False Flag (Battle Ground YA UK Dystopia Series Book 2)

by Rachel Churcher

  Footsteps in the corridor. Woods appears at the door.

  “Your turn,” he says, and leads us to the prisoner’s room. There’s a chair outside for a welfare officer to sit on and monitor the prisoner, but there’s no one sitting here, and there’s no one else in the corridor. The door at the far end slams shut as we follow Woods into the room.

  She’s got a room that would usually sleep four. There’s a bed, a mattress, a table, and a chair. Plenty of space to work with. She’s sitting on the chair, with the table in front of her, wearing muddy camouflage trousers and a regulation khaki T-shirt. The commander is right – she does look like one of the recruits. 17 or 18, shoulder-length dark hair, tall and slim. Sitting up straight in the chair. Confident.

  Posh.

  “These are my best recruits,” says the commander. “I’m going to leave you with them for …” he checks his watch “… five minutes.” He nods to us, and to Woods, and the two of them leave the room and close the door.

  Jackson and I look at each other. I hold up a hand to stop him jumping straight in.

  I address the prisoner. “Will you answer the commander’s questions?”

  She doesn’t move. She sits, straight in her chair, her eyes fixed on the opposite wall.

  “You’re sure?” I try again. No response.

  I shrug, and turn to Jackson.

  He walks round behind her, lifts his foot, and kicks the table way. It tumbles, and slides across the floor. I step back to avoid it.

  She flinches, slightly, but she doesn’t move.

  Jackson smacks his fist into his palm, right next to her ear. She doesn’t react.

  I step towards her.

  When she moves, she’s fast. She kicks the chair backwards as she stands up, catching Jackson in the stomach. She twists out of his reach and puts her back against the wall, hands up in front of her in a martial arts pose.

  Great. She has training.

  But there are two of us.

  I step towards her, my fists raised, and she takes the bait. She turns to face me, ready to defend herself.

  But she lets Jackson out of her sight.

  He reaches out, grabs her wrist, and twists her arm behind her back. She’s bent over, punching behind her with her free arm, her attention fixed on Jackson, but she’s punching the air. I step forward and land a kick on her shins that sweeps her legs out from under her. She pitches forward, and nearly breaks her nose as she hits the floor.

  Jackson’s on her back in a heartbeat, pinning both arms behind her, his knee in the small of her back. She’s fighting to keep her head up, and fighting to breathe.

  I pause, and watch for a moment as I realise what it means to have one of the terrorists in our hands. One of the people who’ve been planting the bombs and messing up the country. She represents everything we’ve been fighting against, everything we’ve been training for, and she’s entirely at our mercy.

  Without thinking, I aim another kick. This one connects with her forehead, just above her eye, and breaks the skin.

  I kneel down, next to her on the floor. I want to tell her how pathetic she is. How evil the terrorists are. How they’re not going to win.

  But that’s not my job. I take a deep breath, grab a handful of her hair, and pull her face up from the floor.

  “Are you ready to talk yet?”

  She rolls her eyes, and stares past me.

  I let go of her hair. Her head drops and her chin hits the floor. When she lifts her head again, her bottom lip is split and bleeding.

  “How about now?”

  She laughs, blood spraying from her lip.

  I look at Jackson. He looks down, grabs her by the shoulder, and flips her over onto her back. Her head cracks against the floor, and her legs are tangled behind him. He kneels over her, and suddenly this is like a dance. We’ve done this before. We know these moves.

  I reach over, take her arms, and pull them up over her head. I kneel on her elbows, press down on her shoulders, and flash Jackson a grin. He grins back, and throws a punch at her ribs.

  There’s a rhythm to this. He punches, she gasps, I hold her still. The feeling of power is back, intoxicating. Like Ellman, she’s quiet. Just a winded breath with every punch. Unlike Ellman, her eyes are open, staring past me at a point on the ceiling. Staring through me.

