CHERUB: Black Friday

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘And which one do you think I’m concerned about right now?’ Amy asked.

  ‘I’ve not done anything with Natalka,’ Ryan said. ‘Well, I’ve done a lot of things, but not sex.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Amy said. ‘Because Natalka’s really vulnerable right now. You’ve been with her 24/7 over the last few days and this is a friendly warning to keep your pecker in your pants.’

  ‘She’s not even a virgin,’ Ryan said.

  Amy made a flat palm and Ryan jumped back with his hands cupped over his crotch. ‘Stop that,’ he gasped.

  ‘You’re a nice guy, Ryan,’ Amy said. ‘But I’m not joking about this. You’re only fourteen and I’m responsible for your welfare. Natalka’s also fourteen and has enough problems without you knocking her up.’

  Amy let go and Ryan stepped back indignantly. ‘Why does everyone keep saying I’m a nice guy?’ he shouted. ‘I’m not that bloody nice.’

  Amy looked confused, but changed the subject.

  ‘I’ve also got two bits of news that aren’t related to your raging hormones. First off, we’ve got a termination date: January 9th. A team of demolition experts are going to land here on the sixth. They’ll blow this dump, plus the planes, the runway and just about anything else within a half-mile radius. Secondly, there’s new info on Leonid.’

  ‘What info?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Remember a lawyer named Lombardi?’

  It took a couple of seconds before Ryan nodded. ‘He was the guy Ethan Aramov tried to contact the night his mum got murdered.’

  ‘That’s him,’ Amy said. ‘TFU headquarters has tracked down more communications by Leonid Aramov using the Russian military network. It seems Lombardi has been wiring twenty thousand dollars a month from a bank account in Nevada to a Mexican bank. The Mexican account is in some random name that we assume Leonid is using for cover, but more importantly, the Nevada account tracks back to a company owned jointly by Leonid and Galenka Aramov.’

  Ryan looked confused. ‘But I thought Lombardi was Galenka Aramov’s lawyer.’

  ‘He was,’ Amy said. ‘But apparently, Lombardi also does work for Leonid and while we thought Galenka and Leonid Aramov had no dealings with one another, they apparently jointly owned a holding corporation with assets worth at least twenty million dollars.’

  Ryan thought out loud, trying to remember a boring campus lecture on businesses and fraud. ‘Holding corporations exist solely to own shares in other companies, usually as a way of avoiding tax or hiding the real owners. So what does this mysterious holding company own?’

  ‘We don’t know that yet,’ Amy said. ‘And it’s Christmas Day, so TFU only has a skeleton staff on duty in Dallas. The holding company’s accounts and legal paperwork are filed in the state of Delaware, and their records bureau is closed until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Can’t we just pull Lombardi in for questioning?’

  Amy shook her head. ‘He’s a lawyer, and a respectable US citizen. That means Lombardi has no obligation to give details of his client’s affairs. We certainly can’t arrest him based on vague suspicions that he’s wiring money to Leonid Aramov. Dr D would like to put Lombardi under surveillance, maybe have someone conduct an illicit search of his office, but her bosses are on her back and she could lose her pension if she breaks too many rules.’

  ‘Can’t we just kill Leonid once we know where he is?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘We could,’ Amy said. ‘But we’re an intelligence organisation not a death squad. And taking out one person is pointless if it just means Leonid’s associates, or one of his sons, takes over his dirty dealings. But I’d bet my life that Leonid’s up to something appalling in Mexico, and once Andre and Tamara locate him, I doubt it’ll take us too long to work out what that is.’

  35. JUÁREZ

  Andre and Tamara reached Doha with a few hours to spare and left the Middle East on a Boxing Day morning flight to Amsterdam. After the six-hour flight there was a five-hour layover, and without euros or a credit card all they could do was sit at the departure gate, watching rolling news and getting cups of water from a drinking fountain.

  When he sighted a man snoozing on a chair with his mobile and glasses resting on a newspaper beside him, Andre took the next seat. After waiting long enough for everyone to assume they were together, Andre grabbed the handset. Tamara looked about anxiously as her son flipped it open and sent a text to a number Ted Brasker had given him:

  Flight KL310 AMS to CJS.

