Split Second

  Taylor studied me for a long moment. I stared back, my throat dry and tight. Then, without speaking, he put his gun away. My eyes had adjusted to the light now. The bare room we were in had peeling paint on the walls and piles of rubble dotted across the concrete. Nat’s clothes were filthy and there was a grimy smear across his face. I took a good look at Taylor. Stubble darkened the chin of his narrow face, he wore an expensive cashmere overcoat, and those fierce eyes of his were green.

  “You want to be a soldier, Charlie?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He glared at me, eyebrows raised. “Yes, sir—”

  I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Taylor nodded. He turned to Nat. “This was your final warning. Spring one more surprise on me and you’re out. Have you talked to anyone else apart from her about the EFA? Or meeting me?”

  “No, sir.” Nat sounded as if he were speaking through gritted teeth.

  Taylor paused. “The Commander says you’re both to be tested before we go any further,” he said.

  “Tested how?” I asked.

  “Well, you obviously trust each other enough to have come here together and strong ties within a cell are very important,” Taylor said. “But we need to trust you too.” He paused. “You are young and determined and motivated and those are important qualities for us, but if we’re going to really use you, we need to know more about your individual skills. And your loyalty. Most importantly at this stage, we need to know that you will follow my orders without question.”

  “So what do you want us to do?” Nat asked.

  “You both have a reason, a good reason, for hating the League of Iron. We understand they’re planning another attack but we don’t have any details. We want you to break into a senior League member’s home.”

  “What’s his name?” Nat growled.

  “For your own safety I’m not going to tell you.” Taylor cleared his throat. “Now, the house is heavily alarmed, but we need you to get in, steal top-secret information about the plans from a password-protected computer, and get out without anyone seeing you. How does that sound?”

  I looked at Nat. He was staring at Taylor, frowning. “It sounds like you want to use us,” he said.

  “That’s right,” Taylor admitted. “We do. But if you perform well, we will train you and give you the chance you’ve been looking for to take revenge on the League of Iron.”

  I thought it through. It made sense that the EFA would want to test us out before they truly confided in us—and this burglary job would take me into an actual League member’s house.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. “Bring it on.”

  “Nat?” Taylor asked.

  Nat hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

  NAT

  I glanced at Charlie as we walked through the park after our meeting with Taylor. The reckless way she had talked to him had shocked me to my core. Yet I couldn’t help but admire her guts. I kicked at a can on the grass. I really needed time to myself to think through everything that had happened. Taylor had said from the start that the English Freedom Army was a serious operation. I was just starting to realize how serious. I’d never even seen a gun before and in the last hour I’d had one pointed at me twice.

  Charlie, however, didn’t seem to understand how shaken I felt.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked as we walked across the grass. “What’s wrong?”

  The light was dying from the day and the wind was cold. I shoved my hands in my pockets. What exactly was wrong? I wasn’t sure. I just kept seeing Taylor in my mind’s eye—the intensity on his face when he’d pinned me against the wall. It struck me that not only was Taylor capable of shooting someone but that it was highly probable he had already done so. All of which totally freaked me out. I had been too scared to think, while Charlie had argued defiantly with Taylor. Did that make me a coward? I couldn’t decide. And I wasn’t going to as long as Charlie kept pestering me to talk to her about it.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I muttered, stomping along the path toward the trees.

  “Then why won’t you look at me?” Charlie asked.

  Reluctantly, I stopped walking and turned to face her. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold air, her dark eyes glittering in the afternoon light. On top of everything else, she was distractingly beautiful. I tried—and failed—to push this thought out of my head.

  “There isn’t a problem,” I said at last. “I just need a bit of time to get my head around what we’re doing. This is real, this test, it means breaking into a house, breaking the law and—”

  “And getting back at the League of Iron,” Charlie added. “Or at least starting to.”

  “I know.” I checked the time. I couldn’t stay here any longer. “So I’ll meet you outside the park again tomorrow night after school, like Taylor said?”

  “Okay.” Charlie’s expression darkened. Had I offended her somehow? I didn’t want to upset her, but my head was too full of confused thoughts to see anything clearly. I hesitated for a moment then, unable to think of what to say to make things okay between us, I said good-bye.

  Charlie said good-bye too, then headed off along the path. As soon as I was alone, I checked my laptop. Most of my schoolwork and soccer content had been transferred to the new hard drive, but all my old Internet downloads were gone. At least the computer still worked. I shoved it in my bag and hurried home.

  The house was deserted. Dad must still be at work and Mum, presumably, was at the hospital. Jas, I knew, had gone to the Canal Street market to buy some cheap material to make clothes with. I had no idea how she could bear to go there, after what happened to Lucas, but Jas often didn’t seem bothered by the same things that got to me. She had promised to get some food on the way home. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be long. I was starving and the kitchen cupboards were virtually bare. I found some rice and set a saucepan of water on to boil. I sat down at the kitchen table, determined to put all thoughts of Taylor, the EFA, and Charlie out of my head. At least I had my computer back. For the past few weeks I’d had to borrow Dad’s laptop whenever he could spare it and I was behind on almost every subject. I decided to make a start on my history essay right now but, as I opened the relevant files, I found I couldn’t stop thinking about Charlie. I had never met anyone like her before.

