by Lari Don
Team 3 was the advance team – two readers leaning against a wall further down the road. No one expects to be followed by someone in front, but if you can anticipate where a target is going, you can keep ahead of them and make sure nothing gets in the way of the job. The advance team was Roy, who can’t read worth a damn but is smarter than the rest of us, and Sam, who can read well enough but lacks Roy’s brains.
Team 4 was the loser team, just there to pick up rubbish.
I was in team 4. Obviously. Me and Roy’s little brother. Like all Auntie Susan’s kids, Josh is a fairly weak reader, and he’s only just turned twelve. So he’s the rookie and I’m the wimp. Team 4. Team Loser.
Josh and I were stationed opposite the school, to watch the pupils leaving and to act as the main contact with the senior readers, so the active teams didn’t have to walk and talk at the same time. Once the target was en route, we’d circle round to the other end of the alley, so we could clear away any evidence after the grab.
We were the bin men. But at least we were out on the job this time, rather than sitting back at base doing homework.
Normal boys hanging about outside a school would probably moan about their parents or make admiring comments about passing girls. But we were wearing throat mikes and earpieces, so our family could hear every word we said. We would only talk if it was relevant to the job.
I said, “You all set?”
Josh answered, “Yeah.”
And that was it. Male bonding on the job.
Josh stood beside me fiddling with his phone, while I perched on a low wall, leaning against a lamppost. I was trying to look casual, but I also knew that standing upright might be a bit of a struggle in the next few minutes. Because we were now watching a stream of kids coming out of Winslow Academy.
Dozens of them, then hundreds, pouring out of the doors, barging around each other, then hanging about at the bottom of the steps. Most of the kids were wearing ties, but this wasn’t a school with blazers, so there was a colourful mix of denim jackets, cardigans, hoodies, duffel coats and even a few unfortunate anoraks.
I could see them, and hear them yelling and chatting.
I could sense them too.
I could sense every single emotion, of every person in that crowd. Waves of emotion were crashing into me, knocking me off balance.
More pupils flowed out of the school and the crowd started to push across the road towards us. I was struggling to breathe through the overwhelming weight of their advancing feelings.
I hate crowds. I don’t enjoy being close to my family, but at least their feelings are familiar. This was like being attacked by an army of strangers. All these new emotions battering up against me, swirling around in my head, pushing me backwards…
“You ok?” asked Josh.
I was clinging onto the lamppost, hugging it.
Then my mum’s voice in my ear, alerted by Josh’s question. “Are you ok, son? Can you cope, do you need me to take you home?”
This was so humiliating. Everyone was hearing this.
“I’m fine, I can cope.”
I loosened my grip on the lamppost. I let the wall and the lamppost support me. I let the waves of people’s feelings tear into me and over me, and I did cope. But only just.
I concentrated on looking for the target. Lots of the girls walking down the steps looked similar to the girl in the photos, so I was looking at bags too, assuming that however fashion-conscious a girl was, she probably only had one schoolbag.
But I kept being knocked off-balance by the increasing number of kids swarming out of the school, radiating more feelings straight at me.
At least most of the emotions assaulting me were positive. Relief at getting out of school. Pleasure at seeing friends. Excitement about the free hours ahead. There were ripples of sadness from lonely kids and spikes of aggression from boys squaring up to each other. But it was mostly happy feelings slamming into me. That was probably better than an angry crowd or a grieving one.
Then I saw her. So did Josh. He lifted his hand to point at her.
I kicked him. I prefer to kick than hit. With strong boots and thick soles, fewer thoughts get through.
So I kicked his hand down and muttered, “Don’t point, you idiot.”
Then I said more formally, “Team 4, target spotted.”
Because there she was. In the blue coat she’d been wearing in two of the surveillance pictures. With the same stripy schoolbag on her shoulder. Walking down the steps, laughing with a friend.
The target.
“Are you sure?” asked Malcolm.
“Yes,” I said.
“Confirmed,” said Josh.
“Team 2 confirms sighting,” said Becky.
“Then do your job,” said Malcolm.
So we did.
Becky and Laura waited until the target got to the bottom step and turned left, then they wandered casually after her.
“Team 2 following,” I said quietly. I checked further down the road and saw Roy glance round at the target.
“Team 3 keeping ahead,” Roy said, then he and Sam started walking down the road, kicking an empty can between them.
“Target is following expected route,” I said. “Team 3 ahead and Team 2 behind. I’m not sensing suspicion or fear from the target. She’s calm and happy.”
She was happy. She was chatting to her friend, on her way home from school.
I nodded to Josh and said, “Team 4 heading for the alley.”
“Good move, son. Well done,” said my mum, carefully not using any names.
Malcolm snorted. “He’s not doing anything special, he’s just following my plan.”
I grinned. My mum was a senior and very loyal member of the family firm, but every time she praised me, it seriously annoyed Malcolm. Her encouragement and Malcolm’s irritation gave me the energy to jump off the wall.
As the overwhelming crowd of kids began to thin out, Josh and I turned the opposite way from the other teams.
