Heaven Bent

Chapter 1-3

Twenty minutes later, I was hanging from a cable as the helicopter lifted me up into the air. All part of the "opportunity" D.X. had mentioned.

Now, I'm not afraid of heights, and I was secured by a safety harness wired to the chopper, but still. As I rose high above the pier, then swung out over the glittering surface of the river, I felt a punch of adrenaline. My heart pounded, and the pit of my stomach clenched. My hands, protected by thin leather gloves, clamped tight around the cable.

I was really out there. My feet were perched on a big iron hook at the end of the cable, clipped to stirrups on either side--but it didn't seem like there was much between me and the void. I knew the harness and wire held me fast, but the illusion of imminent danger, of being fractions of an inch from plunging into a vast gulf of space, was powerful.

It was one of those moments when maybe it wasn't so great being Mr. Movie-Star-Who-Does-His-Own-Stunts.

But I still had no inkling whatsoever of what was coming next. It was just another day on the job to me. My twin's warning was the furthest thing from my mind.

So the helicopter kept climbing and heading out over the river. Gazing down at the crew on the pier, I saw sunlight glinting off camera lenses and cell phone screens.

The plan was this: the helicopter would swoop in from the Brooklyn Bridge toward the pier; the whole time, I'd be suspended underneath, swinging back and forth as I tried to get a bead on the pilot with the gun I was carrying. According to the script, the helicopter was packed with explosives and aiming at the pier...but just before it got there, I would appear to get off a shot that appeared to hit the pilot. The helicopter would start to wobble like it was going to crash...

...aaaaand cut.

Simple enough, no? All I had to do was hang on and shoot a pretend gun. I'd been in lots of more complicated stunts with more room for disaster.

So I sucked it up, determined to ride this puppy out. Remember the multimillion-dollar contract, remember the multimillion-dollar contract--that was my mantra.

The helicopter cruised toward the bridge, then looped around to face the pier. I swung in a gentle arc under it, buffeted by the downdraft from the rotor.

How far up were we? Three hundred feet, I guessed--higher than the Brooklyn Bridge towers, which I thought were two hundred and fifty. Fear-of-God high, let's say.

We hovered around the same point for what felt like a long moment. My hands sweated inside the gloves as I gripped the cable more tightly than ever.

Then, I heard the signal in my earpiece. "Fill your hand, Stag!" D.X. snapped the words over the radio. I knew he was watching me through his binoculars--one of the glints of light on the distant pier. "Thirty seconds, yo!"

I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and reached into the holster strapped across my chest. I drew out what looked like a perfectly ordinary Smith and Wesson revolver--in this case, a stunt gun loaded with blanks instead of .357 Magnum cartridges.

The helicopter drifted sideways as the seconds ticked away. Hanging there, in those lost beats of time, I took one last look at the view--Brooklyn sprawling to the left of me, the lower tip of Manhattan at my right...the East River flowing ahead of me, running down to the upper bay of New York Harbor. It looked so vast, so alive, so intricate...and yet so distant, so small. From my God's-eye view, suspended at a great height, it looked like a tabletop diorama spread before me, built by a lonely hobbyist to serve as his own little world. A place for him to project his hopes and dreams, to live vicariously in the million million secret nooks and crannies where an unfulfilled heart can dwell. It reminded me of another cold and distant world cobbled together to hold a lonely soul, a bitter, jaded bastard only fit to inhabit imaginary places.

It reminded me of my life, in other words. My career in film. My self. Because that's what I've gotten from twenty-two years in the movies--two Oscars and a portable fortress of solitude that follows me wherever I go. More money than I can count and less happiness than the scabbiest bum in that city out there.

That's what I was thinking as I hung there, waiting for the call. The next scene.

And then the clock ran out.

"Action!"

As the word came over my earpiece, the helicopter surged forward. I swung back on the cable as if I were riding a flying trapeze.

"Okay...okay..." D.X. was watching, timing my next cue. "Aaaand...gun up!"

Gripping the cable tightly with one hand, I raised the Smith and Wesson with the other. As the helicopter zoomed toward the pier, I aimed the barrel at the belly of the aircraft.

Clenching my jaw, I jerked the gun around as if I were fighting to get a bead. For the benefit of the distant cameras, I made the movements bigger than they had to be.

The helicopter charged ahead. We were coming up fast on the pier, on the end of the line.

"Stand by, Stag," D.X. said in my ear. "Just a few more seconds..."

I continued to jerk the gun, trying to aim at the pilot...but I couldn't get a clear line of sight from my angle below and behind the aircraft. Then, the helicopter lunged to one side, swinging me out wide, and I finally had it.

The shot. The gun-sight was lined up with the pilot's helmeted head.

At that exact second, you-know-who barked in my you-know-what. "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

I hesitated for a heartbeat, as if I could sense that this was the tipping point. As if I knew deep down that this would be the last normal second of my life.

And then my finger squeezed the trigger.

The sound of the blast roared in my ears. The recoil spun me around like a pinwheel in a tornado. As I spun, I saw the glass of the cockpit shatter, and the pilot's head buck forward in a blossom of red.

And I knew instantly, without the slightest doubt.

That gun was not firing blanks.

I spun like a stone on a string and pinched my eyes shut against the dizziness. Instantly dropping the gun, I clamped both hands on the cable.

D.X. dropped the F-bomb five times in a row in my earpiece. "Oh my God! What happened up there?"

But his voice didn't matter much to me. I was too busy hanging on as the helicopter lurched out of control. It pitched from side to side, then seemed to stabilize for an instant.

Just before it bolted hard left and plunged toward the water.

"He's going down!" said D.X., as if I needed the running commentary.

Snapping my eyes open, I saw the glittering surface of the East River spinning toward me as the helicopter spiraled out of the sky. It was coming up fast.

Things looked bad for me, but my mind still raced, straining for a plan.

"Get the rescue crew out there!" said D.X. "Hang on, Stag!"

I decided to do the opposite. Maybe I'd stand a better chance if I jumped clear instead of being pulled in with the wreckage.

Reaching under my shirt and into my pants, I released the wires from the safety harness. They sprang away from me like snipped piano wires.

So now only the single cable tethered me to the helicopter as it spiraled downward. And I had only seconds to leap free of the whole mess.

I whipped around on that cord like a tail behind the falling aircraft, waiting for the best moment to move. The lower the better, I thought; the lower I jumped, the less likely I'd be to pancake on the water's surface.

"Goodbye, Stag!" said D.X. "I'm sorry this happened!"

Just before the helicopter hit, I let go of the cable and tried to dive free. But I forgot something.

"Good luck!" said D.X. "Good luck on the other side!"

The stirrups clipped to my feet.

Instead of jumping free, I flipped forward, caught by the stirrups. Hanging upside-down, I saw the chopper break the river's surface below me.

The helicopter dove, but its momentum was cut by the splashdown. The cord leashed to it snapped me forward like a pebble in a slingshot, pitching me at the water.

Time seemed to slow down as I rocketed toward the roiling surface. The helicopter disappeared below, leaving only churning brown waves pierced by the cable.

Here it comes. That's what I thought. And then I thought of something else.

For the first time in years, I thought of my turning point, the night when I really started my climb to the top. The night when I left A.E. for dead.

"Remember," said D.X. "Go toward the light!"

And then the river parted around me, bitterly cold. And I plunged into darkness and silence.

And the breath I'd meant to hold for as long as I could rushed right out of me, and I was gone.