Black Friday

by Robert Muchamore

Both lifts were out, but Ryan only had his backpack and didn’t mind walking up three floors to his room. The Kremlin had been built for the old Soviet Air Force and military dorms had been crudely divided with wobbly plasterboard partitions. Toilets and showers were grim affairs shared between six rooms, and the lingering whiff of drains and cigarettes could only be escaped if you threw your window open. This was OK in the summer, but right now it was November and the outdoor temperature was minus four.

  Despite many disadvantages, the low-ceilinged room was cosy and Ryan felt fondness as he flipped on the bare ceiling bulb. The furniture and kitchenette had a kitsch ex-Soviet feel, and he’d taken to scouring dodgy electronics stalls at the massive Dordoi Bazaar in nearby Bishkek, buying the tackiest fakes he could get his hands on.

  Ryan was particularly proud of his Nanasonic bedside iPod dock, bright orange Soni television/karaoke machine and a laptop that was either Dell or Toshiba, depending on whether you read the badge on the lid or the peeling sticker on the keyboard.

  The other thing Ryan always picked up in the bazaar was big bags of scented candles. He struck a match and lit an orange one, both to clear the build-up of damp smells and as a fall-back because the Kremlin’s electricity supply faltered at least twice a week.

  Kazakov’s stuff was everywhere and Ryan hated the idea of having it lying around. He felt sad as he split the dead man’s things into two piles. Stuff like clothes, work boots and toiletries got dumped in a black bin bag. Other items like his ivory-handled cut-throat razor, a pair of snazzy Oakley sunglasses and a small plastic wallet of photos got placed into a wheelie bag. Ryan doubted there was anyone who’d actually want Kazakov’s stuff, but it seemed wrong throwing out every trace of the man less than a week after he’d died.

  In theory it was school time, but Ryan’s girlfriend Natalka played truant a lot so he headed to the end of the hallway, hoping to spring a surprise. The odds were always against and it was Natalka’s mum, Dimitra, who answered the door.

  There were no female loadmasters or mechanics on the Aramov crew roster and Dimitra was one of only three female pilots. She was chunky and acted tough to fit in with the men, but she was a good mother to Natalka, and Ryan reckoned she’d been beautiful when she was younger.

  While most aircrew kept their families back in Russia or the Ukraine, Dimitra and Natalka lived in the Kremlin full time. Their room was bigger than the one Ryan had shared with Kazakov and seniority meant that they’d bagged a corner space as far as you can get from the smell of shared toilets. There were also large corner windows and a balcony that was best not walked on, because the concrete was badly cracked and only corroded steel rebars held it in place.

  ‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ Ryan said, as Dimitra tied a robe around her waist.

  ‘Oh, I’m flying out in a bit,’ Dimitra said, pointing to a tatty pilot’s uniform draped over a dining chair, as a coffee pot boiled on an electric ring.

  Ryan hid a smile, because the tiny apartment was a good place to hang out with Natalka when Dimitra was off flying.

  ‘Coffee?’ Dimitra asked, as she padded across to the stove. ‘I heard about your father. I’m really sorry.’

  Ryan was surprised Dimitra knew. ‘They asked me to keep it quiet,’ Ryan said. ‘How’d you find out?’

  ‘I’ve been around the Kremlin a long time,’ Dimitra said. ‘I don’t think many other people know. Have you got plans?’

  Ryan shrugged, aware that Dimitra was a useful source of intelligence and that having her take pity on him was good for the mission. ‘I made it to our fall-back liaison in New York and they flew me back here. I haven’t spoken to anyone properly, but I think the Aramovs are gonna try finding some work for me. Odd jobs, you know?’

  Dimitra didn’t look satisfied. ‘What about family? Mum, aunt, grandparents?’

  Ryan shook his head. ‘I think I’ve got some cousins in the Ukraine, but I’ve never met them. It’s always just been me and my dad.’

  ‘Josef Aramov is no genius,’ Dimitra said. ‘Hiring a plane to terrorists targeting America will bring a lot of heat down on us. This never would have happened if Irena or Leonid Aramov still ran the clan.’

  ‘Is everyone worried about Josef?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘There’s no confidence in him,’ Dimitra said, as she handed Ryan a small cup of Scandinavian-style boiled coffee. ‘We’ve lost eight planes this year. That’s ten per cent of the fleet and there’s talk of a breakaway group going off to work for Leonid.’

