The Fall

by Robert Muchamore

  James huffed. ‘I guess you’re right. I’ll give Mr Pike his card back and tell him that it didn’t work out.’

  ‘You know it makes sense,’ Kerry said, as she went up on her knees and swung her leg across James’ waist.

  James pulled the front of Kerry’s T-shirt out of her trousers and blew a raspberry on her stomach as he grabbed hold of her bum.

  ‘You know, your new look with the scar and the slightly bent nose is very cute,’ Kerry giggled, as they started snogging. ‘It’s like I’ve got my own personal thug.’

  *

  The Toyota swung into a desolate alleyway. There’d been no sign of the police coming after them, but the driver and his companion – who Lauren now knew were called Roman and Keith – both wanted to abandon the car as soon as possible.

  A lad of about twenty waited on the kerb as they pulled into an open garage. He took the keys off the driver and swapped them for a set belonging to an aged Nissan Micra parked a few metres down the cobbled road.

  ‘Are you sure it’s small enough?’ Roman asked the youngster, as he snatched the keys.

  ‘I only had fifteen minutes’ notice,’ the kid said. ‘That’s my nan’s car, so don’t mash it up.’

  Roman gave the teenager a friendly pat on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry, you saved our lives. Keep the Toyota locked up till dark, then drive it on to the Downs and burn it out.’

  ‘No sweat,’ the teenager said, as he eyed Lauren and Anna. ‘Those two are young even for you ain’t they, Keith? And what happened to your nose?’

  ‘Mind your own,’ Keith snapped back, squeezing Lauren’s knuckles as he yanked her out of the car. ‘But the person who did it will be crying herself to sleep tonight, I guarantee you that.’

  They were squeezed inside the Nissan and back on the move within a minute. There wasn’t much room in the rear and Keith’s legs were spread out wide. He placed his hairy hand on Lauren’s knee.

  ‘We’ve got a buyer lined up for the princess in the front,’ he whispered. ‘But you’re a little bonus. You belong to me.’

  Lauren shuddered as Keith blew her a kiss.

  ‘Come on, baby,’ he grinned. ‘Don’t I get a smile from my little Lauren? Just a teensy weensy one?’

  Lauren turned to look out of the window and tried to think of all the painful ways she could slice Keith up with the knife strapped to her leg.

  28. HOUSE

  As she was driven up the motorway towards the suburban sprawl around London, Lauren was anxious, but not truly scared. She’d been in far more precarious situations on other missions and knew that John would be arranging backup and tracking the signal from her phone. In some ways this might even turn into a good thing, because they were being driven deeper into the traffickers’ operation.

  Anna sat in the front seat looking shocked, with red eyes and a blank face. Lauren wanted to reach between the seats, rest a hand on her shoulder and tell her that things weren’t as desperate as they seemed.

  Lauren’s problem was that escaping from a moving car is extremely dangerous, because overpowering the driver can easily cause an accident. On the other hand she didn’t want to wait until they were inside a building, so her plan was to bide her time until they arrived, then pull her knife and grab Keith’s gun before running off down the street with Anna.

  The plan would have worked if they’d stopped outside a house, but to Lauren’s horror they pulled through a set of electrically operated security gates at the back of a Victorian warehouse. She looked around the yard as the gates clanged shut behind them. The high walls were topped with coils of barbed wire and clusters of CCTV cameras hung from metal brackets.

  Lauren reckoned she could still grab Keith’s gun, but with no clear escape route it would be a risky move. She’d probably end up having to shoot someone in order to escape and might even end up on the wrong end of a bullet herself.

  ‘Inside,’ Keith grunted, giving Lauren a shove as Roman pulled on the handbrake.

  The warehouse had appeared old as they’d approached, but as Lauren stepped out of the car and looked inside, she realised that it had recently been refurbished. The brickwork was clean, there were double-glazed windows and the back door had trendy metal fittings.

  The inside continued in the same vein, with stripped wooden flooring and a red staircase that rose up through the centre of the building. Music thumped as they passed the entrance to a concrete-floored storage area stacked with crates and bottles. Lauren glanced through a set of doors at the back of this space and saw a lively bar, with leather and chrome fixtures and customers dressed in their work clothes.

