The General

  ‘Lauren says the security team are a bunch of pussies,’ Rat said happily, as he pocketed his phone.

  *

  When the team had studied the plans for the new control centre, they’d noticed that while the front was protected with heavy railings, the large expanse of land behind was secured by the kind of wire-mesh fencing you’d expect to see around your local swing park rather than a high-security installation.

  The original design had called for the heavy railings all around, but the local council had objected because it would spoil the landscape, and nobody had made a fuss because the lighter fence saved half a million in building costs. It was exactly the kind of design weakness that security-test programmes run by CHERUB and MI5 were designed to unearth.

  While Lauren and Bethany entered from the front, Rat and the other four boys had squelched across the surrounding farmland. Once they got within twenty metres of the perimeter, Rat, Andy and Jake kept watch while the two youngest boys had crawled up to the fence on their bellies and each made a hole with their wire cutters.

  Ronan’s hole was large and obvious. He’d folded back the wire and left a bright orange skiing glove snagged on it. Kevin’s hole was twenty metres away. It was smaller and he’d pulled the wire back tight, making it near impossible to spot in the dark.

  Andy was first to spot several torches flickering between newly planted saplings in the grounds.

  ‘I see five, I think,’ Jake said, as he peered through a tiny set of binoculars.

  ‘Shit,’ Rat said. ‘Means there’s probably still one guy wandering around inside. Jake, Andy, Ronan, you move up and get ready to go inside.’

  ‘Aye aye, Captain Rathbone,’ Andy said, before saluting his friend and scuttling off over the soft ground with Jake and Ronan in tow.

  There were three hundred metres between the back of the control centre and the fence. The five uniformed guards were walking together, chatting casually, mucking around with their torches and one was even lighting up a cigarette.

  ‘They’re not taking it seriously,’ Rat said, as he turned towards Kevin. ‘How much security training do you reckon they’ve had?’

  Kevin smiled uneasily. ‘Half a day, at most.’

  ‘You feeling OK now?’

  ‘Bit nervous,’ Kevin admitted. ‘I know this isn’t a big deal compared to some missions, but it’s my first time doing CHERUB stuff out in the real world.’

  Rat put a reassuring hand on Kevin’s shoulder as he pulled out his mobile. ‘It’s definitely only five guys,’ he said. ‘I’d better call Lauren and tell her to go find the sixth.’

  ‘Someone could be off sick or something,’ Kevin said.

  Andy, Jake and Ronan had reached the fence. The area inside was alarmed and they couldn’t enter the compound until they were sure the motion sensors were switched off.

  ‘Faces down, boys,’ Andy whispered, as a powerful torchlight swept across the ground.

  As expected, the guards spotted Ronan’s hole and the bright orange glove.

  ‘Hey, Karen,’ one of the guards shouted into his radio. ‘Looks like Joe was right. Someone’s cut the fence, but they can’t have got in because they’d have set off the alarm. I’m gonna go take a look, so I need the sensors off.’

  Andy didn’t hear the reply, but he knew that the sensors were off when two of the guards started walking towards the hole. Their three companions seemed content that they’d found the source of the problem and stopped searching with their torches.

  ‘Like a charm,’ Andy whispered, grinning to Jake and Ronan as he led the way through the other hole. ‘Keep the noise down and don’t look up unless you have to ‘cos your faces will catch the light.’

  Jake tutted as he followed Andy through. ‘Do I look like an idiot?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Ronan smirked.

  Kevin breathed deeply as the two guards approached the other hole. Rat took his slingshot and a cloth bag filled with ball bearings out of his jacket. The fence was ten metres away, it was dark and there was drizzle in the air but he was still confident about making the shot.

  ‘Kids,’ the guard said dismissively as he picked up the child-sized glove hooked to the gap in the fence. ‘Little fellow left his glove behind.’

  Ronan had deliberately left hand and trainer prints in the mud and the guard shone his torch at the ground, inspecting them. ‘Ten or eleven years old, I’d guess,’ he said finally.

