The Squad

by Tom Palmer

  ‘OK,’ Hatty said. ‘Who’s the other suspect?’

  ‘An American,’ Julia answered.

  ‘And what do we know about him?’ Kester asked.

  ‘He’s a major political figure. He’s great friends with the President of the USA and …’

  Hatty closed her eyes. ‘… and with our new friend the Prime Minister?’ she suggested.

  ‘Yes, Hatty. With the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Which is why you made Hatty keep her mouth shut in front of him,’ Adnan added.

  ‘Yes.’ Julia stood and began to button up her coat. ‘His name is Frank Hawk.’

  ‘I read about him on the flight over here,’ Lily cut in. ‘He’s an oil man and has made billions from selling oil. He’s on the US negotiating team for this conference. He lives for oil.’

  ‘He does,’ Julia agreed.

  ‘So he’s going to be all for saving the polar bears then?’ Adnan said.

  Julia shook her head. ‘In fact, he argues that there’s no such thing as global warming. He says it’s been made up.’

  ‘What?’ Adnan shouted. ‘Is he stupid?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Julia said. ‘He knows exactly what he’s doing. He makes money out of oil, therefore he’s never going to admit that using it causes the Arctic ice to melt.’

  ‘How does he know the Prime Minister?’ Kester asked.

  ‘Good question, Kester.’

  ‘But what’s the answer?’ Hatty pressed.

  ‘They were introduced by the American President. They went shooting together.’

  ‘Shooting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shooting what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Birds? Deer?’

  ‘Urghh,’ Adnan said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Lily agreed. ‘How can anyone shoot a deer, let alone eat one? I used to see them in the hills all the time where I grew up in Yorkshire. They’re beautiful animals.’

  ‘Well, just remember to go carefully when you’re investigating him,’ Julia warned. ‘If anyone’s going to work out that this football tournament is a ruse to allow us to spy on the conference, then it’s Frank Hawk. Find out everything you can: but give him nothing.’

  After they’d said goodbye to Julia, the children radioed Lesh, who had been waiting on the roof, monitoring the surrounding area. Once they had the all-clear, they climbed back up their ropes to be reunited with their friend, who had already found some recent images of Frank Hawk and Sergei Esenin on his SpyPad, a computer device he used for research while he was on the move, having listened in on their conversation. Now they knew what their two targets looked like.

  ‘Quite a job we’ve just been given,’ Lesh said, after the others had quickly briefed him.

  ‘Yes.’ Kester nodded. ‘We’d better get started.’

  Boys v. Girls

  Kester led three members of the Squad on a training run up a steep hill on the other side of the fjord from Tromsø. He wanted to get their bodies moving after the two flights from England and endless hours in airport departure lounges. He also wanted the Squad to talk – in private – now that they knew the nature of their mission.

  Lesh had stayed in the hotel, researching, planning and fine-tuning their devices. Since his accident, he’d focused more on supporting the Squad’s technical abilities, working on their equipment to make sure they could respond quickly to danger and communicate properly. As a result, he was more valuable to the team than ever.

  Kester had announced that the run was a race.

  Girls v. boys.

  The hill was steep, so they ran at a slow and steady pace to cope with the incline and the loose, wet ground beneath their feet. But Lily and Hatty were soon in the lead.

  As they climbed, Kester became more and more thrilled by the scenery around them, making him forget the effort his body was putting in. The city of Tromsø was attractive enough on its own, but the views around it were something else. Steep slopes. Snowfields. Smashed rocks. Twisting fjords. Layer after layer of fading mountains.

  The city looked small now that they had climbed a few hundred metres, dwarfed by its dramatic setting. Kester realized that, although Tromsø was a safe and pleasant place, it was on the edge of a vast and dangerous Arctic wilderness, uninhabitable to humans. He understood that even a day out in that wilderness could prove fatal.

  Kester ran alongside Adnan. The two girls were up ahead and he was glad to have the chance to talk to his friend alone. There was something other than the mission they needed to discuss. Something personal.

  The five children of the Squad had been friends since they were babies. Their parents had worked with each other and socialized and gone on holiday together too.

  But one terrible day – on a joint family holiday – their mums and dads had been murdered in a terrorist attack. Their parents had all been spies for the government. They had stuck together and trusted each other. They thought they’d found a safe place to have family holidays. But they were wrong.

  The five were all only children and, normally, they would have been taken into care. But the children chose another path: to follow their parents’ line of work.

  As spies.

  But now something had changed for Adnan. Something big. He had the chance of a family again. His father’s brother had travelled from Pakistan, looking for his nephew – and last summer, after their last mission, he had found him. So now Adnan had a choice to make. A choice between continuing life as a child spy – or giving it all up and going back to being part of a loving family and living again in a place he could call home.

  ‘Have you thought about it?’ Kester asked, trying to regulate his breathing.

  ‘Nothing else.’ Adnan grinned, wheezing.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Kester said.

  Adnan tried to smile.

  ‘What did Julia say?’ panted Kester, seeing that the girls were stretching their lead. They knew about Adnan’s dilemma and were gutted at the prospect of losing another member of the Squad, but respected the fact that he didn’t seem to want to talk about it a lot with everyone.

