CHERUB: Guardian Angel

by Robert Muchamore

  Ethan couldn’t tell if three or four guys had been running after him, but they were all shouting and giving the pick-up driver abuse. Little kids were screaming and lights were coming on in windows above the shops.

  Two of Kessie’s goons scrambled over the wedged pick-up to keep up the chase. As the second one jumped down off the pick-up’s crumpled tail there was a shotgun blast. The lead runner, who’d got within a few metres of Ethan, screamed with pain and fell down. Ethan heard shotgun pellets ricocheting off the alley walls but nothing hit home.

  Ethan dared a backward glance and saw an enormously fat woman in a nightshirt. She stood on the roof of the damaged shop, aiming a shotgun down at Kessie’s men and threatening to blast anyone who moved before the cops arrived.

  While the shopkeeper kept the men around the crash site in place, the second guy who’d made it over the pick-up straddled his stricken friend and kept up the chase. Having one guy after you is better than four or five, but it was still a grown man versus a thirteen-year-old with a screwed-up leg, and the guy was closing fast.

  The alleyway ended at a wooden fence, but local kids had made a hole at the bottom and Ethan was slim enough to crash through. Now he was in a broader alleyway that ran parallel to the shopping street, with a health clinic right in front of him.

  While his larger opponent pulled himself over the fence, Ethan eyed a mound of junk. A pair of stray dogs barked behind as Ethan grabbed a stick of laminated timber, which looked like it had been part of a wardrobe or kitchen cabinet. One end formed a long point where it had been snapped.

  As Kessie’s goon dropped down off the fence and caught his balance, Ethan charged in and speared him in the gut. The goon had a cartoonish expression of shock when he looked down disbelievingly at twenty centimetres of wood embedded in his stomach.

  Someone a couple of buildings across yelled for the barking dogs to shut up as the goon crumpled into the dirt and started coughing blood. Once the initial shock passed, Ethan peeked through the hole in the fence, making sure nobody else was coming.

  Apart from his clothes, the only thing Ethan had on him was Amina’s phone. Money or a weapon would be useful, but the goon was still thrashing about so Ethan grabbed a chunk of rubble off the junk heap and took a shuddering breath before swinging it at the guy’s head.

  The first swing made a hollow thud and sent the goon sprawling on to his back. Ethan had never been a violent person, but after all the shit he’d been through he found a degree of satisfaction in hurting one of his former captors.

  Ethan’s hands trembled and he was sure he’d killed his enemy as he searched the pockets of his shorts. There were some coins and some fifty-and one-hundred-pula notes, plus a cheapo Nokia phone, and a twenty-centimetre utility knife in a sheath tied to a belt loop.

  One of the dogs had come within a couple of metres and as Ethan hobbled away it closed in and began licking the warm blood.

  27. GEEKS

  Tons of weird stuff had happened to Ethan since his mum had died, but wandering dark streets in a Botswanan town, holding a knife in bloody hands, took the prize. He knew he was in Kanye, but not where in Kanye, and his priority was to get as much distance between himself and the last place where Kessie’s boys had seen him.

  Ethan crossed a busy road and limped uphill into a well-maintained housing development. It could have been California, with three-car garages and palms down the middle of the road. There was even private security and he dived behind a wall as the little Suzuki patrol vehicle rolled past.

  Amina’s Samsung rang as the patrol car’s rear lights faded. Ethan adjusted his position so that he was sitting on the edge of a brick driveway and was pleased to see international flashing on the screen.

  Irena spoke, but she didn’t sound like the bedridden cancer patient Ethan had known at the Kremlin. This was the iron lady who’d changed the Aramov Clan from an organisation that smuggled Western cigarettes on muleback, to a billion-dollar empire that owned more than sixty aircraft.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asked.

  ‘I had to leave the apartment in a hurry,’ Ethan explained. ‘I’m on the street. It’s a nice area, but I’ll need a hiding place before it gets light.’

