– Ladies and gentlemen, we have a flight time of approximately two hours. If we can shave anything off that, we will. Hector, you’re patched into comms. It’s all yours. Tell them what they need to know.

11

Overruled

All eyes were on Hector. He sat at the end of the line opposite Max. Those sitting next to him – Lukas, Abby and Angel – had to crane their necks to see him.

‘Can you all hear me?’ Hector said. His voice was slightly scratchy over the headset, but it was clear enough despite the noise of the aircraft. Everyone nodded. ‘Then listen carefully. We have a situation in London.’

‘What sort of situation?’ Abby said.

‘This will be a hell of a lot more straightforward if you don’t interrupt me.’

Abby looked chastened.

‘At 08:00 this morning the Metropolitan Police received reports of a firearms incident at a London school.’

Hector let that sink in for a moment. Nobody interrupted.

‘What I’m about to tell you is a mixture of eyewitness intelligence from the site, information gleaned from drone cameras, and analysis by MI5. The school in question is the Ashley Road Comprehensive. It is situated about a hundred metres from the Russian embassy.’

As he said this, he caught Sami’s eye. Max glanced at his friend. Sami’s expression was suddenly very hard. Hector moved on quickly. ‘How many of you have heard of Chechnya?’ He held up one hand. ‘Don’t answer that. I’m going to brief you about the situation anyway. The Chechen Republic is part of the Russian Federation. Chechen nationalists want their country to be separate from Russia. There is a long history of conflict between the two, but we’re not here to take sides. Today is the final day of a Russian state visit to the UK. You may have read about it. There have been protests and some unrest by Chechens and those sympathetic to their cause. We believe that the situation at Ashley Road is linked to this’

‘You mean, the gunmen are Chechen separatists?’ Max said over the comms system.

‘I thought we agreed I was going to talk and you were going to listen,’ Hector replied.

Max flushed.

‘But that is correct. What we have now is a siege situation. We think the Chechens have staged the siege to protest against the Russian state visit. The siege occurred a little before the school day started. Not all the pupils and teachers had arrived. There are approximately two hundred and fifty children between the ages of ten and sixteen, along with eight teachers, being held at gunpoint in the school. They include a group of Chinese exchange students. This makes the politics even more sensitive.’

Hector paused. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, as though gathering his thoughts. He was obviously very tense.