DropZone

7

Ethan didn’t even bother trying to keep up with Sam, who had turned and raced off towards his office. The man could seriously shift.

A hundred metres away from the DZ, the skydiver Ethan now knew to be Jake drifted down onto the long grass. Moments later, the other skydivers came in to land, but Ethan didn’t have time to wait for them; he was due in the café and Nancy would be waiting. He wanted to see what had happened to Jake, to talk to Johnny and the rest about it, but seeing the mood Sam was now in, he didn’t fancy making it worse by not being where he was paid to be. It wasn’t long before Johnny and the rest of the team found him in the café.

‘Hey, Eth!’ said Johnny, strolling over to the counter. ‘Did you watch the jump? Did Sam say anything? What were the formations like? I’ve got it all on camera, but you saw it. Any good?’

‘It was great!’ Ethan told him. ‘I thought filming was just for people doing their first jumps and stuff, a souvenir of the moment.’

‘It’s how the formations are judged,’ said Johnny as the rest of the team came over. ‘Gives the judges something to look at. So my job is to make sure I get the best shots and the best angles to make these guys look better than they really are. It is, essentially, all down to me.’

‘Bigging yourself up again?’ asked Kat. ‘Hi, Ethan.’

Ethan smiled. ‘Great jump. I caught most of it through Sam’s binos.’

Johnny turned round to the team, introducing Ethan to the two members he hadn’t met.

First was Luke, who reached out his hand with a smile. ‘Johnny says you’re doing a tandem with Sam,’ he said. ‘Make sure he checks the clips are nice and tight, right?’

‘You’re having a laugh, aren’t you?’ said Johnny.

‘No, just being cautious.’ Luke’s face was serious. ‘Even Sam could forget something. You never know.’

‘Luke’s into the detail,’ said Johnny, winking at Ethan. ‘Uses a spirit level to make sure he’s standing up straight in the morning, don’t you, Luke?’

Luke shrugged. ‘Devil’s in the detail, Johnny.’

‘Ooooh, spiritual,’ said Johnny, then turned to the other girl in the group. ‘This is Natalya.’

‘Nice to meet you, Ethan,’ she said quietly, and held out her hand.

Ethan noticed her accent immediately. His best guess was Russian, but that was only because he’d watched too many Bond movies. It was certainly eastern European. And she wasn’t wearing any make-up – unlike Kat, who was wearing just enough to say Notice me. Ethan guessed that Natalya wasn’t the kind of person who worked at being noticed by anyone.

‘And you,’ he replied, and took her hand. She gave a firm handshake – it was only when he let go that he was struck by how formal it seemed. The rest of the gang were relaxed with him from the off, but this was like meeting someone at a job interview or a wedding or something.

‘Natalya’s the serious one in the team,’ said Johnny. ‘So don’t worry too much about her inability to smile. I consider it my life’s mission to make her laugh.’

Natalya turned to look at Johnny. ‘How very thoughtful of you, Johnny,’ she said. ‘And I do smile, just not all the time like you.’

‘I’m all heart,’ said Johnny. ‘Well, all heart and knock-knock gags.’

‘Without me, Johnny’s life has no purpose, you see?’ she told Ethan.

Ethan wasn’t sure, but he thought he spotted the hint of a smile crease the corners of her eyes.

‘Whatever you do,’ said Johnny, stepping forward to whisper in Ethan’s ear, his eyes trained on Natalya, ‘don’t call her Nat. She gets angry. And you wouldn’t like to see her angry – would he, Nat?’

Natalya’s face was stern, and Ethan decided to take Johnny’s advice. For all he knew, she could be a Russian spy, and he figured upsetting one of those wasn’t a good idea. He looked at the others and asked, ‘You guys hungry?’

Everyone nodded, ordered, and a few minutes later Ethan returned with a loaded tray. Serving Luke first, he couldn’t help but watch as he opened a tomato sauce sachet, emptied it, then took the ripped corner and pushed it back inside.

Johnny grinned. ‘Luke?’

Luke looked up.

‘How are your chips?’

