New Guard (CHERUB) (23 page)

Speeding fines clearly weren’t on the Islamic State priority list. The coach’s plastic trim rattled and squealed as they topped a hundred kilometres per hour. Cars skimmed past, going much faster than that.

A shambolic roadblock caused brief delay, but fifty euros and some banter from the driver did the trick. Shortly after, they left the highway, taking another modern road. A scary interlude came with a tunnel cut through a rock formation. There was no speed enforcement and no electricity to power the lights inside. The coach had to swerve as it rounded a bend and encountered two cars that had crashed head on and been abandoned in the dark.

Over the space of two hours, passengers came and went, the food and medical supplies got unloaded outside of a large hospital and the sun was failing as James pulled out a little GPS unit which calculated that they were now less than five kilometres from the sabotaged well at Tall Tamar.

The driver pulled into a village that had seen some heavy fighting. Modern concrete houses were sprayed with bullet holes and every metal roof had collapsed.

‘This was a Kurdish area,’ their driver explained. ‘Anyone who wasn’t killed would have fled north, and the battle damage means nobody has resettled the area.’

‘So we’ll be safe?’

‘Stay out of sight, keep a man on watch. But you’ll be safer here than anywhere else nearby. And most importantly, you have this.’

He gestured out of the window as the coach turned off-road, in front of a strip mall. The layout was like hundreds James had seen when he’d been at uni in America. A medium-sized supermarket, a gas station, a run of smaller shops and a pair of fast-food restaurants at the far edge of a two-hundred-car lot.

Unlike the ones James had seen before, the gas station had exploded, leaving a burned-out canopy and a crater with the exposed remains of underground fuel tanks. The supermarket had lost all its glass and been looted bare. There was a hole where a tank had driven in one side and out the other. The smaller shops had fared even worse, with three completely collapsed. The remaining cars were either burned out, or crushed so thoroughly that a tank crew appeared to have decided to have a little fun driving over them.

‘It’s perfect,’ Tovah told the driver, seeing more than enough uncratered tarmac for the microlights to take off, while the shell of the supermarket made a decent overnight shelter.

Bruce, Kyle, Lauren and Ryan started diving into the cargo bay and dragging out the gear.

‘Outstanding,’ James agreed, as he shook the driver’s hand and gave him five thousand euros. ‘The other five will be paid through to your bank in Turkey when we get back.’

‘What if you all get killed?’ he asked, half joking.

‘You’ll get paid,’ Tovah said. ‘My people will see to that.’

As the coach headed off, everyone dragged the equipment inside the corner of the supermarket, to the annoyance of birds roosting in the framework beneath the twisted metal roof. Then James gave out orders.

‘Tovah, Lauren, erect a canopy in case it rains. Then start assembling the bikes and planes. Bruce, Kyle, I want you to secure the area. Take guns. Find the motion alarms and spread them around. Also, when you’re on the prowl keep your eyes out for a working tap. We’ve brought drinking water, but it would be nice if we can wash and flush a toilet. Ryan, how’s your head for heights?’

‘It’s OK.’

‘Great,’ James nodded. ‘There’s a satellite dish I need rigged up so I can download chatter reports. There’s also a UHF aerial, so I can have a go at picking up a signal from the listening devices on the control centre roof.’

‘And what are
you
planning to do, boss?’ Lauren asked, sarcastically. ‘Put your feet up?’

‘I’m going to get the generator running,’ James said. ‘Then if you’re
extremely
lucky, I’ll plug in the mini boiler and make you all a nice cup of tea.’

It was 5 a.m. and Bruce sat on a stack of plastic bread crates, beneath the bird-limed frame of what had once been a supermarket roof. Five screens glowed in the dark, reporting info from night-vision cameras, motion sensors, the unboosted UHF signal James had successfully retrieved from the well control room and a web browser, set to automatically receive chatter reports and any other info British or Israeli intelligence sent their way.

Bruce wasn’t the kind of person who could spend long periods with his thoughts, and after checking all screens and refreshing the browser, he stood. The supermarket’s floor remained intact, so Lauren and Tovah had created a waterproof shelter by stretching a tarp between two lines of looted metal shelving.

Kyle snored inside a sleeping bag as Bruce stepped over, using a little black torch to show the way. Lauren clearly liked to be cosy, and Bruce smiled when he saw her snuggled on a bottom shelf with knees almost up to her chin. He crouched in front of their water boiler and rummaged through a box of dehydrated food packets. The writing on the packs was in Russian, so Bruce had to guess based on dodgy photos and feeling the hard lumps inside.

