New Guard

  ‘Couple of hours,’ James said.

  ‘Why not just take the laptops?’ Freja asked.

  James smiled. ‘Information tends to be more valuable if the bad guys don’t know you’ve got it.’

  ‘So who are they, Detective?’ Freja asked. ‘Should I be worried?’

  ‘I’m on to something,’ James explained. ‘But at this stage, I have no clue what that something is.’

  Trey got his laptops back just after 4 p.m. CHERUB’s head mission controller, John Jones, arrived in Birmingham ninety minutes later, and met with James, Leon and Daniel around the dining-table in the flat over Morrisons.

  ‘Two sugars,’ James said, as he put a chipped World’s Best Auntie mug on the table in front of his boss.

  ‘So what was on the laptops?’ Leon asked.

  ‘The encrypted data has been transferred to the GCHQ Decryption Bureau in Cheltenham,’ James began, as he took a seat next to Daniel and pulled a chocolate digestive from a pack. ‘Judging by the unencrypted data, two MacBooks were used around the print shop for designing leaflets, e-mailing and general office duties. The other two are more interesting. One had quite a lot of poster and brochure designs for Islamic groups, leading us to believe that the printworks were used to produce leaflets and banners used by extremist groups. There was also web design software and evidence that the computer had been used to design and update websites for extremist organisations.

  ‘The fourth laptop is a higher specification than the others. The login and e-mail details lead us to believe that it was used for similar purposes around the office. The hard drive has been partitioned and one partition set up with 512bit encryption key. There are several hundred megabytes of data in that partition and I suspect that this is the data Trey was so keen to get back.’

  ‘How long will it take to decrypt?’ Daniel asked.

  Leon liked knowing more than his brother. ‘You can’t decrypt 512bit, Dumbo.’

  James nodded. ‘A brute force decryption of the data on the hard drive would take decades, even using the fastest computers. But the key vulnerability of very complex encryption systems is that someone somewhere has to know what the encryption key is.’

  Now John began speaking. ‘While James has been concentrating on the laptops, I’ve been doing more research into Trey Al-Zeid. Local community police have been interviewed. They backed Oli’s suggestion that Trey is involved in some sort of racket that makes threats and extorts money from local taxi companies, shops and landlords. What they’re less clear on is where this money goes.

  ‘There’s talk in the community that the money goes to support militant Islamic groups in North Africa and the Middle East. Others say this is all smoke and mirrors and that Trey is part of a regular organised-crime-style extortion racket.’

  ‘You’re much less likely to mess with your local extortion racket if you think they might have links to serious terrorists,’ James explained, before John continued.

  ‘Trey’s father owns one of the biggest taxi businesses in Birmingham and is believed to have something to do with the extortion racket, but the real kingpin is a man who everyone seems to call Uncle. He has been photographed at community events over the past few years, but he does a good job hiding his name.’

  Leon nodded knowingly. ‘Oli said something to Trey about upsetting Uncle when he stole the laptops. So whatever info is on that laptop must give us a clue about who Uncle is and where the extortion money goes.’

  James and John both nodded.

  ‘I think we can safely say that the recruitment element of this mission is dead,’ James said. ‘Oli is clearly smart enough to be a CHERUB agent, but he’s just …’

  James couldn’t think how to phrase it correctly in front of his boss, so Daniel finished the sentence for him.

  ‘Oli is the most loathsome kid I’ve ever met.’

  James nodded in agreement. ‘You rescued Oli from Trey’s grasp, but I think we can assume that Trey might come after him again. So, we’re going to arrange for him to be given a new surname and moved to a foster home at least a couple of hundred miles from here.’

  ‘Can’t we just do the world some good and shoot him?’ Daniel suggested cheekily.

  ‘I wish,’ James grinned. ‘Especially as I’ve got to find a good foster home and do all the paperwork for his transfers.’

  ‘So we’re staying for at least a while longer?’ Leon asked.

  James nodded. The twins smiled because it meant that they got out of more heavy drill back on campus. But Daniel had another realisation.

  ‘I put staples in Trey’s leg and stole his gun.’

  ‘And we took the six hundred Oli made from the laptops,’ Leon added.

  Daniel nodded. ‘So we’re not exactly flavour of the month.’

  James and John both erupted in smiles.

