Every Second Counts

by Sophie McKenzie

  My stomach twisted into a knot as we turned off the main road and travelled through a small village and on to a winding coastal road. The sea was spread out like a sparkling blue sheet beside us. After another half a mile or so Martina turned up a long drive, lined with tall thin trees. She reached a set of gates, got out and pressed the intercom. As she got back in the car, the gates swung open to reveal an old man with a stick at the bend of the drive ahead. A male soldier in black jumper and combats with a machine gun slung across his chest stood beside him.

  ‘Out you get,’ Martina said gruffly.

  My heart thumped loudly in my ears. ‘Aren’t you staying?’ The words came out more shakily than I meant.

  ‘Roman’s ex and I don’t exactly get along.’ Martina didn’t meet my eyes. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t forget your stuff.’

  I got out, clutching the small bag she’d given me earlier. It contained the few things I’d brought with me from the safe house, plus the pyjamas and toothbrush I’d borrowed at Riley’s house last night. As I headed through the gate, Martina turned the car and drove off. I gazed up at the drive. The old man was leaning heavily on his cane. Who the hell was he? I glanced at the soldier beside him. He was probably only a few years older than I was. I summoned up my most recent picture of my dad. Even allowing for the fact that John Stockwell must have aged at least thirteen years since the pictures I had of him, he should still be recognisable – and he definitely wasn’t either of the two men I was walking towards. So where was he? Was this all, after all, some elaborate trap?

  I walked, dry-mouthed along the drive. As I got closer, the old man hobbled towards me. He had white hair, slicked back off his lined, weather-beaten face. A long scar cut a deep groove along one cheek. How the hell did he fit in to all this?

  The soldier kept back, but he was watching me carefully.

  I reached the old man. He was tall, over six foot, but he walked awkwardly, hunched over his cane. He held out his left hand, his right still leaning heavily on the stick. I shook, not knowing what else to do.

  ‘Charlie,’ he said. He had a London accent, a lot less refined than I was expecting. ‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve longed for this moment.’

  I stared at his scarred face, my heart thundering as I met his dark, slightly slanting eyes. With a jolt I recognised my own in their shape and colour.

  ‘Who are you?’ I could feel my face draining of colour. This man was surely too old to be my dad.

  ‘A good question,’ the man said. ‘One of the big three, in fact.’

  I stared at him blankly.

  ‘I am known to revolutionary groups around the world as Uchi, which is derived from the Czech for “teacher”.’

  ‘What?’

  Uchi cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps I should start again. I was born Michael Barnes, the only son of a cleaner and a council worker. I was brought up in London, went to grammar school, and found my way to Oxford University then the British Army.’ He paused. ‘And I am, for better or worse, your father.’

  Part two

  Examination

  n. (1) test; (2) act of inspection, inquiry, investigation; (3) interrogation

  Nat

  I opened my eyes. I was on my side, staring at a patch of wall. Above the wall was a window. My head felt full of fog as I registered the sun outside, high and bright in a clear blue sky.

  Where was I? What was happening?

  A second later the memory of my attempt to rescue Jas flooded back.

  I groaned. It had been a trap. Riley had shot me . . . except – I mentally examined my body – I wasn’t in any pain. It didn’t make sense. Had he just knocked me out? Drugged me?

  I blinked, trying to clear my mind. How long had I been unconscious? And where was Jas? Was she alright?

  ‘Hello, Nat.’ Riley loomed into view. He squatted next to me.

  ‘Is my brother okay?’ That was Jas. She must be on the other side of the room. I tried to turn my head to see, but it felt too heavy to move.

  ‘Nat’s fine,’ Riley said, beckoning Jas over. ‘See for yourself.’

  A second later I heard footsteps and Jas appeared beside him. She looked thin and fragile, her eyes red and sore from crying. Anger rose inside me – and guilt. If I hadn’t got involved with Riley’s secret English Freedom Army in the first place, trying to be like our older brother Lucas, Jas wouldn’t be in this situation. I was furious with Riley for taking her and for trapping me – and I was even more furious with myself, for being so easily fooled.

