18. A Month in Hell

Jamie was led back to the underground car park. Much to her surprise there was no smart car waiting for them. Instead Alex led her to a private park. It had a large number three just behind it. There sitting in the middle was the motorbike Jamie had seen Alex riding to school with when she was fifteen and later that year when he turned up to be godfather for Alex Daniels' birthday. It didn't seem to have changed at all in almost a decade. Alex chucked Jamie the pink bikers' helmet that she had seen Tom wearing all those years ago. But unlike the fifteen year old teenager Jamie had no qualms about wearing pink. Sure she would have preferred it to be a hot read. But a girl just had to take what she was given.

'Hold on I don't want anyone following us,' growled the young spy.

'Your paranoid,' muttered Jamie.

'If you survive as many missions as I do then you too will become a paranoid old spy,' growled Alex.

Jamie rolled her eyes but held onto Alex's hips as they set off.

'But you don't even know where I live,' she shouted over the roaring of the motorbike.

'Westside View,' smiled Alex, 'you moved in – much to your parents' horror – with your boyfriend Jonathan two weeks ago,' Alex rattled off calmly.

'How?' asked Jamie, 'oh intelligence.'

'A second quicker than that and you'd make not a bad spy,' Alex growled.

Jamie had no idea how Alex had managed to hear her mutter over the roar of the motorbike. Nor did she know how to respond to Alex's half-compliment, half-insult. Jamie instead chose to remain silent carefully observing Alex. But he gave nothing away apart from a light in his eyes when he took corners at a sharp turn or just missed going into a BP petrol lorry. Jamie again wondered how sane he was, or was he an adrenaline junky. Either way they were back at Westside View in record time. Jamie carefully gave the pink biker's helmet back to Alex who took off without so much as a goodbye. At this moment Jonathan arrived at the door.

'Who was that?' he asked looking at Jamie's flushed face suspiciously.

'Alex Rider,' said Jamie finally letting the unbelievable truth sink in.

'You mean the drop out from Brookland,' Jonathan remembered the story that Jamie had told him when he was nineteen in Greece about her school legend, the bad boy! He was confused to why she had taken a ride home with a guy who was only trouble. Then he remembered that girls often had a thing for bad boys. He opened his mouth to say something driven by jealously without thinking that he would later regret. But luckily Jamie had already started speaking.

'You were right,' she said as though she was admitting to being the spawn of Satan or something. Jamie hated admitting that she had been wrong.

'What?' Jonathan was confused not quite remembering what he had said.

'In Greece,' said Jamie grudgingly. 'When we were talking about what Alex was,' she finished knowing that Jonathan would now quickly get it.

'Oh,' Jonathan's eyes widened.

'He's a spy,' Jamie grinned forgetting her earlier annoyance at being wrong.

'I knew it,' laughed Jonathan, 'wait why did he tell you?'

'I'm in,' smiled Jamie.

'Oh that's brilliant,' Jamie.

'I begin training in a month,' grinned Jamie.

'Cool,' said her fiancé.

That month passed quickly and before she knew it she was on her way to the Beacons. The old, hard bitten, sergeant gave her a scrutinising look.

'Whilst you are here you will be under the code name Turtle,' he growled.

'Kay,' Jamie said.

'When you address me you will address me as sir or sergeant,' the sergeant growled.

'Yes, sir,' Jamie immediately snapped.

'Good, soldier,' growled the sergeant. 'Now you will be staying with another group of newbies – S unit.

'Yes, sir,' Jamie snapped up a salute.

For one crazy moment she thought the old man was going to smile. But instead his lips twitched ever so slightly. At least, Jamie thought, he did have some sense of approval with her being here no matter how slim.

'Turtle you're dismissed you will find the rest of your unit in the furthest cabin from here. And I believe that you already have your time table,'

The statement didn't sound like a question but Jamie answered with a, 'yes, sir,' anyway before turning to go and find where she would be spending her next month.

When she entered the cabin it was to see four bunks all which had clear marking of being lived in except the top right one. Very different types of soldiers occupied them. One of them came forward – he seemed to be the oldest of the four of them so Jamie thought by the way he carried himself that he would be the unit leader.

'Turtle,' the man who seemed to be in his late thirties or early forties addressed the young twenty-one year old. He was already bald with almost black eyes which seemed to have a stamp of danger and sadness showing how much he had seen.

Jamie nodded her affirmative but again she didn't think it was a statement. She thought this must be a soldier thing; the need to know everything. Alex, the sergeant and the leader all seemed to like showing their superior knowledge.

'Good I'm glad the last member of our team is here,' he growled sounding hard and battle worn. 'Well I'm the unit leader,' he spoke in a deep voice with a northern accent. 'And here I'm known as Boar. This is Snow-Leopard our unit medic,' he pointed at a girl only a few years older than Jamie with very blue eyes with a ring of gold through them and white blonde hair Jamie thought it would be longer than Jamie's own hair if it not for the fact she had all her tied up in a bun.

