‘He was too chicken to break up to her face,’ Alfie explained. ‘So he sent her a break-up text before we got on the plane yesterday.’
Amy gasped. ‘You broke up by text message! You pig; I hope she does kick your arse.’
Ryan looked uncomfortable. ‘Last time I broke up with Grace she threw macaroni cheese at my head, trashed one of my chemistry books and poured yellow paint on my best jeans. I figured if I sent her a text, she’ll have had time to calm down before I get back to campus early next week.’
‘It’s a shame I won’t be on campus when she catches up with you,’ Ning said. ‘It’s gonna be hilarious!’
‘Grace is only little, but she’s deadly with oven-hot pasta,’ Alfie added.
‘If the first time was such a nightmare, why go out with her again?’ Amy asked.
Ryan shrugged. ‘We were in the back of a taxi, chatting away. She looked hot and it’s not like heaps of other girls were throwing themselves at me . . .’
‘For some strange reason,’ Ning added.
‘I still say you need to fake your own death,’ Alfie said. ‘It’s your only real chance of survival.’
Ryan raised a finger. ‘Alfie, why don’t you go sit on my middle digit and spin?’
Amy found all this pretty funny. It also made her nostalgic because the banter between the kids reminded her of all the dramas during her own teenage years on CHERUB campus. But she didn’t want her three agents having a serious falling-out, so she put her foot down before good-natured jabs could turn nasty.
‘We need to forget Ryan’s love life and focus on our mission,’ Amy said firmly, as she glanced at her watch. ‘First impressions are critical and every detail needs to be spot on when you meet Ethan at your new school on Monday.’
*
The centre of Bishkek was mainly home to government buildings, international hotels and communist era monuments, but for locals Dordoi Bazaar in the northern outskirts was the city’s real heart.
The market stretched for more than two kilometres, with a mix of open and covered areas. Traders worked out of metal shipping containers stacked two or three high, with the ground-level container serving as a shop, and the ones above used for storage.
With over six thousand traders, most areas of the vast bazaar had become specialised. Ethan had told Grandma Irena that he needed pens and other school stuff, so they got the driver to drop them near a cluster of traders selling stationery and gift wrap. But after a couple of quick purchases and some doubling back to ensure that Leonid wasn’t having him followed, Ethan led Natalka past several hundred tightly stacked containers to an area that mainly attracted teenagers.
The containers here sold pirate music, software and DVDs, a mix of punk and Goth clothes, plus every kind of cheap Chinese-produced fake from Nike basketball boots to Nirvana hoodies and Star Wars light sabres.
Crowds of older teens hung out in web cafés, where network gaming was more popular than web surfing. The day was mild, but the heat from tightly wedged computers in poorly ventilated containers pushed the temperature way up and the clammy teenage patrons gave them a distinctly locker-roomish aroma.
Ethan picked one of the slightly less crowded containers and paid for an hour’s Internet. Natalka scowled at the gamer boys who eyed her up as they squeezed past lines of cheap office chairs and sat together in front of a glowing LED screen in the farthest corner of the container. A big electric fan swung from side to side, but it only shifted funky air from one spot to another.
‘I know better web cafés than this,’ Natalka moaned, as beads of sweat bristled on her neck.
‘But Leonid’s goons would stick out around here,’ Ethan explained, as he opened up his Facebook. ‘Everyone’s our age.’
‘Oooh, he’s cute,’ Natalka said, as she saw Ryan’s profile picture in Ethan’s friend list. ‘Not what I expected at all.’
‘What were you expecting?’ Ethan asked.
Natalka grinned. ‘More of a geeky loser like you.’
‘You’re too kind,’ Ethan said.
The Russian keyboard layout was confusing, but Ethan was soon tapping out a response to one of several Where are you, hope you’re OK type messages from Ryan.
I’ve got a memory key from Leonid’s computer, Ethan typed. I’m gonna load everything up to our FTP site. Maybe you can take a look if you have time? If not, I’ll look myself because I’m heading off on Sunday, starting school in Dubai on Monday. Plan is to grab a couple more USB sticks in the bazaar today. Leonid mainly works from a computer out at the stables so I want to know what he’s up to out there.
