Half a mile to the beach. Teddy reached into the duffel next to him and took out a package the size of a thick, hardcover book. He unlatched his door and stood by, watching the beach. The moment he crossed it, he lifted the door off its hinges and let it fall from the airplane. He moved the gear lever to the retracted setting, and while it came up he hung the duffel around his neck and set the timer on the package to thirty seconds.

He didn’t waste another moment. Clutching the duffel to his chest, he rolled sideways and out of the airplane, counting. “Thousand one, thousand two, thousand three…” He wanted to be as far below the airplane as possible before it blew. On ten he tucked the duffel under his arm, grabbed the rip cord handle and pulled.

The chute opened with a jerk, and a moment later the sky lit up and the shock wave hit him. Two pounds of plastic explosive made quite a bang. A split second later he heard the noise, but he was too busy trying to control his wild swinging to pay attention.

He finally stabilized as the two jets roared over him, creating more turbulence, but it was manageable. As the water came up toward him he pulled two cords and stalled the chute, nearly stopping his descent. He stepped into the Atlantic Ocean as if into a swimming pool.

His feet touched bottom almost immediately. The water came not quite to his waist. He was already wading in when the chute collapsed into the water behind him. He struggled on toward the beach, maybe fifty yards away, trying to keep the chute from filling with water, while holding the duffel high and dry.

When the water was ankle deep he hung the duffel around his neck again and used both hands to gather up and wring out the chute. He shrugged off the pack and stuffed the chute into it, then put the pack on again and started wading down the beach. He wanted no footprints left in the sand.