Split Second Read online

  “Did you not see Par when George got her arm behind her back that third time? She was so quick, the way she ducked away from him. He didn’t stand a chance,” Charlie argued.

  “He’s still stronger than she is. I think he let her get away because he’s into her,” I insisted.

  “You think George is into everyone,” Charlie said with a sniff.

  I rolled my eyes. “He is.”

  We were still bickering—this time over my uselessness at opening locks with my student ID card—as we walked into the basement. George and Parveen were deep in conversation with Taylor. They turned to us, all three of their faces strained and serious.

  The atmosphere grew tense.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We’ve found out what the League of Iron is planning,” Taylor explained. “The information you and Charlie stole gave us the first piece of the jigsaw, and since then we’ve been receiving more data from our undercover agent. We’ve just gotten our most important clue so far.”

  “So what is the League planning?” Charlie’s eyes hardened. “Is it another bomb?”

  “No,” Taylor said. “We’re pretty sure that they’re going to try to assassinate George Latimer.”

  “The mayor of London?” Parveen asked.

  “Exactly,” Taylor said.

  Charlie whistled. “He was at the memorial service . . .” She turned to me. “Remember? He was with his wife and son.”

  I nodded.

  “The mayor has a high profile,” Taylor went on. “He has spoken out against the League several times recently. Killing him would prove that the country really is in chaos. The ramifications would be far wider than just his death.”

  “Couldn’t you . . . or the Commander . . . talk to the police or the mayor about this? Warn them?” I asked. I thought of Roman Riley’s calm, assured manner. Surely if he told people what the League was planning they would have to listen?

  Taylor threw me a meaningful glance. “As I’ve told you many times, the police are corrupt,” he said. “Almost all senior members of the force are sympathetic to the League of Iron.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “When it comes to the mayor himself, he receives regular threats so it’s hard to convince him there’s a genuine need to step up his security this time. Plus, he doesn’t like to look weak,” Taylor went on. “So . . . there are no plans to arrest any League members or properly investigate our claims.”

  “Which are what, exactly?” Charlie asked.

  “That’s the problem,” Taylor said. “We know the League is plotting to assassinate Latimer, but we don’t have time and place details. Which is where the five of us come in. It’s our first mission as a cell so listen up. Everyone has a brief to learn and we have to move fast.”

  PART THREE

  INFILTRATION

  (n. military. type of attack in which small groups of soldiers, or individual soldiers, penetrate the enemy’s defenses where they are weakest)

  CHARLIE

  “This so wasn’t what I thought I’d be doing when I joined the EFA,” I muttered.

  Beside me, Parveen stifled a snort. It was the day after Taylor had told us about our mission to prevent the Mayor of London’s assassination. Everyone had their own role to play and I was decidedly unimpressed with mine. The five of us were gathered for a full briefing. Taylor had just told Nat and George that their job was to infiltrate the League of Iron with a view to getting the details about the assassination that we needed. Now that sounded like a mission. Taylor went on to explain that Parveen would also have a role in what the boys were doing. Parveen looked positively smug as he outlined the daring plan.

  “What about me?” I had asked.

  In answer, Taylor had held up a picture of the mayor at a formal function, his wife and son on either side of him. I recognized Aaron, with his ruddy cheeks and his thick, fair hair from the memorial service. As the picture was passed around, Nat gasped.

  “I saw that boy in a black-and-white photo at the League of Iron house we broke into,” he said. “I forgot afterward, but it was there, in a pile of papers on the desk. I’m sure it was him.”

  Taylor nodded. “That fits with the plans we found on the coded material you downloaded. His name is Aaron, he’s the Latimers’ only child. And he’s where you come in, Charlie.”

  “What do you want me to do, sir?” I asked.

  “The mayor refuses to stop working just because of possible threats to his life. And, if anything, his wife is even more stubborn. So it’s proving difficult to get close to the family, to work out the times in their upcoming schedule when the mayor is most likely to be at risk.”

