Split Second

  “Hello, Charlie.”

  I spun around. My mouth fell open as I came face to face with Roman Riley. What was a politician doing here? Taylor stood beside him.

  “It’s good to meet you at last,” Riley said. He extended his hand. “I’m Roman Riley.”

  I backed away. “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  Riley smiled that warm grin of his I was so familiar with from TV. “I’m the EFA Commander. I’m the one who ordered Aaron Latimer’s kidnapping. I’m the one who insisted you were brought here tonight.”

  “What?” I glanced at Taylor, then back to Riley. “I don’t understand.”

  Riley smiled again. “The chain of command is pretty simple, Charlie. I order Taylor to act. He orders you. And you’ve both performed wonderfully tonight.” He paused. “Taylor, you can go now.”

  “Yes, sir.” Without looking at me, Taylor left the basement room.

  “I still don’t understand,” I said.

  Riley sighed. “I hear you tried to escape earlier,” he said. “So I thought it was time for a full explanation. I’m sorry we didn’t bring you in earlier, but you are very young. And what we were doing required absolute secrecy.”

  “You mean the kidnapping?” I asked. “I thought the EFA was against violence?”

  Riley considered this for a moment. “It’s about seeing the bigger picture, Charlie,” he said. “We took Aaron so we’d have some leverage over his father.”

  “You mean so you can blackmail him? Why?” I frowned. “I thought you . . . I thought your party was a democratic party? I thought you did everything inside the law?”

  “The party does. That’s why I had to set up the English Freedom Army to deal with the country’s more . . . challenging problems.” Riley sighed. “The mayor of London is a weak man. He doesn’t always act in the country’s best interests.”

  “And you do?” I shook my head. “This isn’t right. Whichever way you look at it, blackmailing the mayor by threatening Aaron is going too far. You’re making Aaron suffer. None of this is his fault.”

  Riley raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps not,” he said. “But you know from your training, Charlie, that power requires ruthlessness.” He paused, his eyes alive with cold intelligence. “Don’t you think that sometimes the end justifies the means?”

  “Nothing justifies terrifying and threatening a teenage boy,” I insisted. I pointed to the computer screen in the corner, still showing footage of the explosion at the Houses of Parliament. “Did you do that, too? Was Nat caught up in it? Is he okay?”

  Riley sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t talk to you about that right now.”

  My chest tightened.

  “Was Nat there?” I persisted. “Is he hurt?”

  “Let’s not dwell on collateral damage,” Riley said quietly.

  I dug my fingernails into my palms. What was he saying? That Nat was gone?

  “Where is Nat now?”

  Riley said nothing. His silence oozed menace. Then he cleared his throat.

  “I want you to join my inner circle, Charlie,” he said.

  “What?” I said, startled. I certainly hadn’t expected that.

  “I know the pain that lives inside you,” Riley went on, his voice soft. “I see you better than you see yourself. You have no fear, you are smart, a good fighter. In fact, I see a lot of myself in you.”

  “I don’t see how—”

  “Like you I never knew my father. He was, like yours, a soldier who died fighting for his country before I was born. And, like you, I lost my mother when I was a teenager.” He paused. “You’re the real deal, Charlie. Most people need to belong but you, you aren’t afraid to be on the outside . . . you need no one. That makes you unbelievably powerful and, if you agree to work with me, I can help you become more powerful still.”

  My stomach twisted into knots. There was some truth in what he said. At least, maybe there had been. I had kept myself separate from everyone in my life since Mum died: from Aunt Karen, from Brian and Gail and Rosa, even from Jas.

  But not from Nat. He had gotten right under my skin, almost as if he was a part of me.

  “I don’t accept your offer,” I said, drawing myself up. “I don’t want to work with you. I don’t think it’s okay to kidnap and blackmail people.”

  Another silence. Riley waited, as if expecting me to say more. But all I wanted now was to leave. Riley didn’t stop me. But as I walked to the door, Taylor appeared, blocking my way, his gun in his hand. He looked at Riley.

  “Sir?”

  “Charlie needs time to think,” Riley said smoothly. “Put her in the Hole.”

