the world was a black canvas dotted with lights like distant galaxies.
He checked his altimeter, then quickly found the rest of the team, their LEDs pulsing in the blackness. The pilot had dropped them perfectly over the DZ – Ethan was able to make it out below. It was lit up as Sam had said it would be, and was getting closer.
Another check of the altimeter. Wind rushing past. This was it, thought Ethan, smiling. Everything he wanted was in this moment. He longed to feel like this for ever: so completely alive, buzzing with it, the metallic taste in his mouth of the adrenaline coursing through him.
He felt a tap on his shoulder; Sam was reaching for the ripcord.
Then the canopy exploded, and after the intense rush of the freefall, Ethan and Sam were pulled up into a perfectly controlled glide to the DZ.
It was eerie floating down in the blackness. Below them, lights of towns glowed, and car headlights seemed to cut the darkness into zigzags. During a normal day jump, Ethan knew where he was in the sky, how far away the ground was, but in the dark it was just like Kat had said – it felt as if he was floating there, not falling at all.
As Ethan stared into the night, trying to take it all in, he noticed it getting darker, just as Johnny had warned, and realized they were now in the dark zone. That meant the DZ was getting close.
‘Knees up!’ shouted Sam.
Ethan reacted, pulled his knees up hard. Seconds later the ground rushed up at them, Sam flared the canopy, and they landed gently.
‘Enjoy that?’ Sam asked as he unclipped Ethan.
‘What do you think?’ he replied. ‘What a rush!’
Sam sorted out the rig and pulled in the canopy, rolling it up.
As Ethan followed Sam back to the hangar, the rest of the team landed on the DZ. A beaming Johnny soon caught up with him. ‘Quite a mind-screw, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Just wait till you do it solo; it’s a religious experience.’
Ethan laughed and raised his left hand. ‘I’m shaking. I think my brain’s still up there somewhere. I can’t stop buzzing!’
‘You’re really beginning to sound like one of us, Eth,’ Johnny told him. ‘Be afraid. Be very afraid.’
‘Nothing I can do about it,’ said Ethan. ‘I absolutely bloody love it!’
‘Then there’s just one thing left for you to try,’ said Johnny.
Ethan looked at him. ‘What?’
‘Your first BASE jump,’ said Johnny. ‘You can come along tomorrow night and watch if you like.’ Then he winked. ‘But don’t tell Sam.’
20
Ethan was waiting outside his block of flats; he recognized the van as soon as it turned into the road. It was the one he’d seen Johnny jump into when he’d first met him. Hell, that seemed so long ago now.
The side door flew open.
‘Kat?’
‘Well spotted,’ said Kat. ‘Jump in. It’s not exactly luxurious, but there are a few rucksacks to sit on.’
Ethan got in. Kat slid the door shut behind him and the van sped off, sending him onto his arse. He shuffled himself round into a sitting position.
Johnny was peering over from the front seat. ‘You remember The Dude?’
The driver waved back with his left hand, the little finger and thumb outstretched, the middle three fingers clenched.
‘He’s a legend in his own lifetime,’ said Johnny. ‘It’s his fault I got into BASE jumping in the first place.’
‘So you skydive then?’ asked Ethan.
‘Totally,’ said The Dude. ‘I’ve been out of the country for a while – otherwise you’d have seen me at FreeFall.’
‘He’s so mysterious . . .’ Johnny’s eyes were wide. ‘By out of the country he actually means lying on a beach in Goa.’
The Dude laughed.
Ethan looked at Kat. ‘He really calls himself that?’
Kat rolled her eyes. ‘His favourite movie’s The Big Lebowski. Ever seen it? He watches it every week.’
The Dude nodded, waved his hand again, accelerated as some traffic lights ahead turned from green to red.
‘Feeling OK?’ Johnny asked Kat.
‘I’m a little nervous,’ she replied.
‘Good,’ said Johnny. ‘I don’t want to do this with anyone who doesn’t get nervous.’
The Dude reached for the stereo. ‘Time for some tunes,’ he said, drawling out the word ‘tunes’ as if it was spelled with at least a hundred Us and ended with ‘zaaaahhhh’.
Music slammed into the van, turned up to the maximum. No one spoke, simply because you couldn’t hear anything above the music.
A few miles down the road, and halfway through something that sounded like a drum kit being