“I need to talk to you about something.” He looked warily at Pete and the others. “In private.”
“Outside,” Harry snapped. “Now.”
Pete stared straight ahead, not trusting himself to speak. He and Mo had been friends since they were five, but given what had been happening lately he didn’t know who he could trust.
The door opened and Harry came back in. None of them paid him much attention at first, until he stood over them, glowering.
“Everything alright?” Pete asked when it became clear that no-one else was going to say anything.
“No, it’s not. Do you know what Kenan just told me?”
Pete watched Harry's face with a growing sense of dread. Harry was raging about something Kenan had said, but they’d only been outside for a minute or two. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“The bloody army’s rolling in, aren’t they? You.” He jabbed a slender finger at Josh. “You said they were immobilised.”
Josh looked as stunned as Pete felt. It took him a few moments to get his voice back. “Not exactly, but I sure they are. Look—”
“No, you look. Do you think you can make a fool of me? Feed me a fairytale and get away with it?”
Josh shook his head dumbly. “I didn’t. I told you everything I know.”
“Well you left out this part!” Harry was still standing over them, menacing despite his slight build.
“Wait,” Josh said, holding up his hand. “Wait. What did he say exactly?”
“What does it matter? It’s the army, son. This ruins everything. We can’t move ahead now.”
Pete filled with hope for a moment. Maybe there was a way out for them. If the army was rolling in, then Harry would have no choice but to abandon this stupid crazy plan of his—the plan Pete had set in motion.
“Just listen,” Josh said, standing up and turning to face Harry. For one horrible moment, Pete thought his brother was going to grab Harry by the shoulders and shake him until he listened. Thankfully, he didn’t. “Please. Did Kenan tell you what kind of vehicles they were driving? Or any other details? We can go now, the four of us.” He shook his head. “Just because he saw soldiers doesn’t mean what I told you isn’t true.”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure you’d love to go running to the army.”
Josh shook his head. “No, not at all. You know where I live. You told me so.”
Pete shuddered. Of course. There could be no running away from Harry, not when their mother was still in that house.
“Mo,” Harry muttered. “Go after Kenan. Tell him to come back here.” He moved to the door, grumbling to himself. “Come on.”
Pete looked at Josh. “Where?” He was coming to realise that anything was possible with Harry. Where exactly did he want them to go? There was nothing around except for the cavernous warehouse across the yard where they had met with the whole crew the day before. That was it. There were a few sheds on the other side, but Pete hadn’t seen anyone enter or exit those since they’d been assigned to the little workshop.
“Relax, will you? I just want to get some air. We’ll wait for them outside.”
They moved slowly, because Pete didn’t really trust Harry's promises. He looked around. There was no sign of Mo or Kenan.
“Cars,” Harry said. “Look at the advantage they give us. If Kenan had been walking we’d still be able to see him. Now look.” He coughed and spat on the ground, causing Josh to cringe and look away. “Of course, our advantage is only good if Kenan was wrong about the army. And why would he make it up? I’m not sure he’s capable of dreaming up something like that.”
Pete turned away and looked around. He could hear car engines in the distance, distinctive because they were the only ones. It had to be Mo and Kenan. “I haven’t heard anything. If the army drove in in tanks or whatever we would have heard them, wouldn’t we?”
Harry ignored him. He was frowning up at the sky.
Two cars came screaming down the driveway. Pete recognised the second as the Ford Escort they’d been driving around in. Sure enough, they both pulled up together and Kenan jumped out of the other car. He looked accusingly from Pete to Josh.
Harry still didn’t turn around. He didn’t react even when Mo and Kenan came bounding over.
What the fuck? Pete thought, alarmed. He didn’t know why, but he felt more unsettled than ever.
And then he realised why. With the car engines off, it should have been quiet again. Except it wasn’t. A strange hum turned into a tearing roar. Their heads snapped up just in time to see three black jets zip across the patch of blue sky above them before disappearing behind the clouds.
“What the fuck is that?” Mo gasped.
“I imagine it’s the army,” Harry snapped, eyes blazing.
Josh shook his head. “No,” he said wildly. “It can’t be. That’s not possible.”
“I’ll say. According to you, no planes or cars work anymore. But I didn’t just imagine those planes up there, did I?” Harry spat on the ground again. “You can go back to work, Kenan. No point in asking you now, is there? As for you,” he turned to Josh, leaving the statement unfinished but the intention very much clear.
“Wait! Wait!” Josh marched across the yard, staring up at the sky and shielding his eyes from the sun. There was no point, of course, because the planes were long gone. “All I saw was specks of black in the sky. Who says they were British? It could be the US Airforce. Or the Australians. We don’t know. In fact, I’d say it’s likely. Our jets will never fly again; you have to believe me.”
Harry looked like he didn’t believe a word of it.
Pete’s heart slammed against his chest. This was it, he knew. This was the moment Harry finally lost his temper with Josh. It had been a long time coming. “Kenan,” he said desperately. “We wanted to ask you about the army. What did you see?”
Kenan looked at Pete and then at Harry as if the question was so obvious it should never have been asked. “I told Harry already. The army. I saw them.”
Give me strength, Pete thought. Do you always have to sound so thick? He took a breath to calm himself—there was no point in losing his temper. It’d only make the situation worse for them. “Yeah, I know that. But what did you see? How many soldiers? What were they doing? What were they carrying? Were they in vans or trucks?”
Kenan looked around helplessly. “I don’t know. I drove away as soon as I saw them. I didn’t stick around to count them, did I?”
“You must have seen something, Kenan. Think. What were you doing when you first noticed them?”
“Driving.”
Pete might have laughed if it wasn’t so serious. “Okay. And what were they doing?”
Kenan shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Where was this?”
Beside them, Harry grew more and more impatient. They didn’t have long before he exploded. He was armed and unpredictable.
“Come on, Kenan,” he said desperately. “Think.”
“At the racetrack.”
“Who was with you?”
“It was just me. Zane sent a few of us looking for tyres.”
“Did they see you?”
“No. I don’t think so. They were busy.”
“Doing what?”
He shrugged. “Carrying stuff. Boxes. That sort of thing. Setting up a big tent.”
“Was it noisy?”
Kenan shook his head. “I don’t think so. I might have had the radio on.”
Josh gritted his teeth. “The radios aren’t working.”
Kenan shrugged.
“Give me the keys.” When Mo handed them over, Pete marched over to the car and climbed inside. He turned the key. The others had followed him over. He racked the front seat back and pushed himself back against it so that they could see in. Then he made a big show of turning on the radio, turning the volume up high and then twisting the knob to cycle through the different frequencies. “See?” he said, when he’d gone all the way through and not found a single station. He climbed out of the car and slammed the door.