  “No—,” I started, but Taylor had already grabbed my arm and was marching me out of the room. I struggled, but he pressed the gun against my ribs. A few moments later I was shoved inside a dark room. I fell to the stone floor, landing heavily on my side as the door slammed shut. The ground beneath me was cold and hard, the room pitch-black.

  I sat for a moment in the darkness. I could see nothing, not even my hand in front of my face. And all I could hear was the sound of my own harsh, shallow breathing.

  I was utterly alone.

  NAT

  My head felt thick, like someone had stuffed it full of padding. I was lying on something hard and cold, my body stiff and frozen. I opened my eyes. White plasterboard loomed up in front of me: a wall. Where was I? I struggled to move and the world seemed to tilt sideways. I lay still for a few moments. What had happened?

  Like a wave of cold water, the whole thing crashed, shockingly, over me. I remembered the bomb, Taylor’s betrayal . . . and that Roman Riley was behind it all.

  Suddenly awake, I sat bolt upright. I was in a tiny room, dark and bare. A streak of moonlight streamed in through the only window, which was set in the sloping roof. I scrambled to my feet. The room spun around me again and I clutched at the wall. I could barely stand upright here, under the slope. I staggered into the middle of the room.

  Where the hell was I?

  Slowly, easing my stiff muscles into action, I made it to the window across the room. It was dark outside and raining, but I could just see the woods in the distance. It was all horribly familiar. This was where Charlie and I had come for our first EFA training. Riley or one of his men must have driven me here from London. Which meant I must have been unconscious for hours.

  Where was Charlie? Was she okay? And what about George? I staggered over to the door. It was locked. I banged on the wood. Footsteps sounded outside, but no one came. I tried to cry out, but my mouth was so dry that all that emerged was a hoarse gasp. I turned back to the window. I pushed at the catch, but it held. I made a fist, intending to break the glass, then realized I would cut myself if I just punched at the window. I looked around for something to wrap my fist in, to protect my hand. But just then the door opened and Taylor walked in.

  We stared at each other. Taylor raised his gun. “Out,” he ordered.

  I stumbled to the door. Taylor pushed me outside, onto a small landing. I must be in the attic of the farmhouse.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, my head clearing. “Why did you make me take that bomb? Riley ordered it, didn’t he? Where’s George? Is he okay? What about Charlie?”

  “Quiet.” Taylor pushed me toward the stairs.

  “I don’t understand.” An intense fury started to build inside me as I remembered how proud I had once felt of being part of the army. “What happened to ‘strength and honor,’ sir? You said the EFA was nonviolent, that we only fought in self-defense, but you gave me a bomb to set off, people died, you . . . you . . .” I stopped, my throat choking with the realization of how close I had come to dying earlier.

  And how little this had mattered to Taylor.

  “I didn’t want you to die,” Taylor muttered, his gun still in his hand. “I was just following orders. The bomb had to happen. Which meant someone had to be seen near a known League of Iron house earlier in the evening—that’s why I sent you all over north London b
efore going on the tube to Covent Garden.” He paused. “Then someone had to take the bomb to . . . to where it needed to be.”

  “You used me . . . and George and Charlie . . . you used all of us.” My guts gave a sickening twist. “You used my brother for the Canal Street market bomb too, didn’t you?”

  Taylor cleared his throat, then prodded me down the stairs to the first floor. “I already told you a long time ago, Lucas made a noble sacrifice.”

  “Oh, God.” I felt sick as I remembered the text I’d seen on Lucas’s phone.

  Take package—Canal St market, 3pm

  Lucas had taken his “package” to the market after all. Like me, he hadn’t known what he was really doing. Like me, he had been left for dead. How ironic, I thought bitterly. I truly had followed in my brother’s footsteps, in the worst possible way.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why did there have to be a bomb?”

  “It’s part of the Commander’s theory of Chaos to Order,” Taylor said. “You set off bombs, get others to claim them, to scare people.”

  “What does scaring them achieve?”

