Black Op

by Tom Palmer

Then Lily’s voice came over the radio. ‘Going in.’

  This was exactly as they’d planned. The three above would direct the two below.

  ‘Move north-east-east, keeping low,’ Kester whispered.

  They could see Lily and Adnan crawling in the dark towards the wooden shack.

  ‘Let’s worry about our exit strategy later,’ Kester whispered. ‘We need to get Lily and Adnan in and out. Everything else is secondary to that.’

  Hatty nudged Kester. ‘What?’ he whispered, worried one of the men was coming out.

  ‘There,’ Hatty said. ‘Against the shack. The box.’

  Kester looked and grinned, then radioed Lily and Adnan. ‘To the right of the shack. Possible box.’

  ‘Roger,’ Lily said.

  Kester and the others watched Lily change direction and move to the right of the shack. Adnan stayed where he was, observing its doorway from behind two trees.

  It wasn’t long before Kester saw a glow coming from the side of the shack: Lily, on her knees, shining a red filter torch on to the box. Gathering evidence.

  ‘Bingo,’ she whispered. ‘There’s writing on it. Serbo-Croat, I think. I’m taking photos.’

  Kester felt good. This was going well. Then he saw two things that made his heart miss a beat. First, Adnan ducking behind the trees, whispering ‘Conceal.’ Second, Lily tucking her legs in and rolling away from the shack door.

  ‘What is it?’ Kester radioed, but knew he wouldn’t get an answer.

  He heard a muffled male voice, then saw another red glow flare up then die down. A cigarette being lit. Someone was outside. No one had heard the door opening. But there was more noise coming from up by the river.

  ‘Stay down,’ Kester whispered to Lily. He could feel his stomach twisting. Here he was again, responsible for one of his friends. He needed to make the right decisions and he thought keeping their heads down was the best plan.

  All five children held their breath as the man breathed smoke out into the night. Hatty slipped her night goggles off. The starlight was not enough for the man to be able to see anything with his bare eyes.

  ‘He won’t be able to see you,’ Hatty whispered through the radio. ‘He’s just come out of a well-lit hut.’

  Again there was no reply.

  Lily lay still, barely breathing, the man’s feet within centimetres of her legs. She knew to be calm, not to panic. If she moved, he would find her and that would be it. Who knew what would happen? Lily tried not to think about it as she lay, watching his feet tapping on the floor, not enjoying the acrid smell of his tobacco.

  It’s going to be OK, she told herself. He’ll finish his cigarette and then go back inside. That’s what Lily hoped.

  When the man did finish, he dropped his cigarette on Lily’s hand. She muffled a cry into her jacket as the cigarette burned into her skin.

  For a second the man stopped moving into the hut. From above Hatty could see that he was looking around, wondering if he had heard an animal. But then he carried on inside, rubbing his hands together.

  When he was gone, Lily knocked the cigarette end away and tried to breathe more deeply, feeling her body relax. She flicked on her red torch again. Her hand was very painful – the cigarette had burned deep into her flesh – but she dismissed it. She had a job to do.

  The box was as long and wide as Lily. Whatever was inside it, it would be big enough to contain her. She shuddered at the thought as she took photographs of the side of the box, mostly words in Serbo-Croat and a string of numbers. One thing she did guess was that the box had some sort of military hardware in it, and she thought to open it, but could see that it was padlocked. There was no way she could get into it without creating a noise that would give her away.

  Now she had to get back to Jim so they could work out what Svid was carrying. But before she left, she slipped a tracking pin out of her cargo pants and stuck it on the underside of the container. Now they would know exactly where the container was 24/7. Lily felt a little more secure now and could at least give in to her pain. She crept slowly away from the hut towards Adnan and gestured to the others that they should come down off the hill. It was time to leave.

  Fifteen minutes later, all five were back beside the river, ready to launch the raft. Lily was dipping her hand into the cold water of the river.

  ‘How’s your hand?’ Kester asked.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Is it?’ Hatty wasn’t so sure.

