CHERUB: Man vs Beast

by Robert Muchamore

  Little Joshua gave James a pleading look. ‘Play with me?’

  James didn’t know what Zara had planned and looked uncertainly at her.

  Zara put on her strict mummy voice. ‘James can play with you for ten minutes, but then he’s got to work.’

  Joshua shook his head as James put him down. ‘No! Till bedtime.’

  ‘James can’t play until bedtime,’ Zara said. ‘He’s a big boy, he has things to do.’

  James realised what a big boy he was as he sat on the carpet amidst Joshua’s toys, feeling like a bit of an idiot.

  Kyle grinned. ‘You and Joshua make a cute pair.’

  Lauren almost butted in with They’ve got the same mental age, but thought better of it when she remembered that James was still sore at her.

  As James helped Joshua line up a row of toy cars for a race across the carpet, he looked up at Zara. ‘So is Joshua coming on the mission with us?’

  Zara looked extremely anxious as she answered. ‘It was OK when he was a baby, but he can’t come on missions now he’s able to talk.’

  James realised he’d mentioned the unmentionable when he looked around and saw Joshua’s face starting to screw up.

  ‘I want a holiday!’ Joshua squealed. ‘I want Mummy and James.’

  Zara smiled diplomatically. ‘Sweetheart, I won’t be away for long. You’ll be here with Daddy and Tiffany …’

  But Joshua had slipped beyond reason. ‘I want to go,’ he screamed, as he kicked out at a toy car and erupted into a full tantrum.

  James looked awkwardly at Zara. ‘Sorry …’

  Kyle gave James a thumbs-up sign and shouted over Joshua’s racket, ‘Way to stick your foot in it, dude.’

  ‘WANNNAAAAA GO WITH MUMMMY AND JAAAAAAAAAMES!’

  ‘Why don’t you sit down nicely and play cars with me?’ James asked hopefully.

  ‘You not my friend any more,’ Joshua wailed, as he rolled on to his back and started kicking his light-up trainers wildly in the air.

  Kyle glanced at Lauren and summoned her with a sneaky finger.

  ‘Some people might say your brother’s a bit of an idiot,’ he whispered.

  Lauren tried really hard not to smirk. ‘Don’t make me laugh, Kyle,’ she answered anxiously. ‘I was out of order and I’m still walking on eggshells.’

  Kyle reached under the stack of folders and handed Lauren a stapled document.

  ‘Here, have a butcher’s at our mission briefing,’ he said. ‘That’ll wipe the smile off.’

  ***CLASSIFIED MISSION BRIEFING***

  FOR KYLE BLUEMAN, JAMES ADAMS,

  PLUS ONE OTHER (TBC)

  THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED WITH A RADIO

  FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION TAG

  ANY ATTEMPT TO REMOVE IT FROM THE MISSION

  PREPARATION BUILDING

  WILL SET OFF AN ALARM

  DO NOT PHOTOCOPY OR MAKE NOTES

  MISSION BACKGROUND – ANIMAL LIBERATION

  It’s often said that Britain is a nation of animal lovers. The first animal rights campaigners were British and in 1824 Britain’s parliament passed the world’s first animal protection laws.

  Mainstream animal protection groups have always stayed within the law, working closely with governments, farmers, pet owners and other groups involved with animals. But in the late 1960s a new wave of radical animal rights campaigners came into being. Calling themselves Animal Liberationists, they believed that all human exploitation of animals should be stopped.

  The liberationists argued that every thinking being should be treated as an equal. They claimed that there were no grounds for harming any living creature, just because it seems less intelligent than a human.

  Liberationists opposed eating meat and fish, dairy production, fur farming, leather production, the wool industry, circuses, zoos, wildlife parks and the use of animals in scientific experiments. Many liberationists even believed that keeping animals as pets was an unacceptable form of exploitation.

  DIRECT ACTION

  With few supporters and little money, some liberationists decided that the best way to help animals and get their radical points of view noticed was by taking non-violent direct action: organising raids and freeing animals from captivity.

  Most of the early liberationists were university students and professors, so it was natural that their first actions were staged on university campuses, freeing animals that were being used for scientific experiments.

  These first raids by a few dozen activists were an extraordinary success. The media loved telling stories of idealistic youngsters breaking into laboratories and freeing defenceless animals from cruel scientists. The activists took photographs of the mangled and disturbed animals they had rescued and the dreadful conditions in which they frequently lived.

  Newspapers printed horrific photographs taken by activists during the raids. They showed animals that had been subjected to major brain operations without anaesthetic, or had had their eyes burned out in tests on the toxicity of household chemicals.

  The public was shocked by its first glimpse into the unseen world of animal experimentation and the liberationists’ campaign gained significant popular support.

  Over the next few years, the number of liberationists taking part in direct action grew from single figures to several hundred. Hunt saboteurs disrupted fox hunts and hare coursing events, anti-fur campaigners released tens of thousands of animals from fur farms and launched advertising campaigns that made wearing animal fur socially unacceptable.

  The publicity given to these early British liberationists inspired others around the world. By 1980 animal liberation was a global movement, with activist groups taking direct action throughout mainland Europe, Australia and North America.

  TROUBLES

  But after their early success, things became much tougher for animal liberationists.

