CHERUB: Black Friday

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘We’d better take this,’ she said. ‘It’s all we’ve got.’

  As Tamara grabbed a larger pack, Andre dashed back inside and picked up his watch, the Nokia phone and a carrier bag from the mall. The smoke was dense enough to taste as they merged into a crowd heading for the staircase.

  At ground level, caretakers were running towards the block, pulling on fluorescent fire-marshal vests. The escape routes had been designed for two or three people per apartment, but with up to ten in each, the stairs quickly jammed.

  Everyone seemed content to shuffle until there was a loud bang, most likely the bottle from an unauthorised gas stove. Andre found himself crushed and panicked as everyone pushed down the stairs. A few men in construction gear discovered that they could exit more quickly by swinging on to an overhang and sliding down a pipe.

  Eventually Andre reached the bottom step, with his mum a little behind and a fire marshal herding everyone to an assembly point in the courtyard of an adjoining block. When the pair arrived, they turned back and stood watching burgeoning flames, amidst a group of Pakistanis whose matching polo shirts bore the logo of a company that installed elevators.

  ‘Andre, Tamara,’ a man said softly. ‘Don’t look around. Someone may be watching us.’

  Andre glimpsed back instinctively and saw a black man in a grey blazer and sunglasses. He had the slim build and high cheekbones of an Ethiopian, or Kenyan.

  ‘My name is Kenneth,’ the man said, speaking English with a strong East African accent. ‘I have a blue Saab parked at the end of block six. Give me thirty seconds. When you meet me I’ll be at the wheel with the engine running.’

  Smoke now wafted out of doorways on the next floor up, and people recoiled as a second gas bottle exploded. Andre was shocked by the realisation that this fire had been set to create confusion and enable them to get away without being observed.

  A pair of fire engines were closing in as Andre and Tamara set off. The Saab was unlocked; they both got in the same rear door, with Andre scrambling across to the far seat, and Kenneth pressing the accelerator pedal the instant the door closed.

  They had their packs and bags on their laps as Kenneth took a couple of quick turns, then hit a main highway and doubled back towards the smoking building to ensure they weren’t being tailed.

  ‘My detector informs me you have one mobile phone,’ Kenneth said. ‘I’m afraid I must dispose of it along with any laptops or Wi-Fi devices you may have. I will stop momentarily to arrange our luggage. We must then drive for many hours.’

  ‘How long?’ Andre asked, doing the talking because Tamara’s English was poor.

  ‘Your first flight leaves from Doha in Qatar in sixteen hours. If the traffic is good, I have arranged a hotel at the airport where you will have an hour or two to take room service, shower and make yourselves comfortable.’

  As Kenneth said this, he pulled back on to the highway, but immediately cut across the oncoming traffic and rolled into a parking lot. They pulled up in front of an apartment complex that was slightly nicer than the one they’d just left. Kenneth hopped out and posted Andre’s phone and Tamara’s iPod into a storm drain, then he opened the trunk and packed their luggage away.

  Back in the car, Kenneth passed a brown envelope and a paper bag from a posh deli through the gap between the front seats.

  ‘I couldn’t find Russian food, but I hope this is to your satisfaction. I must also ask you to check the passports. It is important to memorise the spelling of names, dates and place of birth and your address details.’

  Andre rested the bag of cakes and sandwiches on the leather armrest as Tamara ripped the envelope. She quickly glanced through a travel itinerary taking them from Doha to Amsterdam and then on to Ciudad Juárez in Mexico. Andre reached out and grabbed a Czech passport with a three-year-old photo of himself inside, along with visas for Qatar and Mexico.

  Andre was no expert, but the documents were either real or extremely good fakes. As he studied the passport, Tamara unzipped a clear plastic pouch, which contained other ID such as a Czech driver’s licence and credit cards. Some of these items had been scratched and worn, because customs officers get suspicious if all your ID looks brand new.

  ‘How long to Mexico?’ Andre asked, as he picked the itinerary sheet off Tamara’s lap.

  The time differences made it tough to work out when they’d arrive in Mexico, but the Saab’s sat-nav screen was estimating fourteen hours to Le Meridian hotel in Doha. Then it was a six-hour flight to Amsterdam and thirteen more from there to Ciudad Juárez.