  “You’d think they’d be grateful people were trying to protect them,” Parveen said with a sniff.

  “We know that you, Charlie, talked to Aaron Latimer at the memorial service a few months ago,” Taylor went on, ignoring her.

  The others all turned to look at me. Parveen gave me a nudge. I could feel Nat’s eyes boring into me with that intense gaze of his. What did he care if I talked to some other boy? The memory of our kiss all those weeks ago still haunted me. But I had buried the feelings I had felt back then. Nat wasn’t interested in me. He said that his reluctance to get involved was down to us working in Taylor’s cell together, but that was obviously just to save my feelings.

  “So what, sir?” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back against the wall of the Archway basement. “I talked to Aaron for about a minute. I’m sure he spoke to a lot of other people at that service too.”

  “Yes, but he remembered you specifically. The Commander’s contact tells us that he’s been asking questions, trying to find out who you are, where you live.” A smile curled around Taylor’s lips. “Seems like he’s taken quite a shine to you.”

  “Oooh.” George and Parveen both made silly noises.

  Nat stared at the floor.

  I blushed, feeling annoyed. “What are you saying?”

  “The plan is to engineer a meeting between you and Aaron. Something ‘accidental.’ Then we want you to get an invite to his sixteenth birthday party which is happening on Saturday. It’s a chance to start getting to know Aaron better, to become friends, get invited to his house, get to know the family.”

  “And find out, from the inside, when the mayor is going to be in public so you can protect him?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Taylor confirmed with a nod.

  “Great,” I said sarcastically. What a waste of time. Not that I wished anything bad on the mayor, but spying on his son wasn’t going to help me take revenge on the League of Iron.

  “Do you have a problem, Charlie?” Taylor asked.

  “Yes, sir.” The others looked at me. “When are we actually going to get the League back for all these bad things they’re doing? I mean, why don’t we just take out the leaders, the people who planned the market bombing?”

  A silence fell across the group. Taylor shook his head. “Our job is to protect people, not take the law into our own hands. If the police force wasn’t riddled with corrupt officers, then maybe we could get the League leadership arrested, but as things stand . . .”

  I looked at the others. None of them met my eye. I shuffled uncomfortably from side to side.

  “Right, sir,” I said. “So we just let the League do their thing and—”

  “No,” Taylor interrupted. “We stop the League. If we do our job properly we should be able to stop them permanently.” He paused. “In the meantime, your assignment is to get information from Aaron Latimer. Do you hear me, Charlie?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said with a sigh. I glanced at Nat, wondering if he would mind me getting all chummy with Aaron, but he was still staring at the floor, evidently lost in his own thoughts.

  NAT

  I didn’t like it. Not just the danger Charlie might be in if she got close to a high-profile family where the father was the subject of a League of Iron plot, but the fact that she was obviously going to ha
ve to flirt with Aaron Latimer in order to do so. At first I wondered why Riley couldn’t warn the mayor himself. They were both politicians, after all. Then I remembered that Riley belonged to a different party. If I’d learned one thing about how politics worked over the past few months, it was that for all the surface talk about ‘coming together in the national interest,’ none of the political parties were genuinely prepared to cooperate with each other.

  I went up to Charlie after the briefing. She was chatting in the corner of the room with Parveen.

  “What did Aaron say to you at the memorial service?” I asked.

  Charlie shrugged. “Just some stuff about hoping to meet girls. Nothing really.”

  Parveen narrowed her eyes. “I’d keep your focus on your own mission, Nat,” she said sharply. “Charlie’s got the easy part. You’re the one infiltrating the League of Iron. And if you’re not convincing, I’m the one who’ll suffer.”

  I turned away, not wanting to show Parveen that her words had sent a shiver down my spine. I didn’t feel confident about what I was being asked to do. The English Freedom Army already had an undercover agent in the League of Iron, the same guy who had reported on my own appearance there a few months ago. This agent, whose user name was Lionheart, was going to look out for us, which at least offered some protection. But, as the only cell member with a previous connection to the League, I knew that the whole operation centered on me. And that it was an important step, taking Charlie and me closer to the point where we could get our revenge on the League.

