by Tom Palmer
Rio snorted, his eyes wild and uncontrolled, then lunged again, both hands grabbing at Kester’s shoulders. Kester countered the move by lifting his own arms and pushing them outwards, using a martial arts defence Adnan had taught him. An easy way to deflect such an attack.
This was OK. Kester could predict Rio’s moves even before Rio had thought them up. No one was going to get hurt here. Rio was about to throw another punch, when a loud voice cut through it all.
‘Stop!’
The room immediately went quiet. Jim was standing in the doorway. He did not look happy. He looked even less happy when the entire Russian team, including their coach, started clapping sarcastically.
Jim indicated, with two sharp jerks of his hand, that Kester and Rio should join him in the corridor. The two boys followed the former England international out of the room.
‘I’m sorry, Jim,’ Kester said, before their coach had spoken, hoping to make it easy for him. ‘It was my fault. I got overheated.’
Then he saw Rio nodding, but not looking in Kester’s eyes.
‘I’m not going to blame one of you: I blame both of you,’ Jim started. ‘Did you see the Russian team in there, laughing at you? Remember, you’re representing your country. I represented my country eighty-two times and I never showed indiscipline like that. What on earth is wrong with you?’
‘Sorry, Jim,’ Rio said. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘Sorry, Jim,’ said Kester again.
‘It’d better not happen again,’ Jim finished. ‘You can tell all the others this: any more incidents of any kind and I will come down hard on you.’
Night Vision
It was dark when the Squad left through a fire exit, passing from the comfortable world of hotel rooms and fights about stupid things like table football into another world altogether. This was the kind of world most thirteen-year-olds would only read about in storybooks.
Their first objective was to cross a hundred metres of hotel lawn to the woods – woods that went on for hundreds of kilometres over rivers, over mountains and over borders.
They were dressed in T-shirts, jackets, cargo pants and boots. This was a night operation, so everything had to be black with no logos and no reflectors. Once they were clear of the hotel lawns, they stopped to smear camouflage cream on their faces, streaks of brown and green and black. They checked their earpieces and the small microphones set into their watches.
Finally Kester asked them all to jump up and down to make sure none of their kit was rattling. It wasn’t: they’d done a good job preparing as usual.
They did all this in absolute silence, knowing exactly what they had to do.
Kester smiled once they were ready. How many times had they prepared themselves like this in training? Hundreds? But how many times had they been on real missions? Maybe a dozen? He was smiling because, when it was a mission, their adrenalin was always sky-high. You could train all you liked for the things you needed to do, but never for the way you would feel when it was real.
Kester looked back through the trees at a row of lit windows; they had left lights on timers in their bedrooms to give the impression that they were still in there, settling down for the night like normal children.
But they were not normal children at all.
Kester had that at the front of his mind as he faced the Squad. This was another big moment for him. He had been made leader and now he needed to show that he was strong and could make good decisions when they were on a mission. They had to trust him. It was easy to be a leader in hotel rooms and on football pitches, but would he be as decisive and focused when all of their lives were in danger? They were about to get on the helicopter. He needed to say something now, something that would chime with what they were all thinking.
‘We all know that this is our first mission without Rob,’ he said, looking at Lesh and Lily. ‘And I know we’re all thinking of him. Yes, I sound soft, but I feel that Rob is here, like he’s looking out for us, that he would want us to go on. No question.’
Adnan smiled, about to speak, but managed this time to keep his joke to himself.
‘That is soft, Kester,’ Hatty agreed. ‘But it’s a good thought.’
None of the five spoke for a moment. In fact, they all seemed to have bowed their heads, as if in prayer.
After pausing, Kester slung his rucksack on to his back. He was ready to go. No more need for words. It was time for action.
The mission Jim had described to them sounded simple.
One, they had to walk into the Polish woods to reach a helicopter that would take them over the border into Ukraine.
Two, they would then be set down on the far side of a hill, six kilometres away from where the target appeared to be camping for the night.
Three, they had to hike to the camp and gather evidence without being seen.
The drone had been over the target in the last hour. Lesh had analysed its findings. It had picked up the heat from three bodies, none of them moving around, suggesting they were asleep. Probably.
‘Just watch out for wolves,’ Jim had said, making Adnan laugh.
‘I mean it,’ Jim said. ‘Stay together and you’ll be fine. They don’t attack groups.’
Nobody saw Hatty shiver at that: she hated wolves, she always had.
The Squad had no control over the drone that Jim had referred to, but they did have a few gadgets. Gadgets to help them in case something went wrong. All five of them had night-vision goggles, which meant they would be able to see a hundred times better in the dark. As a group, they had GPS receivers, a SpyPad (both carried by Lesh), pin-sized tracking devices that they could attach to people or objects. In addition, they were wired to each other through a closed radio system, each with a mic on their watch and an earpiece.
One thing they would not have out in the field was radio contact with Jim, to make sure that they or Jim could not be listened into and, therefore, compromised.
