CHERUB: Guardian Angel

by Robert Muchamore

  The kick wasn’t hard, but there was a nice fleshy slap as boot connected with buttock.

  ‘I can’t help being scared of spiders,’ Leon shouted bitterly. ‘And next time you kick me, I’ll kick back harder.’

  Ning pressed the grass tuft under the tip of her boot, and twisted to kill the spider.

  ‘Now you don’t have to worry about it,’ she said. ‘Get back in place. This’ll be hard enough without you two acting like prats.’

  6. ANGEL

  There were two things that kept Ethan sane. Natalka was one, Ryan Brasker was the other. Ethan had first met Ryan in California a couple of months before his mum was murdered, a short period during which Ryan had twice saved his life.

  The first time, Ethan had been knocked down by a car and swallowed his tongue. Ryan cleared his airway, saving him from suffocation. Weeks later when assassins killed his mother, Ryan helped Ethan escape through a tiny window before the killers got to him.

  Ethan felt that he owed Ryan and jokingly called him his Guardian Angel. Now the two boys maintained a secret online friendship, but there was a lot that Ethan didn’t know about Ryan Brasker.

  For starters, he was really Ryan Sharma – thirteen-year-old brother of Leon and Daniel and a qualified CHERUB agent. Ryan had been sent to California the previous autumn. His mission was to befriend Ethan and find out as much as he could about Ethan’s mother and her links with the Aramov Clan.

  Secondly, Ryan was no guardian angel. His plan to befriend Ethan had involved turning a gang of bullies against him. The theory was that Ryan would step in and save Ethan’s butt, after which they’d become mates. But the plan went awry when the bullies chased Ethan into the path of a moving car.

  When Irena Aramov arranged for Ethan to be snatched away from California child protection after his mother’s murder there was no plausible way for CHERUB agent Ryan to follow Ethan to Kyrgyzstan, but Ryan had maintained his friendship with Ethan in the virtual world, staying in touch by Hotmail and Facebook, playing online chess and speaking on Skype.

  This relationship between a CHERUB agent and the grandson to the head of a major criminal network gave British and American intelligence a valuable window into Aramov Clan operations. But it was tough to maintain because Irena Aramov had told Ethan to cut off all contact with anyone he’d known in California, and a lack of fast Internet and mobile phone coverage in the remote valley around the Kremlin made this ban relatively easy to enforce.

  The pilots and staff who worked for the Aramovs had access to a couple of public computers on a slow Internet connection, but these terminals were in the Kremlin’s ground-floor lobby and their usage was monitored by Aramov security teams. More usefully, Ethan had discovered three private computers on the sixth floor which were used for Aramov Clan business and linked up to a reasonably fast satellite-based Internet connection.

  One computer was in the quarters of Ethan’s uncle, Josef Aramov. Irena’s oldest son was a man of limited intelligence who was basically a glorified caretaker around the Kremlin. But Josef kept his rooms locked and Ethan had never got within two metres of his computer.

  The second computer was in Leonid Aramov’s rooms. Ethan’s friendship with Leonid’s son Andre meant he could get near, but Uncle Leonid wasn’t the kind of man you wanted to piss off, especially as Ethan suspected that he was behind the killing of his mother.

  Luckily for Ethan, the third computer belonged to his grandma Irena and was easy to access. Irena was rarely awake after 8 p.m. Once the old lady went to bed her nurse, Yang, would gulp several glasses of wine and sit watching Chinese TV with the volume up so loud that she never heard Ethan walking along the hallway and cutting into her boss’s unlocked office.

  A couple of hours watching Pineapple Express with Natalka and the prospect of moving to a school in Dubai or Bahrain put Ethan in a better-than-usual mood as he jogged furtively along the sixth-floor hallway on socked feet.

  Irena’s computer was an aged Windows box, surrounded by overstuffed paper trays and yellow books: Internet for Dummies, Windows for Dummies, Excel for Dummies. The machine had a network password, but Irena had her login scrawled on a strawberry-scented notelet taped to the bottom of the monitor.

