‘I missed you,’ Lauren sniffed back.
Lauren’s mood evaporated when she saw the dirty brown marks James had smeared over her uniform.
‘For god’s sake,’ she gasped, as she backed away. ‘Where have you been? What happened to your hair?’
‘Me and Jake had a race on the way over here,’ James explained. ‘It got a bit out of hand.’
‘And I won,’ Jake interrupted.
‘Rolling in the mud with an eight-year-old,’ Lauren sneered, as she smudged a tear off her cheek. ‘That sounds about your level … We had to wait five hours when we changed planes at Toronto airport. I got you a present in the gift shop.’
Lauren pulled a brown paper bag out of her jacket and handed it to James. He opened it up, revealing a fleece hat with yellow and blue tassels dangling off either end.
‘Cheers,’ James grinned, as he stretched it over his muddy hair. ‘It’s in Arsenal away colours.’
Bethany had bought an identical hat for Jake and the two boys headed back towards the main building, hats on, listening to their sisters rabbiting about stuff that had happened during training.
*
James wasn’t sure if his teachers would let him off the rest of the day’s lessons to hang out with Lauren. He got around this thorny issue by not bothering to ask. He decided if he got pulled up, he’d act emotional about Lauren’s return and get off with a few punishment laps at worst.
Lauren had been allocated one of the newly converted rooms on the eighth floor, where the old mission preparation suites had been. She wouldn’t let James cross the threshold until he’d washed his hair and put on clean uniform.
The layout was the same as the room James had two floors below. There was a double bed, ensuite bathroom, laptop, mini fridge, microwave and a little lounge area by the door with a two-seat sofa, where you could watch TV or play video games.
James was a bit jealous: he’d inherited his room from another kid, whereas everything in Lauren’s room was spanking new. The rooms at the front of the building also had sliding glass doors and balconies that overlooked gardens, rather than the windows overlooking the muddy football pitches you got at the back.
It took three round trips in an electric golf buggy to bring Lauren’s stuff over from her old room in the junior building, followed by a dozen rides carrying boxes up to the eighth floor in the lift. It was lunchtime by the time James and Lauren were through.
Lauren hobbled down to the storeroom on the fourth floor and got a ton of junk food to stock up her fridge: drinks, snacks and chocolate. She also grabbed two Snickers ice creams and two microwave burritos out of the freezer for their lunch.
The microwave meals were supposed to be for kids who’d arrived back from a mission, or training, after the canteen closed in the evening. James would have preferred the proper food being served downstairs, but Lauren wanted to zap something in her new microwave.
When they’d finished the burritos, James and Lauren opened the balcony doors to let out the stink and sprawled out next to each other on the double bed, too stuffed to bother getting on with the unpacking.
‘Man,’ Lauren said, rubbing her tummy and doing a little burp. ‘At least I’ve got a week off before I have to restart lessons. I’m so whacked after training, I’m gonna sleep till noon every day, then steam in the bath all afternoon, reading books and stuffing my face.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ James smirked. ‘I’m only gonna be around for a couple more days. I’m off on some mission in America. I tried to get you on it, but John Jones didn’t sound keen. He thinks you’re too inexperienced.’
‘What’s the mission all about?’ Lauren asked.
Before James got to answer, he had a mental jolt. ‘Oh shit …’ he gasped. ‘John’s gonna kill me.’
Lauren sat up anxiously. ‘Why? What have you done?’
‘It’s like, a massive, important mission and I was supposed to give him my final decision about going on it this morning.’
James dived off Lauren’s bed, grabbed her telephone and dialled John Jones’ extension. It got picked up straight away.
‘James,’ John said tersely. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been to your room, I’ve been round all your teachers, I’ve been asking all your friends if they’ve seen you and I’ve even left messages on your mobile.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ James grovelled. ‘My mobile’s flat and the mission totally went out of my head when Lauren got out of training this morning. I started helping her unpack and—’
‘Are you with us on this mission or not?’ John interrupted.
