CHERUB: Guardian Angel

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘I reckon it’s one of two hospitals,’ Ning said. ‘Both less than five kilometres from here.’

  As soon as Ryan connected the laptop to the Internet he logged into his CHERUB agent portal, in which he stored data relating to his missions. It took a few seconds to locate the file named Ethan, which contained all Ethan’s known login and online account details.

  Once he had Ethan’s passwords, Ryan logged into Ethan’s Hotmail. The inbox contained tons of spam, the outbox had nothing recent, but there was an unsent message in the draft box. Ryan clicked it and saw a list of bank names, passwords and security numbers.

  ‘I’ve bloody well got it,’ he shouted jubilantly.

  Ning leaned over to see and gave Ryan a grin. Ryan called Amy, but Ted answered.

  ‘She’s in the toilet,’ Ted explained. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I’ve got the lot,’ Ryan said. ‘I just spoke to Ethan. He was on the way to a hospital and he said he’d sent the passwords somewhere safe. So I logged into his Hotmail and they’re all there in an unsent draft.’

  ‘Nice to get a bit of luck for once,’ Ted said. ‘E-mail the list through to Dallas. They’ll pass it on to the experts at the CIA, who can change all the passwords and lock Ethan out.’

  ‘Copying and pasting as I speak,’ Ryan said.

  ‘This all sounds great,’ Ted said. ‘But we can’t be certain this is all the information we need to access the accounts. So your job is to track Ethan down.’

  ‘Ethan thinks I’m in California,’ Ryan said. ‘My cover’s shot if he sees me here.’

  ‘Stay in the background then,’ Ted replied. Then jokingly, ‘Or see if the hospital shop does balaclavas.’

  34. NEWS

  Amy called Ryan back as they approached a mirrored-glass hospital building, surrounded by a huge half-empty parking lot.

  ‘I’ve got good news and good news,’ Amy said cheerfully. ‘Which do you want to hear first?’

  ‘Guess it’ll be the good news then,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Dubai has a centralised patient management system that the CIA can access at will. Ten minutes ago, a record got created for a new patient called Ethan Aramov. He’s at Gulf Medical Institute.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Ryan said. ‘We’re heading into their parking lot.’

  ‘He’s in accident and emergency, bay sixteen. Preliminary assessment is that his condition is non-critical and he’s due to be seen by a Dr Patel within fifteen minutes.’

  Ryan relayed the news to the others in the limo before Amy continued.

  ‘Second piece of good news: we got into Industrial Trust Bank using the passwords you hacked from Ethan. He couldn’t transfer money out in chunks greater than two and a half million roubles, but that only applies to interbank transfers. So our boffins found a US-based advertising agency that does its Russian banking through Industrial Trust and transferred the entire nine hundred million roubles to them.’

  ‘So the Aramovs are gonna be flat broke,’ Ryan said.

  ‘We’ve got them by the balls,’ Amy agreed. ‘Dan’s inside the Kremlin, and says he’ll be in touch as soon as he hears anything.’

  ‘Nice update, Amy,’ Ryan said. ‘Everything’s going our way at last.’

  The car had pulled up at the hospital’s visitor entrance. As Ning started dragging the bags out, Kazakov pulled his wallet from the back of his trousers and offered the driver a credit card.

  ‘Cash only,’ the driver said.

  Kazakov waved some euros.

  ‘AED,’ the driver said furiously.

  ‘I haven’t been to a cash machine yet, there must be one inside the hospital,’ Kazakov explained. He looked stressed as he turned to Ryan and Ning. ‘Have you kids got any Arab Emirates dollars on you?’

  ‘I gave the last of our money to Alfie before we left,’ Ning answered.

  The driver was ranting as he climbed out of his car. ‘I not like your custom,’ he shouted, as he frantically wagged a pointing finger. ‘First you say Sharjah. Then hospital. Then you have no money.’

  After the dim limo interior, Ryan got blinded by low sun as he helped Ning pull out their luggage. They were on a kerb close to a taxi rank and a set of automatic doors. When a hospital security guard in fluorescent vest heard the driver shouting he came striding over.

  ‘Is there a cash machine inside?’ Kazakov asked.

  ‘No money!’ the driver shouted.

