Every Second Counts (13 page)

With Aaron’s help, I got the next strip of sheet around the guard’s wrists and tied it tightly. He was attempting to buck me off him. As soon as Jas and I got up off him, he would
kick against the floor and the wall, and the other soldiers in the house would hear. I looked around. We would have to tie him to something solid to prevent him from moving.

Taking another length of sheet, I fastened one end around the guard’s bound wrists and told Aaron to tie the other end tightly around the bars on one window. Once this was done, Aaron took
another strip and, at my instruction, wound it around the guard’s ankles. I ordered Jas to get up, then took the end of the second strip and dragged the guard along the floor until he was
stretched out between the two windows. I fastened the end of the second strip on the bars of the second window. Now the guard lay stretched on the floor between the two windows, unable to move at
all. He turned his head violently, trying to spit out the cloth I’d wedged down his throat, but it was too far in.

I stepped back and brushed my hair out of my eyes. The guard was secure and it had only taken thirty seconds or so, but we surely only had a couple more minutes before someone realised he was
missing. I turned to Aaron and Jas. They were watching me, open-mouthed.

‘Wow, Nat—’ Aaron began.

‘Come on!’ I raced out of the door. There was no sound from the landing. I crept to the top of the stairs. The house was quiet.

I beckoned to Aaron and Jas to follow me down the steps. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I reached the hall. I could hear voices coming from a nearby room. I tiptoed over to the front
door. Normally there was a guard posted here. Two phones sat on the table by the door, SIM cards resting on top. One was mine. I snatched it up and reached for the front-door handle. Aaron picked
up the other mobile.

‘This is
mine,
’ he hissed.

‘Shh.’ I turned the doorknob, my heart thumping. Outside, the area was clear. The back of my neck prickled. This was too easy, surely. No guards. Our phones just lying there waiting
to be collected.

I slipped outside, turning to make sure Jas and Aaron were right behind me. I took Jas’s hand. ‘Run,’ I said. ‘Run hard.’

And we set off, over the grass, heading for the trees.

I waited until the middle of the night to make my move. Breaking into Uchi’s office was not going to be easy, but I had to get evidence about what he and Riley were
planning and the office was the most likely place where I’d find it. Hopefully there would be a phone in the office that I could use to tell Nat about the operation. Even if I couldn’t
supply him with actual proof right now, I should at least be able to give him enough information so that he and the resistance could prevent whatever was planned.

The lock on the office door would be no problem, but the room itself was in the centre of the house, opposite the kitchen and at right angles to the stairs up to the first floor. I was going to
have to be supremely careful not to disturb everyone else. I didn’t want to think about the consequences if I was caught.

I checked the time. Almost two a.m. I would wait just two more minutes, then I’d go. I paced silently across the bedroom in my bare feet, thinking about everything that had happened
earlier.

Our swimming training had finally come to an end when Gracie had called us inside to wash for supper. It had been a surreal moment, as if I was here with Spider on some sort of bizarre teenage
playdate. But as I’d headed, shivering, upstairs for a shower, my thoughts had turned to Nat again. I missed him like he was a part of me. Before, I’d known I liked him a lot. But now
the strength of how I felt almost scared me. I prayed that wherever he was, he was alright.

I had just showered and dressed when Gracie called up to say dinner was ready. I headed down to the kitchen to find her and Spider already sitting at the wooden table in front of their bowls of
pasta. Gracie had evidently made Spider wait until I arrived before beginning, because he scowled at me as he shovelled a huge spoonful of food out of his bowl and into his mouth.

I didn’t think I’d be able to eat a thing but the food – pasta with a sausage-and-tomato sauce – was delicious and, once I started, I realised that I was starving and
ended up wolfing down two portions. Uchi didn’t eat with us, though the dark-haired guard I’d seen earlier made a brief appearance. He glanced quickly at me as he picked up the plate
Gracie had served for him and took it outside.

Spider and I swapped information on our training. My experience in combat situations and with guns was all that he appeared interested in. At least he was talking enthusiastically now and even
smiling from time to time. His smile was dazzling – not that I had any intention of telling him so.