  Fifteen hours later their 777 was losing height over a sprawling metropolis. The northern half was El Paso, Texas. A million people, mostly living in estates of large red-roofed houses, bisected by arrow-straight highways. The southern half was Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The area around the border was dominated by flat-roofed industrial buildings while its two million souls were packed much tighter than their American cousins.

  From his window seat, Andre could see roads merging towards the border crossings, with cars queuing ten lanes thick to get across. He turned to his mum, smiling because a gruelling forty-hour journey was almost over, but also anxious about what he’d find when he got off the plane.

  Tamara’s backpack didn’t appear on the baggage carousel, but neither of them spoke Spanish and they had no onward address so they decided not to report it.

  They had no arrival instructions and didn’t know what to expect as they got the entry stamps on their passports and stepped into a chaotic arrivals lounge. After the fire at the apartment and the slightly sinister Kenneth with his mobile phone detector, Andre expected some kind of subterfuge, but after a second a voice he recognised spoke his mother’s name.

  ‘Tamara!’

  Leonid Aramov looked very different. His Russian thug look, with tight jeans and leather jacket, had been replaced by a crisply tailored suit. He’d lost weight, tanned in the warmer climate and changed his crop for shoulder-length hair to hide the ear that his mother had cut off.

  ‘You look well,’ Tamara said, managing a smile as she hugged her ex-husband.

  After the hug and an awkward kiss, Tamara backed off. Andre got a jolt of fear when he caught his father’s eye. Everyone had assumed that Leonid would forgive his betrayal in order to get back with Tamara, but can you be certain about anything when you’re dealing with a man who killed his sister and poisoned his mother?

  ‘You’re starting to look like a man,’ Leonid said, but changed tack when he sensed Andre’s nerves. ‘I know you loved your grandmother, but I love you also. No grudges?’

  Leonid held out his hand and Andre shook it. ‘No grudges,’ Andre agreed.

  ‘My car is near,’ Leonid said, as he took Andre’s pack. ‘Is this all you have?’

  ‘I lost a bag but I thought it better not to report it,’ Tamara said.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Leonid said. ‘You can wash and sleep. Tomorrow we’ll go shopping to replace your things.’

  ‘I know you took a risk, reaching out to us,’ Tamara said, as they began walking.

  ‘You’ve always been my special one,’ Leonid said, almost making Andre gag.

  But while he was being all smiley for Tamara, Leonid reverted to type as they stepped out of the shabby terminal and got blocked by a couple of raggedy teenagers offering to carry their bags. He swept his hand, threatening a slap, and yelled something in Spanish which made the pair scuttle off.

  ‘You have to be firm,’ Leonid said. ‘There’s street scum everywhere here.’

  The multistorey lot was notable for metal grilles and an armed guard who checked their parking ticket before letting them enter.

  ‘I thought we might be picked up by a guard or something,’ Andre said.

  ‘I keep my life small here,’ Leonid said. ‘No big organisation. No bodyguards or flunkies, or stress like I had at the Kremlin. In a few months I’ll be done with my business here. Out of the game for good, I hope.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Tamara asked.

  ‘Write an autobiography,’ Leonid said, clearly
joking. ‘Charity fundraisers … ’

  Andre had spent his early years craving moments when his parents acted normal. He still found the happy families fantasy soothing, even though he’d grown out of believing it could really happen.

  ‘I can’t see you like that,’ Tamara said, as Leonid put his arm around her back.

  Andre felt awkward, because for all the planning nobody had really discussed what would go on when his parents got back together. Leonid had bullied and scared Tamara and refused to let her leave the Kremlin after he divorced her, but they’d once loved each other and Andre often sensed that his mother didn’t hate Leonid quite as much as she claimed to.

  Leonid’s car was a Lexus, notable for bulletproof glass. A twenty-minute drive took them through busy traffic to a gated apartment complex with lush gardens behind CCTV and electrified fencing.

