Fourteen Thousand Feet Above the Desert

14,000 Feet: Sky

The aircraft climbed steadily through a sky so clear it seemed impossible that storms existed anywhere in the world.

Below, the desert stretched to every horizon in shades of rust, gold, and amber. Ancient mesas rose from the earth like monuments carved by a patient god.

Rick Harrington pressed his forehead briefly against the window and smiled.

Fifty.

The number felt strange.

For most of his adult life, he had measured time in quarters, acquisitions, earnings reports, and market cycles. Birthdays were obligations squeezed between board meetings and investor calls. But this one felt different.

Rick was the founder and CEO of Harrington & Pierce Capital, one of the most successful investment firms in New York. At six-foot-two, with jet-black hair that seemed untouched by age, perfect white teeth, and a single dimple that appeared whenever he smiled, he looked exactly like the kind of man financial magazines liked to place on their covers.

Today, however, he looked less like a CEO and more like a ten-year-old waiting in line for his first roller coaster.

"Nervous?"

Rick turned.

His wife, Laurie, sat across from him on the narrow leather bench that ran along the cabin wall.

"A little."

"A little?" She smiled. "Your leg's been shaking since we left the runway."

Rick glanced down and laughed. She was right.

"I've negotiated billion-dollar deals without breaking a sweat,” Rick said with a newfound confidence smile.

"Good thing you're not negotiating today,” Laurie replied as she reached over and smoothed the collar of his jumpsuit.

"Everything's going to be fine, Ricky."

The nickname made him smile.

The steady drone of the engine filled the cabin.

Beyond Laurie sat the pilot, focused on the horizon. Across from Rick sat the tandem instructor, a broad-shouldered middle-aged man named Tyler who had logged more than six thousand jumps.

Laurie reached up and kissed Rick softly.

"Happy birthday."

He kissed her back.

"Love you."

"Love you too."

A green light illuminated above the cabin door.

Tyler stood.

"All right. Time to jump.”

Rick swallowed.

His mouth suddenly felt dry.

Tyler clipped the final attachment points between their harnesses and tugged each one firmly.

"Everything you've got on is connected to me," he shouted over the engine noise. "Arch your back when we leave the plane. Keep your hands on your harness. Enjoy the view."

Rick nodded.

His heart hammered against his ribs.

The cabin door slid open.

Instantly the aircraft filled with rushing wind.

Endless blue.

Tyler shuffled them toward the opening.

Rick glanced back one last time.

Laurie smiled and gave him a small wave.

Then there was no more cabin.

No more floor beneath his feet.

Only sky.

The earth dropped away.

The wind roared.

Somewhere near his ear, a small electronic chirp sounded from the voice altimeter inside his helmet.

BEEP

"Fourteen thousand feet."

Rick barely noticed.

He was too busy laughing.

He felt completely alive.

10,000 Feet: Earth

BEEP

"Ten thousand feet."

Below the tandem pair, the world had changed.

The mesas were no longer monuments. They were patterns. The rivers were thin silver threads. Roads crossed the desert in impossible straight lines. A town sat in the distance, reduced to a handful of pale squares and glinting roofs, all the private lives inside it made small by altitude.

Rick spread his arms as much as the harness allowed.

"This is beautiful!" he shouted.

Tyler gave no answer.

For the first time, the world seemed larger than anything he owned.

His children came to him suddenly.

Not as they were.

He saw them as babies.

Daniel asleep against his chest in a blue hospital blanket, impossibly small, his mouth opening and closing as though he were still learning the idea of breath.

Emma in Laurie's arms two years later, red-faced and furious, with a fist wrapped around Rick's index finger.

He had loved them then with a force that frightened him.

The wind pressed against his face.

He remembered Daniel at ten, standing in the kitchen in a Yankees T-shirt, his cheeks wet, trying not to cry because ten was old enough to be embarrassed by crying.

"You promised."

Rick had missed the birthday dinner.

Not the whole celebration, he had told himself.

Just the dinner.

Just the cake.

There had been a closing in London, and the client had needed him.

He had sent a gift the next morning.

Courtside Knicks tickets.

He thought of Laurie's face in the plane.

There had been other women.

Never love. That was how he had justified it.

Hotel bars.

Conferences.

Mistresses.

He believed these things belonged to another version of himself.

The road version.

The drunk version.

The young version.

He had told himself many things.

Below him, the desert opened wider.

