DropZone

A throaty growl interrupted his thoughts as Sam pulled up in his Defender and climbed out.

‘Ethan. Joh

‘I sure am,’ said Joh

Ethan looked up at Sam and slowly got to his feet. ‘How am I supposed to pay for this?’ he asked. ‘It’s OK you helping me out by teaching and filming and stuff, but it’s still going to cost, isn’t it? And I just don’t have the cash. I really don’t. I mean, fifteen hundred quid… that’s-’

‘A lot of money, I know,’ said Sam, cutting Ethan off. ‘But hasn’t Joh

Ethan nodded. ‘Yeah, he said, but-’

‘Then here’s a little tip: shut up and accept it, right? I have ways of getting extra funding when I need it. That’s all you need to know.’

‘But I’ll still have to pay it back,’ said Ethan.

‘No,’ said Sam, ‘you won’t. That’s what “sorted” means. I’ve also arranged cover for you this week so you don’t have to worry about work. All you need to think about now is keeping your eyes and ears open, listening, learning and making sure you don’t die. Got it?’

Ethan stood there for a moment, trying to take it all in. The tandem – that had been pretty crazy. But now this! How on earth had Sam sorted out the costs? And why? It didn’t make sense, but Ethan didn’t want to ask any more questions in case Sam got a

Adrenaline raced through him. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he said, and as he looked up at Sam, he saw a flicker of a smile cross his face.

‘I’m always serious,’ said Sam. ‘So sort your shit out and I’ll see you and Joh

He went over to the café door, unlocked it and disappeared inside.

Ethan turned to Joh

Joh

‘Sam?’

‘No,’ said Joh

11

‘The AFF course,’ Sam began, ‘takes you from begi

Ethan was sitting in the hangar, Joh

Sam nodded. ‘Today we’re doing ground training,’ he went on. ‘You’ll do your first jump tomorrow.’

Ethan immediately felt disappointed. He was impatient, wanted to jump now, get back into the air, feel the sky rushing past him, experience again that strange moment when the world below just seems to sit there, perfectly still, not getting any closer, your brain unable to compute that you’re at terminal velocity, falling at around 120 mph.

Joh

‘Sam’s going to be leading on this,’ Joh

‘It’ll give us something to analyse on the ground,’ said Sam, ignoring Joh

‘It’ll also give us something to laugh at,’ added Joh

Ethan noticed a smile start to flicker across Sam’s face, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He was begi

‘As Sam said,’ said Joh

‘What the hell’s that?’

‘The perfect way to make you look a total knob,’ said Joh

‘Are you having a laugh?’ Ethan looked doubtfully at the trolley.

Joh

Ethan remembered Luke saying something similar about human error versus equipment failure. He listened even more intently to everything Sam and Joh

Sam looked at him, his eyes hard. ‘Questions?’

Ethan shook his head. ‘Not yet anyway.’

‘Good,’ said Sam. ‘You’ve learned your first lesson: shut the hell up. It’s the only way you’ll learn. I’ll tell you when you can ask questions. Until then, just listen to us and do what we say. Understand?’

‘Totally,’ said Ethan, and meant it.

Joh

Ethan nodded. Sam knew his stuff, that was obvious, but so did Joh

Joh

‘What?’ said Ethan.

‘Qualifying to jump solo doesn’t mean you can then just get into any plane and start throwing yourself out whenever you want,’ said Sam. ‘After AFF you have to do a further ten consolidation jumps before you’re classed as capable, experienced and safe. With each of those jumps, one of us will jump with you.’

Ethan saw a smirk slide across Joh

Sam didn’t respond, but Ethan laughed.

It all felt so unreal. He couldn’t believe he was sitting there, listening to Joh

What followed was a day so intense, Ethan felt like his brain would burn up. Sam and Joh

What really intrigued Ethan, though, was that in the midst of the info-dump he was undergoing, Joh