The Battle Ground Series: Books 1-3

by Rachel Churcher

  “Stick with it, Bex”, she says, stirring the pan. “One day you’ll be glad you did.”

  I pull the plates from the cupboard and start laying the kitchen table for dinner.

  “Six places tonight. Neesh is coming.”

  I pull out the extra plate, and go searching for something for her to sit on.

  *****

  “And then Neesh started shouting, and I couldn’t work out what the problem was …”

  “… until you drove into the bin bag …”

  “… and the whole world turned white!”

  Neesh is laughing, and Dan is waving his hands over his plate.

  “The charity shop put out an old beanbag or something, out by the bins, and Dan turned it into a polystyrene snowstorm. Credit to him – he did switch on the windscreen wipers pretty quickly, but the service road’s a mess.”

  “So we should send Dan ahead with a distraction car, driving into bins and fire hydrants and fruit stalls, while the rest of us sneak out and let Charlie drive?”

  “Just like in a film!”

  “That could work! Dan – how do you feel about going out in a blaze of distracting glory?”

  We’re all laughing, but there’s an edge to the laughter. We all know how close we might be to the truth, how futile this might turn out to be.

  Neesh eats the last of her meal, puts her cutlery down, and leans her elbows on the table as the laughter dies.

  “So. I need to ask you all something.”

  No one’s laughing now. Neesh looks down at table.

  “Our … superiors … they’d like to know some more about you. More than you’ve told them already.” She pauses, but nobody says anything. “Things they might be able to use to our advantage.”

  “Like what?” Jake says, eventually. His voice is cold, defensive.

  Neesh shakes her head. “I’m not sure. Things that might be useful.”

  We sit in silence round the table, the laughter vanished.

  Charlie looks round at us. She lays her hand on my arm. “I know that the resistance has taken us in. Undoubtedly saved our lives. And we’re grateful – and we want to help. But these kids,” she holds her hand out at the four of us. “These kids have been through hell. They’ve witnessed things that will never leave them, and don’t forget that they didn’t all get out alive. They’ve been used by the government. They’ve been sent out in public, to put an acceptable face on the anti-terrorism effort. They had their faces on TV while the government committed atrocities behind their backs. And with respect, they didn’t get out of Camp Bishop just to be used by the other side.

  “So if the resistance wants more from us, we need to have a conversation about what that means.”

  Neesh nods. “Fair enough.” She turns to the rest of the table. “What about the rest of you? Is there anything you think they should know? Anything they could use?”

  My thoughts are racing. I look at the others round the table.

  “Are they looking for sob stories?” Amy sounds angry. “Real-life bravery, that sort of thing? The terrible things we’ve seen and survived?”

  Neesh shrugs. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”

  “Propaganda,” says Dan. “Stories from the resistance. That’s what they’re after?”

  “Wouldn’t hurt. Escaped recruits being brave and heroic. They could use stuff like that.”

  Amy shakes her head. “Don’t they understand? Our friend died at the bunker. Our friend!” She’s shouting, suddenly, leaning over the table, half out of her seat. “He didn’t want to be there either. He didn’t volunteer for camp, or for training. But he volunteered when it mattered. And he was killed for being our guard.” Dan puts his hand on her arm, but she shakes him off. “That was brave. That was heroic. But you know what? That’s his story, and our story. It’s not a sentimental fiction. It’s real and it’s bloody and it hurts.” She sits back on her packing crate, tears in her eyes. Her voice is quiet. “It hurts, and they can’t have it.”

  Jake takes her hand, and she grasps it, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  “Kills,” says Dan, looking Neesh in the eye. “Would they like to know about who we’ve killed?”

  Neesh looks away.

  “I’ll start. I killed two guards at Makepeace Farm. Shot them at point-blank range through the soft parts of their armour. I took their weapons, and I walked away. No idea who they were.” He shrugs. “They might have had children. Husbands. Wives. They might have been someone’s favourite auntie, or captain of their football team. Didn’t stop me. I shot them to protect this lot, and get us out of the bunker alive.”