  You like her, you idiot, said a mocking voice in my head. You just don’t want to admit it.

  I told the voice to shut up, put two large handfuls of rice into the now boiling water, and settled down to my essay on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  CHARLIE

  “You’ll only be given the data you need to complete the task, so you’ll have to trust that we have your back. It will be a straight in and out mission, no frills. Got it?” Taylor’s green eyes seemed to see right through me.

  I held his gaze. “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes, sir,” Taylor corrected. He turned to Nat. “You too.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nat said. He seemed calmer than he had yesterday, though just as unwilling to look at me properly.

  Why was that? Was he annoyed with me for standing up to Taylor? Was he angry about something else? Or was he just plain uninterested in me?

  Whatever, I needed to stop thinking about it and focus on what Taylor was saying.

  The van we were in had been crawling along for about twenty minutes now, stopping and starting every few seconds. I assumed we were driving through heavy traffic but it was impossible to tell as we were stuck in the back—empty apart from a couple of thin cushions and the bewildering array of computers and sound equipment set on the low table separating Taylor from me and Nat.

  Taylor dug into his backpack and pulled out two earpieces. “You’ll be using these,” he said. “They mean we can hear you and you can hear us.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Nat asked. “You and the driver?”

  “Classified,” Taylor said.

  Nat
glanced at me. I shrugged. I’d seen the driver of the van as we’d gotten in the back. The driver was dressed in a loose jacket and a baseball cap. I wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman. Taylor, still wearing that expensive cashmere overcoat, had clearly decided to keep the risk of us seeing something revealing to an absolute minimum. I had clocked the van’s license plate as we’d gotten inside, but from the extent of the secrecy precautions Taylor had already taken, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be traceable back to Taylor. The thought sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Where are we going?” Nat asked.

  “Classified,” Taylor said.

  “You’ll have to tell us something,” I protested. “We don’t even know what exactly you want us to steal.”

  Taylor fixed me with his piercing gaze. The light in the back of the van was harsh, bleaching out half the skin of his face and casting shadows across the other half.

  “We are your eyes and ears,” he said. “All you have to do is follow instructions.”

  “Fine, er, sir.” Nat sat back with a sigh.

  I shifted uneasily on the hard van floor. I wasn’t scared at the prospect of breaking into a house, but trusting Taylor enough to guide us through the experience was another thing entirely.

  We drove on for another ten minutes. Just before we stopped, Taylor got us to insert the earpieces—they were tiny, smaller than ordinary earbuds, then ran a test using the computer to check both sets were working. He handed each of us a pair of thin latex gloves and gave Nat a memory stick.

  “Keep that safe,” he said.

  The van drew to a halt as we pulled on the gloves.

  “Before you get out, I want you to take the EFA oath,” Taylor went on. “Even if you don’t fully understand what you’re saying, the words still have power. Repeat after me.”

  We did as we were told. Taylor was right that I didn’t really understand what we were saying, but there was nothing inherently evil about any part of the oath. It was really just a bunch of words:

  “For blood and soil, strength and honor, hope and sacrifice,” we said in turn.

  Taylor partly opened the van door, then turned back to us, his fingers resting on the door handle. “The house is empty, we’re about to disable the CCTV, the electronic locks, and the alarm remotely. But we can only turn them off for ten minutes. You must be outside the gate by then. If you’re not, the security system will restart and the alarm will go off.”

  “How will we know when ten minutes is up?” I asked.

  Taylor tapped my earpiece. “I’ll be with you the whole way. Head for the side entrance. The door there should be unlocked.” He turned back to the van door and shoved it open. I blinked as the sharp sunlight flared in front of me, a contrast to the dim lighting inside the back of the van. Seconds later Nat and I were outside, on the pavement.

  “The alarm is now off,” Taylor said. “You’ve got ten minutes. Go.” He slammed the van door shut.

  Nat and I turned to face the building behind us. Before, I’d wondered how we would know which house Taylor had meant us to break into, but the detached home in front of us was so huge, it was obvious. The gates were open, surrounded on either side by rows of trees and bushes.

  “Get moving,” Taylor’s voice sounded in my ear. From the way Nat jumped, I was guessing he’d heard Taylor too.

  We headed toward the house. It was built over three stories, with a whole row of windows looking down over the gravel driveway. Taylor had said the place was empty, but I wondered how on earth he could know that for sure.

  My feet crunched over the gravel as I followed Nat along the side of the house. Looking around, I could see we were completely hidden from the view of the surrounding houses. The side door was immediately up ahead. Nat’s gloved hand was already on the doorknob, twisting and pushing. The door remained closed.

  “Taylor said it would be unlocked,” he said, his eyes widening.

  “It should be,” Taylor’s voice sounded in our ears.