  As they clanked up to the first landing, a scowling woman emerged from a small office. She was tall, with a red dress stretched over a lumpy frame and a pair of severely battered Converse sneakers on her feet.

  ‘What is this?’ she growled, pointing at Lauren. ‘Another mistake?’

  ‘The one with the phone,’ Roman explained. ‘We had no choice but to take her.’

  ‘The heat we’ll get on this will be unbelievable,’ the woman shouted. ‘Nobody would have made much fuss about a Russian quietly disappearing from a kids’ home, but you muppets decide to snatch two girls, on a main road, in the middle of the afternoon. The police are going to be all over this.’

  ‘Don’t sweat it Abby,’ Roman said. ‘They won’t track us back here. We rang Nicky boy and switched cars.’

  ‘And I’m out of pocket for a burned-out Toyota,’ Abby snapped. ‘We can’t keep them here for long. The customers can’t see them. I don’t even want the other girls seeing too much of them. Take them upstairs and put them in separate rooms.’

  As they passed by, Lauren glanced inside Abby’s office at banks of LCD screens showing everything that was going on inside the building, including the bar and a deserted nightclub. As Roman led the way towards a white door at the end of the corridor, Lauren was surprised to find herself being tapped on the bum.

  ‘What’s sticking out of there?’ Abby asked.

  Lauren cringed. She was wearing leggings and the phone had steadily slid down her bum, leaving an obvious bulge.

  ‘Mobile phone,’ Lauren said.

  Abby glowered angrily at the two men. ‘Didn’t you search these two?’

  Neither man had the balls to answer. They looked like small boys being told off by their mum.

  ‘You knew she had a mobile phone,’ Abby screamed, snatching it from Lauren. ‘You know you can track them. Have you got one brain cell between you?’

  She pulled off the battery before flipping it open and breaking the two halves apart. ‘If the cops got hold of her number and tracked her here, we are totally in the shit,’ she yelled. ‘Now search them.’

  Roman told Lauren to raise her arms in the air and began turning out her pockets. He got the pepper spray and the small penknife that Lauren kept on her key ring, but he didn’t notice the knife strapped to the inside of her thigh when he patted her down.

  ‘Where’s this from?’ Abby asked Lauren, as she suspiciously pulled the cap off the pepper spray. It wasn’t the kind of thing you expected to find in a twelve-year-old’s pocket and Lauren knew it was illegal to sell pepper spray in Britain.

  ‘There were a lot of attacks going on near where I used to live, so I bought it off this boy,’ Lauren lied. ‘He brought it back from his holiday in America.’

  Abby raised the can and squirted it at Roman. Cherubs carried an extra-strength brand designed to stop charging bears and Roman yelled out in pain. As he clutched his face, Keith backed up nervously. The tangy vapour in the air was enough to make the girls’ eyes water.

  ‘Powerful stuff,’ Abby grinned, as she threw the canister inside her office. ‘Now get these little bitches out of my sight and make sure there are no customers around before you drag them into the brothel.’

  A twenty-metre walk along a balcony overlooking the staircase took Keith, Roman, Anna and Lauren to an anonymous white door with an intercom mounted at its side. Af
ter being buzzed in, they passed into a reception area that smelled like cigarettes. The only phones were mobiles, the furniture was made from chipboard and the whole place gave the impression that everything could be picked up and shipped out in a matter of hours.

  A sign behind the desk reassured customers that all transactions will appear on your credit card statement as North Lane Pizza & Pasta. A powerfully built bouncer scowled from a leather armchair, as Lauren tried not to stare at the goods: a half dozen girls in their late teens or very early twenties. They sat on modular sofa units, wearing silk gowns and high heels, with nothing but old magazines and a few half eaten boxes of Chinese food for entertainment.

  ‘You fellas don’t look so hot,’ the elderly receptionist said, as she eyed Keith’s bloody nose and Roman’s streaming eyes.

  ‘Sweetheart, you haven’t looked so hot since nineteen fifty-six,’ Roman snapped back. ‘So shut your yap and get me two rooms upstairs, well away from action. Don’t buzz any customers in till we’re out of sight.’