  Ryan liked a milky Starbucks latte and the thick black coffee Dimitra had given him felt like acid dripping on his tongue. He knew that the eight lost planes were part of TFU’s programme to slowly dismantle the clan, but Dimitra’s worries showed there was a real chance that scared aircrews might return home or, worse, disappear with a bunch of planes and form a breakaway smuggling outfit.

  ‘Has anyone heard from Leonid since his mum lopped his ear off and told him to leave the country?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Foul man,’ Dimitra spat. ‘I was never close to Leonid, but he’s a cunning fox. He has many friends still inside the Kremlin.’

  ‘I heard he might be in Russia,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Then you heard more than me,’ Irena replied, as she drained her coffee. ‘I’ll be back on Friday and I’ll see what I can do to help with your situation. Natalka will be home from school soon, but now I must get dressed, yes?’

  Ryan took the hint and went down to the lobby to wait. Natalka had a mobile, but the clan made sure there was no phone signal around the Kremlin. Ryan ordered a Coke and a plate of food from the bar. In best Soviet tradition, there was only ever one meal on the menu and today it was tomato soup, followed by a pizza that had been cooked hours earlier and then microwaved until the cheese had the texture of a dog’s chew toy.

  ‘Hey,’ Natalka said, when she jumped off the school bus. She wore four layers under a huge puffa jacket, but you could still tell that the fourteen-year-old had a good figure and a cute freckled nose above her scarf line.

  Leonid Aramov’s eleven-year-old son Andre also said hello as he stepped down into the snow. But Ryan was only interested in Natalka.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your dad,’ Natalka said, as she stroked Ryan’s hair and gave him a kiss. ‘You must feel like crap.’

  ‘Better now I’m back with you,’ Ryan said, welling up as he pulled Natalka in for a proper snog.

  Dimitra probably still hadn’t left for her flight, so they raced up to Ryan’s room. Once Natalka had thrown off her outdoor clothes, they rolled around on the bed snogging for ages, ending up snuggled together in near darkness. They listened to a gale that made the Kremlin creak while a Transformers cartoon played on the TV because neither of them could be arsed to stand up and hunt the remote.

  ‘We could run away,’ Natalka said, longing but not serious as she tickled Ryan’s ankle with a plum-coloured big toenail. ‘Your dad’s gone. My mum doesn’t care.’

  Ryan laughed. ‘Your mum’s great, she loves you to bits.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Natalka said dreamily. ‘But imagine if we made it to somewhere warm. Strolling in the sun, eating in nice restaurants, lying on a beach.’

  ‘Screwing,’ Ryan said, as he pushed a hand between Natalka’s thighs.

  She blocked the move, politely but firmly, and compensated with a kiss. ‘When we get somewhere warm,’ Natalka said. ‘Then we’ll see about that.’

  Ryan was frustrated, but figured he was doing OK for a fourteen-year-old. ‘They sell sunlamps in the bazaar,’ he joked.

  ‘Oh you’re funny,’ Natalka said, as she stood up. ‘I haven’t eaten. Have you got eggs in your fridge?’

  Natalka had unbuttoned her jeans and they slipped down to her knees as she bent over the fridge, giving Ryan a flash of skimpy purple knickers and butt cheeks.

  ‘Eggs,’ Natalka beamed, bobbing up with an egg box in one hand while yanking up her jeans with the other. ‘I’m making omelettes.’

  Natalka was sexy and
funny, and Ryan loved being with her, but he wasn’t enjoying the moment as much as he’d hoped because he knew he had to be back on campus within six weeks …

  20. ANDRE

  Eleven-year-old Andre Aramov was the grandson of dying clan head Irena, and the son of thuggish Leonid Aramov, who’d been expelled from the clan minus his left ear after killing his sister and attempting to kill his mother.

  But although he bore the clan’s much-feared name, Andre had a gentle nature spawned from his mum Tamara. Both had been allowed to stay at the Kremlin when Leonid and Andre’s older brothers Boris and Alex vanished into exile.

  Andre wasn’t the kind of kid Ryan would have chosen to hang out with, but only a dozen school-aged kids lived in the Kremlin, so there wasn’t a huge choice.