  I rushed over and pushed at the door myself. It remained firmly shut. My heart beat faster. We’d hit a problem before we’d even gotten inside. I focused my energy, looking around for another way in.

  “What do we do now?” Nat’s voice rose.

  “Use your initiative,” Taylor hissed in my ear. “Nine minutes and counting. Get on with it.”

  NAT

  Taylor’s voice echoed in my ear. From the determined look on Charlie’s face it was clear she’d heard him too. She was already setting off along the side passage, searching for another entry point. I shoved at the door again, but it was hopeless. It was definitely locked. I gritted my teeth. How were we going to get into the house now? I felt sick with panic.

  “Here,” Charlie called under her breath. She was pointing to the second of two sash windows set into the side of the house. There was a small gap at the base, easily big enough for us to fit our hands through.

  I rushed over and we placed our hands side by side under the window.

  “Go,” Charlie whispered.

  With a grunt, I pushed. The window slid up.

  “Yes.” Charlie immediately hooked her knee over the windowsill. Within seconds she was through.

  “We’re in,” I muttered to Taylor, as I followed Charlie into a small bathroom. My sick feeling subsided to a low-level queasiness as she tiptoed to the door. No alarm had gone off and the place appeared to be empty. All we had to do now was find the computer, download the data Taylor wanted, and leave.

  Charlie was already through the door into the hall. She was looking around, clearly intent on the mission. She disappeared from view.

  “Eight minutes,” Taylor warned in my ear.

  I walked into the hall. It was nicely decorated with polished wood furniture and pale striped wallpaper. Taylor had said a leading League of Iron member lived here, but I couldn’t imagine any of the League people I’d seen at the meeting in this house.

  “Upstairs,” Taylor ordered. “Second floor.”

  We climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor. Oil paintings hung on the walls and delicate china ornaments were arranged on the wooden table under the landing mirror.

  “Is the League member who lives here a man or a woman?” I asked.

  “Second door on the left,” Taylor said, ignoring my question. “Seven minutes.”

  Charlie rolled her eyes at Taylor’s refusal to answer. A grin flittered across my face. My heart might be hammering, but Charlie looked as if she’d been housebreaking all her life.

  “Tell us what you want us to do.” I could hear the edge in my voice as I spoke. I hoped Charlie didn’t think it was because I was scared.

  “Hurry up,” Taylor said. “Are you in the room?”

  “Yes, sir.” Charlie was already through the second door on the left.

  I hurried after her. We were in some sort of home office, with a TV screen on the wall, a couple of armchairs, and a long desk containing two computers.

  “Go to the Mac,” Taylor ordered. “Switch it on. You have six minutes and thirty seconds before the alarm sounds.”

  Charlie found the on switch right away. Taylor was giving instructions about the password, then the file he wanted her to find. Charlie was nodding, her fingers flying over the keys. If I’d been in her place, I was sure I’d have found it impossible to focus and would probably have missed half of Taylor’s rapid-fire orders. But Charlie was concentrating without any problem, following Taylor’s complex set of inputs in order to cut through the computer’s encryption codes.

  “Nat?” Taylor sounded impatient, as if he’d already called my name once.

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “Yes, sir.”

  “Get the memory stick ready. Four minutes and forty seconds.”

  I fished in my pocket for the stick then handed it to Charlie. She slid it expertly into place. I bent closer to the screen to see what she was downloading. It looked like some sort of calendar. Each date was filled with appointment names and times. Most o
f the entries were written in code. I couldn’t make heads or tails of them. I was suddenly aware of how close I was standing to Charlie and took a step away.

  “Four minutes and ten seconds.” Taylor’s voice was terse. “How’s it going, guys?”

  “Good,” Charlie said. She still sounded amazingly calm. “Almost there. Done.” She pulled the memory stick out of the computer and handed it to me. I pocketed it while Charlie followed Taylor’s instructions for covering her tracks as she closed the various files she had opened. At last she stood up. “All done, sir.”

  “Two minutes and thirty seconds,” Taylor hissed in our ears. “Get out of there.”

  Charlie sped out into the hallway. I was about to hurry after her when a photograph lying on top of a pile of papers caught my eye. I peered closer. The photo was of a boy walking along a street—and grainy, as if it had been taken through a long lens. The boy was about my own age and clearly unaware he was being photographed. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

  “Come on,” Charlie whispered from the door.

  I turned away from the photo. Silently, we hurried along the hallway and down the stairs.

  “Where are you?” Taylor demanded.

  “Ground floor,” I said. “Almost.”

  “Get a move on. You have less than a minute to get outside the front gate.”

  We raced toward the small bathroom again. A khaki green scarf on a coat rack by the door caught my eye. It had a strange, crisscrossing black and brown pattern along the bottom. I couldn’t remember the name of it, but I was sure this was the symbol the League used as their logo.

  “You should be outside the gate by now.” Taylor swore softly under his breath. “What the hell are you doing? The alarm will go off in forty seconds, thirty-nine, thirty-eight . . .”