by Chris Ryan
Still Sami refused. For a dreadful moment, Max thought the SAS team would open fire. But then he heard Hector bellowing across the hall. ‘Assault team, stand down! Assault team, stand down! That’s an order.’
The SAS men looked uncertainly at each other, but they followed the instruction and lowered their weapons. At the same time, the EOD guy shouted, ‘We’re clear! The device is neutralised. It’s safe to release the kill switch.’
Only then did Sami lower his weapon. He was breathing heavily and his shoulders were shaking. Max turned his attention to Abby and Lili. They were looking anxiously at each other. ‘You sure?’ Abby asked. ‘Now’s not a good time to make a mistake …’
The EOD man held up a wire leading from T7’s vest. ‘It’s disconnected,’ he said. ‘Trust me.’
Abby inclined her head, then nodded at Lili. Together they released the kill switch. Nothing happened.
Max exhaled slowly. He released T7’s arm. The terrorist had gone limp, as if all the fight had left him. Max moved his hand up to the terrorist’s balaclava. T7 didn’t fight when Max peeled it from his face.
T7 was young. Not much older than Max himself. There was a whisper of unshaved hair on his chin and cheeks. He was very pale.
Max became aware of Sami standing over them. ‘I hope you see your brother again,’ Max said quietly. ‘If you do, it’s him you have to thank.’ He pointed up at Sami.
T7 looked at them. A sneer crossed his face. He spat at Max.
Max stood up, shocked. One of the SAS guys pulled him and Sami back.
‘That’s gratitude for you,’ Max said.
‘It’s a normal response,’ the SAS man said, his voice muffled by his respirator mask. ‘In his head, he’s just lost a battle.’
‘But he’s still alive.’
‘And maybe, at some point in the future, he’ll be grateful for that. But right now, you’re his enemy. You need to get used to that.’
‘To having enemies?’
‘Right. In this line of work, we collect them like other people collect stamps.’
The SAS man was called away by one of his colleagues. Max and Sami looked around the hall. The dust had settled. More EOD men were swarming over the IEDs around the room. All the hostages had left. Medics had arrived and had surrounded Jack. The decoys were being helped up by armed police and military personnel. Max averted his eyes from the dead bodies on the floor.
The SAS team roughly pulled T7 from the ground, cuffed his hands behind his back and hustled him to the exit. The recruits gathered in a group, with Lili standing slightly apart, looking unsure what to do. Hector, Woody and Angel hurried up to them. If Hector was pleased with the outcome, he didn’t show it. Over the comms he’d been calm, even helpful. Now he looked like he was back to his old self.
‘You!’ He pointed at Sami. ‘Next time a four-man SAS unit are pointing their weapons in your direction, my advice is to drop your gun.’
Sami drew himself up to his full height. ‘Next time you want to kill a man who doesn’t need to be killed, my advice is to make sure I’m not in the way.’
‘I warned you about Stockholm Syndrome. You were weak.’
‘No, I was strong. I’ve seen too many people die.’
Hector looked like he was thinking of a reply. None came. He turned to Woody and Angel. ‘Get this lot back to Valley House,’ he said. ‘Now.’ He turned and strode out of the hall.
Woody winked at them. ‘You heard the man,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
Woody and Angel followed Hector to the exit. But the recruits lagged behind. They had all turned to Lili. Max guessed that they were thinking the same as him. Without her, they’d likely all be dead.
An armed policeman approached. ‘We need to get you out of here, missie,’ he told Lili.
Lili blinked at him. ‘Missie?’ she said incredulously. She rolled her eyes. The policeman looked embarrassed. Lili turned her back on him and awkwardly raised one hand at the recruits. ‘Er … bye then.’ The recruits nodded a farewell and watched as she was led in the direction of the door. But before she exited, she turned back to look at them. ‘Who are you?’ she said.
The recruits looked at each other. None of them knew what to say. In the end, it was Max who spoke. ‘We’re nobody,’ he said.
Lili gave him a disbelieving smile. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Well, nice to meet you, nobody,’ she said. ‘Maybe we can do it again someday.’ She looked around the room. ‘On second thoughts …’
She followed the policeman out of the hall via the kitchen. Max, Lukas, Abby and Sami followed Woody and Angel to the main exit. The hall was still swarming with military personnel, but their work here was done.
