The sun was dipping behind the mountains to the west of Tromsø, a soft orange light coming off the water. But the city seemed busier than ever, couples walking along the harbourside, groups of children about the same age as the Squad sitting on the grass round rucksacks, laughing, texting, staring at the water. The weather had turned again. It was mild and clear, the cold winds holding off for now.
The large red-and-white Hurtigruten ship that had been dwarfing the harbour was now moving out under the bridge that spanned the fjord. Lesh, Hatty and Adnan sat in a cafe on the edge of the water, three Cokes in front of them. Blending in.
Hatty was gazing out at the fjord, smiling as if she thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. In fact, she had her eyes on the ship, watching for Lily and Kester, who had radioed to say they were going onboard after Hawk, having stowed away in the luggage area of a bus, before boarding the ship as foot passengers.
Adnan appeared to be playing a video game, twitching and flicking his finger across a SpyPad, which looked like a perfectly normal iPad. But actually he had hacked into Norway’s fjord sonar to scan the dozens of nearby fjords for unusual activity. And Lesh seemed to be checking his texts. In reality, he was looking up Sergei Esenin, the Russian. Desperately trying to find out more about their number-one suspect.
‘Nothing,’ Adnan said under his breath.
‘Hang on,’ said Lesh, adjusting his wheelchair so the light coming off the water didn’t cause a glare on his SpyPhone screen.
‘What?’ Hatty asked.
‘Esenin. He’s …’
‘Go silent,’ Adnan snapped, knowing the others would understand that there was a threat and that they shouldn’t talk about the mission.
‘What?’
‘Hi, Rio! Over here!’ Adnan shouted as much to warn the others that Rio and some of the others were approaching.
Hatty and Lesh looked up to see what Adnan had already spotted: Rio, Georgia and Finn walking towards them from the direction of their hotel.
‘Hi,’ Rio said. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Nothing much. Just chilling before training later on,’ Adnan said. ‘You?’
‘Same as you. Looking around,’ Rio replied. ‘We got bored in the hotel.’
Georgia glanced at Lesh’s SpyPhone screen and screwed up her face. ‘What are you looking at?’ Suddenly everyone else was looking at the screen too.
‘Baseball?’ Rio shouted. ‘Why are you reading about baseball?’
Lesh shrugged. ‘I like it.’
‘I never knew,’ Rio went on. ‘It’s a bit of an American sport, isn’t it?’
‘I like American sport,’ Lesh lied.
‘Have you been up in the cable car?’ Hatty asked, pointing across the water at the tiny metal box that was descending the wooded slope, trying to deflect attention away from Lesh.
‘No, have you?’ Rio asked, looking half-interested.
‘Yes. It’s fab. Really wild and windy and the views are great.’
‘Urghh,’ Georgia said. ‘That’s the last place I’d want to be in the world.’ Then she smiled. ‘Now I see why your hair always looks so … you know, Hatty.’
Hatty smiled back. ‘A least my hair is my hair. A natural blonde, are you, Georgia?’
Georgia said nothing.
As the conversation went on, Lesh continued to read his SpyPhone and Hatty could tell that what he was reading was not good news, maybe something that required them to act and act soon. She needed to get rid of Rio, Georgia and Finn.
‘The cable car goes on all night,’ Hatty said, her attention back on Rio. ‘Apparently, if you go up around this time, you can see the Northern Lights sometimes.’
‘Really?’ Finn was the one who sounded excited now.
‘Honestly,’ Hatty said. ‘And it’s a clear night. There’s a cafe up there. You can sit and have a drink. Eat. It’s supposed to be great.’
‘Come on.’ Finn, who was normally so quiet, was hopping about from one foot to another like a child asking his mum and dad if he could go.
‘OK,’ Rio said, then he looked directly at Hatty. ‘Are you coming?’
Hatty smiled. She quite liked Rio, but she had other things to do right now.
‘We’d better stay with Lesh,’ she said, knowing that Rio wouldn’t question anything to do with Lesh and his wheelchair.
When the other three had gone, Hatty looked across at Lesh.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I used you as an excuse not to go.’
Lesh grinned. ‘Use me all you like. We needed to get shot of them. Anyway, there are more important things to worry about. Lily and Kester – have we heard from them?’
‘Not since they radioed from the coach, saying they were boarding the boat. And Lily said she was starting to suspect Hawk may be playing us. Even Esenin too. That we should bear that in mind.’
‘OK. We keep our options open. I just hope they made it onboard,’ Lesh muttered. ‘Anyway, there’s nothing we can do about that right now, so I might as well tell you about this.’
Hatty and Adnan gave Lesh their full attention.
‘I’ve got some more info on Esenin,’ Lesh said. ‘He works in the oil and gas business and he has a good history of working with other countries. Most Russians have wanted to work alone to get at oil in their part of the Arctic, but Esenin appears to want to cooperate with countries like Norway.’
‘So that’s good, right?’ Adnan asked.
‘It is. But there’s a bad bit.’
‘Which is?’ Hatty pushed.
‘His dad was an explorer as well as a spy. And he took the young Esenin on a field trip to Greenland when he was a teenager.’
‘And?’
‘Well, Russians weren’t allowed to leave their country very much in those days. Only if the government gave them permission.’
‘So?’
‘So whatever they were doing must have been fine by the leaders of their country. Normally, whatever was fine by the Russian leaders was pretty dangerous for the rest of the world at that time. The location they went to was the very same spot where the Americans lost a nuclear warhead in the sixties.’
‘Ahh,’ said Adnan.
‘Oh,’ said Hatty.
‘And,’ Lesh continued, ‘Esenin and his dad, according to this, were rescued from Greenland by a Russian submarine. I’ve checked and it’s one that was quite capable of carrying such a warhead.’
The three children stayed silent as an older couple settled down at the table right next to theirs, already studying the menu. When the couple were focused on ordering their meal from the waiter, Lesh leaned into the others.
‘So that leaves us to focus on Esenin?’ Hatty asked.
Lesh and Adnan eyed Hatty and nodded. They were ready to go, ready to find out whether Esenin did have the warhead and, if he did, where it was and what he was planning to do with it.