12: Hot
"Day ninety-six," Letty whispered to George as they got up and pulled on dry but stiff clothing. George smiled at her but said nothing, conserving his energy.
"Trainees!" Kazakov boomed as they dressed. "We have a different schedule today. We will eat breakfast immediately then you will make your beds and ensure everything in your bunk area is impeccably tidy. Anyone who fails an inspection in thirty minutes will have their bed doused with the fire house.
Having your bed soaked was the worst, because apart from having to sleep on a wet mattress, your neighbours invariably got some of their bed wet and they gave you evil glares for the rest of the day. George tidied first, figuring that he needed to get that right before breakfast, then he scarfed down the orange juice and dry cereal that they'd been given.
"We've got to be leaving for our final exercise," Letty said as they ate. "It usually takes a day of travelling, so if we're here today we'd only get two days of final stuff, which isn't much."
She was right, and after the inspection they all boarded a decrepit minibus at the gate and one of the campus staff drove them to the military airport near campus. It was the first time George had been on an aeroplane, so he was disappointed when he saw that it was one of the clapped out ex-Army jets.
The seats were trashed and there was mould everywhere, but they were plentiful and once the jet was airborne, nearly every trainee just found a row and fell asleep lying down.
"I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were you," Kazakov yelled happily. "We'll be touching down at RAF Lossiemouth in less than an hour."
George groaned. He'd been hoping for a nice long flight to relax on, plus maybe a hotel, but if they were going to northern Scotland then they'd probably be on some exercise in two hours. He closed his eyes again, hoping to squeeze in thirty minutes before they landed.
After they landed, Kazakov led them across the tarmac towards a commercial airliner that had been painted in RAF colours. With excitement, the trainees realised that Kazakov hadn't been entirely truthful, and with a big airliner they would have to be going a long way.
Once they were all seated in soft seats with entertainment systems and pillows, the jet engines spun up and they were in the air within minutes. As soon as the seat belt light came off, Kazakov reappeared.
"For your final training exercise we'll be doing something we haven't tried before. You may have noticed that all of the windows are covered on this plane. You won't be told where we're going, and we'll land at a military airbase somewhere in the world. You'll be shuttled into the wilderness without knowing where you are, and you'll be given a series of tasks. If you pass, you pass basic training and become an agent. Fail and you go back to day one."
George was still sleepy from earlier and fancied a nap for a while, so while the others chatted in low voices he drifted off with his seat fully reclined.
He didn't wake until they were making their final approach and the seat belt light came back on. He felt refreshed, and hoped he'd made the right decision. If they arrived at night, he'd be horribly jet-lagged and that would make the final exercises hard, but if they arrived in the morning he'd be golden. The landing was a bit shaky, rattling the fixtures and giving George an attack of the nerves. He couldn't see outside and had no idea how far it was to the ground, but a sudden jolt and then a slowing-down reassured him and he settled down.
Once the plane had taxiied, they had to put on eye goggles that were blacked out.
"Anyone caught moving their goggles will instantly fail," Kazakov said, leading each trainee in turn to the aircraft door. The first thing George felt was a blast of dry heat, so he guessed they were in a desert region. Someone led him down the steps and into a vehicle waiting at the bottom which was even hotter than the outside. He was buckled into a seat and left for two minutes before someone else was strapped in opposite. Then the doors were slammed and the vehicle set off.
"You can take off the goggles," Miss Smoke's voice said. George tore them off and found himself sitting in the back of a van without any windows. The driver sat behind a partition with no access, and the only other occupant was Letty.
"How long did we fly for?" George asked, getting straight down to business. The van ride might only take ten minutes and he didn't want to be caught out.
"There were no clocks on the aircraft, and nobody had a watch, but I would guess about nine or ten hours," Letty replied. "I slept for four or five, based on how long I slept for last night, and I was awake for another four or five."
"It's obviously a desert climate," George said, thinking. "We didn't go far enough to end up in somewhere like Australia, so we either flew to the US or Mexico, or we doubled back on ourselves and went to north Africa somewhere."
"There are deserts in central Asia too," Letty added. "They're pretty remote which would make the survival thing more important."
"That's true. So basically we have no idea," George laughed.
"Yeah. So, the survival aspect is gonna be dealing with heat. We need to make sure we ration water and make some kind of shade, because if you get sunburn you'll dehydrate even faster," Letty said, running down a mental checklist. "Walking in a desert isn't as bad as something like snow, but if the sand is soft it'll be slow going, and dunes are steep."