20
Train Hard, Fight Easy
Outside the school, it was chaos. Soldiers herded the hostages out of the school grounds towards some medical tents that had been set up in the street outside. There was shouting and tears. Sirens blared. A line of police officers struggled to keep families and journalists behind the cordon. There were several ambulances. Max saw Jack being carried into one of them on a stretcher bed.
They had less than a minute to take it all in. Woody and Angel ushered them hurriedly back into the white van that had brought them here. Max sensed that they didn’t want anybody on the outside to see them, or ask who they were.
The recruits wore haunted, shell-shocked expressions, as though they couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. They sat silently in the van as it pulled away from the school and left the area. The seat where Jack should have been sitting was noticeably empty. Although none of them spoke, they all, at some point, glanced at that empty seat. Max knew they were all thinking the same thing: it could have been any of them being stretchered into the ambulance.
‘Is he going to be okay?’ Lukas asked after they had been travelling for five minutes.
Woody and Angel looked at Hector, as if expecting him to reply. When he didn’t, Angel spoke. ‘We don’t know,’ she said. ‘But we don’t expect him to return to Valley House.’
There was a moment of quiet as they digested that news. The others looked as shocked as Max felt.
It was Abby who broke the silence. ‘So that’s me, Sami and Lukas on the team,’ she said. ‘Our five-person team is looking kind of depleted, wouldn’t you say?’ When none of the Watchers replied, she said, ‘If only we knew somebody else who was up to this kind of work, huh?’
They watched Hector. Were they thinking the same as Max: that he had been the most active member of their group during the siege? But if Hector intended to change his mind about him, he showed no sign of it. He stared impassively straight ahead.
‘Does anybody have anything to eat?’ Abby asked of nobody in particular.
Green Thunder was waiting for them at a different location: the central square of an army barracks, somewhere in the middle of London, Max didn’t know where. Its rotors were already turning as they exited the transit van. Although there was no longer any urgency, the recruits and their Watchers ran up the tailgate and took their usual places. They were airborne within minutes.
A vicious tiredness overcame Max. Uncomfortable though he was, strapped into the dirty, noisy aircraft, his head started to loll. He drowsed, disturbed by dreams of masked figures and screaming children. He felt like he had only been asleep for ten minutes when he was woken by the familiar jolt of the chopper’s landing gear touching the ground. His whole body ached with fatigue. It was a struggle to unclip himself, get to his feet and leave the aircraft.
It was dusk. The two sides of the valley were bathed in red light and the shadows were long. As the recruits trudged, exhausted, to their Nissen huts, Hector finally spoke. ‘There will be a badging ceremony for the successful cadets on the parade ground in ten minutes. You will each receive a Special Forces Cadets challenge coin. It’s a medallion bearing the SFC insignia. Keep it with you at all times. It can be hidden in a belt, a shoe or a watch and used to prove your identity, should that ever be necess
ary. Continuation training starts at 07:00 tomorrow. Get moving.’ As Lukas, Sami and Abby continued towards their huts, he said, ‘Not you, Max.’
Max watched the others go.
Hector walked up to him. ‘Follow me,’ he said.
‘If it’s all the same to you,’ Max said in a surly voice, ‘I’ve had a long day …’
‘Just do what I say, son.’
They walked in silence, side by side, to Valley House. Max had so many questions, but his fury at the unfairness of the situation had returned and he was too angry to ask anything. Hector could do the talking, if he wanted to.
Inside the house, they walked along the hallway. The photograph of the man who looked like Max appeared to watch them as they walked past him. Max felt a curious urge to stop and talk to the photograph, as though it was a real person. But he followed Hector who, to Max’s surprise, led him into the room on the left that he had scolded Max for entering a couple of days ago.
The room hadn’t changed. It was musty, the thick curtains still covered the window, and comfortable, squashy furniture was dotted all around. The painting still hung above the fireplace. They stood silently in front of it for thirty seconds, until Max couldn’t bear it any longer.