  I tried to reach out and touch Jas’s trembling fingers, but the muscles in my hand barely moved.

  ‘Take it easy, Nat,’ Riley said. ‘You’ve been out for hours, but you’ll be fine in another ten minutes or so; I only shot you with a tranquiliser.’

  I lay still, trying to collect my thoughts. What had Riley said before he drugged me? That he’d been expecting me? Did that mean this whole operation to rescue Jas had been a trap?

  ‘Where’s Aaron?’ I whispered, my throat dry.

  ‘Also coming round from his tranquiliser,’ Riley said briskly. ‘My soldiers spotted him in the woods; he’ll be here soon. I’m very grateful to him for bringing you here.’

  I frowned. Was he saying Aaron had set me up?

  ‘Aaron wouldn’t have led Nat into a trap,’ Jas said defiantly.

  ‘Not knowingly, no.’ Riley smiled. ‘But he did act in a very predictable way once we told him Jas was taken. I’m impressed that he found you so quickly.

  ‘Me?’ I stared at him.

  ‘Of course,’ Riley went on. ‘I guessed, correctly as it turned out, that Jas wouldn’t know where you were, but also that you wouldn’t have left your family with absolutely no way to reach you. All I had to do was lure you here.’

  My head spun. Was Riley saying that he’d planned this whole thing using Jas and Aaron in order to get hold of me? As the fog in my brain cleared it struck me Riley’s only possible motive for entrapping me like this was to kill me – something he had already tried to do twice. So what was I doing still alive?

  ‘Why did you drug us?’ I gasped.

  Riley ignored my question. He glanced from me to Jas, tilting his face to one side as if considering something. ‘You know, I see a certain resemblance in your face shape, especially your mouths, but considering you’re twins you two don’t look much alike.’

  I glared at him, flexing my hands. It was easier to move now, though I still felt very weak. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just tying up a few loose ends,’ he said lightly.

  I stared at him. Were we the loose ends? What was he going to do with us?

  ‘What about Charlie?’ I hesitated, not wanting to give away what I knew about her attempt to join Riley as an undercover resistance agent.

  ‘I saw her earlier,’ Riley said briskly. ‘She’s not here now.’

  What did that mean?

  ‘You’ve seen Charlie?’ Jas’s voice shook. ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘She’s fine.’ Riley stood up. ‘On a voyage of discovery, in fact.’

  So he knew Charlie wanted to find out about her dad. Suddenly I was sure that whole business was a trick too. ‘You lied to her about that,’ I hissed. ‘I know you did.’

  Riley gazed down at me, his face a blank. ‘I never lied to either of you, Nat. Now get some rest, gather your strength.’ He turned and walked out, leaving Jas and me alone.

  Jas helped me struggle on to my elbows. My head still felt woolly as I took in the room. It was larger than the attic where I’d found Jas, with four mattresses laid out on the floor. I’d been in here before. This was where we’d all slept when Charlie and I had come for our original training weekend – when we’d been put in a cell with Parveen and George, when I’d met Riley for the first time and when I’d been so stupidly impressed with him.

  ‘How long was I out?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jas said. ‘I don’t have my phone or a watch and there’s no
clock, but it was hours and hours. They took you away and brought me in here, then they brought you back about twenty minutes ago.’ She reached for my hand. ‘Are you okay?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You know he drugged me too when I got here – and once you come round, it’s true, you do feel better after a few minutes.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. Humiliation burned inside me. I had been so naïve when I first met Riley, thinking that he meant what he said about standing up to extremists when in reality he was even worse than they were – being both violent and dishonest – all in order to gain power for himself. Jas might be convinced Aaron wouldn’t have knowingly led me into a trap, but I wasn’t so sure. As far as I was concerned, it was entirely possible that Aaron – and his father – had been in on the whole thing.

  I stood up slowly and staggered over to the nearest window. It was set with iron bars, just like the one further along the wall. Outside, I could see the sun was low over the trees across the field where Aaron and I had hidden earlier. Walking more steadily now, I headed to the door and rattled the handle. If I’d had some kind of flat card with me, I might have been able to force the lock but, as things were, we were stuck. I was sure there’d be a soldier guarding it anyway.

