The Fall

by Robert Muchamore

  The state of modern computer graphics technology makes it impossible to guarantee that any video footage is real, but if this is a fake or has been staged by actors and retouched it has been produced to a higher standard than anything we are capable of.

  For the purposes of your investigation, I think you should consider this footage 100% genuine.

  Rod Harper

  Metropolitan Police, photo and video forensic department.

  James looked at the send date and saw that Ewart had received the fax more than a week earlier, but he’d told James that he was still trying to get hold of the video less than two days ago.

  ‘Two-faced son of a …’ James muttered.

  He felt sick. CHERUB wasn’t just an organisation James worked for. It was his home, it was all his friends, it was his school – basically his entire life. Confronted with the reality that Ewart had lied to him, James realised that Kerry had been right: he hadn’t truly believed Mr Pike’s conspiracy theory and had just come here to nose around and see what Ewart was up to.

  James’ hands trembled as he flipped frantically through more papers. There were thousands of sheets, probably hundreds of thousands of words, and he wouldn’t be able to read them if he stayed up all night. He figured he could just skim through and read the basics, but then what?

  Ewart was married to the chairman and as much as James liked Zara, he wasn’t sure that he could trust her to take his side over her own husband. She might even be in on Ewart’s scheme, whatever it turned out to be.

  That left the ethics committee, but its members were designed to be independent. They didn’t live on campus and they were all outsiders: lawyers, retired policemen and the like. Even if James approached one, what was to say that Ewart wouldn’t talk his way out of it?

  James realised that his only realistic option was to calm down, digest as much as he could, photocopy some of the most interesting paperwork and then bring it to Mr Pike, or maybe Meryl.

  There was a knock at the door.

  James jolted with fright and a stack of papers cascaded out of his lap on to the carpet. This was a disaster. If the person at the door came in, it would be blindingly obvious that he’d been snooping.

  He crossed his fingers and willed the person to go away, but the handle turned and the door began sweeping across the carpet.

  30. LOCKS

  Lauren didn’t know how long she had. She stepped out into the corridor and was pleased to find it empty, but less pleased by the CCTV cameras staring at her from both ends. Even if the commotion hadn’t been heard, it was only a matter of time before she got picked up by security.

  ‘You OK?’ she shouted, as she stared at the hefty bolt and padlock across the door of Anna’s room.

  ‘What was that noise?’ Anna asked from the other side.

  ‘Stabbed Keith,’ Lauren explained. ‘Stand away from the door.’

  The lock looked sturdy, but any security system is only as strong as its weakest link and the door itself was flimsy. Lauren grabbed each side of the doorframe of her own room and used it as leverage to launch an explosive, two-footed kick across the corridor.

  She had trainers on, but the force still hurt the balls of her feet as the flimsy wooden walls on both sides of the corridor wobbled. The lock held in place, but a gap had been torn between the door and the chipboard in which it was mounted.

  Lauren’s second kick knocked the hinged side of the door further inwards. It wasn’t a huge gap, but enough for Anna’s skinny body to wriggle through. Anna was shocked to see Lauren with blood-smeared clothing and a heavy padlock in her hand.

  *

  As they jogged down the corridor, the bouncer they’d seen at reception on the way in appeared at the far end. Three startled girls and one middle-aged man had stepped out of their rooms to see why the walls had been shaking.

  Anna looked back for an alternative exit, but Lauren hid the padlock behind her back and strode on towards the bouncer. His scruffy grey suit bulged with muscle and Lauren guessed she was up against someone who was ex-military, or maybe a retired boxer. Even with the some of the best combat training in the world under her belt, Lauren would only get one shot at a surprise attack.

  ‘Where’d you think you’re going, missy?’ the bouncer grinned, as he pointed back along the corridor. ‘Get back in that room before I clock you one.’

  Lauren waited until they were less than a metre apart before swinging the heavy padlock. A couple of the girls screamed as metal hit bone, making a sickening thunk and tearing a bloody gash in the bouncer’s cheek. As he stumbled forward in a daze, Lauren hit him with a brutal roundhouse kick to the ribs, followed by a knee in the guts and a knockout blow with the padlock.

