‘Gimme, gimme, gimme,’ Jake shouted. ‘I’ll shoot all the Yanks you like if you give me enough for an X-box game.’
‘Shut up,’ Bethany tutted. ‘This is serious.’
Kazakov continued. ‘Cell two’s job is to keep supplies of weapons and ammunition secure, harass and shoot at American patrols with simulated ammunition, plant paint bombs and smoke grenades and generally make life difficult for the Americans.
‘Cell three comprises the people in this room and our job is to implement my special strategy.’
‘What’s that?’ Jake asked.
Kazakov smiled. ‘The Americans are expecting us to be ducking and weaving. So our plan is to go all out and attack their base and force a victory.’
James looked aghast. ‘Well I count fourteen people in this room and there are supposed to be fifteen hundred American troops.’
‘I can count,’ Kazakov said. ‘But the Americans have rigged the ratios so that they can make their training exercises look good. Conventional military wisdom is that you need one soldier for every ten civilians to successfully crush an insurgency. In Iraq, the American forces peaked at one soldier for every one hundred civilians and that’s why they kept getting their asses kicked.
‘On this exercise there are eight thousand civilians and one thousand troops. That’s one soldier for every eight civilians. That’s enough troops to roadblock every street and search every home on a daily basis. If we play the way they’re expecting us to, we’ll be lucky if we can keep an insurgency going for a week, never mind put up a fight for the entire two-week exercise.
‘Luckily I’ve had a couple of months to plan and I’ve had access to reports on all the training exercises at Fort Reagan since it opened eighteen months back. The first part of my plan was successfully implemented while you lot were having your safety briefing.’
Kazakov pulled a small receiver unit out of his pocket. ‘The base commander, General O’Halloran, kindly took me on a tour of the military headquarters while you lot were going through induction. Sarge and I managed to place a video transmitter in the room.’
Sergeant Cork smiled. ‘We’ll know what they’re up to at all times. I’ve got the boys in cell one taking turns to monitor the signal twenty-four hours a day.’
The CHERUB agents all smiled at this, but they failed to see how one listening device – no matter how well placed – could give them the edge over a thousand trained US troops.
‘We can’t do much while the Americans are watching our every move,’ Kazakov continued. ‘Drones like the one James and Lauren saw on the way over here can be left to glide over an area in virtual silence for ten to twelve hours and watch every move we make. As soon as it gets dark, we’ve got to take them out.’
DRONE
It was dark by six. Fort Reagan felt like a holiday camp, as college-age civilians hung out around the food joints and tiny supermarkets on chilly street corners, eating junk food, talking trash and flirting.
There was no alcohol on sale and you weren’t supposed to bring any in, but the searches on entry concentrated on X-rays for knives and weapons and it seemed like half the population was getting loaded on vodka smuggled inside mineral water bottles.
The gainfully employed didn’t have two weeks to take part in military training, so the population divided starkly between college kids and pensioners. Inevitably this caused friction over loud music and people running up and down the corridors between apartments, hurling water and flour at each other.
The soldiers were ever present. If James looked out of an apartment window he could guarantee that at least one soldier would be in view. Sometimes they were knocking on doors or conducting good natured searches in the street, but as in a real engagement the US Army had been ordered to start gently by winning over the civilians.
This mainly took the form of soldiers chatting up college girls and letting old men hold their rifles and talk about old wars. James leaned anxiously out of the living-room window when he heard some shooting, only to see that a couple of soldiers had a team of boy scouts standing at the bottom of a drained swimming pool, shooting simulated ammunition cartridges at Pepsi cans.
For all the realism of the buildings and the weapons at Fort Reagan, James saw a major flaw: the civilians were ninety per cent white and a hundred per cent English speaking. With no language barrier or cultural differences the situation bore more resemblance to freshers’ week on a university campus than a war zone in the third world, while facing the threat of compacted chalk and coloured paint instead of death left a distinct lack of menace in the air.
James set his watch alarm for 6.30 p.m. and headed down to the lobby with Rat and Jake after it went off. They met up with Bethany and Lauren before heading out into the darkness. Fort Reagan had been open less than two years, but the streetlights were deliberately gloomy and the pavements were laid unevenly.
