Lukas glanced around. The Blackshirts were grinning. All except Babaka, who to Lukas’s surprise was frowning. They were all armed, but they were enjoying the show too much to have their weapons primed. Instead, their rifles hung loosely across their backs, barrels up, or their chests, barrels down.

  Maybe, Lukas thought, that gave him a chance.

  Oscar Juwani was about ten paces away. Lukas estimated that he could get to him in two seconds, if he really moved. And if the rope was long enough. If he could wrap it around Oscar Juwani’s neck, and pull tight before the Blackshirts had time to engage their weapons, maybe he had a chance. Would Oscar Juwani call off his guys if he risked being throttled or even hurled into the pit? Lukas thought he might. In any case, this was his – and Roland’s – only chance.

  He pulled on the rope a little. Where it had been lying across the top of the pit, it now hung in mid-air. Lukas had some slack. With the leading end of the rope in his left hand, he held it half a metre further along with his right. Roland struggled. He obviously thought he was about to be tugged into the pit. The Blackshirt behind him held him fast.

  Lukas glanced over at Oscar Juwani. He breathed deeply and prepared to sprint in that direction in three …

  Two …

  One …

  ‘What is it, Babaka?’

  Lukas froze. Babaka had said something. Oscar Juwani, looking irritated, was telling him to elaborate. Babaka spoke. Lukas didn’t understand a word. When Babaka fell silent, Oscar Juwani seemed to be pondering his words. ‘Very well,’ he murmured. ‘Maybe Babaka is right.’

  ‘What?’ Lukas said.

  ‘The young man who killed this one's brother is an eager Redshirt. He is out in the jungle. We expect him back tonight. If there is another killing to be done, Babaka believes he deserves the chance to do it and earn himself a black shirt.’ Oscar Juwani smiled. ‘Of course, you are not stupid, are you, Lukas? You can tell that Babaka is not your greatest fan. Perhaps he is only saying this because he does not want you to earn yourself a black shirt. What do you think of that?’

  Lukas had the presence of mind to shrug, as if he didn’t care either way. He pointed at Roland. ‘This one, another one,’ he said. ‘It makes no difference to me.’ He slung the rope back across the pit, where it coiled at Roland’s feet. Oscar Juwani nodded slowly and barked a command. Two Blackshirts covered the pit and pulled Roland away from the edge. His hands and legs were tied and he was forced to lie on his front.

  ‘We will deal with him at first light tomorrow,’ Oscar Juwani announced. Then he waddled back into his hut and his Blackshirt guards took up their position by the door.

  Lukas wanted to speak to Roland. To tell him not to panic. To tell him he would never have tugged him into the pit, and that he would do everything in his power to make sure it didn’t happen in the morning. But he did not dare, under Babaka’s watchful gaze. Anyway, he didn’t know what promises he could make.

  So Lukas returned to his position by the snake pit and did the only thing he could. He waited until nightfall. He waited for help.

  Down in the clearing, the sun was sinking fast. But not as fast as Max’s hopes. He’d had one chance to capitalise on their distraction, and he’d blown it. Two Blackshirts stood by the log pile, so there was no chance of a repeat performance with the Ziploc bag. Max and Sami were exhausted, demoralised and scared. To make things worse, a troop of mischievous monkeys were pelting them with nuts and berries. In another time and place, it would have been funny. But the missiles were hard, and they hurt. Max and Sami’s skin was already sore from insect bites and jungle cuts. They swore as they struggled to chop the wood, their muscles burning and their hearts anxious.

  ‘What do you think happened to Roland?’ Sami whispered when the Blackshirts weren’t watching.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Max said. ‘Something was going on up there a while back, but –’ he shrugged – ‘I couldn’t tell what. Ow!’ Something hit him hard in the face. ‘Stupid monkeys,’ he hissed. ‘I’d like to …’

  He fell silent. The thing that had hit him on the face had fallen to the ground right in front of him. It was not a nut or a berry. It was metallic and colourful. He checked the Blackshirts weren’t watching, then bent down to pick it up. He caught his breath. ‘Sami, check this out!’

