Chapter 10

The C-17A Globemaster III was the latest addition to the Air Force's fleet. Capable of travelling up to 450 knots and able to fit three Apache helicopters into its cargo hold, as well as troops, the plane could easily be described as a 'beast'.

And it was their ride back to Afghanistan.

Dark grey in colour, its shape was only visible against the night sky due to the lights flickering at the tip of each wing.

It brought up memories of deployment for Julia as she crouched behind a parked Land Rover, watching secretly from afar.

The plane's rear door had been lowered, acting as a ramp for the loading vehicle which was loading palletised cargo into the belly of the aircraft.

Marc leaned past her to observe the scene. He spotted a small group of workmen to the right of the plane that were discussing something on a clipboard. Two further crates were located behind them, waiting to be boarded.

"We'll go once those crates are loaded." Marc whispered.

Julia nodded silently, keeping watch. Her heart was drumming slightly faster in her chest at the prospect of illegally boarding a Royal Air Force plane, and yet at the same time it was exhilarating.

How many other people got to say that they did this? It was no easy feat breaking into the air base and something told her that boarding this plane wasn't going to be as straightforward either.

Thirty minutes later and the last pallet had being loaded onto the plane. Marc peered over the top of the bonnet and saw Lucille emerging from the cockpit. He saw her head glance around the immediate area. She was looking for them.

"Right, let's go." Marc began to stand.

"Wait," Julia held up a fist, telling them to a halt.

Marc slowly lowered himself back down to a crouch, "What is it?"

Julia nodded to the group of men, "They're still too close to the plane. If we go now, they'll see us."

Moving forward, Marc glanced around Julia and saw she was right. The men were still chatting and looking at the plane too often. They would never be able to slip past.

Lucille kept looking around her casually, as if she was passing time, but he knew that she was looking for them. They were running out of time.

"That rear door will be closing shortly," Carlos muttered from the back, "We need to do something soon if we want to get on board."

"What about a distraction?" Twitch suggested.

"Hold on, something's happening," Julia lowered her fist as she saw the men begin to turn. They were laughing and then, a moment later, they all turned and headed into the hangar, one of them waving back at the woman.

"Well?" Twitch asked, unable to see from where he was squeezed between Marc and Carlos.

"Okay, it's clear." Rising to her feet, Julia gripped the straps of her rucksack and hurried across the tarmac.

The wind whipped around her body as she ran, making her feel exposed, but a few moments later her boots were clanging against the rear door as she made her way up the ramp and into the cargo hold, safely hidden inside.

Once she was inside, Julia squeezed herself between the side of a pallet and the wall seats, and hurried to the front of the plane to allow the others in behind her.

When she got to the front, she glanced behind her and saw that Marc and Twitch had followed her.

A loud emitting buzz filled their ears and seemed to shake their bones as it alerted everyone that the ramp was being raised, but when Julia looked she could not see Carlos.

Her heart felt as if it had dropped into her stomach. She wanted to call his name but knew she couldn't unless she wanted to give them away, when a moment later she found him, striding up the ramp and into the back of the plane as if it was the most easiest thing in the world.

The ramp began to slowly close shut behind him.

"One of the men forgot his clipboard. I had to hide under the ramp for a few moments." Carlos rolled his eyes at the hindrance before he slipped off his bag and joined them at the front.

Somewhere someone had pressed a button to start the engines and a loud, deafening whirr began to fill up the space all around them, the plane itself began to softly rumble.

At the same moment, the door from the cargo hold to the cockpit opened and a person emerged in the doorway.

A helmet was strapped to their head but it was obvious that it was a woman, "Glad to see you all made it on board okay. I'm Captain Whitmore and I'll be your pilot this evening." The woman joked.

Julia watched the woman closely as she hurried down the steps and walked over to them.

"Jules," Captain Whitmore held out her hand, "It's great to see you again."

Julia looked at Marc.