A couple of turns took them away from the noise around the fast-food joint and into a narrow alleyway which had been daubed with graffiti and filled with battered rubbish cans to give a sense of atmosphere.
Torches shone in their faces as they reached the end. Men’s voices and the clank of military hardware sent a chill down James’ back.
‘What you kids doing out in the dark?’ an army officer barked.
‘Exploring,’ James shrugged, playing up the role of surly teen. ‘There’s sod all else to do.’
As the three soldiers closed around the kids, one pulled a rustling paper bag out of his flak jacket. ‘Peanut brittle, or marshmallow?’ he asked.
The kids all dug into the bag.
‘Thank you sir,’ Rat said, feigning good manners as he bit into a piece of toffee.
‘I wouldn’t stray too far from home in case you get lost,’ the officer said. ‘And it’s best to put your goggles on if you’re walking in the dark. The simulated ammunition we’re using here only stings if it hits your body, but it could damage an eye from close range.’
The five cherubs nodded obediently as they pulled up their goggles and moved off. James checked back over his shoulder a couple of times, but there was no sign that the soldiers were following as they turned a corner and moved quickly down a metal staircase into the basement of a building designed to resemble a shop.
The homes, plus small shops and restaurants run by the army, were fitted out, but even the United States military budget didn’t extend to paying for the hundred thousand civilians you’d need to fill the whole of Fort Reagan, so many of the buildings were bare concrete shells.
There was electric light in the basement, but nobody had bothered sinking the wiring into the walls so strands of loosely tacked cable ran between low-energy bulbs. A nearby water pipe was leaking and mildew sprouted in a puddle at the far end of the room.
‘Sarge, Kazakov,’ James smiled, as he stepped in. ‘How are we doing?’
‘Good,’ Kazakov whispered. ‘Kerry and Gabrielle are already up there scouting the area. Apparently there’s between six and eight soldiers working the landing strip. Engineers and techies, no sign of any guards.’
‘Here’s your kits,’ the sarge said, pointing to a stash of guns and ammunition. ‘Compact machine guns, paint bombs, stun grenades, smoke grenades – don’t get those mixed up – plus gas masks and walkie-talkies. I assume you can all handle that stuff?’
‘Course,’ Jake said, as he unzipped his pack and stuffed ammo clips into it before attaching grenades to the belt of his jeans.
‘The patrols are everywhere,’ Sarge explained. ‘We’ve got to assume that we’ll be stopped and searched somewhere between here and the landing strip. Bethany, I’ll carry your equipment, you can walk twenty metres ahead. If a patrol stops you, scream like they startled you and we’ll come from behind and ambush them.’
‘Are we planning to cheat if we get shot?’ Lauren asked. ‘You know, try washing the paint off or something?’
‘No,’ Kazakov said firmly. ‘We want to win, but if you cheat in a war game the whole thing becomes pointless.’
‘Besides,’ Sarge added, ‘to discourage dishonesty the paint will foam and spread if you try washing it off with soap and water. If you get shot, spend your regulation fifteen minutes lying dead, then head straight to the cleaning station where they have the proper chemicals.’
‘You’re only dead for twenty-four hours, anyway,’ Rat noted. ‘And I heard one of the college kids who’s been here before saying that the food’s better up at the army base.’
‘Might as well get shot then,’ Bethany grinned, but Kazakov glowered at her.
‘If I see anyone slacking off, they can expect a nice twenty-kilometre speed hike with a heavy pack when they get back to campus,’ Kazakov growled. ‘Is that clear?’
‘I was only joking,’ Bethany gasped anxiously.
‘How far is the airfield?’ James asked.
‘Two kilometres,’ Kazakov said. ‘But we’re taking an indirect route through the back alleyways so it ends up more like three.’
As they started heading up the stairs, Sarge pointed at a sealed plastic bag filled with granulated powder. ‘James, you need that as well.’
‘What the hell is Phenolphthalein Suspension?’ James asked, reading the label and feeling slightly alarmed by several hazard symbols as he crammed the giant bag inside his backpack.
‘It’s a special treat for all my American friends,’ Kazakov said, before smiling cryptically.
Sarge explained. ‘While the others deal with the airbase, you and I are going to sneak inside American HQ and dump the contents of that bag into their water supply.’
‘Laxative,’ Kazakov said, before roaring with laughter. ‘They’ll be shitting like there’s no tomorrow.’
