CHERUB: The General

by Robert Muchamore

  So James relied upon instinct. They’d arrived from the parking lot out back, so if he headed in the opposite direction he’d eventually reach the Strip.

  He passed a line of restaurants crammed with computer-industry delegates and the odd tourist. After this came a spectacular indoor courtyard with a huge granite fountain set beneath a glass dome. Couples strolled arm in arm, a casino employee played an accordion and a couple of little kids stood on the fountain’s edge throwing in coins and splashing their hands.

  The next set of signs pointed left to a shopping mall and right to head back into a different section of the vast casino, but as James rounded the fountain he saw a set of sloped travelators and a sign saying 3D Cinema and the Strip.

  James looked around casually, pretending to admire the fountain. There was no sign of anyone following and he gasped a sigh of relief and decided that he’d just been paranoid. After a huge buffet meal and nearly three hours cooped up in the business centre, James spotted a toilet sign and moved in to take a badly needed piss.

  It was an opulent bathroom with more than fifty urinals. There was blue neon lighting above each bowl and individual towels stacked up on stainless-steel bowls between the sinks. James soaked a cloth with warm water and used it to rub eyeballs that ached after three hours of intensely studying an eleven-inch laptop screen. He dried off with another and headed down a hallway back towards the fountain.

  Three men stood at the end of the hallway: casino name tags, black suits and radios. They didn’t look James’ way, and he told himself not to sweat it as he looked back to see if there was a fire exit behind him. But as he passed the first two men the third stepped into his path.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. He was elderly, but quite tough looking and his nametag said Joseph – Security Officer.

  ‘Me?’ James said innocently, trying to smile as sweat beaded up on his neck.

  The laptop in his backpack was loaded with evidence. They’d need Kazakov’s password to log into the machine, but that wouldn’t be a problem for anyone who knew what they were doing. They’d quickly find the surveillance software and although James hadn’t set the video to record, there would almost certainly be several seconds of blackjack footage that would be recoverable from the computer’s cache.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind coming with us,’ Joseph said gently. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ James said, scratching his head. ‘What’s this about? Only, I’ve got to meet my dad.’

  Men coming in and out of the restroom looked at James suspiciously, assuming that he was a shoplifter or pick-pocket.

  ‘Just need you to come to my office,’ the man said. ‘A few questions, it’s all probably a misunderstanding.’

  James had to think fast. If they got him into an office with the laptop and called the cops out he’d be totally screwed. If he was lucky, CHERUB would save his butt to avoid answering embarrassing questions about his surveillance equipment, then they’d fly him back to England and Zara would kick him off campus. If he was unlucky, she’d leave him to rot as an example to any other cherubs who decided to put their training to criminal use.

  Not fancying either of those options, James charged. The bigger of the two guards behind grabbed his arm, but James swung back and caught him in the face with an elbow. As the big man fell, James bolted off towards the travelators.

  The long flat travelators were similar to the kind you get in airport terminals, except for the plasma screens along the sides advertising the delights of the Vancouver casino and the cheesy voiceover welcoming arrivals and urging those on their way out to come again soon.

  ‘Move,’ James shouted, as a mother wrenched her eight-year-old out of his way.

  Two of the security guards were less than ten metres behind him, but the biggest one was still down on the floor seeing stars. James could have easily outrun the two middle-aged men over open ground but they were gaining because he kept having to shove people or yell at them to get out of the way.

  Half-way along, the travelator left the confines of the Vancouver casino and turned into a glass-sided bridge running over shrubs and flowerbeds ten metres below. James found some space to run, but up ahead two stocky men who’d heard James’ shouts turned towards him with stony faces that made it clear they wouldn’t be moving out of his way.

  The guards were less than five metres behind now and James realised that even if he could knock the two big men down the guards would be on top of him before he made it through.

  He looked down and thought about jumping over the sides, but the lush gardens below were lined with concrete blocks and the giant searchlights that lit up the front of the casino.

  Seconds before he was sandwiched between four men, James vaulted up on the moving rubber handrail and jumped a two-metre gap, landing heavily on another which took passengers in the opposite direction.

  His head hit the slatted metal travelator rungs and the laptop clattered out of his backpack, which he hadn’t zipped properly in his rush to leave. He grabbed the computer and began running into the crowd, against the motion of the travelator. He had a clear run of fifty metres, and despite everything gained on the security guards, but as he neared the end he hit a huge crowd of elderly women.

  James took all kinds of abuse and a nasty whack from a walking stick as he ploughed through the old women, some with butts almost the full width of the travelator. When he’d cleared the old girls he found the remaining twenty metres of the travelator empty, but his relief was short-lived: it was empty because a pair of much fitter looking security guards stood at the end awaiting his arrival.

  The two guards who’d chased him down the travelator were walking parallel on the other bridge. James thought about turning back, but although he couldn’t see all the way to the far end through the darkness he knew there would be more casino security guards waiting for him by the time he arrived. That left only one move he could make.

