The Squad

by Tom Palmer

  Two minutes later, Lesh was in room 312. His room. Where he’d arranged to meet the other four Squad members.

  ‘You’re in charge, Lesh,’ Kester announced.

  Lesh nodded. Kester, their leader, was allowing Lesh to lead this stage of the operation because he was the expert on the devices they were about to use. That made Lesh feel good. It meant he was a valuable member of the team, something he had been worried he would no longer be after his accident.

  ‘We’ve got two hours to get into the two targets’ rooms. Kester and Lily will go into Frank Hawk’s, the American. Hatty and Adnan into Esenin’s, the Russian. You’ve all got your radios, so we can stay in contact. I’ll monitor you from here. Your job is to plant these.’

  Lesh took out a small wallet the size of a DS or a PSP. Inside were six small pins with minute glassy heads on the end. As he did so, he was pleased to see the other Squad members check their earpieces and the mics in their watches. Routine practice before a mission.

  ‘These,’ Lesh said with a smile, ‘are the new cameras.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Adnan asked.

  ‘Seriously,’ Lesh said. ‘If you put the sharp end into the corner of a piece of furniture, this camera can film a whole room. I’m using the CCTV cameras too. I’ve been monitoring them for an hour. Everyone on the hotel guest list has left floors five and six for the dining area. All the rooms are empty. That’s what the conference organizers agreed.’

  ‘OK,’ Hatty said.

  ‘The only hard bit is getting the cameras where we need them. So make sure they all have a good view of the room. Somewhere high. Maybe in a doorway. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kester said, followed by the others.

  ‘Good. Once you’ve put the camera in position, you need to activate it by twisting it a quarter turn clockwise. Don’t forget.’

  ‘We won’t.’

  ‘OK,’ Lesh said, ‘I want you all in the stairways for when I give you the all-clear to go in.’

  Kester and Lily waited in the breezeblock stairwell for just two minutes before they heard Lesh’s voice on the radio. ‘Go in. All clear.’

  They walked down the carpeted corridor, approaching room 615. Kester placed a plastic card on the pad beneath the door handle – a duplicate key Lesh had made for them – and pushed the door open.

  Frank Hawk’s room.

  Once inside, they closed the door quickly behind them and took in a king-size double bed, a huge wooden desk, lamps, gold-and-cream wallpaper. A tray with a half-drunk bottle of red wine.

  Kester knew he was supposed to feel nervous doing jobs like this. They were in someone’s room without permission after all. Frank Hawk might be aggressive or dangerous and could come back at any moment. But Kester actually enjoyed the feeling. Maybe it was because he knew that the chances of someone actually coming back were low, what with Lesh covering them and dinner having only just begun.

  Lily planted the camera in the top corner of a doorway, away from the door itself. Pressed deep into the wood so that it seemed invisible.

  ‘Good.’ Kester grinned. ‘Shall we check the room for documents? We’ve got time.’

  Lily was about to reply when they both heard Lesh’s alarmed voice on the radio. ‘Abort. A man – I think it’s Hawk – coming down the corridor. From nowhere.’

  Kester and Lily felt their hearts sink, their breathing quicken. There was no time to abort. They looked for places to hide. Behind curtains. Under beds. Anywhere.

  Then a noise in the corridor. A handle turning. The door easing open.

  Kester dropped to the floor behind the sofa, next to Lily, in possibly the worst hiding place they’d ever found themselves in.

  Warhead

  Kester and Lily crouched motionless behind the sofa in Frank Hawk’s room, their eyes locked on each other as they listened to someone enter, pick something off the floor, then cough.

  A man’s cough.

  Kester cursed the fact that he had not activated the spy camera. If he had, Lesh would have been able to tell them what the man was doing and where – exactly – he was. But, for now, he and Lily knew nothing.

  Then they heard the sound of a zip opening or closing on a bag or a jacket, followed by a plastic popping noise.

  Kester tried to work out what he was hearing. Was Hawk pulling a gun out of the bag? Did he keep the bullets in some kind of plastic pouch? He was thinking about the worst possible thing it could be, because he knew he had to be ready for whatever happened.