  Although Andre could act babyish, there were upsides to hanging out with him. As an Aramov, Andre had access to the top floor, which was hardly palatial but definitely a step up from the grimy rooms below. The fifth floor also offered fast Internet, three hundred satellite TV channels and Andre’s near-infinite supply of PlayStation games.

  Once they got to their teens, Kremlin kids took a relaxed attitude to attending school, but on his third day back, Ryan had boarded the school bus with Natalka and she’d accepted Andre’s invite to come upstairs and watch a movie after school.

  ‘Why’d you agree to that?’ Ryan whispered to Natalka, as they crunched through snow into the Kremlin lobby with Andre racing ahead. ‘After school is make-out time.’

  ‘I’m a privilege you earn, not a right,’ Natalka said, only half serious. ‘Plus, there’s still ten cartons of Leonid Aramov’s cigarettes in the flat and I’m out of cash for the vending machine.’

  Ryan tutted instinctively. He was crazy about Natalka, but her two worst traits were smoking and doing whatever it took to get what she wanted, whether it was flirting with an older guy to get drinks bought for her, or accepting Andre’s invites so she could steal cigarettes.

  ‘What are you tutting for?’ Natalka said irritably. ‘Keep that up and I’ll give you something to tut about.’

  Ryan was so into Natalka that he felt like he was being stabbed when she said something mean. But it got better when they got into the lift and she pushed her hand up the back of his coat and grabbed his bum.

  ‘Hey, Mum, I’ve got company!’ Andre shouted as he led the way into a top-floor apartment that was comfortable, but hardly the palatial quarters you might expect for a family that the CIA reckoned had made a couple of billion during thirty years’ hardcore smuggling.

  ‘Are you staying to eat?’ Tamara asked.

  Andre’s mum had a slightly oriental appearance and was barefoot, in a short black dress. Looking after Andre was her whole life and she spoiled her only son with brilliant food and every toy and gadget he could wish for.

  ‘I could definitely eat,’ Natalka said, as she hooked up her coat.

  Andre was already in his bedroom setting up a three-player FIFA 12 tournament and the next couple of hours passed pleasantly, with games, discreet snogging and the smell of roast duck wafting from the kitchen.

  ‘Smells nice,’ Amy said, when she arrived in the doorway.

  While Ryan and Kazakov had infiltrated the clan at grass roots level, Amy had come in at the top, posing as a girlfriend for new clan head, Josef Aramov. Josef had spent most of his life as a glorified handyman around the Kremlin. But with his mother dying, his sister murdered and brother Leonid in exile, Josef was the last adult Aramov standing. TFU asked him to become a puppet leader when they took control of the clan and Josef had agreed, in return for immunity from prosecution and a new identity when the mission was over.

  ‘I need to speak to Ryan for a moment,’ Amy said. ‘After what happened to his father.’

  She took Ryan twenty metres down the hallway, well out of the guards’ earshot.

  ‘Settling back in OK?’ she asked.

  Ryan shrugged. ‘Not too bad. People are edgy though. Everyone knows it was an Aramov plane that flew out the explosives for the Black Friday attacks. They’re worried that the Americans will target their planes.’

  ‘I think we can use that to our advantage,’ Amy said. ‘I’ve set up a sting. Four planes will head off to Africa filled with weapons. A UN taskforce led by the USAF will intercept the Aramov planes.’

  Ryan looked wary. ‘Do you know how spooked everyone is downstairs? There’s talk of mutiny. Rumours that Leonid Aramov wants to set up a rival smuggling outfit, taking some of the best planes and crews before Josef runs the clan into the ground.’

  ‘Anything more tangible?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Not that I’ve heard,’ Ryan said. ‘Kazakov used to drink with a lot of the aircrew, but I’m not that close to them. Have you checked with Dan?’

  Dan was an eighteen-year-old clan dogsbody, who Amy had recruited as a spy.

  ‘Dan says the same as you,’ Amy said. ‘Rumours, nothing concrete.’

  ‘It’d be good if we could find Leonid and take him out,’ Ryan said.

  ‘He’s an evil bastard,’ Amy agreed. ‘Leonid will cause trouble wherever he goes and I’d certainly like to track him down, but our priority is to wind down Aramov operations quickly, without tipping off other criminal groups and undermining the intelligence we’ve gathered on them.

