"No, you're not."
"If they shoot us down on the way back to San Martin, the negatives will fall into their hands, if they're not destroyed."
"Suppose we both jump and are both caught?"
"It's a chance I'd rather take, Diego." Hall opened the secret pocket in the visor of his Cuban Army cap. "Let me leave this set of negatives with Snub Nose. I have two more sets on me—in my Sam Browne and my boots."
"I have to think about it." Segador adjusted the harness of his parachute. Then he picked up his microphone. "Snub Nose," he ordered, "come back here. Adjust the compañero's parachute. He's jumping with me."
"Bueno. I'll show him how to use it, too."
Hall and Segador formally shook hands with the rest of the crew before they jumped.
For a few long seconds, plunging face downward, Hall could not think. He saw the plane pass over his feet, silver wings etched against the dark ceiling. He counted to seven, aloud, his voice lost in the wind. Then he pulled the release cord. There was the expected moment of tensing pain as the silk clawed at the night air and the straps of the harness cut into the insides of his thighs. In his mind's eye there was a picture he had forgotten: a sand-bagged office in London on a bright May morning, the English girl with the yellow crutch under her arm as she handed him the mail. Tear sheets on the series he'd done in Scotland. Copyright 1940 by Ball Syndicate Inc., Somewhere in England, April 19, 1940. This morning I took my place in line inside of a converted Lancaster, watched the man in front of me lean out and tumble into the clear sky, and then did exactly as he had done. I counted to ten, pulled my release cord, and ... And what a hell of a pseudo-romantic way to make a living, he'd said to himself and to the English girl that morning.
But tonight there was nothing phony about sitting in a canvas sling, falling through a wet cloud, eyes peeled for the white of Segador's parachute. Tonight he was no Sunday supplement kibitzer taking a joy ride amidst men rehearsing for death. Tonight he was finally in the war, as a combatant.
The tricks he had learned in Scotland served him in good stead now. He was able to play the cords of the parachute, guiding the direction of his descent so that he followed Segador. There was little time to think of anything but the operation of the moment. Fortunately, it was a green night. Like Segador, Hall could see from a thousand feet that they were dropping over a sloping meadow. At about two hundred feet, they could see that they were going to land in the middle of a flock of sheep.