  After the briefest of glances to make sure that he wasn’t going to land on a spiked fence or jagged rock, James swung over the travelator’s glass side and dropped ten metres into the gardens below. He landed in pitch darkness, with a crunch of branches and a sharp pain as a bamboo cane jarred into his back.

  He stood up, but toppled sideways, realising too late that he wasn’t on the ground. His heart shot into his mouth as he stepped from the top of a low hedge into open air.

  He landed in a flower bed as the security guards up above peered over the side of the travelator into shadows. Mercifully, none of them had torches, or a desire to jump over the sides themselves.

  After grabbing the laptop out of a tangle of branches and shoving it back inside his pack, James kept low and moved stealthily through a jungle of bushes and shrubs. Within a minute he found himself out of the darkness and standing on the edge of a huge ornamental flower bed that was angled towards the crowd of pedestrians walking along the Strip less than thirty metres away.

  The flower bed was illuminated with spotlights and the flowers – which from close range James realised were all fake – spelled out the words Vancouver Las Vegas – Live the Dream! below a giant Canadian flag.

  James moved as close as he dared to the fence separating the gardens from the broad pavements of the Strip. Freedom was tantalisingly close, but the fence posts towered more than five metres into the air and the top portion was painted with tarry anti-climb paint.

  While the security guards up on the walkways hadn’t followed him, they knew where he’d gone and it would only be a matter of minutes before their colleagues came out into the gardens looking for him. He considered calling Kazakov and asking for help, but even if the training instructor had a plan there was no way he could arrive before the security guards.

  All James could do was explore the gardens and hope for an exit. He set off back the way he’d come, moving along a narrow paved path set behind hedges so as to preserve the illusion of unbroken greenery as seen from the Strip.

&n
bsp; After passing back under the twin bridges James found himself in a much wider expanse of shrubs and lawns with the starkly white hotel tower looming above him. He jolted as he heard a sound like a fire door breaking open and saw a flash of torchlight.

  Then from above came a rattle and a blast of light. At first he thought it was something to do with the chase, but then he saw the approach of a four-coach monorail train, rattling across a concrete track suspended fifteen metres overhead. It was slowing down to pull into Vancouver casino’s station, which was also the end of the line.

  James followed the path of the overhead track through the gardens to the point where the station abutted the third floor of the hotel tower. He was delighted to find that the station’s emergency exit stairs ran from between the platforms and touched down in the farthermost corner of the garden. Three torch beams shone through the bushes behind as James started to run.

  He’d hoped that emergency stairs would lead to an emergency exit gate, that would in turn lead out on to the street. But on the concrete floor below the exit were arrows pointing along a broad path at the rear of the garden.

  James was furious because it meant he’d already missed the emergency exit gate somewhere in the dark, and with security teams closing in he couldn’t risk going back to look for it. His only option was to belt up the stairs and try catching the train before it left – assuming that security teams weren’t coming from that direction too.

  James straddled a gate at the bottom of the enclosed concrete staircase and raced up sixty steps, taking them two at a time. At the top was a set of glazed doors, leading on to a wide concourse where a final trickle of passengers was stepping aboard the monorail train.

  At the opposite end of the platform, a set of automatic doors were rolling shut to prevent anyone else getting on to the platform. The doors of the train itself would close in a matter of seconds. James burst through the exit, setting off a squealing alarm and stepping on to the concourse as the doors started moving.

  The train doors clamped his shoulders as he forced his way into a spacious compartment in the train’s lead carriage. The doors bleeped and a recorded voice told him not to obstruct them. He got a few odd looks from the other three passengers in his compartment as the electric motors below the floor buzzed and the driverless train cruised silently out of the station.

  James didn’t realise how badly he was sweating until he sat down and felt his T-shirt stick to the plastic bench. Before even catching his breath he flipped open the laptop. The train picked up speed as it cut in front of the casino’s main entrance, before dipping dramatically into the midst of a vast, open-sided structure with parked cars blurring by on either side.

  ‘The next station for this train will be the Reef. All standing passengers please hold the handrail tightly as the train begins to slow down.’

  James ignored the recorded voice as they broke back out into the night, ripples of casino lights reflecting on the curved glass windows.

  As soon as the laptop came out of standby, James opened the programs menu, hoping that Kazakov’s computer was loaded with the same suite of security programs as the laptops issued to CHERUB agents and mission staff.

  Erasing data from a computer is surprisingly difficult. Pressing delete doesn’t actually erase files, it just tells the computer that it can overwrite them when it needs the space. But even when files are overwritten, they’re still not totally secure and computer forensics experts have been known to recover fragments of data that have been overwritten as many as six times.

  James was relieved to find a data destruction program ready loaded on Kazakov’s machine. He opened it up and expertly made seven ticks against a list of more than fifty options:

  ✓ Delete all data and activity logs

  ✓ Delete entire cache and user records

  ✓ Delete all personal documents

  ✓ Use quick and dirty mode for preliminary data destruction

  ✓ Use US Department of Defence Standard 5220.22-M to totally eradicate data

  ✓ Do not allow computer to enter sleep mode until data destruction is complete

  ✓ Erase this program after function is complete to remove any sign of deletion activity

  James clicked start and a warning box flashed up on screen:

  Basic Data erasure will take approximately 28 minutes on this machine – fragments may still be recoverable after this time.