  ‘We’re all getting out of here,’ Lauren shouted, and set off for the staircase, armed only with the padlock and terrified of finding herself on the wrong end of a gun. Anna kept close as they crept down the stairs, while four slightly older girls trailed nervously.

  Lauren peered around the bottom of the staircase into the reception area. The sofas where the girls sat waiting for customers were out of sight, but she could see the receptionist, the bouncer’s empty armchair and Keith’s coat hanging tantalisingly from a rack.

  ‘See the coats?’ Lauren whispered.

  Anna nodded.

  ‘I’ll go first. You run across and search the brown jacket. It’s Keith’s. He had a gun with him earlier.’

  Lauren raced out into the room, much to the surprise of the receptionist who leapt out of her seat and pointed towards the staircase.

  ‘You’d better get back upstairs before you find yourself in a lot of trouble,’ the receptionist barked.

  The girls on the sofa went quiet and stopped looking bored, but Lauren was furious to see that Anna had bottled it and stood limply at the bottom of the staircase.

  ‘For god’s sake,’ Lauren yelled, looking at Anna and pointing at the coat rack.

  The receptionist had stepped out from behind her desk and tried to grab Lauren’s arm. Lauren snatched the woman’s bony wrist, twisted her into an arm lock and banged her head against the desk before smacking her around the side of the head with the metal face of the padlock.

  ‘Stay down or you’ll get another one,’ Lauren shouted menacingly. Then she turned her fury on Anna. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re bloody useless.’

  There was now a bunch of younger girls at the bottom of the stairs and the older ones who were on public display were getting off the sofas. As they all started chattering nervously in Russian, bad English and other languages that Lauren couldn’t understand, she made her own way towards the coat rack.

  But the main door burst open before she got there. Roman came in first, followed by Abby holding the can of pepper spray.

  ‘Get back to your rooms,’ Abby ordered, with her thumb clutching the trigger on the canister.

  Lauren dropped behind the receptionist’s desk. The other girls didn’t seem to grasp what was in the canister, so Abby demonstrated with a quick squirt into the face of one of the older girls. She began screaming and a flurry of young legs bolted up the staircase.

  ‘If this doesn’t stop now, I’ll get Kenneth and a couple of his lads out here,’ Abby shouted.

  Whoever Kenneth was, the mention of his name was enough to have the girls back on the sofa. Anna had disappeared back upstairs, but Lauren had crawled as far as the chromed base of the coat rack and was relieved to see the handle of Keith’s gun inside his jacket.

  ‘The revolution is over,’ Roman smiled. ‘Get your asses back to work.’

  ‘The ringleader’s over there,’ the receptionist said as she staggered up, with her hand covering a small cut where the padlock had struck her temple.

  Lauren only had a second to grab the gun. As she shot up from the sticky carpet, Abby swung around and squeezed the cap on the pepper spray. The gooey liquid came through the air like snake venom. Lauren tried hiding her head behind a woman’s coat, but it hit the side of
her face as her fingers gripped the stock of Keith’s revolver.

  Lauren felt like her face was on fire, with one eye closed, the other streaming and the intense odour of pepper spray searing inside her mouth and the back of her throat. Her vision blurred as she aimed the gun towards the ceiling and blasted a warning shot.

  ‘Put the spray down and open the door,’ Lauren said, trying to sound more assertive than she felt.

  She heard some of the other girls, who’d crept back to the bottom of the stairs to investigate the gunshot. The gun felt heavy. Lauren was seeing smears and fighting for breath, but she was less than three metres from Abby and Roman and you don’t need good eyesight to shoot someone from that distance.

  Abby dropped the pepper spray.

  ‘Now open the door,’ Lauren said. ‘And anyone who wants to follow me out is welcome.’

  Roman stared at Abby for confirmation before stepping backwards and opening the door. Lauren searched desperately for Anna, but all she could see were colours and blurry shapes. She realised that there were five or six girls running with her as she felt her way down the hallway towards Abby’s office, gun in hand.

