CHERUB: Man vs Beast

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘Someone’s gonna meet us?’ Kyle asked.

  ‘She didn’t go into details, just told us not to be late. Rigsworth is only an hour’s drive, but I reckon we’ll give it an extra half hour in case there’s traffic. So, I’ll swing by in Viv’s Merc and pick you and James up around four-thirty.’

  *

  Tom had only passed his driving test a few months earlier and looked edgy behind the wheel of the Mercedes, which was double the size of his MG. He kept in the slow lane and looked worried every time he had to pull out to overtake a tractor or caravan.

  It was the first weekend of the school holidays, so half the country was on the move and the service station was hell on earth. Tom circled the car park for ten minutes looking for a space. Inside, they had to queue up to use the urinals, the restaurant area was jammed and every kid in the joint seemed to be bawling about something their brother had done or something they hadn’t been allowed to buy in the gift shop.

  In the end, Kyle bought three bottles of mineral water from a vending machine and the boys propped themselves on a tiled ledge by the windows at the back of the food court. James’ phone rang at six on the dot.

  ‘How’s it going, youngster?’ a female voice asked. She didn’t give a name, but it sounded like Jo.

  ‘Not bad,’ James said. ‘So what are we doing? Is someone meeting us here or what?’

  ‘You’ll be meeting an old friend, of sorts. Head into the car park, row G, three bays from the end. The keys are taped under the wheel arch on the driver’s side. You’ll find your instructions and all the equipment you need inside the vehicle.’

  The phone went dead. James slid it inside his black tracksuit bottoms as he stood up and led the others outside. They headed into the early evening glare, dodging the traffic circling for a parking spot.

  ‘Tharrr she be, mateys,’ James said, inexplicably putting on a pirate voice when he spotted the red VW van.

  It was the same van he’d ridden in with Kyle three days earlier, though the lower half of the bodywork had been sprayed canary yellow and logos had been stuck along both sides and on the rear doors: Rapid Trak – Speciality Courier. James reached under the wheel arch and threw the key at Kyle.

  Tom looked a little put out. ‘I thought I was driving.’

  ‘No offence, gorgeous,’ Kyle grinned, ‘but you drive like my grandma.’

  The trio piled into the front of the van – Kyle in the driver’s seat, Tom in the middle and James on the passenger side. James flipped open the glovebox and a mass of papers slid out into his lap.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ James moaned, as he reached down and picked them all off the vinyl floor.

  The first thing he came to was a leaflet advertising Rapid Trak: Whether it’s a human kidney, oversized artwork or a six-tier wedding cake, Rapid Trak has been delivering the undeliverable for more than 30 years. To emphasise the point, the accompanying picture was of a white-coated doctor vaccinating a baby, while a pretty nurse stood in the background holding a red and yellow Rapid Trak package.

  The next document James came to was a map of Wales. It was folded, but he could see parts of a detailed route that had been marked across it with a highlighter pen. Next he came to a large envelope with Read Me!!! written on it.

  He peeled back the gummed flap, slid out four identical sets of stapled paperwork and handed one to Kyle and Tom before he started reading:

  Hello Boys!

  Today marks the launch of a new animal rights group. Yours is one of three synchronised actions that will be carried out under the banner of the Animal Freedom Army. This document gives you all the details you need to carry out your operation successfully. You will find the equipment you require in the rear of the van.

  Over the last three years, pressure has been put on all of the major international courier firms and all have agreed to stop delivering to Malarek Research premises within the UK. However, Rapid Trak has refused even to meet with members of the Zebra Alliance and continues to make deliveries, which include the transportation of live mice and birds to be used in experiments.

  In March 2006, Rapid Trak even took delivery of a special unmarked van so that it could continue its lucrative trade with Malarek. It is the last reliable courier service available to Malarek Research and one of the core companies that enables it to continue to do business. This operation will make it clear to the Rapid Trak management that profiting from animal experiments is unacceptable.

  Please read the rest of this document carefully, paying particular attention to the sections on leaving behind DNA, fingerprints and other biometric evidence at the scene, and on the safe destruction of your vehicle.

