I felt my scalp, shocked by the smoothness of it.
"They tell me you're going to be okay," the general said. "They called me this morning and I flew down so I could be here when they woke you."
It took all my effort and concentration to croak: "How long?"
"Three weeks."
"Who…?"
"General Jonas Blythe, at your service, ma'am. I command the US forces here. I gave the order to attack the British Army on Salisbury Plain, and I gave the order to take control of your school. Sit her up."
I heard someone walk across the wooden floor in heavy boots and felt strong arms lift me into a sitting position. I was propped up on some pillows so that I could see out of the window. It was a bright, sunny day, cold but clear. Next to the window stood a TV set with a camcorder plugged into it. The general nodded to the soldier who'd propped me up, and the young man went to the camcorder and fiddled with it until it began playing. The screen crackled with white noise and then solidified into a picture.
Lee. Bruised, bloodstained and terrified, sitting tied to a chair in front of a blue sheet with Arabic writing on it. A man in a black hood stood behind him holding a sharp knife. I gasped in horror. I knew what this video was. Everyone did.
The sound kicked in and there was Lee. Kind, lonely, brave, broken Lee, sobbing into the lens. "My name is Lee Keegan. It's my sixteenth birthday today, and I'm English. I flew here to find my dad, a sergeant in the British Army, but my plane crashed and these guys found me. If anyone sees this, please let Jane Crowther know what happened to me. You can find her at Groombridge Place, in Kent, southern England. It's a school now. Tell her I'm sorry."
And the screen went blank. Tears streamed down my face and my stomach felt empty and hollow. Oh God, Lee. Poor, sweet Lee.
"He's dead, Miss Crowther," said the general.
Now I found my voice. Dry throated, I croaked between sobs: "How did you get this?"
"Recovered it from an insurgent hideout in Basra about a month ago."
"Did they…?" I couldn't say it.
"Not them. Believe it or not your boy made friends with them. They let him go."
"I don't understand."
"He joined them, Miss Crowther. To fight me."
I stared at him. "You killed Lee?"
The general nodded. I screamed and tried to fling myself at him, reaching out to scratch his eyes and bite his face. I wanted to pull him apart. But I was too weak, and my limbs wouldn't obey the instructions I was sending them. I just fell forwards and slid off the bed on to the floor, collapsing in a heap at his feet, a pathetic, tear-stained, wailing, wreck.
The young soldier lifted me up. I tried to shake him off, but I was helpless. Instead of placing me back in the bed, he sat me in a wheelchair and pushed me so I was face to face with the general. I stared into his pitiless eyes, summoning all the defiance and fury I could muster.
"Why are you so important?" he asked. "What is it about this school?"
I didn't understand what he meant, but my face betrayed nothing but anger.
"A young soldier from this school flies to Iraq and almost succeeds in destroying my operations," he explained. "The one name he gives us is yours. Then, when we attack British Army HQ you're there in the thick of it, with your very own SAS bodyguard, whose sole purpose, as far as I can tell, is to ensure your safety and bring you here. Why? Why are you so important? What's your game, Miss Crowther?"
Sanders had brought me here. So where was he? And what had become of Jack?
"Shall I tell you what I think?" continued the general. "I think you're a spook. MI5 or 6, back before The Cull. I think this school is a front for all that remains of your British Secret Service."
I started to laugh silently. It hurt my healing ribs but I couldn't help it. I held my sides and laughed and laughed till more tears flowed.
"You fool," I said. "You stupid, pathetic, paranoid fuckwit. I'm not a spy. I'm just a boarding school matron." I could hear the hysterical edge to my laughter but I couldn't stop. "If you want spies, you're barking up the wrong tree, General. All I've got is TCP and sticking plasters."
He sat there and let me laugh for a while, then he stood, grasped the handles of my wheelchair and pushed me to the window.
"Let me show you what I do to people who waste my time, Miss Crowther," he said quietly.
