Chris Ryan - Who Dares Wins

Bland took a seat at the table opposite her. He placed his hands palm downwards on the top and looked straight at her. She wasn’t avoiding his stare any more.

‘He came here,’ she gasped. ‘I don’t know how he found me. I didn’t tell him anything.’

Bland glanced up at Toby; the younger man yanked her hair suddenly and pressed the gun further into her face.

‘ Oh God! ’ Clare breathed. ‘ Please, don’t! I’ll tell you. Please, don’t hurt me! ’

Bland nodded at Toby, who immediately let go of the woman. Her body seemed to crumple as she hid her face in her hands. For a moment the room was filled with the desolate sound of her heavy, petrified sobs.

‘He just turned up,’ she wailed. Her words started to tumble out, as though if she said it all quickly it wouldn’t make it so bad. ‘He knew about the article. He had a copy – it was all, you know, blacked out, censored. But he made me tell him. He said he was special forces, I don’t know which one. And that he was being sent to a training camp…’

At this point she removed the hands from her face. Her eyes were red and what little make-up she had been wearing was now streaked over her cheeks.

‘Carry on,’ Bland said.

‘He said his brother was there. And that he wasn’t going to let anyone kill him.’

Clare Corbett stared, wide-eyed. She appeared horrified that she had blurted out all these things. Bland barely noticed. He had pushed his chair back and was standing up. ‘Make the call,’ he told Brookes, his mind suddenly racing. ‘Tell them to pull the mission.’

Brookes hesitated, blinking at his boss.

‘NOW!’ Bland roared.

The man scurried away, leaving Bland and Clare in the room. Not a word was spoken. He didn’t even look at her. The only sound was of Brookes in the corridor, talking urgently into his mobile phone. When he reappeared, his expression was dark.

‘What?’ Bland demanded.

Brooke shook his head. ‘The unit’s been inserted,’ he replied. ‘They’ve already gone in. I’m sorry, sir. It’s too late.’

When you’re waiting to perform a HALO jump, two hours seem like two minutes. As the Hercules cruised northwards, Sam and the rest of the unit checked and rechecked their rigs more times than they could count, ensuring everything was packed correctly, nothing was frayed and the oxygen gear had been properly serviced. There was occasional banter above the noise of the engines. When Craven tugged at the straps of his pack for what must have been the twentieth time, Tyler was quick to pounce. ‘What’s wrong, Jack? Ain’t learned to fall stable yet?’

Craven looked up, one eyebrow raised. ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘I fall stable on your missus every Friday night.’

The company laughed, but soon they all went back to checking and rechecking their gear. Nobody wanted to leave anything to chance.

The loadmaster approached them. ‘Ten minutes!’ he shouted over the noise of the engines, holding up the gloved fingers of both hands so that there was no confusion.

The men started to get ready. Sam’s chute and weapon were already firmly strapped to his body, as was his GPS unit, but the rucksack was on the floor in front of him. He hooked his legs over it, then scraped it towards him so that it was under the bench. Once it was in position, he clipped the bag to the back of his legs and wound the straps round to his front, pulling them so they were firmly tightened. It would make walking to the tailgate difficult when the time came, but the bag needed to be attached to the back of his legs to balance his weight properly. He then turned his attention to the digital screen of his automatic opening device. Four thousand feet. If all went well they would open the chutes at four thousand five hundred; but if there was a problem the AOD would save his life.

‘Five minutes!’

Sam fitted the oxygen mask and helmet to his face. Up until now they had been breathing the oxygen from the aircraft’s mainframe, but now they needed to make sure their breathing apparatus was fully operational. As soon as he attached his oxygen mask, Sam’s breathing sounded much louder in his ears. It heightened his senses somewhat, even though the toughened black plastic of his mask had plunged the area around the tailgate into a deeper shade of darkness. The men around him looked more like cosmonauts now than soldiers. He breathed steadily and deeply. Everything was as it should be. The air was coming through. He got to his feet, as did the other seven members of his troop. The loadmaster approached to help them to the back of the plane.

Steve Davenport and Matt Andrews went first. Behind them were Tyler and Craven, then Webb and Cullen. Sam and Mac took the rear. In front of them a red light shone in the gloom of the Hercules’s belly. When it turned green, that would be the signal for the off.

A sudden rush of noise and with it a judder of turbulence. The tailgate was opening.

Sam was running on pure adrenaline now. Everything else that had been preoccupying him – Jacob, Mac and what the hell was going to happen when they hit land – took second place. Every cell in his brain was concentrating on the jump. Outside it was pitch black: from where he was standing he had the impression that he was about to dive into nothingness.

The loadmaster touched one hand to his headphones then held up a single finger. One minute. Sam and Mac looked at each other, but through their equipment the expressions on their faces were unknowable. They both faced forward again.

Green light.

There was no order. No hesitation. Davenport and Andrews jumped to the edge of the tailgate and fell out, their bodies arched and their arms spread out as though they were about to embrace the empty air. Tyler and Craven followed immediately.

A pause. Webb and Cullen waited for perhaps thirty seconds before they jumped. An eight-man unit freefalling in close proximity to each other could cause a splash on a radar; two four-man units were less likely to. Once Webb and Cullen had disappeared, Sam and Mac shuffled behind them. And then, the moment they reached the edge of the tailgate, they toppled forwards.

The wind hit Sam immediately, roaring in his ears and lashing against his body as if a powerful wave had just crashed over him. He fell belly downwards, his body arched and his palms outstretched. He was vaguely aware of the Hercules roaring away into the distance above him, but he didn’t concentrate on that. Instead he looked around to check the position of the others. They manoeuvred themselves so that they fell in a circular formation. It was possible to see them all perfectly clearly: the half moon provided plenty of light – it even glowed slightly on the helmets of the unit as they fell. Thirty thousand feet down, he could make out the twinkling of sparsely separated settlements. In a corner of his brain he wondered if any of these would be their target. It was impossible to tell from this height. They would have to wait until they were closer to the ground.

That wouldn’t be long.

They hurtled towards the earth, deafened by the rush, their senses keen with adrenaline. Terminal velocity, the maximum speed they could achieve. Thirty seconds passed.

A minute.

A minute and a half.

Everything was as it should be. Despite himself, Sam felt a surge of wild excitement. A thrill. As his altitude decreased, his view of the landscape below became less extensive; but those bits he could see became clearer. They were freefalling into a widely deserted area. In the distance he thought he saw the headlamps of a vehicle. But it was the only one. From what he could tell at this height, there were very few people around who might possibly notice the unit HALOing in.