  ‘Listen good,’ Irena said. ‘My bush pilot friend is on your case. There’s a lot of diamonds smuggled out of your area, so he knows it well. Two kilometres up the main road north out of Kanye there’s a derelict boarding school. Apparently it moved to a new facility eight years ago. Try getting there before daylight and hiding out in the school buildings. The old playing fields are used as a landing strip by smugglers. My contact has got to fly from South Africa, but he should be able to land there within four hours.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m not sure exactly where I am right now, but this phone has maps if I can get a data connection. What’s going on where you are?’

  ‘Andre got the USB keys. I’ve also put in a call to my main bank in Russia. Eighty-two million euros was electronically transferred out of various accounts over the past week.’

  ‘Damn,’ Ethan said. ‘All of the data on Leonid’s computers is encrypted, but the spy software captures screenshots while they’re in use, in their unencrypted state. If Leonid used either of his computers to access online banking facilities, or to type up notes of his passwords, we should be able to get the money back.’

  ‘I’ve also rounded up some muscle that I can trust,’ Irena said. ‘They’re searching Leonid’s office and apartment for any paperwork relating to what he’s been up to. I’ve got security teams stationed on the sixth-floor lifts and their orders are to grab Leonid and bring him to me the instant he arrives.’

  ‘Is he still at the hospital?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘He was when I called half an hour back to ask after Boris,’ Irena said.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘His jaw is shattered. He’ll probably have to go abroad for treatment.’

  ‘But Leonid doesn’t know I’m free?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ Irena said. ‘If he gets wind of it he might go into hiding rather than show up here to face me.’

  ‘The less he knows, the more chance we have of getting your money out of his control,’ Ethan said. ‘I doubt Kessie will be in any hurry to let Leonid know I’ve escaped.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Irena said. ‘Now the thing is, Andre plugged the USB stick into my computer. He says there are hundreds of files, but he can’t open any of them.’

  ‘The files are stored on the key in a compressed and encrypted format,’ Ethan explained. ‘That way it looks like a bunch of corrupted files if someone stumbles on them by accident. The files need to be unzipped using a software tool that I’ve got stored on my FTP page.’

  Irena sounded frustrated. ‘Ethan, I don’t know about this stuff. Andre’s trying, but he’s not a computer whiz like you.’

  Ethan sighed. ‘If you upload the files and get me to a computer with a fast Internet connection I can open them up no problem. Is there nobody you trust at the Kremlin who knows about computer stuff?’

  ‘There’s an aircraft mechanic who fixes the network and backs up our server, but he’s one of Leonid’s people,’ Irena said. ‘Your mother handled all of our IT stuff. I should have recruited a replacement after she died – after Leonid murdered her – but I’ve been sick the whole time.’

  ‘Get the plane to take me somewhere with fast Internet,’ Ethan said. ‘Get Andre to start uploading the files on the USB keys to my FTP site. Once I’ve decrypted them all, it would be useful to have someone brainy to help me go through the information.’

  ‘Understood,’ Irena said. ‘You keep safe out there.’

  Ethan laughed a little. ‘I’ll try my best. And you be careful too. Leonid’s not exactly Mr Popularity, but he still has friends around the Kremlin.’

  *

  Ryan’s sides ached as he swung his legs off the couch and sat up. When he threw the duvet off his lap, he saw that he’d slept in one s
ock, a bloodstained T-shirt and briefs. His mouth was dry so he padded through to the kitchen where Ted sat at the table playing Pac-Man on his laptop.

  ‘Old skool!’ Ryan said, as he found one of the less grubby glasses in the cupboard and filled it from the tap.

  ‘How you feeling?’ Ted asked.

  Ryan shrugged and gulped water. ‘Depressed, I guess.’

  ‘You’re a kid,’ Ted laughed. ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’

  ‘I wanna be someone at CHERUB,’ Ryan explained. ‘But I got kicked off my first mission after shoving Dr D and I didn’t get the USB stick last night. So I doubt my name is gonna top any lists the next time mission control is dishing out a juicy mission.’

  ‘I can think of worse prospects than being stuck on CHERUB campus,’ Ted said, smiling. ‘Great facilities, good education and lots of babes. Speaking of which, how is your love life?’

  Ryan laughed awkwardly as Ted lost his last life and gave his laptop a frustrated shove.

