The Squad

by Tom Palmer

  ‘We’ll keep you informed,’ Hatty replied. She knew now wasn’t the time to try and convince the Prime Minister that Hawk was a potential suspect. There were more urgent matters at hand. ‘Er … sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Please … would you mind giving me a leg-up?’

  On the Edge

  As Lesh switched the lift back on, using his SpyPad from his room so that the Prime Minister could go on his way, he noticed a movement in one of the monitors on his split screen. Hawk was leaving the hotel.

  ‘Kester. Lily. Go,’ Lesh ordered. ‘Hawk’s on the move.’

  Lily and Kester were on their feet immediately.

  ‘Take your coats,’ Lesh went on, now watching the American through hotel CCTV corridor cameras he’d tapped into. ‘The temperature outside’s dropping fast. He’s putting his coat on and heading into town. I think he’s with another member of the American party. Not sure. You need to find out.’

  Lesh was right about the weather. When Kester and Lily got outside, there was an icy breeze coming from the north, dark clouds drifting over the mountains and fjords. But there was no sign of the Americans.

  ‘Where are they?’ Lily spoke into the microphone concealed in her watch. ‘Is the tracking device still in Hawk’s hat?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lesh’s voice came back to them. ‘They’re walking to the north of Tromsø town centre. They’re just crossing the Bruvegen Bridge. Back towards Tromsdalen.’

  Lily and Kester skirted the harbour area and jogged towards the bridge, past small wooden houses painted bright colours, as Lesh satellite-tracked them and Frank Hawk.

  When the children reached the western end of the bridge, they could see Hawk and the other American. The two men were already halfway across.

  ‘Where are they going?’ Kester asked Lily as they pretended to check a map on a display board.

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe just for a walk, but I doubt it. We have no idea, but we can’t lose them.’

  Crossing the bridge was different from earlier in the afternoon. It felt more like a narrow ribbon of metal stretched over a vast expanse of rough seawater than a bridge. The sun had gone in behind the clouds and a heavy mist was advancing over the water. The entire north end of the island of Tromsø was already invisible.

  They moved on quickly for fear of losing the Americans, jogging, fighting against a wild wind that made speaking – and talking into their mics – impossible. At the eastern end of the bridge there was no sign of their targets.

  Because he knew Kester and Lily had stopped moving, Lesh spoke over the radio. ‘Don’t stop. Head east, five hundred metres, then south. Can you see the cable car?’

  ‘I saw it before,’ Kester shouted above the noise of some trucks.

  ‘They’re heading that way,’ Lesh confirmed.

  The cable car was a large metal box, about the same shape and size as a third of a single-decker bus. It was there to transport tourists to the top of the mountain, so they could admire the view. When Lily and Kester reached the ticket office at the bottom, they could see the cable car suspended on a thick wire, a hundred metres above them, moving slowly towards a wooden building at the top of the steep mountain. A second cable car was coming in the opposite direction down towards them.

  ‘They’re in the one going up,’ Kester said, keeping himself out of view of the ascending car, like Lily.

  ‘Great. We’ll go in this next one,’ Lily said.

  Once the second cable car had arrived, they paid at a kiosk at the foot of the cable car and climbed aboard, pleased to have it to themselves. The two children gaped in awe at the scenery about them. At first, they looked at the rooftops of the houses around the cable car entrance, then at the rough path beneath. But, within just a minute, they seemed to have travelled miles and were suspended high over Tromsdalen. They could see to the other side of the water above the mist. The panorama was amazing as the weather cleared a little. The massive row of black mountains in the distance. The glint of a plane taking off from the airport on the far side of the island. Tiny boats in the fjords to the south.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Lesh asked over the radio as the cable car approached the summit of the mountain.

  ‘Where are they?’ Kester asked.

  ‘Look at a set of benches on a wooden walkway that sticks out off the side of the mountain. Can you see it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily said. ‘There. They’re looking across the fjord. Quite near a large group of tourists.’