‘Sure,’ James said. ‘You knew there was never any doubt in my mind.’
‘I’d like to speak with Lauren too,’ John said.
‘You said she was too young.’
‘I’ve thought it through,’ John said. ‘Time is tight and we don’t have a lot of suitable candidates for the third spot. If we tweak things slightly, the cute little girl factor might even work in our favour when you’re on the run.’
‘I don’t know if she’s up to it, John. She’s got a bad foot and she’s wiped out from training.’
Lauren realised she was being talked about. She scrambled excitedly across the bed and whispered in her brother’s ear, ‘I’m not that tired.’
James moved the earpiece away from Lauren, so he could hear what John was saying:
‘Her part of the mission wouldn’t start until after you escape from Arizona Max, so she’ll have a few days to relax.’
‘She seems quite keen,’ James said, as his sister nodded frantically.
‘Good,’ John replied. ‘Now, stop whatever you’re doing and get over here sharpish.’
‘One day out of training and I’ve already got my first mission,’ Lauren squealed, as James put the phone down.
‘Bloody hell,’ James moaned, as he pulled his ringing head away from his sister. ‘Did you have to shout that right down my ear?’
‘Sorry,’ Lauren giggled. ‘I’m just excited. Bethany’s gonna be hell jealous.’
9. BACKGROUND
John Jones was concerned by Lauren’s eagerness to go on the mission before she’d even read the briefing. He sent James and Dave Moss out of his office and sat on a corner of his desk, telling Lauren about the dangers she might face and trying to satisfy himself that a ten-year-old would be able to handle them.
John had spent the previous eighteen years working for the adult branch of the intelligence service. He’d been in charge of undercover missions in all parts of the world and had seen operatives killed, imprisoned and badly injured. John could get his head around boys like James and Dave going undercover – they were teenagers and their unarmed combat training meant they could handle themselves against most adults – but Lauren made him uncomfortable.
Part of John’s problem was that his own daughter was a few months older than Lauren. He worried about her crossing two main roads on her way to school, and whether she was being properly looked after when she went off on camping trips with her youth group. John’s gut instinct told him something was deeply wrong about sitting with a girl of the same age, discussing jail breaks and the best thing to do when the cops start shooting at you.
But Lauren was well trained. Her answers to John’s questions showed she was intelligent enough to understand the risks she was being asked to take and the reasons why they were worth taking. After an hour going through every detail of the mission, John had stopped worrying about Lauren and started asking himself what his own daughter might be capable of if she’d been pushed through CHERUB training, instead of spending her days being chauffeured between piano lessons, drama club and friends’ houses in his ex-wife’s car.
*
A CIA officer based at the American embassy in London worked into the early hours of Tuesday morning, creating identification documents in the names of James Rose, Lauren Rose and David Rose. Lauren and Dave’s dates of birth were their real ones, but James’ had been put back exactly one ye
ar to make him fourteen: old enough to be sentenced to Arizona Max.
A motorcycle messenger drove through the night. He arrived at CHERUB campus at 6 a.m., with a sealed pouch containing three American passports and four sets of diplomatic paperwork. This paperwork gave John Jones and the three young agents immunity from American laws for the duration of the mission.
It was dark outside, but James was already up. He’d showered, packed his bag and received a call from Lauren, who sounded like she’d worked herself into a state.
‘I don’t know what to pack,’ Lauren said, when James got upstairs to her room. ‘And I can’t find half the stuff I do want.’
James put it down to first-mission jitters. Once he’d calmed Lauren down, he helped her go through all the unpacked boxes and find the clothes and equipment she needed for the mission.
‘You usually get a list of what to pack,’ James explained, as he rummaged through a cardboard box, searching for the spare battery and charger for Lauren’s digital camera. ‘But this has all been put together at the last minute. I guess John didn’t have time.’
