Four Degrees More

by Malcolm Rose

  ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’

  I didn’t answer. But, like Beth said, it’s got to stop. We do have only one planet. I’ve got to ram the point home by stopping the oil refinery. It’s the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

  FOUR

  The London Paper: Environment Minister in shock resignation

  The Sun: Green plans on backburner

  ‘Huh. The green spell didn’t last long,’ Beth muttered when she saw the news. The politician she was blackmailing had quit his job, so her plans to force the Government to fix the environment lay in ruins.

  ‘You know what’s happened, don’t you?’ Robin said angrily.

  Beth nodded as she screwed up the newspaper and threw it aside.

  ‘It’s not hard to guess. I smell LOP in action.’

  It’s like they were talking in code.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  Beth wrapped her hair around her fingers.

  ‘It’s a fair bet the League of Oil Producers – a pressure group that denies global warming – knew the minister’s grubby little secret as well. Like us, they’ve threatened to reveal all, I imagine.’ Beth shook her head. ‘If he tried to push green laws through, LOP would leak his private life to the press. If he didn’t, we’d talk instead. He’d lose either way, so he’s got out quick. Anyway,’ she said, ‘it means LOP is playing rough. So we’ve got to do the same. It’s time to show everybody the damage the oil industry does. It’s our duty to clean up a dirty industry.’

  I’d skipped school. After all, saving the planet was more important than a few GCSEs. I was ready and willing for action. I said, ‘Totally agree.’

  The green queen nodded. ‘You’re like me. You let your anger show. You let it all out.’

  ‘Better out than in, my mum always says.’

  Beth smiled in a serious sort of way.

  ‘Robin bottles it all up until it gets too much. Then he explodes. Anyway, if we’re going to get our message across, we’ve got to hit the refinery hard. Maximum impact.’

  At that moment, revenge for my bedroom and fixing the planet seemed very close.

  ‘Good idea.’

  Beth gazed at me for a few seconds, as if making her mind up about me, and then said, ‘All right, Leyton. I think I know you well enough.’

  She hardly knew me at all, but I was pleased that she was about to let me in on her plan of action.

  ‘Here’s what we do.’ Her voice was almost a whisper. ‘We’re going to have a massive protest outside the oil refinery. I’ll get all our people involved, so we’ll make ourselves a really big nuisance.’

  ‘And you want me to join in?’ I asked.

  Beth shook her head.

  ‘No. We’ll keep the police and security guards busy by storming the gates, but the real action will be happening quietly inside. That’s where you come in.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I bet it feels good,’ she said, nudging my arm. ‘You’re the most important part of the whole thing.’

  I should have asked, ‘Why me?’, but I was blinded by anger over my old bedroom and everything that went with it, so I said, ‘Great!’ It felt fantastic to be part of a group instead of a one-person campaign. A bit like having a proper family again.

  ‘We’ll just be the distraction. You’ll do the sabotage. You’ll be the green champion.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Going over to the table, she unfolded a large plan of the factory.

  ‘See these three containers in the middle? They’re the main storage tanks for the refined oil.’ She stabbed her finger at them. ‘That’s what you attack. The heart of the business.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘If they went up in flames … Think of a fantastic firework display and multiply it thousands and thousands of times. That’s one impressive show.’

  I stared at her, but couldn’t speak.

  ‘We’ve got a device,’ she said. ‘It’ll only take a few minutes to show you how to set it up.’

  ‘A device?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean a bomb?’

  ‘Just something that’ll burst the tanks. Imagine it. The factory supplies a huge amount of oil and petrol. Knock it out and this country’s ability to pump out carbon dioxide will take a massive hit. Utterly enormous. It’d take an age to recover.’

  ‘But a bomb –’ I took a deep breath. ‘Won’t people get hurt?’

  ‘At night, there’s hardly anyone on site.’ She paused and looked into my face. ‘Let me ask you this. What would you do if your best mate was locked in a room that was filling with water? Would you go and find the key and get him out straight away, or wait to see if it developed into an emergency and then fetch the key when it’s too late?’

  ‘No-brainer. I’d go straight away, but –’ She was talking in riddles again.

  ‘We could wait for the climate to get out of hand and wish we’d done something before it was too late,’ Beth said, ‘or we could act now. We need you to do this, Leyton, because you’re not known to the police. We are. We’re watched. Is the Cooler with us?’

  ‘All right. Count me in. But … I just don’t want to hurt anyone.’

  ‘It’ll be okay. Trust me. You go and work with Robin on the device.’

  The night was warm and sticky. Or was it just me? I had the device – as Beth and Robin called it – in a haversack. I was damp where it pressed heavily against my skin, and I could feel the sweat trickling down my back. But the night air was muggy anyway. I was feeling the effects of global warming, as well as carrying the bomb.

  But it was all for a good cause. It wasn’t as if I was a terrorist, suicide bomber or anything. I was only going to wreck some storage tanks, oil and a business. No people were in the firing line. It was the right thing to do.