  Ethan had always been more comfortable with virtual worlds than in the real one and felt a sense of longing as Windows 98 booted up. Having a mouse in his hand and clicking on the ‘e’ to open Internet Explorer felt good, but this was illicit activity and he thought how great it would be to have a laptop in his room so that he could spend hours watching YouTube clips, downloading music and playing online games like when he’d lived in California.

  Ethan logged into MSN under his American name, Ethan Kitsell. He only had seven names in his contact book and two of those – former best friend Yannis and his mother – were dead. Of the surviving five, four were kids Ethan had met at chess tournaments and the last was Ryan Brasker, who was showing as online.

  Ethan opened a chat window. He typed fast but Ryan got in first.

  Ryan – UR on late tonight.

  Ethan – Watched a movie with Natalka. BIG NEWS!

  Ryan – She let you feel her titties? J

  Ethan – Better! My gran got me school brochures. I might FINALLY be getting out of here, at least for term time.

  Ryan – Sweet!!!!!

  Ethan – I’ll send your chess move through tomorrow. Can’t chat long tonight. Wanna look at the websites for those schools.

  Ryan – Remember what you asked about hacking Uncle Leonid’s computer?

  Ethan – 4 sure.

  Ryan – I did some surfing like U asked, hacking sites & stuff. I’ve downloaded a little app that hijacks a computer.

  Ethan – Does it work?

  Ryan – Seems to. I tested it on Amy’s computer.

  Ethan – If you got any naked pictures of your sister, send ’em on over J

  Ryan – PERVO! All you do is load the app on a USB stick and plug it into the PC. The program loads up in the background when the computer gets turned on. Couple of days later you pull the stick out and it’s logged everything that’s been typed and copied any files that have been opened.

  Ethan – Trouble is Leonid and my two older cousins are SCARY bastard steroid heads.

  Ryan – FFS! I spent hours online finding this out for you & now UR too chicken!

  Ethan – Gotta be careful. I’m 75% sure Leonid killed my mum and wants me dead too.

  Ryan – Why RU so sure?

  Ethan – Can’t prove Jack shit, but he’s the kind of guy who’d kill his own sister. My mum got murdered a month after Grandma asked her to get involved in clan business, and Leonid wanted to run the show.

  Ryan – At some point U have 2 man up.

  Ethan – Easy 4U 2B brave with your butt safe in California. People who cross Leonid Aramov die SLOW painful deaths.

  Ryan – So you do nothing? THE GUY PROBABLY KILLED YOUR MOTHER and will come after you again once your gran dies and can’t protect you.

  Ethan – Tell me something I don’t know. Just not sure what hacking Leonid’s computer proves? It’s not like he’s gonna have ‘Tuesday, kill sister and nephew’ written in his Google calendar.

  Ryan – Who knows what you’ll find? Maybe passwords or payment details. INFORMATION IS POWER! Hacking Leonid’s computer could put U1 step ahead of anything he’s up to.

  Ethan – *BIG SIGH* UR right, I have to try SOMETHING. Uncle Josef’s no good and my mum’s dead. I’m the only barrier to Leonid and his boys taking over the Aramov business and inheriting Grandma’s entire fortune when she dies.

  Ryan – U seen Grandma?

  Ethan – After school today. The cancer is supposed to be incurable but she’s clinging on. If anything she’s stronger than when I arrived here a few months back. I don’t think she’ll be dying anytime soon.

  Ryan – Anything else U want me to look into? If U can get hold of a small USB stick, that program I found will do the rest 4U.

  Ethan – I’m s
cared, but I can’t sit back and wait for Leonid to come after me. I can buy a USB stick in the bazaar. If I can prove to Grandma that Leonid killed my mom, she’ll protect me.

  Ryan – URA CLEVER BASTARD WITH COMPUTERS. I KNOW U CAN PULL THIS OFF!!!!!!

  Ethan – Better go. Wanna look at these school websites and can’t sit in this office all night.

  Ryan – I’ll upload the hacking programs to an FTP* site and send you a link. Speak tomorrow!

  Ethan – Thanks. Good to know my guardian angel is STILL looking out for me ☺

  ETHAN KITSELL has logged off

  RYAN BRASKER has logged off

  * FTP – File Transfer Protocol.