  After grasping two chunky keys, Roman led the foursome up a narrow staircase and out into a corridor with five doors on each side. Just like downstairs, everything looked cheap. The rooms were nothing but plywood partitions and the doors had clasps and padlocks on them.

  Lauren and Anna got shoved into rooms on opposite sides at the far end of the corridor.

  ‘One for the princess,’ Keith said, as he locked Anna in her room. ‘And one for my special friend.’

  Lauren got shoved into a windowless space three metres square. She was surrounded on all sides by bare sheets of plywood and almost choked from the smell of air freshener. A low energy bulb dangled from the ceiling, and there was a double bed with a disposable sheet stretched over the duvet and pillows.

  As Keith fastened the padlock on the outside, Lauren pulled back a thin dividing curtain. Behind it was a bathroom of sorts: a set of clean towels, a shower with mould growing on the curtain and a heavily stained, seatless, toilet. Most disturbing was a washbasin streaked with dried blood.

  Lauren backed off and propped herself on the edge of the paper bedsheet. The room made her skin crawl, as she imagined teenage girls being locked up and forced to have sex with strange men: a quick shower, a squirt of air freshener and a fresh paper sheet before the next customer came in; and your head smashed open on the wash basin if you gave your boss – or rather your owner – any kind of trouble.

  Horror movies had nothing on this, but Lauren knew she couldn’t let it get to her. Hopefully, John Jones and a bunch of cops would come storming in before too long, but it might take them a while to plan a complicated raid and Lauren had to consider every eventuality. She and Anna were in danger every second they were locked up, so she was determined to get out as quickly as she could.

  Lauren heard steps out in the hallway, followed by the sound of a padlock springing open.

  ‘I’ve got a score to settle,’ Keith said, putting on a voice like he was teasing a small child. He still wore the bloody shirt, but not the jacket with the gun tucked inside.

  ‘Here are the rules,’ he smirked, as he pushed shut the door. ‘You do everything I say or I pop you in the mouth, like that.’ He slammed his fist into his palm. ‘Now, take your kit off.’

  ‘What kit?’ Lauren said, acting dumb as she reassured herself by feeling the surprise strapped to her leg.

  ‘Strip,’ Keith ordered, as he unbuttoned his shirt. ‘Then you can come and sit on my lap.’

  ‘I’ll scream,’ Lauren said.

  Keith spread his arms out wide and laughed. ‘Scream all you like, honey. There ain’t nobody gonna come running to save you.’

  ‘Pervert,’ Lauren sneered. ‘You make me sick.’

  ‘Sticks and stones …’ Keith said. ‘You’d better start being a bit smarter, Lauren. I’m big, you’re small. You’re going to do everything I tell you to do. The only question is how much I have to hurt you to make it happen.’

  ‘Have you tried this before?’ Lauren asked. ‘I mean, raping a twelve-year-old?’

  Keith smiled as he pulled off his Reeboks. ‘Let’s see how smart that mouth of yours is in half an hour’s time.’

  ‘Your mother must be really proud of you, Keith.’

  That snapped it. Keith lunged at Lauren with one leg still in his trousers. He tried grabbing her by the neck, but she ripped her hand out of her leggings, ducked down low and plunged the knife between his legs.

  Keith grabbed Lauren’s hair as he screamed in agony. Hot blood ran over her hand as she tried to free the knife, but the handle was slippery and it wouldn’t budge. Lauren felt a section of her scalp tear as Keith hitched her off the ground. The pain was excruciating, but Lauren managed to smash her palm against the underside of Keith’s jaw. Still holding on to Lauren’s hair, he staggered back and collapsed across the bed.

  ‘Let me go,’ Lauren yelled, kneeing the bloody patch between Keith’s legs as she landed on top of him.

  Keith was bleeding heavily and she felt his grip weaken. She wriggled free and realised that she was covered in blood as she stumbled back towards the dividing curtain.

  Lauren wasn’t particularly aggressive, but she hated Keith because of what he’d wanted to do to her and probably had done to other girls who’d been less able to defend themselves.