  ‘So the plan is, after four of our planes get seized by the Americans in Africa all the aircrew here will be on edge. Josef will make an announcement, saying that only the most critical operations will take place and that any aircrew who want to go home until this blows over are welcome to do so, and will receive full pay.’

  ‘With their planes?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Amy said. ‘The planes stay here. The crews will get their pay for a few months, but they’ll never come back.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Frankly, Ryan, once this plan is in place I won’t really need you here.’

  Ryan gulped. ‘Until Christmas, at least,’ he begged.

  Amy smiled. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get your six weeks. But don’t go letting this thing with Natalka get too heavy. You’ve got to leave eventually and you’ll wind up going back to campus with a broken heart.’

  Ryan looked like he’d been slapped. ‘I know we’re trained to keep our emotions under control,’ he said. ‘But I think I’m in love with Natalka. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did.’

  Amy put a soothing hand on Ryan’s shoulder. ‘You’re far from the first CHERUB agent this has happened to. Teenagers fall in love easily and no amount of training can get around that.’

  Ryan shuddered. ‘I’m trying to keep it out of my mind because I don’t want to ruin what I have with Natalka by thinking about the end all the time.’

  Amy didn’t get her reply in because a door clicked behind them. Tamara was walking along the hallway.

  ‘I have a lot of roast duck,’ Tamara said. ‘Amy, would you like to stick around for dinner?’

  Amy had only had good experiences of Tamara’s cooking and smiled. ‘Absolutely.’

  After stuffing themselves, Ryan and Natalka headed downstairs and Andre went to his room to watch TV. With her husband gone, Tamara led an isolated existence and seemed grateful for Amy’s company. The two women shared a bottle of wine over dinner and ended up sloshed as they stood in the kitchen stacking the dishwasher.

  ‘I know you’re more than Josef’s girlfriend,’ Tamara said quietly.

  Amy looked startled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I made a stupid mistake marrying Leonid Aramov,’ Tamara said. ‘But I’m not a stupid person. I overheard you speaking with Ryan. I know Irena went to America for cancer treatment. Josef can barely string three sentences together and you’re here to control him, on behalf of whichever government you work for.’

  ‘I see,’ Amy said. She wasn’t entirely surprised that Tamara knew some of what was going on, but she was curious to know why she’d chosen to mention it now.

  ‘Yo
u told Ryan that you wanted to catch Leonid,’ Tamara said.

  Amy didn’t understand how this had been possible. You were either in the corridor, or you weren’t, unless …

  ‘Is there a listening device?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Leonid bugged most rooms on this floor,’ Tamara said. ‘You don’t need to worry. I’m the only one that knows about it.’

  ‘OK,’ Amy said, feeling a little shaken. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘After the Aramov Clan is gone, I’ll be left with my son. I have little money and no home of my own. Leonid has wanted me since I was fifteen years old. If he’s alive he’ll come after me. Even when we divorced, he made me stay here because he didn’t want anyone else to have me.’

  ‘Relocating you would be possible,’ Amy said. ‘I’m not talking about a fortune, but new identities and enough money to get you on your feet.’

  ‘I have family in Russia,’ Tamara said. ‘Mother, brothers, nephews, nieces. Even if I disappear, Leonid can find me by threatening them.’

  ‘I don’t see how we can protect an entire family,’ Amy admitted.

  ‘I know you can’t,’ Tamara said. ‘But you want to get Leonid and I want him out of my life. I’m sure I can help you.’

  Amy looked curious as Tamara picked a tub of dishwasher tablets out of a cupboard.

  ‘Do you know where Leonid is?’ she asked.

  Tamara shook her head. ‘It won’t be that simple. But before Irena kicked Leonid out he was pressuring me to marry him again. If Leonid thought I needed help, I’m sure he’d reach out.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Maybe if I was in some sort of danger, or if Leonid heard I’d been kicked out of the Kremlin and had no money. Something like that.’

  ‘But you’d still have no way to let him know,’ Amy said.

  ‘Not directly,’ Tamara said. ‘Irena made sure that all Leonid’s people got kicked out of the Kremlin, but she didn’t know everything. Leonid was paranoid and there’s a guy he used to check up on his own people, to make sure they weren’t ripping him off. He’s still around, and if Leonid has a spy inside the Kremlin, I’d bet on it being him.’