Circle of Flight by John Marsden Read Free Book Online

quite professional at doing border raids, revenge raids. A lot of them are on the government list of war criminals. It’s the sort of game they’d play, grabbing a kid and using him to bargain.’
    ‘So how do we get him back?’ I asked, forgetting all the other questions, or at least sending them to the back of the queue.
    He paused then, for the first time, and frowned, and looked at the ground. I knew these signs as well as I knew Lee. Someone had made a suggestion, someone had a plan even, but it wasn’t Lee’s idea and he didn’t agree with it.
    ‘Come on, come on,’ I said with teeth clenched.
    ‘I think it’s crazy. The only part of it I agree with is that the government isn’t going to be able to do anything. Well, if they are, it’s going to take a long time, and bad stuff could happen in the meantime. These guys aren’t interested in negotiating with governments, and their own government can’t control them. I think it’s a situation that probably does call for a bit of individual action.’
    ‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked, trying not to grind my teeth.
    ‘It’s not a plan as such,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s just a concept, an idea. The beginning of a plan.’
    ‘I’ll do it,’ I said.
    He grinned then. ‘Yeah, well I kind of expected you’d say that.’ He paused. ‘Like I said, it’s not a plan, in fact it’s not even the beginning of a plan, but there’s quite a large population of expatriates in Havelock.’
    ‘What are they?’ I asked.
    ‘People from other countries. A lot of administrative and government stuff happens there. Not that they call it Havelock any more. They’ve given it some new name that I can’t even pronounce. But the United Nations has about a hundred people there, and there are a few consulates setting up. What I’m getting at, or what the Liberation people are getting at, is that someone like you could walk around some areas of Havelock without standing out. Not many areas, but where the consulates are, the locals are used to seeing foreign faces. You’d have to get identity papers, but Liberation could supply those. At least it puts you closer to the action, if that’s where the action really is.’
    ‘What does the Scarlet Pimple think of all this?’ I asked.
    ‘Not happy. Bad idea.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Too dangerous, too random. The Scarlet Pimple likes plans and structures and details. Admittedly it’s not the way we worked during the war, but it seems to work pretty well with what Liberation do. I guess they have to be pretty organised, seeing there’s so many different groups, and so many different projects.’
    ‘How would I get to Havelock?’
    ‘They’re working on that. And they are producing identity papers right now. Apparently that’s pretty easy.’
    ‘At least no-one really knows my face,’ I said. ‘Even if the guys who took Gavin read my books, even if they know my name, even if they think they know a lot about me, hardly anyone would know what I look like. Given how many people are living over there now, I’d be pretty unlucky to run into anyone I met during the war.’
    ‘Yes,’ Lee nodded. ‘That much I agree with.’
    ‘So what don’t you like about my going there?’
    He shocked me by suddenly exploding off the bench, long arms and legs flying. For a moment he looked like a praying mantis who’d been hit in the guts. ‘Because it’s only you,’ he said. I realised that he could almost have been crying. That really frightened me then, frightened me and shocked me. Lee? Emotion? Lee showing emotion?
    He went on. ‘They said that you could maybe get away with one new teenage face on the streets of Havelock, but you’d never get away with more than one. If two or three of us turned up, the word would get out within a few hours and there’d be no hope for anyone.’ He gave me a little shaky grin. ‘I kept telling them that I’d go, because I think I could get away with being out on the streets much more