Children's Crusade ac-9 Read online

  We're all shocked. The Kingdom of Steamies are a community that's grown up along the length of the old Spa Valley Railway. Their philosophy, handed down by their benevolent but bonkers leader, rejects all electrical power, relying instead on steam engines. It's like stepping back to the nineteenth century when we visit their domain, but most everywhere else is like stepping back to the fourteenth so they're ahead on points.

  "How many?" I ask.

  "They hit the Steamie settlement at High Rocks. There were eleven children there. All gone. They killed most of their parents in the snatch, too."

  "That's a hell of an escalation," says Tariq.

  John nods. "They're getting bolder."

  "Did you track them?" asks Lee.

  "Straight to the M25, same as always."

  "Double the patrols," I say. "And enough with the rifles. Issue the machine guns. I'm not taking any chances."

  "Done," replies Tariq, who is responsible for perimeter security.

  "That all, John?" I ask.

  "Yeah, although I still think…"

  "We should go after them."

  "Sooner or later they're going to find us. I'd rather find them first."

  "Duly noted."

  There's a moment when I think he's going to challenge me, but he shrugs and resumes his seat. He's older than me, and far more experienced. But this is my school, and he accepts that — some days with better grace than others.

  "Tariq?"

  Tariq remains in his seat, I wonder whether out of laziness or some complex dynamic of male hierarchy that makes him uncomfortable taking the table his one time leader just vacated.

  "I've been to three markets this week," he says. "Sevenoaks, Cranbrook and Crowborough. People are paranoid and there are a lot more guns being carried openly. There was a fight at Crowborough which ended with a man being shot. It was a misunderstanding, it seems. Someone trying to return a lost child got accused of abducting them. Tensions are high. When word of the attack on the Steamies gets out, they'll get higher. I didn't hear of any fresh raids, though."

  "Lee?"

  I know what he's about to tell everyone, so he turns away from me as he speaks. I stare at the thick line of baldness that runs down the back of his head, betraying the presence of a surgical scar. I bear a similar mark.

  "I've been up to Oxford for a few days. A while back we heard of a group that had secured the Bodleian and was trying to start up a university. There are about fifty of them, all ages, scholars and students. The boss is a guy called Pearce — big, musclebound, ex-Para. He's an unlikely Dean of Studies, but from what I could tell he's passionately devoted to what they're doing and more than willing to kill anyone who threatens the project."

  "Forces?" asks Jack.

  "A team of six; four guys, two women. Hardnosed, well armed. Polite but not welcoming. They let me stay overnight, though, and while I didn't sound them out directly, I'd recommend making an approach."

  "Why?" asks Tariq. "They're miles away."

  "We're a school," I reply. "Where else would the kids go after they finish their studies with us but university?"

  "There's more," says Lee. "Over dinner, one of Pearce's men offered up some intel on the snatchers. He says they've been increasingly active in East Anglia, and thinks they have a staging post in Thetford."

  I rise from my chair. My stomach is full of butterflies because I know that what I am about to do puts everything I have worked to create here at risk. But I've mulled it over long enough. It doesn't really matter who these bastards are or why they're capturing children, they're expanding their area of operations and getting bolder. Sooner or later they're going to learn our location and pay us a visit. I don't intend to sit here waiting for them to arrive.

  John's instincts are sound. It's time to take direct action.

  "So that's where we're going," I say. "I want everyone out front this time tomorrow, full kit and arms. If these fuckers have a place of business, I think we should pay it a visit." I fold my arms and strike a resolute pose, accidentally kicking over my cold nettle tea as I do so.

  "That's gonna stain," says Lee with a smile.

  When the meeting's adjourned, the inner circle all head back to their allotted tasks. Lee is working in the garden today, Jack is doing an inventory of the armoury, Tariq is teaching creative writing to a classroom full of impressionable teenage girls who hang on his every word. John teaches PE and survival skills, but has a free day. He stays in his seat until the others have left, then leans forward earnestly.

  "Good move, Jane," he says.