He gave her a small nod and Julia took Whitmore's offered hand without a moment's doubt, although she didn't even remember her.

"You too," Julia lied because for her this was the first time she had seen Whitmore.

"It might get a bit bumpy so I'd hold on to something, if I were you. I'll come back and see you when we're safely in the air." Whitmore turned and hurried back into the cockpit.

A moment later the sound of the engines increased and the plane began to move on the runway, pitching them all forward in surprise.

Slipping her rucksack off, Julia made her way over to a wall seat and strapped herself in.

Three seats down Carlos leaned across the others with a bag of something in his hand, "Boiled sweet?"

Jules rolled her eyes. It was going to be a long flight.

*

Clambering over the rubble, her hands slipped on the rocks and she was pitched forward but she quickly got to her feet and continued on. She couldn't stop. She had to find her.

Her chest felt as if it was on fire as she clambered up the mountain of debris, feeling as if it would never end.

She must be nearly there. She needed her. Holding onto a piece of pipe, Jules looked up to see that she had barely made an indent. The debris towered miles above her head, the peak seeming to touch the sky but there was something there.

Looking closely, Jules could see that it was a girl. Safia!

Reaching out to grab hold of the next stone, Jules's gasped as she felt it loosen and give way under her weight, flinging her out to the side.

"No!" Julia screamed, her arms flailing about her as she tried to grab hold of something, to stop her falling, but in that next moment she was weightless and falling away to the ground, away from Safia.

"Jules!" A hand shook her shoulder.

Waking up with a start, Jules gripped the edge of her seat as her insides felt like they had suddenly dropped back into place after being suspended in air for a long time.

"It's go time," Carlos told her, a manic smile plastered to his lips.

Jules looked around her and realised that she had awoken from one nightmare just to find herself in another.

"How long was I asleep?" Julia asked as she got to her feet, stretching out her muscles.

"A little over five hours," Marc turned to her, "Here, this one is yours."

Julia looked down at the black parachute pack he was handing her. Swallowing, Julia reached out and took it.

When they were talking about it, it seemed like a good plan but now that it was actually here, Jules was starting to have doubts.

"It's alright," Carlos saw the worry on her face as he strapped on the parachute, his rucksack strapped to his chest rather than his back, "You and I have done this dozens of times."

"Have we?" Julia looked at him with panic as she slipped her rucksack onto her chest as Carlos had done, not remembering ever doing a parachute jump before.

The smile on Carlos's face faltered.

"It's alright," Marc walked over as she stepped into the straps, pulling them up around the tops of her legs before slipping her arms through the straps.

Marc helped her to pull her parachute on her back and tightened the straps on her shoulders.

"Easy for you to say," Julia narrowed her eyes at him.

"Just jump after me and when you see me pull my parachute, you do the same." Marc laughed, "Now, this is your parachute cord," He tapped the handle by her shoulder, "If that one doesn't work, your emergency chute is here," He took her hand and guided it around to the bottom of the rucksack where a second handle dangled.

Julia nodded, "Got it."

"Good. You'll love it." He gave her a quick kiss on the lips before he picked up a helmet and tapped it into place on her head.

Julia winced as the helmet was rammed on.

"This is yours," Captain Whitmore spoke and Julia looked around to see her holding up a parachute to Twitch who didn't seem as calm and collected as normal.

He looked at each of them in shock, "I thought you were joking."

Carlos laughed, "Nope. You've gotta jump kiddo."

Twitch looked at the parachute, "They aren't military ones?" He exclaimed with panic.

"You're not supposed to be there," A man spoke from somewhere beside Whitmore, Julia craned her neck to see who it was, "If you're found with British Military equipment it'll raise too many questions."

The man who spoke stepped forward from behind a pallet of cargo and, after taking the parachute from Whitmore, dropped it into Twitch's hands.

He was nearly six foot with short brown hair and strong features. He did not seem pleased that he was harbouring illegal cargo on his plane.