  Erasure to DOD Standard 5220.22-M involves overwriting all data 35 times and will take apx 11.3 hours. (This exceeds the predicted life of your laptop battery by 8.1 hours.)

  This process is not reversible.

  Start? Yes/No

  James clicked yes and watched briefly as some menu screens flashed up. Once he was sure that the data wipe was running he shut the lid and let the software get on with things. Provided nobody got hold of the computer in the next twenty-eight minutes even a computer forensics expert would have trouble finding any incriminating evidence of the surveillance operation and there was no chance of them being able to recover anything as large as a cached video file.

  The train lurched to the right and began slowing down for the approach to the station at the Reef casino. To James’ surprise the train stopped over a road with six lanes of traffic lined up at the traffic lights directly beneath. He’d ridden the same track with Kerry and the gang when they’d spent the day touring, so he knew it wasn’t part of normal service.

  ‘What’s going on?’ someone asked, as James nervously slid his phone out of his pocket and thought about calling Kazakov.

  A non-recorded announcement came over the train’s PA system. ‘Ladies and gents, I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused by this delay. Unfortunately our computer systems are reporting a minor fault with this train and one of our circuit breakers has tripped a safety system. You have no reason to be alarmed, but we’re gonna have to hold the train here for a few moments while we switch out the motor and reboot the control software.’

  James thought this was fishy. He’d set off an alarm when he’d charged through the emergency exit doors, and the two minutes he’d been on the train had been ample time for security to review their video footage and identify him. They couldn’t announce the true reason because it might cause a panic.

  James glanced desperately around the compartment as he dialled Kazakov to update him. As the mobile rang in his ear, he saw the black security camera dome in the carriage ceiling and realised that the security teams were probably watching every move. Most likely they would wait for armed police officers to arrive before letting the train roll on into the Reef station.

  As James looked down from the ceiling he saw a green hammer encased in glass, and below it a set of instructions on how to use it to smash the windows in case of an emergency.

  ‘Where you at?’ James asked anxiously, when Kazakov finally answered.

  ‘Cashing out took ages,’ Kazakov moaned. ‘I had to fill out a form before they’d pay my winnings. Money laundering regulations, apparently. I’m in the car, driving down ramps in the parking lot.’

  ‘Right,’ James said, putting his face up to the glass and shielding his eyes to cut out reflections. He spoke in a whisper so that the three passengers at the opposite end of the compartment didn’t overhear. ‘Security’s all over me. I’m looking at a big Denny’s restaurant on the north side of Reef Drive about five hundred metres from the junction with the Strip. That’s where I’m gonna try and meet you.’

  ‘Where are you now?’ Kazakov asked.

  ‘No time to explain,’ James said. ‘Just be there in five minutes’ time.’

  He snapped the phone shut, then used his elbow to smash the piece of glass covering the hammer.

  39. RUNGS

  James didn’t want to be watched, so his first move was to jump high and swing the little hammer at the surveillance dome. It took two cracks to break it open, by which time one of the men sitting on the bench had jumped up.

  ‘What the hell d�
�ya think you’re doing?’

  James tried to look menacing. ‘I’m not hurting you,’ he shouted. ‘Sit down.’

  But he was a big fellow and he wasn’t going to be intimidated by a sixteen-year-old. James faced a dilemma: normally when he went on a mission and had to punch someone out it was for the greater good, but what about now? He didn’t like the idea of being a guy who broke someone’s nose just so that he could make a few bucks.

  The guy stopped for an instant and James thought his threat had worked, but he took another step as James reached up and used the end of the hammer to rip the rotating camera out of its socket. He gave James a two-handed shove.

  James was in deep shit and short of sitting down and waiting for a set of handcuffs he had no option but to lash out. He punched the big man hard in the face, then kneed him in the guts as he stumbled backwards. A final shove sent him crashing head first into the doors.

  ‘I told you to stay out of it,’ James warned, as the man’s girlfriend screamed out. ‘And she’d better cut that racket out as well.’

  It was one of the worst moments of James’ life. He was scared, he’d just battered someone whose only motivation was to stop him from vandalising a train and despite a lifelong history of making bad decisions and doing stupid things, this felt like the worst.

  But that didn’t mean James was in any mood to surrender and let his whole life go down the toilet. The window with the escape sign had a triangular sticker in the corner. A red dot in the centre had the words strike here encircling it.

  James hit hard. The first blow cracked the shatterproof glass and the second turned it into a sheet of tiny pebbles. He stepped back, grabbed the overhead handrail with both hands and swung forwards. His trainers crashed through, knocking out the entire rectangle of glass and sending it hurtling down on to the road directly below.