Terminal Velocity

by Andy McNab

  ‘Listen up, Ethan,’ the man snarled. ‘Your day works like this.’

  Ethan just nodded; he wasn’t going to argue. He remembered noticing scars on the man’s face when he’d seen the photo, but up close the bloke looked like he spent his life picking fights with wolves. His skin was a mass of scars and although he wasn’t huge, he looked solid, like he could survive a head-on collision with a truck.

  ‘Day starts at six. You’ll know it’s time to get up because of the loud buzzer you’ll hear doing its best to make your ears bleed.’

  Ethan nodded again, said, ‘OK.’

  ‘Did I ask you to speak?’

  Ethan shook his head.

  ‘Didn’t think so.’ The man pointed at the cell door. ‘This is automatic. It only opens if I say so. When it does, you go right, down the corridor and line up with the rest. Then just follow orders. Understand?’

  Ethan nodded once more, but kept his mouth shut this time. The pain from his back wasn’t going away and that made him start to think about what state he’d have to be in to try and escape at all. He’d have to do everything possible to keep himself out of harm’s way, otherwise he wouldn’t stand a chance.

  The man commanded Ethan to turn round. Ethan obeyed and heard him approach. A hand touched his back and Ethan flinched.

  ‘I can assure you it feels a lot worse than it looks,’ said the man. ‘You won’t need stitches. The cuts and grazes will heal.’ He walked towards the door and Ethan turned back round. ‘It’s five to six. When that buzzer goes, Ethan, you shift your arse, understand?’

  The man didn’t look for a response. But he paused on the other side of the door and glanced back.

  ‘One more thing: as far as you and any of the other rat boys here are concerned, my name is Chief. Anyone else, you call them Instructor. It’s that simple.’

  Then he was gone, and the door slid shut.

  Ethan was alone. The five minutes went by machine-gun fast and, when the buzzer sounded, his cell door opened and he did exactly as the man had ordered, charging down the corridor.

  What he found at the end of it turned one shitty day into one disaster of a week.

  * * *

  ‘It’s been a week, Sam,’ said Kat, ‘and we’ve still got nothing. What the hell are we going to do?’

  She was sitting with Sam in the Defender, and about to be dropped off to replace Natalya, who was coming to the end of another four-hour stint of keeping an eye on Johnny.

  ‘This is what we are going to do,’ said Sam, ‘and it’s all we’re going to do. We have no choice.’

  ‘Has Gabe come up with nothing else? Nothing at all?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘No trace of the van was found. And the fact we don’t like it doesn’t matter; Ethan’s survival is in his own hands now. All we can do is hope that Johnny gets picked up.’

  ‘This whole job is a mess,’ said Kat. ‘We should’ve done more for Ethan. The tracking device should never have come loose.’

  ‘No point thinking about what we can’t change,’ said Sam. ‘We’ve sorted Johnny with a tracker under the skin, so if he does get taken, then no way will it be found.’

  ‘Pity we didn’t do that before, isn’t it?’

  Sam let out a long, calm breath.

  ‘Here comes Natalya.’ Kat opened her door and slipped out of the Defender.

  ‘We’re doing everything we can, Kat, you know that.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she replied. ‘Trouble is we don’t know if it’s enough, do we?’

  Ethan tasted blood in his mouth. Wiping it away with his hand, he looked over to his opponent, who was standing only a couple of metres away. He’d counted twenty or so others in the place. None of them spoke to each other. Even Rick had learned to keep his mouth shut – with good reason. Another newbie had arrived a couple of days after him and Ethan. He’d tried to talk to another lad. Without warning, a guard had come at him hard with a baton, knocking his legs from under him. Then he’d rammed the baton into the boy’s stomach. The baton – like Mr X’s cane – had sent a charge of electricity through the boy’s body. Ethan could still hear the screams.

  Ethan now couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen daylight and was sure his skin was already going pale without the sun. He quickly lost track of the number of days and nights he’d been there. His world ran like clockwork to the louder-than-hell buzzer that drilled into his brain to announce not just when to wake up, but when to eat, fight, wash and sleep. Even shit. And security was maintained by strength of force from the instructors and their electric batons. It was more than enough. Surveillance cameras weren’t needed, not when those who might have considered trying to escape knew full well the consequences.

