Red Centre

by Chris Ryan

  With a hungry crocodile in the water behind her, Amber needed no encouragement. She hit the lake edge, and all eyes were on her as she splashed through the reeds and out onto the shore. Weals showed bright red on her dark skin where her leg had been cut into by the cable-hard weeds. She scrabbled across the mud and collapsed at Hex’s feet, gasping.

  ‘Where is it . . . ?’

  Tracey stepped closer to the water’s edge and peered down. ‘It’s gone,’ she said. She turned and looked back at them with a smile. ‘Vanished. We must have scared it off.’

  Realization hit Hex like a thunderbolt. He moved back, dragging Amber with him. ‘Get away from the edge!’ he shrieked. ‘Get away!’

  Tracey turned, puzzled. At that moment the water beside her exploded as the crocodile erupted from the lake like a missile. Hex saw the great hinged jaws outlined in a spray of water. It was a sight to inspire shock and awe: a gaping prehistoric mouth filled with uneven reptile fangs. It was a frozen fragment of time, an uncanny glimpse into a Jurassic morning.

  Adrenaline made Hex move like Max Payne in bullet time. He seized one of the useless tranquillizer guns. Swinging it directly over his head like a kendo stick, he brought it down with all his strength. The blow landed solidly on the soft part of the crocodile’s nose. The reptile twisted round, still with a fixed expression of cold-blooded glee, and hit the water with a heavy splash.

  ‘Run!’ yelled Hex. This time nobody bothered to ask questions. As one, the party raced for the tree line. Hex knew that the croc might possibly follow them onto the lake shore, but one glance back told him that it had had enough. It was heading back towards the centre of the lake.

  Then they stood, leaning on trees, panting and gasping, as they got their breath back. Tracey was on all fours, her stomach heaving in and out like bellows, her eyes wide and horrified.

  Amber fell to her knees and then rolled onto her backside. ‘Ow, my foot,’ she yelped, sitting up and inspecting her bare sole. ‘I’ve trodden on something I shouldn’t have.’

  One of the rangers looked at her. ‘I thought you’d had it there, girl.’

  Hex stretched out flat on the ground and let out a long sigh. ‘It wasn’t Amber it wanted after all. It was more interested in the people standing on the shore.’

  ‘I feel quite offended,’ said Amber, laughing in sheer relief. ‘What is it? Don’t I look tasty? Not enough fat on me, or what?’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Tracey to Hex. ‘You just saved our lives.’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ Amber looked at him, shaking her head slowly. ‘How did you know to do that?’

  ‘I thought I’d better learn a martial art so I took advantage of a cut-price, fourteen-day holiday at the Shaolin Temple,’ said Hex.

  Amber gave him her sternest look.

  Hex propped himself up on his elbow and grinned. ‘OK, I saw it in a game.’

  They were all quiet for a moment. Then Amber said brightly, ‘Well, the next game is to find my lost boot. Any volunteers?’

  2

  FRIENDS REUNITED

  The rainforest was serenading the sunset.

  Barely fifteen degrees off the equator, night falls quickly. In less time than it took to get the campfire blazing, the soft green light had thickened to blackness. It was as though a stage curtain had been lowered around the camp.

  And then the noise started. Every frog, bird, insect and animal within twenty miles had begun to sing, chirrup, rasp, hoot, click and caw. It was the most deafening natural sound that any of Alpha Force could recall. They sat on logs around a fire, while a stew of chicken and vegetables bubbled gently in front of them.

  ‘It’s incredible,’ said Hex, whose knowledge of the world, though extensive, came mainly from what he had read and seen on the Web. Real experiences never failed to astonish and delight him – the outward manifestation, as Hex saw it, of an underlying mathematical pattern.

  ‘I thought a night under the stars would be peaceful,’ shouted Paulo. ‘But this is as deafening as any nightclub!’

  Alex smiled and cupped his ear. It was almost impossible to hear, so the five of them sat in silence, their conversation drowned out by the din. Each was left with his or her own thoughts.

