Build Pool #3

It was a clear night and the sea was purple and silver a thousand feet beneath us. I was third from the front and I could see the sea through the open doorway. We'd compromised between light levels and weather. Like it or not, we were jumping tonight.

The old plane rocked about, buffeted by the wind and we rolled and swayed with the bumps. Jer’s backpack was in my face and I leaned back to stop getting clobbered by one of his RPGs, protruding like ears of corn from his pack. Everything was bathed in red light – the jump light telling us to wait.

I was excited but ready. We’d drilled for weeks, running through the assault again and again in the little bay off the island. I could visualise the sheds, roads and build pools in my head. This was just another drill, I told myself.

But it wasn’t. And there was nothing I could do to stop my legs from shaking a little as the sounds of the engines changed and the aircraft slowed. The line shuffled in anticipation for what we were about to do.

Everyone knew their role. Everyone was integral. Everyone played their part. If we were to succeed, everyone had to execute their move perfectly like the endgame in chess. Failure was not an option.

I focused on the red light glowing like the devil’s eyeball. He blinked. It turned green and one by one we ran out of the hole in the side of the plane, popping out like 2 dozen marionettes finding their strings a thousand feet up.

The station was lit up like a carnival. Spotlights dazzled on white corrugated roofs. Bright yellow arrows zigzagged on the wet-looking tarmac. And there, three dark pools where the sleeping giants were born like the Uruk-hai in LOTR.

When Patrick had called my name in the ops room, I was honoured. It was my leadership, my optimism, my unmatched commitment to the Mission that made me stand out, made me the natural candidate, the easy choice, he said.

I could've started crying, I swear. But then I had to smarten up quick and give my plan of attack. I'm so frigging glad I cobbled together some ideas or else I would've looked like a class-A idiot. And even though he pretty much torched my plan, we changed Blue Team’s path, keeping them out of Green’s crossfire, and that was totally my idea.

An hour into the flight, I’d caught him looking at me. He stared at me for a second, lost in thought and I had a moment to examine his face. The high cheekbones, gaunt cheeks, and dark eyes under a strong brow. A lock of hair like a question mark on his forehead.

Then he snapped back to the present and we locked eyes for a second. He seemed to be trying to say something, silently under the roar, creaks and groans of the antique plane. What was it – almost a plea?

I'd seen his eyes in all kinds of emotions. When we first met, I recognised the spark of interest, a little flame of excitement when we'd been introduced at India’s party. He looked so suave in a black turtleneck with his long hair swept back off his face. He'd been mid flow, jousting with India and her friends and I think I fell I love with his passion right there.

I’d seen that passion blossom when he stood in the docket, handcuffed, head high, arguing his innocence in a culpable system. It was that passion which ignited the fire that men in power couldn't put out.

I remember the gleeful, almost boyish look on his face when we sprung him from prison. And the wicked pleasure he seemed to take when he grabbed my gun and turned it on his guards. The way he laughed, pumping rounds into their lifeless bodies. It didn't surprise me when he told me he hated his dad. He told me everything, pretty much. He liked to talk after sex, always about himself, his past, his plans and goals for the future.

At first, I didn't believe him. When he first told me his plan, I assumed he was joking, a kind of what-if scenario. He was a dreamer, that was one thing I loved about him. He dreamed big, never stymied by doubt or 'know thy place' thinking.

When he showed me the basement under the burnt-our rec centre though, I saw he was serious. There was enough hardware in there to equip a small army – the very army he'd spent 5 years assembling.

He asked if I was willing to join them for their final, most audacious act of public disobedience yet. This wasn't a motorway flyover, Renaissance painting or silly little horse race. This was a ballistic submarine with 12 nuclear warheads, each more powerful than a thousand Hiroshimas.

12 chips to gamble with, he liked to say. 12 ways to redress the balance and actually make some moves in the right direction. Catalysts, maybe, that could speed up the process and save humanity from total destruction.

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