  The next sound they heard gave them an answer to exactly what was going on. Two short bursts of a hissing sound. Kester smiled at Lily and tapped his armpit, to indicate the American was using an aerosol can. Lily smiled too. He wasn’t here to catch them in the act of spying: he’d come back to his room merely to spray on some deodorant and he didn’t know two children were crouched behind his fancy sofa.

  Now if he would only just go!

  Lily and Kester kept quiet as tiny particles of the spray that Frank Hawk had used on his armpits drifted over them both, illuminated by the light streaming in through the window. Lily tried not to breathe in, for fear of sneezing or coughing. Soon the door handle rattled as if it was being opened again and the door slammed.

  Kester counted to ten before looking. It was always possible that the man had pretended to close the door and leave, but was, in fact, standing there with a gun aimed at the two of them, ready to blow their heads off.

  Next Kester took his SpyPhone out of his pocket and – using the screen as a makeshift mirror – pointed it at the doorway.

  Nobody there.

  He looked round the corner of the sofa to confirm.

  ‘Clear,’ he whispered.

  Lily frowned. ‘That was close.’

  Kester walked over to the bathroom doorway and twisted the spy camera he’d placed there.

  A voice came into both their ears at once. Lesh on the radio. ‘That’s activated now. All clear in the corridor. Target is in the lift, going down. Extract.’

  Kester and Lily left swiftly, using not the lift but the cold stairwell again, then back into the corridors of the second floor. They saw no one as they walked. No staff. No guests. No Prime Ministers.

  To room 312.

  Opening the door of room, they saw the other three staring back at them.

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ Lesh said as soon as the door was shut. ‘I’m sorry. I have no idea where Hawk came from. He didn’t show up on the stairs or in the lifts. I can’t make sense of it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Lesh,’ Kester said.

  ‘Maybe …’ Lesh hesitated. ‘Anyway, the cameras you’ve all fixed are working and I have both men’s rooms on my monitor.’

  ‘Did it go OK in Esenin’s room, Hatty?’ Kester asked.

  ‘Well, we were undisturbed,’ Hatty replied. ‘Thankfully. We planted the bug in the top of the door frame. Then we looked for papers and anything else we could find.’

  ‘And we found something,’ Adnan interrupted eagerly.

  ‘What?’ Lesh asked.

  ‘A file with three photographs inside,’ Hatty said. ‘Adnan made a copy of all the images on his SpyPhone. Look.’

  Adnan held his phone out to the others. They saw three images. One of a tall, cone-shaped device half buried in ice. Another of some sort of large snowmobile. Finally, a map of some islands.

  ‘What are they?’ Kester asked.

  ‘The last is a naval chart,’ Hatty said. ‘Of here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Look,’ Hatty pointed. ‘This is the channel where Tromsø is. The bridges on either side of this island are marked. It’s the view we all saw from the hill and from the plane. But this chart shows the depth of the water across the channel. It’s for ships to use to navigate through the islands, so they don’t run aground.’

  ‘What about the other pictures?’ Adnan asked.

  ‘That looks …’ Lesh said, gesturing for a closer look. ‘The conical thing, I mean.
That looks like a warhead.’

  ‘A warhead?’ The other four spoke at the same time.

  ‘A nuclear warhead,’ Lesh explained. ‘The part of a nuclear missile that has the bomb in it. You know, the pointed bit on the end. But it’s not a modern one, it’s an old one. From the 1960s.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Adnan asked.

  ‘I’ve read about them.’

  ‘About bombs from years ago?’ Adnan was surprised.

  ‘But what’s this got to do with anything now?’ Kester challenged. ‘Fifty years later.’

  ‘The question is: what has the warhead got to do with the map?’ Lesh said.

  The room went quiet. Everyone racking their brains.

  Kester broke the silence. ‘We can work it out later,’ he urged. ‘The thing now is to gather evidence while everyone’s up and about. We need to watch Hawk and Esenin. We need to see who they talk to. Try and hear what they talk about. Anything we can pick up tonight we can use to work out what these charts and the warhead mean. Come on.’