  After an underground garage full of Mercedes and Bentleys, a lift took them to a large duplex apartment with a long plunge pool. Curving steps led from this balcony into a communal garden with huge palms shading an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

  ‘Better than the Kremlin, eh?’ Leonid said, as he threw an apartment key down on a kitchen island the length of a car. ‘Though interior décor’s not my forte!’

  Andre saw what his father meant as he looked beyond the sleek kitchen into a double-height living-room. The selection of indoor palms looked like they’d been shot up with an airgun and the only furniture was half a dozen beanbags and an extremely fancy multi-gym plonked right in the middle of the floor.

  ‘You can use the gym,’ Leonid joked to Andre. ‘Bulk up like your brothers. Speaking of which, Boris, Alex, stop being rude. Get out here and say hello.’

  Seventeen-year-old Alex came out first, his well-muscled frame clad in football shorts and a tight grey vest with blobs of pink ice cream down it.

  ‘Tamara, squirt,’ Alex said, smiling at his stepmother but apparently less keen on Andre.

  Twenty-year-old Boris came from a room upstairs, tying a gown around his waist and trailed by a beautiful dark-skinned girl. Andre’s half-brothers were both graduates of the Kremlin’s teen bodybuilding cult and had regarded Vlad as one of their few close friends.

  ‘Look what crawled out of the dung heap,’ Boris said, as he came down an open glass staircase glowering at Andre.

  ‘Hey,’ Leonid shouted. ‘None of that, you hear? Andre is flesh and blood. This is a fresh start for us.’

  ‘He betrayed you,’ Boris shouted, as his massive physique loomed over Andre.

  Andre knew he couldn’t back off if he was to have any chance of winning his brother’s respect. ‘You’re not as big as you used to be, Boris,’ Andre said. ‘Can’t get the good steroids out here?’

  Leonid got between his two sons as Boris closed on Andre.

  ‘Don’t start,’ he told Boris. ‘I made a decision. You’re old enough to leave, so you either live under my roof and respect it, or piss off.’

  Boris scowled. ‘He was disloyal and you can’t paper it over, just because you’re soft for his mother.’

  Boris was way bigger than his father, but Leonid had no hesitation in stepping up and giving his oldest boy a slap.

  ‘Go back upstairs, screw your Mexican whore,’ Leonid shouted. Then he looked at Alex. ‘Take Andre up to one of the spare bedrooms. Find him some towels and bedding.’

  Alex was hardly an ideal big brother, but he’d been known to take on vaguely human qualities when he wasn’t under Boris’ influence.

  ‘You been OK?’ Alex asked, as Andre followed him to the staircase.

  Andre didn’t want to be a thug like his brothers, but it always pissed him off that they were tough guys, while the genetic lottery had left him chubby and small for his age. This jealousy got rammed home as he followed Alex’s ripped torso to the upper level.

  ‘This room’s OK,’ Alex said, as he took Andre into a spacious room with en-suite shower, built-in wardrobes and a double bed with bare mattress. ‘Dad picked up some extra bedding for you and your mum. It’s in the utility room at the end of the hall.’

  Andre looked out of the window and saw that his room had a depressing view of air conditioning units and maintenance sheds.

  ‘Be careful around Boris,’ Alex warned. ‘He had a big crush on a girl in Kyrgyzstan. He lost her when we got kicked out of the Kremlin.’

  Andre felt like reminding his brother that they’d been kicked out of the Kremlin after Leonid killed their aunt Galenka and tried to kill their grandma. But Alex was offering rare crumbs of brotherly love, so he didn’t push it.

  ‘I’ll steer a wide berth,’ Andre said.

  Alex pointed to the TV. ‘You still a video game head?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Andre admitted.

  ‘Thought so,’ Alex said. ‘I rigged my Xbox up under there. I’ve not touched it for ages, so you might as well make use.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Andre said. ‘All I had for entertainment in Dubai was old Simpsons episodes.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to shower and whatever,’ Alex said.

  Alex’s friendliness was a pleasant surprise. Andre wondered if his brother had fallen out with Boris, or had maybe just become isolated, living in a strange country where he didn’t speak the language.