  ‘Thirty-three hours,’ Andre groaned. ‘And that’s before you include check-ins, stopovers and hold-ups.’

  Tamara smiled. ‘And your cheap-ass father has booked us in economy class the entire way.’

  James was bloated from a classic Christmas lunch and tipsy from three glasses of wine as he squelched across soggy campus grass in wellies. Sister Lauren, her boyfriend Rat and long-standing mates Bruce Norris and Kyle Blueman were also in the group, along with thirty other past and present CHERUB agents, some senior CHERUB staff and a dozen little red-shirt kids.

  For the previous eighteen months, a large area of campus to the east of the main building had been sectioned off behind a twelve-metre-high fence. CHERUB kids were also barred from a two-hundred-metre exclusion zone around the fence in case they were spotted by construction crews working at a high level.

  But today was Christmas, so the construction workers were at home and Zara Asker had announced that supervised groups could be taken through an opening in the fence for a first glimpse at the future of CHERUB campus.

  ‘Christ, it’s huge!’ James said, as he ducked through the opening and followed his sister into a queue for yellow safety helmets.

  CHERUB campus had evolved from a disused village school and a few temporary huts when the organisation was founded in 1945, but Campus Village was the biggest construction project in the organisation’s history.

  ‘We’re a little over two years from scheduled completion,’ Chairwoman Zara Asker announced, her yellow wellies slurping in mud as she led the group along a curved track. ‘Eventually fifty houses will give us accommodation for three hundred agents. Six kids will live in each house, with a communal lounge and kitchen space downstairs and three private bedrooms first and second floors. Each bedroom will have its own separate bathroom and a quiet study area.’

  James was at the rear as the group reached a circular mud patch, with the half-built village stretching off down three branching alleyways. The buildings nearest to his position were barely out of the ground, but some of the buildings further away were already watertight and there was an open area nearby stacked with mounds of lumber and breeze blocks.

  ‘This is not a playground!’ Zara yelled, ripping into a couple of little red shirts stamping in a puddle. ‘If you two want to spend the rest of Christmas Day sitting silently in my office, you’re going exactly the right way about it.’

  The chairwoman then returned to her gentle spiel. ‘As well as expanding the number of agents CHERUB can take, the idea of Campus Village is to create a proper family atmosphere, with agents living in proper houses instead of long, impersonal corridors. Each house will have a small outdoor area, where you can hang out and have barbecues. Larger gaps between houses will have basketball areas, a playground, and the entire area will be cycle friendly.’

  ‘Will we be able to have pets?’ one of the red shirts asked.

  ‘At the moment, qualified agents can’t have pets because they can’t be looked after when they go on missions. However, if six agents are living in a house it’s unlikely that everyone will be on missions at the same time, so we’re considering allowing each house to have a dog or cat.’

  There were eight little kids in the tour group and they all seemed really keen on this idea.

  ‘The ground and first floors of each house also have full access for people with injuries or disabilities.’

  ‘What about carers?’ a
navy shirt asked.

  ‘Carers will have separate offices where you can drop in. They’ll also have full access to each house, so don’t go thinking you can lock them out and throw a wild party.’

  ‘Boo!’ someone said.

  ‘When will it be ready, Mrs?’

  ‘2014 hopefully,’ Zara said. ‘If the project stays on schedule, the village will open in time for CHERUB’s seventy-fifth anniversary. We’re trying to get the Queen to cut the ribbon. Phase two of the project will involve demolishing the education block, building new staff quarters and refurbishing the main building as an education and admin facility. That will take until 2016.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll have fixed the leaky roof in the mission control building by then?’ James asked.

  Zara smiled as the rest of the crowd laughed. ‘That roof will be the death of me! But I’m glad to say that the village uses good old-fashioned pitched roofs, not bits of curved aluminium that cost three grand each and fall off every time there’s a stiff breeze.

  ‘Now, you’re all welcome to go off and look around, but this is a building site so don’t touch anything. Don’t venture off the marked paths and I warn you now that anyone who throws mud will find all their Christmas gifts being shipped off to the nearest charity shop.’

