Black Friday

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘Leonid’s a thug, not a businessman,’ Lombardi said. ‘He arrived in Mexico with a few thousand dollars and begged me to wire him some money. Based on past behaviour, I’d say that once Leonid’s sold the missiles he’ll have enough money to pack up the production line. Then he’ll sell it to whichever defence contractor or government makes the highest bid.’

  Getting thumped and sneaking around his dad’s office meant Andre had barely slept the previous night. He slept solidly until his big brothers rolled in from a nightclub at 5 a.m. After fifteen minutes trying to ignore their racket he peeked out of his door to see what was going on in the open-plan kitchen and living-room below.

  Alex and Boris both had company, though based on the women’s attitude and tarty dress it was the kind you had to pay for. Latino pop came out of a music channel as the quartet stood around the kitchen counter snorting cocaine. After a couple of lines each, they moved back towards a pile of beanbags and started stripping off.

  Andre made a mental note never to sit on any of the beanbags downstairs again as he got back in bed and tried blotting out his brothers’ sex noises. The sounds made him uncomfortable and he kept hoping that Leonid would emerge and tell them to shut up. But the master bedroom’s double doors were apparently too well insulated.

  Once the women took their money and strutted out on their high heels, Andre went back for another peek as Boris and Alex sprawled out in the open-plan living area, naughty bits on display as they slugged half-bottles of Jack Daniels.

  ‘I’m gonna ask my girl to marry me,’ Boris said.

  Alex snorted with laughter, making the golden bourbon drizzle down his chin. ‘You soft shit!’

  ‘I’m gonna go all sweet on her,’ Boris said. ‘Tell her I love her. Tell her to pack her bags and come to the Caribbean with me. Then when we get to the airport, I’ll tell her I was joking.’

  ‘That’d be so funny,’ Alex said, as he pulled himself up and started staggering around looking for his trousers.

  It irritated Andre that Alex could be OK, but never when he was under Boris’ influence. As Alex struggled to get his legs through trouser holes, Boris swaggered across to the dishwasher, opened the flap and started taking a huge piss inside it.

  ‘Madman!’ Alex said, howling with laughter as he grabbed the handrail and started walking up the stairs. ‘I’m going to bed. My brain’s fried.’

  ‘Nice present for the cleaner,’ Boris laughed, shaking off as he scooped some of his clothes off the floor and followed Alex up the stairs.

  Andre ducked behind his door as his brothers staggered past to their rooms. He heard Alex’s shower come on as he stepped on to the landing and looked down to survey the wreckage. Besides the bottles, clothes, dustings of white powder and the streak of piss dribbling out of the dishwasher, Andre was delighted to see Boris’ car keys lying on the floor beside his jeans.

  44. TRINIDAD

  Andre was towelling off in his room when he noticed a green light flashing on the tiny cellular receiver that James had given him. He grabbed it off a bedside chest and pressed the device’s only button before holding it up to his ear.

  ‘Everything OK?’ James asked. ‘Is your com broken?’

  ‘I’ve been in the shower,’ Andre explained, as he glanced at a bedside clock and saw a coincidence: 12:31 p.m. and 12.31 as the date on the line below it. ‘I’ll tweezer it back in a minute.’

  ‘How are you holding up?’

  Andre grunted as he sat on his bed. ‘My brothers are such evil shits. Boris is talking about dumping his girlfriend before we go to the Caribbean. And he pissed in the dishwasher.’

  ‘What a gent,’ James said. ‘But you’re not gonna have to put up with either of them much longer.’

  ‘I hate it here, but I’m not giving up,’ Andre said firmly. ‘Mum and Dad went out, Boris and Alex are wiped from last night, so I went down to the garage. I got a bunch of addresses from the sat-nav in Boris’ car. Plus there were some papers in there, relating to a house purchase in Trinidad.’

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ James said. ‘But we think we’ve cracked the case already. You finding out about the PGSLM thing joined up a lot of dots for us. We sent your cousin Ethan with some heavies to rough up a lawyer who’s been wiring money to your dad. He gave us the whole story and one of the addresses in your dad’s sat-nav led me to an industrial unit. It’s got serious security and we’re fairly sure that they’re building PGSLM missiles there.’

