Terminal Velocity

by Andy McNab

  Ethan hadn’t slept well. After what had happened the night before, and despite every reassurance his mum, and even Jo, had given him that they would be fine, he was still worried. He’d phoned them that morning and they’d already sorted someone to come out to change the locks. And the police had been in touch as well; they hadn’t yet found his dad, but were following up some leads and didn’t think it would be too long before he was in custody. So, all in all, things sounded sorted. But he still felt bad about heading off for two weeks, not being around if they needed him. But then, perhaps doing this was a better use of his time anyway? He was doing something positive with his life, unlike his pointless loser dad, and through it all he was going to make damned sure he didn’t just make life better for himself, but for his mum and Jo too.

  ‘Earth to Ethan,’ said Johnny, punching Ethan in the arm.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Ethan. ‘Just thinking about Mum and Jo.’

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ said Johnny. ‘Your mum’s got it all in hand, right? And your dad’s got more to think about than just screwing things up for you lot now the police are after him.’

  ‘I know,’ said Ethan. ‘Still feels like I’m running out on them.’

  Ahead of them, FreeFall came into view. Once they’d checked in at the gate with the security guard, they were on the final stretch of road leading up and round to the car park.

  ‘Luke’s already here,’ said Johnny as Ethan swung his old Land Rover into the car park, the huge tyres spitting grit across the ground. ‘Probably been here all night ironing the parachutes and repacking the kit.’

  Laughing, Ethan switched off the engine and slid out into the day. Everyone ribbed Luke for his attention to detail, but only because they respected it and depended on it.

  The sky was overcast, cloud cover low; a full-on no-jump day. The wind was getting up too, and walking round to the back of his Land Rover, Ethan shivered, pulling his jacket in tight and zipping it up.

  ‘Doesn’t exactly bode well, does it?’ said Johnny, joining Ethan as he dropped the tailgate. ‘If the weather’s like this now it’s only going to feel worse when Sam’s got us wading through bogs up to our necks.’

  ‘You’re really not selling it to me,’ said Ethan, grabbing his bergen. ‘It’s not going to be totally horrific, is it?’

  Johnny pulled out his own bergen and slammed the tailgate shut. ‘Sam’s no holiday tour operator,’ he said. ‘His idea of a good time is to run us ragged, feed us on boil-in-the-bags, and teach us the finer arts of blowing stuff up, CQC and surviving interrogation. Surely he mentioned all this at the job interview?’

  ‘Won’t we be skydiving?’ asked Ethan, ignoring Johnny’s question. ‘I know the cover story is that we’re skydiving, but he’s not going to just let us go jump-dry, is he? We must be doing some, at the very least.’

  Johnny waved to Luke who sent a wave back. ‘Oh, we’ll be in the air,’ said Johnny. ‘Probably more so than we have been for the past few weeks.’

  ‘So what’s not to look forward to, then? Why all the doom and gloom?’

  ‘Because,’ said Johnny, ‘if I know Sam, then we won’t just be doing the usual stuff, right? We’ll probably be doing night jumps while he fires RPGs at us.’

  Ethan laughed, but also wondered if there was just a little bit of truth in what Johnny had said.

  ‘Night jumps, though,’ he said. ‘What’s not to love? I mean, that’s a serious rush and we both know it.’

  Just the thought of it made Ethan’s fingers tingle. The sensation of leaping out of a plane was almost indescribable, but doing it at night? Well, that was like jumping into nothing, darkness everywhere, the ground below barely visible, a blanket of black dotted by the fairy lights of civilization.

  Johnny grinned wide. ‘Remember doing it with flares? Now that’s awesome.’

  ‘Not much else it can be really, is there?’ said Ethan. ‘Streaming through the air at night, with your feet on fire, and a hundred-metre stream of white-hot flame burning the sky behind you; can’t understand why more people don’t do it.’

  Johnny rested his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. ‘Be thankful they don’t, mate; can you imagine what it would be like if there were more people in the world like us?’

  Ethan laughed. The thought of it was terrifying.

  As they walked over to meet Luke, a waft of something delicious drifted by from the FreeFall café.

  ‘Smells like Nancy’s in early,’ said Ethan. ‘We got time to grab something to eat?’