*
The Facebook, e-mail and MSN accounts for Ryan Brasker and Ethan Kitsell were monitored 24/7 through a CIA office in Dallas. Ryan’s BlackBerry bleeped, and within moments he was hurrying down the corridor of his posh Dubai hotel and banging on the door of Amy’s room.
‘Ethan’s back online,’ Ryan said excitedly, as Amy opened up dressed in a white hotel robe. She was rubbing her eyes and seemed half asleep. ‘He’s sent me a long message and he’s uploading files from Leonid’s computer to the FTP site.’
‘Can you log in and talk to him?’ Amy asked, as she stepped back to let Ryan in.
‘We’re screwed on the time difference,’ Ryan said. ‘It’s three p.m. in Bishkek. Ethan thinks I’m in California and it’s two in the morning there. It’s not credible for me to be online.’
Amy tapped her chin thoughtfully. ‘Call Ted Brasker and let him know what’s happening. I’ll call the Information Management team in Dallas and make sure that the analysts start going through Ethan’s upload as soon as they get it.’
‘I hope this has been worth Ethan risking his neck,’ Ryan said. ‘Because I can’t help wondering if Leonid Aramov is the kind of guy who stores his darkest secrets on a hard drive . . .’
14. HAPPY
Dubai wasn’t the solution to all Ethan’s problems, but he wouldn’t miss the Kremlin’s gloomy strip lighting and tobacco-stained walls, and he liked the idea of putting some physical distance between himself and Uncle Leonid.
Grandma Irena was doing OK for someone who’d been given six months to live more than two years earlier. When Ethan entered her cramped bedroom she was propped on pillows next to a breakfast tray, watching CNN. Her words slurred because she didn’t have her top denture in.
‘Take a look over there!’ Irena said, aiming her wrinkled arm at a space between the wall and a bedside table. ‘I don’t know of these things, but I’m told it’s good.’
Ethan brushed along the wall, being careful not to knock down picture frames. He beamed as he picked up a top-of-the-line Toshiba laptop, still in its box. Alongside was a plastic bag filled with accessories: mouse, office software, neoprene case and even a stack of the latest pirate games from the bazaar.
‘Awesome!’ Ethan said.
‘Is it a good one?’ Irena asked.
Ethan nodded. ‘Really good.’
‘I’m letting you go to school in Dubai and have a computer because you have a right to live your own life,’ Irena said. ‘But you must be sensible with things you’ve heard here, and don’t contact anyone you knew in the United States.’
‘Of course, Grandma.’
‘I know you don’t feel like one of us,’ Irena said. ‘But never forget that you’re an Aramov.’
Ethan nodded again.
‘Do I deserve a hug then?’ she asked.
Ethan smiled as he leaned across the bed and hugged his grandmother. Her nightdress smelled of menthol rub and her rings dug into his back, but he enjoyed the moment because it was the first time he’d ever felt an emotional bond with his grandmother.
‘You’re turning into a good-looking young man,’ Irena said, as Ethan moved back around the bed. ‘You’re so like your mother, in your gestures and your voice.’
The comment made Ethan feel rueful: maybe he wasn’t bad-looking, but he hated his gangly body. He almost let the mention of his mother slip by, but he was leaving
soon and with Irena in poor health this might be his only chance to learn what she really thought.
‘Who do you think killed my mum?’ Ethan asked.
‘If I knew for sure they’d already be dead,’ Irena said.
‘Even if it was Uncle Leonid?’
As Ethan said this, Irena shuddered and took a strange kind of double breath. A tense hand crept towards her oxygen mask, but didn’t quite make it.
‘Who put that idea in your head?’ Irena asked harshly.
‘Nobody,’ Ethan said, as the sudden tension made goosebumps ripple across his back. ‘But he’s ambitious. Everyone says you asked my mum to come back here because you didn’t want Leonid running the clan alone.’
Irena wagged a pointing finger.
‘No,’ she said resolutely. ‘Galenka and Leonid were close. They used to play beautifully together. And Leonid has a few rough edges, but not that! A mother knows her own children and it’s just not possible.’
Ethan’s stomach suddenly felt horribly light. Even accounting for the fact that parents always want to see the best in their kids, how could anyone describe a raging psycho like Leonid as having a few rough edges?