  "But?"

  "I want to set clear chain of command in the field. We've not gone looking for a fight in a long time and I want to be sure everybody knows how things work."

  "I've told you before John, in here I'm the boss. But in the field you're in charge."

  "And you'll have no trouble taking orders from me?" he asks, slightly dubious.

  "None. You're a soldier. I'm a… I dunno what I am. I used to be a doctor, then I was a matron. Now, I suppose I'm a headmistress. Either way, you've more combat experience and training than all the rest of us put together. It's only right that you take charge when we're in action."

  He nods, biting his lip. I can sense an unasked question.

  "Do you think they're ready?" I ask eventually.

  He shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine," he replies. "Jack's pretty nimble on his leg. He's not going to win any 100 metre sprints, but he'll be fine. Tariq can still shoot straight and the claw's a nasty weapon if needed."

  "And Lee?"

  He pauses, trying to frame his question correctly. "The limp's almost imperceptible, his arm doesn't have full movement, but again, it's not a handicap. Physically, I think he's as healed as he's ever going to be."

  "But psychologically?"

  "He worries me."

  "Still? It's been two years since Salisbury."

  "But he won't talk about it. Anything that happened between The Cull and Salisbury is off limits."

  "And that bothers you?"

  "Doesn't it bother you?"

  "No," I say firmly. "He wants to move on. I've told you everything I can about what happened during the year Mac was in charge, and Tariq filled you in on events at Salisbury. You know the facts. He was so angry all the time but it's faded now. He's calmer."

  "I think that's got more to do with you than anything else," says John eventually. I just smile and he doesn't pursue the point. "Anyway, I want you to keep an especially close eye on him while we're out there. PTSD can manifest in unexpected ways. He's been fine here, it's true, but this is a sheltered environment and somewhere he feels safe. I was worried when he started going on field trips, but they've all gone smoothly. My point is he's not been tested. It's just possible he may fall to pieces the first time someone takes a shot at him. Or worse, see red and fly into danger without a second thought."

  "I will, but I think you're worrying over nothing." It's a complete lie. Everything he's just said I've been thinking too. If I could think of a way to keep Lee out of danger, I'd take it. He's earned the break. But he'd be insulted and would insist on coming anyway so in the end it would probably do more harm than good. "Not exactly a crack squad of elite forces are we?" I say with a smile. "A one legged boy, a hook-handed man, a partially deaf limping potential headcase and a matron."

  He sits back and crosses his arms. "Took out the whole US Army didn't we? I reckon a bunch of kidnappers won't be too much trouble."

  But we both know it's bravado.

  "While I've got you alone, John," I say hesitantly. "Are you… I mean… me and Lee… is it?"

  "Not my business," he says firmly. "He's 18."

  "You don't mind, though?"

  "That's irrelevant."

  "Not to me."

  He sighs heavily and his shoulders sag. For a moment the mask slips and I can see concern on his face. But it's not an unfriendly look.

  "Honestly?"

  "Honestly."
/>   "All right then," he says. "I think you're gorgeous and clever and the best possible thing that could happen to my son right now."

  "I hate to say this again, but… but?"

  And then he says something that in one fell swoop fucks me up more than I could have imagined possible.

  "Jesus, Jane, you don't half remind me of his mother when she was your age."

  He rises from his chair, puts a hand on my shoulder for a moment, then leaves.

  I sit there for on my own a long, long time.

  God, I could kill a cuppa.

  I worry about the perishability of rubber.

  We've got a huge great pallet of condoms that we lifted from an abandoned warehouse. I remember when we found them, back on a scavenging trip when Mac was still in charge. I insisted we bring them along. At first Lee got a bit embarrassed — he was fifteen, after all — and then a bit annoyed.

  "Why the hell would we want them?" he asked me.

  I told him he'd understand eventually. I think he thought I was making fun of him, but I was beginning to worry about a residential school full of teenage boys and girls and the difficulty of stopping them shagging like rabbits every time they were out of a teacher's earshot.