*
The tiny jet engine inside the drone cut out as it landed on the short airstrip and rolled silently for a couple of hundred metres before crashing into a green net stretched across the runway. Two technicians ran out and wheeled the craft a few metres backwards before one bent forwards to open a fuelling hatch. Neither man realised that he was being watched through binoculars from scrubland less than twenty metres away.
‘That is a nice butt,’ Kerry said. ‘The one thing I don’t like about Bruce is his bony arse.’
Gabrielle lay flat on her chest as the two men wheeled the drone back towards its hangar. ‘James has a nice butt,’ she said.
‘I still can’t believe that ignoramus,’ Kerry snorted. ‘Thinking he can dump me for Dana and then have me back as soon as he fancies it.’
‘Men are all pigs,’ Gabrielle sighed. ‘You might as well go for the cute ones, because at least you’ll have some fun.’
Kerry smirked as Kazakov’s voice sounded in her earpiece. ‘We’re in position. Tell me what you’re seeing, girls.’
Kerry flipped her microphone down over her mouth and took a quick confirming glance through her binoculars. ‘Two on the runway, one female technician inside the hangar, plus two possibly three remote pilots inside, controlling the drones. Best time to move is when they open the main doors to push the drone in and that should be within the next minute or so.’
‘Bruce, are you in position?’ Kazakov asked through his mouthpiece.
‘Roger,’ Bruce said.
‘No shooting, Bruce, we need those uniforms without paint stains. OK, Kerry, all teams authorised to move on your mark.’
Kerry waited until the engineers had wheeled the drone all the way back to the hangar and pressed the button to roll up the electric shutter.
‘Mark,’ Kerry said.
Kerry and Gabrielle watched as Bruce and Andy sprang out of the undergrowth on the opposite side of the landing strip. Bruce’s silhouette moved impossibly fast, booting one of the unarmed technicians in the stomach and Karate chopping him behind the neck as he crumpled, then throwing a roundhouse kick to floor the other guard before Andy had even arrived on the scene.
The six strong party of Sarge, Kazakov, James, Rat, Lauren and Bethany pulled down their hoods, then charged in from further afield as Bruce and Andy dragged the two bewildered army engineers under the hangar door.
The hangar was designed to handle helicopters, but its brilliantly lit interior was empty except for four drones lined up against the left hand wall. The female technician knelt over one of the drones, surrounded by circuit boards and her toolkit. By the time she looked up and saw that her colleagues had been floored, Bethany Parker was less than two metres away.
Bethany took the safety off on her machine gun and aimed it at the kneeling technician’s face from point blank range.
‘You wanna go blind?’ Bethany shouted. ‘Who else is in the building?’
The technician smiled. ‘Kiss my ass, limey.’
Bethany didn’t know what limey meant, but it sounded like an insult so she kicked the technician in the guts.
‘Try again,’ Bethany growled, smiling sarcastically as the technician clutched her stomach. ‘Who else?’
While Bethany grilled the woman, Andy helped James and Sarge strip the two male technicians of their uniform and identity badges. Kazakov, Lauren and Kerry ran to the back of the hangar and passed into a corridor which led to the control room. Gabrielle acted as a lookout near the hangar door, while Jake and Bruce concentrated on destroying the drones.
‘I’m not saying one goddamn word,’ the female technician shouted, before panicking as it dawned that the boys were about to trash the drones.
Kazakov had been in touch with one of his former SAS colleagues and managed to get hold of blueprints for a near identical drone used by the British. Explosives and potentially dangerous weapons like knives and stun guns weren’t allowed inside Fort Reagan, but he believed that lifting the drone’s main access panel and blowing up a paint grenade inside would pretty much wreck all the sensitive electronics.
The female technician lunged towards Jake and Bruce. ‘You’re not allowed to do that,’ she screamed. ‘Do you know how much these things cost?’
Bethany was sick of the technician’s big mouth and let rip with the machine gun. Twenty rounds fired off in less than two seconds. The technician screamed out and crashed back against the wall as fluorescent pink paint poured down her uniform.
By this time the two male technicians had been stripped. James was horrified to see that the technician whose trousers came close to fitting him wasn’t wearing underpants.
‘Dirty git!’ James complained, as he inspected the trousers.