  ‘Good,’ Lesh said. ‘If you can get near to them, listen in. Try and stick close. I suspect they’ve gone up there to have a private conversation where they can be sure there are no bugs.’

  Lily identified two ways that she could get close to the Americans to listen in on them.

  One option was to walk out of the door of the building where the cable car had dropped them, across the wooden walkway, among the group of thirty or so tourists milling around, but possibly in full view of the men.

  The other option was to skirt round the back of the building, climb over a fence that had been put up to stop people falling hundreds of metres down the mountainside, then move sideways along a rough surface until she was underneath the wooden walkway, below the men’s feet. And to try her best not to fall to her death.

  There was really only one viable option, so Lily found herself, feet wedged into a narrow crevice, hands clutching on to icy stone, beneath the wooden walkway. It took her four minutes to get into position.

  Lily looked upwards. Through the gaps between the wood, she could see the hiking boots of both men. One had a lace untied which was dangling between the slats. Lily could have easily reached out and pulled it.

  ‘Are we safe here?’ Hawk asked the other man, after a few seconds of small talk about the scenery. ‘I mean, can anyone overhear us?’

  ‘We’re safe here, sir.’

  ‘Good. Good. The device then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When do we think the Russians are bringing it in?’

  ‘It could be tonight. Maybe in that ship there. Any ship.’

  Lily looked down. A ship was already docking on the Tromsdalen side of the water. In the spot where the Russian had been standing the night before.

  ‘Is it viable?’ Hawk asked. ‘I mean, can it work after all these years?’

  ‘It’s viable, sir. I’ve done some research. It could blow this whole town sky-high and start a world war, no question.’

  Lily couldn’t believe what she was hearing. If this was true, then they’d stumbled on something just as serious as the PM was expecting.

  ‘So how do we stop them? It would be a mistake to just say the Russians are planning this. No one would believe us. I just wish there were spies here. Anyone. But they’re all banned from the conference. For good reason.’

  ‘Sir, I think I know a place where the device may be stored. Before the attack. I have some intelligence. Our people have been monitoring the area with satellites.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’ll take you there, sir.’

  Hawk said, ‘Let’s go then.’

  Lily had to blink to protect her eyes from the dirt and stones that tumbled through the gaps in the wood as the two men walked away. She started to make a move to get back to Kester so they could trail the Americans.

  Then she slipped.

  Felt herself falling.

  And – for a second – she thought, This is it. A long fall. A quick death.

  But the fall lasted no longer than a second and, without really hurting herself, Lily found herself at the top of the path that wound directly underneath the cable car. She’d fallen five metres at most. And the ground was soft. Mercifully.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Lesh asked anxiously over the radio, having heard her fall.

  ‘Fine,’ Lily breathed out.

  Next she heard Kester’s voice. ‘They’re in the cable car. Going down. I couldn’t get in with them. They’d know I was following them.’

&n
bsp; ‘But they’re heading to where they think the Russian device may be,’ Lily muttered to herself, eyeing the cable car. ‘That’s what they said.’ Then Lily spoke into her mic. ‘Lesh, can you track them when they reach the bottom?’

  ‘I can, but are you sure they’re on the move?’ Lesh queried. ‘I have them at the top on the walkway.’

  ‘Negative,’ Kester replied. ‘They’re in the cable car.’

  ‘And it’s moving now,’ Lily added, seeing it sliding down its wires.

  Lily heard Kester running above her on the walkway. Then she heard him stop. ‘He’s left his hat,’ Kester said.

  ‘We’ve lost them then.’ Lesh’s voice. ‘Unless one of you can get down to the bottom. Quickly.’

  Lily looked out across the islands and mountains and water, then at the path running steeply down several hundred metres.

  ‘No chance of that,’ Kester muttered.

  Lesh swore into the microphone. ‘We’ve lost them,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible.’

  But Lily shook her head. There had to be a way to do this.

