CHERUB: Class A

by Robert Muchamore

  He loaded up a plate with bacon and hash brown and ate bits with his fingers while one of the staff cooked him a mushroom omelette. Most kids had gone off to first lesson, but Amy was sitting at a table dipping a finger of toast into a soft-boiled egg.

  ‘You’re wearing a white T-shirt,’ James said, taken aback.

  You got the white shirt when you retired as a cherub.

  ‘My undercover days are over,’ Amy said.

  James looked sad. ‘But …’

  ‘I’m seventeen, James,’ Amy said. ‘I took my A-levels in the summer. I’m working here as an assistant dogsbody to earn some cash, then I’m off to see the world before I start university in January.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Cairns, in Australia. My big brother lives there.’

  ‘That’s the other side of the world,’ James said miserably. ‘I’ll probably never see you again.’

  ‘You’ve only got to hop on an aeroplane. My brother set up a diving school when he finished university. He took me up to the Great Barrier Reef a couple of weeks ago. It’s so beautiful there.’

  ‘So you’re training me up for my Miami trip?’ James asked.

  Amy nodded. ‘And you better behave. Now I’m staff, I’m allowed to dish out punishments.’

  ‘Cool,’ James grinned. ‘Who have you nailed?’

  ‘Only one kid,’ Amy said. ‘I was covering for one of the Judo instructors. This horrible little red-shirt boy kept giving me lip. He got a week cleaning up the changing room near the cross country trail.’

  ‘It always gets really muddy in there,’ James smiled. ‘How old was this kid?’

  ‘Eight,’ Amy said. ‘He started bawling his eyes out, but I didn’t back down. After that, all I got from the other kids in the class was, Yes Miss, No Miss, Of course Miss.’

  ‘So what have I got?’ James asked.

  Amy slid a heap of books across the table. They were all weighty. One was called The Ultimate Hackers’ Reference and was over ten centimetres thick.

  ‘It’s gonna be a busy couple of days,’ Amy said. ‘I’ll try and get you through techniques for hacking Keith’s computer by this afternoon. Then we’ll make a start on international banking.’

  ‘What’s that in aid of?’ James asked.

  ‘Suppose Keith was on the telephone and he mentioned a euro CD and an order party. Unless you know about banking, you wouldn’t be able to tell whether Keith is on the phone to a Russian money laundering syndicate, or organising a disco.’

  ‘Sounds like this is gonna be a real riot,’ James said, flipping through one of the giant books as he tucked in a fork-load of bacon.

  Amy ignored him. ‘MI5 are preparing a dossier on the Lambayeke cartel. They’ll e-mail it here and we’ll work on that tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll finish up by testing out your hacking skills on real computers.’

  *

  James and Amy studied into the evening. You normally got at least two weeks on the background material for a mission, but everything had to be crammed into a couple of days. When it got to eight o’clock, Amy finally let him off.

  ‘I feel like a swim,’ she said. ‘Coming?’

  CHERUB had four pools. The learners’ pool was the smallest and least attractive, but Amy had taught James to swim there the year before and they both wanted to go back for old times’ sake. There was nobody else around. Most kids preferred using the main pool, which had diving boards and water slides.

  They had a ten-lap race. James kept up with Amy until they made the last turn, when she blasted off into the distance. They got out and sat on the edge. James felt like his lungs were about to burst.

  ‘You’re getting stronger,’ Amy grinned, not even short of breath. ‘You might be able to give me a real race when you grow a bit bigger and shed the puppy fat.’

  James’ heart sank when he realised Amy had been toying with him.

  ‘I’ll definitely come and visit you in Australia when I’m older,’ he said, circling his big toe through the water. ‘If that’s all right.’

  Amy smiled. ‘Of course it’s all right. My brother has mates from his CHERUB days turning up all the time.’

  ‘It’s weird,’ James said. ‘I never even think about the kids I knew before I came to CHERUB, but I feel really close to the kids I know here.’

  ‘It’s a defined psychological phenomenon,’ Amy said.

  James looked mystified. ‘You what?’