  Nancy ran the café and her food was legendary; her bacon butties had become a staple of Ethan’s skydiving diet.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Luke, meeting them halfway. ‘Sam’s going to be here in a couple of minutes.’

  Ethan had noticed early on how Luke never strolled. Whatever he was doing, he always did it with a sense of purpose.

  ‘Kat and Natalya are on their way as well,’ Luke continued. ‘And before you ask, yes, I have double-checked all the kit. It’s out in the storeroom waiting for us to go in there and grab it.’

  ‘Need me to check your stuff, just in case?’ asked Johnny, dropping his bergen to the ground. ‘You know, fresh pair of eyes and all that?’

  ‘No, I think I’m fine, Johnny,’ said Luke. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

  Johnny glanced over at Luke’s own bergen. ‘Shirts? Waterproofs? Sleeping bag? Spare pants? Steam iron?’

  Luke shook his head with a smile. ‘So how are you, Ethan?’

  ‘Nervous,’ said Ethan, which was true enough, though he wasn’t sure if it was simply because he didn’t know what Sam had planned, or because he was thinking about his mum and Jo. It was hard not to. ‘Johnny’s kind of given me the impression it’s going to be hell. Loads of running around and getting shot at.’

  ‘And since when do any of us listen to Johnny?’ asked Luke.

  ‘That’s just because you all fear my wisdom,’ said Johnny, folding his arms and nodding his head knowingly.

  ‘Is it?’ said Ethan. ‘I just thought it was because you talked bollocks.’

  Johnny’s laugh was drowned out by the arrival of three more vehicles into the car park. The first was Sam’s Defender, which made Ethan’s own Land Rover look like a very distant, and very knackered, cousin. He was followed by Kat and Natalya. The last was a minibus driven by someone Ethan didn’t recognize. The vehicle itself was more rust than anything else. It was hard to see how it was in any way road-legal.

  Ethan waved at Kat and was more than a little pleased to get a wave back. Then he looked over at the minibus.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘I’m guessing,’ said Luke, ‘that it’s one of Sam’s contacts. Which means he’s probably ex-special forces, half insane and on a break between high-paid contract jobs out in Iraq.’

  While Sam sorted his stuff out, pulling various bags from the back of his vehicle, Kat and Natalya joined Ethan, Johnny and Luke.

  ‘How you doing?’ asked Kat, looking at Ethan.

  ‘Fine,’ said Ethan. ‘Took a while to get all my stuff over to Johnny’s, and I’m not really unpacked, but it feels great to have moved out.’

  ‘No,’ said Kat. ‘I meant about what happened last night at home with your dad.’

  Ethan was confused. ‘How do you know about that?’ he asked.

  ‘Johnny told me,’ said Kat. ‘I called last night to check you’d moved in OK, but you weren’t there and Johnny told me why. He sounded concerned. How are your mum and Jo?’

  Ethan said, ‘OK, I think. Dad did a real job on the flat.’

  Knowing Johnny, and particularly Kat, were actually in any way bothered about what had happened to him, and to Jo and his mum, made Ethan relax a little. He was among friends who were interested in what was going on in his life and he really appreciated that.

  ‘And you? Are you OK?’

  ‘To be honest,’ said Ethan, ‘I don’t know. I was going to stay, but Mum pretty much pushed me out the door.’


  Kat laughed, and Ethan knew he could listen to that sound every day. He went to say something else, but Sam turned up then and stood in front of them all, arms folded, his thick forearms looking like knotted ropes.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Glad you could all make it. Everyone ready?’

  Ethan, like the rest of the team, nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Sam. He nodded at the hangar, while heading off towards the cafe. ‘No point hanging about, is there? Grab the kit, load up the minibus and we’ll get going shortly,’ he said over his shoulder.

  ‘Out!’

  Ethan blinked, stretched, saw the silhouette of Sam in the open door of the minibus. They’d been on the road for what felt like days and his muscles had seized up. With a yawn, he looked through a grimy window and all he could see was emptiness. Moorland stretched out around the minibus, sweeping up to mountains that broke the clouds high above. The sound of sheep complaining about the weather drifted by on the wind.

  ‘I said, move it!’ barked Sam.

