CHERUB: Dark Sun

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘Are you eyeballing me, sister?’ Speaks shouted. ‘Why don’t you abandon him? What use is this little worm to you?’

  ‘He’s my partner,’ Lauren said loyally.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Speaks said, sounding like she’d just had the greatest idea in history. ‘He’s ten short. How about you get down in the dirt and do ’em for him?’

  Lauren didn’t like it, but she wanted the instructor out of her sight so she hit the dirt and started counting Andy’s press-ups. Her lead-filled pack was chafing all the skin on her back, she was boiling hot, her arms hurt and sweat dripped off the end of her nose into the dirt.

  Strict discipline, tough punishments and hard physical training were the three worst things about being a CHERUB agent, but they gave cherubs an edge that enabled them to work safely undercover and accomplish tasks well beyond the scope of ordinary kids.

  There was nothing to stop Lauren or any other agent quitting campus and going to live an ordinary life with a foster family, but even when her lungs burned and her boots were full of blisters she never considered it. Because when you showered off, patched up your wounds and looked in the mirror you saw an extraordinary person looking back at you.

  Three years earlier, Lauren had arrived on campus as a bright but perfectly ordinary nine-year-old. Now she was one of the most highly rated agents on CHERUB campus. She spoke fluent Spanish and Russian, was fit enough to run ten kilometres without getting out of breath, could handle a car on a skid pan, load and shoot any firearm you cared to name and if she couldn’t get her hands on a weapon she also knew several ways to kill you with her bare hands.

  As Lauren made the tenth and final upwards push, Miss Speaks’ enormous hand pressed down against her pack. The harder Lauren fought to straighten her arms, the more Speaks pushed against them.

  ‘Back-chatting a guest on campus,’ Speaks tutted. ‘Are you regretting it now, you vile little tramp?’

  Lauren tried not to think about how this was all Jake Parker’s fault as she gritted her teeth and stared at the dirt. Sweat was now pouring down her face and her stomach muscles felt like they were going to explode, but failure wasn’t an option: Miss Speaks would only devise some other form of torture.

  Lauren finally came close to getting her arms straight, but Speaks shoved downwards and Lauren found her nose back in the dirt and grit sticking to her sweaty face. In basic training cherubs are taught to shut out pain and focus on a seven-word mantra: This is tough but cherubs are tougher. Lauren closed her eyes and silently mouthed it to herself.

  Finally, after almost a minute of straining, Miss Speaks released her grip and Lauren completed the push-up.

  ‘Determined,’ Speaks said admiringly, as Lauren staggered to her feet. ‘You’ve got heart.’

  Compliments from training instructors were as rare as chicks hatching from Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Lauren grudgingly acknowledged the compliment as she straightened up. The heat made her woozy and her eyes moved in different directions as she looked ahead.

  ‘Move off then,’ Speaks yelled. ‘Across those beams before my boot comes swiftly into contact with your little pink arses.’

  ‘You OK?’ Andy asked guiltily as they staggered towards the beams. ‘Sorry. I’m so bad at push-ups.’

  Lauren shrugged. ‘Not your fault God gave you weedy arms.’

  James and Bruce watched from the platform in the trees as Lauren and Andy each lined up at the start of a beam. As Lauren stepped off, Bruce reached up and dropped a bar that held the punchbags in place. James and Bruce each grabbed a leather handle stitched to the back of a bag and lined up behind them.

  ‘I’ll go for Lauren,’ James said.

  Because Lauren had done his push-ups, Andy felt fresher and moved off faster. Lauren could have done with a moment to catch her breath and wipe the grit off her face, but she knew Speaks would bite her head off if she showed any sign of slacking.

  As Andy took his third step, Bruce gave his heavy bag an almighty shove towards him. James and Bruce’s platform was disguised by the trees and the first thing Andy knew about their presence was when the rope holding up the bag creaked and the huge leather sack sliced across his path just a few centimetres in front of him.

  ‘Missed,’ Bruce cursed, reaching out to catch the bag as it swung back towards the platform.

