He’d literally bumped into the pair an hour earlier as they clambered out of a rusty MGB sports car near the village pub. They were immediately recognised as protestors and heckled by a bunch of locals drinking in the beer garden. Viv’s response was to bend over, pull down the back of his shorts and repeatedly slap his hairy arse. Kyle’s laughter broke the ice and by the time they’d reached the protest site down the hill, their conversation was flowing.
Or at least, conversation with Viv was in full flow. Tom was the sensible brother, seventeen years old; he’d just taken his A-levels at a Bristol sixth-form college. He dressed and acted conventionally and didn’t say much, although when he did it was usually something worth listening to. Viv was the total opposite, a student at Avon University with a blond streak in his hair and a pierced tongue. His mannerisms were over the top and he loved saying stuff to shock people.
As the three lads sat in the grass surrounded by rapeseed, Kyle mixed a few probing questions amongst Viv’s ramblings, which bounced hysterically from Scott Walker CDs, to Barcelona, to a story about a Green Day concert where he’d ended up slipping into a urinal.
Kyle needed to know where the Carter brothers stood on animal liberation and found out that they were on the bitter edge. Both brothers reckoned it was fine to kill someone if it saved lots of animals, though Tom seemed less than convinced that it was a good idea to go round attacking employees of Malarek Research because of the bad publicity it created.
Ten minutes after Kyle saw Lauren disappearing back through the hedge, the teenagers were joined by a geeky dude in an army jacket. His name was George. He was in his mid-twenties and he gave Kyle the evil eye before demanding to know who he was.
‘Kyle’s kosher,’ Viv said. ‘He’s just moved into the village with Ryan Quinn.’
George looked surprised. ‘I didn’t think Quinn had kids.’
‘He’s not my dad,’ Kyle said. ‘My mum got off with him when he was inside.’
Viv broke out in a machine-gun laugh. ‘Your mum must be some nut, shacking up with a dude she met in the nick.’
‘Whatever,’ Kyle shrugged. ‘Who gets to pick their parents?’
‘Quinn’s an admirable character,’ George said, a touch pompously. ‘He practically wrote the book on undercover operations and Zebra eighty-four were legends.’
‘Everybody loves the mighty Quinn,’ Viv said noisily. ‘He should have kept it tight though. Zebra Alliance is a joke. Bunch of la-di-dah
Guardian
-reader mango heads scared of their own goddamned
snot
.’
Kyle smiled as Viv contemptuously spat at the ground, but George didn’t look pleased.
‘We’d be nowhere without those la-di-dah
Guardian
readers and their monthly contributions,’ George snapped back.
‘So, is all the equipment sorted?’ Tom asked, changing the subject before George and Viv started a full-blown row.
‘Mel brought it all up in her dad’s Volvo,’ George said, before turning to look at Kyle. ‘Listen stranger, no offence, but we’ve got business here. Would you mind butting out?’
‘I understand,’ Kyle said as he backed off. ‘I’ve got your mobile number, Tom. I’ll call you about the meeting at the uni.’
‘Don’t leave,’ Viv yelled. ‘George man, Kyle’s a diamond and you’ve spent half the last week running around campus trying to drum up extra bodies for this thing. He might just want to come with us if you tell him what’s going down.’
‘Look Kyle,’ George said, ‘no offence, but I only operate with people I know.’
Kyle obviously wanted to know what they were up to, but realised it could blow up in his face if he seemed too eager.
‘Don’t sweat it,’ Kyle said, waving his hands to make it clear that he wasn’t offended. ‘Good luck, whatever you’re up to.’
As he turned away, Kyle noticed James running towards them. His voice sounded a touch anxious.
‘Something’s going on up by the entrance,’ James explained. ‘Robyn’s mum came and dragged her off. The straight types are leaving ’cos two coachloads of pissed-up students just arrived, all chanting and going bananas.’
George looked at his watch. ‘That’ll be Madeline Laing’s crack troops, right on time.’
‘What are they doing?’ Kyle asked.
‘Information leaked out that Malarek is having a vanload of monkeys delivered today,’ Viv explained.
James was mystified. ‘Why not do that in the week, when there’s hardly any protestors around?’
Tom and Viv had met James briefly, but George didn’t have a clue who he was. ‘How old are you, kid?’ he asked.
‘Fourteen.’