  ‘She said it was up to me,’ Adnan gasped, wiping a sweatband across his forehead.

  ‘And?’ Kester asked, noticing that, for once, Adnan was not trying to be funny, but actually having a proper conversation.

  ‘I know my uncle. We met a few times when I was a kid. And I got on really well with my cousins the last time I saw them,’ Adnan panted, in between the deep breaths he needed to take to keep running. ‘They’re well-off. It would be a good life.’

  ‘But?’ Kester pressed his friend. He could sense a hesitancy in his voice. ‘Why aren’t you jumping at the chance?’

  ‘I don’t know. I love this life. Being a spy. Our missions. Our friendship. Isn’t this what all children dream of? A life like this? But the chance to be with family again … even if it’s not my mum and dad …’

  Adnan’s voice tailed off and Kester didn’t push him. He was trying to think anyway. It was hard to imagine what Adnan was going through. He wondered how he would feel if he was offered the chance of living in a house with adults and children who loved him. The chance of coming down to breakfast and putting on the TV football highlights in his pyjamas. The normal things most children take for granted. Birthdays. Holidays. Easter. Christmas.

  And then he was hit by a memory. Deep down. Ever since Kester’s own parents had died, all he’d been able to think about was that day, the way they’d died, the feeling of loss, the things he wished he’d not said to them. But now, seeping through, was a good memory.

  Christmas.

  Laughing with his mum.

  A Christmas tree.

  Presents.

  Nice food.

  Playing on the Wii with his dad.

  Kester stopped running and put his hands on his knees. He was stunned. This was a good memory from his life before. The first one, after all this time. He felt like crying, or laughing. He wasn’t sure which.

  ‘I’m
going to make a decision after this mission,’ Adnan confessed. ‘Julia asked that I do that at least. But first we have a job to do.’

  Kester nodded.

  ‘After this, I decide.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Kester said.

  Ten minutes later, the four children were at the top of the mountain, looking across miles and miles of wooded hillsides, snowfields and, in the distance, the range of sharp black mountains that they’d seen from the roof of the hotel. Kester chose a spot next to a noisy stream for their conversation.

  No one had said a word about the details of their mission or the Prime Minister since they’d left Tromsø. But now they could talk.

  ‘I thought he was nice,’ Lily began.

  ‘The Prime Minister?’ Kester asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hmmmm,’ Hatty said.

  ‘What?’ Lily asked.

  ‘He’s a politician,’ Hatty went on. ‘He’s supposed to seem nice.’

  Lily’s face clouded slightly because she was remembering mistakes she’d made in trusting people before.

  One person.

  The commander on their last mission.

  Jim.

  And how he’d betrayed them.

  They’d been in Poland, working under Jim, who was a former England footballer and British spy. He’d directed their mission and sent them into three dangerous situations, the last one ending with the England team football nearly being blown up, the children’s lives in terrible danger and Lesh breaking his back.

  Lily cleared her mind of dark thoughts.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘We can’t really trust anyone.’

  Kester shook his head. ‘No, the Prime Minister is nice. He’s trying to stop World War Three. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

  Lily shrugged.

  There was a long silence which Kester chose to fill. ‘Not everyone’s like Jim, Lily. Jim was a double agent. He betrayed us. The Prime Minister’s OK. Julia trusts him.’

  ‘She trusted Jim too, didn’t she?’

  ‘We should move on,’ Hatty said. ‘Talk about this mission. Not the last one.’

  Kester nodded. ‘That’s right. We have our brief from Julia and the Prime Minister. We need to decide who’s doing what. I think we should split into two teams. One to cover the American, the other the Russian. And, if we get spotted, then we can switch targets. Hatty with Adnan. Me with Lily.’

  ‘And Lesh coordinates from Tromsø?’ Hatty added.

  Everyone nodded.

  ‘Lesh is working on our comms now. He’ll have them ready for this evening, when all the politicians go to dinner. Then we break into the American’s and Russian’s rooms and leave some bugs.’

  ‘But we’ve got football training first,’ Adnan said.

  The four of them looked down the hill, through the trees, following the line of the stream. At the foot of the hill was a small football stadium with a rectangle of bright green.

  The TUIL Arena, home ground of Tromsdalen FC.

  ‘How long to get down there?’ Hatty asked.

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ Kester said. ‘The Canadians have the pitch now. We have it from three till five. Then the USA have it afterwards.’

  ‘We’d better get down there,’ Lily said. ‘We don’t want to be late for Rio. He would not be pleased …’

  On the other side of the fjord back in Tromsø, alone in one of the hotel conference rooms, a man was sitting at his laptop computer viewing images of a large wooden container being loaded on to a fishing vessel.

  He smiled.

  The container was no ordinary cargo. It was something that had gone missing decades ago, when he had been a much younger man. Something he’d been keeping safe all this time. Now, however, was the moment to bring it to Tromsø and unleash it. But of course he’d be long gone by then.

  He did not want to be in Tromsø when the forgotten nuclear warhead went off, levelling the city and rendering thousands of square miles of the Arctic uninhabitable for decades, free to be drilled for oil and gas by those who were willing to take the risk.

