PUSHED AND PULLED by high winds, the row of seats spun madly as it carried the team toward the rocky mountain slope below. They had just seconds to separate and deploy their parachutes. King, who was sitting in the middle of the five man team, shouted his orders.

“Bishop, Alexander, go!”

Both men heard him clearly in their ears. They unbuckled from their seats and rolled away. Seconds later they pulled their chutes and the bench rocketed past them.

Only seconds remained.

“Queen, Knight, go!”

Both were ready, pushing from their seats and pulling their chutes once far enough away. They shot above the bench, and King. With only fifteen hundred feet left, King unbuckled from the bench and shoved off it with his feet. He yanked his cord. As his fall slowed with a sudden yank from his opening chute, he watched the bench finish its fall. It smashed on the mountainside. An explosion of small parts burst from the bench as it folded in over itself.

King cringed. He had no idea what kind of surveillance or security the site had, but they had undoubtedly just announced their skyward approach. He readied himself for an attack, but none came. In fact, the barren mountainside was as quiet and empty as it had been before. The only difference was that it was now rushing toward him.

King bent his knees as he struck, and rolled with the impact. But he was headed downslope and the cool air descending the mountain caught his parachute, dragging him down the steep grade. He spun himself around and planted his boots on the ground. He shot to his feet and dug in, grabbing the lines of his parachute and reeling them in. With the billowing fabric under control, he quickly bunched it up, found a crag in the rocks, and stuffed it in.

He turned back to find the others above him, hiding their chutes as well. With the vent a hundred yards above them, he started up the hill at a run. The others joined him and stopped when they reached the vent.

It was a three-foot hole in the earth, concealed by brush. It descended into darkness, but a tiny speck of light could be seen at the bottom.

“Depth?” King asked.

Knight aimed a laser range finder down the hole. “Two hundred feet.”

“Measure out one-ninety and throw it in,” King said to Bishop, who was uncoiling a large spool of titanium cable.

Bishop lowered the cable into the hole, watching as the spool’s digital readout scrolled toward two hundred feet. He stopped the cable at one hundred ninety and placed the spool on the ground. Using what looked like a miniature staple gun, he fired five titanium staples into the mountainside. Their long barbed tips could support three hundred pounds each. But Bishop didn’t want to risk their lives on what the staples were supposed to do. He fired five more and stepped back. “Good to go.”