  The item in his hand had once been circular. Now it had a well in the middle where something had struck it, leaving an indentation. It was a Special Forces Cadet challenge coin, warped by a bullet.

  Max and Sami stared at each other. Suddenly everything made sense. The sensation of being followed through the jungle. The face he had seen by the track. The figure he had recognised running around the clearing. The stone that had hit Babaka. Max smiled. ‘You genius, Lukas,’ he whispered. ‘You absolute genius.’

  16

  Piercings

  Lili had once heard of an ancient form of torture: death by a thousand cuts. Now she and Abby felt as though they were suffering exactly that.

  Following Max, Sami, Lukas and the others through the jungle had been difficult enough. The convoy had cleared a path for them, sure, but they had the horrific bruises on their chests to contend with. The challenge coins, with their Kevlar backing, had stopped the bullets from penetrating further. But the impact had still been enough to knock them over. The bruise had spread all the way up to Lili’s shoulder, and she thought she might have a broken rib or two. It was probably that, she and Abby had decided, that had saved them. It was only in the seconds before Lukas had taken the shots that they had realised what his plan was. They had pushed out their chests so the shape of the challenge coins sewn into their shirts was visible, giving him a target. But they were in so much pain that they could barely move when they hit the ground. They looked dead, so the thugs assumed they were dead. It was only afterwards that they could marvel at the accuracy of Lukas’s shooting, and at his quick thinking.

  The bruises had grown worse as the hours passed. Breathing was painful. But that wasn’t their only problem. It felt as if the jungle was reaching out to tear at their skin. The vegetation around the clearing where the others had been taken was unusually thick. No doubt, Lili thought, Oscar Juwani had chosen it for that reason. Moving through it tore their clothes and their skin. At one point last night, as they kept a careful watch over the clearing, Abby had even risked running from one vantage point to another along the perimeter. Lili had been angry with her, but Abby was in a worse state than her friend. Her face was scratched and bloody, her skin puffy and her eyes bloodshot. It hadn’t dulled her wits though. It was Abby who’d had the presence of mind to throw the rock at Babaka – ‘I’ve always liked a good game of rounders,’ she’d whispered as the rock cracked into the Blackshirt’s head – and it was Abby’s plan to chuck the warped challenge coin at Max and Sami. ‘They’ll know what it means,’ she’d said. ‘They’re cleverer than they look. Well, they’d have to be, really, don’t you think?’

  Abby was right. Hiding behind the treeline, they could see Max and Sami. Max was turning the challenge coin over in his fingers, staring up at the plateau where Lukas was being held. Then he stared back into the jungle, as though trying to penetrate the trees, searching and scanning. They saw him mouth the words ‘Abby’ and ‘Lili’ – silent confirmation that he knew they were there.

  One of the Blackshirts shouted at them. Max and Sami went back to chopping wood. They seemed less exhausted. As if their new discovery had given them hope.

  Lili and Abby retreated from the treeline, deeper into the jungle. ‘Did you see Max’s face?’ Abby said, her voice cracking because her throat was so dry. ‘Not going to lie, that was sweet.’

  Lili gave her an irritated frown. ‘We have work to do,’ she said.

  ‘You mean I can’t go sunbathing?’

  ‘Seriously, Abby. We’ve left this too long already. Roland has been captured. Who knows if those SAS men are still alive? And it’s only a matter of time before they force Lukas into a killing that he can’t get out of. Come on, let’s recap what we know.’

  ‘Lili, we’ve recapped what we know about ten times already.’

  ‘Well, we’re going to recap again.’ Lili frowned. ‘We think Max is trying to get into Babaka’s hut. The only reason we can think of is to get at the watch. It’s a good job we spent last night watching the clearing. We know that Lukas is being kept outside Oscar Juwani’s hut on the plateau. We know that Max and Sami will probably spend tonight back in that bamboo cage. We know that at any time during the night there are three Blackshirts patrolling the clearing. One walks the perimeter, another walks the length of the clearing, and a third walks its width. About every forty-five minutes the perimeter guy and the length guy meet by the log pile, where they normally stop for a couple of minutes to smoke a cigarette. At the same time, the width guy is at the far side of the clearing. If we want to get Max and Sami out of the cage, that’s the time to do it.’

