CHERUB: Guardian Angel

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘Can’t see any more splinters,’ Amy said, as she dropped the lump of plastic into a coffee mug, then dabbed Ryan’s wound with a cotton wool pad.

  ‘Are you sure my ribs aren’t broken?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘I don’t have an X-ray machine handy, but if your ribs are bruised the hospital would strap them up. If your ribs are broken the hospital would strap them up. So what’s the difference?’

  ‘I could have punctured a lung,’ Ryan said.

  Amy smirked. ‘Ryan, if you’d punctured a lung you’d be coughing up blood, and you certainly wouldn’t have run a kilometre up the side of the valley.’

  ‘How’s the patient?’ Ted asked, as he stepped into the living-room holding a glass of clear, fizzing liquid.

  ‘Just got the last splinter of BlackBerry,’ Amy said. ‘I’ll give it ten minutes for his wound to clot, then I’ll wipe off the worst of the blood and put some strapping on.’

  ‘Stitches?’ Ted asked.

  Amy shook her head. ‘It looks a mess, but it’s nothing major.’

  ‘Nothing major!’ Ryan spluttered. ‘I’m in agony here.’

  ‘Tip this down your throat,’ Ted said, as he passed the glass across.

  Ryan took the glass and gave it an experimental sniff.

  ‘Soluble Neurofen,’ Ted explained.

  ‘Isn’t there morphine in our medical kit?’ Ryan asked.

  Ted and Amy both burst out laughing.

  ‘Ryan, you are officially the worst patient ever,’ Amy said. ‘Morphine’s basically heroin. I might give you a shot if you’d had your legs blown off, but regular painkillers will do for what you’ve got.’

  Ted was smiling, but gave Ryan a reassuring tap on the shoulder. ‘You did great out there, fighting off those two apes.’

  Ryan took an experimental sip of the drink. It didn’t taste as nasty as he’d expected.

  ‘The night was hardly a huge success,’ Ryan said. ‘Plans A and B failed. We haven’t got the USB stick and I almost got killed. And don’t accept anything that your pal Dan tells you from now on.’

  ‘Dan’s OK,’ Amy said. ‘You were unfortunate to run into Boris the psycho instead of a regular Aramov security guard.’ She dipped a hand into their first-aid box and came out with a packet containing another pair of sterile tweezers.

  Ryan recoiled. ‘I thought you were done.’

  ‘Turn your head to face the wall,’ Amy said. ‘I’ve still got to get the com unit out of your ear.’

  *

  Ethan had spent ninety minutes hovering nervously around Amina’s little apartment, with her snores as the soundtrack. He was waiting for Irena to call back, but the only time the Samsung rang it was an incompre-hensible rant, presumably from the dude Amina had stabbed with the hand fork.

  If Kessie’s people hadn’t missed Ethan already, they would do soon, and while the apartment was safer than being out on the street there was a rickshaw driver and a man with a stab wound who’d know where to look if word got round that he was searching for a white boy.

  While Ethan waited for his call he took off his trainers and squeezed as much stinking river water out of them as he could. Amina was stockier than him, but she was about the same height and he put on a pair of her dry trainer socks.

  Replacing his puke-spattered T-shirt was trickier because most of Amina’s stuff had girly designs and was shaped to stretch over her bust. But he dug out a Johannesburg University sweatshirt that didn’t look too absurd when he pulled it over his head, and hoped Amina wouldn’t be too pissed off if she woke up and saw him wearing it.

  When he was sick of pacing about, Ethan crashed on Amina’s cushion-covered bed and stared at the Artexed ceiling, trying to get his head straight. The most intriguing thing to come out of his conversation with Josef was the fact that someone had beaten Boris up, and Leonid being at the hospital with him.

  The idea of calling Leonid’s apartment would normally have been absurd, but if Leonid, Boris and – hopefully – Alex were all at the hospital there was a good chance Andre was home alone. And as Andre worked hard at being Ethan’s friend and had a close relationship with his grandma, he might be the one person who’d go and wake Irena up for him.

  The clock on the Samsung told Ethan that he’d now been waiting two and a quarter hours for Irena to call back, and a four-hour time difference meant it would already be getting light in Kyrgyzstan. So should he wait and see if Josef came through, or risk calling Andre?