  ‘All humans have a basic need to share their lives with someone,’ Amy explained. ‘Children with their parents, adults with their wives, husbands, or whoever. Because the kids at CHERUB have no parents, they make very strong bonds with each other. There’s a big reunion on campus every couple of years. You’d be amazed how many cherubs end up marrying each other.’

  ‘Sometimes it really gets on my nerves how smart-assed everyone at CHERUB is,’ James grinned. ‘I mean, how come you know stuff like that?’

  ‘I’m doing psychology at university,’ Amy said. ‘They gave us a list of books to read before the course starts. Besides, James, you’re not exactly dumb yourself. CHERUB wouldn’t even sniff at a kid who wasn’t way above average.’

  ‘When I’m at a normal school, I’m always one of the cleverest,’ James said. ‘But I’m just kind of ordinary here.’

  ‘So anyway,’ Amy said. ‘When you arrived at CHERUB a few months after your mum died, it was natural that you formed a strong attachment to any girl who played a big part in your life.’

  ‘Like you, because you were teaching me to swim.’

  Amy nodded. ‘And Kerry, because she was your partner in basic training. Have you asked her out yet?’

  ‘God! Don’t you start,’ James moaned. ‘It’s bad enough Kyle always going on about it.’

  ‘But you and Kerry are always so sweet together. I love the way you two pick at one another like some old married couple.’

  James didn’t want to hear it. He slipped off the side of the pool and began swimming towards the deep end.

  *

  The dossier that arrived from MI5 on the Lambayeke cartel ran to over three hundred pages, though a lot of it was photos and maps. James and Amy spent Tuesday morning in one of the mission preparation rooms, skimming through the chapters and marking the most relevant stuff with highlighter pens. James could take the books on computer-hacking back to Luton for study, but the Lambayeke dossier wasn’t allowed off campus.

  After they’d worked through the dossier, Amy got five laptop PCs out of a storage room and lined them up on a desk. She set an ancient wind-up timing clock to count down from fifteen minutes.

  ‘Each one of these PCs has a list of stolen credit card numbers hidden on the hard drive,’ Amy explained. ‘You’ve got to hack each one inside the time limit, without leaving any footprints behind.’

  ‘Which one first?’ James asked.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Amy said, leaning over and starting the timer. ‘Go.’

  James had a mini heart attack before grabbing a laptop, flipping up the screen and tapping a couple of keys.

  ‘What do I do?’ he said to himself, drumming his hands on the desk in front of him.

  ‘Turning it on would be a good start,’ Amy smirked. ‘Don’t forget to read the BIOS screen before Windows starts.’

  James read the figures aloud. ‘Two-fifty-six meg of memory. Windows ME. The hard drive isn’t partitioned. If it’s ME it uses a FAT32 file system, so if I press F8 and enter DOS, I’ll be able to open any file, even if it’s password-protected.’

  James hunted around the desk for a floppy disk. He waved it at Amy.

  ‘This is the disk with the utility on that lists every file on the PC, isn’t it?’

  Amy nodded. ‘I’m not supposed to be helping you.’

  James looked around the side of the PC for somewhere to slot the floppy disk.

  ‘Oh … This bloody thing doesn’t have a floppy drive. Is there an external drive for this somewhere?’
>
  Amy shook her head.

  ‘Well, what do I do?’

  Amy shrugged and looked at the timer. ‘You’ve got twelve minutes left to figure it out.’

  James fiddled hopelessly with the laptop for another three minutes. He could happily have chucked the clicking timer out the window.

  ‘Nine minutes left.’

  ‘Tell us, Amy,’ James begged. ‘I’m totally stuck. How can I get this floppy running?’

  ‘The computer has a network interface on the back,’ Amy said. ‘You could wire it up to one of the other laptops that has a floppy drive. Then you could go into the network properties on the second laptop and change it to a networkable floppy drive. Then the floppy drive on the second PC will work as if it’s attached to the first one.’

  ‘I’m never gonna get all that done in nine minutes,’ James gasped.

