Children's Crusade

Chapter Five

There's a hand shaking me, but I shrug it off and turn over, trying to go back to sleep.

"Jane, you need to wake up." The voice is soft but urgent, and the shaking resumes. I try to swat them away. I hear another voice saying "for God's sake," then feel a sudden sharp sting as someone slaps me across the face. I'm instantly wide awake. My head hurts like hell and there's something wrong with my nose. I don't even need to feel it to know that it's broken again.

I'm lying on a very smelly blanket on what feels like a camp bed. It's cold in here and the bright sun is streaming through the windows straight into my eyes. I take a moment to adjust.

"Welcome back," says Tariq as he bleeds into focus next to me.

The best I can offer as reply is a vague mumble that sounds like a question.

"Back in the compound. The school," says John, behind me, and then goes on to pre-empt all my questions. "There was a convoy of snatchers coming to pay a visit here this morning. Reckon they were coming to collect this month's cargo. Three trucks loaded with kids and heavily guarded."

"And muggins here drove into them headfirst."

"I wasn't expecting oncoming traffic," says John. "There's not exactly a major congestion problem these days."

I turn to look at John. Every tiny motion of my head hurts. When he swims into focus I see a huge livid rip across his forehead.

"Ouch," I whisper.

He winces, seemingly more embarrassed than hurt. "Yeah. Steering wheel. Knocked me cold for a while."

"And the kids? Hang on," I say, suddenly outraged. "Was it you who bloody slapped me?"

"They're fine," he says, ignoring my protest. "A bit shaken, but they're back in the main hall while the snatchers try to piece together what happened here. Someone took out all their people. They were lying in front of the gate when we walked in. Sniper, I think."

"Guria? Lee?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say Lee."

"How many?"

"Five."

"Jesus. He shot five of them when we'd already left?"

John nods and somehow manages to resist saying "I told you so."

"Anyway," he says, and I can tell it's an effort. "We can't worry about him now. Jane, one of the snatchers seemed to recognise you…?"

"Yeah. I met him about three years ago. He was part of a child trafficking ring near the school. I shut them down and took him prisoner. I was going to interrogate him and find out where the kids were going, but Operation bloody Motherland turned up and arrested me instead. They let him go."

By now my eyes have adjusted and I can see we're in what must have once been a classroom. There are a couple more camp beds against the wall and some discarded clothes and tins of food. This must be where three of the snatchers sleep. Slept.

I sit up, trying to ignore the pain in my head. I reach for my sidearm, but of course it's gone. So has the knife in my boot.

"They were pretty thorough," says Tariq, brandishing the stump where his hook should be.

The door opens and two men stand silhouetted against the rising sun. "Miss Crowther. What a surprise."

I recognise him from Olly's compound, the day Operation Motherland turned up and ruined my life. "Hello Bookworm. How's it hanging?"

He steps forward and grabs me by the hair, yanking me to my feet and dragging me from the room. Tariq and John make to intervene, shouting protests, but the other man fires a warning shot over their heads and they stand back.

I am dragged down the corridor towards the main hall and thrown, head first, through the swing doors. I crash to the floor, my vision blurring from the intensity of the migraine. But I don't hit hard wood. Instead, my hands and then my right shoulder crash into something soft, yielding and wet. I recoil, my hands sticky with blood. I've been thrown onto a pile of bodies, six in all.

I make to stand but I feel a boot on my shoulder, pushing me down. Then knees in my back and a hand on the back of my head, pushing my face into the gaping wound in the back of one of the dead snatchers. I gag.

"Who the fuck are you?" says a voice that I don't recognise.

I don't reply. The hand pushes my face deep into the gore. I feel my cheek scraping against a jagged edge of shattered bone. Christ, this guy's got a huge hole in him. That new sniper rifle is vicious.

"I won't ask again."

"I'm Jane Crowther. Pleased to meet you," I say, trying not to get blood in my mouth.

"You're sure this is her?" he asks. "She shut down Olly's supply line?"

"Yes, boss," I hear Bookworm reply.

"So what are you?" asks the man in a thick Scottish accent. "Some kind of vigilante?"

"Just a concerned citizen."

"Who goes around massacring people."

"Who goes around rescuing children from kidnappers."

He snorts, derisively. "We're not kidnappers, miss. We're saving these kids. Aren't we boys?" There's a chorus of muted giggles, although one guy looks uncomfortable, as if offended.

"Saving them from what?"