  Andre gasped. ‘Building them!’

  ‘Long story,’ James said. ‘I’ll be able to tell you face to face soon. I’ve spoken to Dr D and she’s agreed that you and your mum should be pulled out as soon as possible.’

  ‘We’ll have to sneak off together,’ Andre said.

  ‘Any idea when your mum’s back?’

  ‘They didn’t leave all that long ago,’ Andre said. ‘They were going shopping and they were talking about seeing a film. They’ll definitely be back by ten, because there’s some firework display in the courtyard. Boris was fuming because Dad said he wanted us all here, seeing in the New Year as a family.’

  ‘Some family,’ James joked. ‘The only thing is, until we actually get into the factory, we can’t be a hundred per cent sure that we’ve found the place where they’re making the missiles.’

  ‘How will you get into the factory?’ Andre asked.

  James laughed. ‘The place was a fortress. It certainly won’t be me. I’m guessing they’ll have to hand the operation over to a Special Forces unit.’

  ‘One other thing,’ Andre said. ‘Does a PGSLM come in a kind of giant cigar-shaped tube?’

  ‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘Remember the plans you saw the other night?’

  ‘There’s a golf trolley in the storage room under the stairs. But my dad doesn’t golf, so I took a look inside and I’m pretty sure it’s a missile.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s a lot of people who’d like to examine that,’ James said excitedly. ‘They’ll want to strip it down, and see who’s been selling parts to the Aramovs.’

  ‘Want me to wheel it out to you?’ Andre asked.

  James thought Andre was joking and didn’t answer.

  ‘Well?’ Andre repeated.

  ‘I might have trouble getting access to the pool again,’ James said. ‘That caretaker I knocked out will remember me.’

  ‘You don’t need to sneak around,’ Andre said. ‘My brothers are trashed from last night and my parents won’t be back for hours. I’ll buzz you into the building and give it to you at the front door.’

  ‘But your dad will notice it’s gone,’ James pointed out.

  ‘Not if we leave soon after they get back. It’s not like Dad’s gonna come home on New Year’s Eve and randomly decide to go look in some golf bag stashed at the back of the utility room, is it?’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ James said.

  ‘My brothers will wake up eventually. How soon can you get here?’

  ‘I’m a two-minute drive away,’ James said. ‘Call it ten by the time I’ve got shoes and stuff on.’

  Six minutes later, James stood outside the apartment complex’s glass atrium. Once Andre buzzed him in, he walked fifty metres across seriously bouncy carpet and found Andre waiting by the front door of the apartment.

  ‘All right, mate?’

  ‘So far so good,’ Andre said, as he slid a long black tube across the kitchen tiles to James in the doorway.

  ‘I won’t hang about,’ James said, as he grabbed a thick nylon strap and swung the missile over his shoulder. ‘When your mum gets back, tell her you’ve got to leave first chance you get. And don’t start packing, or do anything else that’ll give the game away.’

  ‘Who you talking to, squirt?’ a tired-sounding Boris shouted from up on the first-floor balcony.

  ‘Collecting for the blind,’ Andre shouted, shutting the door in James’ face.

  ‘Tell the prick I’ll blind him if he comes here again,’ Boris shouted, as James hurried
down the hallway with the black missile pod weighing on his shoulder.

  When he got back out front, James fed the missile through the side window of a VW Beetle that was even tattier than the camper he and Lucinda had abandoned in town the night before.

  He worried as he drove, because he’d seen police checkpoints all over town and the sinister black pod was exactly the kind of thing that would arouse suspicion. But he made it to his dingy room without any hassle and sent a mouse scurrying between floorboards as he thumped the missile on to a wobbly dining table.

  After sliding three catches and opening the clamshell pod, James found the missile and launcher in factory-fresh condition, wrapped in a Styrofoam bag printed with multilingual warnings. Can cause serious burns. Read instructions before use.

  The PGSLM was 16cm in diameter and 120cm long, with a bullet-shaped nose and a sophisticated vectoring rocket nozzle at the other end. The shoulder launching tube and numeric control pad were disposable, so their construction had more in common with a cheap toy than something you’d expect to find on a quarter million dollars’ worth of military hardware.

