Scott Andrews - Children's Crusade

A woman on the bench behind her laughs and says: "you got his cock, more like!" More laughter from the ranks.

I can't help but assess Cooper's preferred concubine. My height, small hips and breasts but a pretty heart shaped face. A woman, but girlish. Tough though, streetwise.

"So that makes you, what, top dog in the harem?" I ask.

"Summat like that, yeah. So we'll get you a bed sorted then you can tell us your story."

"No," I say hurriedly. "I won't be staying."

She cocks her head and narrows her eyes, all welcome swept away by sudden suspicion.

"That so."

"I'm a doctor," I say, as if that explains anything.

"Shit, I was an MP," comes a voice from somewhere to my left. "Don't make no difference here."

"I mean," I go on, "that I'm here to help. How many of you are there?"

Jools doesn't answer.

"Are you all well? When did you last have a check up?"

"We all clean, if that's what you mean. If we weren't, we'd be in the river."

"That's not…" I'm too uncomfortable to know what to say. I'm out of my depth here.

"How many of you are there?" I ask again.

"Eighteen," says Jools.

"Okay. Thanks. I'll, um, I'll see you around I guess."

Jools steps forward and gets right in my face, chin up, eyes wide. "Not if I see you first," she says.

I can't get out of there fast enough.

Yet as I walk away from Cooper's rape room, it occurs to me that there are nineteen women in that room, and the ones who haven't gone all Stockholm will be very angry indeed.

I have nineteen potential allies on the inside. It's not much, but it's a start.

There is a special quality behind the eyes which all the men who work for Cooper have. Something cold and dead and hidden. Every one of them has it. The guy following me around Parliament is the same. It makes sense, I suppose; to be the kind of person who treats other people as cattle you must either have to kill some part of you off, or be born without it in the first place.

Whatever that part of a person it is — compassion, empathy, simple kindness — it dies easy. All it takes for it to wither away is peer pressure and time.

"What did you do? I ask him as I open my bedroom door in the morning and find him standing outside, patient as stone. "Before."

He shakes his head, unwilling to discuss it. I don't think he's one of the original SAS team. I wonder who he was, and I wonder what changed him. School teacher who watched his pupils die, perhaps? Accountant who found comfort in ledgers and spreadsheets but feels cut adrift in a world without numerical order? Drug addict forced to go cold turkey? Or just a family man who held his wife and children as they bled out?

He's a pretty nondescript bloke. Not a muscled heavy or a lean military type. He's in his early forties, slight spare tyre around the waist (which testifies to how well they eat here), receding hairline, pallid skin. The threat that he implies comes not from physical strength or bullish machismo; it comes from the way he looks at me as if I were a tiresome detail, a turd laid on new carpet by an eager puppy which has to be cleaned up. Just a bit of business.

What would his pre-Cull self have done if he had known what he would become? Rub his hands in glee or put a rope around his neck and end it all?

What would I have done, had I known who I would become?

I've not slept a wink. All night I've lain in bed staring into the darkness, trying to work out a strategy but I've got nothing.

No-one's coming to rescue me. I guess the kids we brought with us to Thetford may have made it back the school and told them what happened, but their standing orders are to fortify and defend. There's no-one there with the authority or gumption to attempt a rescue. Anyway, it would be suicide.

Cooper still doesn't know where the school is now. The Yanks will have told him about Groombridge, but they never learned about Fairlawne, so it should be safe.

Unless I tell him. Maybe that's what he'll do — wait until he's bored with me and then torture me to get the location of the school. Rich pickings for him there.

I may have to work out a way to kill myself. But I'm not there yet.

Not quite.

It didn't take long for Wilkes and Tariq to start arguing.

"I've been trained for this, mate."

"In peace time. I led the resistance against the American Army in Iraq. I have experience that you don't."

"Of getting everyone under your command killed."

"John delegated command to me if he didn't make it."

"You aren't the boss of me, mate."

"I'm not your fucking mate."

And so on until eventually Caroline shouted: "Oh why don't you just whop your cocks out right now and we can see who's biggest?" which made Jack snigger but didn't exactly help.

"Listen," I said to the council of war gathered around the fire. "We all agree we need a clear chain of command. Yes?"

Wilkes, Ferguson, Tariq, Jack and Caroline all nodded. Green just stared into the flames.

"And we all agree that if my dad were here, we'd be happy to let him lead us because of his experience and training?"

Again they all nodded.

"So we should make finding him our first priority. We know he was on his way to Hammersmith to meet up with Caroline. For some reason he never got there. We have to track him down. We can't win this fight without him."

"Lee, we have no idea where he is or what happened to him," said Tariq. "I want to find him as much as you do, but we have no leads and we don't have any more time. Jane is on the inside and God knows what they're doing to her. We have to get her first."

"Don't you think I want her safe?" I countered. "But we have no chance if we keep fighting amongst ourselves like this. We need a strategy and a leader. Dad's the only one we would all agree on."

"We could vote," said Jack.

"What?" asked Wilkes, incredulous.

"He's right," said Caroline. "We could vote. Elect a leader."

"I won't take orders from him," said Tariq more apologetic than angry.

"Then we don't vote for a leader," continued Jack. "We vote on a plan. Chances are we're going to need to break into at least two forces anyway. As long as each group has a leader who agrees to the plan, we're fine."

"I'm not going into battle with a strategy voted for by children," said Wilkes.

"We may seem like children to you," I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice, "but between us we've seen more combat than you."

"Do you have a better suggestion for breaking this deadlock?" asked Caroline.

Wilkes considered for a moment, then shook his head. "What do you think, Pat?"

"If we can come up with a plan we all agree on, it sounds sensible to me," said Ferguson.

I leant over and whispered in Jack's ear. "Well done, Your Majesty, you just convened your first Parliament."

We took the discussion inside then, to one of the lecture halls of the old college. Ferguson drew a map of the enemy stronghold on the whiteboard. His attention to detail was impressive. He picked out the fences, minefields and gun towers, as well as various internal details such as where the children were being kept, and the location of the Lords' brothel.

There came a point where the level of detail began to disturb me.

"Question," I said as he picked out Spider's sleeping quarters. "How the hell did you get inside, collect all this intel and then get out again without being caught?"

"With great care and a little help."

"From?" I tried not to sound too suspicious, but failed.

"Once the lorries arrived at Westminster I got straight out and ran inside, shouting that I needed the loo. If I'd hung around, they'd have realised I wasn't their man. I'd been in the Palace of Westminster once before, on a tour, so I vaguely knew where I was heading. I made straight for the Lords." He looked expectant, waiting for us to realise something. When none of us did, he said: "The brothel."