  First he called Irena’s number again and got no answer. Josef’s line went to answerphone, so Ethan took a deep breath and punched in 00 to go back to the Kremlin switchboard, then hesitated briefly before tapping the extension number for Leonid’s apartment.

  On the fourth ring, Ethan almost chickened out and pressed end call. On the fifth Andre picked up, as he’d hoped.

  ‘Hello?’

  Ethan didn’t want Andre to blurt his name, so he put on a deep voice. ‘I’d like to speak with Leonid Aramov.’

  ‘He’s at the hospital. If it’s urgent I can pass a message.’

  ‘Is there another adult home?’ Ethan boomed, convinced that he was doing the worst grown-up voice in recorded human history.

  ‘I can go downstairs and get my mum,’ Andre said.

  Ethan dropped the accent. ‘Andre, it’s me, Ethan.’

  ‘Hey!’ Andre said brightly. ‘How’s your school? I really wanted to call you, but Dad said nobody’s supposed to speak to you in the first few weeks, to stop you from getting homesick.’

  ‘Listen, Andre, something really bad has happened and I’ve got to talk to Grandma right now. Do you know if she’s awake?’

  ‘She always moans that she can’t sleep and gets up really early,’ Andre said. ‘Did you hear that her crazy nurse gave her the wrong drugs? She was unconscious for two days.’

  ‘I got a message saying that she was sick,’ Ethan said. ‘How is she now?’

  ‘Almost back to normal when I saw her last night,’ Andre said.

  ‘So do you think I can speak to her? I know it’s early but it’s really important.’

  ‘Dad had her moved into your room so we could keep an eye on her until a new nurse arrives. Hang on a second.’

  Ethan heard doors and footsteps as Andre walked out into the hallway. It was ironic that Irena might have picked up if he’d called his own extension and a relief when the next voice he heard was his grandmother’s.

  ‘You’re not supposed to be speaking to me yet, are you?’ Irena said brusquely.

  Irena had always defended Leonid, so Ethan had to phrase his next words carefully.

  ‘Grandma, I never got to the school in Dubai. Leonid diverted my plane. I’m in a place called Kanye in Botswana.’

  Irena sounded shocked. ‘Kessie’s place?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ethan said. ‘They’ve been keeping me in a cage on Kessie’s ranch but I just escaped. Leonid’s planning to take over the clan. I don’t think your nurse poisoned you, I’m sure it was Leonid.’

  Irena was struggling to take all this in. ‘No . . . He wouldn’t.’

  Now Ethan spoke firmly. ‘Grandma, I’m in Botswana. If you don’t believe me, call the school in Dubai and they’ll tell you that I never arrived. Leonid killed my mum. He tried to poison you, and he’s sent me down here so that he could blackmail you if something went wrong.’

  ‘Blackmail how?’ Irena asked.

  ‘All I know is that he’s trying to get control of your money.’

  Irena’s tone suddenly changed. ‘Is he?’ she yelled furiously. ‘I could never understand the mistake with my dose. Yang was a sweet nurse and I’ve had the same pills for months. The doctor said the overdose should have killed me. Luckily that medicine makes me nauseous and I vomited before most of it got into my system.’

  ‘Leonid had to make it look like an accident,’ Ethan said. ‘A lot of your people don’t like the idea of working for him after you’re gone, and he’d have real problems taking over the clan if everyone th
ought he’d murdered his own mother.’

  ‘And ironically, I’ve been telling those very people that Leonid’s bark is worse than his bite,’ Irena said. ‘The evening before the overdose, he badgered me into signing a whole bunch of documents as I was trying to go to sleep.’

  ‘Did you sign them?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Irena said, sounding distressed. ‘I’m exhausted, Ethan. This never would have happened before I got sick. And your mother . . . You suspected Leonid all along, didn’t you?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that now,’ Ethan said, as he heard his grandmother sob. ‘We need to act fast, especially while Leonid’s away from the Kremlin at the hospital. Do you think you can help me get out of here?’

  ‘I know people in the diamond racket in those parts,’ Irena said. ‘But if Leonid has taken control of my bank accounts . . .’

  ‘I was suspicious about what he’s been up to, so I put a spy program on both his computers,’ Ethan said. ‘With any luck they’ll have recorded information on where the money’s gone. If we can get his banking details we can transfer the money back to you, or change passwords to lock Leonid out of his own accounts.’