  Good Luck,

  The AFA Team

  26. NAPALM

  The VW van juddered over a bump as it cruised a badly lit section of dual carriageway. James and Tom sat in the back, sweating into Balaclavas and disposable gloves. Just to make them even less comfortable, pungent kerosene vapour seeped out of the highly explosive napalm drum welded into the rear of the vehicle.

  ‘Ever seen Apocalypse Now?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ James said.

  ‘They blast all these Vietnamese with massive napalm bombs, and afterwards this nutty colonel takes this giant sniff and goes, I love the smell of napalm in the morning.’

  James smiled, though Tom couldn’t see it through the Balaclava. ‘Is it a good movie?’

  Tom nodded. ‘I’ve got the DVD. If we don’t blow ourselves up tonight, you can borrow it.’

  ‘Cheers,’ James nodded. ‘I’ll have loads of time to kill now it’s summer holidays.’

  James felt like he was getting on well with Tom, so it seemed a good moment to ask a more probing question.

  ‘So where do you reckon the AFA got hold of napalm?’

  ‘DIY I expect,’ Tom said. ‘Viv got this recipe for napalm off the Internet one time and we looked into making a batch ourselves. It’s only petrol or kerosene, with a gelling agent dissolved into the mix.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ James lied.

  ‘If you want to burn something down, napalm is the dogs,’ Tom explained. ‘Petrol combusts so fast that it burns itself out before anything else catches light. Napalm sticks to everything and it burns hot and slow.’

  James had learned about napalm and a variety of other common terrorist weapons in training, but he made an effort to sound suitably impressed at the older boy’s knowledge.

  ‘So how come you and Viv never made any?’

  Tom grinned. ‘First off it’s seriously explosive. It would only take a spark to set that whole drum off. Second, the idea of my brother running around with napalm doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Viv’s a nut,’ James giggled. ‘No offence …’

  ‘None taken. He is a nut, but he’s also the best brother. Our family is a freak show, but me and Viv have stuck up for each other, right from when we were toddlers.’

  James and Tom turned to look as Kyle slid back the little flap between the cab and the rear compartment.

  ‘Time to cut the banter,’ Kyle said. ‘I can see the Rapid Trak depot over the hill.’

  ‘Right,’ James nodded.

  ‘Good luck, dude,’ Tom added. ‘Keep calm.’

  Kyle felt like he’d been driving the van for ever. The journey from the outskirts of Bristol to the Rapid Trak depot in Wrexham, North Wales, shouldn’t have taken any more than three and a half hours, but the holiday traffic had been horrendous and it was now past one in the morning. His knees and ankles ached from working the pedals and only fear of what they were about to do kept him awake.

  Still, he knew things could have been a lot worse: the operation they’d been assigned by the AFA involved large-scale property destruction, but no deliberate harm to humans, and Viv going sick was a blessing.

  After turning into a deserted industrial estate, the van passed two illuminated Rapid Trak signs in front of a modern, brick-built sorting office. This building was open 24/7,
although it ran on a skeleton staff at weekends and there were fewer than a dozen cars parked up in a lot with space for a hundred.

  Kyle continued along the eerily quiet road until he came to a smaller sign on the opposite side which pointed out Rapid Trak’s vehicle depot. A middle-aged woman dressed in security-guard black stepped out of a kiosk as Kyle rolled up to the metal barrier. He wound down his window as she gave him a smile.

  ‘What happened to you?’ the woman asked. ‘I thought the last driver was due in at nine.’

  ‘I was due in at eight,’ Kyle lied, acting stressed out. ‘It’s the great summer getaway. Big pile up on the A49 – I’ve never seen traffic like it.’

  ‘You must be new,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Eileen Rice; I don’t think I’ve seen you before.’

  ‘Just left school,’ Kyle said. ‘I’m Eric Cartman, good to meet you.’

  ‘Nice meeting you, Eric,’ she said, as she stepped back into the kiosk and flipped the switch to open the gate.