  Taylor talked us through the EFA oath with a greater solemnity than usual that night: Blood and soil. Strength and honor. Hope and sacrifice. But as I looked around at the others, their eyes shining with excitement, their faces lit with determination, I felt uneasy. The oath was just words. It wasn’t going to help us prepare for the action we were about to take. Not that there was time to prepare anyway.

  This mission was going to take place the very next day.

  CHARLIE

  Parveen had persuaded me to put on lipstick and eyeliner and I felt stupid.

  “I’m only going to be seeing Aaron outside his school. It’ll make me look out of place,” I argued.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Parveen snapped, tactful as ever. “You’d look out of place without makeup. Most girls wear it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t.”

  Parveen batted her dark eyelashes at me. “I have natural makeup,” she said. Her pointy little face was indeed blessed with perfect skin and her eyes framed with velvet lashes.

  “Fine.” I let her stroke a black eye pencil over the skin around my eyes, then looked in the mirror. My face was transformed, the slant of my eyes deeper than before and their chocolate color heightened by the eyeliner. I hated the fact that I didn’t look like me anymore but, though I didn’t want to admit it, the effect was actually quite pretty. I didn’t say this, of course, just smeared a little pink gloss across my lips.

  I rode in the back of the van with Taylor. He was busy, hunched over his laptop. I stared at the tiny hand-shaped tattoo on the inside of his wrist. It was hard to remember how I’d been so obsessed with tattoos last year . . . how I’d begged Mum to let me get one and how we’d argued about it just before the bomb went off. That all felt like a million years ago.

  The van stopped and I got out, having first inserted an earpiece so Taylor could keep in contact while Aaron and I talked. I hadn’t really had time to feel nervous before, but now, waiting on the corner of the street with Taylor’s voice in my ear telling me to hold back until Aaron appeared from his school gate, butterflies were zooming around my stomach.

  I took a few deep breaths. All I had to do was smile and maybe mention how much I loved parties. Taylor had insisted that Aaron wanted to see me and the way he’d flirted at the memorial service suggested that it shouldn’t be too hard to get him chatting. Still . . .

  “Time to go, Charlie,” Taylor said in my ear. “He’s heading your way. If you start walking now, you’ll see him as soon as you’re around the corner.”

  “Okay.” I sauntered off, trying to look casual and relaxed. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the van where Taylor was parked with all his monitoring equipment. Aaron appeared up ahead.

  I gave a horrified gasp. I’d only ever envisaged speaking with Aaron on his own. Now what did I do? I stared down at my shoes, feeling my face flush.

  “Take it easy, Charlie,” Taylor warned, a low murmur in my ear. “He’s a boy, not a bomb.”

  I swore under my breath. “Well you get out here and do this, then,” I muttered.

  Taylor chuckled in my ear. “I somehow don’t think I’d have the same effect that you’re having. Look up.”

  I looked up. Aaron and his friends had caught sight of me and stopped walking. So had all the boys behind them and to the sides. At least fifteen pairs of eyes were staring at me. I glanced down at my clothes. I had changed out of my school uniform into jeans and a sweater. Granted, the sweater was Parveen’s—she’d insisted I borrow it—and therefore smaller and tighter than the baggy tops I normally wore, but what on earth was making them all stare at me like that?

  “Hey, Charlie?” It was Aaron. He walked toward me, the dimple in his left cheek showing as he beamed at me. “What are you doing here?”

  I smiled. Much to my relief, several of the boys watching melted away. Plenty were still standing around, though.

  “I was visiting a friend then I was trying to get to the tube,” I said, the lie that Taylor had coached me in running surprisingly easily off my lips. I made a face. “I think I’m lost.”

