CHERUB: The General

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘I don’t know what Kazakov’s plan involves,’ Mac grinned, as they stepped off the bus into a parking lot and stretched their legs.

  ‘I’m not even sure that I want to,’ James smiled. ‘The part with the beer kegs looks like fun though.’

  Kazakov, the bus driver and a guy who’d come in especially early to open up his liquor store loaded the kegs into the base of the coach as the cherubs headed towards a twenty-four-hour diner. Inside it was about eighty per cent full and the sweat-glazed hostess had to split the party of twelve between two tables, with a bunch of uniformed US soldiers at the table in between.

  James ordered something called a Cake and Steak Grand Slam, which was a giant platter of just about everything on the menu, including a large T-bone steak and side stack of pancakes in a swimming pool of maple syrup.

  Kazakov arrived at the table before the food, but their driver spotted some colleagues from Fort Reagan and went to sit with them.

  ‘You all going up to the Fort?’ the waitress asked, as she doled out the breakfasts. ‘Looks like there’s another big exercise starting there this morning.’

  Her name badge said she was called Natasiya and Kazakov gave her a smile.

  ‘What’s a nice Ukrainian like you doing way out here in the desert?’ he asked.

  ‘Paying the bills and raising my kids, same as every other waitress,’ she smiled. ‘Most people think I’m Russian.’

  ‘English speakers can’t tell,’ Kazakov tutted. ‘I get the same thing in Britain. Some people even think I’m Polish.’

  James had twice as much food as anyone else and Bruce shouted over the US soldiers at the table in between, ‘You gonna eat all that, fat boy?’

  James knew he’d never get through it, so he let Lauren and Rat take one of his pancakes and Kevin had two rashers of crispy bacon to go with his French toast.

  ‘You sure you don’t want some, Bruce?’ James shouted. ‘Put some meat on them skinny bones?’

  ‘Might be skinny but I could kick your butt any day,’ Bruce shouted back.

  A female soldier at the next table turned angrily to James. ‘Would you two mind?’ she drawled. ‘Can I eat my breakfast without you boys yellin’ in my ear?’

  ‘Sorry,’ James smiled, before turning back and starting to cut his steak.

  A corporal sitting directly behind Kazakov stood up with an empty maple syrup jug and rudely ordered the waitress to give him a refill.

  ‘Goddamn service here sucks,’ the soldier complained, as he sat down. ‘That Russian ain’t getting no tip out of me. Reckon she learned her waitressing skills in the Gulag.’

  Kazakov slammed his coffee down and swivelled around to face the corporal. ‘Why don’t you shut your mouth and learn some manners?’

  The corporal bared his brite-white twenty-something teeth at Kazakov as Natasiya arrived with a jug of hot syrup. ‘Maybe you should mind your business, old man.’

  Kazakov shook his head and turned back to his breakfast. ‘Typical Americans,’ he muttered loudly. ‘Ignorant, loud and stupid.’

  The burly corporal bolted out of his seat and tapped Kazakov on the shoulder. ‘I happen to take offence at foreign people coming to my country and talking like that.’

  Meryl smiled. ‘Why don’t we all stop mouthing off and have a nice breakfast?’

  Kazakov ignored her and spoke loudly so that everyone in the diner could hear. ‘In my country we love your American flag. We cut the soft fabric into little rectangles and then we wipe our asses on it.’

  James and Rat struggled not to laugh as soldiers and civilians at the surrounding tables jeered with outrage.

  The corporal’s eyes bulged as he leaned towards Kazakov. ‘You wanna take this outside?’

  ‘Anytime, cowboy,’ Kazakov grinned, as he stood up.

  The corporal looked surprised by Kazakov’s bulk. He’d started an argument on the basis of Kazakov’s grey head in the row of seats behind, but now found himself nose to nose with a physique and scarred face that looked like it had won several wars all by itself.

  ‘Change your mind, cowboy?’ Kazakov sneered. ‘Guess I’m bigger than the girls on your high school wrestling team.’