George laughed. ‘And
you
saw through the police’s clever ruse.’
‘Hey,’ Viv said, closing in on George, subtly using his physique to intimidate him. ‘Why not tell these dudes what’s happening and invite them along, Georgie boy? They’re sound. I mean, their mum’s bunked up with Ryan Quinn for
god’s
sake.’
‘No,
Viv
,’ George said furiously as he glanced at his watch, ‘you don’t pick up a couple of strays ten minutes before a professionally planned operation. That’s how we all end up getting nicked.’
‘You’re so full of your big man cloak and dagger mumbo-jumbo dog crap,’ Viv sneered. ‘
Professional operation!
My knob is more professional than you.’
George looked at his watch again. ‘We don’t have time for this,’ he said furiously. ‘Go on then, tell your new chums. But this is the
last
time I’m hooking up with you, Viv. You’ve got no discipline. You’re a ruddy joke.’
‘Suck my arse,’ Viv sneered back, before he put Kyle and James in the picture:
‘Ten days back, information
miraculously
leaked out that a vanload of monkeys is being delivered to Malarek in an unmarked van at around four this afternoon. The Zebra Alliance committee took one look and decided that the information was bogus.
‘The police want to get us all angry, pack the area with manpower and then steam in and nick as many of us as they can in one swoop. What the police don’t know is that the drunks up by the gate are under orders to let that van drive through without making a squeak.’
‘Just to make the cops look stupid.’ Kyle nodded, smiling because he thought he understood.
‘I guess that would make the cops look a
little
bit stupid,’ Viv laughed. ‘But you see, the roads are narrow round here and the cops have to park their cars and vans a fair way away. So while they’re up by the entrance facing off three vanloads of frightfully well-behaved students, we’re gonna jump out of the bushes and do a bit of remodelling on their cars.’
Kyle nodded in appreciation of the scheme, while James burst out laughing.
‘
Sweet
,’ James said. ‘Let me at the buggers – I’ll trash a cop car.’
‘That’s the spirit, kid,’ Viv said, enthusiastically swiping James across the back.
George screwed up his face like he knew this was a bad idea, but nodded reluctantly.
Tom turned and looked at Kyle. ‘So, are you in, or what?’
‘Sounds kind of insane,’ Kyle grinned, ‘but I’ll try anything once.’
‘OK,’ George said wearily. ‘We are
so
bloody late, we’d better run.’
James found it hard not to laugh as George sprinted gracelessly through the rapeseed, scrawny limbs flailing about and his camouflage jacket billowing behind like a superhero’s cape.
They cut across two fields, clambered over a metal gate and ended up on the verge of the main road that led from the motorway. There were empty cop cars, minibuses and vans parked up every few metres. In places they blocked the traffic down to a single lane, creating mini jams for the fleeing protestors.
‘How many do you reckon there are?’ James asked, awed by the scale of the police presence as he ran alongside Tom.
‘Couple of hundred cops and seventy or eighty vehicles, I’d guess. You need at least two officers for every arrest you plan to make.’
‘You ever been nicked?’ James asked.
Tom smiled. ‘Six times. On marches, direct actions and stuff. You?’
This was one of those moments in an undercover mission where you have to make something up on the fly. ‘Nah,’ James said. ‘You been up in court?’
‘Been fined a couple of times for criminal damage. Nothing massive, but Viv got a six-month suspended for trashing a butcher’s shop.’
‘Cool,’ James grinned, making a mental note to mention Tom and Viv’s criminal history to Zara when they got back to the cottage.
They’d reached a break in the hedgerows and a gravel path leading towards a dilapidated barn. George led them inside, passing through a large entrance whose decrepit doors had rotted off their hinges.
About fifteen Alliance members milled around, illuminated by sunbeams penetrating missing sections of the roof. They were mostly young, two-thirds male and dressed in dark clothes and hoodies. Some were pierced and tattooed, but the majority were people you’d pass in the street without batting an eye.
George hurried anxiously towards a woman holding a walkie-talkie and earned a tongue-lashing for being late. James, Kyle, Tom and Viv mooched towards a man handing out Balaclavas and disposable gloves.