  “No problem.” Aaron’s grin deepened. His eyes twinkled. He was actually quite cute looking, I realized. Not gorgeous, like Nat, but still quite attractive, with his small, snubby nose and an air of mischief about him. “I can show you to the tube. In fact, I can show you all the way home if you like?”

  “Me too,” said one of the boys watching us.

  “Yeah, and me,” said another.

  Suddenly they were all arguing about who was going to come with Aaron to take me home. I frowned. This so wasn’t going as I’d imagined.

  “No need for a posse.” Aaron looked me in the eye. “Can you run?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why?”

  For an answer, Aaron grabbed my wrist and yanked me around and along the pavement. I could hear the sound of feet pounding behind us, but Aaron and I ran fast and, soon, the footsteps fell away. We kept running, Aaron darting this way and that through the crowds on the hill, until we reached Highgate underground station. We raced inside, then stood catching our breath. Aaron, I was pleased to see, was panting harder than I was. He bent over, clutching his side, then stood up. His eyes shone with excitement.

  “You are fast,” he said. “I’m, like, four-hundred-yard-dash champion at my school. That’s why they stopped chasing us. They knew we’d get away. I didn’t think you’d be able to keep up the whole way here.”

  I bridled at this. “If I could be bothered to run stupid school races, I bet I’d win them, too.” As soon as I’d spoken I winced. I’d sounded haughty and rude. Not the best way to get myself an invite to Aaron’s party. In my ear Taylor muttered a warning. But Aaron, to my surprise, laughed out loud.

  “I bet you would,” he said, clearly unbothered by my tone. “So, can I see you home?”

  I hesitated. “Don’t you have to get home yourself?”

  Aaron shrugged. “I let myself in. Mum’s never back until sixish. Dad’s . . . well, you know what he does. He’s at work till eight or nine, usually.”

  Another thought struck me. “Don’t you have a bodyguard?” I asked, looking around. “I thought the mayor of London and his family would have proper protection?”

  “Nicely done,” Taylor murmured approvingly in my ear. I’d been told to ask about the mayor’s security arrangements in case our information was out of date.

  Aaron made a face. “We have security for big events, when
there’s some special public occasion, but not every day. Dad said he didn’t want it. Anyway, there are so many cuts, it wouldn’t look good for us to use taxpayers’ money to protect ourselves.”

  I nodded. There was a silence. Aaron was still looking at me, his expression suddenly uncertain. I realized I still hadn’t answered his question about seeing me home. It was the last thing I wanted. I was supposed to be meeting Jas and some of her friends at the Nutmeg Café on Park Street. However, as I didn’t yet have an invite to Aaron’s party, I couldn’t see how I could get out of it.

  “Go on, Charlie,” Taylor urged in my ear.

  “Sure.” I smiled. “Though I’m not going straight home. I’ve got to meet some friends first.”

  Aaron raised his eyebrows. “Girl friends?” he asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “I guess, yes, mostly.”

  “Excellent.” Aaron rubbed his hands together. “Let’s go.”

  NAT

  George, Parveen, and I hurried along the street. We were heading for an alley near the building where a League of Iron meeting was apparently due to take place. It was almost 5:30 p.m. and my thoughts kept straying to Charlie. She should have met up with Aaron by now. In fact, she should have already had her conversation with him, received an invitation to his party, and be safely on her way home.

  “We should put in the earpieces,” George said. “Taylor said to do it at five thirty, that he’d be finished with Charlie by then.”

  My fingers trembled slightly as I slid my earpiece into place.

  “Did Charlie seem okay when you saw her?” I asked Par.

  “Her usual charming self,” Parveen said with a roll of the eyes. “Snapped at me when I suggested a little eye makeup, but otherwise totally cool.” She paused. “So long as Aaron isn’t into warm, fluffy girls, she’ll be fine.”

  “She’ll be fine anyway,” George said loyally. “And she doesn’t need makeup.”

  “For goodness’ sake, you’re pathetic,” muttered Parveen. She turned to Nat. “Both of you.”