After a light jog through the woods from the hotel, using the SpyPad to navigate, the Squad found the helicopter easily. To Kester’s surprise, it wasn’t a normal military transport helicopter, like a Chinook, but a medium-sized sleek black machine. They clambered aboard.
‘What kind of helicopter is this?’ Lesh asked, leaning towards the pilot.
The pilot grinned and tapped his nose. ‘What helicopter?’ he said.
‘Wow,’ Lesh whispered. ‘This is … this is the secret chopper I’ve heard about … but no one has ever seen it … it goes under radar and can get in and out of places without anyone noticing. It’s so secret that it doesn’t even have a name, does it?’
‘I said, “What helicopter?”’ the pilot reiterated in a blank voice.
Lesh looked chastened, but he was still glancing around him at the inside of the machine.
The Squad sat on the two rows of seats that were riveted to the floor on either side of the small fuselage, then fastened their harnesses.
The journey was strange because, even though they covered 200 kilometres in an hour, the helicopter was quiet and they barely felt any motion. It was more like they imagined a spaceship would feel than being thrown around while on a normal military helicopter. Beneath them the hills and fields were black. The chopper had no lights on and inside only a red light shone, meaning that when they reached their destination, their eyes would be accustomed to the dark immediately. Lesh wondered if the helicopter could be seen or heard from the ground at all. He made mental notes about the trip in his head, things he would never be allowed to write down.
Kester sat with his eyes closed, busy running the briefing for the night through his head. Planning what he would do if certain things happened. He glanced at Lily and the others and could see that they were doing the same.
Exactly as planned, the helicopter dropped them on the other side of a hill from the target, so that there was no chance the aircraft would be overheard ar
riving. It was the perfect way of getting them close in.
The helicopter hovered over an outcrop of rocks surrounded by dense forest as, one by one, the children descended fifty metres via a centimetre-thick wire. They were blown about by the updraught that the helicopter created. Because they were on a mission, their senses were more alive: the noise of the zip wire, the earthy smells coming from the woods, everything was sharp and utterly clear.
Soon they were all on the ground and the helicopter was gone, creating an exaggerated stillness around them.
Using hand signals, Kester ordered that they should move in single file from now on, each watching the luminous strip they had all uncovered on the back of their baseball caps. Kester went third in the line, knowing that the one in charge should be neither at the very front nor the very back.
When they were a kilometre from the target, Lesh, who had been tracking their progress on the SpyPad, tapped Kester twice on the shoulder, the signal they had agreed, and Kester gathered the Squad in a tight circle.
‘We’re really close to them now,’ he whispered, ‘so hand signals or whispers. OK?’ Everyone nodded.
Kester fitted his night-vision goggles and waited for the others to copy him. The sky had cleared and there was enough starlight for the night vision to work well. Now, instead of the world being various shades of black, everything was green-tinged, small wisps of colour moving in their field of vision. Birds. Animals. Kester could never get used to how effective the goggles were: if the suspected terror group didn’t have them, then the Squad would have a massive advantage.
‘The place we’re looking at is a small quarry,’ Kester whispered. He was repeating what Jim had already told them, but part of his role was to keep things clear in everybody’s mind. ‘The four of you will move in and stand ten metres apart. And watch. If you see anything, speak quietly into the comms system. If there’s an emergency, blow into the mic three times in quick succession. That’s the call sign. OK?’
The other four nodded.
‘Lesh,’ Kester murmured, ‘show us the images, please.’
Lesh flicked on his SpyPad. It glowed red. Red because that was the only colour of light that would not interfere with their night-vision equipment. They huddled in a small circle to observe. Lesh showed them satellite images of the site they were about to recce, zooming in and out to highlight the areas where they would stand.
The quarry looked like a crater from above, a ring of low cliffs surrounding a wooded area the size of a large back garden.
‘The intelligence is that the men arrived at 20:27 hours, just before dark and are settled now,’ Lesh reported. ‘The drone last passed over about an hour ago at 00:47 hours. There has been no movement in the site since 23:00 hours, according to satellite images.’
‘Good,’ Kester said. ‘Remember, the men we’re stalking could be highly trained. They may have dangerous material here. Small arms. IEDs. Anti-personnel traps. Take it one step at a time. OK?’
Four more nods.
‘Right. Let’s go then.’
Approaching the small quarry was not difficult. The woods were creepy and they could barely see between the trees, but their night-vision equipment showed there was nobody moving around. They took every footstep with great care, moving the last ten metres at a crawl. Kester was afraid and excited at the same time. He knew that the others would be feeling the same.
Soon they were all in position around the top of the quarry. That’s when things stopped being easy.
The five of them froze. The drone intelligence had been wrong. The night-vision equipment had missed something.
The men were not all asleep. They were moving around.
The Enemy
‘There are at least two,’ Hatty’s whisper came into Kester’s earpiece.
Crouching, Kester looked to his right. Even though the targets were active, he had decided to keep the Squad there to find out everything they could. It was too good an opportunity to miss.
Ten metres to Kester’s right, Lesh was taking images of what was happening below. Film and stills. Ten metres to his left, Lily was listening, using a power microphone that could pick up voices from over a hundred metres away.