  Once I was in charge, I organised sex education classes and then made the condoms available to any child who wanted them. No age limit, no questions asked. Simply put, the alternative was lots of teenage mums. I may favour home births, birthing pools and all that jazz but if there are complications I've not got the kit to deal with them.

  In post-Cull England, childbirth was once again almost certain to become a big killer of young women. I felt sure that sooner or later we'd hear of a communal birth centre being set up somewhere; it was inevitable. But until then, I wanted to keep pregnancies to a minimum, and sex ed. and free condoms seemed a pragmatic approach.

  We've only had one unwanted pregnancy so far and thankfully the birth was textbook. Sharon from Bournemouth has a little boy called Josh and she's not telling anyone who the father is, although everyone knows it's a spotty little tike called Adrian.

  This baby did something I'd not expected. It drew us all closer together, unified the school. Josh somehow became communal property, raised not by Sharon, although I ensured she remained primary carer, but by the school as a whole.

  The first time he crawled was during breakfast. He took off down the aisle between the tables to a huge round of applause and cheers from the assembled kids. Clearly, he's meant for the stage.

  It was a special moment.

  As the common room fills up for the evening's DVD I think of Josh and the effect he's had on us. What would the school do if he were taken? I don't mean if he died. It would be awful, but we're all familiar with death by now, and another reality of post-Cull England was that infant mortality was going to soar to… well, to the kind of levels seen in pre-Cull Africa. Death happens, you get over it, you move on.

  I mean if he was snatched, spirited away, never to be seen again. It doesn't bear thinking about.

  I dwell on this for two reasons.

  Most importantly because the sell-by date on the condoms has just expired.

  But more immediately, because children like Josh have been disappearing from homes and villages across the South-East for the last year or so. At first only a few, then more and more frequently and, after the incident at High Rocks, more violently. Someone is running an organised kidnapping ring and it's kids they're after. Chances are they'll eventually come for St Mark's.

  I'm not a mother yet, I may never be. But these kids are all mine, in a way. And if someone's going to come and try to take them away at gunpoint, I'm going to stop them, or die trying.

  Protecting them means leaving the school grounds, taking the fight to our as yet anonymous enemy. I've not left the grounds since I arrived here in a wheelchair, broken and battered after my time with the American Army. I don't want to leave. I have a kind of agoraphobia, I suppose. This is my home, my community, and the thought of leaving terrifies me. What if I inadvertently lead the enemy straight here? What if I have to watch Lee, or any of the others, die? I'm not a soldier, I never wanted to be a soldier, but that's what The Cull made of all of us. I've spent the last two peaceful years trying to pretend that my fighting days were behind me. But I was lying to myself.

  I start the DVD then I head upstairs to strip and oil my guns.

  Chapter Two

  The gun felt weird; a mix of familiarity and fear.

  I settled into my position, feeling the early winter cold seeping up through my trousers from the damp carpet on the floor of the front bedroom. My gun-shot legs would ache all day after this, like an arthritic pensioner.

  I rested my arms on the window sill of the old terraced house, carefully avoiding the few shards of broken glass still sticking up from the crumbling putty, and nestled the stock of the L115A3 sniper rifle in my shoulder, sighting down the barrel.

  I'd taken it down the firing range a couple of weeks before, when I'd realised that a fight was inevitable. It had only taken me an hour or so to master it. My skills had not deserted me. It was the same weight as the L96 I had taken from the sniper who'd used it to put a bullet in my left leg four years earlier, but it had a silencer, a better sight, and it fired a higher calibre round — 8.59mm rather than the L96's 7.62mm. Basically, it made it much easier to hit the target, gave a near 100 % certainty of killing them if I did, and a much greater chance of staying undetected after taking the shot. It felt like an extension of me, but one that I was not sure I was comfortable with, like how I supposed Tariq must feel about his hook.

  I couldn't tell you whether it was fear, cold or anticipation that made my hands shake.