‘I hope he didn’t leave you any little brown presents,’ Andy smirked, as James swapped trainers and jeans for the technician’s horribly warm trousers and sweaty boots.
James hurriedly buttoned the technician’s combat jacket over his sweatshirt and read the name on the soldier’s ID card. As he pulled a camouflaged cap down over his eyes, he hoped the guards on the gate of the main army compound didn’t wonder why First Lieutenant Juan-Carlo Lopez was a sixteen-year-old with blond hair and blue eyes.
‘Ready, James?’ Sarge asked, buttoning up the other technician’s jacket.
‘Yes, Sarge,’ James said, before clicking his boots and saluting ridiculously.
The pair were barely out into the night when the first paint grenade exploded. Kazakov wasn’t an aeronautical engineer, so had no idea that in order to conserve fuel and reduce noise the drones had a carbon fibre skin less than two millimetres thick. He’d expected the paint to explode inside the drones and foul up the electronics, but the blast actually broke the drone into two halves.
Shards of carbon fibre clattered dangerously in all directions across the hangar, accompanied by a shower of bright pink paint that reached up to the ceiling. It was a minor miracle that none of the cherubs got hit by enough of it to be considered dead.
Rat and Andy cracked up laughing, until they realised that the drone had been fully fuelled and petrol was now running all over the floor.
Lauren and Kerry had just burst into the control room from where the drones were piloted and the noise of the explosion made them dive for cover. The two controllers sat at large flat-panel screens which showed various views from the two drones presently circling over Fort Reagan.
One controller had a pistol strapped around his waist and when he saw the two girls he ripped it out and shot Kerry in the chest. As the force of the simulated round knocked her back into Mr Kazakov, Lauren let rip with her machine gun, showering the far wall and the two controllers in pink paint.
‘Down on the ground, you’re dead,’ Kazakov shouted, pressing his giant Russian army boot on the waist of a startled controller who’d been knocked out of her swivel chair by Lauren’s bullets. Kerry was coughing and the clouds of paint left a sickly tang of oil in the air.
Kazakov and Lauren each studied one of the paint-spattered screens before looking at the controls, which consisted of a standard keyboard, a joystick and a thrust handle.
‘You can’t touch those,’ one of the controllers shouted.
‘If you don’t play dead like you’re supposed to, I’m gonna kick your arse,’ Kazakov warned.
Lauren experimented by gently nudging the joystick, making the on-screen view veer to the right and indicating that she was in direct control of the drone. She could see one edge of the dimly illuminated base through the main camera in the nose and she turned the drone towards it as a second and third paint blast erupted in the hangar next door.
The explosions of paint inside the second and third parked drones caused a spark or burst of static which ignited the spilled petrol from the first. The flames rushed out in a multi-pronged star, chasing trickles of petrol across the floor. Within a second a klaxon sounded and all the cherubs and technicians, except for Jake, had made it out into the darkness.
From the rear of the hangar Jake made his way through the door towards the control room. ‘We’re on fire, guys,’ he shouted, pausing briefly to inspect the paint-spattered walls before giving Lauren a tug.
‘Just a sec,’ Lauren said. ‘I didn’t know you cared.’
She wasn’t panicking because she was less than two metres from a fire door and the two ‘dead’ controllers were already on their way out. Lauren didn’t want to risk injuring someone by having the drone crash over Fort Reagan, so she pointed it towards the desert and set it on a gentle downwards trajectory.
‘Should crash somewhere out in the desert in a minute or two,’ Lauren explained.
Kazakov wasn’t quite so adept with the controls and took slightly longer to set his drone on a similar course. After making it outside last he pressed the transmit button and spoke into his headset. ‘Are we all safe?’
‘If you have Jake, Kerry and Lauren we’re safe,’ Rat confirmed.
Out front, Rat was startled by a powerful blast of carbon dioxide powder exploding from walls in the hangar. Aircraft are filled with huge amounts of explosive jet fuel and this newly built facility was equipped with a fire suppression system that could blast all of the flame-feeding oxygen out of the building, killing even the most serious fire in a matter of seconds.
Rat jogged around to the side of the building and met up with Kazakov and the rest of their party. The ringing alarm and the clouds of white carbon dioxide powder billowing into the sky would undoubtedly attract a large contingent from the army headquarters less than half a kilometre away.