  James released his bag. He didn’t always get on with his sister, but he had no desire to knock her into a muddy pond so he swung the bag out wide, missing her by several metres.

  ‘James Adams,’ Miss Speaks shouted furiously. ‘If I see you going soft like that again I’ll have you running this assault course tomorrow.’

  Andy should have cleared the beam already, but it takes a few seconds to compose yourself after you stop and Bruce’s second shot came around in a circular arc. The bag smashed into Andy just as he got his balance back and started moving again.

  ‘Bull’s-eye!’ Bruce shouted triumphantly.

  As Lauren made a three-metre jump on to the muddy crash-mat at the end of her beam, Andy clattered through a canopy of overhanging branches and hit the pond below. After a big splash, Andy grabbed a branch and hauled himself out of the brown soup, but as he lunged forward a horrific pain shot down his chest, making him cry out.

  The water was two metres deep and the bottom of the pond had a cushioned lining to prevent serious accidents, but Andy’s face was screwed up in agony as he staggered towards the embankment. James and Bruce climbed down the rope ladder from their platform, then held their bare arms up high as they navigated the tangle of stinging nettles surrounding the water.

  ‘What are you whinging about, Lagan?’ James asked.

  ‘Cracked rib or something,’ Andy gasped. ‘It’s absolute agony, all down my right side.’

  Up above, Jake Parker and his mate Ewan had made it up the slope at the start of their third circuit. They didn’t get push-ups because Miss Speaks was looking down at Andy and they didn’t get hit by the heavy bags because James and Bruce were guiding him through the stinging nettles.

  Jake grinned at Lauren when he jumped off the beam, with Ewan coming off the next beam a few steps behind.

  ‘Looks like it’s our lucky day,’ Jake chirped, giving Lauren a cheeky wink. ‘What happened to your boyfriend?’

  Lauren was sick of Jake and this was more than she could take. She made sure Miss Speaks wasn’t looking before grabbing Jake’s earlobe and twisting hard.

  ‘First off, he’s not my boyfriend,’ Lauren growled. ‘Second, if you’d behaved this morning I’d be sitting in a nice air-conditioned Art class right now. So stop smiling and start walking, because I’m this close to kicking the snot out of you.’

  ‘I’m so scared of you,’ Jake taunted, but only after Lauren had let go and he was well out of range.

  On the opposite side of the lake Miss Speaks stared down at the three boys. ‘Is he really hurt?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Looks like it,’ Bruce shouted up, as two more boys raced across the beams overhead.

  Speaks shook her head and sighed dramatically. ‘OK, James, you take the little worm to the medical unit and get him looked at. But I’m gonna be checking in with Dr Kessler, Andy. If you’re faking, I’ll have you back here for a special one-on-one training session that’ll make this seem like a Buckingham Palace garden party.’

  5. CASCADE

  CHERUB campus has a small medical centre with six private rooms and a five-bed casualty ward. Andy lay at the far end of the well equipped ward, while an eight-year-old who’d burned her hand on a cake tin sat at the other end feeling sorry for herself.

  Andy sat up, wincing with pain, as two men came through the swing doors. They were similar in appearance, with bald heads and silver-framed glasses. One was Dr Kessler, who Andy had been expecting for almost an hour. The other man was the mission controller John Jones, who he wasn’t expecting at all.

  Kessler had worked on campus for more than twenty years, but his German accent never faltered.
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br />   ‘Good news, I think,’ he said, reaching across Andy’s bed and peeling off his covers to examine his chest. ‘I checked the X-ray and there’s no break, but you’ve got some nice bruises coming up. I just want you to try raising your left shoulder off the pillow.’

  Andy barely lifted his shoulder before he hissed with pain and slumped back on to his pillow.

  Dr Kessler looked at John Jones. ‘He’s pulled a muscle. It’s probably the most common injury I see: the kids train hard and muscle is much more susceptible to damage when heavily fatigued.’

  Andy looked at Dr Kessler. ‘But I should be OK for my mission on Saturday, shouldn’t I?’