  “When the public is scared, they look for strong leadership,” Taylor explained. “In a civilized society, only a minority of people will follow an openly violent leader but if you keep yourself separate from the violence, then you allow them to feel good about themselves and you do what needs to be done: discrediting the extremists and allowing the right people into power.”

  “Roman Riley being ‘the right people,’ I suppose.” I threw Taylor a scathing look as we reached the landing. This was where we had slept during the induction weekend.

  “Commander Riley has a lot of support,” Taylor said. “Huge sections of the police, for instance.”

  “Right.” My mind flashed back to the officer I’d gone up to just after the bombing. No wonder he’d looked guilty. He’d been working for Roman Riley. In fact, I realized with a jolt, when Taylor had kept emphasizing how corrupt the police were he hadn’t been exaggerating the extent of their dishonesty, just lying about who they supported. “So Commander Riley has brainwashed the police into thinking he’s a big deal too.”

  Taylor flashed an angry glance at me. “He is a big deal, Nat. He’s going to save this country.”

  I shook my head as we headed down the stairs to the ground floor. For a second I considered making a grab for Taylor’s gun. But that would be stupid. I knew only too well that Taylor was faster and stronger than I was. “What about George and Parveen and . . . and Charlie?” I asked instead. “Are they okay?”

  “Information on George and Parveen is classified, but Charlie is fine.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Is she really all right?”

  Taylor snorted. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about Charlie. She’s here, with the Commander.”

  “Here?” My stomach clenched as we reached the ground floor. I had hoped Charlie was still back in London, safe from harm.

  “Yes. The Commander’s chosen to bring her into his inner circle. Now, she’s kidnapped Aaron Latimer for him, she’ll be trained as—”

  “She kidnapped Aaron?” My mouth fell open. “No way. I saw her at his party. She was briefed to get to know him, that’s all. Those were your orders.”

  We walked through the hallway. The house was quiet. No sign of either Charlie or Riley. Then a masked soldier appeared from the kitchen. He was carrying a spade.

  “The orders changed,” Taylor snapped. “Charlie is now working directly for Roman Riley. I’d forget all about her if I were you.”

  I stared at him. That couldn’t be true. I knew Charlie. There was no way she would go along with Roman Riley’s plans, not once she knew what he was really up to.

  The soldier with the spade saluted Taylor, then opened the front door, holding it for Taylor and me to walk through. Outside, the cold wind whipped at my face, but I barely felt it. All I could think about was that Charlie was here somewhere.

  “Why would Riley want to bring Charlie into his ‘inner circle’?” I demanded.

  Taylor said nothing. Just led me and the soldier across the grass to the edge of the woods. He turned to the soldier.

  “Are you armed?” he barked.

  “Yes, sir.” The soldier stood to attention.

  “Give him the spade; get him digging.”

  The soldier handed me the spade. “Make a hole in the earth,” he ordered.

  I knew better than to ask why. This was probably just some random task designed to keep me busy—or maybe Taylor needed a place to store weapons outside the house. Either way, I was too preoccupied with how I was going to escape and find Charlie to pay much notice.

  Feeling numb, I thrust the spade into the earth. It was softer than I expected, damp from the rain, which still pattered lightly down on my shoulders and back.

  “Good-bye, Nat.” Taylor strode away without looking back.

  I kept digging. The masked soldier stood, watching me. Moonlight glinted off the gun in his holster. Part of me was tempted to lunge for the weapon, but I knew how fast EFA soldiers could move. A lurch and a grab wouldn’t work.

  I had shifted all the topsoil now. “How much deeper do you want me to dig?” I asked.

  “A few more feet yet,” the soldier said with a nasty smirk. “Enough to cover a body.”

  I looked up. Reality hit me like a punch to the guts. This hole in the earth was no storage space.

  I was digging my own grave.