  ‘Grace still wants to kill me and most of the other girls on campus think I’m a pig because I broke up with her by SMS.’

  Ted laughed. ‘You’re a good-looking guy, you’ll win ’em back. And didn’t Grace see you when you were back on campus doing your Kyrgyzstan prep?’

  ‘I was pretty busy,’ Ryan said. ‘She had lessons and I took most meals up to my room to avoid a confrontation.’

  Ted found the idea of Ryan hiding in his room avoiding a girl funny, but he didn’t want Ryan getting annoyed so he changed the subject.

  ‘The others all went upstairs to grab some sleep,’ Ted said. ‘There’s a jet coming in to take you, Ning and Kazakov out of the country. It’s due in at noon, so you’ve got a while to pack up and make yourself presentable.’

  ‘Cool,’ Ryan said.

  ‘I had the devil’s job booking it. The mobile phone signals here are poor. I ended up using a satellite phone, and even then I couldn’t get a secure channel because TFU have got air-conditioning problems in Dallas.’

  Ryan looked confused. ‘Air conditioning?’

  ‘Dallas is hot,’ Ted explained. ‘Computer servers are hot. When the air conditioning fails in the server room at TFU headquarters all the servers go into thermal cut-out. The system was supposed to be up and running within an hour, but TFU’s not a big organisation. There’s only one technician on duty and she told me the same thing three hours ago.’

  ‘That’s crap,’ Ryan said, shaking his head as he pulled up his T-shirt and peeled back the dressing over his abs. ‘I think it’s scabbed over.’

  Ted took a peek and nodded in agreement. ‘You’ll be fine in the shower if you don’t rub your scabs too hard. I’ll fix you a new dressing when you come out, and don’t leave the shower tray all bloody when you’re done.’

  ‘I’m not a total slob you know,’ Ryan said cheekily. ‘And speaking of communication difficulties . . .’

  Ryan had spotted his BlackBerry, on top of the washing machine where he’d dumped it the night before. The half of the case that hadn’t splintered was buckled, the screen had two big cracks and everything was smeared with dry blood.

  ‘There were a couple of spare phones amongst the equipment we brought out the back of the Toyota,’ Ted said. ‘Grab one if you want.’

  Ryan shook his head as he turned the BlackBerry over in his hands. ‘I’ve got a bunch of contacts on this phone and it’s loaded with the special software for logging into TFU and accessing my Ryan Brasker persona. You think I might be able to get it going if I clean the dried blood off?’

  ‘Worth a shot,’ Ted said. ‘But don’t worry too much. I’ve already let Dallas know that your phone’s dead. And I’m sure the CHERUB tech department can have a new cell up and running by the time you get back to campus.’

  ‘Sounds good, boss,’ Ryan said as he put his empty glass in the dishwasher and headed for the door. ‘Guess I’d better go and scrub up then.’

  28. LUNCHBOX

  Amina’s Samsung wasn’t getting the best signal, but Ethan managed to get GPS connected and downloaded enough location maps to work out that he was in the centre of Kanye. He needed to trek about six kilometres to reach the derelict school.

  He made it to the edge of town as dawn broke, with a thumping headache and a ballooning right ankle that shot pain up his leg on every step. The last stretch on the road north was going to be a real problem. Not only was it getting light, but the broad verge alongside the road offered limited cover.

  Ethan limped through the bush land off to the sides, ducking behind trees or bushes whenever he heard traffic. He got his first sighting of some of Kessie’s goons in over two hours as they climbed out of a Nissan 4×4 close to a school bus stop.

  Over a dozen kids milled about waiting for their ride and a machine-gun-toting goon electrified them by waving a big wodge of money.

  Ethan was behind bushes twenty-five metres away. He couldn’t follow because the goon spoke in Tswana, but waving money, excited kids and the phrase white boy made it obvious that he was offering a reward for anyone who found him.

  The kids seemed really excited as the Nissan drove off. Ethan reckoned the school bus was imminent and decided to wait it out rather than risk being seen moving through the bush, but that option crashed when a lad of about eight gave a much older boy a cheeky kick up the arse before sprinting off in Ethan’s direction.

