The Battle Ground Series: Books 1-3

by Rachel Churcher

  Reluctantly, I agree. As the commander leaves the room, I feel tears on my cheeks. I raise a hand and brush them away.

  Get it together, Ketty.

  *****

  Jackson might be alive, but when they finally let me see him, he’s a mess. He’s lying, eyes closed, in a bed surrounded by machines. There’s a tube punched through his chest, draining blood and air into a bag. There are wires running from his body to the monitors, and there’s a breathing tube jutting from his mouth. Like me, he’s got tubes and needles in his arms.

  I talked one of the nurses into bringing me here as soon as I could sit up, and he’s standing behind me, hands on my wheelchair as I watch Jackson from the corridor. Now that I’m here, I realise that I don’t want to see this, but I can’t look away.

  Dan Pearce did this. Pearce and Ellman. And for what? Armour and guns they won’t have a chance to use against us, and two children who couldn’t learn to take care of themselves.

  Come on, Jackson. You’re worth more than that. I need your iron fists. I need you to back me up.

  He looks small and broken. Taped together and cocooned in machinery. I can’t see his eyes. His power, his energy – they’re gone. This stillness – this isn’t Jackson. He should be standing over me, mocking me for the bandage on my knee, the wheelchair, the nurse pushing me around. He should be reading my mind. Asking me what to do next. We should be planning our retaliation, not lying in hospital beds.

  I hate this feeling of helplessness. I want to do something. I want to hurt the terrorists, like they hurt Jackson. I want to take someone important away from them. Leave someone else bleeding and weak and helpless.

  “I’m done. Take me back.”

  The nurse hesitates. “Are you sure? We’re not in the way here …”

  I grab the wheels of the chair and start pushing myself away, ignoring the stabbing feeling from the needle in my arm every time I tense my muscles. There are dark bruises on my arms and my back from my fall on the coach, and dressings all over my hands and wrists from the windscreen glass. Everything pulses with pain as I shove the wheelchair forwards, but I keep moving. At least I can feel something.

  “OK! OK. We’re going.” The nurse takes over, pushing me away from Jackson. Away from his empty shape in the bed.

  I find I’m dashing tears from my eyes as we leave the ward and head back to my room.

  *****

  When we get there, Brigadier Lee is waiting.

  Are you stalking me, Sir?

  “Lead Recruit Ketty Smith,” he says, as I’m wheeled past him. “I hear you’re the hero of the hour!”

  “Couldn’t say, Sir,” I manage, as the nurse tries to help me up into bed. I wave him away. I want to stay in my chair if the brigadier is here to talk. I don’t want to feel like a patient. I want to be able to look him in the eye.

  “May I sit down?” Lee indicates the chair next to my bed.

  “Of course. Please.”

  The nurse wheels me round to sit next to him, checks my drip and the blanket over my knees, and makes sure I’m happy with my visitor before leaving us to talk.

  Lee reaches down next to the chair and pulls up a bouquet of brightly coloured flowers. “I brought you these. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Thank you, Sir!” I can’t hide the surprise in my voice. I think this is the first time anyone has ever bought me flowers. I take them from him, carefully. I’m not sure what to do with them.

  Pull yourself together, Ketty. This is a professional visit. Handle it.

  I take a deep breath, will my head to clear, and put the flowers gently down on the end of the bed.

  “What can I do for you, Sir?” I ask, folding my hands in my lap, and sitting up as straight as my bruises will allow.

  He leans back in his chair, watching me.

  “How are you feeling, Lead Recruit? I gather the terrorists made a mess of your knee.” He indicates the bulge of the bandages under my blanket.

  I shrug. “It could be worse, Sir. Bullet grazed the bone. I’ve got some torn ligaments, muscle damage – nothing I won’t recover from.”

  He nods. “And your colleague?”

  Use his name. He’s not dead yet.

  “Jackson has a punctured lung, some smashed ribs, some other broken bones. He’s … not awake yet.”