  CHARLIE

  I sat for a while, hoping my eyes would adjust to the gloom, but the room barely lightened. I had to get my bearings; at least work out how big a space I was in. I edged forward on the floor until I reached a wall. I kept moving, keeping the wall on my right until I reached the corner of the room, then following the next wall along. Once I’d found all four corners I crossed the room diagonally. Then I did it all again, this time on foot, pacing the distance. After about fifteen minutes I’d discovered that the room was empty and roughly eight paces wide and ten paces long, with the only door about halfway down one of the long walls. I was certain there was no window because there had been lights on outside the house when I’d arrived, plus a nearly full moon in a clear sky, yet I still couldn’t see anything. However, a breeze was blowing in from somewhere. . . . I edged around the room again, feeling up the wall and down to the floor with every step. The draft wasn’t coming from the door. So what was bringing it into the room? After another minute I found the source of the cold air: a tiny gap in the brickwork around a length of pipe at the top of one of the side walls.

  I stood on tiptoe and opened my mouth, ready to yell for help. I stopped. What was the point of calling out? Apart from Aaron, still trapped upstairs, nobody here would want to help me. In fact, if I made a noise shouting, they’d almost certainly send someone in to gag me.

  No, I needed to be more subtle. I thought back to my EFA training. Taylor had taught us some basic Morse code, including how to sound an SOS: three short notes, three long, then three short again. I took off my shoe and tapped it against the pipe. I stopped. Waited. Silence. I tapped again. And again.

  And over and over again.

  But no one came.

  NAT

  Palms sweating, I pushed the spade into the earth again. The grave was nearly dug. My grave. Which meant I didn’t have much time. I gripped the spade more tightly. I had to escape and find Charlie. I had to get her away from here.

  “Keep at it, I’m freezing my ass off out here,” grunted the soldier.

  “Yes, sir.” I gritted my teeth. I would get only one chance. I needed to be strong. And fast.

  I lifted the spade as if about to thrust it down into the earth again. Instead, I raised it up and sideways. I drove it—wham—against the soldier’s head.

  He fell to the ground with a thud.

  I stood over him, panting, then reached down and felt for a pulse. The soldier groaned; he was alive. I whipped his belt off and fastened it around his ankles. I tore a length off my
own shirt to tie the soldier’s wrists. Then I tugged off the soldier’s mask, ripped it along the seam, and bound it tightly around his mouth so that he couldn’t shout for help.

  The soldier’s eyes opened just as I finished. He writhed on the ground, trying to get free. I looked for his gun. He had been holding it when I hit him. It must have skittered away, toward the trees.

  Damn. I didn’t have time to look for it. Surely the soldier must have another weapon? I patted down his jacket, feeling the pockets. There. A short, flat-bladed knife was attached to his belt. I removed it from its sheath, then straightened up and raced toward the farmhouse.

  Lights were on in just one of the downstairs rooms, revealing a group of men gathered inside. I veered to the side of the house to avoid being seen, then slowed to a walk as I reached the gravel by the back wall. The rooms here were in darkness. I crossed the gravel, wincing as my feet crunched over the stones. Treading as lightly as I could, I crept to the nearest window and peered through. It was the kitchen. Moonlight reflected off the metal on the stove, casting soft shadows across the floor. The room was empty; the door that led down to the basement was shut. I pushed at the bottom of the sash window, but it remained firmly locked. I tiptoed on. The next room was in darkness. And the next. Their windows were locked too. I crept around to the other side of the building.

  I found myself outside some kind of office-cum-storage room. There was a desk and shelves containing bottles and boxes. I peered into the shadowy depths of the room. A hunched figure sat in darkness on the floor near the door. Was that Charlie? I stared harder, my pulse racing. Surely it had to be her. I rapped softly on the glass, ducking back as the figure looked up.

  Not Charlie, but a boy with tousled hair and ruddy cheeks. It was Aaron Latimer. What was he doing here? Aaron’s eyes widened as he saw me. He struggled to his feet, holding up his hands to show me they were bound together with a rope that was, in turn, fastened to the desk. I nodded to acknowledge that I’d seen he was tied up. Then I turned to the window. It was locked. I was going to have to break in. I slipped off my jacket and wrapped my hand in the material. With a swift punch I smashed through the glass. It shattered onto the floor, echoing loudly in the air around me. My heart raced. I had to hope that the soldiers I’d seen on the other side of the house had been too far away to hear it.