He thought of the three mid-level analysts he had let go the year Harrington & Pierce posted record returns.

Good people.

“Necessary efficiencies.”

The board had approved his bonus six weeks later.

He had accepted it without pause.

Rick closed his eyes for half a second.

A ridiculous thought came to him.

When my feet touch land, I'll do better.

He would call Daniel and really connect with him.

He would visit Emma at school and let her choose the restaurant.

He would give more away. Quietly. Not through gala tables and naming opportunities. Really give.

He would tell Laurie the truth.

He opened his eyes.

The desert rushed up beneath him, magnificent and indifferent.

For one bright moment, Rick Harrington believed the rest of his life was waiting below.

7,000 Feet: Desert

BEEP

"Seven thousand feet."

The voice sounded calm. Almost cheerful.

The desert no longer looked distant. Details were beginning to emerge.

Rick smiled into the wind.

Then he twisted his head slightly.

"Hey!"

Tyler turned.

"Shouldn't we pull soon?"

"Not yet."

The answer came immediately.

Matter-of-fact.

As though Rick had asked about the weather.

Rick nodded.

6,000 jumps.

The man knew what he was doing.

Still, he found himself glancing toward the horizon.

The ground seemed closer than he expected.

4,500 Feet: Mesas

BEEP

"Four thousand five hundred feet."

Rick glanced over to his side.

No movement toward the deployment handle.

No signal.

No preparation.

The men simply continued falling.

The wind screamed past them.

"Tyler!"

No response.

"Hey! Aren't we supposed to be doing something?"

Tyler turned his head slightly.

"Not yet."

Rick felt a knot in his stomach.

He was no longer looking at the desert scenery.

He was looking back at Tyler.

Waiting.

Watching.

The earth continued rushing upward.

3,500 Feet: Arroyos

BEEP

"Three thousand five hundred feet."

The ground was no longer abstract.

It was coming.

Fast.

"Tyler!"

“What the fuck is going on? Open the shoot!”

For a moment neither spoke.

Then Tyler leaned closer.

"You deserve to know," he said.

The words were nearly swallowed by the wind.

"What?"

"You deserve to know what's happening."

Rick stared at him.

Tyler's expression remained calm.

Almost apologetic.

"I know your wife."

The words made no sense.

"What?"

The desert rushed beneath them.

The wind screamed around them.

Rick waited for the punchline.

None came.

Tyler looked toward the horizon.

"We have a mutual friend."

"What are you talking about?"

Tyler closed his eyes briefly.

"I didn't go looking for this."

"Pull the damn cord,” Rick interrupted.

"I can't." Tyler replied calmly.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Tyler looked back at him.

"Your wife paid for this."

The earth continued rising.

For a moment Rick simply stared.

His mind refused to move.

Refused to connect the words.

"What?"

"She wanted you dead," Tyler said.

Rick barked out a laugh.

The sound was sharp and hollow, snatched away almost instantly by the wind.

For a moment he simply stared at Tyler.

Waiting.

Certain there was more.

Certain this was some kind of joke.

Some twisted attempt to scare him before the chute opened.

"That's not funny."

Tyler didn't answer.

The silence frightened him more than the words.

"Tyler."

Nothing.

The desert expanded beneath them.

The roads were no longer lines but paths.

The riverbeds no longer patterns but wounds etched into the earth.

Shadows gathered beneath the mesas.

Individual stones began to emerge from the endless expanse.

All of it rushing closer. Fast.

"She said you had another woman."

Rick felt the blood drain from his face.

He wasn't surprised Laurie knew.

Tyler looked away.

"She said she felt trapped."

"No."

The word felt small.

Childish.

"No."

Tyler met his eyes.

"They offered me twenty million dollars to make sure neither of us landed."

The wind tore at them.

"My family won't have to worry anymore."

Rick shook his head.

"No."

"Faulty parachute. Tragic accident. Two dead skydivers."

"No."

His voice sounded distant.

As though it belonged to someone else.

Tyler swallowed.

"I'll be worth more dead than alive."

The words floated between them.

Rick waited for someone to yell cut.

For a camera crew.

For reality to return.

Instead, Tyler looked at him with something that might have been shame.

"I'm sorry, man."

The earth rushed upward.

And for the first time since leaving the plane, Rick stopped thinking about parachutes. He just thought about Laurie.

2,000 Feet - Shadows

BEEP

"Two thousand feet."

Rick stared at Tyler.