  It was the same regime every day: wake up, eat, fitness, fight training, lunch, then sparring. After that, any injuries would be checked, dinner would be had, more fitness to really finish them off, shower, then bed. Meals were taken on metal trays and Ethan demolished each and every one, couldn’t remember what any of it tasted like. He knew his body needed all the energy it could get; it was getting the living hell beaten out of it.

  In addition to food, he was living on supplements, all designed to improve his performance: protein shakes, creatine, pro-hormones and various other powders mixed in water he had no idea about.

  As for the instructors training them, they were monsters. The one referred to as ‘Chief’ oversaw the place with the efficiency of a well-run abattoir. Neither he, nor any of the others were afraid to show their faces and Ethan guessed the reason for that right away: they had no need to be afraid because, sooner or later, they believed all those trapped here who could identify them in the outside world would be dead. It was that simple, that horrific.

  Ethan readied himself for another attack. Every sparring session was the same: paired up, each would be given a set time to attack the other, using what they’d learned that morning, and anything else they could remember or invent. Then they’d switch. And so it would continue, through dizziness, exhaustion and vomiting. It was a lot more bloody and violent than a practice drill down the local dojo. But that didn’t mean injuries were left untended. The instructors were first-class first aiders, that much was clear to Ethan. And Chief had been right about his back; it had been mostly pain rather than actual injury, and had healed quickly. They were also taught to hold back from a killing blow; there was no point in bones being smashed and necks broken when they’d be doing that in the cage and bringing in the big money.

  From the moment he’d arrived, Ethan had decided to work at keeping what Natalya had taught him to himself. He didn’t want it to become common knowledge that he had a little bit of an idea about how to handle himself. Instead, he allowed his skills to slowly reveal themselves, as though he was learning them through the training they were getting from the instructors. So in the fight training, he’d stick to doing what he was told, although that wasn’t exactly much: how to throw a punch, how to kick, not much else. It made the fighting dirty and uncontrolled, but so far Ethan had managed to keep himself pretty much unscathed. Chief obviously wasn’t keen to impart his Krav Maga knowledge onto those getting into the ring; the fights wouldn’t have lasted very long.

  Now it was time for another practice bout. His opponent was huge; not an ounce of fat, muscles on top of his muscles. In normal circumstances, Ethan would’ve bolted, but this was anything but normal. And judging by the state of his opponent’s face, and the scars and bruises that covered his body, he was a well-seasoned fighter. Ethan didn’t want to guess at how long he’d been here. Or how many times he’d been into the ring and survived.

  With a hefty right-hand hook, his opponent came in on the attack. But it was slow and sluggish, and Ethan knew that gave him an edge; if his opponent was getting tired, his movements and his ability to react would slow up.

  Ethan dodged the flying fist easily, but he wasn’t quick enough to turn his dodge and defence into an attack. He stumbled back, found his footing again, tr
ied to clear his head.

  Another punch; this time it was a left jab and was rapidly followed by a right knee. Ethan was ready. He side-stepped just enough to bring himself round to his opponent’s right side. As the knee whipped past, Ethan came in with a sharp left-hand jab that caught his opponent in the neck. It wasn’t textbook, but it was enough to knock him off balance. Ethan went in with another punch, but his opponent regained himself, dodged the punch, flipped Ethan round and grabbed his neck.

  Within seconds, Ethan felt himself choking as the arm holding him squeezed tighter. And in that instant he was suddenly back in those moments after he’d been abducted, when he’d been taken out of the van to be ‘softened up’. Then he’d held back, but he hadn’t just gone through days and days of relentless fighting.

