had a plan.
We ran across the base to a barracks that sat at the heart of the compound. It was a low building, brick built, with two guards on the door, one of whom greeted Sanders.
'Lieutenant,' he said, businesslike in the face of sudden chaos. 'What's going on?'
'He in there?' asked Sanders as he slowed and stopped.
'Yeah.'
'Okay, stay here, no-one comes past. Understand?'
'Sir!'
'Come on,' he said to me, and I followed him through the doors and into the barracks.
We came to a door and Sanders knocked and entered.
It was a simple bedroom, nothing too fancy. A single bed, a desk, a cupboard and a wardrobe. A bookcase full of Alex Rider, Young James Bond and Robert Muchamore. There were posters, too, of the Pussycat Dolls and Slipknot.
Kneeling on the bed was a young boy, fourteen or thereabouts, oblivious to our presence, listening to a CD player with his headphones on, the volume so loud it was drowning out all noise. His face was ravaged by acne, his hair was greasy and unkempt, and he was wanking over a porn mag. He looked up in horrified alarm as Sanders tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
'What the…?' spluttered the boy, his face turning red as he realised he was not alone. He pulled his headphones off and dragged the quilt over his erection.
'You need to get dressed and come with me right now,' said Sanders.
'What do you mean? What's going on?' the boy whined, spluttering in embarrassment and fear.
'The base is under attack. We need to get you to the safe house. Get dressed. Quickly, Your Majesty.'
The boy didn't move, he just stared at Sanders and nodded his head sideways at me, indicating that Sanders should remove me. I grabbed Sanders' arm and pulled him towards the door.
'We'll, um, wait outside,' I said, trying to keep a straight face. 'Sire,' I added, and snigered as Sanders pulled me out the door and slammed it shut.
'That's him?' I giggled. 'That's the king?'
But Sanders wasn't laughing. His face was white and he was leaning against the wall. I glanced down and saw that the blood from the wound in his side had soaked his clothes right down to his knees. Suddenly things didn't seem quite so amusing.
'I need to get you stitched up.'
'No time,' he said, forcing himself to stand upright. 'We need to get the king to safety.'
'I'm the doctor,' I said firmly. 'Is there a medkit or anything in this building?'
He glared at me and then reluctantly said: 'Try the kitchen.'
I ran off down the corridor, looking in all the rooms until I found a small kitchen with a fridge, microwave and a Baby Belling cooker. There was a red plastic medkit on the wall, so I pulled it open and rummaged inside. I pulled out sterile dressing, elastoplast, alcohol and a needle and thread, then I ran back to Sanders, dragged him into the room opposite the king's and set to work.
'So this is your job, huh?' I asked as I worked. 'You look after the king?'
'Yeah. Ow!'
'Big baby.'
The bullet had gone clean through him, just missing a kidney, but I couldn't be sure whether his guts were punctured or not. I thought they probably were, and if so he'd need proper surgery sooner rather than later or there'd be a great risk of infection. In the meantime I did the best I could. I sterilized the wound, stitched him up, slapped a dressing over it and gave him a huge dose of painkillers.
'I train him, keep him safe,' explained my patient. 'I don't get out much. They only let me come to the school to get you because I begged and it seemed like a milk run. If the perimeter is ever breached, I'm to get him to a safe house we've set up about ten miles away. He's my only priority.'
'But shouldn't he have, like, a whole team of men guarding him?'
'Just me. That's the best way. Keep it low profile, don't draw attention to ourselves. Chances are that whoever is attacking us doesn't even know he exists. We've not exactly gone public with him yet. He's not ready.'
'He seemed to have things well in hand a moment ago.'
'Jesus, Jane,' he said, exasperated. 'He's fourteen all right. Cut him some slack. You know what teenagers are like.'
'Of course I do. I run a school, remember.'
'He's all right, he's a good kid.'
'As long as he doesn't expect me to curtsey, I'm sure we'll get along fine.'
Sanders and I grabbed uniforms from the cupboard and quickly changed into combats. My uniform was ridiculously oversized, and the only way I could get the boots to fit me was to wear four pairs of socks, but at least it was better than my party dress and heels. All the time we could hear the sounds of battle outside, steadily getting closer. There were explosions, constant gunfire, the rumbling of tanks and, just as we finished getting ready, the roar of a fighter jet, swooping low overhead and the whooshing sound of a missile being released. Sanders was agog.
'F-16?' he said, incredulously. 'We really have to go.'
At that moment the door to the king's room opened and he stepped out. He was dressed head to toe in black and his face was smeared with boot polish. He handed the tin to Sanders and as we blacked up, he interrogated us.
'Attackers?'
'Americans,' I answered. 'Trained soldiers, I think.'
'And you are?' His air of authority was impressive, but I thought it was an act. I'd seen a fourteen year-old boy really take control, and there was a quality of certainty that Lee possessed that the king lacked. He was trying hard though, I gave him that. And it must have been difficult for him to try and regain any dignity in front of me after what I'd just witnessed.
'Jane Crowther, I run a boys' school, Your Majesty.'
'She's with me, Jack,' said Sanders, passing the boot polish to me and checking his SA-80.
'Good enough for me, and please call me Jack, Miss Crowther' said the boy, drawing his sidearm. 'Shall we go?'
'Both of you follow me,' said Sanders. 'Stay low, we keep to the shadows, we don't engage the enemy unless forced to. We make straight for the exfil and leave. Is that clear?'
The king and I both nodded. (No, I needed to stop thinking of him as the king. It was ridiculous and it made me think of Elvis. I would follow Sanders' example and call him Jack.)
'All right then,' said Sanders. 'Come on.'
Without another word, we ran out into a battlefield.
Chapter Thirteen
I always seem to be running away from fights.
The last time I was in a proper pitched battle – on the day St Mark's was blown sky-high – I grabbed a gun and ran like hell. In my defence, I was going to locate the girls who were in my care, and we did come back later and save the day. But my experience of being in a proper battle was of running as fast as I possibly could in the opposite direction. As we ran out of the barracks I was reminded of why that had seemed such a good idea last time.
The two men guarding the door were still there, and we all stood for a moment, getting our bearings and identifying where the heaviest fighting seemed to be.
The night sky was bright with orange flames and the blinding flashes of explosions. The noise was deafening, like a hundred fireworks displays going off at once all around us. The fighting, which had begun at the main gate,