'Just call me Snow,' smiled Snow which Jamie noticed had a northern Irish lilt to it. 'And remember to come to me if you have any injuries; is there any previous injury that I should no about,' her Irishness came more pronounced as she talked.

'No Snow,' smiled Jamie knowing that she liked the blonde already.

'Good,' smiled Snow. 'But you should know that you'll have to tie up your hair or get it cut short when we start training,' she recommended.

'Thanks,' smiled Jamie.

'No problem,' the two girls seemed to have already made fast friends.

'And our technical expert – Woodpecker or just plain Wood, he don't talk much so excuse him,' Boar said interrupting the girl-bonding going on there.

'Hi Woodpecker,' smiled Jamie.

Nobody seemed surprised when this was met with silence but Jamie was a little offended by the silent, black man with deep brown menacing eyes and a scar across his cheek. He looked to be a little bit younger than Boar but completely silent.

'That leaves you as our language expert, now what languages are you good at?' Boar asked assessing his team mate.

'I'm fluent in English – obviously,' no one smiled at her attempt at humour, 'French and almost fluent in Spanish.'

'Good,' said Boar.

'Okay let's have a good night's sleep as we're going to be starting training tomorrow,' said Snow clambering into the bunk.

Jamie flung herself into the bunk below Snow and was asleep at once, mainly because Jamie was mindful of the fact that they were going to be woken at five for a twelve mile hike up the Beacons.

Week 1, Day 1:

Jamie woke up at quarter to five to Snow shaking her awake. She groaned. Snow gave Jamie a sympathetic look as Jamie all but fell out of her bunk. They headed off to the mess hall after the men who had already left. Jamie sat down opposite Woodpecker who was eating the slimy porridge in utter silence. Boar was eating slowly and steadily grimacing at every mouthful. Snow gave a sigh and ate so quickly that she was done before Jamie had even started. Jamie took one mouthful and almost puked. Snow and Boar gave him a sympathetic look; Woodpecker was still ignoring them.

As soon as Boar was finished they headed up the mountain; they had ninety minutes to get there and sixty minutes to get back. There were soldiers at the top to make sure they did the walk in time. It was sunny when they had got up but almost as soon as they left the heavens opened up. There was mud and water everywhere. Jamie was shivering glad that she had done hill walking before. They trudged up the side of the mountain getting mud everywhere. Ears, eyes, mouth, hair. Jamie was never a pretty girl but like almost every member of the female sex she hated the fact that her long black hair was so full of muck. She was glad that she had it all in a bun because at least it wasn't getting in her eyes.

It was half an hour that they realised they were going the wrong way; they had ended up at a swirling river that was bulging due to the increased rainfall. Jamie then heard Woodpecker say the first thing in her presence. True it wasn't what she would term appropriate for civil company but they had spent half an hour walking the wrong way. There was nothing for it but to walk back the way they had come. They had to walk a little bit faster so when they were at the top of the mountain they had to pause for water. In which the four at the top left them to it. Before they set off down for the bottom. They arrived just at eight which was the exact time they had to get down they managed not to get binned; only just but still. Jamie had the strange feeling that Woodpecker was less than impressed with this. But he hadn't actually said anything.

Then the four of them headed off to a tutorial on medicine (Jamie who wanted to be a spy which was pretty much a solo gig and Snow the field medic had to stay for the whole two hours whilst the other two went off for a run after an hour). Jamie and Snow joined them for the nightmare obstacle course later on. Jamie was quietly impressed with herself having managed the ropes, swings, mud, water, bridges in just fewer than eighteen minutes. But the sergeant was not impressed.

'Come on troops even Cub could do better than that,' the sergeant yelled.

Jamie was surprised as she remembered the young soldier from when she went out drinking. As they were making there way to the mess hall she ran up to chat with Boar.

'Who was Cub?' she asked.

Boar gave her an appraising look.

'Why?'

'I just want to know,' Jamie glared at her unit leader.

'Well you'll find out sooner or later anyway,' he sighed. 'I don't know who exactly he is – no one of us newbies does – all we know is he first came here as a teenager couldn't be much older than sixteen he would return here for training once a year after that. Some say he's even younger than that,' he whispered.

Jamie didn't say anything as she helped herself to the disgusting gruel but she knew who Cub was; the young man who had saved her life and had stopped her from being caught was none other than Alex Rider. Jamie wondered why he hadn't told her that when he had recruited her. Jamie could just assume he had been in MI6 so long that revealing more than was necessary was simply impossible for him. The high school drop out had been a spy for a third of his life!

After the gruel had been downed the whole lot of them (five units – L, N, S, T and U) went to the lake that was not far from their huts. They were told to strip down and swim as fast as they could. Jamie ended up in her white vest and grey shorts that she wore underneath her combat gear. An hour later they were allowed out and told to dry off and be back for 1500 hours. Jamie found that they were expected to do as many press up as they could before they dropped. Then they had more gruel before they were let off for their showers. It was only seven o'clock and Jamie found herself crawling into bed. She was bone tired; and today was only the first day!