  ‘Nat, I’m scared.’

  I crossed the room, back to Jas. She put her arms around me and started sobbing, her tears seeping into my top.

  ‘What did Riley mean when he said “tie up loose ends”?’ she hiccupped.

  I hugged her tighter. I didn’t want to think about what Riley meant – or how much danger Jas and I were now in. Anyway, there was no point in alarming her.

  ‘Riley just likes to intimidate people,’ I murmured, patting her back. ‘We’ll be okay.’

  Jas looked up, into my eyes. ‘You look terrible,’ she said. ‘And what was all that about Charlie? And what about Aaron? Did he really come with you?’

  We sat together on one of the thin mattresses and Jas repeated her insistence that Aaron would never have lied to me.

  ‘You’re my brother, Nat. Aaron respects that. He respects you.’

  I shook my head, unconvinced. Aaron was his father’s son and his father was – at the end of the day – a politician, no more to be trusted than any other politician. I couldn’t bring myself to say it to Jas, but it seemed to me highly likely that Aaron had only pretended to be interested in Jas as a way of getting to me.

  I steered the topic on to Charlie, explaining – in whispers, in case Riley had the room bugged – that she had gone undercover to get evidence against him. Jas seemed cheered by the news, but I wasn’t so optimistic myself. Even if Riley was convinced Charlie wanted to find out about her dad, I couldn’t see him believing that she wanted to rejoin the EFA, which would surely make it impossible for her to gather any information we could use against him. Meanwhile, her life was in danger every second she was undercover. Riley had said she wasn’t here, but for all I knew she could be. She might even know we were here. It was impossible to be sure.

  Charlie

  The Cornish sun beat down, hot on my cheeks.

  ‘How can you be my father?’ I glared at the old man, still leaning on his stick. I sounded rude, but I didn’t care. ‘My dad was John Stockwell,’ I went on, my hands on my hips. ‘You don’t look anything like him. Apart from anything else, you’re too old.’

  There was a pause. The man gazed thoughtfully at me. It was hard to work out how old he actually was. His face was lined and his hair almost entirely white, but he also exuded energy. It shone through his slightly slanting eyes, their shape and colour so similar to my own. I thought of the DNA test result Riley had shown me and a chill settled in my chest.

  ‘Okay, let me explain,’ the man said slowly. ‘Before my accident I was a soldier in the British Army, commanding officer of John Stockwell, your mother’s husband. One day seventeen years ago, when we were home on leave – well, John got drunk one night, he often did. He slept it off on the couch and your mother and I –’ he sighed, ‘– we got together, just that one time.’ He looked at me. ‘You were the result, though I didn’t know it at the time.’

  I stared at him. ‘You went with my mum?’ I felt sick to my stomach. It couldn’t be true. Mum would, surely, never have been unfaithful.

  Uchi sighed. ‘I’m so sorry, Charlie. All I can say is that your mother was very beautiful and John was a lot of fun, but I’m not sure he really appreciated her. So, in your mum’s defence she was lonely, and I was available and, though you might not believe it to look at me now, in my mid-forties I was still a very handsome man.’

  Mid-forties? That meant he must be at least sixty now. I shook my head. Tears pricked at my eyes. If what he was saying was true, Mum hadn’t just been unfaithful, she had lied to me . . . lied and lied and lied my whole life.

  ‘I felt very badly about our night together,’ Uchi went on. ‘I left the next morning before John woke up. My leave ended a few days later and I was on another tour of duty before there was an opportunity to meet up again. He sent me a few texts over the next month or so. I replied, but I kept my distance. I was ashamed of what I’d done. I had no idea your mother was pregnant and, even if I had known, I would have assumed the child was John’s.’

  ‘Did he know?’ I asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Uchi said. ‘Let’s go up to the house. You must be thirsty after that long drive.’

  He turned and started walking slowly, leaning heavily on his cane. I followed. It was a beautiful day, the bright sun high in the sky, a warm, salty breeze playing across my face.