  “I’m sorry. As I understand it, that shouldn’t have happened.”

  “No, Sir.”

  He pauses for a moment, then continues.

  “If you ask me, you shouldn’t have been in that position at all. A coach full of children, sent out to be attacked. I can’t even count the number of things that could go wrong.”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Was it Bracken’s idea?”

  “HQ’s, I think. But Bracken approved it.”

  “Did he protest the plan with HQ?”

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “And did he come with you? Share the risk?”

  “No, Sir.” I shake my head.

  He leans forward, towards me.

  “You and Jackson should be very proud of yourselves. You protected a coach full of recruits this morning, and made sure the terrorists left with the tracked armour. You should be proud of yourself, for directing the rescue and recovery effort while dealing with your own bullet wound. The kids I’ve spoken to were clear that none of that would have happened without you.”

  “Thank you, Sir, but I just did what needed to be done.”

  He smiles. “And that’s why you’d be an asset to my team. Not many people could do what you did.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Are you promoting me, Sir?

  “Any idea why the terrorists came onto the coach? I thought the plan was to give them the armour, and sit tight until they drove away.”

  “It was, Sir.” I think about Jackson, his heel drumming on the coach seat. His instinct to shoot the person with the gun to our heads. My failure to stop him. “It was a tense situation. Who’s to say what set them off?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “And the hostages? Do you think that was their plan all along, to take their friends off the bus?”

  “I don’t. I think they were making it up as they went. I think they saw an opportunity, and they took it. I don’t think we could have stopped them. Not without more casualties on the coach.”

  “I agree.” He leans back, watching me again.

  “Ketty. I’d like to ask for your help.”

  Not a job offer, then?

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He leans his elbows on the arms of the chair, and steeples his fingers in front of him.

  “Confidentially. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Commander Bracken is putting together a proposal for HQ. He wants to be the one to track the armour, find the terrorists, and take some prisoners. He wants to make sure that, after everything that’s happened, he’s the one to deliver the bad guys to us. I think he knows he’s made too many mistakes, and I think he wants to make one, final pitch for a promotion. We know he wants out of the RTS. We also know that he plans to take you with him.”

  I try not to react.

  “Bracken’s proved that he can’t be trusted with an RTS camp. He’s made too many mistakes, and he hasn’t learned from any of them. But I don’t need to rock the boat to get rid of him – I think that if I give him enough rope, he’ll hang himself. So I’d like to give Bracken this one last chance, because I think he can’t handle it. I think he’ll screw up, publicly, and prove to all of us that he’s not up to the job.”

  My stomach sinks. All this time, he’s been after Bracken. And now he sees a chance to take him down.

  “But I need the operation to work. I need Bracken to fail, but I can’t let the terrorists get away. We need our armour back, we need our guns back, and we need to destroy their base of operations. We’re only dealing with one, local terrorist cell, but we need to make sure we crush it while we have the chance.”

  I nod, tryin
g to understand what he wants from me.

  “I need someone on the inside of Bracken’s organisation. I need someone to plan with him, to encourage him, and go with him to the terrorist hideout. I need someone who can do all this to support him, but keep me in the loop on everything that happens.

  “Bracken needs to screw up, but I need to be waiting, ready to march in and complete the mission. And to do that, I need you.”

  He smiles, and watches my response.

  You’re good, Ketty. You’re brave, Ketty. I’d like to employ you, but first I need you to betray your commander.

  I think about Bracken. I think about the chances he’s given me. The responsibility. The trust he’s put in me. And I think about how easily he was manipulated when HQ attacked Leominster. He didn’t even know what was about to happen on his own doorstep. He didn’t ask. He was so hungry for attention that he jumped through all their hoops, and he didn’t ask why.

  Like Brown and Taylor at the gate, manipulated by the person they cared about.

  Like me and Jackson, on the coach, trying to show HQ that we could handle the terrorists.