We were going to sprint right round a large residential block to the other end of the alley our target used as a short cut to her dance studio. However, we didn’t want any witnesses saying, “Oh yes I saw a couple of lads running like they’d robbed a bank,” so Josh held his jacket loosely in his left hand and I whirled round, grabbed it from him and ran off.
“Hey! Give that back!” And he chased me.
So people just saw a couple of kids fooling around.
As we sprinted round one corner, then another, I knew from the calmness of my family’s distant feelings and the silence in my ear that it was all going to plan.
If the target did what she’d done last week and the week before, she’d walk to the next street corner, say goodbye, then as her friend went one way, the target would go the other, through her shortcut.
But then I sensed a jolt of surprise and concern, coming from several cousins at once.
I heard Laura’s voice sharp in my ear. “There’s a problem.”
“What?” asked Malcolm.
“Target didn’t turn off at the alley you identified. She’s still walking down the road with her friend.”
Josh stopped running. I didn’t. I turned and beckoned at him. Even if the job was changing, we were no help to anyone hanging about here on the pavement.
“Keep following,” ordered Malcolm. “Everyone stick to the plan. She might turn back.”
When Josh heard that, his footsteps speeded up behind me. I dropped his jacket and increased my speed. I wasn’t going to wait for him.
I could sense his frustration behind me. But I kept running. He wouldn’t catch me. Like all my cousins, he’s fit, but he got that way by playing football and working out. I just run as often as I can. So I outpaced him easily. Not to win a race, but because I was trying to do my job.
If I remembered the map right, then the target’s change of routine might mean my location was more important than originally planned.
I didn’t stop at the end of th
e alley containing the van and Team 1. They didn’t really need me. I kept running to the next alley down.
I heard Becky’s voice. “They’re chatting on the next corner. I think they’re saying goodbye. Yes, they’re splitting up.”
There was a pause, then Roy murmured. “She hasn’t turned back. Hold on. She’s turned right. She’s walking along the next alley down.”
“Shit,” said Malcolm. “We don’t have anyone there.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “I’m at the end of that alley. I can grab her and hold her for a few minutes, if you send the second van here.”
“Don’t you dare, boy! Don’t be stupid. You can’t handle something that complex. We’ll have to pull out and try again later this week.”
“No,” my mum said. “We can’t afford to wait any longer.
I’m sure he can do it. Driver 2, get the back-up van there, now. That’s an order.”
I didn’t listen to Malcolm’s response. I was going to do this anyway, whether Malcolm and Mum agreed about it or not.
Because I had just seen the target 100 metres away, at the other end of the narrow alleyway.
There was no one else around. I couldn’t see anyone. I couldn’t sense anyone. It was just her and me.
“I can see her,” I said quietly. “I can get her.”
I stepped into the dark shadow behind a row of wheelie bins and pulled a thin black mask from my jacket pocket.
I waited to do my job. I waited to kidnap a girl.
CHAPTER 6
Ciaran Bain, 28th October
Before I knocked her out and threw her in a van, I’d better be sure this was the right girl.
I recalled the briefing photos. Dark skin. Short neat black hair, almost shaved to her skull. Small ears close to her head. Wide-set brown eyes. Narrow mouth, which had been chatting and smiling in all the photos we had. Perfect brace-straightened teeth. Not tall, but with a dancer’s build. No martial arts experience, though, Malcolm had assured us.
Just a girl on her way to a dance class. Walking straight towards me.
I didn’t have any doubts at all about what I was doing.
I’ve had lots of opportunity to look back at the thirty seconds I waited in that alley. And I know that, at the time, I didn’t have any doubts at all.
I wanted to be good at my job. I wanted to prove myself to Mum, to Malcolm, to my cousins. To myself.
I didn’t think about the girl at all, except to check that she was definitely the target. I didn’t think about her feelings, except to check that she was calm as she walked towards me, swinging her stripy schoolbag.
I had no doubts about what I was going to do.
There was silence in my earpiece. No one was arguing now. What was the point? I was either going to do this right or make a monumental mess of it.
I waited.
She was so close I could hear her footsteps.
So close I could hear her breathing.
I pulled on the mask and checked my gloves.
And I stepped out.
I sensed her sudden shock at seeing a masked figure in front of her.
I checked her face. Yes. This was the right girl.
I grabbed her arm with my leather-covered left hand and sensed immediate piercing fear. Before I could buckle under the weight of her terror and before she could get a breath to scream, I aimed my right hand at the side of her neck, just below her ear.
I struck one sharp blow. The girl collapsed.
I held her as she fell, then let her slip gently to the ground. I checked all around. Still no witnesses.
“I have her,” I said. “Get the van here now.”
I dragged her behind the bins and waited for Kerr to drive the van round. He’s just turned seventeen and is desperate to prove he’s as good a driver as his dad. So he pulled up right beside us, and was out of the cab and opening the back doors in less than a minute.
I picked the target up, holding her close to my chest, which I couldn’t have managed if she’d been conscious. I slid her along the floor of the van and climbed in myself. Kerr chucked her bag in, closed the doors and drove off smoothly.