  Kester was on his feet. ‘We’ll all go down to the bar area. Just hang out with the others. But try to take in as much as you can. OK?’

  Lily, Hatty and Adnan all stood up and Lesh moved his wheelchair forward. They were ready.

  And there was no time to lose.

  The Hawk

  Lily sat with Lesh in the cafe at the side of the hotel foyer, which gave them a great view of the bar and the door through to the banqueting suite, from where the politicians were emerging. They also had a good view of the entrance to the hotel with its two revolving doors.

  The other three Squad members were in the games room on the far side of the bar, pretending to play pool, but in reality watching, listening, gathering evidence.

  They’d all been in position for nearly half an hour and had seen several important people standing in groups. Norwegians. Russians. Americans. People they’d researched since arriving in Norway. Also several small groups of young footballers in their national tracksuits, a stark contrast to the adults in dinner jackets and long dresses.

  ‘I do think we need to spend more time with the rest of the team,’ Lesh said. ‘If we don’t, they’ll get suspicious. Hatty is already worried about Georgia asking questions.’

  ‘I know,’ Lily said. ‘She told me. You’re right, we should … what is it?’

  Lesh had tapped his lips twice, a signal to Lily.

  Something behind her. That she was not to look.

  She switched instantly to normal conversation. ‘So, what should we go and see tomorrow? That museum in Tromsø? It’s called Polaria, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lesh answered. ‘That sounds interesting.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ The voice came from behind Lily. An American voice. Lesh was smiling up at whoever it was, so Lily turned to look at him.

  And there he was.

  Frank Hawk.

  The American they had been tasked to monitor.

  ‘Hi,’ said Lily.

  ‘Hi,’ Hawk replied. ‘Listen. Do you kids mind if I join you for a minute?’

  ‘Sure.’ Lily smiled and pulled a seat out for the American. But she could feel her heart fluttering nervously.

  ‘I’m Frank,’ the man said. ‘I just saw you and … well, you reminded me of my grandkids back in the US. How old are you? Thirteen? Fourteen?’

  ‘Thirteen,’ Lesh answered.

  The man leaned in conspiratorially and Lily and Lesh could see his greying hair and sprouting eyebrows close up. He looked a very fit and strong man for his age.

  ‘All this adult talk gets a bit boring,’ Frank Hawk said. ‘It makes you miss your family back home, so when I saw you I thought I’d come and say hi.’

  ‘What are your grandchildren called?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Mitch and Lena,’ Hawk replied, smiling like he really did miss them. ‘Listen, can I get you kids a drink? Two Cokes?’

  ‘Thanks,’ Lily and Lesh said together.

  The American stood and took his jacket off, putting it over the chair, then placed his hat on the table in front of them before heading over to the cafe.

  ‘Funny – he seems quite nice,’ Lesh said.

  ‘True,’ Lily agreed, slipping a tiny bugging device the size of a pin into the lip of the American’s hat. ‘Even though he’s a global warming denier.’

  Lesh supressed a laugh. Lily grinned and glanced over at the other three. She was pleased to see that they were talking to the other England players. It made them seem like they were more part of the team. They didn’t need suspicious questions like Georgia’s on top of trying to concentrate on the mission and playing football. Hatty was with Rio. The rest had their backs to her. Apart from Kester, who glanced back at Lily without changing his expression.

  Suddenly the American was coming back with two cans of Coke.

  ‘So tell me,’ he said, ‘what brings you to Norway? You’re English, right?’

  ‘Yes, we’re English,’ Lesh said. ‘We’re with the England youth team in a football tournament. We’re playing Canada, the USA and Norway.’

  ‘Yes, I know about that,’ the American said. ‘I’m looking forward to those soccer games. Hoping to see the USA win. But,’ he went on with a smile, ‘you don’t like it being called soccer, do you?’

  Lily laughed. ‘If that’s what you call it, it’s fine.’

