‘You mean like, bodyguards and stuff?’ John asked.

  Thrush nodded. ‘Though we prefer to call it close protection.’

  ‘Can I still do normal stuff?’

  ‘We don’t have the power to stop you from doing anything, but we offer advice and hope you will cooperate for your own safety. As son of the president, you represent a security risk. We would strongly discourage you from engaging in certain activities, such as going to crowded concerts, where it would be difficult to protect you, or travelling to unfriendly countries.’

  ‘How am I a security risk?’ John asked. ‘It’s not like my mum’s gonna be sharing state secrets with me.’

  Thrush paused while she thought of a good explanation. ‘A few minutes after your mother is sworn in as president, she’ll be given a set of codes and a red key that enables her to use nuclear weapons. At any given time, this country has two nuclear submarines on patrol, each armed with ninety-two thermonuclear warheads capable of ending life as we know it on planet Earth.’

  John knew that the president controlled nuclear weapons, but he’d never really thought about that person being his mum.

  ‘Nukes!’ he gasped, then shook his head slowly.

  ‘Now, imagine you went on a school trip to Russia,’ Thrush said. ‘You get yourself kidnapped. In return for your release, the Russians demand that your mother gives them detailed information on our missile defence systems.’

  ‘Does it happen?’ John asked warily. ‘Family of leaders getting kidnapped or blackmailed?’

  ‘It’s rare in developed countries,’ Thrush said reassuringly. ‘But only because close protection teams like mine work hard to keep you safe. You will be protected twenty-four hours a day by a team of officers, with three or four on duty at any given time.

  ‘You can choose to have an officer in uniform by your side, but usually your protection squad will keep a discreet distance. We’re not a chauffeur service, but it’s usually simpler if you allow your protection team to drive you around. For instance, riding in a secure vehicle, rather than a crowded train.

  ‘Our lives will be easier if you let us know what you’re up to. It’s also easier to protect you discreetly if you tell us your plans and we’re able to scout locations before you get there. Does all that make sense?’

  ‘I think so,’ John said, nodding. ‘But, like, what if I do something illegal when cops are protecting me? Not massive, like murder, but something loads of people do, like speeding, or buying booze with a fake ID?’

  Thrush smiled. ‘I wouldn’t encourage you to break the law, but the duty of a close protection officer is to protect you. We will only intervene if you are in danger, or you put another person at risk of death or serious harm.’

  John smirked. ‘If I start a punch-up, will my protection officers finish it for me?’

  Thrush had read enough background information to know that John was a gentle person and was making a joke. ‘Let’s not find out the answer to that question, eh? Now, if you are happy with what I’ve just said, I’d like to discuss your plans for the rest of today.’

  ‘So, the protection starts now?’ John asked.

  ‘It was supposed to start this morning, but you weren’t in your room when we knocked.’

  John spent a few seconds remembering what he was up to. ‘I’ve got morning prayers, free period, then the Chemistry exam me and Clare were studying for at ten. Lunch, more lessons, then rugby against Coventry Grammar School.’

  ‘The match is here?’ Thrush asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a home match. After rugby I’ve got special permission to leave school with my girlfriend, Clare. We’re going to a People’s Party event at the Grand Salon Hotel in Locksley to watch the election results. The sheriff’s election result is expected around midnight. If Gisborne wins, I’ll stay with Clare. If my dad wins, his people will collect me and take me over to the White House for their celebration.’

  ‘That could be tricky,’ Thrush said, as she tapped a note into her phone. ‘Your father’s campaign is backed by rebels and bikers. They won’t appreciate the presence of plain-clothes police officers.’

  ‘They definitely won’t,’ John said, half smiling, half squirming at the prospect. ‘But I can put you in touch with Emma and Will, who are running my dad’s campaign. Maybe you can come to an arrangement.’

  ‘Hopefully,’ Thrush said, as she tapped more notes into her phone. ‘Though Will Scarlock is only a couple of places below your kid brother on the police Most Wanted list.’

  John continued with his schedule. ‘The result of the presidential election is due around one-thirty tomorrow morning. If my mum wins, I’ve got to be at the Presidential Palace in Capital City.