In the end, he tore a pack at random, removed the plastic spork inside and two-thirds filled it using the tap on their water boiler. The steaming packet burned fingertips as he stepped back to his position. He took an experimental sniff when he was back on the bread boxes and was pleasantly surprised by the aroma of chocolate and banana custard.

After a good stir and a few sickly-sweet mouthfuls, he was alarmed by a scraping sound in the next aisle. In theory, nothing human could get past the motion sensors without setting an alert, but something was going on because the birds up on the I-beams were chirping restlessly.

Bruce flipped down a set of night-vision glasses and ripped a silenced pistol out of a holster. He considered waking the others, but the sound wasn’t far away, so he figured it was better to act alone.

Another crowd of birds flew up as Bruce rounded a corner. A black object moved just to his right. A powerful shoulder, reaching out to grab. Bruce swung and shot, the gun’s muzzle silenced, but a bullet tore bone and flesh before splinters clanked noisily off the metal shelving. James and Ryan woke as hundreds of birds spewed into the air.

‘Who’s on guard?’ Tovah asked, as she shot up and reached for her rifle.

‘Bruce?’ James hissed.

‘I’m round here, I think I shot someone.’

Tovah was first to join Bruce in the next aisle. She shone a torch, lighting up Bruce’s back and the body of a wildcat. Similar to a domestic cat, but half as big again, the shoulder Bruce had seen had actually been the back of a creature that had strolled in looking to catch an unwary bird.

‘Great smell,’ Tovah noted, as she looked at strands of brown and pink goo splattered up the back of the shelf. ‘Bullet must have ruptured the bowel.’

‘Nice shooting, buddy,’ Kyle noted, pulling down the front of his trousers as he walked towards a bucket to take a pee. ‘Everybody back to bed.’

‘No,’ James said firmly. ‘Hopefully nobody was close enough to hear the shot, but we’ll need at least a couple of extra people on alert just in case.’

‘Agreed,’ Tovah said, as she glanced at her watch. ‘I’m game. I’ll not get back to sleep now anyway.’

‘Too tense to sleep much in the first place,’ James noted, as he checked their cameras and motion sensor readouts. First light had just breached the horizon. ‘I have to say I envy Sleeping Beauty here.’

There were a few smiles as James shone his torch on Ryan, who remained blissfully unaware, with his head buried deep inside quilted nylon.

‘Bloody hell,’ Tovah moaned, as she joined James looking at the screens. ‘Bruce got the last chocolate and banana.’

‘Tea or coffee?’ Kyle asked, as he came back from peeing and wiped hands with a disinfectant wipe.

Lauren nodded as she wriggled off her shelf and sat up, rubbing her eyes. ‘Who shot who?’

‘Bruce murdered a cat,’ Kyle explained. ‘Easily mistaken for an armed assassin.’

‘Explains the smell of cat mess,’ Lauren noted, as she stood up.

James nodded in agreement. ‘Bruce, you’d better throw that thing outside, before it turns all our stomachs.’

As Kyle made instant coffee, Lauren cooked up porridge and a big powdered egg omelette on a two-burner butane stove. Ryan kept snoozing as the others propped on bread crates and ate breakfast.

‘UHF pick-up,’ James noted, as he crouched over a screen. ‘Sounds like someone’s in the office.’

The laptop was set to record any voices picked up in the control room. Since the bugs were only producing a crackly backup signal and in Arabic, Tovah shuffled across and replaced the tinny laptop speaker with a set of headphones.

‘Two guys bitching about their wives,’ Tovah explained. ‘Their accents are rough.’

‘Meaning what?’ Kyle asked.

‘Workers, I’d guess,’ Tovah replied. ‘Waiting for their boss to arrive and give instructions … They’re bitching about how they were told to be here super early, but there’s nobody else there yet.’

‘So something’s happening today,’ James said brightly.

Ryan opened one eye, then sat up when he saw Lauren, Bruce and Kyle looking at him. ‘What?’ he said, stifling a yawn. ‘What I do?’

‘Nothing,’ James said, smirking. ‘As someone who tossed and turned all night, worrying about this shit, I envy your ability to switch off and sleep for ten hours.’

‘It’s called being a teenager,’ Ryan said, giving up on the stifling and going full yawn. ‘Besides, what’s to worry about? We’re just camped out eighty kilometres inside the territory of a dangerous terrorist group who’ll torture and chop our heads off if they capture us. Have all the eggs gone?’