  ‘We’ve gotta do a bit of work on getting you back into Trey’s good books,’ James said. ‘Don’t worry, I have a few ideas.’

  18. BROTHER

  Gurbir yelled as Rhea strode past his office, long legs and a school uniform that violated at least ten regulations.

  ‘What I do now, Gurby-kins?’ Rhea asked, contemptuously popping bubble-gum as she leaned in the doorway. But her expression turned for the better when she saw a handsome seventeen-year-old, sat in a plastic chair with a bright yellow North Face pack resting between his legs.

  ‘This is Ryan,’ Gurbir explained. ‘I have a few calls to make, would you mind showing him to room thirteen?’

  ‘Oli’s room?’ she asked.

  ‘Oli has been placed with a foster family some distance from here,’ Gurbir explained.

  Rhea flicked an eyebrow. ‘Good riddance to the little shite.’

  Gurbir half smiled as Rhea beckoned Ryan with a purple fingernail. ‘You coming then?’

  Ryan slung the yellow pack over his shoulder and grabbed a duffel bag. He eyed Rhea as she led him through the dining area, slightly put off by her cigarette smell.

  ‘Like your jeans,’ Rhea said.

  ‘Cheers,’ Ryan said. ‘Diesel. Bought ’em with my birthday money.’

  ‘I like it when they’re tight enough to see a crotch bulge,’ Rhea said, then as Ryan looked down at himself in a state of panic, ‘Joke!’

  ‘Been here long?’

  ‘Too long and still another three months on secure,’ Rhea said, as she kicked the half-open door of Oli’s old room. It had been vacuumed and clean sheets put on the bed, but Oli’s Aston Villa posters had stayed on the wall.

  The bed bounced as the big pack hit the mattress.

  ‘Maybe I’ll show you around the neighbourhood,’ Rhea said, as she stepped closer. ‘If you like, that is.’

  ‘For sure,’ Ryan said, smiling.

  ‘Wanker!’ Daniel said, as he barged through the door and gave his big brother a friendly shoulder punch. ‘Train OK?’

  Leon came in behind and got a jolt. He was conscious that Rhea was a year older and stood the same height as him if she wore heels. Ryan was almost a head taller, making Rhea look like perfect girlfriend material for his older brother.

  ‘Missed you,’ Leon said, stepping past his brothers and marking territory by giving Rhea a kiss. She accepted it grudgingly, before taking a step back.

  ‘You missed me since breakfast?’ Rhea said disbelievingly, tutting. Then she smiled at Ryan. ‘So you guys are brothers? I totally see the resemblance now.’

  ‘I got the full share of brains and looks,’ Ryan explained. ‘The twins got half each.’

  ‘Kiss my ass,’ Daniel smirked, but Leon was too jealous to join the smiles.

  ‘I’ll leave you bros to catch up,’ Rhea said, enjoying Leon’s discomfort and giving Ryan a wink as she edged out.

  ‘You wanna go to my room?’ Leon asked, but Rhea didn’t bother answering.

  ‘Smooth,’ Ryan grinned, not wanting to cause trouble, but unable to resist teasing his little brother.

  ‘I saw her first,’ Leon said, once Rhea wa
s way down the hallway.

  ‘Give over,’ Ryan said. ‘She just started flirting with me. How could I possibly know what was going on?’

  ‘If I looked like Leon I’d be worried,’ Daniel said.

  ‘Huh!’ Leon snorted. ‘When did you last make out with someone, stud?’

  It had taken Ryan less than two minutes to be reminded that while he loved his twin brothers in theory, actual time in their presence was pretty irritating.

  ‘So I spoke to James before I came over here,’ Ryan said, trying to take charge. ‘I’ll unpack, grab some food. Then we’ll go see Trey.’

  Ryan had been set up with a tatty Peugeot 208 and drove his brothers a couple of miles south, to Edgbaston. The house was detached, with a mossy paved drive. A BMW M3 Coupe sat next to a seven-seat Citroen with a pair of child seats in the back. It wasn’t luxury, but it was good digs for a guy whose only official job was as a part-time controller for his father’s taxi business.

  The woman answering the door looked harassed. Two little kids running round half naked, bottles being sterilised in the microwave, washing machine running and something on the stove.