  Neesh shakes her head, one hand held up. “There’s no need to …”

  She’s going to ignore Dan. She’s going to ignore what Amy said. She doesn’t get it.

  “There is, though, Neesh,” I say, trying to stay calm. “The thing is, this is who we are. You don’t get to be heroic without getting your hands dirty. If they want the heroic stuff, they have to take the scary stuff, and the uncomfortable stuff, too. It’s a package.

  “We wouldn’t be here if Dan hadn’t shot those guards. We wouldn’t be here if Jake hadn’t fought off Ketty and her friend in the woods. That might be two kills for Jake – we don’t know. We didn’t stand around keeping score.

  “There’s no time to think that way when you’re facing the barrel of a gun. You do what you need to do, and you get away. Heroism is an idea that lets other people understand our actions. Shooting someone isn’t heroic. It’s scary, and it’s cruel, and it’s messy.”

  Jake is nodding. Dan is looking at his plate. Amy is staring at the ceiling, blinking away tears.

  “What I’m saying is that our stories, our pain and fear and violence – they’re not for other people to use. They’re ours, to live with, every day, forever. They’re not propaganda. They’re not for sale.”

  “Yeah,” says Amy, quietly. “Not for sale.”

  Charlie looks round the table, and makes sure we’ve all finished talking before she turns to Neesh.

  “You heard them. These are sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. Ask your superiors to back off, and rethink what they want from us.” She leans back. “We’re happy to help, really. But not like this. We’re not here to be used as pretty faces for the resistance.”

  *****

  “Headline news on the Public Information Network again!” Dan sounds happy, as if he’s beaten a record or a personal best. “They need to find some new photos, though.” He squints at the TV. “I swear they looked for the worst photos they could find, just to embarrass us into giving ourselves up.”

  “Except Bex,” says Amy. “Yours is good.” She turns to me. “You look all brave and serious.”

  I know this is just gallows humour, keeping our minds off the reality of being wanted terrorists, but I can’t answer. I feel sick. That’s my face, on the news. The photo of me from the patrol in Birmingham. Armour on, helmet off, gun combat-ready in my hands. Dan’s right – we’ve been headline news since we arrived here, but it doesn’t get any easier. The others are laughing it off, pretending that they don’t care, but I can’t forget that the people watching want us dead, or tortured, or shot to pieces on live TV.

  Me, and my friends. The people I haven’t lost yet. And that photo – the photo I was ordered to pose for. The photo I hate. Amy’s right – I do look serious. I look proud, as if I believe in the uniform I’m wearing. In the people who were destroying Leominster while the photographer was pressing his button.

  I shake my head and curl myself further into the corner of the sofa.

  We’re in the living room, watching PIN as we do every night. Dan and Jake sleep in here, on camp beds against the walls, but every evening we all crowd in and sit on the beds and on the tiny sofa, and watch the news. We need to know who’s been caught. We need to know if we’re still the nation’s favourite fugitives.

  The newsreader moves on to the next story, and we’re watching another firing squad. Three prisoners
in orange jumpsuits, handcuffed and standing on a platform in front of a cheering crowd. I close my eyes as the gunfire sounds, hiding my face in my hands.

  “Anyone we know?” Asks Charlie. She sounds exhausted. We do this every night, and every night we’re checking the faces of the prisoners, looking for the people we’ve lost. Looking for Will and his soldiers. Looking for Margie and Dr Richards.

  “Don’t think so. Not tonight.” Dan sounds tired.

  And I can’t shake the idea that one day it’ll be one of us on the screen. One of us taking a bullet for the cameras.

  Profiles

  Ketty

  Another morning in the office, and I’m going over the files from Camp Bishop. Franks wants to know who our missing recruits are, so I need to put together profiles. See if we can figure out what they’re likely to do next. Pull out the weak points in their little group, and see if there’s anything we can use to catch them.

  Top of the pile is Saunders. Mr Sleepy. I can’t help smiling as I push his file to the far side of the desk. I can still see the look of surprise on his face as I put a bullet in his chest. The feeling of power, and the shaky, sickening knowledge that I couldn’t take it back. Saunders is irrelevant to this investigation. His friends left him behind at the bunker, and they’ve moved on without him. He’s a footnote. A distraction from the task of finding them.