  When Alex had arrived the day before, his first stop after checking in at the hotel was the gym. As with the other members of Alpha Force, exercise had become a way of life for him, and he constantly tried to increase his strength and stamina and learn new skills. After the long, soporific journey that had started in Northumberland and ended in Queensland, he was stiff and bristling with pent-up energy, and he planned a workout in a cool air-conditioned gym to get the kinks out. Alex found Hex already there on the treadmill. Pretty soon, Li bounded in wearing micro-shorts and hurtled over to ambush the two boys with a bear hug that they pretended to find embarrassing. When Paulo and Amber arrived, itching to get moving after their flights from America, Alpha Force was complete for the first time this holiday.

  They set up an impromptu circuit. The gym superviser stopped reading his fitness magazine and began to watch with interest as one of them ran on the treadmill, three of them sparred on the mats, and the other did press-ups and sit-ups with a medicine ball. He had never seen teenagers exercise so diligently. After a few minutes they took a thirty-second break and swapped to a different activity. After several circuits, the first rush of exuberant energy now burned off, they started to get their second wind.

  Alex and Hex took to the treadmills. On the mats, Li spun and flip-flopped past them, doing a variety of Arab springs, tumbles and back-flips. Amber and Paulo, both expert horse riders with excellent balance, found a pair of FitBalls that looked like giant beach balls. They stood upright on the balls and trundled them along the length of the gym, hooting with laughter as they wobbled furiously to and fro. Hex tried it too, managed to walk his ball forward a few inches, and then tumbled off spectacularly to land smack on the mat. Commandeering his ball, Li was soon bowling along, her acrobatic prowess giving her the edge.

  Only when they started to warm down, getting their heart rates back to normal and stretch their muscles, did the jet lag finally start to creep up on them. Amber was stretching her back in a yoga pose when she started feeling very sleepy. She looked around and laughed when she saw Alex yawning, his grey eyes screwed up and his blond fringe flopping over his forehead. Li, folded up in the lotus position with her head on the floor, her black hair in an inky pool around her, looked as though she was on the point of dozing off. Paulo and Hex, helping each other with hamstring stretches, were struggling to keep their eyes open.

  Alex clapped his hands. ‘C’mon, guys, let’s get some rest. Big day tomorrow.’

  They had hauled themselves upright with an effort and went up to spend their last night on soft beds with cotton sheets. Tomorrow they were bound for the rainforest, and three days of hammocks and waterproof sleeping bags in a makeshift camp on the edge of the competition area. The campsite area for the actual celebrity contestants was still being finalized but Alpha Force would be camping out in an out-of-the-way area, leaving no trace afterwards that they had been there. This, of course, meant camping with minimal equipment. Catching up would have to wait until they had the basics set up.

  Gradually the sunset cacophony subsided.

  Paulo was first to speak. ‘As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, this spider was enormous . . .’ His brown eyes twinkled as he told his story. He got up and lobbed another log onto the fire; it sent a shower of crackling red sparks up into the night sky.

  Li selected a cooking pot for the rice, checking it for wildlife before filling it with water. She looked sceptically at Paulo, her eyes narrowed. ‘So, this spider – you’re saying it was black, with little yellow spots and a yellow band on each leg?’

  Paulo nodded. ‘Great long legs. This long.’ He found a couple of twigs ten centimetres long in the pile of kindling and walked them along the ground.

  ‘It’s an orb spider. It’s harmless.’ L
i sniggered. ‘Unless you’re ticklish.’ She looked over at Paulo mischievously, and then twitched as though something had run up her sleeve. ‘Ooh, I feel all itchy.’

  The joke struck a nerve. Paulo shuddered, a movement that ran through his body from top to toe. It didn’t take much to make him remember the feeling, but he refused to give Li the satisfaction of seeing him scratch.

  ‘Ow, ooh,’ chortled Li. ‘What’s that crawling in my hair? It tickles.’

  Paulo tried to concentrate on sorting wood for kindling, putting out of his mind the uncomfortable notion that some of the flies might have crawled into his inner ear to spend the night.

  ‘When I saw this guy earlier,’ said Alex, building the fire, ‘he was covered in flies. There were more than a jeans warehouse, I’m telling you. You looked like the inside of an Eccles cake, Paulo.’

  ‘Urgh, gross,’ exclaimed Amber. She was making a circuit of the camp, driving slim stakes of wood into the ground near each of the camp beds. They would be useful later for hanging boots and clothes on when they went to bed. Anything left in contact with the ground would probably be damp and full of wildlife by the morning.