  ‘Anna?’ Lauren yelled.

  ‘Your friend went back upstairs,’ a girl not much bigger than Lauren said, in broken English.

  ‘Not going back,’ Lauren gasped as she pointed inside the office. ‘Can you see a phone?’

  ‘On the desk.’

  ‘Dial for me,’ Lauren said. Then she realised that the other girls were standing in the doorway awaiting instructions. ‘Downstairs,’ she shouted. ‘There’s a room with bottles, run through there, jump over the bar and run out on to the street.’

  As six teenaged girls clattered down the metal staircase in mules and cheap dressing gowns, Lauren told her remaining companion to pick up the phone and gave her the digits of John Jones’ mobile number.

  Lauren screamed into the receiver. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’re coming in within five to ten minutes,’ John said. ‘But the cops are nervous about storming a building this size without proper reconnaissance or knowing what kind of weapons they’re up against.’

  ‘Only one gun that I know of and I’m holding it,’ Lauren said. ‘There should be girls coming out through the bar at the front any second.’

  ‘We’ll grab them. Your voice sounds terrible, are you OK?’

  ‘Pepper spray,’ Lauren explained. ‘Mostly on one side.’

  The blurry girl who was helping Lauren spoke anxiously. ‘Abby and the others are coming.’

  Lauren yelled into the phone. ‘John, the rats are leaving the sinking ship. You’ve got to stop them getting out.’

  ‘Are you sure they’re not armed?’

  ‘Pretty sure,’ Lauren said, as she waved her companion towards the staircase.

  ‘OK, keep safe,’ John said. ‘We’ve got cops on all sides of the building.’

  ‘I expect they’ll try getting out of the back gates in a car,’ Lauren said.

  John yelled to someone standing close to him: ‘Get a vehicle parked across the back gates.’

  Lauren realised that her companion had fled. She clutched the gun as blurry figures passed by in the corridor outside. The big red blur looked like Abby, but whoever it was, they weren’t interested in Lauren, just in getting away.

  ‘Girls coming out of the bar now,’ John shouted. ‘Cops are on their way in.’

  ‘You’d better get some ambulances,’ Lauren said. ‘I knocked one guy cold and stabbed another; he might even be dead.’

  As Lauren said this, she heard the pounding music stop in the bar downstairs. The replacement noises were screams and the sound of boots racing up the metal stairs.

  ‘Put the gun down,’ a woman shouted.

  Lauren rested the gun on the desk and the smeary black figure unbuckled her riot helmet as she stepped towards her. Lauren’s eyes still stung like hell, but her vision was improving.

  ‘There are more girls down there through the white door,’ Lauren said. ‘I think the staff all ran off.’

  ‘You heard her,’ the cop shouted, as she waved half a dozen colleagues by.

  Lauren realised that she still had John on the phone. ‘Where are you?’ she shouted.

  ‘With you in a flash,’ John replied, before hanging up.

  Half a dozen sirens were now squealing in the streets around the warehouse and Lauren heard a huge bang as the cops battered down the white door leading into the brothel.

  ‘You OK?’ John asked, as he stepped by the cop.

  ‘Can’t see much.’

  John had grabbed a bottle of mineral water and some paper towels from the bar on the way up. ‘There’s blobs of pepper spray stuck to your top,’ he said, as he pulled a flick knife out of his pocket. ‘It might get in your eyes if we pull it off, so I’ll cut it; then we can start flushing out the pepper spray.’

  John sliced a V in the neck hole of Lauren’s sweatshirt, before grabbing the two sides and tearing it down. Lauren was relieved to be safe and couldn’t resist making a joke.

  ‘You ought to be careful,’ she grinned. ‘You should see the state of the last bloke who tried ripping my clothes off.’

  31. CAUGHT

  James heaved with relief as a chunky female figure came through the door, holding a Hoover and a can of furniture polish.

  ‘Dana, thank god it’s you.’

  Dana was a fifteen-year-old cherub who’d been born in Australia. She’d trained with James loads of times and had accompanied him on a mission earlier that year.