  The restaurant went quiet as people stopped eating and turned to watch the testosterone fuelled drama. James glanced around and didn’t like the fact that at least six other booths were filled with soldiers and none of them looked like they were about to add Kazakov to their Christmas card list.

  ‘Not worth fighting over, boss,’ James said to Kazakov, as he tugged on the Ukrainian’s shirt.

  The female soldier was doing a similar job trying to settle down her buddy and the giant bus driver had come across from his table to urge calm.

  After a few seconds where it could have gone either way, Kazakov and the corporal settled back into their seats. But then every eye in the restaurant turned towards the distinctive ratcheting sound of a shotgun chamber being loaded.

  A tough-looking female chef had stepped out of the kitchen and had both barrels aimed at Kazakov’s head.

  ‘Ma’am, there’s no need for that,’ Mac said anxiously.

  ‘No need?’ she said incredulously. ‘I got two sons and a daughter in the armed forces, mister, and you can get your anti-American ass the hell out of my restaurant.’

  Diners cheered and clapped as Kazakov stood up and backed away from his table.

  ‘And the rest of yous,’ she added, waving the gun at James and the others.

  Mac pointed at Kevin and Jake. ‘We just brought the children in for some breakfast.’

  The chef looked at the two boys before yelling at one of the waitresses. ‘Natasiya, make this order to go.’

  The Ukrainian waitress rushed over with a heap of cardboard cups and polystyrene food boxes. It wasn’t ideal, but Mac nodded appreciatively at the gun wielding cook as James and the rest of the party hurriedly scraped food from plates into boxes and poured drinks from glasses into cardboard cups.

  ‘Thank you ma’am,’ Mac said, as he reached inside his jacket.

  ‘Keep your damned hands where I can see ‘em,’ the cook screamed, stepping forward so that the barrels were right in Mac’s face.

  ‘Cool it!’ Mac gasped. ‘I’m reaching for my wallet.’

  By this time, Kazakov and the rest of the CHERUB party were on their way to the door with their hastily boxed food.

  ‘Showed you, asshole,’ one soldier shouted. ‘Got your ass kicked by a girl!’

  James’ face burned with embarrassment as they moved through the automatic exit door, pausing only to grab serviettes, straws and plastic cutlery. Kazakov bristled as a chunk of corn bread hit him in the back of the head, but Meryl jabbed him in the back and told him to keep moving.

  ‘American cocks,’ Kazakov shouted, turning around and flicking off the diners as he made it out into the morning sun.

  Mac was last out of the diner, and everyone turned on Kazakov as they hurried back towards the coach.

  ‘I don’t care who you people are or what your rank is,’ the driver shouted. ‘You pull another stunt like that and you can get off my bus and walk.’

  ‘Are you out of your bloody mind?’ Mac shouted. ‘Picking a fight with thirty soldiers! We’re lucky we only had a gun pointed at us.’

  ‘Ignorant American scum!’ Kazakov screamed. ‘Their missile killed my baby brother and their crooked casino robbed my three thousand dollars.’

  Meryl groaned as she climbed aboard the bus. ‘You’re a big boy, Kazakov. You shouldn’t gamble what you can’t afford to lose.’

  James crashed in a seat behind Bruce. He grabbed the steak out of his box and tore off a massive chunk with his teeth.

  ‘Shame it didn’t kick off,’ Bruce smiled. ‘I haven’t been in a decent fight for months.’

  ‘Psycho,’ James grinned. ‘Steak’s bloody good though. Maybe we can stop in again on the way back…’

  22. FORT

  If the bronze bust of America’s fortieth preside
nt on the front gate had been replaced with Mickey Mouse, the entrance to Fort Reagan could easily have passed off as a theme park. The army bus joined a queue of traffic at the entry gate to a massive parking lot which was losing a battle with encroaching sand. James’ eye followed the perimeter fence until it vanished over the horizon.

  Military personnel arrived in buses and got waved through an express line, while the civilian traffic had to bide its time as soldiers checked their paperwork, searched trunks and inspected the underside of cars with mirrors held on the end of long stalks.