  It’s unnerving.

  There’s a knock on the door. I realise with surprise that I have no idea how long we’ve been in here.

  The door opens, and the commander’s voice is loud in the bare room.

  “Get her up on the chair.”

  Woods walks into the room and picks up the chair and the table, setting them back on their feet.

  Jackson and I stand up, and lift the prisoner between us, one arm each. We sit her back on the chair, and pull the table in front of her. She slumps forwards, curling protectively round her bruised ribs, forehead on the tabletop.

  Bracken steps forward and kicks the table. She lifts her head, and looks at him through a curtain of tangled hair. The graze on her forehead is starting to bleed, and blood from her lip is smudged across her chin.

  “Ready to talk?”

  With obvious discomfort, she sits up straight again in the chair, and sets her gaze on the far wall, silent.

  Jackson lifts his fists and steps towards the table, but Bracken holds up his hand.

  “Enough. Thank you, recruits. You are dismissed.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  We turn to leave the room. I take one last look at the prisoner, and there’s a fraction of a second when I meet her gaze as I walk past. Her face is calm, and she doesn’t flinch when I look directly at her. It’s as if we haven’t touched her at all.

  Missing

  Commander Bracken sends us to help the camp staff in the recruits’ dining room. We’re handling assignments and answering questions from the kids. We’re waiting for the army to contact us with a list of the skills and training they need from the Armed Auxiliaries, and in the meantime we’re drawing up lists of recruits and their abilities.

  The tiny fighters are piling their armour crates and rucksacks in the corner of the dining room, ready to be sent out if the army needs them. The vehicles in the car park outside are being loaded with supplies. The kitchen staff are all busy carrying crates and loading trucks, and the other Senior Recruits are helping them.

  All the doors in the dorm have been propped open, and the noise from the corridor and from outside is loud and distracting. The Commander joins us, with a list of requirements from the army. He’s recovered his air of calm authority since our conversation last night, and since our encounter with the prisoner. He seems to know what needs to be done, but the camp looks like an ant nest that’s been poked with a stick, and whatever is going on in the car park looks like chaos.

  I’m trying to concentrate on the paperwork in front of me over the shouting from outside when the alarm whistle sounds. Three whistles, from the direction of the empty dorm. Everyone looks up, as the guard and the welfare officer from the prisoner’s dorm come sprinting across the field towards us.

  “The prisoner is missing!” The guard’s shout cuts through the noise from the car park.

  Three more blasts on the whistle, and more shouting.

  “Ketty, Jackson – guns, outside, now.”

  Bracken runs to the door, shouting to us and pointing at the recruits’ armour crates. We’re lifting crates, spilling them all over the floor and pulling out guns for each other as he runs out to the car park. We keep going through the crates until we find two guns with bullets in the magazines. I take the safety off as we run out of the building.

  There’s the sound of a truck engine starting, and we’re outside in time to see one of the vehicles driving straight across the grass between the car park and the gate. One of the back doors is hanging open, and someone in a kitchen uniform is reaching out to close it while the truck lurches away from us. The driver is revving the engine, and the wheels are ploughing up the
grass, but the truck is moving.

  The passenger gets a grip on the door handle and pulls it towards them, looking back at us for a second before they close it.

  And I recognise Ellman. Ellman in a kitchen uniform, breaking out of camp in a stolen vehicle.

  It’s absurd. For a moment, I doubt what I’ve seen, but then I see two of her little friends at the gate. Amy Brown is chatting to the guards, while Jake Taylor is quietly opening the gate behind them. They’re in their own uniforms, but they’re both wearing rucksacks. Are they expecting to get away as well?

  And who else is in the truck? Who is driving the truck?

  “Stop them! Use force if you have to!” The Commander is shouting at us, and waving us towards the gate. I sprint along the gravel path as the gate guards realise what’s happening. They restrain Brown, who screams at the truck as it drives past, but it doesn’t stop.

