Every Second Counts

by Sophie McKenzie

  ‘Please,’ I persisted, feeling my face flush, ‘I mean I know things about my dad. His name was John Stockwell and I’ve seen pictures – he can’t look that different now. Can’t you show me a picture of him so I can see it’s the same man? I mean, that DNA test report could easily have been faked.’

  Riley studied me for a second. ‘I don’t have any pictures, Charlie. Your father is very careful about that.’ He hesitated. ‘There is more I could tell you, but I honestly think it’s best if your father explains who he is, what he’s done and all the reasons why you don’t know him.’

  I opened my mouth to argue again, but before I could speak Riley leaped in again.

  ‘However, although I’m not going to give away his exact location, I will tell you that right now he is in Cornwall. He’s staying in my family home.’

  I frowned. ‘I thought this was your family home?’ I said.

  ‘It is,’ Riley said. ‘That is, this is the home I grew up in. Your father is saying with my son and his mother, my ex. You’ll be meeting them all before the end of the day.’

  Nat

  I did a proper reccy as soon as it was dawn. I was tired – Aaron and I had taken it in turns to keep guard, but I didn’t really trust him to stay awake, so even the few minutes of sleep I’d snatched had been fitful and disturbed. Aaron, by contrast, appeared to have no trouble sleeping, rolled up in Charlie’s sleeping bag and snoring away through his entire rest time.

  By seven a.m. I’d skirted the farmhouse, keeping my cover in the woods while looking at the building from every angle. It appeared rundown and was made from stone with two main floors, plus the attic room up top. But I knew from my previous visits here that, though most of the rooms inside were fairly basic, the building also housed a sprawling basement where English Freedom Army operations were coordinated.

  Two large cars with darkened windows were parked in front of the farmhouse. My heart sank at the sight of them. Their presence suggested that the place was occupied – and by more soldiers than I could possibly deal with in an unarmed encounter.

  On my journey around the edge of the woods I’d seen four separate men and one woman emerge from the house. Even from a distance, they all looked young and fit and muscular – definitely EFA soldiers.

  I came back to the little clearing where I’d left Aaron wrapped in his sleeping bag. His head was tipped back against the bark of the tree, his mouth open and he was making soft, snuffling noises. I nudged his leg with my foot, none too gently. He woke with a start.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Course you weren’t.’ I squatted down beside him and peered at the farmhouse through the trees again.

  My best guess was that Jas was being held in the basement room where Charlie had been kept prisoner just weeks before. For a few moments I imagined her crouching in a dark corner, shaking with fear. My blood boiled as I thought of how terrified she would be, a prisoner, not knowing what would happen to her, unable to answer Riley’s questions.

  My fists itched to punch him for scaring her. I thought back to the moment when Charlie and I were last here, when both of us had had the chance to take Riley’s life. Neither of us had done it. At the time I’d thought this was the right decision, that a cold-blooded murder would have made us as bad as Riley himself – but now I wondered. When were you justified in taking someone’s life? Once they had done something bad? Or when you knew that if you didn’t kill them, they would almost certainly go on and kill others? Or was taking a life never justified, under any circumstances?

  I honestly wasn’t sure any more.

  Riley had taken my sister yesterday afternoon and it would surely be hours rather than days before he ran out of patience with her and . . . I couldn’t bring myself to face what he would do once he realised she didn’t know anything.

  I forced my focus back to how I could rescue her. The only entry to the basement was through the kitchen. Even if I could somehow sneak in there – and the kitchen window, which I could see from here, was shut and probably locked – I would still have to make it down the narrow cellar steps and past anyone working in the main ops base. If I was going to do it, I needed to move soon – and with as much speed and silence as I could muster.

  ‘Er, Nat?’ Aaron’s hair was tousled and his face grimy. As he smiled, his annoying dimple appeared in the middle of his rosy cheeks. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any food with you? I ate all mine on the way here last night.’

  Shaking my head, I dug my hand into my backpack and pulled out a pack of beef jerky – a dried food staple that Charlie and I had lived on for weeks. I chucked a strip of the stiff, chewy meat in Aaron’s direction. ‘Here, have this.’

