The one thing all the women had in common was beauty. Some were small and curvaceous, others tall and catwalk thin, but there wasn’t a moustache, pug nose, missing tooth, saggy breast or flabby stomach amongst the whole lot of them.
Ning had learned a lot by watching and reading all the news about her stepfather’s human smuggling operation. She shuddered as she realised she was standing amidst Grade-A human stock, destined for the European sex trade.
Until now Ning had consoled herself with the thought that her stepfather’s arrest had at least saved thousands of young women from suffering, but apparently the trade in pretty girls was getting along fine without him.
A Kyrgyz customs official stood at the bottom of the steps into the plane. The women all had to hand him a small amount of Chinese or Kyrgyz currency before he’d inspect their passports and put a stamp inside. Ning worried that she only had dollars, but Maks gestured like he was raising a drink to his mouth and the official let her through without even opening her passport.
Ning passed the wealthy couple who had a row at the front with extra legroom, then did as Maks instructed, finding the single windowless seat at the back of the plane. There was a small galley alongside, but the fridges, ovens and water heaters had been stripped out, leaving holes which had been stuffed with litter.
After tossing her backpack into the luggage rack above her head and tucking Kyrgyz and Chinese passports inside her jeans, Ning fastened her seatbelt. The North Korean girls were boarding and gawped at the interior of the plane as if it was an alien mothership. They didn’t start sitting down until a big-arsed stewardess yelled in Korean.
Ning rested her head against the curved fuselage. She tried not to think about Dan because she was sure she’d start crying. Everything around her felt corrupt and dirty and after all she’d been through in the past ten days, this felt like the natural state of things.
She hoped it would get better when she landed in Europe, but she wasn’t confident that it would.
23. PLZEN
Monday was Ethan’s first day back at school and Ryan hung out with him most of the day. Yannis had grudgingly accepted Ryan, partly because it was also Guillermo’s first day back from suspension and Ryan provided physical protection, but mostly because Ethan made it clear that he liked Ryan and was going to speak to him whether Yannis liked it or not.
Yannis and Ethan had chess club after school.
‘You can come along,’ Ethan said, as the trio rolled out of last period English class.
Yannis jumped at an opportunity to swat Ryan down. ‘Mr Spike won’t let him join this late in the term,’
Ethan laughed. ‘He won’t care. We’ve only got twelve members, and half never turn up.’
Ryan had to learn about Ethan’s background by spending as much time as possible with him. Normally he’d have said yes, but he’d woken with a scratchy throat that morning and over the day it had morphed into a full-blown cold, complete with bunged-up nose and thudding headache.
‘I’m getting the bus home,’ Ryan said. ‘I feel crappy and can’t play chess to save my life. I always forget how the horsey moves.’
‘You mean the knight,’ Yannis said, missing the fact that Ryan was making a joke.
Ethan smiled. ‘Don’t want your germs anyway,’ he said. ‘Expect I’ll see you at the bus stop tomorrow if you’re feeling better.’
‘Expect I’ll be in,’ Ryan said. ‘I usually shrug colds off fast.’
Ethan couldn’t easily carry his backpack with his broken arm in a cast, and Yannis looked delighted as he grabbed it and headed upstairs to chess club.
Ryan’s beachfront house was a fifteen-minute drive by car, but the school bus detoured to drop kids off at every housing development so it took nearer forty minutes for Ryan to get home.
‘Hey, Amy,’ Ryan croaked, as he leaned into the kitchen.
Amy sat on a stool reading through a slab of TFU briefing documents.
‘Oooh, you sound rough,’ she said, as she stood up and put her hand on Ryan’s forehead. ‘You’re burning up. You want me to drive to the drug store and get you something?’
‘Nah,’ Ryan said. ‘I’ve got paracetamol in my medical pack upstairs. I’m gonna swallow a couple and soak in a hot bath.’
‘Drink some orange juice,’ Amy said. ‘Vitamin C is good for colds.’
‘Are Ted and Dr D back yet?’
Amy looked at her watch. ‘Their flight from Dallas should have landed by now. They’ll be in by dinnertime, which is roast chicken before you ask.’