  And here’s Brigadier Lee, manipulating me to get to Bracken. I shake my head.

  “Forgive me, Sir. I’m just trying to sort this out in my head.”

  He nods, and waits for me to continue.

  “You want me to give you Bracken. You want me to help him to screw up. But you said yourself that Bracken is my ticket out of the RTS. He’ll take me with him if he gets his promotion. Surely I should be protecting him – making sure he doesn’t go through with this plan.”

  Lee watches me, saying nothing. And I realise he’s enjoying this. He’s enjoying watching me reason this out.

  He’s pitched this to me while my head is foggy with painkillers, and he knows I’m worrying about Jackson. He wants to see how good I really am. He wants to watch my performance. He’s using the disaster on the coach to push me into a corner and see how I respond.

  This is it. This is the test. This is where I prove to HQ that I can solve their difficult problems. That I can handle tough decisions. That I can do what needs to be done.

  He’s right. I’m better than Bracken. I deserve more than Camp Bishop. I could leave the tiny fighters behind, and finally make a difference with the real fighters. I can make this work for me.

  I could sit here and refuse. I could worry about Bracken. But if Bracken is already in Lee’s crosshairs, where does that leave me? If Bracken goes down, then surely I go with him. All Lee’s flattery means nothing if I’m still working for Bracken when the hammer falls. When he makes his final mistake.

  As much as I owe Bracken, as much as he’s given me, I could lose it all by sticking with him. I need to start looking out for myself. I need to find a new way out of Camp Bishop. Brigadier Lee might be my only option, but so far he’s done everything he can to flatter and manipulate me into helping him.

  Let’s see if this manipulation works both ways.

  I nod. “I could do this for you. I could handle Bracken. And I could make sure the operation to catch the terrorists has a satisfactory conclusion.

  “But in doing so, I’d lose the person who’s coached me this far. I’d lose the person who promoted me and gave me a chance. I’d lose the one person who saw something in me, and gave me the opportunity to build on that.

  “Respectfully, Sir, if I do this, if I give up Commander Bracken – what do I get out of it?”

  Lee’s smile becomes a smirk, and he looks at me for a moment. His eyes are cold, and his gaze makes my skin crawl.

  “Respectfully, Lead Recruit, you get to keep your job. You get to walk back into this war, and you get to play a part. Working for me, if you’d like to. I’ll make sure that you get that chance, rather than – say – a medical discharge, and a one-way ticket back home to Daddy.”

  And there it is. The punch in the gut. He’s seen my file, he knows my weak point, and he knows just where to hit me. I know he has the power to make it happen. He could end my career today.

  Help me, or go back where you came from.

  Flattery and arm-twisting. Flowers and steel toe-caps. Carrot and stick. He’s using my own techniques against me. For a moment I feel dizzy, as the reality of what he’s saying sinks in.

  He’s got me. I’m trapped, and I hate it, but what choice do I have?

  I’m in a corner. I’m bandaged and medicated and stuck in hospital room.

  Come on, Ketty. There’s a way out of this. He doesn’t own you.

  I try to think this through, to get ahead of Lee and his plans. Bad situations don’t have to end badly. Like the weapons test, I can use this. I can use him. I can still get out of Camp Bishop. It’s this, or the end of my career.

  I make my decision. I smile back, as brightly and confidently as I can.

  “If that was a job offer, Sir, then I accept. I would be delighted to work for you. And I’ll bring you Bracken. I’ll bring you the terrorists, too. I have some scores I’d like to settle with their newest recruits.”

  His smirk becomes a broad smile. He’s got what he came for.

  “I’m glad we can work together on this, Ketty. I’ll be in touch.” His voice is mild, as if he’s talking about some paperwork, or a new training session. As if he hasn’t just threatened to destroy my future.

  He stands, shakes my bandaged hand, and steps round my wheelchair to the door.