  Without a sound, I crouched down in that circle of darkness and folded back the wire. The hole in the fence reminded me of a dog kennel. I took my backpack off and carefully pushed it through first. Then I crawled into the oil refinery. Standing up in enemy territory, I strapped the bag on to my back again and looked around. So far, no problem. I pointed the tiny torch at my wrist and switched it on for a second. Nearly quarter past midnight. It wouldn’t be long now. I just needed to wait a few minutes.

  I’d memorised the map. I knew where I had to go. Across an access road and slightly to the right. There, I’d see a large overhead pipe and I could follow it to get to the centre of the factory. It would be like following an artery to the heart of a body.

  My new friends were going to kick up a fuss near the main gates at twelve fifteen, but I didn’t know exactly what would happen. The siren took me by surprise. I dived to the ground, hoping I hadn’t been seen or set it off. It was very loud. Everyone on the housing estate would be waking up and cursing the factory for being so close.

  The siren screamed into the stillness and I could see lights coming on. People in uniform were rushing around. They were a long way away and they weren’t coming in my direction. Beth must have started the riot. Hopefully the WHOOP protesters had attracted the attention of every guard in the grounds. The siren was the starting pistol for my mission.

  I got up again and ran, crouching a bit, towards the pipe. The device clunked against my back, reminding me it was there, reminding me how important I was to the group and to the Earth.

  The place stank like a big, dirty machine. I turned left and went along under the pipeline. I was on a tarmac track between two low buildings. There were no lights on, so I couldn’t see what happened inside. Coming up to a much bigger road, I slipped on an oily patch but managed to keep on my feet. I felt like a little kid, looking left and right and left again before crossing. But I wasn’t looking for cars and lorries. There weren’t any. I was looking for security guards or anything that might give me away. There were all sorts of strange pieces of equipment down one side, but I didn’t see any danger so I dashed across the road.


  I had to hope that, if I’d been caught on CCTV, no one was watching the pictures. I had to hope that everyone was dealing with the green queen and her rebels.

  I jumped in shock when the siren stopped. The sudden silence surprised me. Someone must have turned it off, because it had done its job. It must have alerted all the security staff and maybe the police.

  The track continued. There were three pipes above me now and one at ground level. There was also the constant hum of machinery – or perhaps it was the noise of oil churning through the pipelines.

  I gasped when I saw a torchlight bobbing ahead of me. Before the beam came in my direction, I swerved off the track and flattened myself in the gap between two cabins. I could feel my blood pounding through my arteries, my own heart on the point of exploding. I held my breath.

  It wasn’t long before I could hear footsteps. Next, I saw the torchlight sweeping from one side of the pathway to the other, searching. Then came the guard in a dark-blue uniform. It was a woman, and I was lucky because she wasn’t really paying attention. She had a phone pressed to one ear.

  ‘Yes. I’m down H8, near Distillation Unit 4. No. There’s nothing.’ She listened to the reply and then said, ‘Sounds like you need all the back-up you can get. Okay. I’m on my way.’ She set off at a sprint.

  I let out my breath and my heart rate slowed a little. I came out from my hiding place a minute later, hoping that the woman was the last guard to be called to Beth’s noisy demonstration.

  With long, empty buildings on both sides and large pipes above, the path reminded me of a cave or tunnel. There was a light at the end. In the distance, the track led to a monster floodlit roundabout. In the centre were the three storage tanks and they rose up into the night sky like tower blocks. I hurried towards my target.

  Far away, there was the sound of shouting, banging and whistling. The activists were putting it all on for me. They were the defence and I was the striker up front. We all belonged to the same team. I was part of something big, and even if everything went wrong, I knew I wasn’t alone. Lots of people were on my side.

  By the time I reached the ring road around the tall containers, sweat was pouring down my back. A petrol tanker and several vans were parked in front of me, and beyond them were the towers of oil, soon to be the most powerful fireworks the country had ever seen. But right now, the place was quiet and still.

  There was no way of hiding. I’d have to dash across, put the device at the base of one of the giant containers, set its timer, and hope that I wasn’t spotted. When the first tank exploded, it would tear holes in the other two and the whole lot would go up in flames. I’d have ten minutes to get away. No problem.

  Taking a deep breath, I sprinted for the gap between the petrol tanker and the works van parked behind it. A quick look around. A decision. I made for the closest storage tank. Kneeling beside it, I yanked my haversack off, ignoring the clammy shirt stuck horribly to my back.

  This was it. This was what the Cooler did. Just as Robin had shown me, I turned the timer to the ten-minute mark. I didn’t hang around. I just looked up once. The dull metallic tank was enormous, like a great big fat rocket, full of fuel waiting to be launched.

  The clock was ticking. The countdown had begun.

  FIVE

  The Mirror: Oil refinery bombed

  The Guardian: Death at green protest

  Grinning to myself, I scrambled through the hole in the wire fence. Straightening up, I felt good. Really good. I’d done it! The Cooler had completed his most daring mission so far. With six minutes to spare. Taking a deep breath, I made the call to Beth.

  Even before she spoke, I could hear the background din of the protest. I didn’t wait for her to say anything.

  ‘It’s me,’ I almost shouted. ‘The Cooler. Mission complete!’

  ‘Brilliant. Well done. I’ll move everyone out.’