Ryan headed upstairs to his room. It wasn’t like CHERUB campus was a dump, but it would definitely seem like a comedown when this mission ended. His room was at the end of the second floor, with a balcony overlooking the sea, ten metres of wardrobes and a giant bed with a huge circular tub at its foot. Most impressively, Ryan could dial in his required bath temperature, press a button and a torrent would fill the tub in under three minutes.
As he soaked he watched a dumb police-chase show on a Bang & Olufsen LCD. Amy brought up a tray with orange juice, peppermint tea and some buttered toast.
‘If you’re gonna be sick this is definitely the way to do it,’ Ryan said, as Amy turned out the pockets of his dirty school clothes.
Ryan finally got out when he started to look like a raisin, but he could only be bothered to walk three paces and crash forward on to his bed, rolling up in his duvet rather than towelling off. When he woke an hour later, Dr D stood over him looking cross.
‘Is it dinner already?’ Ryan asked, looking down anxiously and reassured that all his private bits were covered up. The headache had gone off slightly, but his nose was clogged.
‘You didn’t brief Amy when you got home from school,’ Dr D said.
Ryan noted that she was wearing ginormous sunglasses and an odd dress with huge shoulder pads.
‘Nothing much happened,’ Ryan said. ‘I went to school. Yannis was there all day. You can’t really talk properly when he’s around, and most of the time it’s lessons and stuff.’
‘You need to engineer a situation,’ Dr D said. ‘You’ll never attain the level of intimacy required to find out everything we need to know about Gillian Kitsell. We need to set her up with a female agent, but I need information on the type of woman she goes for. What do her ex-girlfriends look like? How did they meet? Does Gillian frequent gay bars or clubs?’
Ryan blew a stream of snot into a tissue before he spoke. ‘I’ve tried, but there are no photos around the house. Gillian’s study has an electronic lock, her bedroom is on the top floor where I’ve got no business going. And I can’t keep asking Ethan questions about his mum’s sex life without risking our friendship.’
Dr D folded her arms and sounded hostile. ‘Well you seem to have spent a lot of face time with Ethan for precious little result.’
‘It’s only been a week,’ Ryan said angrily. ‘Ethan and his mum are close. I actually think Ethan knows more about his mother’s business and family background than he’s admitting to. Give it another couple of weeks and I’ll engineer your situation. I’ll invite Ethan over here when everyone else is out, confess a few of my darkest secrets, and hopefully he’ll open up with a few of his in return.’
‘You could arrange it for this weekend,’ Dr D suggested.
‘It’s too soon,’ Ryan said. ‘Besides, his mum won’t let him stay out till he’s feeling better.’
‘And what about today?’ Dr D said. ‘Amy says Gillian arrived home with Ethan and Yannis in the back of her car. So it’s Ethan’s first day back at school, and you’ve allowed them to fall back into their familiar pattern of hanging together without you there. If that goes on, Yannis could easily cut you out again.’
Ryan jumped out of bed, holding his duvet around his waist and yelled furiously. ‘I’m sick,’ he shouted. ‘I’m a trained agent and I know what I’m doing. I will stay friends with Ethan. I will get information about Gillian. I will fix the burglar alarm sensors and break the lock
on their back door so that you can get a man inside the secure basement room. But it all takes time, and you being pushy, and nagging me every five minutes and generally getting on my tits, is doing no good whatsoever.’
Amy heard Ryan shouting and ran up the stairs. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked as she ran in. ‘What’s going on?’
Ryan pointed at Dr D. ‘Either she goes back to TFU headquarters in Dallas and stays there, while I get on with my job, or I’m quitting and going back to campus.’
Amy looked at Ryan, who seemed upset, and Dr D, who looked furious. Her position was awkward, because CHERUB had assigned Amy responsibility for looking after Ryan, but her pay cheques came from TFU and Dr D was her boss.
‘Ryan, you need to stop shouting,’ Amy said.
‘Oh, take her side,’ Ryan growled.
‘I’m not taking sides,’ Amy said, struggling not to raise her voice. ‘I’m just saying that nothing ever gets accomplished by people yelling at each other. I suggest that we calm down over dinner, and talk things through properly afterwards.’