Quietly gathering evidence, Kester thought, is what we’re supposed to do. Not running about being shot at. We work as a team, he said to himself. Stick to our brief and we’ll be safe, even if the men are up and about. And the brief? To find out all they could about the target, then get out of there with no direct contact being made.
Kester glanced over to Adnan and Hatty who were on the far side of the small quarry, observing the men through their night-vision equipment. We could be out of here in minutes, he thought. As long as we all keep still and don’t make any stupid mistakes. That was unlikely because they’d practised this sort of action a hundred times.
In fact, it occurred to him that the worst mistakes would be the ones he made. He was leader and his decisions would determine whether his friends lived or died. He swallowed, more resolved than ever to be a worthy leader.
The Squad monitored the camp. There was the smell of a fire, but no sign of smoke and down among the trees some sort of tarpaulin, probably where the men would sleep.
Kester saw Lily signalling after a minute of listening. A quick wave of her hand, behind her back, so no movement could be detected from below. It also saved her from speaking into her mic, creating unnecessary noise. He crawled slowly over to her, checking everything was still stable by looking at Hatty and Lesh. He got two thumbs up from them. Everything was fine. And quiet. He was careful not to change that as he moved round the quarry to Lily.
‘There’s something funny about this,’ Lily whispered when Kester reached her.
‘Go on.’
‘The voices. The intelligence says they could be Arabic perhaps?’
Kester nodded.
‘I don’t think they are. I think it’s a European language. But they’re speaking so quietly …’ Lily hesitated. ‘It’s hard to work out what it is. This mic is rubbish.’
‘OK. We’ll report that back to Jim.’
‘We might …’ Lily went on. ‘But if I could just get a bit closer …’
‘No. That’s not our brief,’ Kester whispered. ‘We’re meant to observe the site from fifty metres, then report back. That’s all.’
Suddenly there was a movement behind Kester. He looked round sharply, wondering who it could be or what, and he was surprised to see Hatty right next to him.
‘What?’ he whispered harshly. ‘You freaked me out. You’re supposed to be …’
‘Let Lily get closer,’ Hatty said. ‘Just a bit. There’s a track that goes down over there. It’d be easy.’
‘No,’ Kester said. ‘Go back.’
‘It could be really important,’ Hatty argued.
Kester closed his eyes. He was the leader, not Hatty. And, for him, that meant sticking to the brief that Jim had given. But Hatty did have a point. If he could talk to Jim, Jim might say go ahead, let Lily get closer. But Jim wasn’t there and it was too dangerous to make radio contact.
It was Kester’s call. That was his job: to make calls like this. He looked down into the quarry at the track Hatty had pointed out. Maybe, he thought. So long as we don’t take any more risks.
‘I’ll go with you,’ he said to Lily.
Lily smiled. ‘Thanks. Just near enough to hear a bit more.’
But Hatty was shaking her head. ‘Not you. You’re leader, Kester. If something goes wrong, you’re needed up here to oversee. I’ll go.’
Kester closed his eyes again. Hatty! Was he really the leader? Who was in charge of this mission? He felt angry with her now, wondering if she was trying to undermine every decision that he made. But he also knew that – this time – she was right.
He sighed.
‘OK,’ he said evenly. ‘Go down halfway. No further. We’ll monitor you
from up here.’
Kester saw Hatty grin. He refused to grin back at her.
Lily and Hatty located the start of the track and checked each other to make sure that all their visible skin was still covered in cam cream. Then they were off.
Hatty led the way. Her task was to find the right place to observe from and set Lily up to do her listening. They had a tight brief from Kester – go no further than a large fallen tree trunk halfway down the cliff edge – and Hatty knew to stick to it. He had compromised already, showing he could be flexible as a leader and therefore a good one. She would not let him down now.
They moved slowly down the path in the dark, placing each foot with care, checking the ground for traps and mines and not going so close to the edge that they risked sending stones and loose earth down into the clearing.
Hatty was trying to breathe slow and deep, but she was so excited that she felt she was panting loudly like a dog. She was extremely nervous, but also elated. She loved the way the danger of missions made her feel alive.
On the edge of the quarry, above them, Kester observed the two girls and Adnan.
Lily followed Hatty to the tree trunk where they squatted in absolute silence, listening, trying to hear above the noise of a small waterfall or stream further on. As Lily looked down, she could make out a tent, the embers of a fire and a large metal container. The container looked interesting and she registered it, but she knew she had something more important to concentrate on.
Listening.
The voices she could hear were male.
She held her breath for a few seconds to hear them properly, then nodded to Hatty. She knew exactly what language these men were speaking.
Hatty looked up the hill and put her thumbs up, ready to turn and leave, but then she felt a strong hand pushing her shoulder down. She turned swiftly, ready to fight, just managing to stop herself striking Lily who was the one pushing her.
Hatty ducked with Lily behind the tree trunk, trusting the younger girl’s instincts. Footsteps crunched through the ferns and broken twigs.