  James followed Lauren and Rat at a slow stroll as excited red shirts started belting off, pointing at houses and saying which one they wanted to live in when the village opened.

  ‘It’s impressive,’ Kyle said, doing a 360 while anxiously trying to avoid getting mud on anything except his boots. ‘Homely without being twee, modern without being sterile.’

  Lauren nodded in agreement. ‘I really liked my room when I lived on campus, but this new set-up makes the main building look kinda shit.’

  ‘These trousers are dry clean only,’ Kyle shouted anxiously, as a grey-shirt boy and girl chased by, flicking mud off the back of their boots.

  As James buried gloved hands in his jacket and set off up a gentle slope towards the top of the village, he felt his phone vibrating. It said International on the display.

  ‘Happy Christmas, James,’ Kerry said.

  James smiled as he settled on a half-built wall. ‘Hey, how’s it going? Did you just get up?’

  ‘It’s ten o’clock here,’ Kerry said. ‘Just had my shower and stuff.’

  ‘You’re on your own?’

  Kerry sighed. ‘I had dinner with Mark last night, but he’s driven up to his grandma’s today.’

  ‘That’s crappy,’ James said, though he couldn’t resist rubbing it in because he’d all but begged her to come back to campus for Christmas. ‘Everyone apart from you is here. Lauren, Kyle, Bruce, Rat, the twins. Gabrielle’s around, though I’ve not spoken to her. I’m a little drunk, and we’re squelching around looking at Campus Village.’

  ‘Sounds fun,’ Kerry said. ‘I bought a ticket for a Christmas dinner thing at the university, but I might just bum around the apartment.’

  James felt a bit sorry for Kerry, but he didn’t know what to say, and she spoke again after an awkward pause.

  ‘I was thinking about Zara’s job offer,’ Kerry said. ‘It’s the right step for you. You should take it.’

  ‘What about the right step for us?’ James asked.

  ‘Sometimes … ’ Kerry began. ‘Sometimes I think I still love you as much as ever. But … ’

  Kerry was saying nothing, but somehow James understood exactly what the but meant.

  ‘I don’t know how we got to this place,’ James said.

  ‘I think we should live our lives and see where we end up,’ Kerry said, sounding a little tearful.

  ‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘Well you at least try and have a good day, yeah? I’d better catch up with Lauren and the others. We’ve only got ten minutes to explore before Zara brings the next group in.’

  34. BOXING

  ‘It’s kind of beautiful in the sunset,’ Ryan announced, as he turned slowly with arms held out wide.

  Christmas Day sun was setting and the thick frost in the valley around the Kremlin had taken on an orange hue.

  ‘And the air’s so much better now. When the planes were coming in and out, you always had that petrol smell clinging to the back of your throat.’

  While Ryan eulogised, Natalka stood a few steps further up the valley, wearing a scowl and a thick purple ski jacket. The end of her cigarette glowed red and smoke wafted from her nostrils as she spoke.

  ‘I’m freezing. Let’s go back.’

  Ryan snorted. ‘We’ve barely walked a kilometre.’

  ‘And what’s gonna happen in the next kilometre?’ Natalka asked. ‘Will magic bunnies jump out of the snow and grant me three wishes? I don’t think so. I’ll just get more bored and more bloody cold.’

  ‘All right,’ Ryan said. He sounded annoyed, because although he was nuts about Natalka, when you did stuff with her you did what she wanted or nothing at all. ‘So we just go back to your room?’

  ‘The outdoors is shit,’ Natalka said, flicking her spent cigarette away. ‘I need a buzz. Get some booze, get shit-faced. Play max vol music until the neighbour bangs on the wall.’

  Ryan laughed. ‘First off, the guy in the next room left for Uzbekistan two days ago. Second, don’t you ever worry about your drinking? The last time you got hammered, you almost got raped by Vlad.’

  ‘But you’ll protect me now,’ Natalka said, putting on a syrupy voice.

  ‘How do you know I won’t take advantage of you?’

  ‘You could have done that three nights ago,’ Natalka pointed out. ‘You’re a nice boy.’