  Aaron picked up the jerky and examined it, an expression of disgust on his face. ‘My mum says stuff like this gives you cancer.’

  ‘Well, go home and eat an apple then.’ Irritation rose inside me. ‘I don’t suppose Jas has got any choice over what she’s eating either.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Aaron’s face fell. ‘She doesn’t eat enough as it is. I worry that she’s too skinny to be healthy, but—’

  ‘Will you shut up,’ I snapped, my last ounce of patience finally deserting me. ‘I need to focus. And fast. If we can’t get Jas out soon, Riley will kill her.’

  Aaron fell silent. He peered past me, through the trees, towards the farmhouse. The beef jerky lay, untouched, on his lap.

  An awkward few seconds passed. ‘You should still eat,’ I muttered.

  Aaron handed the strip of dried meat back to me. ‘I’ll eat when we’ve got Jas.’ He stood up. ‘Where do you think they’re holding her?’

  ‘Basement probably.’ I took a bite of the jerky. It was all very well Aaron being noble about eating, but I was hungry. Taylor’s voice from our training sessions rang in my ears. Eat and eat well, whenever you can. Lack of food impairs your brain and your body.

  As I chewed my mouthful, Aaron wandered over to a tree right on the edge of the woodland.

  ‘Careful,’ I warned. ‘Someone could be looking out.’

  ‘Someone is.’ Aaron leaned forward, as if straining to make out what he was seeing.’

  ‘Is it a soldier?’ I jumped to my feet, shoving the remaining strip of jerky in my backpack. ‘Get back. He’ll see you.’

  Aaron turned to face me, his eyes lit up. ‘It’s her,’ he said. ‘It’s Jas. She’s in the attic room right at the top of the house.’

  ‘What?’ I rushed over and peered around the tree next to his.

  A pale face was pressed against the attic window. It was, indeed, my sister. She was staring up at the sky.

  ‘Damn,’ I muttered. ‘This isn’t good.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Aaron said. ‘At least we know where she is.’

  ‘Yeah, but the only way to the attic is up two flights of stairs – that’s after breaking into the house in the first place. And stairs are a choke point.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A place where terrain narrows, reducing the combat power of any force passing through it,’ I said, remembering another of Taylor’s lectures.

  ‘Er, right.’ Aaron didn’t sound like he’d understood. ‘Well couldn’t we just rush it? If we went really fast, used my gun to keep back any soldiers we could . . .’

  Give me strength. I tried to tune him out, to work out a plan that might conceivably stand some chance of success. It was virtually impossible without knowing exactly how many soldiers were inside. Maybe we should wait a few more hours, see if any of them left the building. Except I couldn’t be sure Jas had a few more hours.

  Aaron’s incessant chatter was still a hum in my ear. ‘So, Nat . . .?’

  I tuned back in. ‘Yup?’

  ‘Jas says you were doing secret army training for months,’ Aaron went on, his eyes wide. ‘What kind of things did they teach you?’

  ‘Among other things, the importance of silence in potentially dangerous situations,’ I muttered.

  ‘I m
eant fighting – using weapons,’ Aaron went on excitedly, clearly not noticing the heavy irony in my voice.

  ‘Guns, knives, hand-to-hand combat, that sort of thing,’ I said.

  ‘So you really know how to fire a gun?’ Aaron asked.

  ‘Yes.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Look, Aaron, I need you to be quiet a minute so I can try and work out how I can get into that farmhouse and up to the attic.’

  Aaron fell silent at last.

  Just getting inside was a big enough problem. There was bound to be someone on duty near the front door, only yards from the bottom of the staircase which we needed to climb. I sighed. Whichever way I looked at the problem, I couldn’t see a solution.

  ‘What about my gun?’ Aaron said stubbornly. ‘Couldn’t we use that to force our way in?’

  I kicked at the twigs underfoot. Honestly. ‘I already told you, any half-decent soldier would see it wasn’t real in about three seconds. Seriously, that’s about all the time that gun buys us.’