‘I can’t wait to go on a proper mission,’ Spider said.

I stopped, my fork halfway to my mouth. ‘Haven’t you been on one before?’

Spider stared at me defiantly, his cheeks pinking.

‘What actual combat experience do you have?’ I persisted.

‘I’ve done loads of simulations,’ Spider said defensively.

‘Great.’

‘At least I believe in what we’re fighting for,’ he snapped.

‘
What?
’ I glared at him but bit back the retort that sprang to my lips: that using violence to scare people into electing a would-be dictator was nothing to be proud of. I had
to maintain my cover, to keep pretending that I was coming around to supporting Riley’s and Uchi’s aims. ‘I believe in what we’re fighting for too.’

‘No you don’t,’ Spider went on. ‘You’re just here to meet your dad.’

‘I think that’s enough, both of you.’ Gracie laid a hand on Spider’s arm. ‘Remember that Charlie lost her mother in a bomb blast. This isn’t easy for her. Of
course part of her reason for being here is to get to know her father, but it’s wonderful that she’s also open to our cause – and there’s a lot of information about all that
to process.’

She sounded so patronising I had to dig my fingernails into my palms to stop myself from telling her to get lost. I especially hated hearing her mention Mum. I’d pushed all thoughts of my
mother out of my head since hearing about her affair with Uchi seventeen years ago. I couldn’t bear the idea that she’d been so irresponsible. Even worse was the knowledge that
she’d lied to me about my father. It was like she had left me all over again. Tears pricked at my eyes. I blinked them angrily away. I finished my food, then pretended that I was tired and
went up to my room to wait for everyone else to go to bed.

And now it was two a.m. at last. This was it.

I crept to the door, unlocked it and peered out into the first-floor landing. The house was dark and silent. I already knew Gracie and Spider slept downstairs, at the back of the property. The
upstairs rooms were reserved for Uchi and his bodyguard.

I tiptoed on to the landing and out of the front window. The shadow of a guard – presumably the man I’d seen earlier – was cast across the brick wall. A wisp of smoke from his
cigarette trailed up through the air. I knew EFA soldiers were stoical, but when on earth did he sleep?

The stone floor was cold under my feet as I crept downstairs and into the kitchen. I took a short-bladed knife from the block on the counter and headed over to the study door. It was locked, but
I’d been expecting that. I slid the knife along the crack in the door, feeling for the catch. I’d been good at this trick when I’d trained for the EFA before and, much to my
relief, I hadn’t lost my touch.

I found the catch and pressed it back. With a tiny click, it gave way. Wiping away the sweat that beaded on my forehead, I replaced the knife and walked into Uchi’s office.

It was smaller than I expected. I was guessing it was normally a living room, as a large-screen TV and the two sofas had all been squashed up against one wall leaving just enough room for a
large desk, on which sat two computers. There was a rickety old chair and a wooden bookcase set against the far wall, laden with books on politics and philosophy. There were absolutely no papers or
files on either the desk on the shelves. And no phone. I checked the desk drawers. The larger bottom one was locked, while the shallow top drawer merely contained bits of stationery: pencils and
pens, a ruler and a pad of thick creamy writing paper which looked like it had never been used.

I turned to the two computers. Clearly Uchi kept all important information on these. I switched them both on. As I expected, both screens immediately showed a request for a password.

I tried a few obvious passwords – some of the places Uchi had said he had lived, my name and Mum’s, a couple of the philosophers he’d mentioned earlier – but nothing
worked. Dispirited, I sank down into the chair behind the desk. This was hopeless – as I should have guessed it would be. With its window on to the back of the house and its door opening into
the main hall, this office was fairly exposed – and Uchi was too smart and too careful to leave any revealing information lying around within easy reach of anyone snooping.

I switched off the computers and rested my head in my hands. Missions and bombing campaigns surely didn’t get organised without
something
being written down.