  It was hard to work out exactly why the driver was so angry and he kept yelling as the hospital security guard pointed out a cash machine inside the visitor’s lobby, less than fifteen metres away. With all the noise and his mobile ringer more or less screwed Ryan almost missed the next call on his BlackBerry.

  ‘Hello,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Long time no speak,’ Dr D said.

  Ryan gulped.

  Dr D was the petite, screechy-voiced head of TFU, which made her Amy and Ted’s boss. The last time Ryan had spoken to her, it had been a furious row over whether she should have allowed Ethan to be dragged off to Kyrgyzstan.

  The row had ended with Ryan giving Dr D an almighty shove, which got him kicked off the mission and earned him five hundred hours working in the recycling centre when he got back to CHERUB campus.

  Dr D’s decision had almost got Ethan killed, but it now looked like a triumph, with Ethan safe and TFU on the verge of bringing down a criminal empire.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Ryan asked uncomfortably.

  ‘Let’s start with a clean sheet,’ Dr D said. ‘The past has passed. We all do things we regret.’

  ‘We’re having a good day,’ Ryan said. ‘I guess.’

  ‘We are,’ Dr D said cheerfully. ‘And much of our success is down to you. I’m en route from Dallas Fort Worth to Dubai, but it’s going to be morning before I arrive. I understand you’ve tracked down Ethan?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ryan said. ‘Though I guess we don’t really need him now I’ve got all the passwords.’

  ‘Oh yes we do, baby!’ Dr D said. ‘We have the Aramovs where we want them, but how we play the next stage is critical. Get it wrong and the big snake turns into a nest of little ones.’

  Ryan had learned this lesson in basic training. Whether you’re talking about a neighbourhood drug gang, a terrorist group or even a rogue government, it’s relatively easy to take out the top dog. But without a proper plan to dismantle an organisation you end up with a bunch of unstable splinter groups that are even more dangerous.

  ‘Taking the Aramov Clan apart should take somewhere between six months and two years,’ Dr D explained.

  Ryan was distracted because he could hear Kazakov and the driver rowing inside the hospital building. Apparently Kazakov had an overdraft and his ATM card wasn’t doing the business.

  ‘I’ve got another card in my luggage,’ Kazakov shouted. ‘Let me go back for it.’

  ‘I want police!’ the driver was shouting.

  Ryan spoke to Dr D, as he pulled a small Velcro pouch out of his jeans. ‘Hang on, I need to save Kazakov from getting arrested.’

  Ryan dashed inside the hospital and handed Kazakov a cash card. ‘Six, four, nine, eight,’ he told him.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ryan told Dr D as he headed back out through the automatic doors into the setting sun. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘The first step is for you to approach Ethan. You can tell him that you’ve been working with us without mentioning the existence of CHERUB. Then you’ll explain that we now control Irena’s money.’

  ‘Ethan’s gonna hate my guts,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Probably,’ Dr D agreed. ‘But you can appeal to his moral side. The Aramov organisation is responsible for some pretty horrific stuff.’

  ‘I can try,’ Ryan said uncertainly. ‘I understand about winding the clan down gently, but I still don’t get why Ethan’s so important.’

  ‘Irena thinks Ethan just saved her organisation. Right now, she’ll pick up the phone when Ethan calls and listen to what he says. Irena is too cautious to take calls fr
om complete strangers, and our only alternative would be to make contact by sending Amy and Ted to the Kremlin to ask for a meeting.’

  ‘And Irena might just have them shot if she loses her rag,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Precisely,’ Dr D said. ‘So once we have Ethan onside – or at least firmly under our control – we’ll use him to approach Irena and give her an ultimatum.’

  ‘Poor bloody Ethan,’ Ryan said. ‘Everyone manipulates him. Me included.’

  ‘I’m not proud of that,’ Dr D said. ‘But everything that we’ve done to Ethan has been for the greater good. When this is over we’ll make sure he’s OK.’

  ‘So what’s Irena’s incentive to do what we say?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Irena spent almost her entire adult life building up the Aramov Clan,’ Dr D explained. ‘If she lets us gently take control and wind clan operations down, her family will be protected and she’ll be allowed to live out her final days in a reasonable level of comfort.’