"Eternal damnation. Apparently."

"It doesn't do to mock the Abbot, boss," says the uncomfortable one, threateningly. The boss nods, suddenly serious.

"You're right, of course, Jimmy," he says solemnly, then winks at me, humouring his colleague. "Anyway love, we've got you and your two blokes. How many more of you are there?"

"Enough."

He shoves my head hard into the wound and suddenly I can't breathe, my mouth and nose blocked by soggy meat. He literally rubs my face in it, then lets go and stands back. I fling myself backwards, gasping for air, scrabbling away from the obscene mound of carcasses. I catch a glimpse of the children, huddled in the corner of the hall, watching wide-eyed, before I kneel and throw up, heaving long and hard until there's nothing left and I feel wretched and hollow.

I'm still kneeling there with my eyes closed, trying to quell the stomach spasms, when I hear his voice in my ear, speaking softly.

"Finished?"

I look up at him, and am surprised to see how handsome he is. I spit a potent mix of vomit and blood into his matinee idol blue eyes. He just laughs and backhands me, sending me sprawling.

As I lie there, waiting for a bullet to end me, I hear Bookworm say "I reckon Spider will want to talk to her," and my vision blurs, my blood feels like ice in my veins, my head swims and I begin to tremble.

He's alive.

"What did you say?" I rasp, eventually.

"I said our boss will want to talk to you."

"His name. You said his name."

"Yeah." Bookworm sounds confused.

"What was his fucking name?" I yell.

"Spider," says Movie Idol, curious in spite of himself. If his reaction is anything to go by, I must have gone as white as a sheet.

"Spider," I say. "Spider." And then I can't stop saying his name, it pours out of me in a hysterical flood of jumbled syllables. "Spider. Spider. Spider. Spider. Spider. Spider. Spider. Spider. Spider…"

He slaps me again and I fall silent. I barely even know where I am. All I can see is that face. All I can hear is that voice. All I can feel is the sick ache in my stomach as my brother looks down in surprise at…

"Yes," I say quietly, rising to my feet. "Yes, I think he will want to talk to me. I certainly want to talk to him."

Movie Idol narrows his eyes and smiles. "You got history with the big man?"

I nod.

"Fine, you just bought yourself a ticket to London." He turns to address the gaggle of gunmen. "Put her and the kids in the lorry."

Two guys step forward and herd us towards the fire escape. As I step outside I hear Movie Idol giving a final order.

"Oh, and kill those other two fuckers."

I try to turn and protest, but the tide of children sweeps me out into the playground.

There's nothing I can do.

We're herded through the playground and out the front gate into the street. Two big container lorries are waiting. Both have their rear doors open, revealing hordes of terrified children huddled together for warmth. There are six men with guns standing around the trucks, both preventing the children from running and keeping an eye out for attack. Every one of them is a plum target for a good sniper, but for some reason Lee isn't taking the shot. Suddenly I feel guilty — the only thought I've spared for Lee since the Rangers attacked has been to worry about his mental state; it hasn't occurred to me that he might be lying dead in one of these houses.

I turn to look back at the school, where John and Tariq are being executed, and I curse myself for being such a fool. Who the hell did we think we were to come charging in here and take these guys on? We're… Christ I don't know what we are but we certainly aren't soldiers, or even police. It's ironic that we managed to take out the entire US Army two years ago, but now we've been undone by a bunch of child snatchers in lorries.

Our escorts chivvy us into the back of the foremost lorry. As I step up to the ramp I slip in a pile of what smells like human shit. There are no seats in here, and a couple of buckets sit by the doors, empty but reeking of effluent. This must be the kids' toilets, and they've just emptied them in the street. The smell of unwashed bodies, open toilets and fear is overwhelming.

"Sorry it's a bit cramped," says the snatcher next to me, sarcastically. "But your man wrote off the third lorry, so we've had to shove its cargo into these two."

The mass of kids shuffle up to make room for us new arrivals. Just as I sit down I hear two muffled shots from inside the school.

I sit in that lorry, surrounded by despairing children who I am powerless to help, leaving behind two dead friends and a missing lover, on my way to be reunited with the cruellest sadist I've ever met, and I begin, to my shame, to cry.

As the lorry doors swing shut I catch a glimpse of Bookworm leaving the school, scurrying to the rearmost lorry, waving to his boss at the front to tell him the job is done. Then the doors close with a heavy bang and we're plunged into darkness.