  The vehicles were mostly cheap starter cars and the passengers inside were usually young. Most were college students looking to pick up eighty dollars a day, but to enhance the realism of the eight-thousand strong civilian population the US army had also recruited older couples, kids’ soccer teams, a blind hiking club and two disabled basketball squads.

  ‘The Americans don’t do things by halves, do they?’ Bruce smiled.

  Everyone was impressed by the scale of the operation as they peered through the windows of the army bus at lines of parked cars and boisterous college students carrying backpacks and beer coolers towards the main entrance.

  Mac and Kazakov stayed aboard the bus as it passed through the military entrance. Meryl led the kids with their wheelie bags on a kilometre-long walk towards the entry plaza. The corrugated metal building was the size of an outlet store, with a thousand strong queue snaking through lines of barriers outside the main entrance.

  Soldiers with megaphones were shouting orders. ‘Have your identity documents, legal documents, social security and medical history forms ready for inspection.’

  The queue was horribly slow and James heard the message thirty times as he inched forward with his eyes fixed on the bodies of high-spirited college girls who all wore matching jackets with USC Soccer written across the back.

  While they waited the queue almost doubled in length. Jake and Kevin swung on the barriers until Meryl yelled at them, while an old couple fussed over sunglasses and double-checked their luggage to make sure they had the right medication.

  Things moved more efficiently once they got inside. There were counters numbered A through W, like customs at an airport, and a soldier told everyone what queue to join.

  ‘Welcome to Reaganistan,’ a female soldier told Meryl, as the CHERUB party reached the yellow line at the head of queue R ‘Papers please.’

  Meryl had a whole bunch of passports and forms at the ready, but they all got waved through because they’d already been issued with their identity bracelets. It was the same story at the next set of counters where everyone else lined up to get their picture taken.

  After passing through the processing building in less than ten minutes, they followed a red line to a second building called Equipment and Briefing.

  ‘Pack contains safety goggles, emergency alert alarm and food supplies for your first three meals,’ a soldier announced, before repeating the same sentence for the people behind.

  At the next station everyone had the chips in their identity bracelets scanned, before a laser printer churned out individual accommodation assignments, along with a map of Fort Reagan and a set of directions. At the final stop, everyone was handed a Fort Reagan safety manual and, most importantly, a zip-lock bag containing five hundred Reaganistan dollars and an apartment key.

  The notes came in denominations of one, five, ten and twenty dollars and had a bizarre design which mixed the US Army logo and pictures of weapons with lots of Arabic-style script and a picture of a nondescript man in a turban.

  James pulled out a twenty and read the disclaimer on the back of each note aloud. ‘This note remains the property of the United States Government. It is designed to purchase food, meals and other essential items within the confines of Fort Reagan military training compound and has no value as currency. You must surrender all notes when leaving Fort Reagan and failure to do so may result in federal imprisonment and a fine of up to fifty thousand dollars.’

  ‘Guess they don’t want them going on eBay,’ Lauren smiled.

  A long corridor led to a carpeted waiting area which already contained more than a hundred people. An LCD screen on the wall told them that the Next showing of the Fort Reagan introductory film and safety briefing begins in 14 minutes.

  After riding on the bus and then spending an hour queuing and being processed, everyone needed the toilet, which was OK for the boys but the girls all had to join an enormous queue and they barely made it back before sets of automatic doors opened and people started heading into a large auditorium.

  Three hundred people crammed on to backless benches before the lights went down and the automatic doors closed.

  ‘I want popcorn,’ James giggled, as the screen lit up with an aerial shot of Fort Reagan and a cheesy voiceover.

  ‘The twentieth century saw the largest and bloodiest military conflicts in the history of mankind, but as the third millennium dawned a new kind of warfare emerged around the world.’

  The screen cut to pictures of smiling American troops driving Hummers through the streets of Baghdad, and soldiers walking up a hillside in white United Nations helmets, waving to friendly peasant women.