  ‘And otherwise?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Without money, the Aramov Clan will be paralysed. Airports like Sharjah won’t even let a plane take off if the refuelling bill hasn’t been paid. People loyal to Leonid might try staging a coup, but he doesn’t have the money to make the organisation work either. Irena will get sicker and sicker and her family will be at risk as the clan crumbles into anarchy.’

  ‘But we don’t want anarchy either,’ Ryan pointed out.

  ‘True,’ Dr D said. ‘Which is why this whole situation has got to be handled delicately.’

  ‘So when do I approach Ethan?’ Ryan asked. ‘Now?’

  ‘No,’ Dr D said. ‘Ethan’s going to be exhausted, and I need time to work out the finer points of our strategy. Tell Kazakov to stay at the hospital. Right now your team’s job is to make sure Ethan isn’t moved out of the hospital and to track him if he is. I’ll be back in touch when I know more, OK?’

  ‘Right,’ Ryan said, as he looked inside and was much relieved to see Kazakov handing the limo driver some local currency. ‘Speak soon then, I guess.’

  35. KUBAN

  The Gulf Medical Institute’s building was flash, with glass atriums and automatic doors everywhere you stepped. Every patient had a private room and the broad palm-filled corridors had comfortable nooks for visitors, filled with sofas, vending machines and TVs showing rolling news.

  Back in Kyrgyzstan, Amy had used the CIA’s hack into the Dubai healthcare database to track Ethan’s progress. After an X-ray confirmed that his ankle wasn’t broken, he’d had numerous scrapes and cuts treated before being wheeled to his room.

  Ethan was put on an intravenous drip because his African stomach ailments had left him badly dehydrated, and after a nurse had strapped his swollen ankle she told him that he was being kept overnight for observation and gave him a strong sedative so that he could sleep off the worst of his pain.

  Ruby the accountant stayed with Ethan until just after 9 p.m. Amy looked for a local British or American intelligence agent who could keep an eye on Ethan, but nobody was available so Ryan, Ning and Kazakov sprawled out on sofas in the visitors’ area, with the door of Ethan’s room in plain sight, ten metres down a hallway.

  None of the trio had slept properly the previous night, and all three were in a zombie-like state. Kazakov fuelled himself up with bitter vending-machine coffee and told the kids that they could sleep. This wasn’t easy with staff and patients coming by to drop coins in the machines, but Ryan managed to crash with his feet propped on a glass table. Ning wasn’t so lucky and ended up flipping through the neat rows of upmarket magazines, with her eyes blurring whenever she tried to read.

  ‘I need the loo,’ Ning told Kazakov as she stood. ‘Do you want a drink or anything while I’m up?’

  ‘I’m good, thanks,’ Kazakov said.

  Ning only half needed the toilet. Mainly she was sick of sitting around and wanted to stretch her legs. There was a double-height space with a fountain at the corridor’s far end. The shutters were down on a pair of food kiosks and there was a janitor emptying out the bins, but she found the rushing water soothing and dipped her hand into a chloriney jet and made it splash over her face.

  As Ning did this she noticed two men, dressed near-identically in tight jeans and black leather jackets. She kind of recognised one of them, but dismissed it as a symptom of exhaustion until she put a name to the face:

  Kuban.

  He was one of Leonid Aramov’s henchmen and he’d led the torture of Ning’s stepmother. She didn’t fancy taking on the two bulky men who’d just strode through the automatic doors leading down a corridor to Ethan’s room, so she whipped out her mobile and dialled Kazakov.

  ‘Two bad guys coming your way,’ Ning said rapidly. ‘You’ll see them in a few seconds.’

  Ryan was in the middle of a dream where he was scoffing a big KFC bucket when Kazakov jerked him awake.

  ‘Ning says there’s two guys coming,’ Kazakov told him. ‘I’m gonna try heading them off.’

  Ryan rubbed his eyes and stood as Kazakov stormed down the corridor towards two men.

  ‘Can I help you gentlemen?’ Kazakov asked.

  Kazakov’s build and Ukrainian accent meant that Kuban and his giant associate instantly assumed that he was a security guard working for Irena.

  ‘You can help by getting out of our way,’ Kuban said, as his larger companion took a step closer to Kazakov.