  Andre kicked the door of his room shut and started undressing, smelling reminders that he’d been in the same clothes for three days solid. But he was intrigued by the possibilities of the Xbox and before going into the shower he turned it on, anxious to see if it was linked to the Internet. After picking the Xbox Live option, he typed in his account and password and clicked log on.

  There was a long wait, but Andre punched the air as his home screen started loading. He selected the messenger box and picked a friend called Slava, which would actually connect him to TFU headquarters.

  Where are you? flashed up.

  There was no keyboard, so he took a couple of minutes to type the name of the apartment complex using a control pad. Seconds after he’d pressed send, Alex knocked on the door.

  ‘I’m getting undressed,’ Andre said, as he grabbed a remote and flicked the TV to a random channel.

  ‘I’ve seen your flabby little bod before,’ Alex said, as he stepped in. ‘Forgot to say. Don’t use your login on the Xbox, or your Facebook and stuff on the iPad downstairs. Dad reckons someone could track us down just from a login.’

  ‘Right,’ Andre said. ‘Guess that makes sense.’

  Andre smiled to himself as he deleted his login details from the Xbox, switched the TV to a channel showing Spanish cartoons and headed for the shower. He’d told TFU where he was, and that was all that mattered.

  36. LISSON

  ‘So, I take it you didn’t just invite me up here to smack me in the balls again?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Aww, stop making a fuss,’ Amy said. ‘Tough kid like you can handle that.’

  Ryan smirked. ‘I ought to report you for child abuse.’

  ‘Report me all you like. I’m out of a job when I get back to Dallas anyway.’

  It was Boxing Day evening and Ryan was in the big planning room on the Kremlin’s fourth floor. ‘So why’d you call me up here?’ he asked. ‘I can’t hang about, I’ve got Natalka downstairs, ready for some hot steamy sex.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck,’ Amy said, though she couldn’t help smiling. ‘I thought you’d like an update. We’ve had one quick contact with Andre. Now we know where he is, we’re going to send someone out to liaise with him.’

  ‘Ted Brasker?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘That was the original plan,’ Amy said. ‘But the silly arse did his back in. So we need a replacement, and as our operation to find Leonid hasn’t exactly been given approval at the highest level, we’re having trouble finding anyone else at TFU willing to put their career prospects on the line.’

  ‘What does hasn’t exactly been given approval mean?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Officially, Dr D is supposed to report to her bosses at the CIA before launching any new
operation,’ Amy explained. ‘She’s blurred the issue by claiming that finding Leonid is part of the mission we’re on here.’

  ‘So is it, or isn’t it?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Well, our job is to wind down Aramov Clan operations. You could argue that finding Leonid is part of that remit, or you could argue that sending a mother and son off to Mexico to find someone who was kicked out of the clan six months earlier is completely separate.’

  ‘Politics,’ Ryan said dismissively. ‘Life would be so much easier if they just left us alone to get on with our jobs.’

  ‘True,’ Amy said. ‘But it’ll never happen.’

  ‘And did we get anywhere with the Lombardi thing?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘The information management team in Dallas has been digging. Ethan’s mum, Galenka Aramov, and his uncle, Leonid Aramov, set up a holding corporation called Vineyard Eight. They each owned fifty per cent of the corporation and Lombardi was the only other company director.

  ‘Vineyard Eight bought up a satellite navigation company called Lisson Communications. Lisson built navigation systems for US military vehicles and was one of the first companies to market in-car navigation. But their sat-navs never cut it and Galenka and Leonid bought a company that was nearly broke.’

  ‘Why buy a company that’s no good?’

  ‘It was a big risk, but the Aramovs did well out of it. Galenka sold off the navigation division to a larger rival, but Lisson retained a lot of valuable patents.’

  ‘I’ve never exactly got patents and trademarks and stuff,’ Ryan admitted.

  ‘Basically, if you invent something you have the right to patent your invention. Then you can either stop people from copying your idea, or charge them money for the right to use it. Lisson Communications did a lot of research into navigation technology and owned some very important patents. Now, every time someone makes a GPS system, Lisson charges the manufacturer one point three cents for using its patents. That doesn’t sound like much, until you realise that over a billion phones and other GPS devices are manufactured every year.’