‘I don’t think she even understands how CHERUB operations work,’ Ryan said, slightly calmer.
Dr D reared up angrily – at least as much as you can rear up when you’re barely five feet tall. ‘Young man, I was running undercover operations for a decade before you were even born. You’re doing well, but you need to pick up the pace.’
As Ryan opened his mouth to reply, Amy noticed two black figures running purposefully across the beach outside. They were male, in black wetsuits and carrying rubberised backpacks.
‘Something’s up,’ Amy said, as she dashed towards the window to get a better look. Her voice turned from curious to urgent as she spotted a high-speed dinghy moored in the harbour. ‘They’re all kitted out like Special Forces and I think they’re heading for Gillian’s house.’
*
Plzen airport had a single runway and a modern terminal building, built in the hope of attracting budget airlines to the Czech Republic’s fourth largest town. Maks was allowed through a special fast security channel for airline staff and Ning half expected never to see him again as she followed arrows and stood in line with the passengers.
‘Purpose of stay?’ a customs officer with pink lipstick asked in English.
‘Two weeks’ holiday,’ Ning said, pointing to the Chinese girls waiting on the other side of the customs barrier. ‘I’m with the tour group.’
Ning’s heart skipped as the woman swiped her dodgy Kyrgyz passport through a scanner. But no cloud of burly customs officers came running. The woman stamped the passport and passed it back.
‘Enjoy your holiday.’
The men meeting the Chinese and North Korean girls in the arrivals hall held bright red banners marked Clanair Holidays but they wore sunglasses and leather jackets, looking more like nightclub bouncers than tour reps. One of these men eyed Ning suspiciously as she walked off, but Maks was waiting for her.
‘I got you some local currency,’ Maks said, as he handed Ning a small pile of Czech banknotes. ‘This should be enough to pay for some food and a taxi. This is where you need to go.’
Maks handed Ning a postcard with an address and phone number on the back.
‘Show that to the taxi driver. Chun Hei will meet you there at twelve-thirty.’
‘What time is it?’ Ning asked, as she looked around for a clock.
‘Just after eight a.m.,’ Maks said. ‘You don’t have a watch?’
‘Kuban took it from me.’
‘I’ll tell Dan you arrived safely,’ Maks said, as he unbuckled the cheap digital watch on his wrist. ‘Take this. It’s still on Kyrgyz time, you need to take off five hours.’
‘Are you sure?’ Ning said.
She wasn’t sure if Maks’ sudden outbreak of kindness was caused by genuine concern or by fear of what Dan might do if he found out that he’d reneged on his promise to travel with her in the taxi.
‘I buy for fifty som in the market,’ Maks said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Thank you,’ Ning said, as she found that the innermost hole just about held the man-sized watch on her wrist.
I hope you get to wherever you want to go. Now I must leave to prepare for return flight.’
Maks started walking and turned left at a sign marked Private – Pilot Lounge. Ning pocketed her fistful of Czech crowns as she looked around the arrivals hall. It was a desolate space, with a few shuttered shops and a coffee bar with airport cleaning crew as its only customers.
Ning had three hours to kill and considered getting a quick breakfast, but according to the arrivals board the next plane wasn’t due to land for over an hour, and she reckoned some bored cop or customs officer might stick their nose in if she wandered around on her own for too long.
She walked through electronic doors with a multilingual sign over them that read Welcome to Czechia and turned towards the taxi rank.
24. GRAPPLE
Gillian Kitsell was on a lounger by her rooftop pool, enjoying a warm evening with Scotch on the rocks and Wired magazine. A clunking sound made her peek over her Ray-Bans, but there was nothing to see and she blamed it on a gremlin with the pool filter.
‘Ms Kitsell,’ Yannis said politely, as he waddled out on to the roof terrace. ‘Ethan says he’s getting hungry. We were thinking about ordering some Chinese food, but we need your credit card.’
Gillian nodded as she reached around the back of her shorts to grab a wallet. ‘Not a bad idea, Yannis … Hang on a second. My cards are in my work trousers. I’ll come down with you. I’ll need to peek at the menu anyway.’
