Terminal Velocity

by Andy McNab

  Silence.

  OK, so they’d got the hostages out, thought Ethan, but it was clear that Sam felt they’d taken too many risks.

  He said, ‘I don’t see how else we could’ve done it. I know Natalya went in hard, but—’

  Sam cut him off. ‘That’s exactly my point. By going up against someone armed, you automatically put your life in jeopardy.’

  ‘I still don’t see what else she could’ve done,’ said Ethan.

  Sam drew himself up even taller; the man was a walking wall. ‘When you heard someone coming up the stairs, you stalled. You were too focused on dealing with him, rather than getting the hell away.’

  ‘We didn’t think there was time to get out,’ said Kat.

  ‘You hesitated,’ Sam barked back. ‘You switched focus, lost sight of the objective. The x-ray had to check the room you, Luke, Natalya had been held in. You had enough time to get out and scoot into the darkness, perhaps even time for Johnny to disable the van.’

  The team went quiet. Ethan could see Sam’s point now. He hadn’t realized at the time, but they had taken a risk. What if it had been a real situation and the x-ray had managed to get a shot off? He didn’t even want to think about the consequences.

  Sam went quiet for a moment. At last, when Ethan felt like the silence would suffocate him, Sam said, ‘None of you are expendable. And you are only as strong as each other. That’s why the team works. Yes, you are all highly skilled, but one of the most important things for you to understand is what skills to utilize for whatever situation you find yourself in.’

  The team were silent and Ethan could see that Sam’s words had sunk in.

  Sam visibly relaxed, dropping his hands to his side and slipping one into a pocket. ‘Now we’ve got that over and done with,’ he said, lifting the board and hanging it from one of the horizontal poles holding up the tent, ‘this is the outline of how the next couple of days will run.’

  Ethan, again, was impressed with Sam. He’d given them a bollocking, explained what they’d done wrong, then moved on. He didn’t hold grudges.

  ‘We’re focusing on fitness and survival,’ said Sam, ‘interspersed with some skydiving. You’re here to learn new skills, but not at the expense of those you’ve already got. And anyway, I don’t want any of you to forget that when the skydiving competitions kick off in a few months time, I’m going to want to see some trophies.’

  Ethan saw faint smiles slip onto the faces of the team. The fact that they were going to be skydiving as well as everything else was a great feeling; it was something they all understood and were not just good at, but addicted to.

  Sam continued, ‘Day starts at 0630 with physical training. Then eat, shower, and training proper starts at 0800. Lunch is 1230 to 1330. Then you work through till five in the afternoon. Skydiving will take place as and when the weather is decent enough. We’ll be making good use of that helicopter to get you as up to speed with that as you are with leaping out of a plane. And you’ll be on night tasks too. Clear?’

  No one grumbled. Despite making a hash of the night exercise, the air had been cleared and they all knew what mistakes had been made. Now it was time to get on with whatever was going to be thrown at them next. And that, alongside the thought of skydiving, was enough to make Ethan smile.

  From that moment on, each and every day worked the same. The team were up at 0615 for fitness training at 0630. It wasn’t always a run. Sometimes Reg would vary it with shuttle runs, fifty-metre fireman lifts, press-ups, pull-ups and burpees. It made it more interesting, but no less hard to complete.

  Ethan also soon knew how to build a shelter, purify water, some basic wild foods to scavenge, and how to kill and skin a rabbit. He learned about using smoke to signal to an aircraft overhead, how to carry out basic concealment, even using the stars to navigate. As Mal had explained, if he was in the process of effecting an escape, then he’d be moving at night to avoid capture, laying low during the day. Night navigation skills were vital.

  But no matter what new skills he was learning, and how each one made Ethan feel further and further away from the person he had been only months ago, it was still the skydiving that grabbed him.

  On the afternoon of their first day, Sam had taken the team to a field just away from their main site. In the middle of the field an area about the size of a couple of tennis courts had been measured out with tape pinned to the ground.