‘They’re fine,’ said Luke, biting into one. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, I just wondered, you know, if they were sufficiently straight for you, that’s all. I can go and get a ruler from Sam’s office for you if you want, just to make sure.’

Luke ignored Johnny – Ethan could see it was something he was well used to – and simply carried on eating.

‘I’m surprised you know what a ruler is, Johnny,’ said Kat, over the top of her mug. ‘Kind of implies you’ve had time for things in your life other than perfecting the skill of being a flash git.’

Ethan stood and watched as the group joked around.

‘I’m not flash,’ said Johnny, faking emotional hurt. ‘I’m just very, very good, that’s all. And if I hide my talent, how are you lot ever going to learn? You need something to aspire to. A target. And that’s me.’

‘With a mouth the size of yours,’ said Luke, ‘there’s already a large enough target.’

Johnny burst out laughing; the others, including Ethan, joined in.

As the laughter subsided, Kat asked, ‘Where’s Jake?’

Natalya looked over. ‘He landed way out from the DZ. Maybe he had to cut away.’

‘Cut away?’ asked Ethan, remembering Sam mentioning it as they’d watched.

‘If your main canopy fails,’ explained Kat, ‘then you have to let it go so you can deploy your reserve.’

‘Well, that’s definitely what he did then,’ said Ethan.

Everyone looked up.

‘What happened?’ asked Kat.

Ethan saw her face flicker with concern. Everyone else was looking at him. ‘I was with Sam,’ he said. ‘I was watching you all come in: you pulled your canopies and everything was fine. Then I noticed someone just falling.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked Luke. ‘Was something wrong with the canopy?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ethan, and he wasn’t lying. All he could tell them is what he’d seen and what Sam had told him. ‘Sam did wonder why the canopy hadn’t been cut away sooner.’

Kat looked really worried now, he realized, and so did the rest of the team.

‘I think he was just touching a thousand feet when he finally cut the main canopy away,’ he went on, trying to remember exactly what he’d seen. ‘Then a smaller canopy snapped out and caught air. Sam could tell it was Jake through the binos.’

‘Below a thousand?’ said Kat. ‘But that’s insane. No one would leave it that late.’

‘He must’ve got too wrapped up in sorting out his main canopy,’ said Johnny. ‘Probably lost altitude awareness.’

‘He’s bloody lucky the AAD worked,’ said Luke. ‘If it hadn’t…’ He went quiet.

‘Sam mentioned the AAD,’ said Ethan. ‘And something about it maybe getting tangled in the main canopy. Is the AAD an automatic device or something?’

‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Luke told him. ‘AAD stands for Automatic Activation Device. You don’t have to wear one, but Sam insists we all do.’

‘I don’t blame him,’ said Ethan. ‘I don’t think I’d want to jump without one, having just seen what happened to Jake.’

‘Safety, safety, safety,’ said Luke. ‘Means if the jumper’s had to cut away from his main canopy but can’t pull his reserve for whatever reason, then he’s still not completely in the shit. It deploys at seven hundred and fifty feet – just enough time to save your life. But it can go tits up if your main chute is still attached. Jake’s lucky as hell.’

Johnny leaned back in his chair, then glanced at Luke. ‘It’s all true,’ he confirmed. ‘As I said, Luke’s all about the detail. What he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.’ Then he winked at Ethan. ‘But there’s something you don’t know about Luke: he doesn’t need a reserve – do you, mate?’

Ethan saw the look on Luke’s face and just knew that whatever Johnny was about to say next, he’d heard it far too many times before.

‘He just uses the force, don’t you, Luke?’

Luke sighed. Heavily. ‘Here we go again…’

Johnny picked up his now empty mug, placed it against his mouth, and spoke into it, his voice deep and resonating.

‘I find your lack of faith disturbing…’

It was a perfect Darth Vader impression.

Kat giggled. Nat almost smiled. Ethan muffled a laugh.

Johnny continued, holding his knife in his hand like a light sabre. ‘You underestimate the power of the dark side.’