  Downhill

  Lily knew that the only way she was going to keep up with the cable car’s fast descent was by taking risks. If she didn’t take those risks, then they’d lose Hawk and his sidekick and miss out on finding out about the dangerous device the two were discussing.

  It was about a mile down the hill. A fifty per cent slope. Seriously steep. And that wasn’t the only problem. Lily had to run fast. Fast enough to keep herself under the cable car. If she fell too far behind, she’d be visible to them from above.

  She had to get this right.

  Lily practically threw herself downwards, her right foot hitting the rough track with only a half second for her to think about where to put her left. She had to avoid the larger stones, keep to the solid ground without for a moment slowing down. But Lily had run like this before. In the hills where she used to live. Her dad’s passion had been fell-running, taking on the steepest, wildest hills, up and down. And it was a passion he’d passed on to his daughter.

  Lily was doing well. She could hear the rattle of the cable car above her. Clanking. Squealing. Grinding. She could even see its shadow moving steadily alongside her. Down she went, her knees jarring. One wrong foot and she could rip her knee or hip out of its socket. All the more likely because she’d not warmed up properly. As she ran, she tried to piece something together in her mind. A worry. The idea that something about what they’d just overheard wasn’t quite right. That it sounded like … a bit like what Hawk wanted them to hear. But she was running too hard and too fast to think clearly, so she put the thought to the back of her mind. For now.

  After two minutes, she was halfway down. Underneath the cable car. That was when she saw the man, an old man, coming slowly up the hill, stooping to admire a flower, then straightening up as he heard her coming. He was on a raised piece of ground. If he was to stand and put his hands in the air, he’d almost be able to touch the cable car that was about to pass over him.

  Lily could see no way of avoiding the old man, because of her speed and the steepness of the hill and the bushes on either side. They were locked into a collision course. A collision course that could easily send them both falling hundreds of metres down the mountainside. But it was too late to worry about that. Lily had to keep on Hawk’s tail. The mission depended on it.

  What happened next took mere seconds. First, Lily heard the clatter of the cable car above her, suddenly louder in her mind. Then, as she hit the hillside with her right foot, she saw the man begin to flinch and duck. One step before they collided.

  Lily’s left foot came down, then, springing upwards, she was flying over the man, a giant leap, her hands reaching upwards, miraculously gripping the metal tubing on the underside of the cable car.

  It was the only way.

  Lily’s arms were already feeling the strain when she looked down for the best place to drop back down on to the hillside. But she was horrified to see there was absolutely no chance of that. Because she was now suspended over fifty metres above the ground, her legs dangling helplessly as the cable car juddered and swung, the strength draining from her arms already as the wind picked up to rock the cable car from side to side.

  How long? she asked herself. How long can I hang here? She knew that her legs were strong – from the running – but her arms? She was less sure about them. But Lily knew what she had to do. They had been trained for this. Making the mind take control of the body. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out, keeping her hands gripped on the icy metal tube. She counted to sixty, able to hear the voices of those travelling inside the cable car. One minute. And, when the minute was up, she felt the cable car start to slow. It was going to be OK. She must be nearing the bottom. So Lily opened her eyes.

  And it was true that the cable car was slowing. But not to stop at the bottom. It was stopping in mid-air.

  With a jolt.

  A jolt so sudden that it dislodged one of Lily’s hands.

  Now she was hanging by one arm.

  Lily felt sick and weak, but she tried not to think about her fingers straining to hold on. She looked down. Forty metres at least. She’d never survive a fall like that. She felt her hand slip. A slow, agonizing movement.

  This was it.

  Lily looked up at the mountain behind her. She thought of how, after the terror of the fall and the pain of hitting the ground, she would inevitably be dead. She tried to think beyond that. How her ghost – if there were ghosts – would be able to run in these mountains with her dad.

  Then she heard the voice. ‘Hang in there, Lily.’

  At first, she thought it was her dad’s voice and that she might already be falling. Was this some sort of out-of-body experience?

