Spy school on the Dunes

Chapter 5

This book got over 100 views in least then a week, is that good? Idk. Tell me in the comments. Anyways, this chapter finally has some action so enjoy!

July 26

1000 hours

Ben's POV

After watching in horror as one of the planes engines burst into flames, we ran towards the cockpit to inform Cyrus and Alexander about the situation with me in the lead since I was already standing near the cockpit's doors. What none of us (except probably Erica) expected when I threw open the doors to the cockpit, was to find Cyrus holding on to a beat up Alexander by the neck and Zoe hiding in a corner, afraid and confused as Cyrus could be very terrifying if he wanted to. 

"What did you do to the engine!?" Cyrus roared into Alexander's face. "I... I swear, I didn't do anything." "Is that so?" Cyrus growled. "Yes, yes I'm innocent," was all Alexander managed to choke out as his throat was being crushed by Cyrus's iron grip. 

"Cyrus, as much as I want to know if Alexander sabotaged us or not, can we deal with this later, we have more pressing matters to attend to," Catherine snapped, "we need to abandon plane because it's going to crash. "Fine, but I still don't trust him yet," Cyrus grumbled. "What does your mom mean by abandoning the plane?" I asked Erica, getting slightly worried as Cyrus and Catherine went to get something somewhere on the plane. Erica raised her eyebrows, "isn't it obvious, we're parachuting down into the Sahara," "Oh no," I instantly paled at hearing this. Mike and Alexander didn't look much better. Surprisingly, Zoe, Chip and Jawa looked calm if only slightly worried about jumping out of a burning plane 20,000 feet above the air.

Cyrus and Catherine returned with enough parachutes clutched in each of their hands for all of us and started handing them out. "What are you guys so worried about, you're all done this before in Paris, except you dad," said Erica, pointing to Alexander as she took a parachute from her mother. "That doesn't mean I enjoyed it," I replied as I accepted my own parachute from Cyrus. "And plus, that was jump out of a helicopter only a few thousand feet above solid ground. This is jumping out of a burning plane going at 300mph 20,000 feet in the air," added Mike already putting on his parachute.

"It doesn't matter weather you like it or not, it's either this or dying in a plane crash later," Jawa spoke up. I sighed, that shut me and Mike up as we both liked not dying, it was kind of one of the things we wanted most.

"You kids done chatting yet?" Cyrus said, interrupting our conversation. "we kind of need to hurry." We all mumbled something apologetic. "Everybody line up and prepare for me to open the emergency exit," said Cyrus. We did as instructed with Cyrus going first, Alexander in front of Catherine as he might need a little push and so on. 

I got behind Mike with Erica being last behind me. "Does everybody know how to skydive?" asked Catherine, always the caring one. We all nodded. "Good, but just in case, remember to spread out your arms and legs and after 30 seconds, put the strap that deploys your parachute." 

(Just to be clear readers, I don't know if this is the proper way to skydive. I just wrote what I think to be it.)

Catherine handed us each a tracker. "Put this in your pockets and make sure they don't fall out, they will tell me your location at all times just in case we get separated during the dive." I slipped mine inside my pocket with my phone and zipped it up. Catherine then nodded to Cyrus and he started counting down. "Jumping in three, two, one, dive dive dive," he opened the emergency door and ran out followed by the rest of us.

Let me give you a piece of advice, if somebody asks you if you want to go skydiving, just say "no".  What really terrified me was, after jumping out and 30 seconds of free falling, I pulled my strap but I didn't feel myself slow down. I looked up and I swear I almost had a heart attack. The parachute was tangled up. "Crap," I swore. "Ben, take a knife out and cut the ropes!" yelled Erica as she saw what happened. 

I pulled out a knife that I was trained to keep on me at all times at the academy in case I needed to cut something. I was beginning to understand the wisdom in that. I cut the ropes that was attached to the parachute as Erica told me to, the reason I did this was because it prevented me to accidently get tangled up in the already tangled up chute. 

Once I did that, I spread out my arms and legs to slow down my fall. Erica came beside me because she put her arms and legs together and dived towards me. "Grab my hand!" she yelled. I grabbed her hand and she said, "brace yourself." Brace myself? I thought, brace myself for what? At that moment she pulled her strap and her parachute deployed, then I got it. My arm felt like it was being ripped out of it's socket. "Ouchhhhh!" I cried out in pain. Erica didn't say anything. 

Just as I thought this day couldn't get any worse, the wind changed direction and we got blown away from the rest of the group. "Oh that's not good," I said. "Ya think?" snapped Erica. I looked up her surprised by her sudden outburst. "Did I do something wrong," I asked her. She didn't meet my gaze but she said, "no you didn't do anything Ben."

We drifted down and landed on a sand dune which wasn't surprising as there was sand dunes as far as the eye could see, some so huge they could be considered as small mountains. "What do we do now?" I asked Erica as she was wrapping up the parachute. I didn't know what to do in this situation and since Erica was such a good spy, I hoped she would. "Well the sunset in the Sahara is at 2030 hours and it might seem hot now but temperatures can drop to below freezing once it sets." I shivered just thinking about it. "But right now, we need to find something to build a shelter with or else we'll get sunburn," she continued. 

"Well do you know what direction to travel to?" I asked. "We were flying to Cairo which is East and we can still see the trail of smoke the plane left so we can follow that and see if we can find anything from the plane crash." she said. I sighed, this was going to be a long walk.

We walked for a few hours, crossing over multiple sand dunes. It was slow going since we had to walk slowly so we didn't slip in the sand and because we had to go over the mountains of sand. Ok, maybe I was exaggerating when I said they were mountains but it sure felt like it. My feet were killing me. Just when I thought I would collapse of exhaustion, I climbed to the top of yet another sand dune and saw the wreck that used to be a plane. I glanced at Erica and she looked like she just went for a small jog, she wasn't even out of breath. 

Even at this distance, I saw there were pieces of the wreckage we could use to build a shelter. Then suddenly, Erica yelled, "get down!" I was about to ask why when I saw it, there was a helicopter flying towards us in the horizon. I quickly ducked behind the sand dune we just climbed over and landed next to Erica.

We saw that the helicopter landed just beside the crash site and a few men in desert camo jumped out and seemed to be examining the wreckage. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I knew these guys weren't the rescue team because of the assault riffles they were carrying. They searched around for a while but found nothing so they just jumped back into their helicopter and started flying East, indicating that Erica was right about which direction to travel to.

After they left, me and Erica waited for a few minutes just in case they came back. Once we were sure they were gone for good, we climbed out of our hiding spot in the sand and started towards the plane. By now, it was 1 in the afternoon and we were baking under the sun. "Start searching for something to build a shelter with," Erica ordered. I nodded, I didn't want to speak because my throat was already so dry I could barely feel any saliva in my mouth.

An hour later, we finished building the shelter, well, Erica build the shelter because I didn't know how. I laid down in the newly build shelter and sighed in relief, even a little shade made so much difference from directly being under the scorching desert sun. 

"Aren't you going to rest?" I asked Erica. "No, I'm going to search around and try to see if any water bottles survived to crash," she replied. I nodded again. Thinking about water made me realize how thirsty I was, oh well I thought, I didn't have enough energy to get up again so I just laid there thinking about how all my missions no matter easy or simple, turned out to be deadly. Eventually, I was to tired to stay awake anymore and I fell into a deep sleep.

Damn this is the longest chapter I've written so far (1674 words, not including this). Hope you guys enjoyed it. Sorry if the last parts were getting bad, but I was getting worn out so I was losing focus. Anyways, the next chapter will be in Erica's POV, so you have that to look forward to. Until next time. Bye.