  Damp was almost as much of a problem as the flora and fauna. They were all constantly dripping with sweat in the humid atmosphere and Hex was worried about his palmtop. He had wrapped it in a sock to absorb moisture, and then in a plastic bag, before stowing it carefully in its carrying case.

  ‘No, Eccles cakes are nice,’ replied Alex. He was lighting a new fire with a spill. He bent down and blew on it until it caught, then brought over some more logs and put them to dry.

  ‘I don’t know about Eccles cakes, amigo? said Paulo. ‘But after your game you looked like a mud pie!’

  Amber used a twig to brush away a hairy caterpillar that had found its way onto her camp bed. ‘I hope these aren’t on the menu tonight.’ She curled her lip. ‘I draw the line at eating grubs and creepy crawlies.’

  Hex moved close to Amber and said in a low voice, ‘Did you get your foot seen to? You have to be careful. Did you tell the TV people—?’

  ‘Course I did, code boy,’ said Amber, rolling her eyes. Any wound could become infected in a jungle environment, but Amber was a diabetic, which meant she might not heal as quickly as normal. Cuts on her hands and feet had to be treated with great care, and she had learned to be meticulous about her medication. Everywhere she went she carried glucose tablets and insulin injector pens in a small leather pouch.

  Coming up to Paulo as she completed her circuit of the camp, she paused and reached down into his curly mop of hair, pretending to pluck out an insect. ‘Got it!’

  Paulo swatted her away. ‘Pack it in, you guys,’ he said, although he had to use considerable willpower not to start scratching.

  There was a kind of contentment in the way they all worked together as a team, quietly and efficiently, anticipating each other’s needs. The rudiments of building a camp were as familiar to Alpha Force as their ABC, and they had replayed this scenario in so many different ways in remote areas all over the world. Usually they wouldn’t be looking forward to chicken stew and rice; more commonly it would be boil-in-the-bag rations in foil containers. If they were lucky, they would have them hot; but if it was impossible to light a fire, they would eat them cold. When they were together, their other lives – studying in places as diverse as Argentina and inner London – seemed to belong to different people. Now, all that seemed to exist for Li, Alex, Amber, Paulo and Hex was a cooking fire surrounded by their camp beds and a forest ticking with wildlife. It could be anywhere, and now they were all together it felt very much like home.

  After supper Li handed round mugs of eucalyptus tea, made in a billycan from a sprig of eucalyptus plucked from a nearby tree.

  Alex sniffed his with suspicion. ‘What’s this for? I haven’t got a cold.’

  ‘It’s refreshing, you moron,’ replied Li, and drew in the vapour with relish. Alex didn’t look convinced.

  ‘So, Amber, I didn’t get what your uncle’s connection is with all this . . .’ said Hex.

  John Middleton, Amber’s uncle, had been her parents’ anchor man and financier, and had helped the five friends set up Alpha Force. Now history was repeating itself as he provided back-up for their covert operations. Although he wasn’t entirely happy about his niece getting involved in dangerous missions, he realized it had given her a new lease of life. She had an outlet for her energy and intelligence, and it helped to ease the pain of losing her parents. He had an extensive network of contacts which he used to arrange training for the five friends.

  ‘It was through an old news colleague of my folks,’ said Amber. ‘Mum and Dad smuggled him several exclusives over the years. He’s now in TV production and needed some guinea pigs to try out the games here so that the camera crew could sort out the angles. Uncle John thought it might be a way to brush up on our survival skills in a situation that was a little less dangerous than some of our missions.’

  Hex grimaced. ‘Less dangerous? Funny, that,’ he said.

  Amber smiled ruefully. ‘Yes, I’ll think twice before volunteering for a nice safe water game again.’

  Paulo leaned forwards and peered at her intently, frowning. ‘Volunteered? You mean you got to volunteer? Amber, if I ever find out you had anything to do with my ending up in a spider case for half an hour, covered in spiders’ favourite food, I’ll pour bees in your ears.’ He turned to Alex and grinned. ‘What do you say, Alex? Did you enjoy your swamp crawl?’

  Alex was looking thoughtful. He smiled to himself, as though what Paulo said had echoed a private joke.