  ‘I can’t allow that,’ Kazakov said, as he cracked his knuckles. ‘Let’s be sensible, eh?’

  Kuban’s companion opened up his jacket and pulled out a handgun.

  ‘This sensible enough for you?’ he asked.

  Kazakov instinctively reached towards his belt as he took half a step back. But he’d come straight from the airport, and his trusted hunting knife was buried somewhere inside a wheelie bag.

  Ryan couldn’t actually see the gun as he looked on from the lounge area, but it was unlikely that Kazakov would back off for any other reason. He thought about heading across to defend Kazakov, or maybe finding a weapon and trying to ambush the men as they came past, but their goal was to protect Ethan so he hurried across the hallway and backed into Ethan’s room.

  Kazakov raised his hands in a surrender gesture, but Kuban and his pal couldn’t risk having Kazakov come after them, so as Kuban held a gun right in Kazakov’s face the massive dude slid a metal knuckleduster over his hand and delivered a vicious punch to the temple.

  ‘That hurt,’ Kuban laughed, as Kazakov crashed down, unconscious.

  ‘He’s lucky we didn’t have a silencer for the pistol,’ the big dude added.

  Ryan felt queasy as he studied Ethan’s room. The space was dark and Ethan snored gently, with the drip needle in his arm and his bad ankle raised in a sling to reduce the swelling. The en-suite bathroom had a broad sliding door designed for wheelchair access and Ryan nudged it open with his foot as he walked around the bed.

  Ethan woke with a start as Ryan grabbed him under the armpits and started dragging him off the bed, then howled in pain as the drip needle got ripped out of his arm.

  ‘Shut up,’ Ryan said firmly.

  Ryan’s bruised ribs were agony as he dragged Ethan off the bed towards the bathroom.

  ‘Ryan?’ Ethan said, almost off his head because of the sedative. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Long story,’ Ryan replied. ‘Have faith. I need you to work with me.’

  As Ryan dragged Ethan into the bathroom and slid the door shut, Kuban burst into the room, followed by the big guy who was dragging the unconscious Kazakov by his ankles.

  ‘Where is he?’ Kuban asked, before noticing the bathroom.

  Ryan flipped the lock across the bathroom door. He dumped an extremely confused Ethan at the back of a walk-in shower and swept the privacy curtain across to hide him.

  ‘They’re Leonid’s guys,’ Ryan whispered. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

  The toilet door had a safety lock which could be turned from the outside with a coin or
screwdriver. Kuban hunted for change in his trousers as Ryan flipped the lock and slid the door halfway open.

  Ryan spoke in Russian. ‘What do you want?’

  Ryan was the same age as Ethan but he didn’t much look like him and he was dressed in jeans and T-shirt, rather than nightwear. What happened next depended on how well Kuban and his accomplice knew Ethan, and Kuban’s expression was confused at best.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Ryan said firmly. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  This bolshiness made Kuban’s mind up and he snarled, ‘I know who you are. And I wouldn’t want to stand in your shoes when Uncle Leonid catches up with you.’

  The big dude didn’t seem so certain. ‘Is that him?’ he asked.

  ‘Room six one nine,’ Kuban said, pointing at the number on the door as he gave Ryan sight of his gun. ‘Your bodyguard’s out for the count and you’re coming with us.’

  *

  Ning had seen Kazakov knocked down and got a more distant view of Ryan crossing into Ethan’s room. She tried thinking of some action she could take herself, or of running to hospital security, but she couldn’t decide and ended up calling Amy.

  ‘If they’ve got guns you stay back,’ Amy said. ‘Try and get some information on their vehicle.’

  ‘Right,’ Ning said.

  As Ning spun around she was shocked to see Ryan being frogmarched between Kuban and the big dude. She was impressed by Ryan’s identity-switching feat, but he’d exposed himself to a huge amount of danger.

  The goons led Ryan through a set of swinging doors marked staff only. After giving them a few seconds to get clear, Ning jogged across the hallway and poked her head between the doors. She could hear footsteps clanking down metal stairs, but she was distracted by a shout from behind. It made Leonid’s men stop and look up, but they didn’t see Ning because she’d backed into the corridor.