When Lauren was satisfied that everything she needed was packed, both kids put their in-flight packs over their backs and wheeled their suitcases along the corridor to the lift.
Downstairs in the canteen, John and Dave were at a table together. They had their luggage standing beside their chairs and their cooked breakfasts were already half eaten.
John glanced at his watch. ‘Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t we?’
‘My fault,’ James said. ‘Alarm didn’t go off.’
Lauren gave James a smile as they grabbed plates at the breakfast buffet. ‘Thanks for taking the blame.’
*
According to the background story John had devised for the mission in conjunction with the FBI, James and Dave were presently being held in a Nebraska prison, awaiting transfer back to Arizona where they were about to be tried for murder. This ruled out flying into Arizona aboard a commercial jet, in case one of the four hundred other passengers had links with Arizona law enforcement or prisons.
They were flying from a Royal Air Force base fifteen minutes drive from campus. The CHERUB driver pulled up the mini-bus on a taxiway, beside the wingtip of a small passenger jet. The RAF pilot and co-pilot loaded the luggage into the cargo hold, while a customs official shook John Jones’ hand and took a cursory glance at the four American passports.
John and the kids went up six metal steps. Everyone except Lauren had to duck as they passed through the door into the aircraft. The cabin was cramped, but luxuriously fitted out with deep pile carpet, a spray of fresh cut flowers, walnut trim and four leather armchairs down each side that faced each other so you could hold a meeting.
By the time James had done up his seatbelt and kicked off his trainers, the co-pilot had pulled the steps in and was shutting the cabin door. Thirty seconds later, the aircraft began taxiing towards the runway.
‘Cool,’ James said to Lauren, who was sitting opposite. ‘Beats arriving at the airport three hours before check-in.’
The co-pilot stood in the middle of the cabin, with his neck stooped to avoid the ceiling. ‘Welcome aboard the Royal Air Force’s high-speed taxi service,’ he grinned. ‘Make sure your seatbelts are on for takeoff. We’re going to be flying higher and faster than the commercial jets you might be used to, so we should make it to Arizona in around seven and a half hours, including our refuelling stop. The toilet is in the back and there’s a fridge stocked with sandwiches and things. There’s also a microwave and hot-drinks machine up there, so feel free to tuck in whenever you get the munchies.’
The co-pilot stumbled through the juddering aircraft to his seat in the cockpit and belted himself in as the plane stopped moving at the end of the runway. James noticed Lauren’s fingernails digging into the arms of her leather chair.
‘Still not keen on flying?’ James grinned.
‘Shut your face,’ Lauren said stiffly.
The engines opened up and the pilot’s voice came over the intercom. ‘All passengers, prepare for takeoff.’
‘These little planes crash all the time,’ James shouted, as his body was pushed against the arm of his seat by the rapid acceleration. ‘They’re really dangerous.’
Lauren booted James in the shin as the nose-wheel lifted off the runway.
*
Once the plane levelled off, John Jones got everyone hot drinks and biscuits, including the two pilots. When they’d finished drinking, he closed the cockpit door so the pilots couldn’t overhear.
‘How are you all getting on with memorising your mission details and background stories for your characters?’ he asked.
‘I’m getting there,’ Lauren said.
James and Dave didn’t look so confident.
‘So let’s test you out,’ John said. ‘Lauren first, what accent are you going to speak in?’
‘My normal English accent.’
John nodded. ‘Good. Why is that?’
‘Because it’s impossible to keep up a false accent over a long mission, particularly when you’re under stress.’
‘No, no,’ John said. ‘I wasn’t asking why we try and avoid using accents generally. I mean how do you explain your English accent if someone asks why you speak that way during the mission?’
‘Right, sorry,’ Lauren said. ‘Our father was Robert Rose, a businessman who worked in London. We grew up there, but moved back to live with our uncle in Arizona three years ago, after our father died of throat cancer.’