  Team Spirit

  After five minutes of stretches on the AstroTurf of the TUIL Arena, the England youth team captain, Rio, asked his teammates to run round the perimeter of the pitch. A steady pace on the lengths, then sprints on the widths.

  With adults being banned from the team hotel, it had been decided that Rio would act as coach for this tournament. And he relished his role. It was a new experience for him.

  Rio was tall, black and lean. He was the best player in the team by a long way. Everyone respected him. Even Hatty. Because of that respect, Hatty went at the training hard from the first minute. She loved training almost as much as playing matches. She believed in giving a hundred per cent at all times.

  She also loved being a spy.

  Hatty had known what her mum’s job was all along and it had always been her ambition to be a spy too. But she never expected that her cover story would be so much fun. Her mum’s cover had been as a telephone engineer. Not that exciting! Which is why Hatty was so happy to pretend to be a member of a youth football team, representing England.

  It was almost perfect.

  Except for one person.

  Georgia.

  As Hatty eased down from a sprint to a jog, she saw Georgia’s blonde ponytail come bouncing alongside her and she knew that the other girl was about to say her piece. Georgia always had to say her piece: she was one of those people who wanted to be at the centre of things or else wanted to tear them down. Hatty accelerated, trying to avoid her rather than get involved in another argument. But that was not going to happen this time.

  ‘What were you doing running up that hill?’ Georgia gasped, trying to keep up.

  Hatty didn’t answer straight away. She was surprised that anyone had seen them. ‘Training,’ she replied.

  ‘We’re training now. Why do you and Kester and Adnan and Lily always have to do extra training?’

  ‘We missed a training session yesterday,’ Hatty explained, quick as a beat. ‘You were here the day before. We were just trying to keep up with you, Georgia.’

  The two girls arrived at the corner flag and Hatty set off at a fast pace, leaving Georgia behind. Why, she asked herself, did she find Georgia so difficult to deal with? Yes, Georgia was annoying, but Hatty could normally deal with annoying people all day long. With Georgia it was different.

  She speeded up, feeling the other girl’s eyes on her back.

  After the stretching and the running, Rio set up a seven-a-side game. He preferred training to be made up mostly of short games rather than just practising football drills.

  He also had a word with Lesh, who was waiting on the sidelines. Lesh had a new role in the team. He’d been a decent defender before his accident. So now he was Mr Tactics, having found some Dutch football software that helped him to analyse the team’s performance and what each player was achieving on the pitch.

  Almost as soon as the seven-a-side started, Lily went in hard with a tackle on Finn, one of Rio’s best friends.

  ‘Calm down, Lily,’ Rio said. ‘This is just a practice game.’

  Lily climbed to her feet and put her hand out to Finn. He took it and let himself be pulled up by her.

  ‘Sorry, Finn,’ she said.

  Finn just scowled in response.

  Hatty smiled as she tracked back to cover the free kick that Lily had given away. Lily was a good footballer, a precise defender who made perfect use of space, skilfully distributing the ball. But she was also a player with aggression. Hatty loved the way people never expected that from Lily, even people who knew her. She was pretty and sweet and kind and she always had a smile on her face. But on the pitch she was a tough tackler. Hard as nails.

  ‘What is it?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘What is what?’

  ‘Why are you smiling? And what is it about you and Lily? And the others. You’re always going off on your own. There’s something weird abou
t you.’

  Hatty turned to face her enemy. ‘Could it be because we’re mates?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’ Hatty asked, slightly worried that Georgia was asking too many questions and how it could make trouble for them, especially as they had to get away sharpish after training to plant listening devices and track their targets in the conference hotel.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Georgia said as if to herself. ‘I’ll find out. It’s just a matter of time.’

  Listening Devices

  Lesh wheeled himself across the hotel’s vast lobby area as men in black suits and women in long dresses walked towards the bar, to drink and be entertained by a children’s string quartet. Lesh could barely hear their music for the noise of talking and laughter.

  The hotel was something else. The reception area was massive. An elegant wooden staircase at the side. A deep red carpet. Gold painted furniture. Dozens of shimmering chandeliers. Through a double doorway to the left there was a huge banqueting suite laid out with fancy cutlery and wine glasses. Seven o’clock in the evening and the Arctic Conference was hosting its first dinner.

  Perfect, Lesh thought. Now the Squad would have free run of the hotel to track everyone they needed to and stop them doing whatever they were planning to do to start a war. He turned his wheelchair swiftly and headed for the lifts.

  Lesh allowed five adults to come out of a lift before he wheeled himself in. A man with short blond hair held the door for him, smiling kindly. Lesh smiled back. Then the lift doors closed, leaving Lesh on his own in a small over-lit space, a large mirror to his left, the reflection of a boy in a wheelchair staring back at him.

  Lesh hated lifts now. First, they were a reminder that he couldn’t climb staircases and he therefore depended on them. Second, the way they moved swiftly up or down brought on the feeling he’d had when he’d fallen down the church tower in Poland. The helplessness. The fear. He felt all that now, but knew that if he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth until his jaw hurt he’d be OK.