‘They’ll be here any second,’ Kazakov said. ‘We’d better run – except for you, Kerry. Head up to the cleaning centre, but keep your mouth shut. I want you back at the apartment, fed and refreshed, in twenty-four hours.’
WATER
James looked back over his shoulder at the plume of carbon dioxide powder spewing out of the hangar door. Disorganised troops ran from the army headquarters a hundred metres ahead as Sarge spoke to Kazakov on his walkie-talkie.
‘What did Kazakov say?’ James asked, as they walked briskly towards the army HQ.
‘He thinks it’s his birthday,’ Sarge smiled. ‘You and me have to carry on as before.’
‘Weren’t we supposed to get inside the base before all hell broke loose?’ James asked.
Sarge grinned. ‘You’ve been trained to improvise, haven’t you?’
James didn’t answer because they were almost up to the army-base perimeter. A male and female private guarded an open mesh gate. Everyone had to show their IDs and with a dozen other soldiers in plain view starting a fight wasn’t an option.
‘Message for the general,’ Sarge said in an American accent, flashing the ID he’d found in his jacket pocket.
The dark-skinned guard didn’t even look at it. ‘What’s that shit up there, dude?’
‘Drone caught fire,’ Sarge shrugged. ‘I think some dumbass engineer sparked a fuel tank.’
‘Anyone hurt?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘General’s gonna be mightily pissed!’ the guard laughed. ‘Glad I’m not in your shoes, brother.’
James flashed Juan-Carlo Lopez’s ID at the female guard for about half a second before chasing after Sarge. The guard shouted hey, as if she wanted to take a better look, but James kept moving and she didn’t come after him.
The army compound was permanent, but like everything else inside Fort Reagan it was meant to replicate a war zone. The buildings were a mixture of prefabs made from bolted aluminium sections and heavy-duty tents with vinyl floors, electric light and air conditioning.
The pair ran fifty metres into the camp and cut up a wooden boarded path between two long tents where the soldiers bunked. Sarge squatted down and lit up a paper map with a small Maglite. Desert moths flickered in the cone of light.
‘What are we looking for?’ James asked.
‘Hundred and fifty metres that way,’ Sarge said, pointing north. ‘Only permanent building on site. It provides water and power for the whole army base.’
The army was rapidly catching up with events. As Sarge headed off a siren whooped three times and orders were barked over a PA system.
‘Enemy action reported. All off-duty patrol units assemble in front of the vehicle compound immediately. ’
Soldiers were resting in the long tents on either side of James and the announcement caused a lot of cursing. He could hear equipment being thrown around and lots of comments along the lines of what stupid bullshit exercise are they gonna put us through now. James enjoyed the sense of mischief as his boots followed Sarge’s across the wooden boards.
After the tents came a tarmac lot covered with US Army Hummers and armoured personnel carriers. As a concession to civilian safety, the front and rear of each vehicle was painted fluorescent yellow and the driver’s doors all had notices on saying that the vehicles were mechanically restricted to fifteen miles an hour.
Troops were running on to the lot and jumping into open-topped Hummers, before pulling into a queue of traffic leading towards a double width vehicle gate.
‘You get your asses out there,’ a furious officer was shouting. ‘Drive to your sectors and grill every asshole you see. I want these insurgent sons of bitches brought back here for interrogation. We have the manpower and I want this organisation crushed by sunrise.’
‘I think we’ve spoiled his evening,’ James said, smirking at Sarge as they crossed to the far side of the parking lot.
The facilities building was a concrete shed with a tin roof. On one side was a half buried tank filled with oil for the generator. On the other a whole bunch of water pipes and high voltage electricity cables fed up a rocky slope towards the rest of the base.
The deserted stretch of tarmac leading down to the building was brightly lit and easily visible from the vehicle gate, so Sarge cut down a steeply sloping footpath carved into the rocks. The only illumination came from distant car headlamps and James gave himself a fright as his shoulder brushed a rock, causing a lizard to scuttle away.
‘I’ll cover you,’ Sarge said, pulling his rifle into a firing position and giving James a shove towards the shed.
All James could hear was his own breathing as he dived across the single lane of tarmac in front of the building. The heavy steel door groaned and he stepped into a dark passageway.