‘I suppose I’d better get cracking,’ Ethan said. ‘Find somewhere to pack this laptop and stuff.’
‘Don’t forget to call and let me know how you’re doing,’ Irena said.
‘For sure,’ Ethan said.
He moved quickly down the hallway and dropped the laptop and bag of accessories inside the door of his room. He glanced at his watch and realised that he had about eighty minutes until his flight to Dubai and one piece of unfinished business.
Placing the memory key in the laptop in Leonid’s apartment hadn’t been a problem, but Ethan now knew that Leonid spent more time working at the stables than the Kremlin. After checking that he’d put a USB memory stick in his pocket, Ethan took the stairs down to the ground floor, exited the Kremlin through a rear fire door and started a brisk trek along a rugged path.
Ethan hadn’t exactly made friends at the stable, but he’d picked up a few lines of Kyrgyz and won favour with some of the younger stable hands by being generous with cigarettes. He got a couple of nods and hellos as he walked through the yard, but nobody cared enough to ask Ethan what he was up to as he entered the little admin shed and knocked on the door of Leonid’s metal-doored office.
He wasn’t expecting a reply and he didn’t get one. Leonid spent his Friday nights at a casino in Bishkek, and never surfaced before noon on a Saturday. Despite the reinforcement, the door was never locked. Ethan had the USB stick out of his pocket and was down on one knee plugging it into the back of Leonid’s computer within five seconds of entering the room.
There was always a chance that the key might be discovered, but judging by all the filth and dust behind the computer, even the cleaner hadn’t been back there in years.
For the return walk, Ethan unthinkingly took a shortcut that brought him past the open-air weight stack behind the Kremlin. The square had originally been a Soviet Air Force training area. The wire fence now hung down in rusted curls and the basketball courts were covered in huge potholes, but the outdoor weight benches and chin-up bars were still in regular use, not least by Boris and Alex Aramov.
‘Get over here,’ Alex shouted.
Ethan pretended like he hadn’t heard and kept walking.
‘Don’t make me come over there, little cousin,’ Alex warned.
Ethan cursed his luck – knowing he had to turn around and face whatever his two mad cousins planned to dish out.
The scene with benches and massive weights reminded Ethan of a prison movie. Besides Alex and Boris, there was Vlad and half a dozen other seriously pumped teenagers, either bare chested or in muscle vests.
Ethan stopped walking and pointed towards the airfield. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said warily. ‘My plane’s leaving in a minute.’
‘Won’t take off without you, will it?’ Alex shouted, as he pointed at the ground in front of his trainers. ‘Get here, now!’
‘Look at this bandy-legged weakling,’ Boris said, making all the other lads roar with approval as he loomed over Ethan from behind. ‘How can this puny brat share my genes?’
‘I doubt he’s even the same species as me,’ Alex said, as he wrapped Ethan in a sweaty headlock and wrenched his neck painfully. ‘How much can you bench press, cousin?’
‘About three kilos,’ one of the hangers-on joked.
Alex dragged Ethan several metres across the concrete towards a chin-up bar.
‘If you can do ten chin-ups I’ll let you go,’ Alex said. ‘Otherwise, I’m gonna beat you hard.’
Ethan rubbed his throat as he looked at the bars. A month’s manual labour at the stables had built stamina, but Ethan was still weedy and the bodybuilders cracked up as he grabbed the bars and tried pulling himself up.
‘Look at his arms shaking!’ Boris jeered, as the other bodybuilders laughed. ‘He’s not even gonna do one.’
Ethan pulled mightily and managed a single chin-up, with the rusted bar grazing his hands. On the way down he lost his grip and dropped off. Alex waded in, knocking Ethan down with a palm in the back, then planting a damp trainer across his chest.
‘You look like you’re gonna piss your pants,’ Alex said, as Boris walked around to stand by Ethan’s head.
Ethan expected blows, but instead Boris hacked up a big phlegm ball and gobbed it in his face.
‘We could beat you now,’ Boris explained, as he slammed a fist into his palm. ‘But it’s more fun if you know you’ve got it coming when you get back. Now get out of my face.’
