that get there?”
I chuckled, I was glad she was trying to subvert pain, “I built a catapult; had a wine bottle as ammo.”
She smiled and then laughed, “We better get going, this isn’t the kind of flight we can miss.”
I nodded, “Lead the way.”
We walked up to the ground floor and out through a set of panel doors. It revealed a twilight bathed runway and a large hanger behind the base where I thought was coastline.
Marcus was standing by the edge of the hangar, looking out over the dark ocean with his arms firmly behind his back. He was still wearing his grey suit and black tie. His hair was a mess and I could just make out his red cheeks through the fading darkness.
It was apparent that he had been out here for at least a few hours, shown through the occasional shivers that interrupted his otherwise stoic exterior. It would have been enough to conceal his crushing sadness if it weren't for the tears that were slowly tracing their way down his face.
He wiped his face and glasses with a cloth that he produced from his blazer before noticing us, waving us over as soon as he did, “Come on, let’s get you two combat ready.”
I was taken to a small control room at the rear of the monolithic hangar. Soon after I was dressed from head to toe in black gear similar to what the guys wore when they came for me though the helmet that was passed to me was similar in many aspects to a motorcycle helmet. It hugged the head more than the average helmet and the glass went from the forehead to the chin instead of stopping below the nose.
I stepped out into the hangar and noticed just how light and flexible the suit felt while somehow defending from the freezing ambient temperature. Marcus took the helmet from my hands gently once I had returned. The rest of the team was standing in two lines with their helmets on and hands pushed firmly to their sides.
Marcus gestured for me to stand at the front of the team and I followed without question. Spinning on the ball of my foot and standing at attention facing Marcus. Who appeared to be making micro-adjustments to the helmet in his hands.
The sound of a turbine winding down behind us almost made me turn around. Marcus walked up to me and began to put the helmet on my head. It slipped on easily before the foam interior began to expand. Making the whole helmet adjust and hug my ears, shooting out air with a high-pitched whistle that pervaded the now silent hangar.
“Don’t worry about that hissing sound, it’s just pressurising. This helmet is going to help you drop without having your ears explode as well as preventing you from passing out. Get your team over to the plane.”
I nodded and marched to the left of the two lined group, “Squad! About turn!” The team spun around to face the plane in perfect unison.
“Squad! Quick march!” Launching into a march, we moved toward the massive plane which looked somewhat like an exotic cargo plane.
Marcus had made his way around us and now stood a few feet from the plane while we now marched on the spot, “Squad! At ease!”
Eight boots smashed the ground as our hands snapped behind our backs while we stared blankly ahead. “Thank you commander Prince. You are the best operatives we’ve got, you WILL come home and we WILL mourn our dead, I promise, but for now we need you to do this. Haul ass team, I’ll put the kettle on.”
We saluted him and marched into the back of the plane, seats lined either side of the interior and duffel bags sat at the base of the cockpit’s door that I figured contained the C4 and weapons. I was the last in the plane making me the only one to watch Mark dropping into a seated position as his face fell into his hands, his body shaking as he cried and rocked on the spot.
It devastated me seeing him like this considering the last time I had seen him he was celebrating his birthday. I decided against attempting to comfort him and stepped into the plane leaving him in the cold.
I strapped myself into a seat hearing the back door closing behind me, the cabin was in complete darkness until the engines started, causing the lights above our heads to flicker and come to life.
No-one spoke while we took off, we had no words to say, we all needed the silence.
Mission Time
I looked out of the window and saw thick black clouds. Rerunning the plan through my head for the dozenth time. Minks and his group were going to stay in the plane until we gave the order for them to jump down with the bags.
Jump… I had to jump from the back of a plane in the same week as I jumped off of the roof of my apartment complex. I’d done air drops before but it was always someone else calling the shots. Someone else’s responsibility, and it definitely wasn’t storming.
Then I felt my stomach drop as the plane dipped and swayed violently. The intercom burst to life making me jump.