  Abby shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Lili,’ she said, her voice more serious. ‘It seems risky to me. If we know the watch is in Babaka’s hut, why don’t we just get in there ourselves?’

  ‘Because that won’t work,’ Lili said. ‘It will need more than two of us. One to enter the hut, one to keep watch outside it, but also one or two of us to distract the patrolling Blackshirts, especially the guy making his way back from the far side.’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out,’ Abby said.

  ‘Not all of it,’ Lili said. ‘We still don’t know how we’re going to break Max and Sami out of the cage. The door is chained shut and there’s a big padlock.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Abby said. ‘I was born in a prison, remember? I learned to pick locks in there before I learned to read. I’ve never met a padlock I couldn’t open.’

  ‘What will you use?’

  Abby smiled enigmatically. She put her hand to her right ear and removed one of her elaborate cartilage piercings. She straightened out the metal so that it resembled a wonky, unfurled paper clip. Then she held it up. Lili had one eyebrow raised.

  ‘What?’ Abby said. ‘I like to accessorise, okay?’ She put the earring in her pocket. ‘Max and Sami can buy me some new ones when we get back home.’

  ‘If we get back home,’ Lili said.

  ‘No,’ Abby replied. ‘When we get back home. What’s the plan?’

  ‘We wait till nightfall,’ Lili said. ‘We keep watch on the guards and when everything’s quiet we choose our moment. We cross the clearing to the cage, where we unlock the padlock and let Max and Sami out. They get to Babaka’s hut and try to activate the watch. We hide among the other huts and, if we need to, we make a noise to distract the guards. If – I mean, when – Max and Sami have activated the watch, we lock them back in the cage so nobody notices they’ve gone and raises the alarm. We hide back in the jungle and wait for the Watchers to arrive and get us and the SAS team out of here.’

  ‘You make it sound so easy,’ Abby said.

  Lili ignored that. ‘I wish we could get a message to Max and Sami,’ she said. ‘To tell them what we’re planning.’

  ‘They’ll be expecting us,’ Abby said. ‘They know that tonight’s our last chance. If we leave it any longer, the SAS guys will likely be dead and Lukas will be in a situation he can’t get himself out of. Come on, let’s find a place to lie, as close to Max and Sami’s cage as we can get. It’s going to be a long night. We’ll need all our strength.’

  When the light failed and they could no longer see to chop, Max, Sami and the other Blueshirts were given scraps of food. It was a pungent dried meat that Max couldn’t identify and would never have touched had he not been ravenous. But he was, so he ate it gratefully, as did Sami. Then they were led back to the cage and locked inside.

  The kid with the sore hands lay down immediately. Max felt his temperature: he was burning hot. Max wasn’t sure that he would last the night. Somehow that, more even than the thought of the SAS men in the cage or their own predicament, made Max determined that they had to make a move tonight, for better or worse. The other Blueshirts were asleep within minutes. Max and Sami sat by the door. Max felt physically exhausted but mentally sharp. The sight of the challenge coin, warped and battered, had reinvigorated him.

  ‘Lukas was very clever,’ Sami said quietly. ‘Do you remember how he asked for a pistol instead of an assault rifle? The Kevlar on the challenge coin would never have stopped an assault rifle round. But with the 9mm from the pistol, he knew he had a chance.’

  Max nodded. ‘And Abby and Lili must have known what he was going to do,’ he said. ‘Do you remember how they pushed their chests out? That made the coins more visible. Still, he made two great shots. Even Hector would have been impressed.’

  ‘Hector? Impressed? Well, maybe.’ Sami stared over to the edge of the clearing. ‘Do you think Abby and Lili are watching us?’

  ‘I’m certain of it,’ Max said. ‘My guess is they spent last night putting in surveillance. They’ll know the movements of the guards and they’ll be biding their time. Either they’ll try to get into Babaka’s place by themselves, or they’ll try to get us out of the cage and we’ll do it together. Either way, it’ll happen tonight.’