  Jake’s file is next. Taylor. Another recruit I’ve stolen from Ellman. I’m smiling again, thinking about his anger – his desperation when Ellman left him behind, Bracken holding a gun to his head.

  “I want to see Bex and Dan burn in hell.”

  Everything is personal for Taylor. Hatred for Ellman, after joining her gang on day one at camp. He couldn’t forgive her betrayal. And he couldn’t forgive me, either. I can’t suppress a shiver as I remember dragging myself into the woods at Makepeace Farm, my knee exploding with pain, and Taylor on the path behind me, demanding the chance to kill me. There’s anger here – maybe enough to pull the group apart. Maybe enough to bring us Ellman.

  I turn the pages of his record. He and Amy Brown were at school together. It seems they’ve known each other all their lives. Even more interesting that it was Amy who held him back in the woods. Amy who saved my life, and theirs. And Amy who stayed loyal to Ellman, even when the rest of the group drove away without her. Brown and Taylor might be friends, but they’re on opposite sides of the cult of Bex.

  Is Taylor alone in his hatred of Mummy Ellman? Or does anyone else hold a grudge?

  I track down the report of Taylor’s detention in the empty dorm. We didn’t make a record of the actions that put him there, but I can see the barrel of his gun, levelled at me across the training field. The butt of his rifle smashing into another recruit’s face. The smile he gave me as Jackson restrained him.

  I make a note that Taylor is dangerous. Unpredictable. Someone to watch. And possibly exactly what we need.

  Do something stupid, Taylor. Make my day.

  Next file. Amy Brown, the try-hard good-little-girl of the group. When Ellman helped her on the assault course, she was grateful and loyal. She stuck with Ellman’s followers, even when they left her at camp. She never lost faith that Ellman would come back for her, in some fantasy rescue. I don’t know what she expected – unicorns? Magic carpets? What she got was the raid on the coach that put me in hospital and Jackson in the High Dependency Ward, tubes and wires keeping him alive. Brown and Taylor walked away unharmed and left Jackson bleeding in the road.

  Amy never gave up on Ellman. Even when she’d been left at camp, she picked herself up, found a new set of friends, and kept her head down. She kept her anger to herself, and she convinced herself that Ellman would come back for her.

  And she was right.

  Amy isn’t fit, or confident, or particularly bright. The school report in her file describes an average student. But she’s loyal, and trusting, and she’ll fight for her friends. I’d never have listed her as a problem recruit when she arrived at Camp Bishop, but in partnership with Ellman and her friends, she could be very dangerous. She’s not a figurehead, like Ellman. She’s not a maverick or a planner. But pushed into a corner, she’ll defend the group.

  I note her loyalty, and I note her devotion to Ellman. She’s someone we’ll need out of the way if this comes to a fight, and she’s not going to have inside information for us. A smirk crosses my face as I designate her ‘shoot to kill’.

  Let’s see where devotion to Ellman gets you when your backs are against the wall.

  *****

  Bracken comes back from an early meeting with Franks, two cups of coffee in his hands. He puts one down on my desk, and watches me.

  “Any progress?”

  “I think so, Sir.” I wave a hand at my page of notes. “Some useful insights into the Ellman Inner Circle.”

  “Good.” He nods, and sips his drink. “And Jackson?”

  “No change, Sir.” I keep my voice steady. Another day on life support. Another day with no improvement.

  Bracken nods again.

  “I’ll be in my office.” He turns to leave. “Oh – and Ketty? We’re in on the Richards interrogation. Franks is sending us to work with Brigadier Lee on getting Richards to talk. It should be later this week.”

  Bracken might not be on the Terrorism Committee yet, but this is a sign that the people in charge trust him with their secrets.

  “That’s good news. Thank you, Sir.”

  *****

  The next file belongs to Charlotte Mackenzie, 43. Kitchen Supervisor at Camp Bishop. I’m expecting an employment contract, maybe a CV, but I’m not expecting the police report.