  ‘There’s some tradition where the new president appears on the palace balcony with their family at sunrise. But I have to try and sleep some time, because I’ve got to be back here for a Computer Science exam at noon.’

  ‘A busy schedule,’ Thrush noted.

  John shrugged. ‘My life’s usually boring. Most days, I’ll be here at school. On weekends I either hang out with Clare or at my mum’s penthouse in Nottingham.’

  ‘Do you visit your father?’

  ‘We get along great, but he’s been super busy with the sheriff’s election. I’ve barely seen him since he got out of jail.’

  ‘Thank you for being so cooperative,’ said Thrush, smiling and standing up. ‘I wish you luck in your Chemistry exam. I’ll make plans based on your schedule. Then I’ll catch up with you again at lunchtime and introduce you to Scott and some of the officers who’ll be protecting you.’

  ‘If I’m not eating lunch in the main hall, I might be with the guys in the weight room,’ John said. ‘Coach usually sets up a table with pasta and healthy stuff before a big match.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Thrush said. ‘It’s my job to know where to find you.’

  9. NEW KID IN THE FOREST

  08:02

  Robin had been riding motorbikes for a year and liked to think he’d become a decent rider. But Marion’s biker father sat her on a mini-bike before she could walk, and her skills zipping along tight forest paths put him to shame.

  ‘Come on, Grandma,’ Marion teased, as she stopped for a third time to let Robin catch up.

  Robin watched her disappear again, in a ballet of expert throttle control, fearlessly leaning into tight curves, and always seeming to know when to duck so a branch didn’t smack her helmet.

  They cut their noisy bike engines a few hundred metres from the Route 9 layby, then jogged until they found Teegan Edwards squatting at the rear of the gas station.

  The handsome eighteen-year-old wore a denim jacket, a red Vote Ardagh for Change campaign shirt and an oversized metal badge that said FIRST-TIME VOTER!

  ‘Wow, Robin and Marion!’ Teegan gasped as the pair squelched through the mud towards him.

  ‘What’s the latest?’ Robin asked.

  ‘We can’t hear our radios while riding,’ Marion explained.

  ‘Cops don’t seem in any hurry to leave. Old guy mouthed off about his rights, so they dragged him in front of the bus and beat the daylights out of him.’

  ‘How many cops?’ Marion asked.

  ‘Four cops, three cars,’ Teegan answered. ‘Two parked behind the bus, one up ahead on the road. There was a drone buzzing around too, but I’ve not heard it for a bit.’

  Robin looked at a gutter pipe on the side of the abandoned gas station. ‘I’ll go up on the roof and see what’s going on.’

  Marion nodded in agreement. ‘I’ll circle around to the two cop cars at the back and give you cover. Teegan, how’s your shooting?’

  ‘Not bad,’ Teegan said. ‘I bought a bow and arrow last summer when everyone was wearing Robin Hood Lives T-shirts.’

  Marion took her mini crossbow out of her pack and gave it to Teegan.

  ‘Don’t you need it?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m good,’ Marion said, tapping her machine gun.

  While Marion and Teegan crept out to the two cop cars behind the bus, Robin pulled himself up the gutter pipe to the flat canopy over the petrol station forecourt. His boots squelched through moss and composted leaves as he made a crouching run. Then he peered down from the roadside edge to take in the scene.

  Battle Bus 5 was a thirty-eight-seater that had seen better days. Robin was appalled when he saw the old guy Teegan mentioned, slumped in front of the bus, bloody from his beating.

  The driver had been cuffed and forced to lie face down in the road, while twenty campaign workers had been made to line up alongside the bus and empty everything from their pockets. They now stood with their palms against the side of the bus and the contents of their pockets scattered around their feet.

  Robin noticed one cop inside the coach searching bags and holding at least three laptops. Another stood on the road, near the car, looking twitchy, while the last two worked down the line of passengers, inspecting belongings on the ground and taking anything of value.

  A young cop with a bushy red beard seemed to be in love with his own voice as he searched.

