Industrial Evolution

Only one skydiver left, and he decided it was in his best interest to cooperate. This no-nonsense jump coordinator was clearly not a man to cross. Remo wasn’t bothered by the frigid wind. He sucked on a spare oxygen bottle occasionally, but it was almost as if he were doing it just for show. He was thin, but his wrists were so muscular he had to use a six-inch aircraft screw, bent like a twist tie, to extend the bands of his watch. The guy was either inhuman or a lunatic.

But he was a reasonable lunatic, anyway. The last skydiver behaved himself and in return Remo jettisoned him powerfully from the aircraft at exactly the right instant. The launch was smooth and straight—no out-of-control free fall to fight his way out of. The skydiver happily considered that his smooth exit was going to gain him a few vital seconds.

Outside the aircraft, fifty thousand feet above the earth, the skydiver deliberately forgot all about the strange jump coordinator and concentrated on what he was doing. He was a professional extreme athlete. Distractions were lethal to peak extreme performance. Taking control of his fall, he drew in his limbs to cut wind resistance.

The goal was to get to the surface faster than all the other divers. The winner of this competition was the jumper who used the least total time to get from fifty thousand feet to solid ground—without dying.

“This is a stupid sport,” Remo observed.

Free fall was the last place on Earth you would ever think to find yourself with unexpected company. The skydiver jerked and twisted until he found who had spoken.

It was the jump coordinator from the aircraft, the fool in the T-shirt, hovering just above him.

“What are you doing?”

“Skydiving, duh, what’s it look like?” Remo didn’t shout, but the extreme athlete heard him clearly through the wind noise and his face mask.

“You got no chute! No oxygen! No thermal suit!”

“The chute I’ll pick up later. It’s not like we don’t have time. We’re practically in orbit.”

“Come here, I’ll harness you in with me.”

“No, thanks.”

The skydiver sputtered and tried to give chase, but Remo turned his body into an arrowhead that slipped through the thin air faster than the skydiver in his bulky gear.

Remo was slightly peeved. He had thought the last man in the line would be the guilty one. It made sense, right? If you’re going to kill a bunch of your fellow skydivers, wouldn’t it be optimal to shoot down instead of up?

Remo’s boss had agreed with this theory, but the last skydiver had proven to be genuine in his fear for Remo’s safety. The guy didn’t have the heartbeat or the respiration of a man about to commit murder. You could tell those things, if you just know what signals to look for.

At least, Remo Williams could tell such things. He could read a man’s heartbeat, pupil dilation, breathing and other signs of nervous activity that were hidden even to a state-of-the-art polygraph—and Remo did it all without using any equipment at all.

Remo knew the martial art of Sinanju. Remo lived the art of Sinanju. In fact, he was the Reigning Master of Sinanju, which was roughly equivalent to having a thousand black belts in karate.

Karate, after all, was derived from crumbs of knowledge fallen from the table of the Masters of Sinanju, who had practiced their art for thousands of years. Kung fu, ninja, judo, all were but flickers of light pilfered from the Sun Source of martial arts, Sinanju.

Sinanju was far more than the other arts. Sinanju worked because it enhanced the senses. Whereas most humans tapped into ten percent of their bodies’ capabilities, the Masters of Sinanju used fifty percent. Sometimes seventy percent. In a few rare cases, even more.

Nothing on the planet could match the ancient practice that came from a dismal little fishing village on the shores of what was now North Korea. The Sinanju Masters worked as assassins, traveling the globe centuries before the great European explorers. They were employed by the most powerful rulers of their times, emperors and kings and warlords, and the Masters practiced their art, usually, without weapons or tools.

Remo would resort to using a parachute when jumping out of an airplane, when given the option. There were lots of parachutes around for the taking right now, but he wasn’t in much of a rush. These dingbats had jumped from way, way up and it was a long, long way down.

“Hey, got a minute?”

The next skydiver did somersaults trying to find out who was talking to him. “Who the hell are you?” he shouted when he finally found Remo closing in on him.

These knuckleheads weren’t so bright. “Jump coordinator, from the airplane.” Remo pointed up just in case the guy couldn’t remember where the airplane had been.

“You’re gonna die!”

Same story with the same result. The guy’s bad attitude was now frantic fear for Remo’s life. A brief chat convinced Remo that the extreme HALO skydiver wasn’t a would-be murderer and he moved on, getting irritated. Maybe there were no murders planned for this event after all.