  ‘Get them how?’ Irena asked.

  ‘There’s a stick in the computer in Leonid’s office, but I think the important one is in his computer at the stables,’ Ethan said. ‘Send Andre, nobody will suspect him. An FTP site is used to distribute files online. If you upload, the files will be waiting for me as soon as I get somewhere with a fast Internet connection.’

  ‘It will be done,’ Irena said.

  ‘But I need to get out of here before I can help you,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m a white kid in a black town and Kessie’s got teams out searching for me.’

  ‘I know a couple of good bush pilots,’ Irena said. ‘Just keep your head down. My hands shake too bad to write much, so Andre’s going to take your number and I’ll call you back when I’ve made arrangements.’

  ‘One last thing,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m not sure if you can trust Josef. I asked him to get you to call me a couple of hours back, but he didn’t.’

  ‘Let me think on that one,’ Irena said. ‘I’m passing the phone over.’

  Andre sounded confused. ‘I’ve got a pen,’ he said. ‘What’s my dad done?’

  ‘Speak to Grandma,’ Ethan said. ‘But don’t act all innocent. You know what a bastard he is and Alex and Boris bully the shit out of you.’

  ‘I’m not on their side,’ Andre said firmly. ‘So what’s this number?’

  As Andre wrote down Amina’s mobile number, Irena shouted for Josef in the background. Ethan wasn’t sure this was the right move, but he couldn’t control everything and while Irena might have had a blind spot when it came to Leonid, she hadn’t built the Aramov Clan without being a smart operator.

  Ethan felt safer with Irena on his side, but this was only a baby step and there was no certainty he’d be able to get out of Kanye or reverse the progress of Leonid’s coup. As Ethan ended the call and pocketed the Samsung, he saw that Amina had sat up a little, while screwing up her face because of a bad taste in her mouth.

  Ethan ran a glass of water. ‘Here,’ he said.

  Amina looked curious as she took the glass, then she looked pissed off. ‘Why are you wearing my university shirt?’

  Ethan got out of answering, because at the same moment Amina touched her swollen eye and winced with pain.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ Amina said. ‘I guess you’re a gentleman, at least.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ethan asked.

  Amina smiled at Ethan’s naivety. ‘You didn’t try screwing me while I was unconscious.’

  ‘More water?’ Ethan asked, as Amina drained her glass.

  Amina nodded as she massaged her aching temples. ‘There are pills in the cupboard above the microwave. Get me those as well.’

  Ethan refilled the glass and opened the cupboard, but as he reached for an old ice cream tub filled with sachets and pill pots he heard feet on the stairs. It was too fast to be the old guy who lived across the balcony and when he took a step back and peered out of the window there was a near-new Toyota pick-up right outside.

  ‘Shit,’ Ethan said.

  Someone shouted from the landing outside. ‘Amina, open up.’

  But before she’d even turned around, the door took an enormous boot and swung into the room. Ethan recognised Michael from the ranch, closely followed by a couple of heavies. He turned back to the window and wondered if he could make the jump to the ground floor without breaking his legs.

  26. SOLDIER

  Once Ryan fell asleep, Ning, Amy, Ted and Kazakov gathered around a bar unit in the kitchen and tried figuring out what to do next.

  ‘Sun’ll be up before long,’ Kazakov said, breaking into a yawn as he peeked between mildewed curtains with bunnies on them.

  ‘Pulling the USB sticks and bugging Leonid’s office was our best shot at finding Ethan,’ Ted said. ‘Amy, do you think there’s any way Dan could get it for us?’

  ‘I can ask him,’ Amy said, as she caught Kazakov’s yawn. ‘But we have to make a decision. Do we pressure Dan into taking a big risk now, or view him as a longer-term asset?’

  ‘He works for Leonid and he pumps iron with Boris and Alex,’ Ted said, nodding thoughtfully. ‘As keen as I am to find what’s on those memory sticks, if we ask Dan to do something risky right now, we might freak him out and lose him for good.’

  Ning sighed. ‘So what can we do about Ethan?’

  Kazakov spoke. ‘Security at the Kremlin isn’t magnificent. Give me forty-eight hours and four Special Forces guys and I’ll get your memory sticks.’