  With a sharp twist Ethan looked up at his opponent and sent three sharp upper cuts with the heel of his left hand. The first only scraped past his opponent’s chin, but the other two connected and bust the nose wide open. Ethan felt warm blood splatter down onto him. In the shock of the moment, as his opponent’s eyes widened in agony, he grabbed hard onto the wrist of the arm round his neck, twisted his body and wrenched himself out of the hold. But he didn’t let go of the wrist. Instead, when he was out, he twisted harder, brutally forcing his opponent to bend double with a yelp like a beaten dog. Blood was flowing freely from the guy’s nose now, but Ethan wasn’t about to stop. Couldn’t. He went in with two hard kicks to the stomach, gave the arm one last wrench and sent him to the ground. He was about to go in again with another kick when powerful arms grabbed him, pulled him off. He struggled but it was useless.

  ‘No point killing him now, Ethan,’ whispered a voice close to his ear. ‘Save it for the ring, eh?’

  Ethan felt himself starting to shake as the adrenaline rush started to wear off. He looked down at the lad he’d just beaten. He was kneeling now, the front of his T-shirt a bloody mess, his arm hanging limp. Another instructor came over, picked him up, took him from the room. No one else batted an eyelid and the other practice bouts around the room continued.

  The two instructors holding Ethan let go.

  ‘We’ve never taught you that,’ said one of them. ‘We’ve kept you strictly to boxing, basic kicking skills. Our clients like the fights messy and unorganized and bloody. What you just did – what was that?’

  Ethan shrugged, said, ‘I don’t know. Just reacted.’

  But inside his mind was racing. What if they were suspicious? What the hell had he been thinking? But he hadn’t been thinking, had he? He’d reacted, lost control.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said the other instructor. ‘You knew what you were doing. Didn’t look like karate though. More like Systema or Krav Maga.’

  The other instructor said, ‘Where’s a kid like this going to learn Russian or Israeli self-defence?’

  ‘He learned something somewhere though, didn’t you, Ethan?’

  Ethan was quiet. If this went beyond suspicion, he didn’t want to think about what could happen to him or how quickly. But he couldn’t think of a good enough story. So he just kept quiet and hoped.

  ‘We’ll be keeping an eye on you,’ said the first instructor, leaning in close. ‘We don’t want any of that ninja crap in here, got it? This is real fighting, not Bruce Lee on wide screen.’

  A buzzer brought the session to an end and Ethan felt relief flood him. He was bruised, disorientated and running out of options fast. He couldn’t afford to be here for much longer. Not only was he getting close to blowing his cover, he knew he’d be put in for a real fight soon; it was only a matter of time.

  That night, Ethan was grabbed and dragged from his cell, a bag thrust over his head. For a few moments, he thought he was about to get slotted, that he’d given himself away during the fight that afternoon and was about to be disposed of, sent to the fishes with two neat bullet holes in his head. But when his hood was finally pulled off, he knew things were – if that was at all possible – much, much worse.

  21

  The stink of bleach – trying but failing to get rid of the stench of sweat and blood – stung Ethan’s nose like needles. He gagged, retched, managed to hold it in.

  He was standing in the same place he’d seen in the film on Gabe’s laptop. It was dark, but he could just make out the walls of the cage in front of him, the blinking red LEDs on the cameras surrounding it like the eyes of huge flies waiting to feast on dead meat.

  In that instant, the mission died. All that mattered now was staying alive. And that was going to involve a lot more luck than Ethan dared guess at.

  ‘It only gets worse from here, kid,’ came a voice to his left. It was one of the instructors. He didn’t seem to have a name. None of them did. Unless it was bastard.

  A loud thump of a switch lit the dark with a flash of bright light. The cage was now visible. The room around it was a concrete-walled cavern with two doors, the one they’d obviously just entered through behind them, and one opposite, on the other side of the ring.

  The horror of where he now was crunched into Ethan with the force of an A-bomb. His legs gave way, but he caught himself before he totalled on the floor. One of the instructors laughed.

  ‘Got jelly legs, have you, kid?’

  Ethan took a few long, deep breaths, managed to get a hold of himself. But he felt dizzy with nausea and panic. He couldn’t change where he was, and that was bad. But what was worse, horrifically so, was that the only way he was going to get out of it was to beat whoever his opponent was. And from what he’d seen with the team, that meant … No, he couldn’t think about it. Not yet.

  A shove in his back caused Ethan to trip and after a few steps he was at the cage. A door in its side was opened.