  Paulo read the expression at once. ‘Come on, Alex, what are you thinking? Spill the beans.’

  Alex took a breath. ‘Well, I was thinking I might have to do that sort of thing soon anyway. I’ve applied to join the army. I’ve been to see them and I had to do some exams and aptitude tests; then there were lectures about the regiments.’

  Although Alex usually kept himself to himself, he began to warm to his subject. His face became more and more animated in the firelight as he spoke. ‘In a year I could be patrolling in Bosnia or Kosovo, or applying for the Paras. Whatever I do, eventually I’ll want to have a crack at getting into the SAS, of course. But that’s a bit of a way off and I’ll have to work hard – they don’t just take anyone.’

  In the darkness they could hear the lone cry of a rainforest animal. Normally nothing ventured out at night, and the sound seemed desolate and lost.

  Li was the first to break the silence. ‘Gosh, I haven’t really thought about what I’ll be doing next,’ she said.

  Li rarely made a remark that wasn’t laced with mischief. Amber felt uncomfortable – she wanted to break the solemn mood that had suddenly settled over them. ‘Hey, Paulo,’ she said lightly, ‘are you sure there aren’t still some flies in that hair of yours? Just think of all those tiny feet, feelers and mandibles prickling inside your clothes!’

  This time Paulo couldn’t resist. He just had to have a scratch.

  3

  A FACE FROM THE PAST

  It was a small town on a coastal road, where the towering green jungle gave way to a sparkling sea. Along one side of the road lay the beach, sand stretching for miles like a golden ribbon between the emerald of the jungle and the sapphire waters of Cape Tribulation. Further out to sea was the Great Barrier Reef. Inland, the rainforest climbed steeply up the mountain, trees waving gently in the coastal breeze. On the road the sun, no longer shielded by the canopy of trees, beat down ferociously and fine drifts of white sand stirred on the baked black surface.

  The town nestled in the foothills – really no more than a shop and a filling station, alongside a handful of isolated houses. The shop was a general store that also sold survival and sailing gear. One night in the jungle camp had made it very clear to the five members of Alpha Force that they needed more insect repellant, tarpaulins and water containers.

  ‘Especially the insect repellant,’ Li reminded
everyone as she scratched the gnat bites on her wrists and ankles.

  Amber was trying on some new boots. ‘They’re not nearly as snug as my American ones,’ she complained.

  ‘That’s because you haven’t broken them in,’ said Hex.

  Amber, threading the laces, paused and gave him an exasperated look. ‘I know that, dumb ass. But I’ve just lost my favourite boots. I want to moan about it a bit.’

  Alex and Li were debating the merits of a survival belt, hung with pockets and clips. Paulo, bored, leaned against the open façade at the front of the store and watched the blue surf surge in.

  A man left the checkout and walked past Paulo with a paper bag of supplies under his arm. There was something about him that held Paulo’s interest. He looked familiar somehow, but Paulo couldn’t work out why. He wasn’t one of the technical crew they’d hitched a ride with. Paulo wondered if he might have seen him at the hotel. But no, that wasn’t it.

  Attention to detail was second nature to all of Alpha Force. Paulo studied the man as he paused on the porch to slide on his sunglasses. He was of medium height, with a slightly heavy build that came from a lack of condition. Paulo glanced up to get a glimpse of his face in the security mirror by the door and saw dark Mediterranean features, the hair flecked with threads of grey.

  The man hefted his grocery bag and walked across the car park. It was then that the hairs stood up on Paulo’s neck. Now he knew where he’d seen him before.

  The man had a slightly uneven walk, as though one hip didn’t work as well as the other. Having spent his life with horses and cattle, Paulo noticed abnormalities in the way they moved – it was often the only clue to the fact that they had an injury. With humans too, he was often able to tell if someone had a back or knee problem from watching the way they walked. Paulo was sure he had seen this man before.

  Then he remembered – it had been on the televised trial of one of the most notorious terrorists of the 1990s. Paulo had been young then, but he had noticed – and it had stuck in his mind until this moment – that the fugitive, led out of the armoured van into the court, had had a peculiar lurching gait. Paulo remembered being appalled and fascinated by the details of the man’s crimes, and he never forgot his name: Sancho Pirroni – known to Interpol and to his many enemies as ‘the Piranha’.