‘Excellent,’ John said. ‘James’ turn. What was your first criminal offence?’
‘I got picked up by Arizona police after Dave and me ram-raided a branch of PC Planet. We stole fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of digital cameras and made a clean getaway, but we got busted a month later when we tried to sell them on E-Bay.’
‘What sentence did you receive?’
‘Twelve months’ suspended prison sentence and two hundred hours’ community service.’
‘Fifty hours,’ John said tersely. ‘You need to know your background story like it’s your own life, James. Tell me how you got the alarm codes to break into the car dealership?’
‘Dave and I were pretty lonely. We didn’t have any friends in Arizona, so we started getting into computer hacking. Dave drove around Phoenix, while I sat in the passenger seat using a laptop computer and sniffer software to find unsecured wireless networks. We were hoping to get someone’s credit card number, or details of company bank accounts. When we hacked into the network at a secondhand-car dealership, we found a document on the hard drive that had all the staff burglar-alarm codes.
‘I hid in the boot of a BMW on the car lot, climbed out after closing time and turned off the alarms. We stole eight thousand dollars in cash and drove away from the scene in an almost new Lexus RX300. During our getaway, the car veered up on to the sidewalk and killed a homeless woman who was sleeping there. This robbery and the death of the homeless woman were reported in local newspapers at the time, so we’re covered if Jane Oxford wants to check our story out.’
‘What if they find the people who really robbed the car dealership?’ Lauren asked.
‘The FBI frequently send officers into prisons to work undercover, either to wheedle information out of suspects or uncover drug trafficking and gang activities,’ John explained. ‘A realistic background story is essential for the officer’s safety inside prison, so the FBI create so-called ghost crimes. Ghost crimes are set up by FBI officers and reported to local police and media as if they’re for real.’
‘But what about the homeless woman?’ Lauren asked.
John shrugged. ‘I expect they found a homeless woman who died of a heart attack and changed the details on her death certificate so that it looked like she’d been hit by a car. The FBI like to have a few unsolved ghost crimes in every state, so that they can rapidly infiltrate any prison in the country.’
Lauren nodded. ‘That’s clever.’
&nbs
p; ‘So, Dave,’ John said, ‘what happened after you ran the old lady over?’
Dave cleared his throat before he spoke. ‘James and I got out of the car to see what I’d hit. When I realised it was a person, we panicked and drove home. We grabbed our money and stuff, left a note for Lauren and our uncle John and headed north. We spent two days on the run in the Lexus, before we got into another traffic accident in Nebraska. I got some head injuries that match up with a real scar I got in a skiing accident last year. James escaped unhurt and got caught by police after a brief chase on foot.’
‘OK,’ John said. ‘James, take the story from there.’
‘The police busted us and put us in a remand home. We got taken to Omaha juvenile court and sentenced to six months.’
‘Why didn’t any other prisoners see you when you were in Nebraska?’
James looked blank. Lauren stuck her finger in the air and started rocking from side to side. ‘I know,’ she said excitably.
‘This is not good, James,’ John said, shaking his head. ‘You should have remembered basic details like this by now. If necessary, we’re going to spend this entire flight going over this story, until all three of you can recite it backwards, forwards and inside out … Go on, Lauren; tell your brother why no other prisoners saw James and Dave during their six months in Nebraska.’
‘Because they nearly escaped,’ Lauren said. ‘Dave managed to pocket some handcuff keys in the Nebraska courthouse. James and Dave released each other and got as far as the lawn in front of the courthouse, before a police officer spotted their orange prison uniforms and pulled a gun on them. Because they were an escape risk, James and Dave were locked up in single cells, with no privileges and no contact with the rest of the prison population.’
John explained. ‘The idea behind having this escape in your back story is that it will make your plan to get out of Arizona Max seem much more credible when you’re trying to make Curtis Oxford believe that he has a realistic chance of escaping with you.’