  ‘These twenty-first century battles don’t take place on the high seas, on marked battlefields, or even in the air, but in densely populated urban environments. Instead of battling tanks or artillery fire, the American soldier of today is likely to find himself fighting insurgents and terrorists using roadside detonations, car bombs, hostage taking, extortion and kidnapping. The military must learn to fight not just in open battle, but against a ruthless enemy who uses the civilian population as his or her shield.

  ‘In order to train for these situations, the Defence Department realised that soldiers needed a twenty-first-century training facility in which to train for twenty-first-century warfare. Built at a cost of over four billion dollars, Fort Reagan is the result.

  ‘By coming here to Fort Reagan, you’ll be playing a vital role in training American troops and helping to save real American lives in the battlefield. Every aspect of our training exercises is meticulously planned and designed for utmost realism, but individual safety remains paramount. So please relax and pay attention as we guide you through safety procedure at Fort Reagan – the world’s foremost urban warfare training facility.’

  *

  After a safety briefing filled with advice ranging from always carrying your safety goggles and putting them on if you see people shooting simulated ammunition, to being told not to run on staircases and to ‘stand well clear of moving vehicles’ the crowd was moved into a thousand-seat outdoor grandstand, where they waited for another half hour before two army officers stepped on to the sand-covered stage and began speaking a touch self-consciously.

  ‘Citizens of Reaganistan, thank you so much for attending this town meeting. I am United States General Shirley. I am the commander of the one-thousand-five-hundred strong American-British taskforce that has been sent to restore peace in your small country.

  ‘The role of our taskforce is to support the democratically elected government of President Mongo and help to eliminate the terrorist Reaganista movement. In particular we are searching for the Reaganista leader known as Sheikh McAfferty.’

  All the cherubs smiled as the screen behind the general showed a blurry twenty-year-old picture of Mac.

  ‘McAfferty is believed to be responsible for more than one hundred terrorist acts over the past three months. Our task is to arrest McAfferty and his lieutenants, seize their supplies of weapons and ammunition and bring a halt to their terrorist action.’

  The general paused. A few members of the crowd clapped and there were even a couple of shouts of ‘USA!’

  ‘Unfortunately, ten per cent of the civilian population supports and sympathises with these insurgents. No doubt this includes some of you sitting here listening to me now. We also believe that they have up to one hundred expert military personnel, trained by a foreign p
ower.

  ‘Over the next two weeks, my men will be conducting patrols and searches of your town, fighting terrorists and trying to stop the violence. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused.’

  James looked at the other cherubs and shook his head. ‘How cheesy is this?’ he grinned.

  ‘Somewhere between mature cheddar and stilton,’ Rat nodded.

  The general continued speaking. ‘If any of you have any questions or—’

  James flew about a metre into the air and hundreds in the audience screamed as a huge bang and a ball of flame blew up behind the seats. A bloody-faced actress came bounding down the grandstand steps, holding a baby and crying her eyes out as a second blast erupted off to one side and an emergency siren started to wail.

  The general spoke again. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we are under terrorist attack! Please remain calm and return to your homes in an orderly fashion.’

  The audience realised it was a special effect designed to set up the atmosphere of conflict, but it had given everyone a scare and the crowd was wary – half expecting more bangs as they hurried out of the grandstands with their luggage and their twenty-four-hour food supplies.

  ‘Cheesy, eh?’ Lauren grinned, as she jostled down the grandstand steps behind James. ‘You looked like you were gonna shit yourself.’

  There were no more bangs, but a smoke machine had been turned on under the grandstand and another in the street outside, forcing the crowd to scatter before they could pull out their maps and work out where they were heading. It was all designed to make the civilians uncomfortable and it seemed to have worked.

  The grandstand had a newly built tarmac road, but leading off it was a maze of oddly sized white buildings and narrow alleyways designed to mimic the layout of an ancient city.

  Meryl led the ten kids a few hundred metres away from the smoke before pausing to look at her map.

  ‘It’s under two kilometres to our accommodation,’ she said. ‘According to this there’s supposed to be a bus service that circles the compound.’