  James had updated TFU headquarters in Dallas before meeting Andre and had a message on his phone to Call Hao-Jing at Sonic Aviation Consortium (SAC) as soon as he got hold of the missile.

  SAC had taken over design work on PGSLM after Lisson Communications lost their contract. Hao-Jing had been the chief software engineer on the project at both companies.

  ‘I doubt Galenka Aramov altered any of the software code she downloaded from the six stolen missiles,’ Hao-Jing explained.

  ‘Why not?’ James asked.

  ‘It worked, so why change it?’ Hao-Jing asked. ‘If the software is the same, you should be able to access the missile’s logs. I’ve e-mailed you a program. Install it on your laptop, then enter #406 on the missile control panel. Provided the Wi-Fi on your laptop is turned on, you should see a network called PGSLM in the Windows communication settings.’

  James smiled. ‘Are your missiles Mac friendly?’

  ‘No,’ Hao-Jing said humourlessly. ‘But we are working on an Android app.’

  James took a few minutes to boot his laptop and install the PGSLM control software. He jolted with shock when he tapped #406 and four stabilising fins shot out the back of the missile.

  ‘I can’t fire this thing accidentally, can I?’ James asked.

  ‘Not without a six-digit firing code,’ Hao-Jing said. ‘In the right-hand side of the PGSLM program window, you should see a menu item called Programming. Click on that, and type TLL followed by the F9 key.’

  When James hit F9, a selection of hidden engineering menus popped up in a row below the main toolbar.

  ‘Click where it says Log, and then tick the On-screen mapping button.’

  James did what he was told and got rewarded by an on-screen map marked with location pins going alphabetically from A to S. On the right-hand side was a list of times and dates, along with details of where the missile had been at various stages of its life. James immediately saw that the first four entries, which were called Test 1, Test 2, Orientation, and 1st Power had all taken place twenty months earlier.

  ‘Can you see what I’m seeing on your screen?’ James asked. ‘Judging by the map pins, the missile was first switched on inside an industrial unit I visited last night.’

  ‘That’s exactly what it means,’ Hao-Jing said. ‘The US Army demands that all smart weapons are traceable. A PGSLM logs its own location every time it’s switched on or off. If you programme in the right settings, it’ll automatically download software updates and send you an SMS if the on-board diagnostics discovers a fault.’

  ‘Cool,’ James said, still unnerved by the fact that he had a solid rocket booster and forty kilos of high explosive on his dining table.

  Before he could say any more, James heard a click and a much higher voice on the line. ‘James?’

  ‘Hello?’ James said curiously. ‘Hao-Jing?’

  ‘Your call was being patched through TFU headquarters,’ Dr D explained. ‘I’ve cut Hao-Jing off. You’re now speaking with Dr D.’

  James had only spoken to Dr D once before, and that was barely long enough to establish that she had weird mannerisms and a voice like a violin lesson.

  ‘You’ve been doing a fine job down there,’ Dr D began. ‘Picking up a working missile makes winding the mission up way simpler.’

  ‘How so?’ James asked.

  ‘Get Andre and Tamara out of Leonid’s house,’ Dr D said. ‘Then I’ll get Hao-Jing to programme the coordinates of that industrial site into your missile. Drive to within four kilometres and press the launch button. If they’re handling explosives in there, one shot should be enough to wipe out the whole factory.’

  James was shocked. ‘But I thought they wanted to strip the missile down, to check out Galenka’s design and see who’s been supplying her with components.’

  ‘I’d love the luxury of doing that,’ Dr D said. ‘But your mission is in a grey area, somewhere between barely authorised and completely illegal. If I explain to my bosses that I’ve run this anti-Leonid operation there will be a major shit storm. I don’t much care about myself, but I’m trying to find future employment for Amy and a lot of other people at TFU. It’s best for them if my bosses aren’t running a big investigation into who knew what about an unauthorised operation.’

  James realised the sense in this, and also that an inquiry might reach across the Atlantic and lead to trouble for Zara Asker, or even himself.

