The Squad

by Tom Palmer

  Hatty looked at Georgia’s face. Her worried expression had changed slightly. There was a look of determination there now. And Hatty knew she’d done her job. As she walked away from Georgia, towards the dressing rooms, she heard a cheer from the crowd. Then, above it all, Hawk’s unmistakable chanting.

  ‘U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!’

  The penalty had already been taken. Hatty looked back at the goal. Adnan was picking the ball out of the net.

  1–1.

  Half an hour to go.

  When Hatty was changed, she went to sit in the stand with the other fans. She looked at her watch. Five minutes to go. Still 1–1. The Squad needed two things.

  First, a USA goal.

  Second, for Adnan to suggest to the USA team that Hawk come to receive the cup with them. But Hatty knew that plans rarely work out exactly. So she wasn’t surprised when the final whistle went and the match was still level. The game would end with a penalty shoot-out. Five shots each. Whichever team scored the most would win.

  Rio decided who the five penalty takers were to be for England by going round and telling them who was doing it, then making sure they were happy to take one.

  The five were him, Finn, Johnny, one of the other midfielders and Georgia. England would take the first penalty.

  As Rio strode up to the take the first shot, Adnan stood close to Georgia. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You miss yours. I’ll let all theirs in, OK.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you feel OK about that?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Georgia said.

  Then she shifted her feet. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I hate it. I just hope I don’t have to be the one to miss, the one that loses us the game.’

  Ten minutes later, Georgia placed the ball on the penalty spot. Every USA player and every England player had scored. If Georgia scored, the score would be 5–5 and the penalty shoot-out would go on. If she missed, England would lose. Her nightmare scenario had come true.

  I can’t do it, she said to herself. I can’t miss this.

  The Penalty

  Hatty watched Georgia take three steps back, ready to strike the ball.

  At the same time, she saw Adnan suggesting something to one of the USA players. The player – a boy – immediately glanced up at Hawk, then nodded to Adnan. Also, in the back of the stand, Hatty spotted two children – a boy and a girl – faces painted with the Stars and Stripes, waving another huge USA flag above them. Lily and Kester, in position, as planned. Everything was going to plan. All Hatty needed now was for Georgia to miss this penalty. But Hatty saw that there was something in Georgia’s eyes that she didn’t like.

  She’s not going to miss, Hatty thought. She can’t do it. I knew we should never have involved her. She’s going to blow the whole thing.

  Hatty watched in horror as Georgia stepped forward and struck the ball hard. It flew towards the top corner of the net, easily beating the keeper. Hatty could only wince as it smacked on the underside of the crossbar, then bounced back out of the goal.

  Georgia had missed.

  The noise from the USA team and fans seemed to echo off the hills around them. Roaring. Whooping.

  Then ‘U-S-A … U-S-A … U-S-A …’

  Hatty stood still, pretending she was devastated, her eyes still on Georgia, who’d dropped to her knees and had all her teammates round her. Comforting her. Georgia had gone against all her instincts and missed the penalty on purpose. And now everyone was comforting her, even though she knew – and would always know – she’d missed it deliberately. And Hatty felt something like sympathy for Georgia.

  But there was no time for feelings. Stage one was complete. The next stage was about to take place. The USA team were gesturing for Frank Hawk – the famous American businessman – to come out of the stands and join the celebrations.

  Right on cue. Exactly to plan.

  Hatty smiled at Lesh as Hawk stood, leaving the briefcase handcuffed to his assistant. Now – for a few minutes – Hawk was separated from his precious button.

  It was working. Time for stage two.

  Hatty looked to see the two face-painted children coming down from the back of the stand, waving their huge USA flag. Grinning. Whooping. Closing in on Hawk’s assistant amid excited American celebrations. Hawk was on the pitch, shaking hands with all the children, posing for photographs. Grinning. Laughing. Distracted.

  This couldn’t be going better, Hatty thought as Lily and Kester moved in behind Hawk’s assistant and jabbed the end of their flag into his leg. Immediately, the large American slumped into his seat, eased down by Kester, enough sedative in his bloodstream from the tip of the flag to keep him out cold for half an hour and out of action for a least another hour and a half.