  ‘No, but we’ve got more to worry about than one of us having a minor injury,’ Lily said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Adnan?’ Kester said. ‘We need your expertise here. It looks like the intelligence was wrong. There may be rapids ahead. It’s not going to be easy. Can we escape on the raft?’

  ‘It’s a huge risk,’ Adnan confessed.

  Then Lesh was pointing. Back the way they’d come. Two torchlight beams were suddenly visible, coming down the hill towards them.

  ‘There’s no time to do a risk assessment,’ Hatty spat. ‘We need to go. Now.’

  ‘She’s right. It’s the men,’ Kester said, fixing his night goggles on them. ‘We need to launch the raft. Rapids or no rapids. Agreed, Adnan?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Adnan said, but none of them saw the frown on his face. He knew this was their best option, but it was still a deadly one.

  Rapids

  The raft was exactly where they had left it, secured to some trees and bobbing about in the water like it was keen to get going itself.

  The Squad needed to be on it immediately; there was no time to debate whether it was safe or not. Two men were patrolling the area and they could not afford to get caught by them. They climbed on one by one, making sure the raft stayed steady in the water.

  As soon as Adnan released the ropes, the raft began to drift down the river. Adnan was deep in thought as he watched the black cavernous rock walls pass by. Normally they were trained to do something over and over again, to iron out any possible mistakes. But last week, back in England, they’d only spent a day river-rafting and it hadn’t been too rough. He could tell from his previous experience, by the sound of the river ahead and by the way the land was steep and twisting, that this was going to be severe.

  First, he let the raft drift in silence, not yet using the pole to steer, in case it made too much noise splashing in the water or hitting the rocks. Then the river swung to the left through a steep gorge, still moving slowly.

  After a few minutes – and maybe a kilometre’s distance – Adnan could feel the raft being pulled faster.

  He’d known this was coming and said, ‘When it gets rough, keep your body low and hold on to the trunks or the binding rope. Get a really good grip. If you’re thrown off, try to steer yourself with the water, rather than swim against it.’

  But nobody replied because the raft had suddenly picked up even more speed. Dramatically, almost knocking Adnan into the water.

  ‘What can you see?’ he asked Lesh, who was at the front of the raft, his night-vision goggles on.

  ‘Narrow gorge,’ Lesh reported. ‘The water …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The water’s churning. There are rocks … I think …’

  Adnan felt like shouting the next instruction, but he wanted the others to remain calm, so he tried to pretend he was too.

  ‘Lie flat. Jam your hands down in the gaps between the logs. Now. And your feet too … If you go under … just roll with it … Don’t try to swim up until you know where up is …’

  The boat was being tossed about now, rocking violently from side to side, so it was impossible even to speak. The five children held on, heads down, as they saw, in the limited light, the sides of the gorge. It was barely twice as wide as the raft.

  ‘Keep your feet and hands away from the edges …’

  As Adnan was telling them what to do, the raft hit one side of the canyon hard. He held on,
hoping the others were doing what he’d said. If not, they’d be thrown off the raft and tossed into the churning water and in the water it was highly likely they’d be smashed against a rock and killed. Or simply dragged into the cold depths and drowned.

  Then the raft seemed to be pitched into the air, and they were drenched in a torrent of water before it landed. Adnan glanced up to see if everyone was still aboard, but before he could look around fully, they hit the side of the canyon again and were submerged in another massive wave of freezing water. They were soaked and cold and out of control.

  But now the river wasn’t just making them cold and wet, they were finding it hard to breathe, not knowing when they were about to be engulfed by water. Adnan heard coughing and choking and was glad of it: that meant someone was still on the raft with him.

  Eventually everything was moving so much faster – and spinning – that Adnan could only concentrate on himself. Hold on. That was all his mind would let him do. All concern for his friends had gone. There was water everywhere, powerful forces coming from above and below, terrible noise, a roaring so loud that he wasn’t sure if he was on top of the raft or underneath it.