  ‘We don’t want overpriced cleaning products,’ the woman said wearily, pushing shut the door before she’d even finished opening. ‘Read the sign: No Cold Callers.’

  ‘We’re here to see your husband,’ Ryan explained politely. ‘You are Mrs Al-Zeid?’

  ‘He’s expecting us,’ Leon added.

  The woman grunted, swiped the back of her hand against a greasy forehead and yelled up the stairs. ‘Trey, there’s three lads here.’

  ‘What lads?’ Trey shouted. ‘Tell ’em to sling their bloody hook.’

  ‘Say you’re expecting them.’

  ‘I’m not expecting—’

  The rest of Trey’s sentence got drowned out because one of the kids slipped on the kitchen floor and started bawling.

  ‘Just get down here,’ the woman screamed, leaving the door ajar as she rushed in to comfort a distressed toddler. ‘Like I haven’t got enough on.’

  The boys took the opportunity to step into the hallway. It smelled of bleach, and a toddler craned around a doorway to see who’d arrived. Daniel took the opportunity to stick a tiny listening device to the wall behind a radiator.

  ‘What the hell?’ Trey snapped, as he came around the top of the stairs in a Sonics basketball shirt and one hand holding his butt. ‘This is my home! I’m not a man to be messed with.’

  Trey saw Ryan first as he began limping down the stairs. He’d not seen him before, but he recognised the twins and his eyebrows shot up furiously.

  ‘You’ve got some blasted nerve!’ Trey shouted. ‘This is my private home. How did you find out that I lived here?’

  ‘It’s not hard if you’re smart,’ Ryan said, but deliberately avoided details. ‘I thought it was better to corner you here than at the taxi office surrounded by your pals.’

  As Ryan spoke, he took out the pocket revolver, keeping it pointed at the floor, with the barrel swung open so that it couldn’t be fired.

  ‘An expensive item,’ Ryan noted, as Trey snatched the outstretched gun.

  ‘Where are the bullets?’

  ‘That’s a gesture of goodwill,’ Ryan said. ‘But do I look stupid enough to hand a potential enemy a loaded gun?’

  Trey grunted. ‘So, why are you here?’

  ‘I just moved into Nurtrust with these two,’ Ryan explained. ‘You’re an influential man in these parts. My brothers and I don’t want you as an enemy.’

  ‘We helped you find Oli,’ Daniel added.

  The brat in the kitchen had finally stopped screaming and Trey pulled shut the kitchen door so that his wife couldn’t hear.

  ‘That prick,’ he hissed, pointing at Leon. ‘That prick put three staples in my ass. I can’t sit down and my driver has a broken nose.’

  ‘Through your jeans and pants,’ Daniel scoffed. ‘Not into bone, like Oli.’

  ‘You took my brothers hostage,’ Ryan said calmly. ‘They acted the way they did because they were scared. But it was Oli that caused all the trouble.’

  ‘So why isn’t he here apologising?’

  ‘Oli’s gone,’ Daniel said. ‘Foster placement.’

  ‘Where?’

  The twins both shrugged.

  ‘We’re young and fit,’ Ryan said. ‘My brothers don’t want to live in fear of retribution.’

  ‘We’ll work,’ Daniel said.

  ‘Errands, jobs. Like you used to give Oli.’

  Trey paused to think, running a hand through stubble on his chin.

  ‘Fine mess you made,’ Trey said thoughtfully. ‘Not just the print shop. Water flooded into the shop below. Whole lot’s gotta be stripped.’

  ‘What about insurance?’ Leon asked.

  Trey snorted. ‘The flooding was a criminal act, so the insurance will want a police report. And I don’t want cops nosing around in there.’

  The brothers nodded knowingly.

  ‘So it all needs clearing out,’ Trey said. ‘Upstairs and the shop below. I’ll get you a truck. You come after school tomorrow and start clearing out anything that’s damaged. I guess it’ll take a couple of evenings, maybe part of Saturday. Got new carpet tiles coming Monday, so it’s gotta be done by then.’

  ‘Sounds fair,’ Ryan agreed. ‘I’ll help my brothers. And then we’ll be even?’

  ‘Thereabouts,’ Trey said. ‘And of course, I want the six hundred you took from Oli as well.’

  Ryan smiled as he pulled an envelope out of his jacket.