  ‘Right,’ James said. ‘That’ll destroy the production line, but are we sure the seventy-four missiles Leonid is selling are being stored there?’

  ‘It’s not ideal if they’re not,’ Dr D said. ‘But I’d rather have seventy missiles in the wild than a factory capable of producing thousands of them.’

  ‘And if I blow up the factory, won’t Leonid just walk away?’

  ‘Your job will be to get Tamara and Andre safely out of Mexico and blow up the factory,’ Dr D explained. ‘Lucinda will deal with Leonid. She knows everyone who matters in Ciudad Juárez. She can get a rumour circulating that the missiles are dangerously defective, or that Leonid is planning to rip the Talavera Brothers off. If he makes it out of Mexico alive we’ll make sure they know where he’s moving to.’

  James laughed. ‘Let the bad guys do our dirty work, eh?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Dr D said.

  45. LOOT

  Andre didn’t like being home with his brothers and spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in his room. Boris was too hung over to torment him and his only problem was being stuck in his room, bored off his head and anxious about making a safe getaway with his mum.

  It was half six when Leonid and Tamara rolled up. The building concierge carried in beer and champagne for the New Year celebrations, while Tamara stood at the kitchen counter, pulling takeaway burritos and rice out of a carrier bag and plating it all up.

  ‘No cooking tonight,’ Tamara shouted. ‘Get it while it’s hot.’

  Andre was starving and sat on a stool at the kitchen counter, stuffing his face as the rest of his family gathered around.

  ‘Got a little announcement to make,’ Leonid said, as he took Tamara by the wrist. He raised her hand, showing off a large diamond engagement ring. ‘We’ll be getting married in a few weeks, when we hit the Caribbean.’

  Andre offered congrats, secure in the knowledge that it would never happen. Alex didn’t seem to care, but Boris looked furious.

  ‘Why buy a cow when you’re milking it already?’ Boris asked.

  Alex smirked. Leonid faced Boris off, but had to finish a mouthful before he could speak.

  ‘While you’re under my roof you respect Tamara like you’d respect your own mother,’ Leonid blasted.

  Boris laughed so hard he spat rice over the floor. ‘You beat my mum and threatened to kill her if she ever tried to contact us.’

  ‘Don’t you ever mention that bitch,’ Leonid growled.


  Andre was less than a metre from the standoff. Leonid had age and authority, but Boris was physically stronger and neither wanted to back down.

  ‘Eat your food before it gets cold,’ Tamara said.

  Leonid shot his burrito into the bin and stormed upstairs, slamming the bedroom door and yelling, ‘Why do I even try with this family?’

  Boris gave Tamara a mocking grin as he took a second burrito and scooped more rice on to his plate. As he bit into it, Leonid stormed back to the top of the stairs and flung a wodge of pesos over the railing.

  ‘Money,’ Leonid shouted to Boris. ‘That’s all I am to you. I tried making a happy night for us, but you can’t say one nice thing. So take my money. Go and party, or do drugs or whatever it is you want. I don’t give a shit any more.’

  ‘Dad, stop being so dramatic,’ Boris said, as he nonchalantly bit his burrito. ‘At your age you’ll have a heart attack.’

  Leonid pulled a silenced pistol from the back of his trousers and sent Boris diving for cover as he shot a beanbag a couple of metres behind him.

  ‘Out,’ Leonid screamed. ‘Show me respect when you come back, or don’t come back at all.’

  Boris crashed his plate on the countertop and raised his hands. ‘I’m outta here.’ Then he looked at Alex. ‘You coming?’

  Boris had a magnetic pull on Alex. After running back and forth to pick up the scattered pesos and grab clothes and keys, the two young thugs headed out with a slam of the main door.

  ‘When we get to Trinidad they’re getting their own place,’ Leonid said, as he came downstairs. ‘They’re spoiled brats.’

  He gave Tamara a kiss, then put his arm around Andre’s back and gave him a gentle squeeze.

  ‘I’ve been hard on you because you’re not tough,’ Leonid told Andre. ‘But you show respect, and you’ve got more brains than those two screw-ups combined.’

  Andre hated his dad, but on some basic level he still craved his affection and his smile was at least fifty per cent for real.