by Tom Palmer
‘And three?’ Kester asked.
‘Three. This helicopter is the most spectacular thing in the air. It can get in and out of small spaces, landing and leaving again within seconds, so fast that people won’t believe it was a helicopter. There’s a huge lawn up there at the centre of Wawel Hill. It’s perfect, surrounded by walls. I can get the chopper in unseen. The security guards will be asleep or in their rooms, so will probably miss us. It’s dangerous in that there’s a one per cent chance we might crash.’
‘One per cent is nothing,’ Hatty said to Kester.
‘I agree. Let’s take option three,’ said Kester. ‘We’re going to have to take risks and if we can get in there without being spotted, all the better.’
Before Kester had finished speaking the helicopter rose in a steep curve, as if it was climbing the walls of the fort. They were all thrown back into their seats, like when a plane takes off, but with much more power. Then the helicopter seemed to stop in mid-air, leaving them feeling they were suspended there, before it dropped on to the lawn with barely a bump.
It was such a quick ending to the flight that the children just sat there, dumbfounded and disbelieving.
‘Is that it? Have we landed?’
‘Go now!’ the pilot shouted.
Kester ushered the four other Squad members out of the chopper and on to the lawn where they sprinted for cover. As they did so, the helicopter rose then dropped over the wall and back down towards the river.
Kester crouched with the others at the side of a building. They were breathless and used the time to get air into their lungs and oxygen into their blood in case they had to run again.
After a few seconds, they saw two men coming quickly from a doorway. Security guards, as the pilot had said. The guards looked around, confused. They’d obviously heard something, but by the time they’d come outside, the helicopter was gone and the children were hidden.
Kester couldn’t believe what the helicopter had just done. It was almost a miracle. But now the Squad needed a real miracle.
They were back in Krakow with a couple of hours to stop a group of three terrorists from attacking the England football team. And they still had no idea where their commander was and what he was doing.
The Sacrifice
Kester decided to send each of the Squad members to one of Krakow’s important transport hubs. It was six in the morning and they had three hours before the England team rolled into town at 9 a.m. Only at 8.30 a.m. would they gather in the main square, which was called Rynek Glówny. This was the usual procedure: try to spot possible threats where they could arrive and, if you miss them, converge on the site of the possible attack.
Lesh had continued to try to contact Jim by satellite, mobile phone and radio. But there was still no reply. Kester decided that they were on their own with no time to worry about where their commander was. They had a job to do. If he turned up, then great. If not, so be it. They could worry about what had happened to him later.
They studied the map together to discuss the places they should monitor, sitting by the river at the foot of the walls of the fortress. They looked at places where people would come into the city this morning. Shop workers. Students. Football fans. Council employees. Tourists. And – maybe – terrorists.
They chose carefully.
One, the central train station. Kester remembered footage from terror attacks in the UK. They were always the same: film images of men arriving at stations with rucksacks, ready to create havoc. He’d deploy Lily there.
Two, a huge bridge – Powstan´ców S´la˛skich – over the river that brought traffic in from south-east Poland. Kester chose to send Lesh there. He knew vehicles. He’d be able to spot anything unusual.
Three, John Paul II International Airport, where they’d arrived. It was unlikely the men would come in by air, but Kester could not rule it out. That was a job for Adnan.
Four, the Wisła River. It was the last way in. By boat. Hatty’s post.
‘What about you?’ Hatty asked. ‘Where are you going?’
Kester paused for a second, then changed his mind. ‘New plan,’ he said. ‘Lily, you do the other station, the Zabłocie Station. They might come in there and walk into the city. Trains from the east arrive there first. I’ll cover the Central Station.’
Lily nodded.
‘I want radio contact every ten minutes from each of you,’ Kester finished. ‘If any of you see something, I’ll decide who to deploy where. I’ll keep trying to contact Jim. We’ll leave our posts and gather round the back of the Mariacki Church at eight thirty. OK?’
Between them, the Squad saw over thirty thousand faces coming into Krakow city centre that morning.
They watched for unusual behaviour, people carrying objects that were out of the ordinary. Rucksacks. People not walking and talking like others. This was something they had been trained for. Once you’d done it a few times, you got an eye for it.
But today they saw nothing except hundreds of men, women and children getting off trains and buses and out of cars, standing under the huge banners promoting Euro 2012 and its sponsors.
Between 07:30 and 08:15 Kester radioed them all. They had seen nothing and no one. ‘Come back to the Mariacki Church,’ he said. ‘Abort stage one. We have to pursue stage two.’
Stage two was to search the city centre before the England team arrived. If Svid and his friends were in Krakow now, they would be in the centre, ready to do what they were planning.
The centre of Krakow had changed radically in the couple of hours the Squad had been at their posts.
Now there were thousands of people standing behind crowd-control barriers, including hundreds of schoolchildren and dozens of police officers. It looks so unreal that it seems like a film set, Lily thought. For a disaster movie.
‘What now?’ Hatty asked, once they were all together.
Kester felt a stab of panic in his heart. He was supposed to be leading this operation and so far they’d come up with nothing. He felt like he was failing, that the England team were about to be attacked and he had done nothing to stop it. He heard the trumpeter playing in the cathedral tower.
