DropZone by Andy McNab Page B

dangerous as you make it. Get the basics right, and you can do this stuff without even thinking about it. It becomes instinctive. You’ll be fine.’
    Ethan remembered Luke saying something similar about human error versus equipment failure. He listened even more intently to everything Sam and Johnny were saying.
    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.
    Johnny bent down and picked up a skydiving rig. ‘By the end of today you’ll know what this is, inside and out. You’ll know how to read an altimeter. You’ll know how to exit an aircraft and how to do a freefall – the correct body position, hand signals, canopy control – everything.’
    Ethan nodded. Sam knew his stuff, that was obvious, but so did Johnny. He was a flash git – everyone knew it – but he was also an astounding skydiver. And Ethan could see that Sam had a lot of time for Johnny, despite the fact that they were different in almost every way. Johnny lived and breathed skydiving. What he didn’t know, you didn’t need to know. Ethan wondered if he’d ever be like that; hoped he would.
    Johnny interrupted his thoughts. ‘Tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, you’ll be jumping from twelve thousand feet. Forecast is good – we shouldn’t have any problems. For each of your AFF jumps, we’ll be in constant radio contact, so we can guide you down, help you correct what you’re doing. Jump eight, your last jump, will be your first solo. You’ll be entirely on your own. Complete that, and you’re qualified. However . . .’ He paused and looked at Sam.
    ‘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 Johnny’s face. ‘And it’ll take a miracle for you ever to make it look as good as I do.’
    Sam didn’t respond, but Ethan laughed.
    It all felt so unreal. He couldn’t believe he was sitting there, listening to Johnny and Sam, learning to skydive. And somehow he’d got all this training for free. Somehow, Sam and Johnny had sorted something out. He had no idea how or why. But he knew Sam well enough to realize that any more questions about it would not go down well.
    What followed was a day so intense, Ethan felt like his brain would burn up. Sam and Johnny pushed him hard. Lying on the trolley, he practised the freefall body position again and again. Sam didn’t mince his words. If Ethan got something wrong, he knew all about it. Sam wouldn’t accept anything less than perfection. And that perfection had to become instinctive.
    What really intrigued Ethan, though, was that in the midst of the info-dump he was undergoing, Johnny and Sam seemed really interested in who he was. When they weren’t telling him stuff or demonstrating something, they were asking questions – not just to make sure he was remembering what they were teaching him, but about his background, how he’d come to be there at FreeFall with them, learning to skydive.
    ‘Everything’s important,’ Sam had said over lunch. ‘Not just who you are, but why you are. I don’t want to put just anyone in the sky and throw them out of a plane attached to a silk bag. That’d be irresponsible. I want to know why they’re in the air in the first place, what kind of person they are, their motivation. Understand?’
    By the end of the day Ethan’s mind was leaking terms he’d never heard before. He found himself rattling off