The sound of the storm outside replaces the static in his exposed ears, which feel chilled in the fresh air. The wind is strong, battering the closed roller shutter door, making it rattle in its runners.
Pull yourself together, he thinks to himself, wondering where his usual deeply instilled resilience has gone. He struggles to, however, and can’t seem to motivate himself to even get out of his chair; in fact, he slouches further into it.
Alone in the hangar with only the storm for company, Winters’ eyes start to flicker closed, his eyelids feeling impossibly heavy. Has he underestimated his fatigue? He has been in a constant state of stress in the last two days, hardly slept and not eaten properly. Surely, resting his eyes for a few minutes is only fair and well deserved.
An image of Andy boarding the Lynx for his fateful mission flashes across Winters’ waning mind. The image causes his stomach to burn and he forces his eyes open. How can he sit here feeling sorry for himself when others have made the ultimate sacrifice? Gradually, he feels his resilience start to return, together with his determination.
As he was starting to doze, the rest of the team would have been drawing closer, returning to base. Winters scolds himself for his lapse in concentration and reaches to retrieve the headset. Preparations need to be made for their return and time is short.
“Flight Lieutenant Alders, receiving, over.”
“Receiving, over,” Alders responds almost immediately.
“How is the team, over?”
“Quiet, over.”
“What’s your ETA, over?”
“Approximately nine minutes, over.”
“Good, have you been given your LZ point, over?
“LZ1, over.”
“Okay, follow flight instructions and I’ll meet you in the landing zone.”
“Received, over and out.”
The dejection in Alders’ voice is plain to hear, Winters thinks. He himself, embarrassingly, had nearly forgotten about the loss of Buck. How close the two pilots were, he doesn’t know—but judging by Alders’ voice, they were close enough.
Now he does force himself out of the chair, pushing himself up wearily on the arms of the chair, his energy not completely returned yet. Leaning over to the table and taking the computer mouse in his hand, he clicks onto the Windows icon on the screen and clicks ‘shut down’. Then standing upright, he stretches out his back while he watches as the computer goes through its motions of shutting off.
After gathering his belongings from the tabletop, Winters takes one last look around the dismal hangar to check he hasn’t left anything. He doesn’t look back before he flicks the switch to turn off the hangar’s lights and opens the door into the storm.
Outside, the wind is strong, but not as strong as Winters had assumed it would be. He had underestimated the ferocity of the rain though, which threatens to soak him to the bone, even on his short run over to the black Defender parked nearby. Jumping into the driver’s seat and slamming the door behind him, Winters shakes off his soaked hair whilst attempting to dry his hands on his trousers.
The Defender’s engine roars into life, but before his hand reaches the gear stick, his phone starts to vibrate in the breast pocket of his sand-coloured shirt. Pausing for a second, instinctively knowing who is causing his phone to vibrate, he debates letting the phone ring out. The Defender’s windscreen wipers swipe past his eyes three times before he gives in and reaches for his pocket.
“Report, Lieutenant,” Colonel Reed’s pompous voice demands.
How satisfying would it be to shove his phone down Reed’s throat, Winters puzzles before answering?
“I am leaving the hangar for the landing zone now Colonel; their ETA is about five minutes, Sir.”
“Good, bring the package to me directly, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, Sir.”
With his phone back in his pocket, Winters reverses away from the hangar, in absolutely no rush to return to it.
On the short drive towards Terminal 4 where the landing zone is situated, Winters is surprised by how much standing water there is. Large puddles dance all around as more raindrops plunge into them, adding to their size. Spray rushes up from the puddles as the wheels of the Defender cuts through the water. The sight and sound of the water cascading up and away calms him somewhat and he drifts into the bigger puddles to increase the ferocity of the spray.
His little game comes to an end too quickly as he nears the cordoned-off area of the landing zone. Strange how a little fun and games affect a person, but the self-administered therapy has helped revitalise him more, and he almost feels back to himself again.
Two soldiers are manning a row of bollards that cuts off the entry into the landing zone, their SA80 rifles held across their bodies. The airport workers in their hi-vis jackets that were manning the opposite entry earlier in the day are now nowhere to be seen. The poor chap Winters had his altercation with—and threatened to run over—probably had something to say about it and so the security was beefed up.
As he approaches the bollards, the two soldiers, who must have pissed somebody off to be given this assignment in this weather, stand their ground in front of the entry. They both look like ghouls in the dark, kitted out in their dark-green military issue ponchos, the only protection they have against the shocking weather.
Winters comes to a steady stop in front of them, not wanting to give them any cause to raise their rifles. Thankfully, once he has halted, one of the soldiers leaves his position and walks around to the driver’s window. Winters really didn’t fancy having to get out of his shelter to address them, and foolishly, he’s left his overcoat in the command tent.
“Flight and mission personnel only beyond this point,” the shivering soldier tells Winters through the half-open driver’s side window.
“I am collecting a mission package that will be landing imminently, let me through, soldier.”
“Flight and mission personnel only beyond this point, turn your vehicle around.”
Winters doesn’t