I looked out of the window at the lawn below. It seemed like only yesterday that I'd lain on that grass with Barker, feeling the Earth move beneath me. Now, in the exact spot where I'd passed that quiet moment of contemplation, was one of the most awful things I've ever seen. It was Sanders – strong, gentle, musclebrained Sanders, my sometime lover. He lay facing the sky, impaled on a huge wooden stake which jutted, bloodied and obscene, from his shattered chest. A crow pecked hungrily at a gaping eye socket and then flapped away, as if ashamed of being seen.
Had I anything in my stomach, I would have been sick.
"Now, Miss Crowther," said the soft, menacing voice behind me. "Let's start again, shall we?"
PART THREE
Lee and Jane
Chapter Fourteen
Lee
"Does this thing have a loo?" I asked eventually.
"No," said Dad.
"Well, I'm sorry guys," I said, "but I really, really have to pee and unless you want to sit in here and breathe ammonia all the way home, I'm going to have to get out to do it."
"Don't we have a bottle or something?" asked Tariq.
"All full of water, which we'll need," replied Dad. "Lee, you can't hold it any more?"
"You remember when I was little and we went on that road trip to Rhyll? How much did it cost to get the car seats cleaned?"
Dad didn't need any more information than that. "Should be all right. Just go quietly, okay?"
I nodded, then reached up and turned the wheel to open the hatch. I pushed up and peeked outside. The noise of the engines was deafening, and there was hardly any light.
"All clear. Back in a sec," I said. I put my right foot on the back of the main bench seat and pushed myself up and out, on to the roof of the LAV III Stryker Engineer Squad Vehicle. Designed for minesweeping and road clearance, it was squat, solid, armour plated and boasted a mean looking set of guns on the roof; this was state of the art kit. It also had nice comfy couches, which is why we'd chosen to stow away in it for the flight back to England.
The fuselage was literally freezing; the US Army obviously hadn't considered the health and wellbeing of stowaways when they designed the in-flight heating system for the C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane. I clambered down on to the metal floor. The only light came from the small round window in the door to my left. I walked across to it and peered out, careful not to trip on the numerous metal tracks that ran the length of the fuselage. We were above the clouds, and the full moon cast a brilliant, cold light. Our vehicle was at the very back of the plane, its rear hanging just above the ramp, which would be lowered to allow it to drive out when we landed in England. Other vehicles and pallets of supplies and ordnance were queued up behind it in the dark and cold.
I walked up the body of the plane a little bit and unzipped my fly, letting rip against the side of a pallet full of bags of flour. Little bit of flavour for your bread, you bastards. I sighed in relief and smiled as I did the zip back up again. Better.
I turned to walk back to the others and then something hit me in the face and I was flat on my back, seeing stars. Before I could get my bearings I felt someone sit on me, straddling my chest, wrapping their hands around my throat and holding my head against the metal. I looked up to see who had attacked me. All I could see were the whites of his eyes. Dressed entirely in black, and with shoe polish on his face, this guy was practically invisible.
"Is this the way to Business Class?" I asked.
He hit me again and my head made a clanging noise against the floor.
"You're that Limey kid," said the man.
"Limey?" I said, playing for time. "Do people r
eally say Limey? Isn't that a bit out of date now?"
"Where are the others?"
"Others?" Suddenly there was a knife at my throat.
"We were given orders not to kill you," said the man in black. "The general wants that pleasure himself. But hey, he's not here so if I drop you out the back no-one will ever know."
In the confusion of disembarkation there was every chance that he wouldn't have heard about any skirmishes that took place, so I said: "No others. Just me. They didn't make it."
"Right," he replied mockingly. "Hey Joe, check around. He must've come out of one of the vehicles."
I couldn't see who he was talking to. It was impossible to know how many of them there were. I wondered what they could have been doing lounging around the unheated fuselage of a cargo plane full of vehicles and supplies, then I registered that his black clothing was a jump suit.
"So you're, like, American parachute ninjas or something?" I asked.
"Or something."
There was a loud thud and a groan from the end of the plane then a floodlight came on, momentarily blinding me. The man atop me rolled sideways and ducked behind a pallet, seamless and silent.