‘Now we’re
finally
all here,’ the walkie-talkie woman shouted to the crowd, glowering at George, ‘put on your gloves and take one hammer and one spray canister. I don’t want any heroics, so attack one or two police vehicles each and then disperse into the fields. Bear in mind that some police cars have video cameras installed and recording at all times, so wear your headgear until you’re clear of the action.
‘You can then abandon your mallets and sprayers, provided you’re not dopey enough to get fingerprints on them, but gloves and Balaclavas will pick up traces of DNA, so take them home and destroy them.
‘Lastly, if any of you are arrested, do
not
speak to the police. Be civil, even if they provoke you, and ask to speak to a solicitor from Parker, Lane and Figgis. The Zebra Alliance will cover your legal costs, provided you don’t cooperate with the police. Now, what’s the name of your solicitors?’
‘Parker, Lane and Figgis,’ the crowd murmured back.
‘And don’t forget it,’ walkie-talkie woman shouted.
The crowd pulled on gloves and Balaclavas before going outside and picking out hammers and pressurised bug sprayers from the rear compartment of a Volvo estate car. Fortunately for James and Kyle, quite a few activists had chickened out and there was equipment going spare.
‘What’s in here?’ Kyle asked Viv, as he hooked a cylinder of pale blue liquid over his shoulder.
‘Industrial strength paint stripper,’ Viv said. ‘Highly corrosive, highly flammable. Strips paint off metal in a flash. Also melts certain plastics and synthetic fabrics, including the ones they make car seat covers out of. Just make sure you don’t get it on your skin.’
‘OK people,’ walkie-talkie woman shouted. ‘I just received the go signal. The cops are all lined up in their riot gear and our scout just spotted the monkey van turning off the motorway. Good luck and remember the golden rule: when in doubt, run like hell.’
A couple of activists cheered and Viv made a typically flamboyant warbling sound as activists headed away from the barn in all directions. James and Kyle jogged off behind Tom and Viv, but found George blocking their path.
‘I’ll be speaking to the committee about you on Wednesday night,’ he said angrily, looking up at Viv. ‘You’re a renegade and I can only see your attitude leading to serious problems for the Alliance.’
Viv raised his hand, as if he was going to swat George around the head. ‘George, you’re a tedious, gutless, pen-pushing little twit. I don’t really care what you do, or what you say, so long as you stay out of my face.’
‘We’ll see if the committee feels the same way,’ George said arrogantly, before bolting out of Viv’s way and tripping over himself in the process.
‘You want to watch out,’ Tom said to his brother, as they set off again. ‘The committee love Georgie boy. You’re gonna get kicked out of the Alliance if you’re not careful.’
‘I’m an anarchist,’ Viv said dismissively. ‘I never should have joined anything with a committee in the first place.’
The four lads ran half a kilometre, staying behind the hedgerows until they reached a muddy farm entrance with three police vans and two cars parked up side by side. They’d cased it on the way over, so they knew there were no cops about.
James felt a rush of excitement as they broke cover.
‘Vive la révolution,’ Viv shouted, as he swung madly at a police van with his hammer.
James raced across to a BMW motorway cruiser and took off a door mirror with the first swipe, then ran around knocking out the side windows. He took three swings at the windscreen, but failed to shatter the toughened glass.
‘Do the inside with your spray,’ Tom shouted, as he and Kyle trashed the next car along.
James took the canister off his shoulder, poked the sprayer nozzle through a broken window and soaked the interior before squirting the corrosive liquid all over the white bodywork. He could hear more activists smashing cars up and down the road as he watched the paint on his target car bubbling up into thousands of tiny blisters.
He was planning a final squirt into the luggage compartment, but some kind of weird chemical reaction forced him back, as the melting interior plastics sent choking grey fumes spewing out through the broken windows.
As he backed off from the stench, a metallic boom erupted inside a van parked directly behind him and a ball of flame blasted open the back doors.
‘Jesus,’ James gasped, wrapping his arms over his face as he backed into Viv.
‘Isn’t this heavenly?’ Viv grinned.
‘What the
hell
was that?’ James yelled back, as he wafted his hand in front of his face, trying to clear the smoke closing him down from all directions.
Viv held out the answer in the form of a small cardboard tube. ‘Firecrackers,’ he explained, as he handed one to James. ‘Thought they might liven things up a bit.’
As James struggled with the acrid smoke in his eyes and tried to stem a coughing fit, he spotted a lone cop running down the grass verge towards them.