Andy McNab - DropZone

Gabe turned to Johnny and Luke. ‘Your bergens contain the BASE rigs. Everything checked?’

Johnny and Luke nodded.

‘Good,’ said Gabe. ‘Lose those, and your emergency exit is screwed… Natalya,’ he continued, ‘your bergen contains everything you’ll need for the diversion – P4 explosive, detonators and Claymores. Has it all been checked?’

Natalya nodded. ‘The equipment is all OK,’ she said, ‘but I am not happy about our lack of protection. What are we to do if they shoot?’

‘Make sure they don’t see you,’ said Gabe. Then he turned to Ethan. ‘Your bergen will contain the two inflatable canoes.’

‘OK,’ Ethan replied. ‘But what about Sam? Don’t we need to know where he is?’

‘All you need to do is focus on the mission,’ said Gabe. ‘Sam’s more than capable of looking after himself. He’s made a career out of it. Just provide the diversion he needs and get the hell out. Right?’

The pilot buzzed through with the final call.

‘OK, we’re about to depressurize,’ said Gabe. ‘Everyone to oxygen. Now.’

‘Ethan, put this on,’ said Kat, handing him a face mask.

‘But it’s not connected,’ Ethan pointed out.

‘And it won’t be until we know the oxygen in the bottle is flowing. And we need to check the seal on your mask, OK? Can’t have the thing leaking when we’re outside the plane.’

She reached over, blocked the hole where the tube attached with her hand. ‘Can you breathe?’

Ethan shook his head. He didn’t like the sensation.

‘Good,’ said Kat. She did the same with her own mask before grabbing the bottle, turning it on and staring at the dial. Then she took the tube attached to the bottle and put it up to her eye.

Ethan was about to ask what she was doing, but Kat got in first. ‘This way we can feel if the oxygen is flowing,’ she told him. ‘Just because the dial gives a reading doesn’t mean it isn’t defective.’

‘Oh, right…’ Ethan was stunned by the attention to detail. It almost made him feel safe. Almost.

‘If we put these on and the oxygen flow is screwed, then when the cabin depressurizes we’ll be in a state of hypoxia within a minute, dead in two.’

Ethan didn’t say a thing. Dead in two minutes?

‘And don’t worry about the farting,’ added Kat.

He looked at her, not sure if he’d heard her right. Farting? What the hell did that have to do with anything?

‘Once this thing’s unpressurized, all gases expand,’ Kat explained with a grin; ‘even oxygen under a tooth filling – causes it to explode. You’re lucky; we checked you out – no fillings. Must be all that flossing.’

Kat attached the tubes to the face masks and nodded.

Ethan nodded back. He could taste the oxygen coming through.

Kat turned to the rest of the team, gave the thumbs-up. Ethan did the same, even though it made him feel like a complete idiot.

He saw Gabe grab a cabin mask, put it on.

Then the hold was depressurized.

The temperature dropped even further, and Ethan looked at Kat, who nodded to confirm the plane had indeed depressurized. All he could now hear was the sound of his breathing as he sucked in oxygen, and the noise of the plane. When pressurized, the cabin was sealed in a sound-tight vacuum. Now that it was depressurized, the vacuum had gone and the noise of the plane was loud to the point where Ethan wondered if it would actually hold together.

He could tell that the plane was getting in line for the jump. The inside of his mask felt wet. Then his goggles started to steam up.

Kat came over and got his attention, signalled for him to do as she did. Then she lifted the bottom of her own goggles for a few seconds to allow them to clear. He copied as she strapped him into the tandem harness. That done, the team lined up in their jumping order. Ethan looked at them as they organized themselves. All kitted up, they were a frightening sight. He was used to seeing them in normal clothes or their fancy skydiving suits. But now they were head to toe in black, rigs strapped on, any kit they were jumping with strapped around their legs. Soon they were holding onto each other for stability, their heavy kit pulling them from side to side.

This is it, thought Ethan. When Kat jumps, I go with her. I’m just cargo.

His attention was suddenly caught by a sucking, howling sound, and he looked over to see Gabe pulling open a door in the side of the plane. Outside, there was nothing but blackness. It took him back to the night skydive, the sensation of jumping into nothing.

A tap on his shoulder, and Ethan felt himself being pushed forward as Kat and the rest of the team lined up. He and Kat were at the front. They would be first out of the plane.

For a moment Ethan felt shock and fear take hold as he peered out through the door. Wind was blasting into his face and he knew that outside was a fall of 32,000 feet.

All he had to remember was to breathe easy, cross his arms, put his head back. Simple.

Then Kat pushed forward.

And they toppled out of the plane.

Ethan had no idea where he was. He was blinded by the blackness and deafened by the sound of the wind outside the plane. Everything was darkness and noise, and he could do nothing about it. Whatever happened, it was all down to Kat. He’d saved her life once. Now his life was in her hands.

Ethan spotted the flash of the plane’s lights directly above him, but then they were gone, and he realized that Kat had arched her back, flipped them over belly-down. He knew she would now be checking around to make sure that they had clean air above; that she wasn’t going to deploy the canopy and end up piling into another member of the team.

A moment later, he heard the reassuring crack of the canopy blasting out above them, grabbing air, and he was pulled into quick deceleration. It always felt like he was travelling upwards in the sky, but he knew that wasn’t happening; they were just slowing down. And 120 to 10 mph in under ten seconds was some serious braking.

As they slowed to a glide, Ethan could feel Kat moving. He visualized what she was doing: using a torch to check the canopy, making sure the lines weren’t snagged, caught or twisted, looking at the altimeter.

Her voice sounded in his ear. ‘Ethan, you OK?’

He reached up and pinched the comms device round his neck. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Fine. That was quite something, being first out.’

‘We had to be,’ said Kat. ‘We’re heaviest, so we’ll be at the bottom of the stack.’

‘You mean we’re doing a stack formation?’ asked Ethan. He’d seen skydivers doing this at FreeFall. They’d position themselves to basically stand on top of each other’s canopies. It looked bloody difficult at the best of times. Doing it in the dark at 30,000 feet must be almost impossible.

‘Yeah,’ said Kat. ‘Didn’t have time to explain on the plane. It’s how we make sure we don’t lose each other. We glide in, in stack formation. We’re all on GPS, so we can use that to guide us to the island and the DZ. You’ll hear the rest of the team coming in now. Johnny’s first.’

Ethan just caught the faint flapping sound of a canopy, then heard Johnny’s voice over the chat-net.

‘Kat, I’m coming in.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Eth, you might feel a faint tug from above; it’s just Johnny locking his legs into our lines. No need to panic.’

Ethan felt the tug as soon as she finished speaking.

‘I’m on,’ came Johnny’s voice again. ‘Natalya? Luke?’

‘Coming in.’ That was Luke.

Finally Natalya drifted in and they were all locked in formation.

‘Ethan, you need to check the dial on your oxygen bottle,’ said Kat. ‘Make sure it isn’t in the red.’