  There are too many people on the path, and Jackson and I have to push them out of the way, shouting as we run. We finally get a clear shot as the truck straightens up and aims for the gates. Taylor has opened one gate, and the other is unlocked.

  “Take the shot!” Bracken is behind us, running down the path.

  We raise our guns and aim for the back of the truck. Bullets holes erupt in the tailgate, and the back window smashes, but the driver doesn’t slow down.

  Bracken sprints up to me, grabbing my gun as he passes.

  The truck smashes through the remaining gate, and the tyres squeal as it turns into the lane. Brown and Taylor are watching in disbelief as the truck speeds away from them. The commander reaches the gates, throws his arm round Taylor’s neck in a restraining hold, and presses the gun to his head, turning to make sure the driver can see what he’s doing.

  But the truck doesn’t stop. The driver speeds away along the lane, away from the bypass, and disappears into the trees.

  Questions

  “Why didn’t we see this coming?”

  The commander’s face is red with fury. He leans his fists on his desk and shouts at me and Jackson, standing to attention in front of it.

  “What did we miss? Three recruits, driven out from under our noses. But not just three recruits – oh, no. They managed to smuggle out our extremely valuable prisoner. Our only link with the terrorists in this area. A prisoner who walked herself into camp, got herself captured, sat in silence for two days, and got herself beaten up just spirited herself away with three of our recruits as accessories. Not to mention my kitchen supervisor, who was apparently driving the truck.

  “So what did we miss? What the hell just happened in my camp? Ketty? Lead Recruit? Any ideas?”

  I shake my head. I’m still trying to piece it all together.

  The prisoner escaped. Ellman and her gang had something to do with it. I have no idea why the kitchen supervisor was involved, and I can’t figure out how the prisoner roped the recruits into her plan.

  The only leads we have are Brown and Taylor.

  “Let me talk to the kids we’ve locked up. Let me see if they can tell us what happened.” It’s all I can think of to do.

  The commander flings his hands into the air in frustration, and sits down in his chair. He rests his forehead on his knuckles and closes his eyes.

  “We need to know”, he says, quietly, “who cooked up this plan. Who decided to get the prisoner out. How our missing recruits had any contact with the prisoner. And why my very grown-up and responsible kitchen supervisor was at the wheel of that truck.”

  “Sir, I …”

  He waves his hand at me.

  “Yes, Ketty. Permission granted. Interrogate the recruits. Just … don’t damage them. I have to report this to HQ. They’re going to be all over it, and they’re going to want to talk to the kids as well. Let’s not hand them children with bruises all over them.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  *****

  Brown and Taylor are in the empty dorm, locked in separate rooms. The commander escorts me into the building, and leaves me with the off-duty gate guards. Everyone he can spare is guarding the prisoners, and the camp is on lockdown until we can work out what happened. The recruits have been sent back to their dorms, and Bracken is controlling the chaos and waiting for answers before he passes this up the chain of command.

  Time to get tough, Ketty. Show them what you can do.

  I start with Brown. She’s more likely to talk.

  We sit in her room, facing each other across the table. The guards have taken her rucksack and her boots, and she’s still handcuffed, hands resting in her lap. She’s crying. Her eyes are red and puffy, and the neck of her T-shirt is damp with tears at the collar.

  I sit in silence, and let her worry about what I’m here to do. She sobs quietly, looking down at the table.

  “So.”

  She looks up at me, startled.

  “Recruit Brown.”

  “S… Sir!” She manages, between sobs.

  “There seems to have been some excitement this morning. Care to tell me about it?”

  She chokes back more tears, and closes her eyes. Shakes her head, slowly.

  My fists are balled in my lap. If I could use them, this would be so much easier.

  You don’t know how lucky you are that Commander Bracken has a conscience when it comes to his precious recruits.

  “We’ll try some easy questions, then. Who was in charge of your little gang this morning?”

  More sobbing.