  ‘Restricted DZ,’ said Sam, turning to face the team. ‘You’re all used to landing in nice open spaces with plenty of room for error. Only Luke here has actually focused on precision landings. That’s about to change.’

  Ethan asked, ‘How accurate do you need to be?’ Looking at the area marked out on the ground, it didn’t look exactly hard to miss.

  Sam said but one word in answer: ‘Very.’

  Not more than half an hour later, Ethan was sitting with the rest of the team in the helicopter. The sound of the blades cutting the air just above their heads made conversation impossible, so all communication was by hand signals. Sam had just signalled that they’d be jumping in five minutes.

  From the night before, Ethan knew how using a helicopter allowed a skydiver to be at least a little more accurate when getting eyes onto the DZ. What he didn’t know was just how accurate he was able to be when coming in to land; his main focus had always been to land safely.

  As they’d got themselves rigged up ready to go, Sam had explained that there would be a two-minute gap between jumps. This would allow each of them to focus on their own jump and accuracy, rather than where everyone else was in the sky.

  Sam signed again; it was jump time.

  Ethan watched as Luke slipped his feet over the edge of the door in the side of the helicopter. With a nod at the rest of the team, he was gone, almost like he’d been sucked out into the sky.

  Waiting for Kat to go next, Ethan focused on everything he’d learned about skydiving, running through his exit drills in his mind, getting into a stable position, tracking …

  Kat was gone.

  Next it was Johnny. And he was taking this seriously. Ethan knew just how competitive Johnny was, despite his devil-may-care attitude. He’d be doing his all to nail this from the off.

  Now it was Ethan’s turn; Natalya would be coming in last.

  He shuffled to the door, felt the wind suck his breath away. He swung his legs over the side and glanced at the ground below … thousands of feet below. It still gave him a thrill to be so high up, so precarious, and with only some material and cord to prevent him hitting the ground at over 120 mph.

  Sam gave the signal.

  Ethan was out. And it felt once again so different to jumping from a moving aircraft. Instead of having to deal with the speed he was already doing because of the forward momentum of the plane, now he just plummeted, face to the ground. He didn’t tumble. Quickly springing into a stable position, his body rapidly accelerating to terminal velocity, Ethan scoured the ground for the DZ. When it came into view, it didn’t exactly look as easy to hit as he’d first thought.

  He checked his altimeter, adjusted his heading by tracking left, then did his best to maintain a steady, accurate descent for the DZ.

  Despite knowing the air around him was clear, Ethan still did a 360-degree check before deploying his canopy.

  It sprung from his back, pulling him to a slow descent in seconds. Once it was inflated, Ethan checked the lines for any tangles, made sure the canopy itself was fully inflated. Then he turned his attention to the DZ.

  It felt great being in the air. This was something Ethan knew he was good at, and his confidence soared.

  Using his steering lines, he kept himself on course for the DZ. Gliding down, it seemed as though it wasn’t getting any bigger at all, almost as though he was being held stationary above it. Then the ground suddenly felt like it was rushing up towards him.

  Ethan had been convinced he’d taken a good line, giving himself enough distance to swing round and glide in for a landin
g smack bang in the middle of the DZ.

  But he was wrong.

  The ground came up quick, Ethan pulled his steering lines hard, killed his descent, but there was nothing he could do; he swooped straight over the DZ and landed softly in the field.

  With Luke the only one who’d managed to land in the marked area, Sam had them all in the air again almost immediately. And Ethan could see Johnny wasn’t happy; his drive for perfection to be the best damned skydiver in the world didn’t seem to deal too well with not getting it right first time. Or having someone like Luke do better. He had a face on him like a slapped arse. Ethan worked hard not to smile; sometimes it was good to see that even the best didn’t get it right all the time.

  ‘Close enough isn’t good enough,’ Sam said. ‘By the end of your time here, I expect you all to be landing accurately in an area a quarter of the size marked out now.’

