Free The Sons Of Cleito (The Abductions of Langley Garret Book 1) by Derek Haines

pushed the doors fully open, I couldn't help but notice that there was no elevator. He grabbed at something and when he clasped a harness around my waist and groin, I knew I was in trouble. Again. More gunshots rang out as my body was pulled into the elevator shaft and I grabbed at the rope with both hands and clung on for dear life as I bumped from one side of the shaft to the other while I felt myself being hauled upwards. I looked down and saw the top of a balaclava following below me, and then another, with the sound of gunshots still ringing out below.
    As I rose, I could only wonder if I would pop out on the western beach or the rocky outcrop near the runway. While I was busy with that, it stopped me wondering who the hell all these black balaclavas were, why they had killed Chara, and worse, what the fuck they wanted with me, or from me.
    'Use your feet to push away from the walls!' I heard, bellowed from below. I gave it a try and it was quite good advice. I looked up and could only see darkness at the top the shaft that was dimly lit with service lights. When I looked down, I thought I counted four black balaclavas rising in a long line below me. I noticed the rope in my hands was actually five entwined, so I assumed we were all being hauled up together.
    A volley of gunshots rang out, but this time they echoed violently up the elevator shaft and into my ears. Then another volley followed by a loud explosion. My eardrums felt like they had ruptured as a sudden pain skewered into my head. When I opened my eyes, after they had closed involuntarily due to the explosion, I looked up and thought I caught a glimpse of a bright light. After rising for another thirty seconds or so, it flashed across above me again.
    I heard two voices below me. One said, 'Hold on.' The other said, 'I'm ok.'
    As the second voice sounded like he was hissing through gritted teeth, I gathered he wasn't really that ok.
    The light above me flashed passed again, but this time I also caught sight of a few stars. A short while later I could clearly see the night sky through the open elevator doors above me, and then as I approached the top of the shaft, I heard a humming chop, chop noise. I wasn't an expert on this type of thing, but I put my money on the noise being from a helicopter. The runway was the first thing I saw, lit from a light above, as my body lifted from the shaft through the doors and up into the night.
    When I looked up, I saw my rope leading up to a hovering helicopter and it was about then that my stomach, liver and pancreas went into complete panic mode. My brain was working on thinking that I was being rescued, but my guts had other ideas. All I knew for sure was that I felt sick, had a screaming headache and that the noise from the helicopter as I neared it was going to perforate my eardrums for the second time tonight.
    As I was hauled into the helicopter by two more black balaclavas, one quickly fitted a pair of large orange earphones over my head and the silence they brought to my ears was an instant relief. They then literally threw me into a seat and belted me up from over my shoulders and around my waist. I was secure, but wondered about being safe. The balaclavas below me on my rope began clambering into the helicopter one by one. When the last one arrived, with his lower left trouser leg soaked in blood, I knew he was that one who had said he was ok. Two balaclavas rushed to administer first aid as I felt the helicopter bank and move away. As they worked on his leg, two eyes through a balaclava sitting opposite, stared at me. I couldn't hear it, but I was sure he sniffed.
    Below
    As I had been plucked from an island by a helicopter, probably somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea if my assumptions had been correct, the expectation that I would be landing on some kind of military naval ship became a reasonably logical conclusion. While not expecting anything as grand as an aircraft carrier, I had a premonition