"We'll probably end up eating local wildlife… scorpions?" George asked, chuckling at the look of revulsion on Letty's face.
Miss Smoke stopped the van and let them out after about two hours of driving. They were in the middle of a scrubby desert with nothing in sight in any direction except some mountains.
"There are equipment packs in the sand," she barked. "You'll find your briefings inside. Remember, you can fail at any time right up until the end of day one hundred, so don't get complacent." She got back into the van and drove away, sending up a plume of sand from the tyres.
George grabbed one of the packs and pulled his briefing off the top. It was, as he'd predicted, written entirely in Russian.
"How's yours?" he asked.
Letty shrugged. "I can make out some basics. It says we have to go east and use a map to get to an equipment bunker by the end of today, more or less."
George's seemed to say the same thing, and the map was printed on the back. It seemed simple enough; they just had to use a compass and head due east until they reached a dry stream bed, then follow that.
"Let's go," he said, hoisting the pack onto his back.
"Wait, if we should check to see what's in the pack first," Letty said. "We need sunscreen and hats, plus water."
George tipped out his pack and sifted through it. There were some useless items, like an electric heater, and neither of them could see the point of a car battery except to run the heater. They each had a litre bottle of water and a litre of sun cream, but no hats.
"Hats are vital. We need to make some," Letty said.
"I'm all ears, but nothing amongst this lot will make a good hat," George shrugged. "It's all too heavy or not very big."
Letty sighed. "Well, we can use our briefings," she said, looking at the paper. "We don't need to look at the map too much. It's better than burning."
They both covered themselves in sun cream on every exposed area, then set off east. Letty held the compass so George trusted that she would keep them right.
It quickly became obvious that there were three major problems; they had hardly any water to last the day; the sun was ferocious and if they didn't stop often they would get sunburnt; and walking through flat desert in a straight line was extremely boring.
They played games to try and pass the time and keep their minds off the sun. They named things beginning with each letter of the alphabet, they counted alternately up to one thousand and George even taught Letty some basic Russian.
"The map has no scale so I don't know how far is it," Letty said when the sun was at its highest. "There's no shade to be had, so we might as well keep going. If we arrive really early we can just rest some more before going to sleep."
George shook his head. "I read a book once about escaped prisoners of war or something. When they were travelling in the heat, it was best to travel at night or in the morning or evening, then sleep in the middle of the day. I know we've got to move now, but if we can move during the night and get a head start on tomorrow's objective it'll work better."
"Sounds logical. But can we navigate at night?"
"If there's a decent moon, then I suppose so. If it's too dark at night to see where we're going, we'll just go back to plan A and sleep," George said, shrugging.
They reached their equipment bunker before the sun set, both gasping for a drink and feeling the effects of the sun. There was a tank in the bunker, so they each filled their water bottled repeatedly and drained them.
"Okay," George finally said once he'd doused his skin with water and all of his clothes. "So there should be another briefing."
"I've got it," Letty said, pulling it out of a plastic folder and handing George his half. "Seems like another trek tomorrow, similar kind of thing but we've got to follow the stream bed."
"Same here," George said. "It doesn't seem too difficult to do in the dark."
While Letty sat down with the map to work something out, George poked around the bunker to see if there was anything hidden to help them or hurt them. Nothing jumped out, so he went back to covering himself with water.
"George," Letty said, waving him over. "I need you to check this."
"What's up?"
"By comparing the map from today with the map for tomorrow, it looks like they're the same scale. We covered the distance today in I'd guess about seven hours, so it'll be roughly twenty-five miles.
"Marking that distance on tomorrow's map, it looks like it's less than half."
George grabbed the briefing and scanned. "The deadline is sunset tomorrow."
"It's basically sunset now, so we've got twenty-four hours," Letty calculated. "If it's a fifteen hour trip and we set off now…"
"... We'll arrive nine hours ahead of where we are now," George finished. "Which will be mid-morning, probably."
"I think we're supposed to travel at night," Letty smiled. "If you hadn't pointed that out, I would probably have just fallen asleep here and failed."
"Let's go then," George said. "Once we've got enough water, there's no point hanging around."
"What about food?"
"There's energy bars stuffed in the front of the pack. We can eat and walk."