  *

  The trainees got the cannon across the island with a mixture of rolling, dragging and carrying. It wasn’t warm, but by the time they’d reached the cliff edge Ning had sweat streaking down her face and palms scraped raw by the rusty surface of the cannon.

  Daniel threw the glass slab over the edge of the shallow cliff, much to the distress of several large gulls. Then he scrambled down after it, reaching a narrow strip of shale beach with hands and clothes streaked white with bird lime.

  ‘You OK?’ Ning shouted from the cliff top, eight metres up.

  ‘Tide’s coming in,’ Daniel shouted back. ‘We need to get on with this.’

  Daniel pulled a shard of metal they’d found near the cannon from his pack. He wedged it pointing upwards between two rocks, then balanced the glass slab so that its centre leaned on the metal. By the time he’d done this, the biggest waves were getting close to his heels.

  ‘We’re only gonna get one shot at this,’ Daniel shouted up. ‘Tide’s close and there’s no way we can haul the cannon back up the cliff without ropes.’

  Ning nodded from up top. ‘Help us line up.’

  As Ning and Leon grabbed either end of the cannon, Daniel stepped back until the sea was near the brim of his waterproof boots.

  ‘You’re close,’ Daniel shouted. ‘Maybe a quarter-step to the left.’

  As Ning and Leon adjusted their position, Daniel stared at the glass slab. He’d just lived the hundred toughest days of his life and didn’t think he could go through it all over again. Either the falling cannon smashed the glass and released the T-shirts, or his CHERUB career was over.

  ‘I think you’re OK!’ Daniel shouted.

  The cannon was too heavy for Ning and Leon to hang about. They both groaned as they threw it. As it fell, Daniel had an alarming feeling that it might bounce off the cliff face and flatten him so he took some quick backwards steps along the shoreline.

  As the cannon landed, Daniel trod awkwardly on to a rock and lost balance. He splashed down in water less than ten centimetres deep, but within a second a breaking wave had completely engulfed him.

  Daniel’s head snapped backwards as freezing Atlantic water poured down his neck. His whole body shuddered from the cold, but his mind stayed focused on the glass-encased T-shirts. He quickly found his feet and began wading towards them.

  ‘Bull’s-eye!’ Leon shouted, as he looked anxiously down over the cliff face. ‘What’s it like down there?’

  Ning was too anxious to wait for Daniel’s prognosis and was scrambling down a gently sloped section of the cliffs, pebbles tumbling as she shuffled ungraciously on her bum.

  The cannon had hit the glass slab with enough force to knock a huge lump off one of the boulders on which it had been set. The slab itself had slid down into surrounding pebbles, but when Daniel brushed them away he felt like he’d been kicked in the guts.

  ‘Nothing,’ Daniel gasped, as he inspected the slab.

  ‘Well?’ Leon shouted from up top.

  As Daniel stepped backwards shaking his head, Ning arrived and checked out the slab for herself.

  ‘There’s not even a tiny scratch,’ she shouted, as she went down on one knee. ‘I can’t believe it. How are we supposed to break this thing?’

  ‘Maybe this is a red herring,’ Daniel said, as he peeled his wet T-shirt over his head to wring out. ‘If this is unbreakable there must be another set of T-shirts hidden somewhere on the island.’

  ‘Where?’ Ning asked. ‘It’s not like we haven’t looked.’

  Daniel glanced at his watch. ‘It’ll start getting dark in an hour. We can’t get the cannon back up the cliff, but we can take the slab in case we think of something else.’

  ‘There has to be a way to do this,’ Ning said, as she cupped her hands around her head. ‘We can’t fail now, we’ve got to think!’

  7. SCHOOL

  The three trainees spent the remaining daylight hunting for more T-shirts, or a tool which would enable them to smash the glass slab. But they got nowhere and by 11.20 p.m. Ning, Daniel and Leon had given up. They sat around a fire close to the spot where they’d landed, staring at the stars and feeling sorry for themselves.

  ‘I just know the solution is gonna be something simple,’ Ning said, as she warmed her hands close to the flames. ‘We’ll kick ourselves so hard.’

  ‘At least it’s over,’ Leon said. ‘Get back to campus tomorrow. Proper hot shower, clean clothes, big greasy breakfast.’