  A history of subversive activity. Interesting.

  She was caught defacing government property. I can’t work out why she’s not in prison, so I flick through the report to find the details of her crime. Defacing posters, spray-painting anti-government slogans. Vandalism on government billboards. Not very clever, and it seems she took the blame when there must have been a group of people working with her. This was an organised protest, but somehow Mackenzie was the only one arrested.

  Another loyal hero. Just what Ellman needs to keep the group together.

  The Camp Bishop job kept her out of prison. I can’t help laughing when I realise that she was a prisoner on our base, and that her sentence was cooking our meals every day. Managing the food, managing the kitchen staff, cleaning up after the recruits. I check her CV, and before her arrest, she worked at a very expensive restaurant.

  And now she’s on the run, with Ellman and the rest. Not for the first time, I wonder what it is about Bex Ellman that makes people follow her. Brown told me that Ellman is kind and good, and apparently that was enough for her. Maybe it’s enough for the rest of them as well.

  Mackenzie’s a wild card. She has a history of anti-government action, and she’s clearly found a kindred spirit in Ellman. But I haven’t trained her. I haven’t seen what she can do in a battlefield scenario. She might know more than the recruits about what’s going on in the terrorist organisation, but if she took the fall for the last group she worked with, she’s not likely to break ranks and give up a bunch of kids.

  I think about her designation. We don’t know what role she plays in the group, and we don’t know what her connections are. Her record suggests that she’s as idealistic as the recruits, and I’m sure she’ll stick with them if it comes down to a fight. Plus the government won’t want to parade her on TV if she’s already worked against them and got away with it. She has to be ‘shoot to kill’.

  I push her file to one side and open the next in the pile.

  Dan Pearce. Posh-shabby good-looking Dan. His photo shows a harmless-looking blue-eyed private-school boy. Confident without being full of himself. A good all-round student, and a good recruit.

  What are you doing, risking everything for someone like Ellman?

  And I remember my conversation with Amy, after the group drove out of camp in a stolen truck. She said t
hat Bex and Dan knew each other from school – and that they knew the prisoner we caught at Camp Bishop. There’s a connection there. Are they just good friends, or is there something more going on? Could we use Dan to get to Ellman?

  Everything we’ve seen so far suggests that Dan and Bex will be loyal to each other. But if I can split them apart? If I can use one to get to the others?

  I designate Dan ‘capture alive’. I think he knows what happened at Camp Bishop, before the breakout, and I think he knows what the group is planning now. It would be a shame to waste that.

  Besides, I have a score to settle with Dan. He’s the one who shot me, and he’s the one who shot Jackson. He’s the reason Jackson isn’t here. And he’s the reason I’m in constant pain. I’d like a few minutes alone with Dan before Lee makes him disappear into the cells.

  Last file. Bex Ellman. Cult leader for this unlikely group.

  Mummy Ellman, who looks after hard-luck cases. Helps other kids with the obstacle course. Rescues injured recruits. And never, ever gets the message that she’s supposed to work alone. She’d be a good recruit, if she could learn to let the losers lose.

  What did Amy say? “She’s kind, she’s good, and she cares about us.”

  I can’t help rolling my eyes at the memory of that conversation. Strength, determination, and a gun will get you further than kindness and goodness when we track you down, Ellman. Can you protect your followers? Can you raise a weapon to defend them? And will they raise weapons to defend you?

  I’d like to find out.

  I add ‘capture alive’ to the end of my notes. I’d like a few minutes alone with Ellman, too.

  Hostility

  Bex

  We’re driving again. This time Amy’s in the front seat, and I’m watching from the back. Charlie is instructing, and we’re driving up and down the service road, as usual. Amy’s managed two three-point turns in the turning circle at the end, and Charlie’s trying to make sure she knows the width of the car. Each time we drive up and down, she’s nudging Amy closer and closer to the bins at the kerb. She wants us to know exactly how close we can get to obstacles without touching them. One day we might need to know. One day it might save our lives.