  As the gate rose up, Kyle drove on to a lot containing over a hundred commercial vehicles. They ranged from juggernauts down to compact vans, every one decked out in Rapid Trak livery. He pulled into a space between two VW Transporters identical to his own, before jumping out of the cab and opening the sliding side door to let out James and Tom. They both grinned at him.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Kyle asked.

  ‘Eric Cartman,’ Tom grinned. ‘Very smooth.’

  Kyle didn’t understand, so James explained. ‘Eric Cartman: the fat kid in South Park.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Kyle gasped. ‘I’m such a plum. I thought there was something odd about that name when I said it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t worry,’ Tom said. ‘I’d say that old girl’s more into soap operas than South Park.’

  ‘She sounded like a nice old stick,’ James added, as he reached inside and grabbed a Stanley knife and two giant reels of carpet tape off the floor of the van.

  ‘Don’t start feeling too sorry for her,’ Kyle said. ‘She’s got an alarm button and she’ll hit it if you give her a chance.’

  Before jogging off towards the kiosk with James, Kyle zipped on a black hoodie and swapped his Rapid Trak cap for a Balaclava, then leaned into the van to grab a length of rubber hose.

  ‘Call me sexist if you like,’ Tom whispered, as he sneaked up on the kiosk with James. ‘But this doesn’t sit too well. It’s like being asked to duff up someone’s granny.’

  As they approached the kiosk, the boys could see the woman sitting inside. She had a radio on and her attention focused on a puzzle magazine.

  ‘Hands in the air,’ Tom yelled, putting on a decent tough-guy act as he grabbed the door of the kiosk and bundled the woman off her stall.

  She screamed as she hit the floor.

  ‘Shut your hole, woman.’

  James knelt down beside her. As Tom kept her pinned under his foot, James stuffed a rag into her mouth, before winding tape around her head so that she couldn’t spit it out. He then grabbed her handbag from under the security console and found a set of keys.

  ‘Got ’em,’ James said.

  ‘OK, old timer,’ Tom yelled as he released his trainer and showed his strength, lifting the guard effortlessly to her feet with one arm. ‘Time for walkies and no messing.’

  ‘You’ll be fine if you do as you’re told,’ James added, figuring that he’d be Mr Nice to Tom’s Mr Nasty.

  The woman shook with fear as the boys frogmarched her out of the compound, along the chain link perimeter fence and down an overgrown embankment at the edge of the next lot, which had apparently been abandoned by an engineering company.

  ‘On the ground,’ Tom ordered, giving the woman a shove.

  Once she was face down in the grass, James taped up her wrists and ankles, then linked the two sets of bindings together, so that she was trussed and couldn’t roll off some place.

  ‘Right,’ James said, passing the guard’s car keys across to Tom. ‘You go across to the other side and get her car, I’ll help set up the fire.’

  As Tom crossed the deserted road and headed for the parking lot outside the sorting office, James cut back around the gate and realised that he couldn’t remember where Kyle had parked.

  ‘Dude,’ James yelled cautiously, wanting to attract Kyle’s attention without alerting the whole world.

  Kyle was so close his reply gave James a fright. James cut between two vans and found him at the back, with the hose connected up ready to spray the napalm.

  ‘I’ve got the controls on this tank sussed,’ Kyle said. ‘Do you want to go up front and drive?’

  ‘Right,’ James nodded.

  ‘Don’t forget to grab the backpack with all our stuff in when you get out.’

  James climbed behind the wheel and turned the keys hanging off the steering column.

  ‘Keep it slow,’ Kyle yelled, as he stepped into the back of the van. ‘I don’t fancy falling out into a puddle of napalm.’

  James put the van in first and crept out of the parking space, unfamiliar with the biting point of the clutch and anxious not to stall. As he drove at walking pace, Kyle leaned out the back doors with the hose, spraying globs of napalm over the fronts of the parked vehicles on either side and laying the odd streak across the Tarmac to ensure that the fire passed rapidly from one vehicle to the next.

  There were four lines of vehicles, but Kyle was worried by the time they got halfway down the third. He scrambled inside the van and thumped on the divider. James pulled up and glanced back through the flap.