Luke did his best to ignore Johnny and continued to eat his chips.

But Johnny wasn’t giving up. He was on his feet now and breathing heavily into his mug. He waved his knife around. ‘When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master!’

Everyone laughed, including Luke. Even Natalya joined in.

‘Not bad,’ said Ethan. ‘Pretty convincing impression. You should act.’

‘His whole life’s an act,’ said Kat.

Her expression hardened suddenly, and Ethan turned to see that Jake had come in.

‘Thanks for waiting for me, guys. Not.’ He slammed the café door behind him and came over.

Kat was first to speak. ‘What the hell happened, Jake? What went wrong?’

‘Nothing happened, babe,’ said Jake, sliding his arm around her waist. ‘I had it all under control.’

He leaned in for a kiss, but Ethan saw Kat pull away.

‘Bullshit, Jake, and you know it,’ she said.

‘Would I lie to you? Would I? Everything was fine. Don’t you trust me?’

Kat pushed him away, looking annoyed and confused.

Natalya stepped in. ‘Your canopy was dead, Jake,’ she said, her voice sharp. ‘You should have cut away, but you did not. Instead, you kept fighting it. Kat was right – this is bullshit. You are always full of it.’

‘Shut it, Nat,’ snapped Jake. ‘I lost altitude awareness, that’s all, thought I could sort out my main canopy. The AAD saved me, didn’t it? That’s what it’s for, right? What’s the problem?’

Ethan saw the look on Natalya’s face; it could’ve burned through lead. He was beginning to think she wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to piss off.

‘You are dangerous, Jake,’ she said, tight-lipped. ‘I’m not sure I want to jump with you again. Kill yourself – I do not care. Kill one of us? That is different.’

‘She’s got a point,’ said Johnny. ‘You should’ve cut away at two thousand, pulled the reserve yourself. An AAD’s only in case of emergency. It’s too bloody risky to depend on it like that. You could have been killed. AADs aren’t foolproof.’

Jake gave an awkward laugh and tried to look relaxed. ‘I had it all under control. It was just an error of judgement, that’s all.’

‘It is errors of judgement that get us killed,’ hissed Natalya. ‘And you make too many of them, Jake.’

‘Look,’ said Jake, ‘like I said, I got too focused on sorting out my canopy, forgot to check my altimeter, that’s all. I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘You were about five seconds from impact,’ said Luke, his voice calm. ‘If your AAD had failed, or if your reserve had got tangled with your main canopy, we’d be scraping you off the ground now instead of sitting here arguing. What were you thinking?’

‘How do you know what happened anyway?’ asked Jake, scowling now. ‘You were all still in the air.’ Then he saw Ethan. He pushed away from Kat and came over, got in Ethan’s face. ‘You tell them all this, Rookie?’

‘I saw you falling,’ said Ethan. ‘I was with Sam.’

‘So you finked on me? You ran and told the big scary boss man?’

‘Hang it,’ said Johnny, getting up and coming across. ‘Sam was with Ethan. Ethan didn’t have to tell him anything. Sam saw it all. Ethan just told us your canopy grabbed air at under a thousand; we guessed the rest.’

‘But nothing happened, did it?’ said Jake, now turning to Johnny. ‘And all this dick’s done is stir things up – hey, Rookie?’

Ethan was about to respond when a voice shot across the café.

‘Jake!’

Everyone fell silent.

Sam was standing in the archway leading from the café to the bar area.

‘Hey, Sam!’ Jake grinned. ‘Everything’s cool, man. Had it all under control. And the rush – you haven’t skydived till you’ve flown that close to wiping out! It was just awesome!’

Sam came over. He towered over the gang, his shadow falling across Jake.

‘My office. Now.’

Jake opened his mouth to reply.

‘Now, Jake,’ said Sam. ‘ Now.’

And seeing the look on Sam’s face – even though he wasn’t the one being called into his office – Ethan felt sick.

When Jake had left with Sam, Johnny flicked a glance at the rest of the gang. ‘Dead man walking,’ he said flatly.

No one argued.