  The pre-dawn darkness meant I would be invisible to the two men unless they were to turn their binoculars straight at me and, by some chance, pause to study the dark window for a moment. But right now they were pre-occupied with the strangers who'd just turned up on their doorstep unannounced and offered them five captive children. For the right price, natch.

  "Do you have a preference?" I asked softly.

  "Nah," replied Tariq, from the window to my right.

  "I'll take the one with the beard, then."

  "Okay."

  It had been two years since I'd held a weapon with intent to kill. It hadn't been a conscious decision to avoid guns, but after Salisbury I'd spent so many months recuperating — learning to walk, to use my arms, to talk again — that target practice had been the last thing on my mind. Two years of nobody shooting at us had helped, too. But if I'm honest, I was wary of the things. I knew that my behaviour during and after Iraq had been erratic. I knew that Tariq was concerned about the risks I had taken, and those I might take again.

  I shared his concerns.

  "Three, two, one…"

  I took a deep breath, held it, squeezed the trigger gently, put a bullet in the guard's heart and splashed his innards across a brick wall. He fell without a sound. I saw my dad catch and lower him to the ground. Then he stood and drew his sidearm. Tariq's shot also found its mark, and his target jerked backwards as the top of his head exploded. Jane flinched in surprise and failed to catch him. He crashed into the wall and slid down, staring up at her in reproach.

  "Head shot?" I asked as grabbed my heavy pack. "Flash bastard."

  "Sight's high," replied Tariq as we got to our feet and picked our way carefully down the rotten, rickety stairs. We left our sniper rifles behind us. They were no use at close quarters, and if all went according to plan they would be collected for us. We pulled the straps of our SA-80s over our heads as we emerged onto the street. As I did so, I realised that my hands weren't shaking any more.

  As we ran down the road, the five kids that Dad and Jane had been escorting were throwing away their handcuffs and pulling guns from under their coats. By the time we reached them, the team was ready.

  Dad led the way into the compound.

  "We're going to go with a variation of the Trojan horse
approach that Jane used a couple of years back," my Dad had said, earlier that night. We had huddled around the feeble flame we'd just kindled in the fireplace of an abandoned farmhouse about a mile outside Thetford as he outlined his strategy.

  "I had Rowles and Caroline with me then," said Matron, as if pointing out the flaw in his plan.

  "There are nine of us this time. The odds are better," he replied, unsure what point she was making.

  "You never met Rowles," I said.

  Dad rolled his eyes and continued. "Jane and I will escort the younger children to the gate. You kids can stay bundled up in your winter coats, so there'll be plenty of places to hide your weapons. You'll be bound with what will look like handcuffs, but in fact…" He threw pairs of handcuffs to each of the twelve and thirteen year-olds we'd selected for this mission. The five children examined them and smiled one by one as they realised they were plastic toy cuffs, easy to pull apart but good enough to fool an unobservant guard in the half light of early morning.

  "Sweet," said one of them — a beanpole boy called Guria who had become de facto leader of the younger group.

  "We know they keep two guards at the main gate but if last night was routine, they have no one else on the walls or, as far as we can tell, inside the compound," Dad went on. "They are not expecting to be attacked. Anyway, there's plenty of open ground between the gates and the nearest houses, so they'd see a frontal assault coming in plenty of time to sound the alarm.

  "Jane and I will approach with the kids in tow and our hands up. They should assume we've come to sell them and let us approach."

  "How do we deal with the guards?" asked Tariq.

  "I don't want to get involved in close quarters fighting with the young ones around, so while we keep them talking, you and Lee will have to use the rifles to take them out quickly and quietly. The nearest house will provide a perfect vantage point. 'I couldn't find any booby traps when I recced the area earlier, so you should be fine."

  Tariq and I glanced at each other and nodded. "No problem," we said in unison.

  "Once the guards are down, you kids take off the cuffs, get out your guns and scatter to the nearest houses. I don't want you inside the compound, because things could get messy, but if we need to make a quick retreat you can cover our withdrawal. Guria, you know how to use the sniper rifle, so you take up Lee's position."