  ‘The pressure in the tank is down to nothing,’ Kyle explained. ‘However hard I crank the pump, I’m only getting a dribble. I want to make sure this van gets everything that’s left in there, because it’s covered in our fingerprints.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ James nodded.

  James pulled the key out of the engine and felt a twinge of sympathy for a van that had turned its last wheel with less than 3,000 kilometres on the clock. He slung the backpack with all the maps and stuff over his shoulder and jumped out, catching the full-on stench of the jellied fuel they’d spread over more than sixty trucks and vans.

  His stomach somersaulted as he realised that he was one crackle of static electricity away from being turned into a stick of charcoal. Kyle pointed the hose at the van and splattered it with the last of the napalm.

  ‘I’m shaking,’ James said, grinning uneasily at his gloved hands. ‘Let’s get out of here. Have you got the miniature bottles?’

  Kyle nodded. ‘And the lighter’s in my back pocket.’

  The boys moved quickly towards the gate, but pulled up sharp as they glanced at their only escape route: there was no sign of Tom, or the security guard’s car, but a Rapid Trak van was stopped outside the gate with its engine running and a uniformed driver stood in the kiosk using the telephone. Three more Rapid Trak employees were heading towards the scene.

  ‘Shit,’ James gasped. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Where’s Tom?’ Kyle asked, glancing up and down the road.

  ‘Either he got nabbed getting in the guard’s car, or he chickened out when he saw the van pull up and the driver go looking for the security guard.’

  ‘Great,’ Kyle huffed.

  ‘So what do you reckon?’ James asked. ‘Run for it?’

  ‘No choice,’ Kyle said. ‘If we get busted our mission is down the pan, and I’m not gonna stand around here and wait to get roasted.’

  James and Kyle started running and made it past the kiosk before the guy inside glimpsed their black outlines. He yelled out and the trio walking towards the scene gave chase as the boys broke into a full sprint up the middle of the deserted road. Two of the men were fat jellies, but the third was a massive black dude with a serious turn of speed.

  By the time they’d run three hundred metres, he’d got close enough to James to bundle into him. From running at full pelt, James turned his ankle and clattered into the concrete, shredding his plastic gloves as he put his h
ands out to protect his face.

  James tried scrambling up, but an expertly aimed Karate kick slammed his ribcage and sent him crashing back to the tarmac. Kyle realised his companion was in trouble and turned back. The black guy went into a fighting stance and Kyle wasn’t confident: the guy was a slab, half a metre taller than him and clearly knew his stuff.

  But salvation came as twin headlamps roared out of the darkness. Tom had pulled out of a side turning in the security guard’s Fiesta and ploughed into the giant at thirty miles an hour. He rolled up over the bonnet and smacked into the ground with a hollow thud that didn’t bear thinking about. For a second, James and Kyle froze in shock.

  Then, as the car pulled up sharply, Kyle grabbed James’ arm to help him up.

  ‘You OK?’ Kyle asked.

  ‘Can’t breathe,’ James moaned, clutching his chest. ‘My ribs are killing me.’

  Kyle opened the back door and took some of James’ weight as he staggered across and collapsed on to the rear seat.

  ‘Where’d you disappear to?’ Kyle asked angrily, slamming the front passenger door as Tom roared away.

  ‘I was waiting for you in the car outside,’ Tom explained. ‘But that dude pulled up in the Rapid Trak van. He saw there was no one in the kiosk and he started coming towards me, so I pulled out and went for a drive around the block.’

  ‘Idiot,’ Kyle said, as he ripped off his Balaclava. ‘He’s smaller than you and you had surprise on your side. Why didn’t you rush over and lay him out, instead of giving him a chance to call out the cavalry?’

  ‘Didn’t think,’ Tom confessed, taking another left, then pulling up at the rear of the Rapid Trak depot.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’ Kyle asked.

  But Kyle realised before he heard Tom’s answer. In the panic to get away, he’d forgotten what they were doing in the first place. He opened the electric window while grabbing two miniature whiskey bottles out of his top. Each bottle had shredded paper poking out of the top and extra thick globs of napalm filling the bottom third.