Ryan felt pampered as Lauren dished him eggs and Kyle brought coffee. Tovah made him jump by slapping her thighs and yelling, ‘We got tha shit, dudes!’

‘What you got?’ James asked.

‘Boss man just arrived. Told the workers to get all the burned control consoles out of the hut, because they have to be cleared out before replacements arrive.’

‘When?’

‘There’s a local electrician coming in to replace the burned-out supply box at 0800. Replacement consoles and the repair team are due in by lunchtime. Then the guy asked when they expected the well to be fixed. Boss guy said it depends on the engineers but hopefully they’ll be pumping oil again by tomorrow.’

‘Nice,’ Bruce said. ‘Looks like we timed our arrival just right.’

‘Don’t want to stick around any longer than we have to,’ James noted. ‘Be good to have a couple of cameras in the area before it gets too light.’

‘We can land a pair of micro-drones on the oil derrick,’ Tovah suggested.

‘Won’t they give the game away if they’re spotted?’ Ryan asked.

James got up and pulled a boxed micro-drone out of his backpack.

‘Three centimetres, weighs less than ten grams, but has an HD camera,’ James explained. ‘Battery lasts three kilometres in flight, and transmits a picture for up to twelve hours. You just program coordinates, after which it’s totally autonomous apart from the landing. In flight, it looks like an insect. Chances of it being spotted in situ are very slim and the plastic is corn starch, so after a couple of days the structure and rotors dissolve and the remaining components look like plastic scrap from a kid’s toy or something.’

Ryan picked it out of the box.

‘Don’t break it,’ James smirked. ‘That’s twenty-seven thousand pounds’ worth.’

‘Whoa!’ Ryan said, thrusting the device back at James.

‘Two will give us complete video coverage over the well site,’ Tovah said. ‘As long as it doesn’t rain.’

At 13:05, Ryan lay chest-down on stony ground, sixty metres from the oil derrick. Two bearded men stood outside, using a crowbar to open a crate. When the plywood side panel snapped free, a torrent of Styrofoam packing peanuts subsided to reveal the side of a reconditioned Offshore Marine control console. He looked across at James.

‘See the gouge in the side panel?’ Ryan said. ‘I’d swear I saw that exact machine in Uncle’s warehouse five weeks back.’

‘Probably did,’ James agreed, wiping sweat off his brow as Kam Yuen stepped down from the control cabin.

Kam had grown a wispy beard and walked with a slight limp. He spoke to the guys unpacking, as Gordon Sachs stood around the back talking to the electrician. But while the two engineers were running the repair job, a trio of bulky armed guards never let them out of sight.

‘Heavy,’ Ryan noted of Sachs. ‘Ten kilos at least since the last photos we saw.’

But James was distracted, speaking to Tovah through his in-ear com unit. ‘I have both targets in plain sight. Three bodyguards; Ryan and I have clean shots at all of them.’

‘Understood,’ Tovah said. ‘Drone is in position. Lauren and Bruce are in position. Is it a go?’

Ryan looked across as James felt like his chest was being crushed.

‘It’s go,’ James said.

Back at the supermarket, Kyle stood guard while Tovah activated a half-metre-square quadcopter drone, which Lauren had placed on the ground two hundred metres from the well. The rotors spun up and the craft took off for a pre-planned coordinate, thirty metres from the hut. While the direction was pre-programmed, Tovah used a targeting screen with facial recognition capability. It had picked out Sachs, Yuen, the electrician and the three bodyguards.

Tovah used the touchscreen to green-light the three bodyguards’ faces, then pressed T on the keyboard to make them active targets. As soon as the
In Range
icon flashed up, Tovah pressed the Q and W keys simultaneously.

Out by the well, James instinctively covered head with hands as the drone skimmed overhead. Its final approach was the last thing the bodyguards ever saw, turning their heads as a pair of drone-mounted machine guns blew them apart.

As Sachs, Yuen and the electrician dived for cover, Lauren and Bruce moved from the opposite side of the derrick towards a line of parked vehicles. Bruce shot the driver of the equipment delivery truck through the head as he stood smoking a cigarette. The two Mercedes that Sachs and Yuen had arrived in had armoured glass, which made them more problematic.

As Lauren lobbed a grenade under the equipment truck, Bruce fatally shot the driver of the first Mercedes as he stood by his car making a call. The second car was an ML-class four-wheel drive people carrier. There was a reserve bodyguard asleep on the back seat, but the driver was at the wheel and got the engine running.