Maybe, he thought, Hatty was the right choice for leader. Maybe she would have delivered results. But he had to stop thinking like that. He had a job to do.
To stop the attack.
This wasn’t about him being leader: it was about the footballers and their families and the hundreds of schoolchildren standing in the square. And anyway, most spies and agents spent days, weeks, months watching for people, preventing attacks. How was he supposed to nail it in a morning?
Kester saw the other four looking at him. Waiting. The noise of the crowd was growing, adding to the Squad’s tension.
‘We have to decide something,’ he said.
‘Decide what?’ asked Hatty.
‘If we want to jeopardize the Squad,’ Kester explained. ‘Because if we alert the authorities now, our cover is blown for future missions. It’s a lot to risk.’
‘The alternative risk is to the whole England team,’ Lily countered.
‘Exactly,’ Kester said. ‘We’ve agreed not to go to the authorities, but maybe we need to change that plan now. And we have to decide without Jim.’
‘Still nothing?’ Lesh asked.
‘It’s like he’s vanished off the face of the earth,’ said Kester.
‘I think the England team have to take priority,’ Adnan broke in.
‘Me too,’ Lily agreed.
‘I’m not so sure,’ Hatty argued. ‘Then the Polish authorities will know about us. Maybe the Russians. We’ll never work again. We’ll be known by security services around the world, just like all the adults were. Everything special that we can do to protect the UK will be blown. That’ll be it.’
Then Lesh knelt forward. ‘We have to do it, Hatty. Why did we all agree to do this sort of thing anyway? Why
are we in the Squad?’
Hatty didn’t answer, so Lesh carried on. ‘Why do we put our lives at risk to stop terrorists? Why do we work for the government? Why don’t we go to school and live in a children’s home and just read spy books like Johnny, instead of being spies?’
‘Because of that morning,’ Hatty said in a low voice.
‘Exactly,’ said Lesh. ‘We do what we do because one day, two years ago, our parents were shot dead in front of our eyes. It was horrendous and impossible to live with. And because we had no one else, we came together and we decided to do everything we could to make sure no other children lose their parents like we did, because of so-called terrorists. That’s what we do. And we’d do it whether we were working for the government or not. Wouldn’t we?’
Hatty sighed and closed her eyes.
‘And how many of the England players are dads?’ Lesh went on.
‘Nine of them. Fifteen kids in all.’ Now her eyes were open. ‘OK,’ she said, her voice wobbling. ‘We go to the police. Now. We should have done it hours ago.’
‘But are they going to take us seriously?’ Adnan asked. ‘A bunch of kids saying, “Stop everything. Someone is going to murder the England football team.”’
Kester smiled and made a quick decision. ‘Well, if anyone can do it, Hatty can. She’ll be the most convincing.’
‘I need Lesh too,’ Hatty said.
‘Of course,’ Kester agreed, knowing she was right.
Kester, Adnan and Lily watched Hatty and Lesh from a hundred metres away.
They saw them approach a pair of policewomen, who were standing next to a man wearing a military uniform and carrying a machine gun. They could only just see them through crowds of football fans and other people who were walking in the square. At first, Hatty was talking calmly. Then, after some head-shaking from the policewomen, she became more animated, waving her arms about. That was when the man with the machine gun turned and said something to Lesh.
Kester looked at Lily to see if she’d been able to lip-read, but Lily shook her head.
Another crowd of people walked between the boys and girls. When they’d passed, Kester saw Hatty coming towards him, but she didn’t have the look of disappointment on her face that he expected: she looked shocked; there was no sign of Lesh and now Hatty was running, like someone was coming after her.
What was this?
And where was Lesh?
Kester started to panic. Maybe the police weren’t police at all. Maybe they were security forces. Maybe everything was about to go even more badly wrong.
Then, while still running, her eyes on Kester, he saw Hatty speak into her mic. But he could hear nothing.
‘Lily, can you hear her?’
‘No,’ Lily said. ‘Our comms are down. I can’t believe it.’
But there was no more time to worry about mics and comms. Hatty was right there in front of them.
‘The police think we’re just stupid kids,’ she said. ‘It’s a no go … but forget that … Lesh spotted Svid … he was with the two other men, all wearing England tops … but not proper ones … rubbish replica ones that no real England fan would be seen dead in. He’s gone after Svid. In there.’ Hatty rolled her eyes towards the church. ‘The other two went that way … and Svid … Svid’s carrying a long tube in a bag.’
Kester’s mind moved into a high gear. The rocket launcher.
‘Lily,’ he said. ‘Go after Lesh. He’s seen Svid go into the cathedral. The rest of us will see if we can stop the other two.’
A second later, they were gone: five children chasing down three terrorists, hoping they could avert a disaster that no one else knew was about to unfold.
The Fall
When Lily reached the cathedral, she spotted Lesh straight away.
There were two doors to enter the cathedral. One was marked ‘For Prayer Only’ and one further down the side was for tourists, the one that she’d gone through with Johnny the day before.
