sound of the plane’s engines had seriously risen in volume. To speak and be heard, everyone had to shout.
Johnny nodded at them. ‘I’ll give Gabe eight out of ten for kit prep,’ he said.
‘Only eight?’ queried Ethan, trying to stop his teeth from chattering.
‘He left my lucky teddy bear behind,’ said Johnny.
Luke pulled out a map, laid it on the metal checker-plate floor. ‘This is the DZ,’ he said, pointing just below a patch of dark green on the map as everyone else gathered round. ‘We’ll be nicely hidden by the trees and we’re only half a click from here, which is where Sam and the disk are. Our job is to draw attention away from that point and allow Sam sufficient time to get in and recover it.’
‘Click?’ asked Ethan.
‘Kilometre,’ translated Kat.
‘What is “here” exactly?’ asked Johnny. ‘Doesn’t look like much on the map.’
‘That’s because it isn’t,’ said Luke. ‘In fact it’s what’s left of a fifteenth-century castle. It’s built right above these sea cliffs here. This is what our satellite picked up,’ he added, producing some black and white bird’s-eye-view photos of the castle. Ethan couldn’t quite believe he’d just heard Luke refer to a satellite as though they owned it.
‘Main access to the castle is from the beach, here,’ Luke went on, pointing at the map again. ‘This line here is a path that runs from the beach up to the clifftop.’
‘Looks lovely,’ said Johnny. ‘When can I move in?’
Luke ignored him. ‘We HAHO into the DZ, then we’re on with the diversion. RV is the beach. Sam is to meet us there. I’ll contact him when everything kicks off.’
At this, Natalya piped up. ‘I have spoken to Gabe and checked the kit,’ she said, her face as serious as ever, though she sounded excited. ‘We have more than enough detonators and P4. To secure the beach, we are taking anti-personnel mines – Claymores.’
‘And how do we get off the beach when we’re done?’ asked Kat.
‘One of the packs we’re taking contains two inflatable canoes,’ said Luke. ‘A sub’s on course to pick us up at dawn.’
‘A sub?’ said Ethan. ‘You’re joking, right?’
Luke shook his head.
‘What if the beach is compromised?’ Natalya asked.
Luke rested a finger back on the castle, then dragged it up a little to rest on a small black shape nearby. ‘In that case we leave from here,’ he said. ‘It’s the old watchtower.’
‘Thanks for the added colour there,’ said Johnny. ‘You see, Eth? It’s not just fun, it’s a learning experience too!’
Ethan leaned closer to look at the map, then back at the pictures of the castle. The watchtower was perched right at the top of the cliffs behind the castle ruins.
‘How do we get down those?’ he asked. ‘It’ll take ages to climb.’
‘It would . . .’ said Kat, looking across at him. ‘Actually if we go that way, you’ll be doing your first BASE jump sooner than you think! But we’ll only do that if everything goes tits up – our aim is to make sure it doesn’t, OK?’
Ethan couldn’t think of anything to say to that so he kept his mouth shut.
‘That’s it,’ said Luke, bringing everyone back to the task in hand. ‘Final point to remember is that this is a covert op. We need as little contact with the x-rays on the island as possible. We get in, provide Sam’s diversion, and get out. Understood?’
Talk over, everyone leaped into action. They started to sort through bags of kit Ethan had never seen before, handing out various bits and pieces to each other, checking everything once, twice and then a third time. And they were getting changed out of their everyday clothes, into stuff that looked considerably more hardcore.
Ethan turned to Kat, who was now dressed in black combat trousers, a black jacket and black boots. The outfit made her look scary as hell.
‘Why’s it so cold?’ he asked, finding it impossible to stop shivering.
‘No heating,’ said Kat. ‘No point making the luggage nice and cosy. Don’t worry, though – this’ll sort that out.’ She handed him a pile of clothing. ‘You’ll need to strip and put the black kit on first,’ she explained. ‘You’ll be in that for the mission after we land. It’s a pretty fab material actually: breathable, as close to silent as you can get, and completely waterproof.’
‘Doesn’t look waterproof,’ said Ethan, holding up the jacket and trousers.
‘What were you expecting?’ asked Kat. ‘Oilskins?’
Ethan examined the other piece of clothing, which looked like a jumpsuit,