  ‘Oh.’ Aaron looked crestfallen.

  ‘Anyway, there is no “we”,’ I went on. You’re not coming with me.’

  ‘But I can run really fast,’ Aaron protested. ‘In fact I’m probably stronger and fitter than you are. I was in the CCF at my school. I can climb anything—’

  ‘This isn’t a test on monkey nets,’ I snapped. ‘Getting into—’ I stopped.

  Climb anything. Aaron’s words echoed in my head. Climb.

  If I could get up on to the flat roof above the first floor, then somehow scramble up the sloping roof of the attic room, I could break the window and get Jas out that way. Chances were that no one would even hear the glass shatter all the way up there on the top floor.

  ‘I’m going to approach from the roof,’ I said, checking over the house.

  ‘But it’s a sheer wall up to the roof.’ Aaron frowned. ‘How will you—?’

  ‘Metal drainpipe.’ I pointed to the spot I’d just picked out.

  ‘I can climb that,’ Aaron said eagerly.

  ‘No.’ I picked up the rope I’d brought with me and slung it over my shoulder. I had that and my knife. I would leave everything else here. ‘You stay here. I’ll come back this way with Jas, once I’ve got her out.’

  ‘But—?’

  I didn’t wait to hear Aaron’s arguments. I was already skirting around the trees, heading to the point nearest the section of farmhouse I wanted to access. I could see most of the front of the building from here. Only one jeep was parked outside. That was good. Hopefully the three soldiers I’d spotted so far were the only ones present in the house. I dropped to the ground and wriggled, commando-style, across the field. Taylor had taught us how to move like this months ago. There was a real knack to it, involving muscles in my arms and legs I’d never even known I had. But after the past few weeks I was as fit as I’d ever been. Far fitter than Aaron, I was sure, despite what he said. Jeez, the guy was really a bit of a jerk. What on earth did Jas see in him?

  I crossed the field in less than a minute. As I reached the slatted wooden fence – rotten and broken and only surrounding part of the farmhouse – I raised my head. No one was anywhere near me. I hadn’t been seen. Swiftly I crawled under the bottom bar of the fence, then clawed as quietly as I could over the gravel to the drainpipe I’d been heading for. I stood up, looking around again. Still no sign of any soldiers.

  Hand over hand, I shimmied up the drainpipe, using my feet as leverage against the stone wall. I tested the gutter above the first floor, making sure it would bear my weight, then hauled myself up on to the flat roof above. I lay, catching my breath for a second. The sunlit roof felt warm under my body. It had been less than two minutes since I left Aaron. I resisted the temptation to look over in his direction to make sure he wasn’t visible and thereby putting both of us in danger. I needed to focus on Jas. Aaron would have to look after himself.

  I crawled over to the sloping wall of the attic room. I could just reach the bottom ledge of the window with my fingers. Clutching it tightly, it took all the strength in my arms to haul myself up. I pressed my toes against the wall trying to get some purchase there. With a low grunt, I hooked my knee over the ledge and peered inside.

  Jas was sitting on the bed, her hands – tied at the wrist – in her lap. She looked desperately miserable, her long hair dangling on either side of her face, her skinny legs tucked up underneath her. A surge of fury filled me. How dare Riley put my sister through this?

  I gave the glass a light tap. Jas looked up. Saw me. Her eyes widened. She raced over.

  ‘Nat?’ she whispered.

  ‘Stand back,’ I urged. ‘I’m going to break the glass.’

  Jas scrambled back on to the bed. Leaning against the wall for balance, I slid off my jacket and rolled it over my hand. With a swift jab, I punched through the window. Glass smashed to the floor beneath. The sound filled the air. I held my breath. Had anyone heard?

  But no one came rushing. Still holding my jacket over my hand, I picked out the largest piece of glass and let it slide to the roof below me. Another two quick punches and there was enough space. I eased myself into the room. Once I’d untied the rope around Jas’s wrists and helped her through, I could easily haul myself back out again.