  ‘You make nice sound like a bad thing,’ Ryan said, as Natalka came towards him.

  ‘I like guys who are a bit scary,’ Natalka said. ‘Danger turns me on.’

  ‘I did beat Vlad’s face in with a fire extinguisher,’ Ryan pointed out. ‘That wasn’t nice.’

  ‘True,’ Natalka said, rewarding Ryan with a kiss before setting off down the valley towards the Kremlin. ‘And I think it might be fate.’

  ‘What’s fate?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Well, your dad died, then my mum got busted. And here we are, two little orphans with sod all except each other.’

  Natalka was a couple of paces ahead and her bum looked great. Ryan wished it really was just the two of them. No plots or plans. Looking out for each other, instead of a relationship based on lies.

  ‘Maybe when I go back to my aunt in Russia you could come with me,’ Natalka said.

  Ryan laughed. ‘I’m sure your aunt will love it when you rock up with a boyfriend. Besides, I’m Ukrainian. I wouldn’t be allowed to live in Russia.’

  ‘I hate my aunt,’ Natalka said. ‘I’m so pissed off that my mum wrote her a letter. She should have just left me here.’

  ‘I don’t wanna talk about going away,’ Ryan said, before giving Natalka an almighty two-handed shove into a bush at the side of the path.

  ‘AAARGH!’ Natalka screamed, as she emerged from tangled branches with snow melt running down her back and enormous wet patches around her knees. ‘Bastard! What was that for?’

  ‘Just being nice,’ Ryan said.

  Natalka’s mock scowl and wagging finger made Ryan laugh. ‘I’ll get you for that, Ryan. When you’re least expecting it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so scared,’ Ryan said.

  ‘You know what’d be cool?’ Natalka said. ‘We should go up to the fifth floor. Rob the shit out of Josef Aramov and then run away together. I bet he’s got Rolexes, and gold, and stuff.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Ryan scoffed. ‘The Aramovs own every cop within fifty kilometres. We’d be lucky to last an hour before Aramov security tracked us down, beat the living shit out of us and dumped us out in the snow.’

  ‘Nice boy,’ Natalka teased.

  Ryan tried giving another shove, but Natalka dived out of the way. He lost his footing and ended up doing the splits.

  ‘Oww,’ Ryan yelled, clutching a strained thigh muscle as Natalka h
owled with laughter. She offered him a hand up, but then pulled out and turned it into an up-yours gesture.

  When Ryan finally got up under his own steam, he pulled Natalka in close for a snog. By this time they were within sight of the Kremlin lobby and when they broke off they raced each other and stood giggling in the lobby as they pulled off gloves and scarves.

  ‘Let’s never do the walk thing again,’ Natalka said.

  Ryan was back into the range of the fifth-floor Wi-Fi, and as there was no other signal around here, he knew that the vibration coming from his phone had to be an instant message from Amy.

  ‘Cold always makes me pee,’ Ryan explained, leaving a trail of wet boot prints as he strode across the near-empty bar to the gents’.

  There was nobody else in the evil-smelling space and he pulled the phone out and read a short e-mail message.

  I’m on 5, get up here ASAP.

  ‘I’ve got a job lifting some boxes,’ Ryan told Natalka when he’d stepped out. ‘Odd jobs for the Aramovs are my only source of dough, so I’d better jump to it.’

  Natalka shrugged like she didn’t care and went inside her coat for another cigarette as Ryan headed up to the fifth floor. He wasn’t supposed to see Amy unnecessarily, even now that the Kremlin was almost empty. He found her in a small bedroom which was part of Josef Aramov’s quarters.

  ‘Going well with Natalka?’ Amy asked, sounding surprisingly forceful.

  ‘Happy Christmas to you too,’ Ryan said cheekily. ‘What’s pissed you off?’

  Amy formed a flat palm and gave Ryan a gentle jab in the ball sack.

  ‘Hey!’ Ryan yelped. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘Three things that earn you automatic expulsion from CHERUB,’ Amy said, getting close and glowering into Ryan’s eyes. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Willingly taking Class A drugs, revealing the existence of CHERUB and underage sex.’