‘Is that my dad?’ he said, unable to suppress his questions. ‘R.E.J.?’
‘Reginald Alistair Johnson,’ Hector replied. ‘Reg to his mates, so Reg to me.’
‘I’ve always been told that he and my mum died in a house fire.’
‘That was the story that was circulated.’
‘So how …?’
‘Are you sure you want to know?’
‘Of course.’
‘Yeah, I suppose you would.’ He peered at Max and his craggy face seemed to soften slightly. ‘Sit down, Max.’
‘I don’t want to …’
‘Just sit down, mate. Please.’
Hector had never called him ‘mate’ before. It caught Max off guard. He took a seat on a nearby sofa. Hector remained standing. ‘I told you I served with your dad. There’s a bit more to it than that.’ He seemed to be having difficulty getting the words out. Max listened silently. ‘Reg was in Afghanistan. His commanding officer instructed him and his team to launch a night-time assault on an enemy compound. Reg was the first man over the wall. Turned out that the enemy were waiting for him. He was taken captive. The rest of his team were killed. Your mum, Maddy, was back in the UK. She was an army intelligence officer, looking after you on maternity leave. When Reg was taken, she left you with a friend and headed straight to Afghanistan. She’d operated there, you see. She thought she’d be able to help find him. And she did. She used her contacts to discover that he was being held in a cave system near the Pakistan border. The commanding officer launched a major operation to rescue your father. It failed. Reg was killed by enemy fire. So was Maddy.’
Max felt numb. In all the years he’d wondered about his parents, all those wakeful nights he’d spent picturing their deaths, he’d never imagined such a story.
‘It was all hushed up,’ Hector continued. ‘The public never get to hear about operations like that, especially when they go so badly wrong. Nothing in the papers, nothing on the news. As far as the man in the street was concerned, Reg and Maddy were written out of history.’
‘No photographs,’ Max said bitterly. The lack of photographs was nothing to do with a non-existent house fire after all.
‘Right.’ Hector nodded.
Max stared up at the painting. The painting stared back.
‘So why are there pictures of him here?’ he said. His voice cracked. ‘That’s him in the hallway, isn’t it? And this …’ He pointed up at the painting.
‘I was going to have them removed when I knew you were coming,’ Hector said. ‘But … it didn’t seem right. The Special Forces Cadets were Reg’s baby. He founded them. He trained up the early teams. He still operated out in the field – that’s why he was in Afghanistan – but he’s to the Special Forces Cadets what David Stirling was to the SAS. They wouldn’t exist without him. That’s why my superiors had their eye on you. That’s why they insisted on putting you through selection. It seems even they can be sentimental sometimes.’
Max stood up and stared at Hector. ‘And you’re really going to kick me out?’ he said.
‘I don’t need to kick you out,’ Hector replied. ‘You were never in.’
‘Then why did you bring me back up here?’ Max asked angrily.
Hector looked up at the painting again and inclined his head, as if taking leave of an old friend. ‘Come with me,’ he told Max.
Max was inclined to ignore him and to stay here with the picture of his father for a little longer. Indeed, he still stood there as Hector left the room. But curiosity overcame him and he hurried after the older man. Hector was halfway up the stairs when Max entered the hallway. He followed. A moment later he and Hector were in the room where Woody had briefed him when Max arrived at Valley House. The parade ground was visible through the tall windows, flooded by the setting sun. Hector was standing at an old oak desk, unlocking one of its drawers with a key. He pulled out a wooden box and handed it to Max.
‘Your father’s medals,’ he said. ‘Thought you’d like to have them before you leave. Also, some photographs of your mum and dad.’
Max took the box and opened it. He glanced cursorily at the medals inside. He was more interested in the photos. There were fifteen or twenty. Mostly they showed his mum and dad in military uniform, but there were a few of them on their wedding day. A couple of them looking relaxed by a pool on holiday. The one that bit at his heart the most was of his mum holding baby Max, his dad’s arm around her shoulders.
He felt himself welling up, but then steeled himself to continue his conversation with Hector. He put the box back on the table.
‘Is there an SFC challenge coin in there?’
Hector nodded.
‘Guess that’s the only way I’ll ever get my hands on one then.’