  ‘Hang in there.’ The voice again. And Lily understood that it was not her dad speaking to her from beyond the grave, but Lesh speaking through their comms system.

  ‘Don’t fall,’ he said. ‘It’s not worth it. I should know.’

  Lily felt her hand grip tighter than ever on the underside of the cable car. She knew Lesh would have been able to tap into the CCTV and would be watching her, reliving his own accident, as horrifying for him, perhaps, as it was for her.

  She would do this for him.

  The cable car started moving again. Closer to the end of its run. Closer to the ground where she could drop down.

  She could feel every individual muscle in her arms tearing and burning, the joints of her fingers ripping apart. If she could just hold on. Then her grip went. Fingers slipping. She looked down.

  Twenty metres.

  Hold on.

  Fifteen metres.

  Hold on. But she couldn’t. She felt her hand giving way, gravity pulling her downwards.

  Ten metres.

  Then she dropped. That helpless falling feeling. Then hitting the ground hard.

  But not too hard. A drop of maybe five metres. The cable car had reached lower ground. She was OK.

  Lily stayed in that position for a minute, stretching her arms, breathing, calming her mind. She whispered into her mic. ‘Thanks, Lesh.’

  Now to work. In the car park, a bus was waiting. Lily guessed that it was there for the large group of sightseers who had come down the hill. The coach had the word HURTIGRUTEN TOURS on a piece of card at the front, confirming her theory.

  Lily squatted behind it, her knees like jelly. And there, alongside the coach, she saw Hawk, standing talking. He was playing them. Somehow he was leading them on. She knew it. And she needed to speak to Kester about it. Now.

  Lily glanced up the hill. The second cable car was coming down now. She spoke quietly into her mic.

  ‘Kester? Are you in the cable car?’

  She heard Kester reply with a single cough. That meant ‘yes’. It also meant he wasn’t alone in the car. Lily could hear a hubbub of voices in the background. Kester must be in the cable car with some of the tourists.

  ‘I made it,’ she rep
orted, knowing Kester would be unable to talk safely. ‘Hawk is here, just chatting to a bus driver. I’m behind the coach. Can you hear me?’

  Another cough.

  ‘I’ll wait here until they make a move – or until you get here.’

  A third cough.

  Lily then turned her attention to the Americans. Listening in now she was close enough to overhear. First, she heard Hawk address the driver of the tourist bus. ‘Hello there. Can I ask: are you heading back to the boat?’

  ‘Yes. The Hurtigruten,’ the driver said with a strong Norwegian accent.

  ‘Can we hitch a lift?’ Hawk asked. ‘We’re keen to take a trip up north, to see a couple of places. On the ship.’

  Hawk passed something into the driver’s hand. Money.

  ‘No problem,’ the driver smiled.

  Lily watched the two Americans climb aboard as more tourists flooded out of the cable car, heading for the coach.

  ‘Quickly, please,’ the driver called out to the tourists as Lily moved around the bus to see if she could spot Kester.

  And there he was, moving with the group, hidden among them as they began a faster walk to board the bus.

  ‘Quickly,’ the driver shouted. ‘Your boat leaves in thirty minutes. They will not wait for us. We must leave.’

  As he spoke, the Hurtigruten boat sounded its horn, the noise echoing harshly off the mountains and escaping up the fjord, and the tourists hurried on to the bus.

  Kester ran up beside Lily. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Hawk’s on the bus. He’s going to get the boat north. We have to be on that boat. Then we need to talk. I’m not sure about Hawk. I’m not sure about any of this. But if we don’t get on this bus, then the boat, we’ve no chance of sorting this out.’

  ‘But how do we get on it without being seen?’ Kester asked.

  By the Sea

  The sun was dipping behind the mountains to the west of Tromsø, a soft orange light coming off the water. But the city seemed busier than ever, couples walking along the harbourside, groups of children about the same age as the Squad sitting on the grass round rucksacks, laughing, texting, staring at the water. The weather had turned again. It was mild and clear, the cold winds holding off for now.