  And, because everyone was applauding, watching the trophy being presented, no one noticed a boy with his face painted like the Stars and Stripes removing the handcuff from the sidekick’s wrist, then walking away with the briefcase, closely followed by the girl.

  They had it. The button.

  Hatty grinned at Lesh. But Lesh was not grinning back. There was something in his eyes. He was looking beyond Hatty. Hatty turned quickly.

  At first, nothing seemed to be different. The American team was tossing the trophy around, surrounded by excited adults. And still the chanting.

  ‘U-S-A … U-S-A … U-S-A …’

  Then Hatty understood why Lesh looked alarmed. Hawk was no longer with them. He was on the far side of the stadium, jogging with a rucksack towards the gap at the far end of the pitch. Towards the hill the Squad had run up three days earlier.

  Hatty hit the button on her watch, to make all the Squad stop and look at her.

  She saw Lily and Kester stop their escape with the briefcase. She saw Adnan at the far side of the pitch, still in his keeper’s kit and – again – Lesh’s eyes on her.

  She gestured towards Hawk just as he stopped to turn on the edge of the pitch. Hawk lifted his rucksack and pointed at it. He was wearing a broad grin.

  Then he turned and disappeared into the woods.

  Hatty lifted her watch to her mouth and pressed the speak button. ‘He’s still got his nuclear trigger. He’s tricked us. We’ve blown it.’

  The Bomb

  ‘Go after him!’ Lesh shouted, taking out his pair of high-power binoculars. ‘I’ll monitor him from here. Everybody stay in radio contact.’

  So, as the stadium emptied, and the Americans continued to congratulate themselves, the four children raced across the AstroTurf of the pitch, then into knee-deep snow outside, on the trail of Frank Hawk.

  The American’s footprints were clear. Only one track had been made in the half-metre of snow that blanketed the lower slopes of the hill. It led between two clusters of trees.

  The Squad ran in single file, using the trail to speed their progress. A wind was whipping the surface of the snow into their eyes, obscuring their vision.

  ‘When we hit the trees,’ Kester ordered, ‘spread out.’

  They carried on their pursuit. Lily first, then Adnan, then Kester, then Hatty, watched – four hundred metres away at the stadium – by Lesh, who had been waiting for Hawk to emerge above the first clusters of trees, using his binoculars.

  ‘No sign of Hawk above the trees,’ Lesh reported on the radio, anxious suddenly.

  ‘Roger,’ Kester retorted.

  Now that they’d reached the trees, they fanned out, one track becoming four as they started to climb the steeper hill.

  ‘Take care,’ Kester said in a low voice. ‘He’s possibly hiding. And he’s probably armed.’

  They moved on, through a deepening wood, the snow up to their hips now, the cold wind in their faces, scanning the hillside, desperate to find the American.

  They all saw him at once and stopped, speechless.

  He was standing on a rock that jutted out above the trees. He was holding a gun in one hand and a small device, about the same size as a SpyPhone.

>   ‘Well, if it isn’t my friends from the mountain.’ Hawk looked genuinely surprised.

  ‘Hello again,’ Kester said, trying to sound confident.

  ‘And there was I thinking I’d filled you with enough lead to sink you to the bottom of that fjord.’

  ‘We’re tenacious,’ Kester replied, seeing a smile pass across his enemy’s face. But the smile was not about the mountainside hunting. It was about something else.

  ‘It’s empty,’ Hawk shouted.

  ‘What’s empty?’ Kester shouted back, trying to remain calm.

  Hawk was armed and none of the children were: if he could get the American talking, it might buy them time.

  ‘The briefcase. In your hand.’ Frank Hawk was smiling.

  Kester shook his head. The briefcase. It was still in his hand.

  He tossed it to the side. It thwocked as it landed and sank slightly into the snow.

  ‘This is perhaps what you’re looking for?’ Hawk held up the small device.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kester asked, glad that the other three were remaining silent. The protocol for this kind of interaction was for one person to talk. They had to stick to that.