I blinked at the light and realised it was the spot on the top of the stryker.
"Come on, Lee," shouted my dad. I pulled myself upright and ran for the vehicle, past the stunned body of another man in black. I vaulted up on to the stryker, where Dad was standing behind the spotlight and mounted gun emplacement, his eye pressed up against the huge sighting lens. "Get inside."
I slid down into the belly of the vehicle, where Tariq was waiting, gun at the ready.
"You couldn't fucking hold it?" he said, witheringly.
"The sights on this thing are great," said Dad loudly. "I mean, I can only see your right foot, but if I…" There was a loud report as he squeezed the trigger, then he ducked back down to join us. "They'll be considering their next move for a minute or two. Lee, how many are there?"
"I don't know," I replied. "I only saw two. I think they're parachutists, and they're blacked up, so I reckon they're dropping from this plane before we land. Advance guard, maybe."
"And we thought it was only kit in here. Bloody hell," said Tariq.
"We don't want to get into a firefight," said Dad. "Pressurised cabin, all sorts of bad things happen."
"But you just shot at him!" I said.
"Calculated risk. Just to make a point. Let's hope he doesn't call my bluff, or things will go wrong very quickly."
A voice echoed down the plane, barely audible above the roar of the engines.
"Hey, Limeys!"
Dad popped his head back up and shouted: "Yeah?"
"Hold on!"
There was a clunk and a whirr of machinery.
"Oh shit," shouted Dad and he ducked back inside the vehicle, pulling the hatch closed behind him. He looked white as a sheet.
"What?" asked Tariq and I, in unison.
But Dad wasn't listening, instead he scrambled past us and into the driver's seat, where he started pressing buttons frantically. Tariq and I followed, taking up positions either side of him, looking down at the various touchscreens which were illuminating one by one as the vehicle powered up.
"What are you doing?" I asked again.
"Got to initialise the CBRN, it's our only chance," he muttered. Tariq and I looked at each other and shrugged. Suddenly the plane lurched to one side and began to descend. The noise from outside the vehicle began to get a lot louder.
"Oh fuck me, no," I whispered as I realised what was happening. The look on Tariq's face told me that he'd worked it out too.
"Got it!" yelled Dad. There was a hiss of compressed air and the sound of bolts locking. "I've turned on the CBRN system. We're airtight and pressurised." He pulled the seatbelt across, strapping himself in.
"Lee, strap yourself into the other seat," he ordered. I sat down and did as I was told. "Tariq, you're going to have to find something to brace yourself against back there. I think I saw some straps you could use. Just lie flat on one of the couches and try not to let go. This is going to be rough."
Tariq nodded wordlessly, and disappeared into the back.
"CBRN?" I asked, trying not to think about what was about to happen.
"Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear warfare system," he replied.
"Cool."
The vehicle shook.
"Tariq, you strapped in?" Dad shouted.
"Yeah," came the tremulous reply from the back.
"They must have decided we were too much trouble to flush out," said Dad.
"They're right," I replied.
"Remember that time at Rhyll," said Dad, "when I took you on the rollercoaster?"
"Jesus, do I ever."
"Fifteen people with your sick in their hair. I thought they were going to lynch us. This is going to be much worse."
"Oh, thanks for the…"
The vehicle flew backwards at enormous speed, flinging Dad and I forward against our straps and squeezing the air out of us. Time elongated, and the g-force was overwhelming. I tried to breathe but couldn't force my lungs to inflate. My eyes watered, my ears roared and popped, I would have screamed if I could. Then my stomach flipped and we were falling, weightless. The seat fell away from my arse and the straps dug deep into my shoulders as I was dragged down by the dead weight of the plummeting metal cage that surrounded us. It went on forever until there was an almighty snap as the cords on the 'chutes went taut and our descent slowed. Now the pressure went the opposite way, as the deceleration forced me down into my seat, crunching my spine and pressing my chin down in to my chest as I suddenly felt twenty stone heavier. Eventually we hit our descent speed and returned to normal. I gasped like a fish on dry land, hyperventilating.