  ‘Look here!’ he taunted, as he picked a wallet off the ground and pocketed sixty bucks. ‘Is that phone the new G25? How does anyone voting for that monkey Ardagh have enough money for a G25? Are you a thief, son? I’m gonna need you to spread your legs a little wider.’

  Robin pulled his bow out of his pack and mentally plotted the best way to take out four cops. The three in the open would be easy, but the gently tinted bus windows caught the early morning light, making the officer inside impossible to target.

  ‘Now, you slimy communist gimp, let me see what’s in that shirt pocket,’ the bearded cop demanded, as he moved on to his next victim. ‘Spread your legs, wider . . . wider!’

  Robin watched as the activist leaning against the bus spread his legs until it looked like his jeans would rip.

  ‘Wider,’ the cop demanded. ‘Are you deaf as well as stupid?’

  ‘It’s killing my back,’ the guy being searched said, straining with pain.

  ‘OK, lift your right leg,’ the officer snarled. ‘Now lift your left leg.’

  The guy put his right leg down, then lifted his left. The red bearded cop thumped him between the shoulder blades with his baton.

  ‘I said lift your left leg,’ the officer spat. ‘Did I say put your right leg down?’

  ‘How can I raise both legs?’

  ‘Like this,’ the cop said, then hooked his boot around the man’s ankle and swept it away.

  The activist yelled in pain as he slid down the side of the bus, making Robin wince when his knees hit the road.

  ‘Rebel scum gets what it deserves,’ the cop shouted.

  Robin looked away, first at the other cop doing searches, who was stamping on a sobbing woman’s phone, then at the cop inside the bus, as he stepped out.

  Now Robin could take them all out: notch five arrows, shoot the twitchy cop standing by his car first, aim slightly left and shoot the female officer who’d just stepped off the bus, then left and left again to take out the pair doing searches. It would be over in eight seconds, with a spare arrow just in case . . .

  They were easy shots at this distance, and even if the cops wore stab-proof vests, they were designed to stop a thrusting knife, not an arrow doing a hundred kilometres per hour. But Robin hesitated as he grabbed five arrows from his pack.

  Marion’s voice came over Robin’s radio. ‘I’m in position with Teegan. Eyes on two cop cars and the back of the bus. How about you?’

  Robin suddenly felt queasy. ‘I . . . Yeah . . . The sun is low. Right in my eyes so it’s hard to shoot. Ten Man should be here soon. Maybe we should wait.’

  As Robin said this, the female cop who’d stepped off the bus threw her haul of stolen tablets, laptops and designer sunglasses onto the passenger seat of the front car. On the way back to the bus, she opened her pepper spray and blasted the old guy who’d taken a beating.

  ‘How are those civil rights of yours now?’ the cop taunted, before erupting in laughter.

  Marion’s voice came back over the radio. ‘If you can’t shoot, I’m gonna blast the cop cars. Hopefully it’ll distract the cops long enough for people to run off.’

  Robin’s chest and arms were tense, and when he tried to breathe it felt like a big, gloved hand was clamped over his mouth. He’d managed to notch the arrows, but he kept seeing the picture on the Courier website with the dead prison guard’s wife and son.

  I’m gonna puke, he thought.

  Robin’s anxious train of thought was broken by a massive blast of gunfire, shattering glass and tearing metal as Marion unleashed her machine gun on the two cop cars behind the bus.

  The twitchy cop who’d stayed by the police car in front of the bus dived for cover, then shouted, ‘I told you! We’re too close to the forest to stick around this long.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ the female officer agreed.

  Two cops joined the twitchy officer in a mad scramble towards the surviving police car. But the mouthy, bearded officer couldn’t resist a final greedy swoop to steal a wallet.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t,’ Robin snarled as he took aim.

  As Marion stepped into the road and blasted more holes in police cars, Robin shot an arrow perfectly through the back of the thieving cop’s hand.

  The three cops who’d reached the surviving car made zero effort to save their colleague. As they squealed off in a cloud of tyre smoke, activists who’d been tormented and humiliated by the bearded officer launched at him with spit and kicks.

  Robin made a dramatic leap from the garage roof.