  ‘It’s the button. All I need to do is key in my memorized code and I detonate a nuclear device that will blow Tromsø and all its important politicians – and you – to your deaths.’

  ‘And you,’ Kester said. ‘It’ll kill you too.’

  ‘No. Not me,’ Frank Hawk said. ‘Once I’ve tapped the code in, I have an hour to get to the other side of the mountain, away from the blast. It’s not that big a bomb.’

  ‘What about the fallout?’ Kester asked. ‘The device you’re setting off is nuclear. It’ll cast fallout for hundreds of kilometres. It’ll be radioactive for decades. The first hours will kill everything within a hundred kilometres. Including you.’

  He knew Hawk would have an answer for this. The American was hardly going to let off a nuclear bomb without having an exit strategy. Kester was asking so as to gather as much information as he could. Just in case there was a way out of this.

  ‘You’ve done your homework,’ Hawk smiled, glancing at his device and tapping its surface several times. ‘But I’ve got a radioactive suit and respirator in here. And a boat, a day’s walk away. Here …’

  He tossed the device to Kester. And, for a second as it sailed through the air, Kester thought the American was surrendering. Adnan caught the device and handed it to his leader.

  ‘What is it?’ Kester asked Adnan.

  ‘It says “armed”,’ Adnan replied.

  ‘That’s because it is armed.’ Hawk laughed. ‘What do you think I was doing just then? Phoning a friend? It’ll go off in an hour. Unless …’

  ‘Unless what?’ Kester asked.

  ‘Unless you know the series of eighteen numbers that is the code to deactivate it – the same one I just used to activate it. Oh … and you can only key one set of numbers in. If you get it wrong, there are no second chances.’

  The four children looked at each other. Then, hearing a click, they all hit the floor, knowing Hawk was about to fire. Hawk was pointing his gun at the tree behind them. The clatter of bullets blasted over their heads, snapping branches off the trees and dumping woodchips and snow on the Squad.

  Then Hawk was gone, running at a medium pace up the hill.

  ‘Now what?’ Hatty asked. And Kester realized the other three were looking at him, expecting an answer.

  Baseball

  Kester held his breath for a few seconds. Thinking. He didn’t need long. It was clear what he had to do. He had two people in his team to deploy immediately to give them any chance of stopping a catastrophe.

  He could see that Lily was already stretching her legs, strong lunges to warm her muscles, anticipating his orders before they came.

  ‘Lily,’ Kester said. ‘You’re the only one who can catch Hawk. Go after him. Stop him.’

  ‘OK,’ Lily replied, then she began to run up the hill. There was nothing else to say. Kester was right. Only she could keep up with the American. The others had to focus on deactivating the nuclear device.

  ‘Come on. We need to talk to Lesh,’ Kester said, turning to lead the other two in a run back towards the stadium.

  Lily ran at a steady pace up the mountain. She saw a trail of footsteps heading along where she knew a track led up the side of the mountain, bordered by huge swathes of trees on either side. Hawk had chosen the most direct route up the mountain and Lily knew it would be foolish to go straight along the path after him. He would be expecting that. But Lily was a strong runner. She’d catch him soon enough if she took an alternative route. Yes, he was fit, but he was a muscular man, too heavy to be really fast on the mountains, like she was. So Lily went into the trees.

  Kester, Adnan and Hatty stumbled through the snow, back in the footprints they’d made chasing after Hawk.

  ‘How long does it say on the clock?’ Kester asked.

  Hatty glanced at it. ‘Fifty-five minutes.’

  ‘Lesh?’ Kester was speaking into the microphone in his watch.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hawk has activated the bomb. We’ve got less than an hour. We need to work out the code.’

  ‘Any clues?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Kester said, slightly breathless as they ran.

  ‘How many digits?’

  ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘I’ll work it out,’ Lesh said. ‘Get here quickly.’

  And soon they were all together, huddled round Lesh’s SpyPad, desperate to crack the code.