‘Hello?’ James said, trying to sound innocent in case he had company.
The generator buzzed behind a door with a million yellow warning stickers on it and the burnt smell in the air reminded him of the time he’d melted a circuit board in science class.
Once he was confident that he was alone, James walked down the hallway, which opened into a double height space. This contained a huge drum-shaped water tank with a six-rung inspection ladder up the side.
He grabbed his radio. ‘Looks clear, Sarge.’
By the time Sarge arrived, James had the bag of Phenolphthalein out of his backpack and was ready to slit it open with his multitool.
‘Don’t,’ Sarge gasped. ‘Swallow three specks of that powder and in eighteen hours’ time you’ll be blasting off like the space shuttle.’
Sarge threw James rubber gloves and a paint-sprayer’s mask before clambering up the side of the tank. He flipped up the inspection hatch as James slit the bag and passed it up to him.
Sarge dumped the drug into the giant tank as James went into the SAS man’s backpack for the second load.
‘Piece of cake,’ Sarge grinned as he came down the ladder.
They put the empty drug packets inside a large zip-lock bag, then dumped their gloves and masks inside before sealing it up and dumping it in a large bin nearby. Sarge handed James a bottle of alcohol cleanser.
‘Use plenty,’ Sarge ordered. ‘Do your hands, then your nose and mouth. When you get back to the apartment, ditch the uniform by sealing it in a bin liner then take a hot shower. Until then, don’t eat or drink anything you’ve touched and don’t put your fingers anywhere near your mouth.’
James was stunned by the degree of caution. ‘How toxic is this stuff?’
‘It’s military grade, designed for special ops,’ Sarge explained, squeezing his eyes shut as he slathered his face in the gel. ‘The drug is encased in microscopic plastic caplets that start leaking the drug twenty hours after they first contact water. It takes a thirtieth of a gram to induce severe stomach cramps and diarrhoea.’
‘Not nice,’ James said, glancing at his watch as he slung his pack over his shoulder and headed towards the exit. ‘So in theory, in twenty and a half hours from now every American on this base is going to get a severe dose of the shits?’
‘That’s what Kazakov’s hoping,’ Sarge laughed.
ESCAPE
Mission accomplished, James and Sarge headed back up the rocky path towards the main part of the base. The last of the Hummers stood in a short queue near the gate, waiting for orders on which area they were expected to patrol.
The voice of the officer organising the patrols still ripped across the near deserted parking lot. ‘I want information. I want to see asses kicked! You’re my boys – now get out there.’
‘We were supposed to be in and out before they discovered we’d attacked the drones,’ James complained. ‘How the hell are we gonna get back to base with five hundred guys searching for us?’
Sarge shrugged. ‘If there’s five hundred guys searching for us out there, can’t be many left in here.’
He stepped inside the first of the sixty-metre-long accommodation tents, and shouted, ‘Anyone seen Corporal Smith?’
If the tent had turned out to be full of men he could easily have backed out claiming it was all a mistake. But as Sarge expected, every man and woman had been sent out on patrol. James followed him inside and you could tell from the scattered clothes and miniature TVs flickering in the gloom that everyone had cleared out in a hurry.
The tent was divided into bays, with four beds to each side of a bay. Every fourth bay was a lounge area, with a big TV and either a pool or foosball table. James and Sarge only encountered one man as they passed through. He had a foot in plaster and lay on his bunk in underpants, rocking out to his iPod.
‘This looks as good as any,’ Sarge said when they stopped in the seventh bay, which was just over half-way between the middle and the end of the long canvas dome.
He grabbed clean uniform, towel and boots from an open locker before pointing James towards a plastic shower unit in the far corner.
‘Didn’t we just poison the water?’ James asked warily.
‘There’s plenty in the pipes between here and the tank,’ Sarge explained. ‘It’ll take a good hour or two for it to feed as far as here.’
‘What if anyone comes through?’
‘We’ll figure it out,’ Sarge said casually. ‘I want a shower and clean clobber. Then we’ll chill here for an hour or two and head for home when things calm down.’
James liked Sarge’s plan: he wasn’t comfortable with either the pungent odour of Lieutenant Lopez’s aftershave, or the idea that his clothes might be contaminated with tiny caplets of the Phenolphthalein powder.