"You’re shitting me."

Tyler said nothing.

"Tyler."

No response.

"TYLER!"

Rick twisted violently in the harness.

"Deploy the fucking chute!"

Panic overtook reason.

His hand shot backward toward the deployment handle.

He swung wildly behind him.

An elbow.

A fist.

"You son of a bitch!"

His knuckles glanced off Tyler's shoulder.

Tyler barely reacted.

Rick kicked.

Thrashed.

Twisted.

The harness dug into his chest and legs.

Every movement only reminded him of the terrible reality.

He couldn't get away.

He was literally strapped to the man murdering him.

His voice cracked.

"Laurie!"

The name came out broken.

Then louder.

"LAURIE!"

The words were ripped away by the wind.

Tears streamed sideways from his eyes.

Tyler remained calm.

The sky remained impossibly blue.

At last, Rick stopped fighting.

He was exhausted.

His chest heaved.

His arms trembled.

He looked down.

Then back at Tyler.

"Wait."

Tyler said nothing.

Rick swallowed.

"I'll give you whatever you want."

No response.

"Please."

The word surprised him.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd begged anyone for anything.

"Please. Please Tyler. You don’t have to do this."

Tyler looked at him.

"It's too late."

"Pull the reserve this instant."

Tyler shook his head.

"There isn't one."

"Bullshit!” Rick screamed desperately.

"Tyler—"

"It's over. This is a dummy chute, Rick. It’s all over, brother.”

Rick felt something collapse inside him.

For fifty years there had always been a way out.

Until now.

Then the voice inside Rick's helmet spoke again.

BEEP

"One thousand feet."

1,000 Feet: Stones

The wind no longer felt like wind.

It felt solid.

A living thing pressing against every inch of Rick's body. It flattened his clothes against his skin, pulled tears from his eyes, and filled the world with a constant roar that drowned out everything else.

There was no longer a sensation of dropping.

Only the earth growing larger.

Closer.

Certain.

Everything earthly seemed to disappear.

Only Daniel and Emma remained.

Twenty-one and nineteen.

Daniel would graduate.

He would find someone.

Maybe become a father.

Maybe one day hold a little boy against his chest the way Rick once held him.

Emma would build a life of her own.

A career. A family.

A thousand ordinary Tuesdays and birthdays and Christmas mornings ahead.

Rick quickly tried to imagine what they would look like at thirty.

At forty.

At fifty.

The images wouldn't come.

His chest tightened.

The promises he had made to himself only moments ago had already become impossible to fulfill.

Rick shut his eyes tight and held them there, every muscle in his face straining against the inevitable.

500 Feet: Dust

The earth was no longer approaching.

It was there.

The desert that had once seemed endless now filled everything.

Individual stones.

Patches of dry grass.

Tire tracks cutting through pale dirt.

The shadow of two falling men racing beneath them.

The wind pressed against Rick's body with such force that it no longer felt like air.

It felt solid.

The roar that had accompanied them since the jump had become the entire world.

There was no room left for thought or fear.

The details sharpened with impossible speed.

A fence post.

A scrub bush.

A ribbon of dirt road.

The world had never seemed so real.

Rick felt movement behind him.

Tyler's hand appeared beside his own.

Rick stared at it for a moment.

Then he took it.

Not gently.bNot in forgiveness.

He grabbed it hard.

Their fingers locked together.

Neither man looked at the other.

Both stared ahead.

The earth rushed upward.

Closer.

Closer.

Closer.

Impact

Far away, in a glass office tower overlooking a harbor whose name Rick Harrington would never know, a wire transfer cleared.

$20,000,000.

The funds moved through a series of accounts and arrived exactly where they had been instructed to go.

No questions were asked.

By evening, Laurie posted a photograph to Instagram.

A smiling picture of Rick from many years ago.

The caption spoke of a tragic accident.

An unimaginable loss.

Thoughts and prayers began to appear beneath it.

Emma sent a text message to her friends.

“My dad died today.”

The next morning, the market opened at 9:30.

Traders bought.

Traders sold.

Harrington & Pierce Capital released a brief statement expressing profound sadness.

Rick's office remained empty.

His calendar remained full.

Daniel attended his morning classes.

At lunch, he booked a flight home.

There was no point missing the entire day. He had work to do.

The desert remained where it had always been.

The wind continued sweeping across the mesas.

The future Rick Harrington had imagined for his children had already begun without him.