  ‘Break it up,’ he shouted as he charged into the scrum. ‘Imagine the newspaper headlines: Ardagh campaigners batter innocent police officer.’

  ‘But he’s scum,’ a woman shouted, spitting again. ‘Our driver’s got a broken arm. Ernest took an almighty beating, and those pigs drove off with thousands in cash and tech.’

  But most campaigners saw Robin’s logic. As they backed away, Robin saw the officer’s bloody clenched fist, with the last wallet he’d tried to steal pinned to it by his arrow. Somehow, it felt very right and very wrong at the same time.

  ‘Everyone OK?’ Marion asked, looking like an undersized action movie hero as she strode away from the wrecked police cars with the machine gun around her neck. Then she looked up at the sky and gave Robin a baffled look. ‘I’m surprised you couldn’t shoot. The sun doesn’t seem that bright.’

  ‘Maybe shooting four cops wasn’t the best strategy on election day,’ Robin said. ‘Scaring them off worked a treat.’

  But this wasn’t the whole truth. While Marion’s tactic to scare the cops away had worked brilliantly, Robin hadn’t been thinking about bad press or using a different strategy when he’d been up on the roof. He hadn’t been able to shoot at the cops who’d been ripping people off and had horribly beaten an old man.

  ‘I chickened out,’ Robin muttered to himself as Marion jogged off to help a woman in tears.

  My head’s all messed up.

  I don’t think I can do this any more . . .

  10. EVERYBODY’S STUFFING

  08:26

  Ten Man and a bunch of rebels who’d been at the castle arrived minutes after the three cops fled. The broken-armed bus driver and the old guy who’d been beaten were cleaned up and given emergency treatment, before they were loaded on the back of quad bikes for a bumpy ride to Dr Gladys’ clinic at Sherwood Castle.

  Nobody wanted to stick around in case the cops came back with reinforcements. They left the officer with the arrow through his hand at the side of the road, while Teegan and the rest of the campaigners hurriedly boarded Battle Bus 5. It set off with a substitute driver and two armed security officers for protection.

  Robin and Marion jogged into the forest to collect their bikes, and quickly caught up with the battle bus. With several injured passengers, everyone in shock and having had their phones and money stolen, Ten Man decided they should return to the White House.

  There were nerves when a Locksley police drone tailed the bus, but it peeled off after a few minutes and there were no more dramas on the twenty-five-minute drive.

  Robin and Marion expected campaign HQ to be calm, like when they’d left. But when the pair dumped their muddy crash helmets in the hallway, Maud Newman’s giant house was in chaos.

  Will Scarlock yelled down from the top of the stairs. Azeem was screaming something about Photoshop. Emma led a line of campaign volunteers unloading boxes of printer paper from a van, while Marion’s mum Indio and another bunch of volunteers were getting ready to go out, shouting, ‘We need the cash now! Who has keys to the safe?’

  Robin almost got knocked flying by Emma and Will’s youngest son, nineteen-year-old Neo.

  ‘Robin,’ Neo Scarlock gasped as he steadied himself. ‘You do computers, right? Can you do Photoshop?’

  ‘I’m more into hacking than design,’ Robin said. ‘But Marion did a wicked Photoshop project at School Zone.’

  ‘Really?’ Neo said, turning to Marion and pointing in the direction of the printing room. ‘Desai, who designed all our posters and campaign brochures, went up north on a campaign bus. I need you to go in the print room and offer your Photoshop skills to Joyce.’

  ‘Who’s Joyce?’ Marion asked. ‘Can I at least pee first?’

  ‘Pee quickly!’ Neo urged. ‘Joyce is the one with purple dreadlocks.’

  As Marion charged to the toilet, Robin decided to chase Neo towards the front door. ‘Everyone’s gone mental. What’s going on?’

  Neo stopped and took a big impatient breath. ‘We’ve had a dozen tip-offs from supporters working in polling stations. As well as stopping deliveries of ballot boxes and short-staffing polling centres, it seems Gisborne has printed up tens of thousands of fake voting papers. His people have bribed or threatened staff in polling centres and they are literally going into polling stations and stuffing thousands of fake votes into ballot boxes.’

 

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