  Just as Adnan was getting back control of his mind, he was ripped from the raft and turned, water filling his mouth and nose, over and over, round and round. He was cold, so impossibly cold. Adnan gave in to the water, waiting until it calmed, hoping it would calm, so he could conserve his strength for a time when he could use it. He knew he wasn’t breathing now, that he must have taken in a huge amount of water, but he was too disoriented to know what to do.

  And then the strangest thing happened: his mum and dad came into his head. The day they were shot. Every day for two years he had grieved for them, felt alone, felt that they were far away and gone, but now it was like they were there, their hands reaching out to him, and he wanted to reach out too, to be with them again, not alone in the dark. Mum and Dad.

  Suddenly another force took Adnan and he realized that he was no longer churning round and round. He was being pulled up. It was lighter. And he could breathe.

  He was out of the river.

  The first thing he did was vomit all the water that he had swallowed and breathed in. Then – slowly, painfully – he opened his eyes. He was on his knees. To his left, Kester’s face, pale with bloodshot eyes. To his right, Hatty grinning.

  ‘Nice job, Mr Raft Expert,’ Hatty said. ‘You were the only one who fell off. We’re safe now. All of us. Look.’

  Adnan stared hard into Hatty’s face and he thought he saw something. A welling of water in the corner of her eye. Then he looked at the others sitting on the raft. They had passed through a very narrow gorge, concealed from above by a tall forest. The river here was calm. He was out of the deep water.

  ‘You’ve got some water in your eye,’ he said to Hatty.

  Hatty wiped it away. ‘You’ve got more in yours.’

  Defenders

  The Squad arrived back at the hotel from the canyon mission at 5 a.m.

  On the helicopter journey back across south-east Poland, they’d had no time to go over the mission. Instead, they huddled together and planned the next day’s football – the attack and defence idea that Kester had come up with – and how they were going to play it. Their adrenalin was up after the action of the night, but, as it dissipated, they started to feel exhausted, heads aching with the strain of the last few hours and days.

  This was a tough week on the Squad physically and mentally – and they were not even halfway through it.

  Back at the hotel, Jim gave them a very short debriefing. Lily showed him photographs of the military box she had seen outside the refuge, especially the wording on the side. But not before Jim had personally treated Lily’s cigarette burn and then bandaged it.

  ‘I’m pretty sure that it’s Serbo-Croat,’ Lily said, ignoring the pain in her hand. ‘I need to translate it.’

  Jim shook his head. ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘You know what it means?’ Hatty asked.

  ‘I know what’s in the box,’ Jim explained. ‘It’s a rocket launcher. From the war in Bosnia several years ago. It can pierce tanks and walls at a range of four hundred metres. We have to get it off them.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘What would they use it for?’ Adnan asked.

  ‘To attack the England team’s hotel?’ Lily suggested.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jim. ‘They were used on buildings, vehicles, market places, even at a football stadium once.’

  ‘Why don’t we just send an Apache helicopter in and blow them up?’ Adnan asked. ‘That’s what they want to do, so let’s go out and blast them first.’

  Jim smiled. It was the first time he’d smiled that night. ‘I sincerely wish we could, Adnan. But it’s more sensitive than that. If we attack someone in Poland, the Poles will go mad. In addition, if we kill Russians in Poland, the Russians will go mad and might claim that the men involved were just studying nature or something like that. We have to do this carefully and sensitively, otherwise we create even more problems than we had in the first place.’

  ‘Hmmmm,’ said Adnan.

  ‘Why not tell the Polish authorities as it’s on their land?’ Hatty added.

  ‘We don’t … we don’t trust anyone at the moment,’ Jim stuttered. ‘If we can deal with this alone, it will prevent any problems between ourselves and other countries.’

  ‘It’s a dangerous tactic,’ said Kester. ‘Sometime in the next few days these men are going to attack a building or something like that. Loads of people could be killed.’

  ‘It is,’ Jim agreed. ‘But it’s a tactic that’s coming from the top, so we stick with it.’

  Kester frowned.