  At that moment, heading back for another jump, such a task seemed impossible to Ethan. But if he’d known a few months ago what he was about to get into, that would’ve all seemed impossible as well.

  Climbing back on board the helicopter, Ethan set his mind to what Sam expected; and as far as he was concerned, that meant being able to touch down on a pinhead.

  9

  ‘EDI,’ Sam said on the sixth day after a morning of more survival training. They were all in the briefing tent grabbing some food before the afternoon and some more jumps onto the restricted DZ. ‘It’s how we did things in the Regiment and how I do things here. Because it works.’

  ‘EDI?’ Ethan asked. ‘What’s EDI?’

  Since arriving, Sam hadn’t let up, pushing them day and night. At times Ethan had felt like he couldn’t take in any more information. Exhausted at the end of each day, he’d do his best to chase over what he’d learned before shutting his body down for a few hours. He’d run through everything from how to light a fire and the best way to catch and dispatch a rabbit, to reviewing his daily skydives and working out how to improve on his accuracy. And it had improved, which was a good job really; Sam had cut the DZ area in half that day without warning.

  ‘Explanation, demonstration, imitation,’ said Sam. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’ve done something before; you can always improve on it. And that’s the best way to deal with any situation. Doesn’t matter how impossible or big something seems; break it down, start from the beginning, look at it in smaller chunks, you can deal with it.’

  Ethan realized that this was exactly the process Sam had used for everything he’d taught them, as had Mal and Reg.

  ‘My role is to teach you,’ said Sam, ‘to confirm you know what I’ve taught you, and then test you under stress before you go out on a job. Repetition is part of the game. The more you do something, the better you understand the parts it can be broken into, then the greater your chances of success.’

  It made complete sense to Ethan. It also made him realize just how lucky he was. Sam wasn’t going to let them miss anything; when he taught them something, he was doing it with the sole aim that they would be able to do it as well as he could.

  ‘So with that sorted,’ said Sam, ‘I think it’s about time we learned something new, don’t you?’

  Ethan, like the rest of the team, jumped at this. What was Sam planning now?

  ‘Escape, evasion and interrogation,’ said Sam. ‘And I’ll let Mal and Reg give you a proper briefing.’

  Mal stepped forward. ‘You’re really going to love this,’ he said.

  Reg just smiled.

  * * *

  Some time later Ethan was in his tent crashed out on his sleeping bag, his brain aching from information overload. It was night time and the world was liquorice-black. Clouds had stolen the stars. When Reg and Mal had finished, the team had been sent back to get a last bit of rest before the exercise began for real. No exact details had been given on how long it would last, how many hours or days they could expect to have not only to survive outside, but also to get through the interrogation. And that, thought Ethan, was in itself unnerving. The only firm bit of information they’d been given was about how they would know when the interrogation was over. It would be a simple sign; if an interrogator wore a black armband, the exercise was over. Reg had explained that the sign needed to be simple and visual because, after what an interrogation would involve, they would all be disorientated and confused.

  Ethan sat up. Again, he went through what Reg and Mal had told them. It didn’t make him feel any better.

  Mal had been brutally honest and Ethan had felt his respect for the man increase tenfold. And he remembered it pretty much word for word …

  ‘First, accept you’ve been captured, which means you’ve got no physical control over what happens. Nothing, OK? You’re in the shit. Deal with it. You’ll be beaten up, cut, maybe even crippled, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Instead, focus all your efforts on staying mentally alert.’

  Ethan couldn’t imagine what Mal had experienced. That he’d experienced anything like it at all was enough to give him pause for thought.

  ‘Be the grey man and don’t draw attention to yourself. Avoid eye contact. Don’t talk back or get aggressive. You’ll survive longer.’

  Ethan knew his temper could flare. He only had to think about the effect his dad had had on him over all those years – and how he’d spent so much of his time as a kid feeling angry. But since joining the Raiders, he’d gotten that under control. At least he hoped he had; he didn’t fancy his chances with either Mal or Reg.