My gaze settled on the keyboard in front of the nearest computer. It didn’t sit properly on the desk, as if the slant at which it was naturally set had been artificially raised a fraction.
I turned it over. There, wedged under the plastic frame of the keyboard with Blu-tack, was a slim, silver key.

I peeled the key off. My fingers trembled as I fitted it into the desk drawer lock. It turned with a click. I pulled open the drawer and peered inside. A pile of notebooks met my eyes: each one
was black and bound with leather at the edges. Underneath was a stack of plastic folders. I hauled them all out and started rifling through. The notebooks were crammed with Uchi’s sprawling
writing, with his name at the top. I couldn’t make out much of what was written inside but it seemed to be a collection of jottings on his political philosophies, the dates going back
seventeen years. Well that made sense. Uchi was old, and older people were often more comfortable writing on paper than electronically. I turned to the plastic folders. Several were empty, others
carried names and dates. My eyes flickered over the names:

Operation Crossbow

Operation Guy Fawkes

Operation Market Trader

Struck by the title on that last one, I opened the folder. It contained just a few sheets of paper: a typed summary of the Canal St Market bomb and its effects, both immediate – in terms
of casualties and press coverage – and long term – in terms of government response and political capital gained for Roman Riley’s Future Party. My mouth gaped as I read:

. . . the resulting total of four deaths and seventeen serious injuries was within acceptable limits for the operation, serving to strengthen and build on public fears for
their safety and doubts in the efficacy of the police force. The people’s faith in known authority is measurably eroded. See data below and compare with that from Op Crossbow for validation
of this assertion.

There followed a chart outlining research findings into public perceptions of government and police competence.

I closed the folder, feeling sick to my stomach. These cold statistics made no mention of the real impact of the bombing. It had killed Mum – the mother of Uchi’s only child,
me
, leaving me all alone. How dare Uchi and Riley write that up as ‘within acceptable limits’?

Angrily, I reached for the fattest folder, entitled
Operation Neptune
.

As I scanned the top page I realised that
this
mission hadn’t happened yet. That, in fact, the date for it was set just two days from now. Was this what Spider and I were in
training for?

Yes.
There was a clear reference to our underwater manoeuvres, right here in the first paragraph.

My heart in my mouth, I read on.

We reached the cover of the trees. No one was following us, but it surely wouldn’t be long before someone realised we were missing and raised the alarm. I ran to where
Aaron and I had left our bags earlier. Everything was still there. I shoved my mobile and SIM card inside my rucksack then hauled it on to my back, as Jas and Aaron crashed up alongside me.

‘Shh, you two are like a couple of elephants,’ I hissed. As I spoke, an image of Charlie speeding through these same woods without making a sound flashed into my head.

‘Are we safe?’ Jas breathed.

‘Yes, babe.’ Aaron pulled her into a hug. ‘The road’s just a few minutes from here.’

Babe?
Give me strength.

I looked away. We weren’t safe by a long way. If only I had someone from my old cell group with me to help us escape – like Charlie. Or George: a big guy with an easy smile; he had
been the rock that our group was built on. And Riley had killed him. Or, more precisely, used him, then had him murdered. He was gone, and Parveen was missing, and Charlie was goodness knows where
doing goodness knows what.

A terrible wave of desolation washed over me. The fact that Riley had manipulated us so easily only highlighted just how much more powerful he was than the resistance. In my rush to follow
Charlie, then rescue Jas, I hadn’t really thought about how weak we really were – and how badly we needed, and lacked, a strong leader to help us make a stand against Riley. Without
someone who had the energy and the character to turn the resistance into a proper force for good, there was little chance we would ever be able to replace Riley and his English Freedom Army with a
more honest and democratic party. None of the other existing politicians were anywhere near as charismatic as Riley; most of them were too scared to stand up to him anyway.

I knew that Charlie was driven by revenge for her mum and, though she wouldn’t admit it, a desire to find out the truth about her dad, but just getting rid of Riley wasn’t enough for
me. Mum and Dad were always saying all politicians were useless. I had thought Riley was different, but in fact he was worse.