  His bald-headed colleague nodded. ‘We’d better go under and see if they’re still out there,’ he said. ‘Joe only saw them a minute ago.’

  ‘Sod that,’ came the reply. ‘You fancy crawling through all that mud? And if we catch the little buggers we’re just as likely to get done for assault.’

  ‘I’m just saying, Ken,’ the baldy said, as he straightened up and put his cap on his head, ‘the high-ups are bound to launch an investigation, so we’d better make ourselves look good.’

  Ken realised his colleague was right, but he paused, looking for any excuse not to get muddy. ‘Handprints,’ he said happily. ‘That’s forensic evidence, and there’s no way I can get through without disturbing it.’

  ‘Dammit,’ Rat muttered. He’d hoped to ambush the guard as he crawled through the fence.

  The trouble with shooting while the guards were inside was that the ball bearing could hit the wire mesh and ricochet. The two guards were about to walk away and Rat realised it was his best chance.

  He bobbed out of the damp grass, stretched the slingshot to its fullest extent and aimed for Ken’s body. A head shot would have been more effective, but the midriff was a larger target and they weren’t trying to kill him. The steel ball hit the fencing and ricocheted upwards, knocking off the guard’s hat.

  ‘What the heck?’ Ken said, mystified by the sudden loss of his hat but not realising that he was under fire.

  Rat moved closer and his second shot passed clean through the mesh, slamming Ken in the gut and knocking the wind right out of him. Kevin was a metre behind and fired at the bald guard. They didn’t want to seriously hurt anyone, but Kevin had only had one short slingshot practice and the metal ball went high. It hit in the neck, making the guard yelp with pain.

  Five seconds had elapsed since Rat’s first shot and the other three guards now realised their colleagues were under attack. Their first thoughts were terrorists with silenced hand guns, rather than boys with slingshots.

  ‘Get out of here,’ one of them shouted.

  But the trio of guards had been outflanked by Andy, Jake and Ronan. As they turned to run back to the building the three cherubs broke cover and fired a volley of ball bearings from less than ten metres. The first round of shots knocked down two guards with blows to the gut and chest, but Ronan missed the one farthest away and gasped in horror as the man went for his radio.

  One message to the remaining guard in the control room and they’d have a dozen expertly trained military police officers plus the local on their backs. Luckily, Rat had pushed through the hole in the fence and knocked the guy who’d been hit in the head cold with a well aimed kick. As he stood up, he grabbed one of the metal balls from inside his coat and fired a superb long-range shot at the last guard. As he fell, a second shot from Jake slammed him in the back.

  The five guards were all down, but only one was unconscious. Kevin launched an assault on the first guard by the fence, thrusting his palm against the man’s temple and then snatching the pepper spray off his belt while he was in a daze. After subduing the guard by the fence with two squirts from the canister and a threat of more, he worked with Rat to bind his wrists and ankles with tape while the other lads moved to quickly incapacitate the others.

  Andy had the toughest looking guard to deal with, but the steel ball to the gut had knocked the wind out of him and he meekly offered his wrists up to be bound after a hard kick in the stomach.

  Ronan and Jake had a fight on their hands, but they pinned the guard down between them and subdued him with half a can of his own pe
pper spray. Rat simply reloaded his slingshot and closed the last guard down, aiming at his head from point-blank range.

  ‘Toss your radio,’ Rat ordered. ‘Put your hands where I can see ‘em and wait for my little friend with the gaffer tape.’

  Kevin took less than a minute to bind up the unconscious guard by the gate, then he rushed over to deal with Rat’s prisoner. Once everyone’s hands and feet were secure, Rat looked around.

  ‘Nice work boys,’ he said, as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket to call Lauren.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ve got the security team all bound up out here. You’d better head inside and grab that last man before he starts wondering why all his buddies have gone so quiet.’

  9. RICH

  He might have called himself Rich Kline, but as soon as the door of his hotel suite opened James recognised Rich Davis. He was fatter, balder and the seventies-style sideburns were gone, but this was definitely the man who’d once topped the Ulster Constabulary’s most wanted list.