“Target in van,” I reported. “Target unconscious and in the van.”
Kerr said from the front, “Van proceeding back to base.”
I heard Mum’s voice. “Well done! I knew you could do it!”
Then Malcolm, less enthusiastic. “Let’s see if you got the right girl and if you can get her home in one piece, boys. Radio silence now and everyone back to base.”
I took off my earpiece, my mike and my gloves, and settled down for a long ride home.
That’s how I killed her.
CHAPTER 7
Ciaran Bain, 28th October
I killed her because I took off my gloves and started doing my homework.
I knew she hadn’t stayed unconscious. I sensed her mind get sharper when she woke up ten minutes after the grab. She tried to slow her terrified breathing, to convince me she was still out cold. She didn’t fool me, but I didn’t think she was any danger. I could sense her trying to stay calm by thinking rather than panicking. Fair enough. At least she wasn’t crying. But unless she could dance her way out of a moving van, she wasn’t going anywhere.
So I let her pretend to be unconscious. I stopped concentrating on her and started practising my weakest skill: I started doing my homework by trying to build a wall against other people’s emotions.
And I almost managed it. That’s why I didn’t notice her change of focus until she moved.
Until she leapt across the van and pulled my mask off.
I grabbed at her, my bare hands gripping her arms, pressing against the muscles under her coat, forcing her away from me.
And one of us was screaming. Not her. Not the kidnapped girl locked in a moving van. She didn’t start the screaming.
I started it. I was screaming.
That’s why I’m useless. I always overreact to other people’s thoughts.
I was screaming at her as I held her away from me.
Then she started yelling back at me.
We were both screaming with shock and panic and regrets, screaming right in each other’s faces.
I couldn’t think while I was so close to her, while I was touching her.
So I dropped her. I opened my hands and dropped her. Then I shoved at her with my boot, pushing her towards the metal wall at the front of the van. She scrambled away from me across the ridged floor.
I stopped screaming, and started thinking again. I realised she still had my mask crumpled in her hand.
I took two steps towards her and leant over her, bracing myself against the van wall, trapping her in the corner. I didn’t touch her, but I got as close as I could bear. I whispered, “Don’t tell them you saw my face!”
Kerr must have heard our screaming competition from the cab, but he mustn’t hear what I was saying now.
The van was slowing down.
“Don’t even think about seeing my face.”
She whispered back, “Why? Will you get into trouble? Do you want me to protect you?”
“No! You need to protect yourself. If they know you’ve seen me, they might…”
The van was turning right, slowing even more.
She was puzzled, shaking her head.
I held out my hand. It was trembling. I am such a wimp.
She slapped my hand away and I jerked back from her hatred.
The van stopped. I moved nearer to her again and whispered, “Give it back!”
“I’m not giving you anything.”
“The mask, you idiot. Give it back.”
She shrugged and threw the mask at me.
I fumbled it on, whispering one last time, “Don’t think about my face.”
The door rattled open.
“What was all that noise?” Kerr was wearing his mask too. “Were you wrestling or snogging or what?”
“She tried to reach the doors. I stopped her. No problem.”
I didn’t look back at her. I jumped out of the van and walked away. If I didn’t think about her pulling my mask off and she didn’t think about my face, we might be alright. She might be alright.
So I walked away.
I went to my room to work on my essay on drug smuggling routes.
And I left her to die.
Even on the far side of the warehouse, I sensed the decision. Deciding to kill a target is serious enough for everyone to sense the senior readers’ doubt or guilt or excitement. I knew who they must be discussing, so I threw my laptop on the bed and ran out of my cabin.
I ran across the warehouse and crashed into the outer room of the Q&A suite. The door to the inner room was shut, but I could sense the girl’s fear thrumming out of it. I’d been trying to ignore her fear when I was writing my essay, but this close it was overwhelming.
Half my family were in the outer room, all in masks for questioning a target. Shit. So she wasn’t just a hostage. They’d been questioning her, reading her thoughts as well as her words. She wouldn’t have been able to keep anything secret.
“It was just for a second!” I yelled at Malcolm. “Not enough to identify me. And she hasn’t seen any of you.”
My family can argue without words, but we usually speak out loud, because we all read minds in different ways and at different strengths.
Malcolm answered me. “I saw your face in her head, Bain. Clear as piss in snow.”
Kerr pulled his mask off. He was training here today. Apparently I wasn’t old enough, or not controlled enough, for the Q&A suite. Kerr said, “I heard your conspiring little voice in her ears. ‘Don’t tell them. Don’t even think about it.’ How stupid can you be? How stupid do you think we are?”
“We already know how stupid Bain is,” sneered another voice: Daniel, also training in Q&A, though he’s only a month older than me. He stepped towards me, trying to intimidate me with his size. “But we don’t know whose side Bain is on. Hers or ours?”
I ignored Daniel. I tried to make a sensible case for not killing the girl. “She’s only a teenager, Malcolm. She can’t be a threat to anyone. She must have given you whatever information you need, so why don’t you just let her go?”