Grey Wolves by Robert Muchamore Page A

Rosie said furiously.
    Joel laughed. ‘Well, well: the two lovebirds are speaking to each other again.’
    ‘Believe me,’ PT said. ‘I spent over a year crewing boats around the Mediterranean and when men go ashore, the ones who are married act no different to the ones who ain’t.’
    ‘Lots of men behave decently,’ Rosie said. ‘They’re not all animals like you .’
    ‘Can you two bicker tomorrow?’ Joel asked. ‘I’ve been up since half four, I’m getting the light. Is everyone ready?’
    Everyone was either under the covers or ready to get in, so he popped the light off. Troy did another noisy fart as Joel walked back to his bed.
    ‘Aww you stink,’ Paul complained, as Troy laughed under his sheets.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Marc’s eyes shot open as a hand clamped across his mouth. He thought it was Troy getting revenge for the dead arm, but Troy wasn’t strong enough to pull him off his bunk and throw him over his shoulder. It was pitch black, but he could hear men dragging the others out of bed. Ironically, out of the six it was Paul – the smallest – who gave the most trouble by jumping up, swinging from a roof beam and giving his assailant a two-footed kick in the teeth.
    ‘Name and age?’ the man screamed in English.
    Marc remembered what the Brigadier had told them before bedtime. ‘Marc Hortefeux, thirteen years old.’
    ‘So you speak English?’ the man said, as he pinched Marc’s cheek.
    The pinch hurt, but the realisation that he’d fallen for a simple interrogator’s trick by answering a question in the language it was asked hurt more. The light in the room came on, and he glimpsed Paul wriggling through a window as PT was dragged outside with his hands cuffed behind his back.
    Marc had a canvas bag thrust over his head. It smelled like mildew and its drawstring handle was pulled around his neck, not strangling him but enough to make breathing hard.
    ‘Walkies!’ the man said. His accent sounded slightly American, so Marc guessed that he was Canadian, like the Brigadier.
    Marc couldn’t see, but he felt mud under his soles as two men frogmarched him across a field at jogging pace. His breath and the dank smell made it stifling inside the mask. After a minute his feet moved on to tarmac. He heard a large door open, like a barn door. His feet were swept off the ground and suddenly he was plunged into a freezing bath filled with slabs of ice.
    He kicked and slapped his arms in the water as his head was held under for a minute. Shivering uncontrollably, he was forced to kneel with his forehead resting against something hard, then his hood was ripped off. Marc saw that he was knelt against the front of a car and a second later the headlamps were switched on, shining directly into his eyes.
    ‘Welcome to Gestapo headquarters,’ one of the Canadians said.
    Marc heard a groan to his right, and saw that Troy was in an identical position, knelt against the other headlight.
    ‘Don’t think we’re going easy because you’re kids,’ another Canadian said.
    Marc couldn’t tell if there were three or four of them.
    ‘How can kids go undercover? You’ll break in two seconds flat.’
    ‘Go screw your mothers,’ Troy shouted.
    Marc heard Troy get slapped.
    ‘Now I know which one to electrocute first,’ someone said.
    ‘You can call me God,’ the biggest man said. ‘I’m setting an alarm clock to go off in twenty minutes. Every time you make an admission, the other boy gets an electric shock. If either of you wants to quit before the twenty minutes are up, you can beg for mercy. But if you can’t stand this for twenty minutes, you’re not gonna be tough enough to face the real Gestapo, are you?’
    ‘No, sir,’ Marc said.
    ‘No, God,’ Troy said.
    God grabbed Marc’s muddy foot and twisted his big toe. ‘What do you call me?’
    ‘God,’ Marc said, gasping.
    ‘OK, boy. You’re going to admit that yellow is your favourite colour.’
    ‘Am I bollocks,’ Marc said.
    ‘Give