  ‘They’ll try to clobber you psychologically,’ Mal had then explained. ‘In the business we call this “fear up”, where the interrogator tries to intimidate you, and “fear down” is where they try to make you think they want to help you. Stay focused, stay grey, don’t co-operate.’

  This had sounded like the whole good-cop, bad-cop approach.

  ‘Zone out of what they’re shouting at you or asking you. Get your mind onto something that really interests you, something that’ll occupy it while the world around you feels like it’s falling apart. That way, you’ve a chance of motivating yourself to get out; it reminds you of what you’ve got to live for.’

  Then Mal had moved on to stress positions.

  ‘A beating is effective,’ he’d said, ‘but nothing works as well as a stress position. Trust me on this. With a bag on your head, you’re shut in a room filled with white noise, have water thrown on you to freeze you out, and then you’re forced to stand so that every muscle in your body feels like it’s going to snap in half. Exhaustion soon takes over. You have to stay focused and maintain your mental integrity, or you’re screwed.’

  ‘You need to hold out,’ Mal had then said. ‘You blab, your friends die. It’s that simple. The Geneva Convention states the only information you should give – as civilians – is your name. Stick to it. The information in your head, no matter how insignificant you think it is, could cost someone their life. Remember that. And finally, if you want a way to keep your brain ticking over, plan your escape. Always look for an opportunity to get the hell out. It may be the only chance you have to stay alive. After all, once your interrogators think they’re going to get nothing else out of you, what use are you? None. And that, people, means you’re dead.’

  Listening to what interrogation would actually involve, the reality of just how hellish it could be had shocked the team into silence. It was Kat who broke it, voicing not only her own concerns, but ones Ethan was beginning to feel too.

  ‘Do we get any choice in this?’ she asked. ‘I know we all need to be ready for any eventuality, but this seems way out of our league.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Reg.

  ‘This is special-forces stuff,’ said Kat. ‘And I’m sure I’m not the only one here who’s noticed that’s not what we are. And if a job comes up where being captured and interrogated is a potential risk, shouldn’t that be a warning light that it’s actually not for us to do?’

  Ethan noticed Natalya and Johnny nod a littl
e in agreement. Luke seemed unmoved, was obviously drawing his own quiet conclusions. Ethan wasn’t sure what to think, except that everything Mal and Reg had told them had been nothing short of terrifying. And the thought that he’d soon be going through it made him seriously question just what the hell he was doing there. Skydiving was one thing. Learning survival skills made sense. But no one had mentioned anything like this to them before. At that moment, it felt not just extreme, but as Kat was implying, completely beyond what they were being trained to do.

  Before Mal or Reg were able to reply, Sam stepped forward. He folded his arms and stared at the team.

  ‘As you all well know,’ he said, his voice a low rumble, ‘your absolute safety is my responsibility. A mission goes wrong, it is ultimately my fault. One of you gets injured, I am held responsible. You get sent into a situation that you find you can’t cope with, then I haven’t trained you right.’

  ‘Then don’t send us into a situation where there’s a chance we’re going to get snatched and interrogated,’ snapped Kat.

  Ethan could see a hint of concern on Natalya’s face too, but as usual she and Luke were remaining silent. Kat, though, wasn’t having any problems voicing her thoughts.

  ‘This isn’t simply about being able to deal with an interrogation,’ said Sam. ‘And you need to start seeing all of this training as more than just a simple set of skills. It’s about your mind set, how everything you learn can affect everything else that you’ve been told or shown or experienced.’

  ‘But interrogation?’ said Kat.

  ‘I will train you for all eventualities, no matter how remote,’ said Sam. ‘And the simple reason is because I want you all to have the best chance of surviving just about anything that can be thrown at you. And if that means scaring the hell out of you and forcing you to cope with situations most people would puke at the thought of, then so be it. I’m not here to take it easy on you. I’m here to do everything I can to ensure you aren’t just good – you’re untouchable.’