  “Whose idea was it to drive away with the prisoner?”

  Tears. Head shaking. I punch a fist into the palm of my hand under the table. She looks up at the sound, the colour draining out of her cheeks.

  “Whose idea?”

  She stares blankly at me.

  “Was it Ellman?”

  There’s a pause, and then she nods.

  “Thank you, Amy. This will be so much easier if you just tell me what I need to know.”

  She nods again, fighting back more tears. Getting somewhere.

  “Let’s try another question. Who was the prisoner?”

  She shrugs.

  “Some friend of Bex and Dan,” she whispers. I have to lean forward to hear her.

  I shift forward in my seat. This is interesting.

  “So Bex and Dan knew the prisoner from before?”

  “Yes.”

  The posh kids know each other. Could they have come from the same place?

  “From school?”

  She nods. “Maybe.”

  “Amy, how did Bex and Dan know she was here?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Do you know how they made contact?”

  She takes a few deep breaths, and calms herself.

  “I think Bex snuck into her room.”

  Ellman did what? I can’t help shaking my head in surprise.

  “You’re saying that Bex came in here, past the guards, and talked to the prisoner?”

  “I think so.”

  “When was this, Amy?”

  “I don’t know”, she says, and the sobbing starts again.

  I’m trying to think this through. The prisoner arrived on Sunday night. When did Ellman have the chance to break into the dorm, past the guard and the Welfare Officer, and talk to her?

  “Amy – did Bex have help from someone? Someone at camp?”

  She takes a moment to answer.

  “I think maybe her friend from the kitchen.” She’s whispering again.

  “Ellman’s friend?”

  She nods, slowly, and dashes tears away from her face with the back of one handcuffed hand.

  This makes no sense. How did Ellman make a friend in the kitchen? She’s the last person I’d expect to go partying with the staff. Was she playing mother to someone on the camp staff as well?

  Or has she found someone to mother her?

  “Amy. This is very important. Is Ellman’s friend the kitchen supervisor? The older woman?”

  The one who was driving the truck.

  She’s nod
ding quickly.

  “They meet up in the evenings. They sit outside. By the kitchen.”

  Ellman’s evening walks. That’s where she was going, after visiting Sleepy.

  “So she helped Bex get in here, and she’s the one who drove the truck this morning?”

  “Yes.” She’s whispering again.

  “So what was the plan? You were supposed to go with them?”

  And the tears come flooding back.

  Of course you were supposed to go with them. You weren’t expecting to be sitting here, talking to me. You were expecting to be out there – what? Joining the rebels? Getting the prisoner home safely? Earning good behaviour points with Mummy Ellman?

  “What was the plan, Amy?”

  I don’t have time for more tears. I smack my fist into the table to attract her attention. She looks up, a look of terror spreading across her tear-streaked face.

  “What. Was. The. Plan?” I thump the table with every word.

  She shakes her head, aggressively.

  “I don’t know!” She shouts at me, her voice raw. “I don’t know! OK?”

  “You were helping, and you were planning to leave with them, and you don’t know where you were going?”

  “No.” Her voice is quiet again.

  Mummy Ellman cast her spell over you, didn’t she?

  “So let me make sure I understand this. Ellman came to you, and said ‘My friend is being held prisoner, and my other friend is going to help us escape. Can you distract the gate guards for us? Don’t worry – we’ll stop on our way out and take you with us.’ And you said ‘yes’. You didn’t say ‘Where are we going, Bex?’ You didn’t say ‘Who is the prisoner?’ You didn’t even say ‘Why are we doing this?’ You said ‘Yes, Bex – and can I lick your boots while I’m here?’”

  The sarcasm might be obvious, but it feels good, and it’s having an effect.

  She puts her elbows on the table, and her head in her handcuffed hands.

  I can’t help myself.

  “What is it? What is it about Ellman that makes you all follow her around like puppies?”

  She shakes her head again.