  Ethan scrambled out after Johnny. The cold air hit him hard and shocked the sleep from his body. He shivered; it was freezing compared with the cozy warmth of the minibus.

  ‘You’ll need walking kit,’ said Sam, opening the rear of the minibus. ‘Boots, fleece, waterproofs. Sort yourselves out and meet me round the back of my Defender.’

  Sam strode off and Ethan reached in for his bergen, pulling Johnny’s with it. Kat was already pulling her stuff out with Natalya. Luke, it seemed, had second-guessed Sam and was already kitted up and must have got changed on the way in the back of the minibus.

  ‘You know something we don’t?’ asked Ethan, pulling on his boots, and felt an elbow nudge his arm. It was Kat and she was holding her hand out. ‘Energy bars,’ she said, her voice hushed, almost a whisper. ‘I always carry a few in my jacket, just in case.’

  Ethan took them. ‘Thanks,’ he said, enjoying the conspiracy with Kat. ‘We not supposed to have these, then?’

  ‘I just don’t want Johnny trying to nick them,’ said Kat. ‘They don’t taste bad and it’s always nice to know you’ve got a little something in case of emergency, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ethan and stowed the bars in his pocket.

  ‘Come on,’ said Johnny once the team were ready. ‘Sam already sounds like a bear with a sore head.’

  A gust of wind blasted Ethan as the team left the shelter of the minibus and jogged over to Sam’s Defender. He was holding a box. ‘Water and butties,’ he said. ‘Nancy specials; she got in early this morning to make them. Enough calories to keep you from passing out.’

  As each of the team stuffed the provisions into their pockets, Sam pulled out a map. It was in such a sorry state Ethan wondered if it had last been used to wrap up some fish and chips.

  Sam jabbed a finger at a red dot on the map. ‘You’re here. You need to get to here.’ He moved his finger to a red ‘x’ at another point on the map. ‘Two hours. Get shifting.’

  He said no more. Just handed the map to Natalya, slammed the back door of the Defender, walked round, clambered into the driver’s seat and drove off. Not even a blast of the horn. The minibus pulled away after him and the team were alone.

  * * *

  ‘I mean this in the best possible way,’ said Johnny, ‘but what a bastard.’

  ‘What about a compass?’ asked Ethan.

  ‘Sam hasn’t given us one,’ said Luke. ‘It’s a test – see if we can navigate using just what we can see around us, and this map.’ He checked his watch and said, ‘I’ll keep an eye on the time; don’t want to be late and put Sam in a bad mood straightaway, do we?’

  Ethan watched as Natalya checked out their surroundings, then reorientated the map. ‘This’ – she said, her finger on the map, and nodding at a large mountain – ‘is that mountain over there. The route to our destination is straight down the valley. I would guess fifteen kilometres.’

  The mountain looked huge, thought Ethan, happy that they weren’t heading over it, particularly as a wall of rain was sweeping down it and heading directly for them.

  ‘Fifteen?’ he said. ‘Seriously? In two hours?’

  ‘Do not worry,’ said Natalya. ‘Running will be fun!’

  ‘How?’

  Ethan knew he was fitter than he’d been a few months ago, but a fifteen-kilometre run, particularly as his body was still stiff from the journey, sounded long and painful.

  ‘We have plenty of time,’ said Natalya, folding the map away. ‘And running here is a lot more interesting than back at home, yes? The scenery is beautiful!’

  Ethan wasn’t so sure. He liked being fit, but he still had to force himself to go running every week. He just didn’t enjoy it. Perhaps Natalya had a point, he thought, looking around him; it certainly was more beautiful than back home, and he wouldn’t have to spend most of his time dodging pedestrians and rubbish.

  Luke interrupted his thoughts. ‘I’ll set the pace,’ he said, zipping up his jacket. ‘We’ll change every fifteen minutes to keep ourselves alert. Let’s move!’

  Johnny folded and stowed the map, and Luke turned and set off at an easy jog. Ethan stepped in at the back of the group. Five minutes later, the rain caught them. And it didn’t stop. Not even when Johnny, who’d nominated himself as Morale Officer and sung various apparently motivational songs from Full Metal Jacket, moved on to ‘Singin’ in the Rain’.