  ‘Mr Bradford,’ Rich said, as he grudgingly reached out to shake hands.

  James was pleased to see clean laundry hanging on the wardrobe door and half eaten room-service sandwiches. These personal effects would make planting the tracking device much easier.

  ‘Everyone calls me Bradford,’ he smiled, as his big hands met with Rich’s. ‘Good to finally meet you.’

  ‘Wish I could say the same,’ Rich said, before breaking into a rattly cough. ‘I never thought I’d be out on the streets again, Bradford. Cops gave me thirty years on fit-up charges. If it wasn’t for the peace accord I’d still be in maximum security lockup. The British government did everything they could to get me and now you’re public enemy number one, they’ll do everything they can to get you.

  ‘If they can’t get you the honest way, they’ll fit you up and you’ll be doing twenty-five years before you know it. That’s why you can’t take stupid risks, like turning up here in that shit-box car with a kid with bright green hair.’

  ‘He’s sixteen,’ Bradford said defiantly. ‘Knows how to fight. Too young to be a cop or a journo.’

  James knew Rich Davis was trying to establish dominance: making them wait, the overbearing tone and the slab of a bodyguard standing in the doorway behind them cracking his knuckles. Davis didn’t want to negotiate with Bradford, he wanted to show him who was the boss.

  Davis addressed his bodyguard. ‘Check both of them for bugs, then take the boy downstairs and buy him a lollipop.’

  ‘James stays here with me,’ Bradford said, trying to sound tough, but a tremor in his voice gave him away.

  The bodyguard grabbed a bug detector and closed up behind Bradford, sweeping it over his clothes. James had a listening device and two trackers but wasn’t worried: CHERUB used technology way too advanced for such a crude device to pick up.

  ‘No phones, no bugs, guv,’ the guard said to Davis. He turned to James. ‘Come on son, let the grown-ups talk.’

  James gave the bodyguard evil eyes. He had to gather intelligence and plant the tracking device and he couldn’t do either if he wasn’t in the room. On the other hand, forcing the issue would risk destroying the relationship between Bradford and Davis before they learned anything about the Irishman’s weapons smuggling operation.

  ‘I want him to stay,’ Bradford said. ‘You can’t order me around like this.’

  ‘You need to learn some manners, son,’ Davis snarled.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ Bradford shouted, as the bodyguard put a meaty hand on James’ shoulder.

  The guard had been behind the door when they entered which meant James hadn’t been able to size him up, but the casual way he was manhandling James showed that he didn’t rate him as a serious threat.

  ‘OK, fine,’ James said, acting the stroppy teenager as he raised his hands and turned to face the bodyguard.

  ‘Green-headed ponce,’ the bodyguard laughed, before shoving James in the back.

  Bradford had made it clear that he didn’t want James to leave and the insult gave James an excuse to lash out. As soon as there was a metre of space between himself and the bodyguard, James launched an explosive roundhouse kick.

  The bodyguard clattered backwards into a chest of drawers and James felt a jolt of panic as he reached inside his jacket for a gun. James closed in, grabbing the bodyguard’s thumb and twisting it back until the bone snapped. A knee in the stomach sent the guard crashing to the ground.

  ‘You want to take the piss out of my hair?’ James shouted, booting his opponent in the guts before leaning forward and ripping the gun from the holster under his jacket.

  ‘Still want to shoot me?’ James asked.

  The bodyguard was coughing blood and wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, so James pointed the gun at Davis.

  ‘Whoah! Careful son,’ Davis said, waving his hands warily. ‘We can talk about this.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me,’ James shouted. ‘If you offer to buy me a lollipop again, I swear to god I’ll take this gun and shove it right up your arse.’

  After this, James expertly removed the clip from the gun -perhaps a little too expertly for someone who was supposed to be an ordinary teenager. He pocketed the bullets and checked the chamber was clear before handing the empty weapon to Davis.

  The room went into an uneasy quiet. Bradford and Davis glowered at each other, James scowled at the bodyguard, defying him to stand back up and take another swing at him.