As Gillian drained her Scotch and got ready to stand up, a hooded man in a black wetsuit peered over the end of the glass-bottomed pool. The noise Gillian heard had been a grappling hook snagging the safety rail around the edge of her pool. The intruder had scaled the side of the building in under ten seconds.
He whispered into a headset. ‘I have Gillian and Ethan on the roof terrace. I’m moving in.’
The intruder swung his leg on to the end of the terrace, partially obscured by a planter. As Gillian rose up from the sunlounger and Yannis padded back towards the French windows, the intruder slid the small pack from his back, unzipped a pocket and pulled out a silenced pistol fitted with a laser sight.
The red dot flickered on Gillian’s shirt between her shoulder blades. The bullet barely made a sound as it left the gun, but there was a thud as it hit Kitsell’s spine with enough force to shatter two vertebrae. Fragments of these bones punctured Gillian’s heart and lungs before exploding out the front of her chest.
The hit knocked Gillian forward towards the pool and Yannis spun around in time to see his best friend’s mum plunge face first into the water. He thought Gillian had tripped until he saw the intruder jogging across the terrace towards him. Then he saw the jiggling red dot on his T-shirt.
‘No,’ Yannis gasped.
As Yannis started to turn, the first bullet hit him in the side. The effect was like the ultimate dig-in-the-ribs. His whole body spasmed as he stumbled through an open section of the French windows and fell into a leather lounge chair. The gunman finished Yannis off with a shot in the back and a bullet through the temple.
‘Mother and son dead,’ the intruder told his headset. ‘Meet you by the front door.’
But Gillian’s son was actually down in the kitchen, holding a menu and struggling to decide between king prawn chow mein and barbecue pork with cashews. The splash was unusual, but Ethan walked through to the living-room expecting to see his mum taking a rare swim. Instead he saw her face down on the surface. Coins from her pockets were spiralling towards the pool’s glass bottom as she bobbed in a growing cloud of blood.
Ethan’s first instinct was to run up and see what was going on, but he saw a black silhouette running beside the pool and then heard footsteps on the stairs that were way too fast for Yannis.
Escape was Ethan’s only option. He made a dash for the front door, but his bruised legs didn
’t have much speed. He was less than three metres from the hallway as the intruder rounded the bottom of the stairs and opened the front door. The second figure wore an identical black wetsuit, but carried an equipment pack that was much heavier.
‘Nice one,’ the new arrival said, patting the gunman on the back as Ethan backed into the living-room. ‘I’ll handle downstairs. You might as well take a look around for a little bonus: see if she’s got jewellery or something.’
‘How long will it take you to set up?’
‘Four to six minutes.’
As the intruders spoke, Ethan backed up into the kitchen, grabbed a telephone off the wall and dialled triple zero. This should have alerted the armed guard on the front gate, but the phone was dead. He thought about his cell phone, but it was upstairs in his school bag and the intruder was blocking his path to the front door and the staircases.
Ethan’s heart thudded as he tried to think. The only way out that didn’t involve getting past the intruder was the small rectangular window above the dryer in the laundry room. But it was up near the ceiling and it would be tough getting through with his arm in a heavy cast.
*
While the intruder clambered up the side of house five, Amy had vaulted down the stairs in house eight and found Ted in the basement fiddling with the air conditioning.
‘Where’s your guns?’ she asked. ‘There’s some guys running up the beach towards the Kitsells’ place.’
Ryan was behind Amy in the amount of time it takes to pull on shorts and a T-shirt. ‘I’ve got my mobile,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna stroll out on the beach and take a peek.’
‘Could it be innocent?’ Ted asked. ‘Couple of divers low on fuel, pulled into the nearest harbour.’
Amy shook her head. ‘That’s not what it looked like. The body language was all wrong. They looked like guys on a mission.’
‘Guns are up in my room,’ Ted said. ‘Let’s go get.’
‘Stay close to the house, Ryan,’ Amy shouted.
An adrenalin rush muted Ryan’s cold as he walked through the beach shower. He tucked a boogie board under his arm as he stepped outside, hoping to look like a regular kid heading for the surf.
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