  ‘Your bullet and six hundred quid.’

  Trey snatched the envelope. ‘Tomorrow after school,’ he said firmly, wagging a finger. ‘And you’d better not be spreading word about my address. Next time you wanna see me, you call the taxi office and you make an appointment like everyone else.’

  19. SQUELCH

  Monty was barely out of his teens, greasy hair and stick thin.

  ‘Fine mess you boys made,’ he said, as he unlocked the door marked Sunray Travel Agents and flicked on the lights.

  The trashed office hummed with the noise of two dehumidifier units, sucking moisture out of the air, down long pipes and draining into the toilet. Ryan’s first couple of steps were OK, but his trainer squelched carpet on the third.

  ‘You gotta clean all the damaged stuff out,’ Monty said, as he crossed the wet floor and pointed into the print room. ‘All this soggy paper’s gotta go downstairs to the rubbish, then the carpet tiles gotta be taken up.’

  Dumping the paper didn’t take long, but the carpet tiles were hell. Crawling around the damp floor on their knees, each lad started in a corner with a Stanley knife and a wallpaper scraper. Some tiles came up with a hard tug, but where there was a lot of glue the tiles ripped apart and had to be scraped off piece by piece.

  After twenty minutes, Ryan had lifted nine tiles out of more than four hundred. His jeans were soaked, knees and elbows hurt, and his fingers were all gummed with the brown paste used to stick the tiles to the floor.

  ‘You boys better pick up the pace,’ Monty noted, as he opened up to let in a smartly dressed service engineer.

  Ryan worked along the edge of the partition separating the desked area from the print room and watched as the engineer stripped down the giant printer.

  ‘They’re not designed to have water thrown on them,’ the engineer told Monty. ‘This machine is a wreck. You’ll be better off buying a new or reconditioned machine.’

  ‘No,’ Monty said. ‘We have a big job for early next week. The machine has to be up and running.’

  The engineer nodded sympathetically. ‘We have a demonstration unit in our showroom, which we’ll be more than happy to make available to you for your printing needs. Then we can have the new 950L model shipped in by the end of next week.’

  Monty sighed and thumped the machine. ‘We need this machine working by Tuesday. I’ll pay you cash to work through the weekend.’

  ‘You’ll also ge
t fluorescent printing and full two-year warranty on a 950L,’ the engineer continued.

  Monty looked panicked as he pointed at the door. ‘My boss wants this place cleaned up and running smooth when his boss comes through that door on Tuesday afternoon.’

  The engineer stepped back, wiping toner dust from his fingertips on to a rag. ‘I’d love to help, but I could work on this machine for a week with no guarantee it’ll run again. These things just aren’t designed to have water poured inside them.’

  The boys kept ripping carpet as Monty showed the engineer out of the building.

  ‘So the mysterious Uncle’s gonna show his face here on Tuesday,’ Daniel whispered.

  ‘Sounds that way,’ Ryan agreed.

  Like most things, there was a knack to pulling carpet tiles and by nine the boys had cleared more than half the floor. Monty worked at the back of the room using the Mac Pro to design new menus for a local restaurant.

  As the boys worked, they placed listening devices under all the desks, including specially designed low-frequency microphones that were ideal for recording keystrokes. Although tapping any key on a keyboard sounds the same to a human ear, sophisticated listening software can detect a slightly different sonic signature for every key and then use simple decoding techniques to work out what is being typed.

  It was past ten and the Sharma brothers had done three-quarters of the carpet tiles when Monty sent them to the shop downstairs.

  ‘Are we getting off soon?’ Leon whinged. ‘My knees are screwed from crawling around.’

  The answer was no. A caged flatbed truck had reversed on to the pavement out front. An overalled man had unlocked the shop’s metal shutters, and the boys were shocked by the mess as they stepped inside.

  It had been a convenience store, filled with scruffy metal shelving racks, for food, magazines and stuff. At the rear there was a big empty space where there had once been fridges selling milk and beer.

  The ceiling bulged where floodwater had collected from the floor above. To the left, part of the ceiling had collapsed completely, leaving a hole big enough to climb through and a run of dangling strip lights. Water had drained from the vinyl floor, but it had filtered through concrete and plaster to get here, leaving a layer of pinkish silt over everything.