  ‘And all our mates taking the piss because we failed training,’ Daniel added sourly.

  Leon’s stomach rumbled as he sifted small pebbles between his fingers. ‘Even if we worked out what we were supposed to do now, it’s probably too late to get it done.’

  ‘Maybe the instructors forgot something,’ Ning said. ‘I mean, some piece of equipment we were supposed to have, because I just can’t think of a way to do this.’

  As Ning spoke, Daniel heard a buzzing sound in his pocket. He dived into his shorts and pulled out a matchbox-sized walkie-talkie.

  ‘We’ve been expecting your call all day,’ Instructor Speaks said cheerfully. ‘Wearing those grey T-shirts yet?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Leon told the walkie-talkie miserably.

  ‘Ask him for a clue or something,’ Daniel whispered. ‘Can’t do any harm at this stage.’

  Speaks’ crackly voice came over the intercom. ‘I didn’t copy that, trainee.’

  ‘It was nothing, sir,’ Leon said. ‘Just Daniel asking for a clue.’

  Mr Speaks gave one of his most evil laughs, and the trainees were pretty sure they could hear Mr Kazakov chortling in the background too.

  ‘A clue,’ Speaks said incredulously. ‘How about I tell you what the glass is made of?’

  ‘I guess that could help,’ Leon said.

  ‘It’s bullet-proof glass,’ Speaks explained. ‘The kind you’d fit in the window of a presidential limousine. It’s designed to withstand three thousand degrees heat, or a direct hit from an artillery shell travelling at supersonic speed. Your chances of breaking it with anything on that island were nil.’

  Leon gasped. ‘So there’s some other hidden T-shirts on the island somewhere?’

  ‘Nope,’ Speaks said.

  Leon sounded irritated. ‘So how are we supposed to get our grey T-shirts?’

  ‘Trouble is, twelve trainees started basic training and with only three left we couldn’t really have any more dropping out on the last day. But rather than tell you you’d passed, we thought we’d make you suffer until the last moment.’

  ‘So this was impossible?’ Leon said, as Ning and Daniel joined him in staring incredulously at the walkie-talkie. ‘Does this mean we get our shirts?’

  ‘Mr Kazakov and I are about to get in a motorboat and come across from the next island. I’ve got some chicken and rice in a hot box, a few cold Cokes and three grey CHERUB T-shirts. I reckon you’ll be wearing them before midnight. Speaks out.’

  ‘This better not be some twisted joke,’ Ning said, as Leon put the radio back in his pocket. ‘If it is, I swear to God I’ll castrate one of those instructors.’

  *

  One of the few good things about being at the Kremlin – at least if your surname was Aramov – was the catering. Ethan set his alarm for 7.20 on school days and ten minutes l
ater a woman would knock and bring in a tray of whatever he’d ordered from the basement kitchen before going to sleep the night before.

  It had taken the chef a while to master American-style pancakes with bacon, but now that they’d had decent maple syrup flown in from Canada it was as good as anything Ethan had been served in a flash hotel.

  But once Ethan’s stomach was satisfied there was only the prospect of a grim Tuesday of school and another evening of movies or video games. When Ethan got to the school bus he was pissed off to find Natalka talking to Vladimir, the sixteen-year-old son of an aircraft mechanic.

  Very few boys stayed at school beyond the age of fifteen and Vlad was no exception. He was using the bus to hitch a ride into Bishkek and he seemed to be trying to persuade Natalka to bunk off and spend the day in town with him. The dude had all the personality of a brick wall, but Natalka dug his muscular body and wavy blond hair and was flirting like mad.

  ‘Total slut,’ Andre said as he came up to Ethan. ‘Didn’t I say that just yesterday?’

  Ethan tutted and looked irritated, but Andre spoke again before he thought of a response.

  ‘My dad wants to see you.’

  Ethan gulped. Leonid Aramov didn’t summon people for tea and biscuits, or a nice chat.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. I just heard him telling Boris not to let you on the school bus.’

  ‘Did he sound angry?’ Ethan asked.

  Andre smirked. ‘My dad always sounds angry.’

  Ethan grew more anxious when his nineteen-year-old cousin Boris came bounding out of the Kremlin lobby and gave the bus keys to Vlad.