  ‘Think numbers,’ Kester said. ‘What numbers would you use to create a code? Something you could remember.’

  ‘Birthdays?’ Hatty suggested.

  ‘His grandchildren’s birthdays,’ Adnan added.

  Lesh immediately started to tap on the screen of his SpyPad. After two minutes of searching, he shook his head.

  ‘I can find their names, where they live, but no dates of birth. We’ll have to give up on that one.’

  ‘Anyway, we need eighteen numbers. That wouldn’t fit two kids’ birthdays.’

  ‘What else?’ Kester asked. ‘And we have to get this right. Whatever we key in we have to be convinced it’s right. We only get one go.’

  Ten minutes later, Lily had made good progress through the trees. Although the mountain was steeper here and the trees and their roots slowed her down, there was no snow on the ground and she was quickly level with Frank Hawk. She could see him through the trees, running a hundred paces, then squatting to study the track behind him. He had no idea he was being watched.

  Her plan was to get ahead of him – way ahead of him – so that when he emerged at the treeline, where there was little vegetation and mostly rocks and stones, she would be ready and waiting.

  But now she had to speed up, push herself further than she’d ever pushed herself before. And she had to work out how she was going to stop a man two times her body weight who was carrying at least two firearms.

  ‘I know what it is.’

  ‘What, Lesh?’ Kester asked.

  ‘Baseball,’ Lesh explained.

  ‘Baseball?’ Hatty snapped. ‘Why are you going on about baseball?’

  ‘We know Hawk is sports mad. We know his favourite sport is baseball. And I’ve found out baseball fans remember statistics, like the top scores or when their team has won.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, Hawk likes the Oakland Athletics.’

  ‘Who?’ Hatty asked.

  ‘The Oakland Athletics. A baseball team from where he was brought up as a kid. He gives them money. All sorts.’

  ‘And how does that fit in with the code, Lesh?’ Hatty said impatiently.

  ‘I’ve looked the Oakland Athletics up on the Internet. They’ve won the World Series nine times. All in the 1900s.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, if you enter the years …’

  ‘The years they won?’

  ‘Yes. So if you enter all nin
e years – missing out the “nineteen” prefix – you’ve got eighteen numbers.’

  Again there was a silence as the children faced each other.

  ‘We’re running out of time,’ Hatty said. ‘We have to choose something.’

  A further silence.

  ‘And this is as good as anything we’ve come up with,’ Kester added.

  ‘So, are we decided?’ Lesh asked, looking at everyone’s faces.

  They looked into each other’s eyes. But still none of them spoke. Then, together, they gave hesitant smiles.

  ‘Yes,’ they all said as one.

  ‘So I do it?’

  ‘You do it,’ Kester agreed.

  Lesh began to key in the eighteen numbers.

  10–11–13–29–30–72–73–7 …

  When Lily broke out of the trees, she was exhausted. She had never run so hard. But she had saved just enough energy to do what she had to do next.

  She found two huge rocks, big enough to hide behind. They lay directly at the point in the path where Frank Hawk would emerge from the trees.

  Lily began to pile up dozens of handgrenade-sized stones. Ready for Hawk. Her plan was simple. The moment he was in range, she would throw the rocks at him. Hard and fast. And if she hit him quickly – and hard enough – then she’d stop him drawing his gun. If she didn’t, she’d be dead.

  And soon he emerged, but not running. He was walking, breathless now. Lily had been right. He was too big to run up hills effectively. Lily waited with a rock in her right hand.

  Hawk came closer.

  Closer still.

  She had to choose the right moment.

  Then he slumped, hands on his knees, his bag at his side. He was shattered.

  This was it.

  Lily stood, the sun behind her, meaning he’d be blinded by the light coming off the snow.

  The first stone hit him on the shoulder. Hawk twisted and fell back against the snow, but already he was reaching for the gun he had strapped across his chest. Two hands on it. Rolling into position. Lily had to finish this. Now.

  So she stood between the large rocks and began to throw rock after rock, hard, down on to Hawk, not looking to see what he was doing now, just aware of where he was, making sure she hit him.