  ‘You might if you hurried. But why not try something much simpler?’

  ‘Like what?’ James asked.

  ‘What’s the first thing I taught you about computer hacking? The first golden rule?’

  ‘The weakest link is the human link,’ James said.

  Amy nodded. ‘You’re trying to find a back door into the operating system before you’ve tried the front door. Never assume the information you’re looking for is encrypted or hidden. For all you know, you can open the document you want just by clicking on it.’

  ‘You’re telling me I’ve just wasted six minutes?’

  ‘Nearer to seven now,’ Amy said, smirking.

  James switched off the computer and started from scratch. The computer only had a few programs installed and the documents were all in one folder. James opened up the list and spotted one called Card Numbers. He double-clicked the mouse to open the file. A single line of text popped up on the screen: You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?

  James was in too much of a state to see the funny side. He looked at the long list of documents on the screen in front of him. There wasn’t time to open every one, but James realised he was looking for a list of numbers, which meant the file would be fairly small. He changed the view, so the computer showed him the size and format of each file. He skipped down the list, opening any text file that looked likely to be the list of numbers.

  ‘Three minutes left,’ Amy said. ‘Better get your skates on, cowboy.’

  James started opening up files as fast as he could. A few demanded a password before they’d open. James dragged these into a separate folder. When he ran out of documents that didn’t need a password, he decided to try and guess the password of the encrypted ones.

  A password can be any combination of letters and numbers, but James knew the second golden rule of computer hacking: Over 75% of passwords are easily guessed. He started working down the list of the most commonly used passwords that Amy had made him memorise the day before. Things like password, open and security.

  After these failed, James tried to find personal details about the man who owned the laptop. He remembered that one of the documents he’d opened had been a letter to a school. He clicked on the file and skimmed through it. It was signed off by a man called Julian Stipe and mentioned the names of his three children. James tried the name Julian in the password box, then Stipe. Then Julian Stipe with and without a space in between.

  ‘Ninety seconds,’ Amy said.

  He started trying the names of Mr Stipe’s kids and hit the jackpot when he typed Jennifer. The document opened, only it wasn’t the credit card numbers. The other protected documents opened with the same password and James got a massive rush when a sheet of sixteen-digit credit card numbers popped up on screen.

  ‘Bingo,’ James shouted.

  ‘Fifteen seconds,’ Amy said.

  ‘I’ve got them,’ James said. ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘Time’s up,’ Amy said. ‘Better luck next time.’

  ‘But I got them,’ James said tetchily.

  ‘I know,’ Amy said. ‘But you weren’t supposed to leave any traces behind. It was a good idea to move the password-protected documents, but you should have put them all back where they belonged and deleted the new folder you created … Ready for the next one?’

  ‘My head’s spinning,’ James said. ‘Can’t I have five minutes’ break?’

  Amy gave him an evil grin. ‘You don’t deserve a break after that sorry performance.’

  She tapped the reset button on top of the clock, then flipped up the lever to set it ticking.

  25. DIGGING

  James made such a hash of the laptop-hacking test, Amy kept him upstairs in the mission preparation room until gone nine o’clock for extra tuition. He got ratty with her as his brain stubbornly refused to accept any more information.

  When they got downstairs to the dining hall, the kitchen had finished serving. There was a fridge stocked up with sandwiches and microwave meals, but James had been looking forward to a proper dinner before his return to Luton and Zara’s dodgy cooking.

  James slammed the door of his bedroom. He was in a stinking mood. He packed his hacking textbooks and some odd bits in a backpack, then stripped to his boxers and went to take a pee before getting in bed. There was a muggy smell as he got near his bathroom, like the smell trainers get after a couple of hours on a muddy football field. It spooked him a bit. His imagination toyed with dead rats and leaking sewage as he leaned in warily and flipped on the light.

  ‘What the hell …’

  It was Lauren, propped on the toilet lid in her filthy training kit. Her hair was cropped, she had a nasty scab down her face and all the cuts and bruises you’d expect after a month of basic training.

  ‘What’s going on?’ James asked.