  ‘But Mum knew you were my father – and she lied to him and to me about it.’ I said the words flatly, trying to let them sink in.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on her, Charlie,’ Uchi said softly. ‘Your mother was young and naive. She couldn’t have known for sure who the father was, so she probably decided it was best for everyone if she let herself and everyone else believe it was John.’

  ‘It was still wrong,’ I muttered.

  ‘Anyway, your mum didn’t contact me and then, a few months later, just before you were born, I had my accident.’ He looked down at his walking stick.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘I was paralysed from the legs down in a training exercise,’ Uchi said. ‘I was in hospital for months, unable to walk. My face was left badly scarred, and as for this –’ he pointed to his hair, ‘– I went grey virtually overnight after they told me I only had a five percent chance of ever walking again. But I refused to give up and in the end I got sufficient movement back to limp along with a stick. I was very angry. Particularly at the paucity of the help that was offered once I left hospital. I alienated my parents, my girlfriend. I went mad with fury. I didn’t give your mother another thought, I’m afraid. Nor John, nor any of my former friends. I became bitter and radicalised against the stupidity of war generally and Western governments in particular. I lost my way in alcohol for a while, then I travelled: India, Africa, then for most of the next ten years in Eastern Europe. I read everything. Studied hard. Met some fascinating people . . . and gradually I pieced together my own philosophy.’

  ‘Right.’ We were making very little progress along the tarmac driveway. Uchi moved in what I could only describe as a shuffle and I was having to work hard to keep my own pace as slow as his. Confused thoughts raced around my head. Alongside the burning humiliation that Mum had lied to me for basically my entire life, I just didn’t know how to feel about this man, my blood father. Right now it didn’t seem real he was actually my dad. That is, I believed in my head that it was true, but it didn’t feel true in my bones. Surely you were supposed to experience some kind of connection to your parents. But when I looked at this limping, white-haired old man, I didn’t feel he really had anything to do with me. I couldn’t make sense of it all. Part of me was curious. Part of me was angry. Part of me just felt overwhelmed.

  The strangest thing was having the idea of John Stockwell being my dad taken away –
and with it all the stories and pictures I had grown up with. It meant, of course, that most of what Mum had told me about my dad could no longer be true. On the other hand, all the stuff I’d found out from Riley – which Uchi was now confirming – was still relevant wasn’t it? Riley had said that Uchi was a political philosopher, and philosophy was about ideas and ambitions – theories, not practice. Maybe Riley had simply twisted all Uchi’s ideas; maybe Uchi didn’t know what Riley had really been doing; maybe I would still be able to open his eyes.

  ‘Philosophy’s all very well,’ I said. ‘But what’s happened through Riley and the English Freedom Army isn’t just a theory. He’s . . . There have been bombs.’ Mum’s disappointed face as we argued in the market just before she died flashed before my eyes. I swallowed, hard. ‘People have died. Innocent people.’

  Uchi stopped walking. There was a long pause as he looked at me, his brow furrowed, a deeply troubled expression on his face.

  ‘I am very sorry about your mother,’ he said at last. ‘I’m sorry about all the innocent lives lost.’

  So he did know. I looked down at the tarmac. Of course he did. I felt myself flushing at my own stupidity.

  ‘I’d like to try and explain it to you,’ Uchi said.

  I met his gaze, my embarrassment giving way to anger. ‘Explain why my mother had to die?’ I snapped. ‘Yeah, I’d like to hear how you justify that.’

  As soon as I’d spoken, I inwardly cursed myself. I was supposed to be here to get evidence on Riley. If Uchi knew about everything evil that Riley had done, that could only help me. I needed to keep my feelings out of it. And yet being face to face with my biological father brought up a tumult of emotions that made it impossible to focus on what I’d thought would be so straightforward: Nat’s words about the whole thing being a lot harder than I imagined echoed in my head again.

  Uchi sighed. ‘Let’s get to the house.’ He started hobbling along the tarmac again, leaning heavily on his stick. I fell into step beside him, the sun fierce on my face.