"Captain!" Everyone turned to see a man with blonde hair and a round face peering out from the cockpit door, "ETA 2 minutes to the drop zone."

"Alright, we're dropping you near the border. There shouldn't be anyone around for a few miles but keep your heads down, they may have noticed the plane. Hold on!" Whitmore shouted as she walked over to the side of the plane and pressed a button to release the rear door.

As the door opened, a rush of wind entered the plane, whipping at their bodies, trying to drag them out. Jules peered out and saw a large expanse of golden desert and mountains.

"ETA thirty seconds!" The man shouted, as he held on to the strapping around the plane.

Carlos was the first to walk to the edge whilst Marc followed and stood behind him. Twitch reluctantly followed, holding onto his rucksack around his middle before Julia joined them at the back of the line.

Her heart was beating so fast and hard against her chest she thought that it was going to break her ribs. Her breath seemed to be stolen from her body and her brain couldn't wrap itself around the fact that she was about to step out of a moving plane.

She must be crazy.

"Alright, go!" Whitmore screamed, waving her arm.

Carlos and Marc jumped without a moment's pause, their arms held tightly against their bodies.

Twitch rocked back and forth for a moment before he jumped, screaming as he went but he kept his body small and compact.

Jules swallowed and took a step back before she looked across at Whitmore. She gave her the thumbs up but Julia didn't quite feel okay.

"Oh," She breathed, "Fuck it." A short distance away from the door now, Julia broke into a run and leaped out of the rear door.

The wind immediately rushed up to her meet her, wrapping around her body until it felt like she was continuously falling into a cushion.

Unable to quite believe it, Julia took a gasp of air as she looked around her. The sun had just risen over the horizon, bathing everything in a warm glow.

Beneath her she could see the three small black dots that were Marc, Carlos and Twitch when she noticed the ground growing bigger by the second.

Keeping her eyes on the others, she waited for them to pull their parachutes before she reached the same altitude and pulled her own.

Her fingers fumbled on the handle the first few tries, her heart racing, as it whipped around in the air but she soon grabbed it and the chute was released.

The straps tugged on her shoulders and she was yanked backwards slightly but it wasn't as bad as she thought and she began to slowly navigate herself in the direction that the others were taking.

Marcus touched the ground first, running over a large rock as his parachute fell behind him.

Carlos landed on a patch of ground a few hundred yards to Marc's left. Twitch ran ragged over a heap of rocks before he caught his footing, although his parachute ended up tangled behind him.

Jules was the last to land with three sets of eyes watching her. She could see Marc guiding her down and soon her boots touched solid ground with relief.

Looking around, Julia saw that they had landed in what appeared to be a field of rocks all covered in sand. To her left she could see mountains in the distance whilst to her right she saw nothing but a large expanse of desert.

Working herself out of the parachute, they each gathered up their things and bundled it all back into the rucksack as much as they could before they stowed them away in a nearby cave, masking their presence there.

"Where are we then?" Carlos asked Marc who had reached into his rucksack for something.

When his hand emerged, they saw that it looked like a watch with a small square screen.

"I took this from base," Marc said as he powered it up.

Everyone gathered around as they watched the screen light up right before the image of a map greeted their eyes.

Using his finger against the screen, Marc investigated the map closer. Julia saw his eyes narrow at the screen in disbelief.

"What is it?"

Marc turned in a full circle, "We're still five kilometres from the Afghanistan border."

Julia looked around her, "But I thought Whitmore said-"

"-She must have got it wrong," Marc shrugged, "Either way, it looks like we have to hike."

Saving their energy, they simply picked up their bags and set off in the direction of the map.

As they walked, Julia couldn't help but feel more at ease at where they were now than when she had been in England.

Something inside of her just seemed to click with this land. It felt as if that this was where she belonged with the Middle Eastern sun beating down on her neck, not in a detached house on a cul-de-sac.

Although she would never tell Marc that so, hitching her rucksack higher up onto her back, she set off with the others wondering what was happening back home right now.