, he had stolen keys and golden boxes, but he had never done something like this. Tonight he was stealing his friend back from a death sentence.
    Michael worked his way around the perimeter of the prison. There were no guards on patrol, no guards on the battlements, just two teamspoised in the north and east three-story towers who were probably more interested in the World Cup soccer match being played on their small TVs.
    He looked at the hundred-yard stretch

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