  ‘Strip.’

  Ethan knew to question nothing and obeyed, pulling off what he’d collapsed into bed wearing a few hours earlier.

  ‘Put these on.’

  A rough hand threw a pair of red shorts at him. They took Ethan back once more to the film on Gabe’s laptop. He forced himself to push back the memories of that fight as he slipped them on. Thinking about what had happened was going to be no help with what was going to happen very soon. And the only person who was going to get him through this was himself.

  ‘Now get in there.’

  Ethan didn’t exactly have any choice as he felt himself manhandled into the cage and onto the damp floor. The door was locked behind him. No escape. Not until the fight was over.

  Alone, Ethan paced the cage. It didn’t just keep him warm, it gave him something simple, basic, to focus on. He was barefoot and the floor was cool. Then he did a few stretches, some warm-up exercises to get the blood flowing.

  Voices made Ethan turn. In the bright lights shining down on the cage, he couldn’t make out who had entered the room, but he knew it was his opponent. Then the cage door opened and they met.

  Ethan recognized him immediately. It was the lad whose nose he’d smashed earlier that day. It was a bruised mess still, but the arm was fine and Ethan obviously hadn’t damaged it as much as he’d intended; at the time, he’d wanted to tear it full out of the shoulder socket.

  He looked seriously pissed off; his eyes were sunken and dark and made him look like a trapped animal ready to rip anything or anyone apart to escape. To Ethan, it was clear this wasn’t going to be a situation he could negotiate; it was a fight for his life. Which, after all, was exactly what Mr X wanted.

  For a few minutes, they both did some warm-ups, all the while keeping their eyes on each other. Ethan could feel his heart racing. It felt like it was trying to hammer out of his chest. If he was going to stand any chance at all against this gorilla, then he’d have to remember everything Natalya had taught him. He would be doing stuff that had never been covered in the scant fight training they’d all been provided with, but it was either that or get trampled. Sod the risk, his life was at stake! It didn’t matter at that moment if Chief or the instructors became suspicious – he wasn’t about to allow himself to get
killed off. But the reality of what he’d have to do to win – and the thought of what might happen to him afterwards – threatened to short-circuit his brain. He had to ignore all of that. If he didn’t go all out to win this, he’d be dead. Christ, he wanted to throw up …

  A beep sounded and the voice that slipped eel-like into the moment was that of Mr X.

  ‘My boys! This is the moment you have been waiting for; when you become not men, but gladiators!’

  Ethan heard the buzzing and whirring of the cameras focusing in on him and his opponent as they faced each other in the cage. Whoever was watching was obviously now online. He couldn’t imagine just how sick and evil those people on the other side of the cameras were. But he could easily imagine what he’d like to do to them if he found them.

  The voice of Mr X interrupted his thoughts. ‘The rules are simple: there are no rules. Anything goes. You are to win by any means necessary.’

  Ethan stopped warming up, moved his hands to protect his face, got ready for the inevitable.

  ‘If either of you are thought to be faking, or not putting in sufficient effort, your life is immediately forfeit.’

  Ethan watched his opponent ready himself. He was no longer listening to the voice. He just wanted the fight on so it could be over. And quickly.

  ‘The fight is judged to be over when one of you is out of action. And by that, I mean, at the very least unconscious. Death would be preferable. Ready?’

  Ethan narrowed his mind to everything Natalya had shown him: every move, every drill, every attack. Whatever his opponent threw at him, the little Krav Maga he knew was going to be his only chance. And he was going to use it.

  A bell sounded.

  Ethan was taken off guard as his opponent rushed him, ramming him into the cage walls, scraping his back against the wire, drawing blood immediately. Ethan felt like he was being pushed through a cheese grater. He brought his elbows down hard on the back of his opponent’s neck. It did nothing. He felt himself being lifted up, the wire scraping harder and deeper into his back. Ethan tried again with his elbows, gave up. Pushing himself back against the cage, he was able to get his hands into his opponent’s face, found his eyes and rammed his thumbs in hard. Then he brought his hand down hard on the already-damaged nose and blood flowed freely.