  When the singing ended, Luke called back to Ethan with, ‘Eth, your turn to take over.’

  Ethan upped his pace to bring himself to the front, and Luke dropped back. Now, with just the road ahead, rather than the backs of the heads of the rest of the team, he thought about what Natalya had said; this really was a whole lot more fun than the usual route he took when he was doing his regular runs back home. The air was fresh, the mountains and moors beautiful. And leading the team forward, he made a note to himself that once a week at least he’d drive out of town and run in the countryside.

  The miles melted away. The rain drenched them, but by taking it in turns to set the pace, it broke down the run into easy chunks that raced by.

  When they finally arrived at their destination, Ethan didn’t feel half as knackered as he’d expected. He wolfed the food and water Nancy had prepared, but kept the energy bars Kat had given him. He might need those for another time.

  Sam was waiting for them, standing in the entrance of a large, green canvas tent.

  The team jogged over. On the way, Ethan looked around the site. It was a grassy clearing surrounded by woodland on three sides. Besides Sam’s Defender and the minibus, another truck had joined them. It looked military and tough as hell. Around the clearing were various tents and crates covered in tarpaulins. It looked like a set piece for an eighties action movie.

  ‘You’re on time,’ Sam growled. ‘Maybe I was too easy on you.’

  Ethan was sweating like a pig on a spit. If this was Sam going easy on them, he had a sneaking suspicion the time ahead was going to be much harder. And a whole lot more exhausting.

  ‘This is the briefing tent. You’ll eat in here as well, but we’ll also use it to explain tasks, debrief, etcetera. You’ve all got individual tents just behind here. Your stuff has already been put in them. For cleaning up, you’ll find two other tents – one for the lads, one for Kat and Natalya – over by the portaloos. You’ve got half an hour to sort yourselves out before I want you back here. Any questions?’

  5

  The rain had turned to drizzle. Ethan followed the team round to the tents and quickly found which one was his. It, like the others, was a green A-frame tent with aluminium poles. The inner tent was lined with horizontal straps to hang gear from. It was large enough, Ethan thought, to take at least four others.

  ‘Nice pad,’ said Johnny, ducking his head in. ‘The inner tent has a heat-retaining coating on it. They’re actually arctic tents, usually used by the Paras and the Marines, but perfect for the kind of weather we get here.’

  Ethan smiled. ‘You sound
like Luke.’

  ‘Seriously, shoot me,’ said Johnny. ‘You did well with the run, Eth. Nice one.’

  ‘Thanks. It was your singing that kept me going. What do you reckon we’ll be doing next?’

  Johnny shrugged. ‘The jog was nothing more than a warm-up. A nice simple team-building exercise to get us all focused on why we’re here.’

  ‘I love the fact we’re seeing a fifteen-kilometre run as a warm-up,’ said Ethan. ‘I wouldn’t have said that six months ago.’

  ‘Six months ago, you weren’t even skydiving,’ said Johnny. ‘And I bet that seems even more incredible.’

  Ethan unclipped the lid of his bergen, and in some vain attempt to make himself feel more at home started to unpack. ‘I sometimes wonder just what the hell I was doing with my life,’ he said, pulling his things out and resting them on the canvas groundsheet of the tent. ‘It’s not like I’ve got much to show for it.’

  ‘If you’re going to get all philosophical,’ said Johnny, slipping back out through the tent door, ‘I’ll leave you to it. Just make sure you stay alert, OK? Sam has a nasty habit of springing stuff on us to keep it interesting.’

  Then he was gone and Ethan was alone.

  Stripping out of his sweat-soaked clothes, Ethan hung them from some of the straps closest to the door to dry. He had a feeling that washing them wasn’t going to be an option until either they were back home or the clothes simply disintegrated.

  Warm and dressed in dry gear again, and with his tent in some semblance of order, Ethan headed back to the briefing tent. Pushing through the door flap, he wondered exactly what Sam was going to throw at them next. Whatever it was, he had to admit he was pretty excited about it. But then that came with the territory; hanging out with the rest of the team was never something he could call dull, not when most times he was only a few feet away from them and plummeting to the earth at 120 mph.

  ‘Ethan! Catch!’

  Ethan looked round just in time to stop an onion cracking him in the skull, catching it in his left hand.