  ‘Look, if we need to make a decision to do something and there’s no time to contact those in charge, then that’s a different matter.’ Jim paused, then said, ‘Lily? Did you …’

  ‘… put a tracking device on the container?’ Lily replied. ‘Yes. And it’s not moved since. Lesh has been monitoring it on his SpyPad.’

  Jim nodded. ‘Good work. Good work, all of you.’

  The game of attack and defence between Rio and Kester’s teams did not start well, with Georgia smacking the ball against the post within seconds. The Squad had twenty-nine minutes more of relentless attacking to withstand. Five players against five and Jim as the referee.

  A minute after Georgia hit the post, Johnny picked the ball up on the centre line and ran at an angle across Lesh and Lily. As Lesh went in to tackle, Johnny turned and laid the ball back to Rio, who flipped it into the penalty area. Both central defenders were out of the game. And there was Finn, drawing his foot back.

  Off his line, Adnan hesitated. Everything seemed to stand still. If Finn chipped him now, it would be an easy goal. But not everything was standing still. Hatty was moving. Coming fast and hard, she clattered the ball away from Finn, conceding a corner.

  In fact, it was Hatty who was at the centre of everything now. And Kester, who was meant to be captain, let her get on with it. She seemed to have a natural ability to make the defence work as one. The opposing team came in wave after wave. But tackle after tackle, block after block and save after save kept them out.

  Then the forwards changed their tactics. They were keeping the ball further away from the goal, taking long shots instead of trying to pass the ball into the net. It meant that the Squad had to come out to try to block the shots, which also meant that there was space behind the defence.

  And suddenly Johnny was in that space, one-on-one with Adnan with ten minutes to go. He seemed certain to score. Lily was behind him with no way of getting the ball. She didn’t want to foul him. She thought kicking someone to make them fall over just because she couldn’t get to the ball was wrong. But what else could she do? If she didn’t trip him, then he’d score. There was no doubt about that.

  She made sure it was
a gentle foul. Even before Johnny went down, Rio was standing over Lily, his eyeballs popping out of his head.

  ‘Professional foul. You cheating … Ref? Ref? Off. She’s got to go.’

  Jim walked over and put out his hand to Lily who took it to haul herself up. Once she was standing, Jim showed her a red card. Then he winked.

  Lily frowned. She felt ashamed at first because she’d never been sent off before, but what she had done had been right. Suddenly the throbbing pain in her hand returned. But, again, she dismissed it.

  ‘Sorry, Johnny,’ she said sheepishly, helping him up.

  Johnny smiled. ‘Don’t be. I’d have done the same thing.’

  With one minute to go, the forwards had still not scored. Ever since the sending off, Rio had been shouting at his teammates.

  ‘Rattled.’ Hatty grinned to Lesh.

  Adnan nodded. ‘He sure is.’

  Rio had given up on teamwork now. He was getting hold of the ball and desperately running at the defenders.

  With thirty seconds to go, Finn had the ball, but looked utterly clueless, so Rio whipped it off his feet and started a final fierce run, taking it past Kester, then Hatty, with only Lesh and the keeper to beat.

  Lesh lunged at him, thinking he’d got to the ball, but looked up to see Rio one-on-one with Adnan, drawing his foot back to shoot.

  Would Adnan be able to save one last shot? Would he be able to prove the defenders were good and put Rio in his place?

  The answer was no. The ball was in the back of the net: 1–0 to the attacking side. The Squad were beaten.

  ‘You were outstanding,’ Jim said, once he’d gathered the Squad in Kester’s hotel room.

  ‘Thanks,’ they all said together. Even though they’d lost, they felt like they’d won.

  ‘But now you need some sleep,’ Jim went on.

  ‘Sleep?’

  ‘Your next mission is harder and longer than the previous ones. And you’ve got the Spain game tomorrow. I want you to sleep. Eat anything you want from room service. Rest. This time tomorrow we’ll have a briefing about the mission. Then we’ll be off to play Spain.’