Lily had no idea which to use, but her instinct told her to go into the one that was not for tourists this time. She always trusted her gut reactions, so she slowed down and entered as if she was going in to pray. Lesh followed her.
Inside it was dark, in contrast to the bright sunshine outside. As her eyes became accustomed to the light, Lily saw two rows of people sitting on pews. More people standing. All facing a man dressed in religious robes, carrying out a service. Lily knew she had to blend in, to pretend she was there to pray, so she walked slowly, head down, making her way to the back row of pews, with Lesh right behind her. Although she was looking down, she was still able to scan the church.
There was no sign of Svid. Nothing. Only the massive Jesus, arms outstretched as if he was trying to warn them.
As she looked around, Lily was thinking about Jim. How she’d seen him here praying, but that he’d said he wasn’t religious and now he had disappeared. Her mind was coming to some sort of conclusion, a thought emerging. Then she heard the bells going off in the tower and caught Lesh’s eye. She sighed and shook her head. ‘We’ve lost him,’ she whispered.
Lesh frowned. ‘Now what?’
Lily scanned the inside of the cathedral again. She had to get her mind back on to Svid. ‘You get to the other door. Wait there. Speak into your mic if you see him. I’ll cover this end. OK?’
Lesh nodded and walked away.
As she watched him, Lily’s heart stopped, her eyes on the door that went up to the tower. The trumpeter’s tower.
And she knew where Svid was.
She’d not heard the trumpet after the cathedral bells.
And, as the thought came to her, she heard something else. Applause. Applause coming from outside. It was the England team. They were entering the square.
Suddenly Lily understood everything. Svid was in the tower. He’d disabled the trumpeter somehow. He had a rocket launcher. And the England coach was coming into his range.
‘LESH!’ she shouted across the cathedral. ‘UP THE TOWER!’
The two women praying in front of Lily jumped visibly, then angry faces turned to her. And now the priest was moving towards her. Lily had broken church etiquette, but that didn’t matter now. What mattered was getting up the tower.
Lily vaulted over the pews and hurdled a tomb. She was heading for the door she’d seen last time she came here. To the stairs. She could hear Lesh’s boots pounding on the stone flags of the floor of the cathedral as he ran too. And shouting. Several voices shouting. Noises were coming from every angle, then echoing back from other angles again. But she shut it all out. The noise. The chaos. Even Lesh. Lily had one focus: get up the steps of the tower as swiftly as she could because she knew what was about to happen. The trumpeter had not blown, maybe for the first time in a century. It meant one thing: Svid was up there. And the only reason he was up there was to do something bad and he was going to do it now, just as the England team were arriving.
Lily kicked off her shoes, knowing she could run soundlessly in her socks, then took the steps three at a time. It was steep and it was hard, but all those years of fell-running with her dad were paying off now. She knew how to breathe, she knew how to move so that she had enough energy to be able to do something when she reached the top. For a second, she was distracted by the thought of her dad, the fell-runner, her missing hero. She hoped he’d be proud of her for this.
Soon the stone gave way to wooden steps. Lily ran through shadows and shafts of light, round and round the spiral staircase. She was so flooded with adrenalin that she could barely feel the effort of the climb. Lesh, she knew, would be a long way behind her.
Lily realized that she had reached the top of the tower when she saw the face staring straight back at her. It was on a wooden platform that marked the top of the tower. From the platform you could reach the four walls of the tower and the small windows that let light in from outside.
The face
’s two bulging eyes shocked her at first and she stepped back to defend herself. But it took less than a second for her brain to work it out. This was the trumpeter. Next to him, his trumpet. There was a pool of red-black liquid by his head. Blood.
He was dead.
Lily peered over the man’s body and saw what she feared most. Svid was standing with his feet on the banisters above the platform, his body twisted at a strange angle, leaning over a huge drop down the inside of the tower, with a large tube projecting behind him.
Lily gasped inaudibly. There was no question what the tube was. It was the rocket launcher they’d known he would have and the man was aiming it out of the top window of the church – no doubt directly at the England team bus.
Lily could hear the noise of the crowd building. She knew the England team would be getting out of their coach to meet the locals.
No time to lose.
She crept towards Svid, about to try to pull him down. But then she thought again: what if he just kicked her away. She could hear Lesh a few flights below, running to help her. But he would not get there in time. She was the only one who could save the lives of the England players and those crowding around them. She tried to decide the best course of action. She had seconds. Less than seconds. He could pull the trigger and obliterate two dozen footballers and lots of members of the public at any moment.
No time. No time. Decide.
Then her hand was grabbing for the trumpet, the glinting piece of brass on the floor. She put it to her lips and blew.
The noise it made was a shock even to Lily, bouncing around the small chamber of the bell tower.
Then Svid was dropping. It had worked. The noise had shocked him so badly that he fell. At first, his fall felt slow, his hands grasping for something to hold on to, tipping, leaving the rocket launcher wedged in the window of the clock tower. Then his arms flailed out, making him look a bit like the huge Jesus down below in the cathedral, and his legs came up and he seemed to somersault, his head crunching against a huge chunk of stone. Then he was plummeting, fast and soundlessly down the inside of the tower, at least twenty metres to where the stone steps became wooden.