  ‘I messed up,’ Lauren said miserably. ‘And I’m in so much trouble,’

  She did a massive sniff, followed by a howling noise. Then she broke into five minutes of the most desperate bawling James had ever heard. He tried to give her a hug, but she wouldn’t let him anywhere near her.

  ‘Lauren,’ James pleaded, ‘I want to help you, but I can’t until you tell me what’s happened.’

  Lauren seemed to see the sense in this and looked up from the floor.

  ‘I … I … hit,’ she sniffled, unable to control herself.

  She stood up and draped her filthy arms around James’ back. Her kit stank of mud and sweat.

  ‘Calm down and sit on my bed,’ James said gently, rubbing his sister’s back.

  He stepped backwards out of his bathroom, with Lauren flopped over him. It felt like dancing with a drunk. When he got near his bed, James peeled off Lauren’s arms and she slumped on to the corner of his mattress.

  ‘I hit him,’ Lauren sniffed.

  ‘Who?’ James asked.

  ‘Mr Large.’

  James sat down beside her. ‘I doubt he even felt it, Lauren. He’s ten times your size.’

  ‘He felt it all right,’ Lauren said, salvaging a touch of composure.

  James reached over to his bedside table and got her a tissue.

  ‘Bethany injured her back yesterday morning,’ Lauren explained. ‘We were on the assault course. I was helping her as much as I could, but she was still slow. We finished the course miles behind the other kids. Mr Large started shouting his head off! You two are worthless. You’re not fit to be cherubs. You’re not even fit to eat your own puke. He got two spades and told us to start digging our own graves.’

  It was a standard torture from Mr Large’s repertoire. James and Kerry had got it a couple of times when they were in basic training. Large made you dig a massive hole, then fill it in. If he decided you weren’t fast enough, he’d make you do it again.

  ‘It’s so tough,’ Lauren said. ‘I managed, but my back and shoulders were killing me. Bethany had a bad back to start with, so you can imagine how she was after two hours’ digging. Large made me stand to attention at the edge of my grave until Bethany was finished. She kept slowing down, until she could barely drag her shovel. She begged Mr Larg
e for a drink, so he got that massive fire hose and drenched her with it. By the time he’d finished, the water was up to her knees. She was crying and sobbing, covered from head to toe in really thick mud. Then he started kicking the mud she’d already dug up back into the hole.

  ‘It was hitting her in the face and he screamed at the top of his voice: You’re too weak, little girl. You’ll never make it. Why don’t you quit? It made me so angry. I was so sick of his stupid voice. I just got this urge to make him shut up. Then I realised I still had my spade on the ground, right in front of me.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ James gasped.

  ‘When Mr Large turned around, I took this massive swing with it and whacked him behind the knees to knock him over. The first time only made him go wobbly. He started turning towards me and I was so scared. I thought he was gonna kill me, so I whacked him again. As he went down, he caught his head on a rock and got knocked out.’

  James couldn’t help smiling. ‘You knocked out Mr Large! That’s pure class.’

  ‘It’s not funny, James,’ Lauren moped. ‘I’m probably gonna get expelled. I thought I’d killed him for a minute. There was all blood coming out of his head. I was so afraid, I ran out of the training compound and didn’t stop. I wanted to speak to you before anyone else, so I went to my room and phoned you. Zara said you were on campus, but I’m not allowed upstairs to mission preparation, so I waited for you in here.’

  James pondered for a few moments.

  ‘First things first,’ he said. ‘You better wash up, then we’ll have to find Mac and sort this whole mess out.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll boot me out?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘I hope not,’ James shrugged. ‘But laying out a teacher … Let’s just say it’s not gonna go down too well.’

  *

  James found some of his smaller clothes for Lauren to wear after she got out of the shower. When they got down to the ground floor, Mac’s office was locked. They asked the receptionist on the front desk.

  ‘Mac usually heads home at about eight,’ he explained. ‘But one of the training instructors got injured and I think he’s still over at the medical unit. I can ring his mobile if it’s urgent.’