Matt Hilton - Cut and run

'I'd forgotten how uncomfortable it was,' I grumbled over the high-pitched rush of air snapping at my jumpsuit and trappings.

'Can't wait,' Rink went on. 'The rush, man, haven't you missed it?'

I just grunted, said, 'Just make sure you don't land on your head.'

Rink laughed at me. Harvey leaned forward, looking past Rink, and shot me a grin of his own. 'Worse will be if he lands on our heads.'

We were in a MC-130H Combat Talon II, the Lockheed variant of the Hercules transport airplanes used during military operations. The last time I'd been in one was on a drop behind enemy lines during Operation Desert Storm. On that occasion I'd been one of fifty-two paratroopers stacked side by side in the troop carrier, but this time there was only me and my friends preparing to jump.

We were only minutes away from our designated drop and I felt the familiar trickle of adrenalin I got when preparing for contact. Rink always became excitable, a nervous energy making him grin like a crazy man. On the other hand the surge of chemicals through my system had the adverse effect of sending me into a state that some – even my best friend – took as a resolute calmness. Rink would comment on my ability to stay calm like it was something admirable, but really there was nothing admirable about it. I was as nervous as everyone else: I just didn't let it show.

Embrace fear and make it your friend. That had been the philosophy of my instructors at Arrowsake, the secret base where I'd undergone intense military training. It was an ethos I've carried with me ever since. Fear keeps you wary and in a high state of alert. It can keep you alive.

I wished that I feared Luke Rickard, but I didn't. I just loathed everything about him.

Even if he wasn't a stone-cold killer who had earned himself a substantial amount of wealth from murder, I'd still want to put the bastard down. From Imogen Ballard I'd learned that he was a sick-minded beast who had used the threat of rape to torture her, but from Alisha – his wife – I found that he'd gone way beyond threats. At first he'd been the archetypal gentleman, a loving and caring man who'd saved her from a life on the streets. He'd whisked her away, married her on a beach in the Bahamas, set her up in a penthouse suite in Miami, given her everything. But then things changed. The mask had slipped and for two years he'd subjected her to vicious and agonising sexual abuse in an attempt at dominating her every thought. I was surprised that she'd waited as long as that before asking Del Chisholm to get her away from the monster. I only wished that she'd come to us instead.

Rickard's bullets had shattered the femur in her left leg and had nicked an artery. Immediate fears that she would lose the leg were negated by the superb team of surgeons who worked on her through the evening and into the small hours. They saved the limb, but she'd never walk again without a limp. She also had to forgo her spleen and a portion of her liver to save her life. She spent the remainder of the night deeply anaesthetised and it wasn't until the next day that she had related her story in a whisper that told more of continued terror than it did of the pain she was suffering.

If Rickard was allowed to live, Alisha would never shed that terror. Imogen too would live in fear of his promised return. For both their sakes I was determined to put the son of a bitch in a deep dark hole. But my reason for hunting down the killer went way beyond that. He'd murdered people I'd once called friends, viciously torturing them and their loved ones in an insane attempt at punishing me. He'd murdered other innocent people too, and the list was long. I was his intended victim; he should have just come for me and had done. He'd fouled up and I hoped I was now going to get the opportunity to redress that.

It was the reason I'd accepted Walter's 'official sanction' and promise of amnesty from prosecution – not the incentive of a hefty pay cheque for getting the job done. Good friends that they were, Rink and Harvey had snapped his hand off too.

One of the aircraft's seven-man crew signalled that we were approaching our drop point. We'd been very specific about checking our gear but it didn't hurt to check again. We went through the routine, then helped to check each other. We'd joked about landing on heads, but it was the last thing we wanted.

A light in the bulkhead went to red and we moved towards the open hatch at the rear of the plane. The crew man counted down and the light turned green. Harvey jumped out and it was like a giant hand had snatched him away. Rink followed and he too was gone in a blink. Then it was my turn. One step. No turning back now.

It was like the airplane shot up and away from me at the same instant and I was falling towards blackness devoid of all light. There was no real sense of falling, but I plummeted like a stone, head down and my arms by my sides to streamline my body and cut down on wind resistance. From this altitude the surface could have been the fathomless depths of an ocean, but I was streaking towards a different kind of sea. The undulating blackness was the uppermost canopy of trees clinging to the slopes of the Cordillera mountain range, a spur of the Andes.

I'd made many HALO jumps in the past but all of them at least five years ago. The high-altitude, low-opening technique was second nature, though. Rink was right: it was a rush.

I bowed out, spreading my arms and legs, taking up the classic freefall position, checking instinctively the altimeter on my wrist. We'd jumped from just below ten thousand feet, without oxygen, but with obligatory helmet and goggles. Condensation spread across the lenses and I wiped at them with a sleeve. When next I looked at my altimeter it told me that the jungle was rushing up to meet me like an old friend. Off on my left, as if in a synchronised dance, I saw the opening of both my friends' canopies. I made the double salute position with my arms, signalling deployment, then pulled at my ripcord. The chute unfurled and I felt the tugging of my harness as I caught air under the canopy. I checked everything was in order with my rig, double-checked, then searched for the landing point.

A flare suddenly burned bright, casting dancing shadows on the trees surrounding a clearing cut out of the forest. I manipulated the guide lines, angling towards the clearing, noting Rink and Harvey already swooping that way. We went into land in an oblique stack, Harvey alighting first with an ease as though he'd simply stepped off a box. Rink needed a couple of running steps before he had full control of his landing, but it was still good for someone who hadn't jumped in all those years. I also showed my experience, coming down surefooted as I used the resistance and angle of my chute to bring me to a feather-soft contact with the ground.

Walter had been busy in the day or so since Luke Rickard escaped us. The telephone number supplied to me by Ken Wetherby had turned up trumps, leading back to a similar broker of mercenaries in Bogota. Men sent by Walter had eased the name of the broker's client out of him. When I say eased, that's as much of a euphemism as Walter would hint at: I was guessing that the broker had done a sudden and inexplicable disappearing act after their visit. Then it was a matter for my CIA friend to set us up with contacts here in Colombia and arrange our secret arrival in the country.

Across our chests we had Heckler and Koch MP5A5 sub-machine guns and before we saw to our canopies we saw to our weapons. The flare had been lit to guide us in, but it didn't mean that it had been set by the people we expected. We took up a defensive position while two Jungla troopers came and identified themselves.

The two men were young and fit, typically military in their bearing. One of them was much darker of skin than the other, and I wondered if the paler of the two was actually Colombian. They'd forgone the black jumpsuit and helmet they'd wear while on active duty, dressing in civilian clothes instead. I noted the bulges under their jackets where they concealed firearms. We shook hands, both sides showing a wary respect. Both men spoke with American accents, which didn't surprise me. The Jungla are an elite police force whose task it is to curtail the production and supply of cocaine. Ninety-nine per cent of those involved are good, righteous men, but where there are drugs and huge amounts of money at stake you can never guarantee the complete eradication of corruption. The two men who met us were CIA plants, there to ensure that the inevitable one per cent did not flourish. So Walter said.