  I landed lightly on the floor with a sudden and powerful sense of déjà vu. I shivered, remembering how I’d nearly died here just a few weeks ago.

  ‘Oh, Nat . . .’ Jas flung herself at me, sobbing.

  ‘No time,’ I said, disentangling myself from her arms. I sliced through the rope around her wrists. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a leg up.’

  I bent down, making my hands into a stirrup for her.

  And then the door swung open.

  Roman Riley stood in the doorway, an amused smile on his face. ‘Ah, Nat,’ he said, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

  I gasped as he raised his arm. I just had time to register he was holding a gun and that the gun was pointing at me. Then a shot fired, pain filled me, and the room spun and turned to black.

  Charlie

  Martina didn’t say much during the long journey to Cornwall. I spent most of the time in the car staring out of the window at the countryside flashing past and wondering about my dad. As time passed, my fears that I was simply being taken out of the house to be killed started to fade. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that Riley would go to all the trouble of faking a DNA test and sending me off with his girlfriend on a six-hour drive as part of a hoax. He had said my dad was like an inspiration to him – perhaps that was true. I had certainly got the strong sense Riley felt obliged to do what my dad asked.

  All of which meant that maybe I really was about to meet John Stockwell. And that maybe he really did want to meet me. But what would he be like? I had a few vague memories of a tall man with strong arms and a big smile, tossing me into the air above his head, me squealing with delight, but it was hard to know whether those were real memories or simply planted in my head from the videos Mum had played when I was younger – and which I had replayed for myself many times since.

  I only really knew my dad from those videos and photos. Back then, when I was a baby, he’d been very good-looking, with golden-brown hair, grey-blue eyes just like Uncle Brian’s, and a strong, square jaw. How much would he have changed since that time? He had been twenty-two, like Mum, when I was born – so he’d be in his late thirties now.

  Apart from the pictures, all I knew about my dad was that he’d been a soldier, a squaddie. My experience of soldiers through the EFA had led me to think of them as disciplined, serious people. Yet I’d got the impression from Mum and Uncle Brian that my dad had been a carefree, even irresponsible guy. Well maybe the combination of those qualities tied in with what Riley said about my dad being a philosopher. Perhaps being a soldier had given him life experience, but by nature he was a dreamer. I felt even more hopeful that he didn’t really understand the full nature of Riley’s crimes and that I would be able to open his eyes.


  Having exhausted the little I knew about my dad, my thoughts flickered to Nat. The more I dwelled on it, the weirder it seemed that Riley hadn’t tried to get me to talk about Nat or where he was . . . and not understanding made me feel uneasy.

  I missed Nat more than I would have thought possible. There hadn’t been another chance to find a phone or a computer earlier. Of course trying to get evidence against Riley was my priority, but I would have liked to be able to send Nat a message too. I hoped he wasn’t too angry or worried about me. I imagined him helping Julius and Lennox pack up and head off to their next safe house and I promised myself that I would take the next chance I got to leave a draft email for him telling him I was okay.

  Why not also tell him that you love him? an annoying voice chirped in my head.

  No way. I felt vulnerable enough, without giving away the depth of my feelings like that. I wished now that I’d pushed Nat to talk more about how he felt about us. But when we’d been on the run, life had been so hard and we’d both been so preoccupied with survival that it had been easy to withdraw from all the emotional stuff. Safer, somehow. Trouble was that now I couldn’t be sure that in running off I hadn’t just pushed him away altogether. I thought we’d had something powerful between us, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe Nat didn’t feel the same about me as I did about him.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of that. Nat was everything to me. The idea that he might not really like me was too terrible to contemplate.

  ‘Nearly there.’ Martina’s voice brought me out of my reverie.

  I followed her pointing finger to the sea, just coming into view across the town laid out to our left. It had been cloudy for most of our journey but as we passed the town and plunged into the depths of the Cornish countryside, the sun came out, bathing the car in sudden light and warmth.

  ‘How much longer?’ I asked.

  ‘Ten minutes, maybe less.’