  John cut Andy off. ‘I had a text message from Greg Rathbone about ninety minutes ago. George Lydon has to visit his aunt’s house on Saturday, so he’s moved the sleepover forward to tonight.’

  ‘Damn,’ Andy tutted.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell Zara that you had an important mission coming up?’ John asked.

  ‘I didn’t want Lauren and them to think I was trying to wheedle out of it,’ Andy explained. ‘Is anyone else on campus trained to use AutoCAD software?’

  John shook his head. ‘You’ve had over twenty hours’ training, there’s no way we can get anyone up to your standard by this evening.’

  ‘Strap me up and I’ll get through it somehow,’ Andy said bravely. ‘I’ll just tell everyone I got hurt playing football or something.’

  ‘I can get Nurse Halstead to apply some strapping,’ Dr Kessler nodded. ‘But you’d still be in a significant amount of pain. A painkilling injection would help, although the injection is intra-muscular so it will hurt, and the affected area will feel quite peculiar; the same kind of numb feeling you get after a filling at the dentist.’

  ‘The choice is entirely yours, Andy,’ John emphasised. ‘You don’t have to put yourself through this. If you pull out of the mission nobody will hold it against you.’

  Andy shook his head determinedly. ‘Rat’s been trying to get us into Kurt Lydon’s house for over a month. I’ll do what it takes.’

  Dr Kessler headed back across the ward and unlocked a wheeled rubber cabinet, fitted with hundreds of tiny drawers. John pulled a wodge of paperwork out of his jacket.

  ‘It’ll take about ninety minutes to drive to Milton Keynes,’ John said. ‘And I want to get on the road before the kids get out of school. So I need you to go through your mission background document and the detailed briefing. If you’ve got any questions now’s the time to ask.’

  Andy took the papers and shrugged. ‘I’ve read all this twenty times already.’

  ‘I know,’ John nodded. ‘But I’m always paranoid that my agents will forget something at the last minute. Do me a favour and give it a final once-over, OK?’

  Andy nodded reluctantly as Dr Kessler headed back holding a sterile syringe pack.

  ‘This should be good for twelve to sixteen hours,’ Kessler said. ‘But remember that the muscle underneath is still damaged. You’ve got to avoid doing anything too physical.’

  After swabbing Andy’s chest with a sterile wipe, the doctor ripped the plastic wrapping from the syringe pack and twisted off a plastic bung, unveiling a long needle.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Andy gasped. ‘Is that going to hurt as much as I think it’s going to?’

  ‘Oh, it’s ten times worse than it looks,’ Dr Kessler said sarcastically. ‘Just take deep breaths and keep still. It’ll only take a few moments.’

  Andy let go of John’s paperwork and dug his nails into the mattress as the needle pierced his stomach.

  *

  ***CLASSIFIED MISSION BACKGROUND

  DOCUMENT***

  FOR GREG ‘RAT’ RATHBONE & ANDY LAGAN

  DO NOT PHOTOCOPY OR MAKE NOTES

  MISSION BACKGROUND – THE NUCLEAR CLUB

  Since the United States detonated the first atomic bombs in 1945 many other countries have attempted to build their own nuclear weapons. At present eight other countries are known to possess nuclear weapons (Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel) while others such as Japan and Germany have nuclear technology but have chosen not to make bombs.

  For every country that has nuclear weapons there are many more that want them. Some of these countries are poor and have no realistic chances of developing a nuclear arsenal. Others, particularly in the oil-rich Middle East, are wealthy but lack the scientific and industrial base needed to develop them.

  These countries will pay huge sums of money to anyone who can supply them with nuclear secrets.

  THE DARK SUN NETWORK

  Over the past sixty years many groups and individuals have tried to cash in on the market for nuclear technology. In 2004 a joint operation between British and French intelligence officers led to the arrest of a woman who’d illegally purchased several tonnes of maraging steel. This specially hardened metal is mainly used in the nuclear industry and its production and export is strictly controlled.