  I was more than surprised. There was a sudden sickly feeling in my stomach. ‘What do you mean? Why? It’s just going to be a big firework.’

  ‘Very big. You’ve lit the blue touch paper. Now we all stand well back.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘What are you saying? Where’s far enough back?’ I was beginning to panic. ‘What about the estate? Is that far enough away? Me and Keir live there.’

  ‘It’s too late, Leyton. You’ve done it. But just think how many lives you save down the line. A few casualties now, the planet saved for later. It’s a good deal.’

  ‘You conned me!’

  ‘It’s not like that, Leyton. Look, I’ll send Robin down. He’ll sort you out. But right now, I’ve got to pull everyone out.’

  Stunned, I stood there with a dead phone in my hand. I was shivering, not with cold, but with horror at what I’d done. Beth’s words had convinced me that the fireball would roast the whole area, including the housing estate. Not even the green cause was worth that sort of sacrifice. There’d be deaths. There could be hundreds, for all I knew. And there’d be horrible injuries.

  The Cooler had turned into a terrorist, after all.

  Belonging to the environmental group had given me a warm glow, but the feel-good factor had now gone. I didn’t want the same thing as the rest of the team any more. My strike against the oil refinery didn’t feel right. I felt nervous and cheated. And alone.

  I glanced at my watch by torchlight. Four and a half minutes to go. Was that enough time to undo what I’d done? I’d got out of the oil refinery in four minutes. I had to give it a try. I dropped the phone, ditched the backpack and threw myself to the ground. As fast as I could, I crawled back into the grounds of the factory. There was no time to hide and creep. I dashed back to the overhead pipe and ran along the path. The narrow way was more like a racetrack now.

  I still felt important – more important than ever – but everything had changed in an instant. I had to save lives instead of the planet.

  The noise of the protest at the main gates had faded, but all I could really hear were my own footsteps. And my heart hammering in my chest. Somewhere, a car engine revved up. I took no notice of it.

  Panting, I arrived at the road that ringed the storage tanks. This time, there were two people in uniform standing a long way to my left. I realised that if I sprinted across the road, I’d look very suspicious. They would come after me. And if they stopped me, that would be the end of me, them, the whole factory and probably the estate. I glanced at my watch. Fifty-five seconds.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  Another guard appeared. This one was coming from the direction of the main entrance. He was returning from the battlefront. And that told me what to do. Now that the protesters had gone, there were bound to be staff coming back. No one would be surprised to see workers wandering around the site. Maybe, if I looked confident … Maybe if I didn’t look suspicious …

  I drew myself up to look as tall as possible and strolled across the road. I tried not to hurry, tried not to draw attention to myself. I tried to keep calm but my pulse was racing. Once I’d slipped between the parked lorry and van without being challenged, I felt better. I wasn’t so visible there. And the storage tank was in front of me.

  Thirty-seven seconds. It was then that I realised. Robin had shown me how to set the timer. He’d never shown me how to stop it. I couldn’t hold myself back any more. I darted to the nearest container and dropped to my knees. The dial on the top of the bomb was counting down the final twenty-five seconds. I grabbed hold of it and tried to stop it clicking round towards zero. Maybe my hand was slippery with sweat. I don’t know. But it just kept going. I couldn’t halt the countdown.

  Turning the device over with trembling hands, there was nothing like an on/off switch. I’d set it going and there was no clear way to stop it.

  I looked around in fear. A police officer had just pulled up and got out of her car. In her hurry, she’d left the door open. That was it. My only chance.

  Thirteen seconds.

  I grabbed the bomb and hurtled toward
s the car. Someone somewhere shouted, ‘Oi! You!’

  I threw the device inside the police car, slammed the door shut and didn’t stop running.

  I was a few metres down the track when it exploded. I thought my ears had burst. And the blast picked me off my feet and flung me forward. I guess I screamed. I can’t remember. I rolled over and over, like a footballer fouled at full speed. But I wasn’t pretending. Every muscle seemed to ache. I felt blood on my right cheek. But I got to my feet. I had to. I had to get away.

  Behind me, the mangled wreck of the car was blazing and oil workers were running around and shouting madly. But the storage tanks were safe. The people were safe. The estate was safe.

  Gasping for breath and swaying unsteadily, I raced back down the path towards my hole. In the total confusion of the explosion behind me, I was getting away. My head, chest and legs were throbbing horribly, but I’d done it. No one had got hurt – apart from me, and I was just grazed and bruised. And confused.

  I came out from under the pipeline, lurched to the right and made for that doorway in the netting. I was so relieved, so desperate to get out, that I didn’t notice the figure lurking in the shadow.

  When I scrambled though the hole and staggered to my feet, Robin appeared in front of me.

  ‘What have you done?’ he yelled.

  ‘Er …’ I wasn’t sure I could make sense. ‘I couldn’t –’

  ‘You couldn’t what?’

  My head felt heavy and my brain wasn’t up to much.

  ‘I couldn’t go through with it.’

  Robin was not just angry. He was furious.

  ‘Maximum impact. That’s what we’d planned. And you’ve ruined it!’