“Ten minutes to drop one. Sorry about the turbulence.” A sound hadn’t been made from the team surrounding me since we'd taken off from base. I think Kate had fallen asleep, couldn’t tell with the helmets on. I pulled out the parachute from under my seat and strapped it on. As did Wolf and Greg while Kate just lay with her helmet leaning on the glass.
I went to stand up and a hand grabbed my arm, “Wait a few more minutes, she could use it.” The fact is I wasn’t going to get her mission ready, I was going to give her an out. Try and comfort her before we dropped, but I nodded and sat back down.
“I’m sorry Wolf, I’m sorry that I didn’t save them.”
I looked over to him to see his head down, “Yeah, me too.” I was waiting for the ‘but’ that never came. He had no justification for what happened, none of us did.
Greg came and sat with us in silence for a while, “I should’ve been there… I should have died with my family… I’ve outlived everyone I have ever known… I thought that time was over.”
The rain barraged our plane, “Three minutes to drop.”
I got up and gently shook Kate’s shoulder, “We’re dropping soon, you can stay if you want.” She shook her head and put her parachute on. Another few minutes that felt like hours passed and the back doors opened.
“Five,” I checked the magazine on the assault rifle I’d grabbed then clicked the gun to my chest.
“Four,” I took a deep breath as I stood at the rear end of the plane. The others walked over and I brought them closer allowing us to touch helmets/
“Three,” We split up.
“Two,” I readied myself.
“One, feet first guys!” I ran and made the leap, tucking my limbs together and diving. I closed my eyes, ‘I’m alive, I’m alive and falling’. My self-affirmations a desperate and failing attempt to force only the mission into my mind.
The others shot past me and I spread out my limbs. Allowing me to have a much more controlled fall as well as aiding immensely in my aim. But even with my eyes wide open I couldn’t see a thing. The clouds were too thick and dark.
‘Keep breathing, you’re not far now’, the wind like screams, the screams from the halls at the base. ‘Focus on the mission, keep on task’.
Once I had broken through the clouds the house came into view. Dark green and blue waves cracking against the cliff-face it sat on.
“Time?” A green digital display popped up into the right hand corner of my vision that read five fifty three. Our target was probably still asleep, completely unaware of what was coming for him.
A few hundred feet ahead of me saw black sheets explode into view as my team deployed their parachutes. Circling downward toward the pool yard while I continued to drop, a tiny voice trying to convince me to just let myself hit the cliff-face.
Saner heads prevailed and I, admittedly cutting it a little close at two hundred metres from the house. I pulled my own chute and felt it tug on me as it slowed my descent much more rapidly than I had expected.
I landed in the pool yard with the rest of the squad and brought up the communication channel with Minks, “Drop.”
I didn’t wait for a response as we moved for the back-door. I stepped to the side and Greg k
icked it open. Immediately we split up and searched, a memory of me doing a similar task in South America entered my mind as I went upstairs and found the first target sitting up in his bed stretching.
I brought my gun up to my shoulder, “Freeze!” His eyes shot open at first, then he relaxed and allowed a smile to play across his face.
“I told your sergeant, you can’t touch me, you can’t prove anything. Nice new uniform by the way, very… Gimp.” He laughed at his joke and ran his hand through his thinning hair.
“You’re mistaken, I’m not the police.”
He looked at me with a confused expression, “Who are you then?”
I smiled under my mask, “Something much worse.” I began to close the distance and he pulled a pistol from his bedside drawer.
“Don’t come any closer!” I kept walking as he pulled the trigger and felt the punch which hurt a lot less than the hunter’s rounds. I stood above him and allowed him to pull the trigger again several more times before I knocked him out with the butt of my gun.
Footsteps came up from behind me, I expected one of the team’s voices to come out, “Daddy?” My heart sunk as I turned to see a little girl. No older than six, in a pink nightgown with little pandas decorating the front. I turned back to my target and scooped him over my shoulder before I walked out.
I activated the communication system again once I stepped out of the room, “Target acquired, there’s a little girl here. Please advise.”