  Ted shook his head. ‘You might get your team in, but the Aramovs either own or scare the shit out of everyone with any kind of authority in these parts.’

  ‘We could use a chopper to fly our men in,’ Kazakov suggested.

  ‘Not practical,’ Ted said. ‘Kyrgyzstan is land-locked. We’d have to ask about six foreign governments for permission to fly over their land to get there. Even if you could do that without someone tipping off the Aramovs, there’d be a massive diplomatic shit storm afterwards. The Aramovs are connected right up to Politburo level in China and they’re very chummy with the Russian security service and air force.’

  Kazakov realised he was wrong and put up his hands. ‘I guess if we could wade in and tackle the Aramovs head on, we would have shot their planes down long ago.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ted said. ‘And let’s not forget, if we do this correctly Dan will become a valuable intelligence asset inside the Aramov Clan. He may not be a family member like Ethan, but I’d bet that he has more day-to-day involvement with Leonid Aramov’s dealings than Ethan does.’

  ‘So, where do we all go?’ Ning asked.

  Ted thought for a couple of seconds. ‘Amy can stay here in Bishkek to work as Dan’s controller. I’ll stick with her until our procedures and equipment are running smooth. Kazakov, you can go back to campus with Ning and our little wounded soldier in the living-room.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Kazakov said.

  Ted looked at his watch. ‘The Aramovs have eyeballs everywhere, so after the incident last night, it’s best if Ryan and Kazakov skip town ASAP. Rather than risk a scheduled flight, I’ll charter a jet to take you as far as Dubai and you can pick up a regular flight back to the UK from there.’

  ‘Me too?’ Ning asked.

  Ted nodded. ‘Dan wasn’t the only one of Leonid’s goons you met when you were here with your stepmother. Amy and I can handle Dan now that you’ve found him and made the introduction.’

  ‘How long for a jet?’ Kazakov asked.

  ‘CIA transportation should have planes on standby in Afghanistan,’ Ted said. ‘I’d guess four to five hours, so pack your bags now then you might as well grab some sleep.’

  ‘Dan could be a huge help to us, Ning,’ Amy added. ‘If he turns into a valuable intelligence asset it’ll be a big feather in your cap.’

&nbs
p; ‘Might even be a navy shirt in it,’ Kazakov teased.

  Ning smiled at the compliment and liked the thought of getting promoted so soon after basic training.

  ‘Try not to get Dan killed though,’ she told Amy. ‘He went against his own people to save my life, so I’m fond of the guy.’

  *

  The ground looked hard and Ethan had never made a jump from half this height before. The weird thing was that he wasn’t scared of getting beaten, or of dying. What he couldn’t stand was the thought of mind-bending days back in the cage with nothing to occupy his mind.

  Michael reached through the open window and got fingertips to the Johannesburg University sweatshirt, but Ethan threw himself out and fell for what felt like an hour. His legs collapsed when he hit the ground. Intense pain drove up into his thighs and when he tried moving his right leg it made an involuntary twitch.

  He was right by the Toyota’s back wheels. There was a guy sitting in the driving seat, and the biggest of Kessie’s goons was coming back down the stairs that led to Amina’s apartment. He was so vast that he had to turn sideways and held up the fitter men trapped behind him.

  Ethan crawled a couple of metres before he started feeling something in his leg. He used a stack of empty crates by a shopfront to pull himself up and started to jog with his right leg almost lame. A pistol got fired into the air as a warning, but Kessie wanted him alive so Ethan kept going.

  The Toyota pick-up had started its engine and a couple of goons had now pushed past the fat arse and made it on to the street. These guys yelled as the driver put the Toyota in reverse and aimed it towards Ethan.

  Ethan heard the pick-up coming and realised that either the driver didn’t know what he was doing, or that Kessie wasn’t actually bothered if he came back alive. His right leg hurt like hell, but the shock of a charging car overrode the pain and he broke into a proper run.

  With the Toyota less than ten metres away, Ethan turned out of the road and cut down an alleyway between two buildings. One building seemed to be an auto workshop, because the alleyway was piled up with rusty wheel hubs and empty oil cans.

  The guy driving the Toyota swung the steering wheel and tried to follow, but the alleyway was barely a car’s width and there were sparks and a massive crunch as the pick-up reversed into the corner of a building, cracking a breeze-block wall.