  Finally, Davis looked down at the empty gun in his hand and burst out laughing. ‘I’ve seen some things in my time, but that’s a right nasty little green-haired thug you’ve got yourself there, Mr Bradford.’

  James taking out the bouncer had given Bradford confidence and he allowed himself to smile slightly. ‘James is a good man,’ Bradford nodded. ‘I’ve got a lot of good men. Now do you think we can forget all this macho shit and talk some business?’

  *

  When it opened in a month’s time the air traffic control centre would be the workplace of a hundred and fifty civilian and eighty military air traffic controllers, along with more than two hundred support workers ranging from canteen staff to software engineers and senior management.

  Right now it was ghostly. Many of the main lights were switched off to save energy and Lauren and Bethany crept down a corridor lit only by green emergency exit signs.

  ‘The arrow said that the security office is along here somewhere,’ Lauren whispered, as Bethany clattered into a bucket half filled with water.

  ‘Oww,’ Bethany moaned, as she flipped on her torch to see what she’d hit.

  ‘Keep the noise down,’ Lauren warned. ‘If that last guard radios out we’re totally screwed.’

  ‘Looks like the builders did a good job on the roof,’ Bethany said, as she shone her torch up at a mouldy glass skylight that was feeding the water into the bucket.

  Lauren had carried on walking and saw light shining around the rim of a door. She flicked her torch on and was delighted by the sign on the door: ROOM G117 – SECURITY STAFF LOUNGE & TRAINING AREA.

  Lauren put her ear up to the door and could hear a woman speaking into her radio. ‘Guys, what’s going on out there? Respond please. You tossers better not be jerking me around.’

  ‘One woman, and she’s close to losing her cool,’ Lauren said, as Bethany got close. ‘Get the bucket.’

  ‘Bucket?’ Bethany said, sounding like she’d misheard.

  Lauren didn’t know the layout of the security lounge, but there was almost certainly an emergency alarm trigger somewhere in the room. If they burst in, the female guard might reach it before Lauren and Bethany could grab her.

  ‘Cheers,’ Lauren said, as Bethany heaved over the plastic bucket. It was so full that the weight of grubby water inside buckled it out of shape.

  Lauren began pouring the water under the door of the security lounge. Some ran back into the corridor and swirled around her trainers, but the m
ajority of the brownish liquid ran under the door and the guard inside heard it splashing on the vinyl floor.

  ‘Goddammit,’ the woman yelled to herself. ‘Poxy roof. Now let’s just add mopping up to my job description.’

  The guard was startled to open the door and see Lauren standing in front of her. In a move not out of any combat training manual, Lauren swung the empty bucket at the guard’s head. It hit with a hollow thunk but the plastic was too light to do serious damage and the guard screamed and tried slamming the door in Lauren’s face.

  Lauren barged in as the guard ran towards the control panel. She locked arms around the guard’s chunky thighs and brought her down on to the damp floor with a rugby tackle. Bethany had picked up the bucket as she entered and couldn’t resist wedging it over the guard’s head.

  The sight of the guard thrashing about with the bucket on her head and her muffled shouts of ‘Oh my god!’ touched the girls’ warped sense of humour and they both started to laugh.

  ‘Give us the tape, Bethany,’ Lauren snorted.

  While Lauren pinned the guard to the floor and bound her wrists and ankles, Bethany spotted a marker pen beneath a whiteboard used for the security team’s shift rotas and used it to draw a smiley face on the bucket.

  When Lauren saw it she started laughing so hard that she could hardly breathe. ‘Oh god,’ she snorted. ‘I’m gonna die.’

  Bethany wasn’t laughing quite so hard, but still had trouble standing up straight as she wrapped a giant length of tape over the top of the bucket and looped it under the woman’s armpits so that it wouldn’t come off.

  ‘I’m such a bitch,’ Bethany shouted triumphantly. ‘Don’t you just love being evil?’

  ‘You can’t leave that on,’ Lauren said, trying to be serious between the howls of laughter. ‘She could be pregnant, or have asthma or something.’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ Bethany moaned, snapping a picture on her mobile before pulling off the bucket.