  Ethan held his breath. The little lad was less than five metres from Ethan’s hiding spot when the big one brought him down with a rugby tackle. There was a shower of dust and stones as the little kid tried to kick free, but the bigger one had a good hold and lifted him up over his head.

  ‘AAARGH!’ the little kid yelled as the big one ran forwards and lobbed him into a bush.

  Ethan had no choice but to scramble back as the little kid crashed through branches less than two metres away. A girl was coming over, yelling something along the lines of leave him alone he’s only little, and at least three boys were jogging towards the scene to get a better view of the action.

  With his bad leg, Ethan wouldn’t be able to outrun anybody and he crawled into the next patch of bushes, sure that someone would spot him soon.

  The little kid was furious about his excursion through a bush, but only his pride was injured and he bounced up and squared off against a much bigger opponent. However, the other lad was at least five years older. Any fist fight would have been so one-sided that the bigger kid burst out laughing and turned away.

  While all this was going on, there was some shouting from up near the bus stop and a trail of dust coming off a shabby blue bus that had a plastic model of Jesus on the cross mounted between the headlights.

  The kids boarded noisily as Ethan felt relieved. He was about to move off when the 4×4 with Kessie’s goons aboard shot past heading back towards town. Then he spotted a black Justin Beiber lunchbox.

  Ethan opened it up and realised that he was starving when he saw two pieces of fruit, a carton of squash and a cling-film-wrapped parcel of what seemed to be mostly rice, with black beans and stuff in it. The rice stuff looked nasty, but he pushed the straw into the drink carton and guzzled it before setting off.

  *

  Ryan, Ning and Kazakov felt tense as they headed into the luxurious private jet terminal at Manas Airport. Their flight was being run by the CIA’s transportation unit and the US embassy had sent a driver to collect them, but the Aramov Clan had a lot of pull in these parts and for all they knew the clan had circulated Ryan and Kazakov’s description to every corrupt official in town.

  Customs waved them through with nothing more than a bag X-ray and a little golf-buggy-with-trailer contraption glided them out to a waiting jet. The plane belonged to the CIA, but was logoed up with the name of an obscure Turkish aircraft leasing company.

  ‘Nice,’ Ryan said, as he eyed the luxurious interior.

  His sides hurt and he’d been dreading the four-hour flight to Dubai, but he was pleased to see six huge recliner seats i
n which he’d be able to lie flat.

  Ning took the seat across the aisle from Ryan and was amused as he pulled a slide-out table across his lap and produced a freezer bag filled with bits of his broken-down phone.

  ‘If you want to check your messages you can pop your SIM card in my phone for a minute,’ Ning suggested.

  Ryan shook his head as he tipped out the parts. ‘I scraped the dried blood out of the battery compartment before we left. It might work.’

  ‘You’ll get issued a new one when you get to campus,’ Ning pointed out.

  ‘I know,’ Ryan said. ‘But I started trying to fix it and now I’m kind of determined. Plus, I’ve got a whole bunch of music and contacts stored on this one.’

  Ning gasped with mock shock. ‘You mean to say you didn’t back your phone up regularly in accordance with CHERUB procedures?’

  ‘Who does?’ Ryan grinned, feeling a jolt as the plane started its taxi towards the runway.

  Kazakov was fiddling with the seat in front as Ryan pushed the battery into his phone. Ning smirked as Ryan pushed on the phone’s battery cover. He then had to use a straightened hairclip to reach inside the case because the on/off button hadn’t made it back from the Kremlin.

  The phone’s ringer had been damaged and instead of nice swoopy onscreen logos and a soothing little tinkle sound, Ryan got the top two-thirds of a cracked screen and a fart sound.

  ‘It’s gonna work!’ Ryan said, holding up crossed fingers. ‘Come on, you little beauty.’

  Ning enjoyed the mini-drama as Ryan’s phone booted up. He entered his pin and watched as searching for network flashed onscreen.

  ‘Aren’t you a clever boy!’ Ning said.

  Ryan nodded, but just as he got a connection a red-haired stewardess came out of the tiny galley at the back with a tray of drinks.