  ‘Are you on crack?’ Dana gasped, when she saw James rifling through Ewart’s papers. ‘If one of the mission controllers catches you in here, they’ll boot your arse out so fast your feet won’t touch the ground.’

  ‘Desperate measures,’ James explained. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’

  ‘What does it look like, brains?’ Dana said, as she put the Hoover down and jiggled her can of polish. ‘This little knob-end cut the queue in the dining-room. We got in a row and I ended up whacking him over the head with my tray. Trouble is, two teachers walked in as I was doing it and I copped a month’s cleaning duty.’

  ‘Injustice,’ James tutted bitterly. ‘Campus is crawling with it.’

  ‘I heard you went off on some special birthday weekend.’

  James nodded. ‘Yeah, the girls did it to cheer me up. It was cool.’

  Dana raised an eyebrow. ‘Thanks for the invite, mate.’

  ‘Oh, well … Umm … It was a surprise. Kerry and Lauren set it up and – no offence – but I never thought it was your cup of tea. You’re more of a lone wolf.’

  ‘Sitting alone in my room, reading Lord Of The Rings for the seven hundredth time while I boil frogs in my cauldron.’

  ‘Something like that,’ James said. He felt uneasy because Dana was holding all the cards.

  ‘I heard you got suspended after that Aero City thing,’ Dana said, as she looked at the three-year-old photo of James amidst the papers scattered over the floor. ‘Is this Ewart’s investigation?’

  James nodded. ‘I’m here because I’ve got a nasty feeling that he’s trying to stitch me up.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘I reckon the answer’s amongst this lot somewhere,’ James said, as he dug out the report on the video surveillance and waggled it in the air. ‘There’s evidence here that puts me totally in the clear. Ewart has had it for more than a week, but when I asked two days ago, he told me that he was still trying to get it from the CIA and that there was a realistic chance I could be forced to leave CHERUB.’

  ‘He could have just got it before he went off.’

  ‘It’s dated last week, Dana. And what do you mean, went off ?’

  ‘Ewart left about an hour ago with an overnight bag. He stopped me and moaned that I wasn’t cleaning his office well enough. He said he wants me to do the window ledges properly and make sure that the water doesn’t spill over when I water his cactus. I’m sorely
tempted to piss in his bloody plant.’

  ‘I’ve never liked him, to be honest,’ James said. ‘I had him on my second mission and he was a total pain.’

  Dana nodded. ‘It’s the cool guy thing that annoys me. You know, Ewart goes around dressed like a surf bum with his tongue stud and ripped jeans, but he’s actually thirty whatever years old, with a Vauxhall Astra, two kids and a mortgage.’

  ‘Exactly,’ James said. ‘John Jones is an old baldie, but he’s actually a million times cooler than Ewart.’

  ‘I’ve worked with most of the mission controllers, and Ewart’s definitely my least favourite.’

  James looked forlornly at his stack of papers, then up at Dana. ‘I have to know what he’s up to, but I can’t go through all this on my own. You couldn’t give us a hand, could you?’

  ‘This is some serious shit,’ Dana said, shaking her head uncertainly.

  ‘Please,’ James said, but immediately regretted it. Dana didn’t stand for any kind of nonsense and the plea made him sound pathetic.

  ‘Gimme a second to think,’ Dana snapped. Then after a pause: ‘Ewart’s not gonna be back until late tomorrow. How about we load all of those papers into a bin liner? We’ll have to be careful not to jumble them up. Some of those documents are tagged, so you’d set off the alarm if you went out the front way, but I can stick them on the cleaning cart and put them out with the rubbish. You wait around the back and grab them while I’m putting the real rubbish into the incinerator. We’ll go back to your room and start going through them; then I’ll put everything back early tomorrow morning.’

  James broke into a big smile. ‘You might have just saved my life.’

  Dana wagged her finger. ‘And you’d better remember it next time there’s free go-karting and fancy hotels being bandied about.’

  *

  Carrying a bin liner across campus might arouse suspicions, so while Dana finished cleaning, James ran off to grab a backpack. Within forty minutes, he was standing in his room with Ewart’s paperwork stacked on his bed.