Ethan was determined not to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him cry as he limped away with Alex, Boris and the other lads laughing and making humiliating comments like such a weed and I want front row tickets when he gets battered! Ethan had put some of his best gear on for the trip to Dubai, but now he was covered in gravel and he had Boris’ snot running down his face.
*
Amy Collins sat at the desk in her hotel room. The three kids – Ryan, Ning and Alfie – were perched on the end of her unmade bed.
‘We’ve got preliminary analysis of the data Ethan uploaded from Leonid Aramov’s computer,’ Amy began. ‘There’s nothing spectacular, which is no surprise because the Aramovs haven’t stayed in business this long by being careless with their secrets. But Leonid Aramov did use the computer to type letters and notes, and made a couple of small transactions through an online bank.
‘Everything on the computer is encrypted, but the spy software caught screenshots and saved copies of many documents in unencrypted form. Hopefully analysis will enable us to pick up some encryption keys for the rest.’
‘Keys are always good,’ Alfie said. ‘If he’s like most of us, Leonid uses the same encryption for everything he does.’
‘What type of letters were they?’ Ryan asked.
‘There’s about two hundred scraped off the computer’s hard drive, dating back to when the computer was first installed five years ago,’ Amy said. ‘Information Management are still working through all the data. There’s some info on the Aramov Clan’s secret bank accounts and names of previously unknown Aramov associates who can be investigated further.’
‘Is there anything I can tell Ethan next time I talk to him?’ Ryan asked.
‘Stall him for now,’ Amy said. ‘Say you’ve only glanced at the data because you have a lot of homework. Ethan’s about to start a new school, so he’ll hopefully have other things to focus his mind on over the next few days.’
The mention of Ethan made Ning and Alfie glance towards each other, exchanging nervous smiles.
‘So are today’s plans finalised?’ Alfie asked.
‘Looks like it,’ Amy said. ‘Civilian aircraft have to file flight plans at least three hours before take-off. A Kyrgyz-registered plane flying under the Aramov’s Clanair banner put in a flight plan from the Kremlin to the Emirate of Sharjah.’
‘So
Ethan’s not flying into Dubai?’ Alfie asked.
Amy shook her head. ‘Dubai has a world-class international airport, with all the costs and security implications that go with it. Sharjah Airport is less than twenty kilometres down the road. It’s mainly a cargo terminal, but it’s also the base for a lot of tiny seat-of-the-pants airlines who fly to less glamorous spots, such as Congo, Afghanistan and Central Asia. The Aramovs are on very friendly terms with the authorities at Sharjah and their planes fly in and out regularly with minimal interference.
‘As soon as the Aramov flight plan was filed, I filed one of my own for a small plane from Egypt. I’ve told DESA school that Alfie is arriving on this plane, and they’ll be sending a bus to pick you up. As the planes land within ten minutes of each other, it’s a near certainty that Alfie will get to ride on the school bus with Ethan.’
There was a friendly rivalry between Alfie and Ning over who could make friends with Ethan first and Alfie couldn’t resist poking his tongue out at Ning.
‘I’ll make sure my chess set is poking out of my backpack,’ Alfie said. ‘We’ll be best buds before we ride through the school gate.’
Ryan laughed. ‘Just don’t actually try playing Ethan at chess. You’re still shite and he’ll wipe you out in less than ten moves.’
‘So that’s where we’re at right now,’ Amy said, as she looked at Ning and rubbed her hands together. ‘First mission, eh? I bet you’re dead excited.’
Ning nodded. ‘Kind of, but also worried that I’ll screw it up!’
*
Alex and Boris made so many threats that Ethan hoped they’d have forgotten by the time he got back from Dubai, but he still had a shaky feeling as he took a quick shower and put on fresh clothes.
Andre entered as Ethan was lacing his Nike. He wheeled Ethan’s biggest case towards the lift, while Ethan himself dealt with two smaller bags and his new laptop.
‘You’ll let me know what it’s like, won’t you?’ Andre said eagerly, as the rattly lift took them down to the ground floor. ‘I think I’d like to go to boarding school, but I’d have to ask my dad . . .’
CHERUB: Guardian Angel Page 9