  ‘Good,’ the American said, turning to Lesh. ‘Can I ask about you, son? You’re in the wheelchair. How do you have a role in the team? If you don’t mind me asking.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Lesh said, feeling good that the American was comfortable talking about his wheelchair: so many English people were too embarrassed to mention it. ‘I was in the team, but I had an accident earlier this year. Now I help with the coaching. Stuff like that.’

  ‘Good man,’ the American said. ‘You sound like the kind of guy I’d like to have on my team. Never give up.’

  Lesh grinned. Hawk seemed OK. So much so that it felt strange fishing for information, treating him like a possible enemy.

  ‘Are you here for the conference?’ Lily asked Hawk, testing to see how much information he might give away.

  ‘I am. I’m with the US party. Do you know all about the conference?’ Hawk asked, looking surprised.

  ‘A little bit,’ Lily improvised, trying to stay in character. ‘Someone explained to us who all the men in suits were. We knew you weren’t here for the tournament!’

  Hawk laughed. ‘True. Well, I’m here campaigning for my country. It’s not easy. So many countries arguing about who owns what under the ice. Especially the Russians. But better to talk like this than have a war about it, eh?’

  ‘I understand,’ Lily said. ‘Do you think you’ll all agree on the best thing?’

  ‘I do,’ the American said, glancing round the room. ‘There are difficulties, but we’ll work it out. For your generation. For you and my grandkids, eh?’ He paused again and looked at his watch. ‘You know, talking to you kids makes me want to call them. They’ll be home from school now.’

  The American lifted his jacket off the back of his chair and took his hat from the table. ‘I’m gonna take a walk by the water. Call home. Listen, it’s been lovely talking to you kids.’

  When the American had gone, Adnan, Kester and Hatty came over to the cafe, leaving Rio and Johnny standing near the lifts.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Hatty asked.

  Lily answered because Lesh was tuning in to the tracking device she’d slipped into Frank Hawk’s hat. She explained what had been said.

  ‘He was nice,’ she finished.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ Hatty said.

  ‘No, he really did seem …’

  Lesh held his hand up for silence so that he could hear the American well. ‘He’s talking to his grandkids,’ he said. ‘Asking them about their schoolwork, stuff like that.’

  ‘Seems like a normal man,’ Adnan suggested.

  ‘What did you make of him?’ Kester asked
Lesh in a low voice.

  ‘Friendly. Generous. Family man. Proud to be American. Like I said, a nice person. But he could still be the most evil man on the planet, I suppose.’

  Two hours later, back in Lesh’s room, the Squad were planning the next day, when Lesh, listening in, reported that the American was talking on his phone again. This time from his room. Everyone went quiet to allow him to listen. They watched Lesh’s expression drop from an interested smile to a deep frown. No one spoke when he put the headphones down.

  ‘He’s just called the White House,’ Lesh explained.

  ‘And?’ Hatty asked.

  ‘And he was talking to the President about a warhead, I think. A missing warhead. That there’s a threat … a possible threat to this conference. But that he doesn’t know how it will be delivered or by who. But that he thinks it’s the Russians.’

  TUESDAY

  Attack

  Morning in the Arctic Circle and the sun was already above the mountains, creating a low light that glittered off the fjords. But a keen, cool breeze took the edge off any warmth. The temperature had dropped overnight, colder air moving in from the north.

  Most of the England youth team were gathered in the hotel foyer, all in tracksuits with their kitbags in a pile against one of the walls, waiting for the bus that was due to take them over to the stadium. And the game against Canada.

  Georgia and two of the boys were missing. After a few minutes, Rio snapped.

  ‘Right. I’ll go and find them. I’ll see you in ten minutes. Here. Then we go. OK?’

  The rest of the team nodded and began to disperse. To the cafe. To the toilets.

  The Squad members drifted off too, deliberately one by one, making their way past UN soldiers who were stationed outside the hotel, guarding the conference. But soon the Squad were together again, gathered in a circle at the edge of the fjord by the conference hotel, next to a barrier made up of metre-high pieces of concrete that had been slotted together to protect the hotel from terrorist attack. The noises from the fjord and the air-conditioning units were useful: no one would be able to listen in on the Squad there.