  ‘Paedophile,’ she snarled, as she watched the blood streaking down Keith’s legs. ‘You’re lucky I don’t strangle you.’

  She was sorely tempted, but her training overpowered her thirst for revenge. There were only thin wooden partitions between each room. Someone had probably heard the commotion and it wouldn’t be long before they came to find out what had happened.

  29. DOCUMENTS

  James had to do it. He’d agreed with Kerry once he realised that she wasn’t going to help, but only because he knew he’d never get a snog while they were arguing.

  James’ first idea was to sneak across campus in the early hours of the morning, but that would be highly suspicious. He knew from personal experience that the mission preparation building was usually almost empty by 6 p.m. If he got caught at that time, he’d be able to claim that he’d found the door open and was looking for Ewart; provided he didn’t get caught red-handed with his nose in a secret file.

  There was a light drizzle in the evening air as he headed towards mission preparation. James bottled out a couple of times and even stopped walking before finally committing himself to the section of curved path leading towards the long, banana-shaped building.

  CHERUB training teaches you that confidence is the key: it’s best to act like you haven’t got a care in the world even when you’re cacking yourself. Campus was monitored by numerous security systems, but with hundreds of cameras and hundreds of people moving around, the security staff were unlikely to get excited about anything that didn’t look too suspicious.

  James approached with a swagger, swiped his card, pushed the door when it clicked and tried not to make it too obvious that he was attempting to see as far ahead as possible as he peered down the curving corridor that led to Ewart’s office.

  The office wasn’t locked. Ewart usually left early to pick his kids up from nursery, but James knocked just in case. When he didn’t get an answer, he stepped in and flipped the light switch.

  James didn’t have keys to the filing cabinets or cupboards, so it was lucky that Ewart was a slob. He began flicking through some of the papers stacked on the desk: invoices, plane tickets, lists of babysitters for the kids, a vet’s bill for Meatball and a lot of stuff related to an upcoming mission in Taiwan.

  Frustrated, James tugged at the three locked desk drawers before eyeing a giant stack of papers on the glass coffee table in front of Ewart’s sofa. James saw his own photograph on top of the stack. It had been taken on the day he’d joined CHERUB and James was surprised by how much he’d changed. He barely recognised the chubby, innocent face, and could only envy the absence of zits.

  JAMES ADAMS: CONFIDENTIAL FILE.

/>   The cardboard folder was ten centimetres thick, bursting with his entire life: school reports from Year One onwards, a summary of his performance in basic training written by Mr Large, mission reports, punishment reports. There were surveillance photographs of Lauren’s dad – Ron – a coroner’s report on his mother’s death – ‘massive cardiac failure caused by interaction of alcohol and anti-inflammatory medicine, secondary cause obesity’ – and even details of his mum’s safety deposit box. It was a tantalising chance to know what people had said about him, but it would take hours to plough through it all and James had to focus on Ewart’s investigation.

  The stack was thirty centimetres high and certainly gave the impression that Ewart was being thorough. As he flipped through, James found reports on Boris and Isla, including pictures of them when they were younger and their bloody remains in the Aero City morgue. Isla had been shot in the face and James only recognised her by her evening dress and watch.

  The other thing that kept coming up was the name of Lord Hilton, chairman of Hilton Aerospace and a major business partner of Denis Obidin. Hilton appeared on the television every so often, and James remembered the face, not because he was interested in the aerospace industry but because Hilton had a single bushy eyebrow that stretched from one side of his head to the other. It was a cartoonist’s delight.

  The contents of the next folder hit James like a slap: blurry black and white images printed on glossy paper. The stills were from Denis Obidin’s office and showed him being murdered by Isla and Boris. It was clearly taken from the CIA footage that he’d seen in Aero City.

  The following pages showed more stills, some of them annotated with handwritten notes, whilst others were huge pixelated enlargements of tiny sections of a particular frame. The last page was a fax message:

  Ewart,

  I’ve spent hours going through these images. I’ve checked shadow details, made enlargements and broken the video down frame by frame looking for glitches. I have also compared facial images and mechanical details such as stride pattern and mannerisms with surveillance videos of Boris and Isla taken inside MI5 headquarters.