Hector shrugged.
‘I did well today,’ Max said.
‘Yes, you did,’ Hector replied.
‘If I hadn’t been on that team, hundreds of people would have died. Lukas, Sami, Abby, Jack … they weren’t in a position to help.’
‘No, they weren’t.’
‘And that doesn’t change your mind?’
The question hung in the air. Hector seemed to have no answer. He walked over to the window and looked out over the parade ground. From his position by the desk Max could see Woody and Angel waiting for the other recruits.
‘I remember the first badging ceremony,’ Hector said. ‘Your father presented the first team of Special Forces Cadets with their challenge coins. Of the original five, three are dead. Killed on operations before the age of seventeen.’ He turned to look at Max again. ‘Don’t take it so hard, son. Life as a Special Forces Cadet is uniquely dangerous. Ask Jack.’
‘I don’t need to ask Jack,’ Max fumed. ‘I was there, remember? Disarming the bombs, fronting up to the terrorists …’
‘And yesterday, you failed selection. Those tests were created by your dad, Max. They were designed to identify the most capable candidates. The candidates most suited for the kind of operations the Special Forces Cadets will be sent on. The candidates most likely to stay alive.’
‘But today –’
‘Today you did well. Yesterday you failed an exercise because you tripped on a piece of paracord. Special Forces Cadets have to be at the top of their game every day.’ He turned his back on Max and looked out of the window again. ‘Green Thunder will return you to Newcastle this evening. We won’t meet again.’
The conversation was over. That much was clear. Max looked at the box on the table. He almost didn’t take it. Somehow he felt that the medals would just be a reminder of a life that could never be his. But he knew he would regret not taking the photos. He scooped up the box and headed to the door.
He was halfway there when he stopped.
‘I never told you it was paracord,’ he said quietly.
There was no reply.
Max turned. Hector was still looking out of the window at the parade ground, where the sun was setting.
‘I told you I tripped,’ he said. ‘That was all.’
‘You’re mistaken,’ Hector said. But he sounded unsure.
‘No, I’m not. There was a length of paracord stretched between two trees, and one of Lukas’s chewing-gum wrappers on the ground. I decided not to mention it because I didn’t want to grass on Lukas.’ Max narrowed his eyes. ‘But you already know that, don’t you? Don’t you?’
Hector neither replied nor moved.
‘Why did you do it?’ Max breathed. ‘Why did you set me up to fail?’
When there was still no reply, Max approached the window. ‘You’ve been critical of me from the moment we met. Putting me down. Telling me I can’t do stuff, that I’m not good enough. But I am good enough. So what’s the problem, Hector? Why did you decide I wasn’t going to make it from the moment you set eyes on me? Why did you set up that paracord trap and make it look like Lukas did it?’
Through the window, he could see Lukas, Sami and Abby walking onto the parade ground. He could also hear a helicopter. He didn’t stop to wonder what it was. All his attention was on Hector. The older man turned to face him. His face was bathed red in the glow of the setting sun. His eyes were watery. When he spoke, his voice sounded unnaturally thin.
‘The commanding officer who sent your dad on that night-time assault? The guy who led the rescue mission with your mother?’ He looked at the floor. ‘That was me. I sent Reg to his death. I led Maddy to hers.’ He stared out of the window again.
The others were standing in a line. The helicopter sound was louder.
‘I was given six months’ leave. The first thing I did when I got back to England was come and see you. You were five months old. I tried to adopt you, but as a single man, and a soldier …’ He shook his head. ‘It was never going to happen. I’ve checked up on you over the years, Max. Watched you from a distance when you were walking home from school or wandering around town. I never made contact because I didn’t want to make your life more complicated or confusing. But I made a promise to myself to keep an eye on Reg and Maddy’s kid. Make sure you didn’t come to any harm.’ He looked at Max again. ‘You saw what happened to Jack,’ he said. ‘He’s lucky to be alive, and that could have been any of you. How could I honour my promise to keep you safe, and at the same time let you join the Special Forces Cadets? When my superiors insisted on bringing you into selection, I decided there was no way I could be responsible for another member of your family putting their life on the line.’