  He turns back, his hand on the door handle. “I know I don’t need to remind you of the consequences of sharing this with anyone else, Lead Recruit. Consider this conversation confidential and classified. You work for me, now, and the sooner I have Bracken, the sooner we can fit you into my team in London.

  “Welcome aboard.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  As the door closes behind him, I fight the urge to scream.

  Determination

  I’m lucky. The injury to my knee is messy and painful, but the bullet did relatively little damage. The doctors are pleased with the results of the surgery, and by the time Bracken comes back for my report, the morning after the attack, they’ve got me bandaged, but walking. It hurts, and I have to use crutches, but it beats the wheelchair. They’ve taken the needle out of my arm, and only the worst cuts on my hands are still covered.

  Bracken arrives before lunch, a bag of clothes and toiletries in his hand. I make him wait in the corridor while one of the nurses helps me to get dressed. It’s a relief to be wearing my uniform again. I brush my hair and tie it back neatly. I’m amazed by how much better I feel – I feel human, even in the hospital bed.

  After walking this morning, the doctors want me to rest my knee. The nurse helps me to sit up straight on the bed, and props my leg up with a stack of pillows. She sends Bracken in, and he stops at the door.

  “That’s the quickest recovery I’ve ever seen! Casualty to soldier in …” he checks his watch, “five and a half minutes.”

  “Thank you, Sir!” I can’t help smiling.

  “How’s the lead poisoning?” He nods at my knee as he sits down, moving the chair so it faces the bed. His eyes are bloodshot again, and puffy, as if he hasn’t slept.

  “Could be worse. Could be better.”

  His face is serious. “I gather that bullet was a present from one of our recruits.”

  “Yes, Sir. Dan Pearce.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I am. I was restraining Ellman, and this was his way of getting her off the coach.”

  “Is he responsible for what happened to Jackson, too?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He nods. “Thank you, Ketty. I’ll make sure I mention that in my report.” He pulls a notepad from his pocket. “Can you run me through what happened?”

  So I do. I lose a few of the details of Jackson’s response, and play up the idea of a chaotic situation. Jackson doesn’t deserve the blame for this – it wasn’t his idea to put us all on a coach and leave us to be ambushed. I make sure Bracken knows that he was d
oing his job, and protecting the kids.

  “How’s Jackson doing?” Bracken closes his notepad and slips it back into his shirt pocket.

  “He’s a mess, Sir. He’s … messed up.” I shake my head and wait for tears, but this time it’s anger that flares at the mention of his name.

  “They told me Dan shot him at close range, with one of our rifles. He’s lucky to be alive.”

  “Have you seen him, Sir?”

  He shakes his head.

  “With respect, ‘lucky’ is the last thing he looks.”

  Bracken looks at me. “I’m sorry, Ketty. I’m sorry. I know you two …”

  You know nothing. You know about black eyes and teaching sessions.

  I wave his comment away, and try to stop myself from shouting. “He’s my friend, he’s my colleague, and he’s the person I trust most at Camp Bishop. He has my back. And right now he’s breathing through a tube because a spoilt schoolboy decided to play soldier for the bad guys, and Jackson was brave enough to stand in his way. So no. I don’t think he’s lucky. I think he’s brave, I think he’s loyal, and I want him back.”

  And I want Dan to pay.

  Bracken nods. “We’re doing what we can.”

  I take a calming breath. “Have they tracked the armour? Do we know where Ellman and Pearce are hiding?”

  “I’m told they’re getting close. We should know in a day or so.”

  “What’s the delay? Surely they just have to follow the tracking signals?”

  “They’re not sure. They’ve got a general location, but the signals keep dropping out, for hours at a time. HQ is trying to make sense of it. It shouldn’t be long now.”

  “Will you tell me when they figure it out?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’d like to be there when they find our recruits.”

  “Ketty, you’re injured. We’ll keep you up to date, but …”

  I lean towards him, my voice firm and quiet. “I was on the coach. I took a bullet. I want to be there.”

  I want my chance to hurt them.

  He watches me for a moment, then nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”