  ‘What about Lukas?’

  Max flinched. His elation at learning about Lukas’s cleverness had faded a little. He felt guilty at the way he had treated his friend. At his inability to be as trusting of him as Sami had been. ‘I don’t know,’ Max said quietly. ‘My guess is he’s too heavily guarded up there on the plateau to be of any help. And if we want to help him …’

  ‘Our best bet is to call in the Watchers,’ Sami completed the sentence for him. He frowned at Max. ‘He will understand why you spoke to him the way you did,’ he said.

  ‘I hope so,’ Max said. He glanced up at the plateau. ‘I hope he’s okay up there. I hope they don’t make him do anything …’ He shook his head, unable to finish the thought. ‘We should get our heads down,’ he said. ‘If the guards think we’re sleeping, they’ll take less interest in us. And we definitely want them to take less interest in us.’

  Sami nodded fervently and lay down. Max did the same. Lying on his side, he looked out towards the jungle. It was almost dark, and it was impossible to see any distance beyond the treeline. But Max didn’t need to do that. Somehow, he knew – he just knew – that two Special Forces Cadets were out there in the jungle. They were watching him and Sami, and waiting for their moment.

  17

  1, 2, 3

  ‘Ah, it’s okay for some,’ Abby said, ‘having a spot of supper and a nice lie-down.’

  ‘Are you always this sarcastic?’ Lili said, a little irritably.

  ‘Only when I’m hungry.’

  ‘You’re always hungry, Abby.’

  ‘Aren’t I though?’

  They crouched behind a shield of broad palm leaves, watching the clearing through the gaps made by the fronds. Max and Sami’s cage was about seventy-five metres away, Lili estimated. She wasn’t going to lie to herself. It looked like a long seventy-five metres. She squinted through the darkness. She had the uncanny sense that Max was staring straight at them. It made her want to hide deeper in the jungle. ‘We stay hidden till about midnight,’ she told Abby. ‘Then we check the position of the guards.’

  They could only estimate the time. It passed slowly as they crouched in the pitch-black jungle, jumping at every sound. Abby didn’t even complain about being hungry – a sure sign that she was anxious, because they had not eaten since they were in the village, and the only water they had found had been condensation on broad green jungle leaves. It was a relief when she finally said, ‘Hey, Lili, it’s got to be about time, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Lili whispered. ‘Let’s check the guards.’

  They edged back to the treeline and scanned the clearing. The fires had burned low. Their embers still glowed, however, and a few people moved about. Lili turned her attention to the guards. In her mind she had labelled them. Guard 1 was walking the perimeter of the clearing, Guard 2 was walking its length and Guard 3 its width. They needed to wait until Guards 1 and 2 met by the log pile and stopped for their cigarette and Guard 3 was at the far side of the clearing. That moment had just passed. Guard 2 had just set off from the log pile, walking left to right. Guard 3 was heading towards them, almost alongside the cage. Guard 2 was on the far side of the clearing, walking the perimeter.

  ‘It’s going to be another half hour, at least,’ Lili said.

  They waited, motionless. Guard 3 approached them. He stopped at the edge of the clearing, close enough to Abby and Lili that they could smell him: woodsmoke and body odour. The guard peered unseeingly into the jungle while Abby and Lili held their breath. He turned and started marching back across the clearing. ‘He can be your boyfriend,’ Abby whispered.

  Lili didn’t reply. She was too firmly focused on the guards. Carefully she watched them walking up and down, left and right, round and round, waiting for that precise, magic instant when they were all as far away as they could be, and distracted.

  It happened around forty-five minutes later. Guards 1 and 2 stopped by the log pile for their cigarette. Guard 3 was at the far side of the clearing. They had to move now, or not at all.

  ‘Go!’ Lili hissed. ‘Go!’

  They emerged silently from the jungle and sprinted across the open ground, crouched low, towards the cage. As they approached, Lili saw Max and Sami sit up. Her eyes panned left and right, searching, checking that nobody else in the slumbering camp had seen them. They seemed to be safe.