I looked across at Dad. He was stunned, but okay.
I craned over to see if Tariq was okay. He was lying on the couch, tied by thick straps designed for holding equipment steady on rough terrain, grinning fit to burst.
"Again! Again!" he shouted, like a demented Tellytubby.
The vehicle rocked from side to side in the winds, making me feel seasick.
Dad unbuckled himself and tried to stand. His legs went from under him, though, and he fell forwards on to the console. "Woah, dizzy," he gasped.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Need to see where we're coming down," he wheezed in reply, then he staggered back into the belly of the vehicle, bracing himself against the walls as it swayed.
"Are you mad?" I asked, unbuckling myself and tumbling after him. "You don't know how high we are, whether we're even in breathable air yet. If you go too soon, we'll depressurize. If you go too late, you could be unbuckled when we hit the ground and that would not be good." I grabbed his arm and held him back.
"Lee, we might not even be over land."
"Shit," said Tariq, who hadn't bothered to unstrap himself, and was still lying there. "You mean…"
Dad nodded. "We could hit water and sink like a stone. We could be over the Med or the Channel, I don't know. Or maybe over a mountain range. For all we know, we could hit the top of a snow ridge and tumble all the way down the bloody Eiger."
"And what would we do if we were coming down over the sea or somewhere worse?" I asked. "What good would knowing do us? I doubt this thing has a life raft, or skis. Does it have retractable skis?"
Dad glared at me and then smiled in spite of himself. "No, no skis."
"Shocking lack of foresight, that." Dad held my gaze as I shrugged and said: "All we can do is strap ourselves back in and hope. I didn't come rescue you so you could take a nose dive out of an armoured vehicle at 20,000 feet."
He paused and then nodded. "When did you become the grown-up?" he asked as we strapped ourselves back in.
"Ask Mom," I replied and then instantly wished I hadn't. I avoided his eyes and didn't say another thing.
"All right," said Dad a few minutes later. "We've got lots of parachutes holding us up, and
the pallet we're on is slightly cushioned, but it'll still be a hell of a jolt when we land. So be ready." We sat, rocking gently, listening to the wind whistle by outside, feeling the hollowness in our stomachs as we fell.
"Do you reckon…" began Tariq, but he was interrupted.
We hit something but we didn't stop falling. The vehicle spun 180 degrees around its centre axis until we were upside down. Then there was another crash and we spun the other way, facing nose down, still falling. Loud cracks and bangs echoed through the metal structure as we fell, swivelling and spinning wildly.
"Trees!" shouted Dad.
Our stop-start, rollercoaster descent slowed as we crashed down through branches and bowers until finally we came to a halt, swinging, facing downwards at 45 degrees. We all caught our breath. The only sound was the creak of wood from outside.
"Everyone okay?" asked Dad.
Tariq groaned and lifted a thumb. I tried to nod, but my neck hurt in all sorts of interesting new ways. "Yeah," I said. "Nothing two years of intensive physiotherapy wouldn't fix."
"Good." Dad breathed out heavily. "Fuck me, that was a bit drastic wasn't it? Remind me never to do anything like that again. And next time, son, bring a bloody gazunder. Anyway, we're stuck. Which is good."
"Huh?"
"If we'd just hit the ground cold, it would have been the equivalent of falling twelve feet. In a chair. We'd have been lucky not to break our backs."
"Now you tell us," groaned Tariq.
Dad activated the driver's side periscope, but the view was obscured by parachute silk, so he unbuckled himself and clambered down the cabin to the gunner's periscope, which was also blocked. He climbed to the hatch, pulling his knife from its sheath as he did so.
"You both stay here, buckled up. I'll go see what state we're in."
The vehicle swung perilously as he moved around in it, making me feel seasick. He opened the hatch and shoved aside a swathe of silk.
"We're in a forest," he said. "Pitch black, no lights, could be anywhere."
He climbed outside and we could hear him scuttling around on the shell of the vehicle. "We're only about six feet off the ground and we seem pretty well braced. I think you should unbuckle and jump down."
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