  Facing a lengthy prison term, the suspect agreed to cooperate. She gave the French intelligence service valuable information on a criminal organisation known as Dark Sun. Over the following months it became clear that Dark Sun was a sophisticated network that bought and sold secret nuclear technology. Its customers included governments in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

  THE CASCADE

  The most difficult part of producing a nuclear bomb is turning ordinary uranium metal into the weapons grade variety needed to fuel a bomb. This is done by heating the metal until it becomes a gas and spinning it at very high speed in a centrifuge.

  To make weapons grade material, uranium gas needs to be passed through a network of up to fifty thousand centrifuges known as a cascade. Not only is a cascade hugely complex, but it also uses the electricity output of a large power station and any leak or malfunction will lead to the release of deadly radioactive gas.

  KURT LYDON

  The Dark Sun network wants to offer its customers reliable designs for uranium centrifuges. Several European and Chinese centrifuge designs are widely available, but these all date from the 1960s and 70s. Their performance and safety is well below that of the best modern equipment.

  Kurt Lydon was part of a legitimate engineering team designing a new Anglo-French uranium centrifuge. By November 2006 the design was complete and a small cascade had been successfully tested, but the French government cancelled a planned uranium enrichment plant. The centrifuge project was canned and Kurt Lydon was out of a job.

  Despite the high security surrounding any nuclear project, Lydon managed to steal the computerised blueprints for the new centrifuge shortly before he was laid off. The theft went undetected, but MI5 identified Lydon when he met with a suspected Dark Sun operative in a Brussels restaurant in February 2007.

  Over the following weeks, MI5 bugged Lydon’s home and all of his telephone conversations. Lydon was trying to sell the centrifuge design to the Dark Sun network for eight million euros. But the new design required sophisticated metal composites, bearings and motors that are subject to strict export controls.

  Dark Sun might have been able to smuggle enough of these components to build a test centrifuge, but it would be impossible to get hold of enough specialised material for the fifty thousand needed in a cascade.

  Lydon was disappointed that his state-of-the-art design was of no value to the Dark Sun network. However, he received a more positive response when he offered to redesign the centrifuge so that it could be built from simpler components and materials.

  THE PLAN

  Lydon estimates that his redesign work will take eight to ten months. MI5 has considered arresting Lydon and his contacts. This might provide some intelligence, but only with junior members of the Dark Sun network.

  MI5 wants to penetrate the highest levels of Dark Sun. The only way to do this is to allow Lydon to complete his redesign and then track his progress as he travels abroad to build and test it. However, if Lydon is successful, his easy-to-build c
entrifuge could enable dozens of countries to start making fuel for nuclear bombs.

  MI5 has contacted some of Lydon’s former colleagues. The centrifuge design contains over three thousand parts and nobody understands all of them. The engineers selected a list of four hundred key parts. These are all made from common materials, meaning Lydon would have no reason to alter their design or to examine them too closely.

  Once the engineers had their list, they began to think up minute changes to these parts that would affect their performance. In a centrifuge spinning at 25,000rpm a hundredth of a gram imbalance in weight can cause a catastrophic failure; the wrong type of plastic seal can create an explosive venting of gas; or a tiny imperfection in the centrifuge lining can cause a heat build-up that makes the entire unit explode.

  A failed centrifuge is likely to spread radioactive debris, but experts believe that contamination will be confined to a small area. Engineers and technicians working for Dark Sun may come to serious harm, but MI5 feels this risk is acceptable, given that millions of lives would be endangered if a rogue state or terrorist group obtained a nuclear bomb.

  The engineers studied the individual parts and honed their list down to 143 tiny design alterations that will be unnoticeable on a computer screen and impossible to pinpoint in the aftermath of an explosion.

  It is believed that ironing out all of these tiny faults will actually take longer than designing a new centrifuge from scratch. Testing the flawed design will also take years, cost millions of dollars and undermine the credibility of the Dark Sun network.

  THE PROBLEM

  Kurt Lydon has already begun work on his revised design. Someone will have to access the computer-aided design workstation in the study at Kurt Lydon’s Milton Keynes home and enter all 143 design alterations by hand.