  While the British government introduced new controls on animal experimentation, it also passed laws that made it easier to send activists to prison and asked the police to create special task forces to crack down on the liberationists’ illegal activities.

  Hunters, scientists and fur farmers began to defend their livelihoods vigorously. Many laboratories installed hi-tech security systems that made breaking in as hard as cracking a bank vault.

  The scientists also won back a lot of public sympathy by hiring public relations experts, who emphasised advances in medicine that would not have happened if new drugs and vaccines hadn’t been tested on animals. Activists who broke into laboratories, vandalised equipment and released animals now frequently stood accused of wrecking valuable research that could have saved thousands of human lives.

  But most importantly, the liberationist campaign lost its shock value. Media interest waned, as people who were horrified by their first sighting of pictures of animal experiments became blasé the fourth or fifth time they saw them. And while the public was sympathetic when liberationists campaigned against activities that most of them did not take part in – animal experiments, wearing fur and fox hunting – support fell dramatically when liberationists targeted more common activities such as eating meat, drinking milk, fishing and wearing leather.

  SCHISM

  These setbacks caused a crisis within the animal liberation movement. Many of the less committed activists buckled under police pressure and gave up the fight. Some were arrested and imprisoned for up to ten years on charges of theft, arson and criminal damage. Others became radicalised by the setbacks and decided that using violence was the only way forwards.

  All of the early liberationists were against violence. Their argument was simple: humans and animals are equal. Therefore, violence to humans is just as unacceptable as violence towards the animals they were campaigning to protect.

  But a new band of more radical liberationists put forward a different argument: if humans and animals are equal, then is it not right to kill or threaten one human in order to save the lives of many animals?

  RYAN QUINN
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br />   Ryan Quinn was one of the first animal liberationists. Born in Belfast in 1952, Quinn refused to eat meat from the age of ten when his father’s car hit and killed a sheep during a family outing.

  Soon after becoming a student at Bristol University he took part in what many regard as the first large-scale liberationist raid, when sixty-eight rabbits were freed from a laboratory conducting electric shock experiments on their spinal cords.

  Quinn was arrested, and while the police dropped charges for lack of evidence, he was one of twelve student liberationists expelled from the university.

  A quiet figure, who was happier working in the background than making grand speeches, Quinn steadily got to know almost all of the hundred or so hardcore activists within the British animal liberation movement. He gained a reputation as an expert in planning sophisticated raids and was involved in setting up camps that trained hundreds of liberationist volunteers from all around the world.

  ZEBRA 84

  In September 1984, Ryan Quinn was released from prison after serving a three-month sentence for stealing videotapes of animal experiments while working undercover at a Royal Navy research laboratory. Quinn had used his time inside to consider the future of animal liberation and decided that its big problem was a lack of focus and organisation.

  None of the early liberationist groups had a formal structure. They allowed anyone to set up and carry out an operation against whatever target they fancied. The trouble with this approach was that large organisations were rarely put under pressure and felt no serious effect beyond the damage caused by a single attack.

  Quinn decided to set up a new group called Zebra 84 with a different method of operation. Ryan explained the meaning of the name in a television documentary made several years later:

  ‘A zebra is a basically a striped horse, but you’ll never see a man riding one because they’re too aggressive. If you try climbing on a zebra’s back, he’ll turn around and sink his teeth into your arse. What’s more, the zebra’s jawbone has a locking mechanism, which means that once it sinks its teeth in you’re not going anywhere unless you leave a piece of your arse behind in its mouth.’

  Like the animal after which it was named, Quinn’s new group was going to sink its teeth into one organisation at a time and not let go until it was destroyed.

  Zebra 84’s first targets were Scottish fur farms. Typically, Quinn and three or four associates would enter a farm’s premises, free as many animals as they could and then vandalise or set fire to the building in which they’d been kept.

  Over the following weeks, Zebra 84 activists would ruthlessly harass anyone who had anything to do with the targeted farm. Strictly non-violent tactics ranged from vandalising delivery vans, stealing post, supergluing locks, sabotaging water and electricity supplies and generally making life hell for the farm’s owners and anyone who did business with them.

  A farm or laboratory targeted by Zebra 84 was usually driven out of business in a matter of months, as other companies stopped delivering vital supplies and insurers refused to renew policies covering fire damage.

  Over the next fifteen years, Zebra 84’s controversial tactics made it the most notorious and effective animal liberation group in Britain. Despite the success of Quinn’s tactics, he resisted the temptation to expand, always relying on a small band of loyal activists and never targeting more than one organisation at a time.

  This elitist attitude enhanced the group’s standing and Zebra 84 steadily gained a reputation as the special forces of the animal liberation movement.

  QUINN BITES OFF MORE THAN HE CAN CHEW

  2001 saw Zebra 84’s biggest success. Following twenty arson attacks, dozens of student marches and persistent vandalism of construction equipment – including the toppling of a forty-metre-high crane – Quinn’s group successfully halted the construction of a £17 million animal experimentation lab being built by one of Britain’s most prestigious universities with funding sourced from cancer charities and the Ministry of Defence.

  Puffed up from this success, Quinn decided that Zebra’s next target would be Malarek Research. With 1,100 employees at animal laboratories in Britain, Canada and the United States, Malarek is responsible for up to 10 per cent of all the animal experiments conducted in the world each year, including all of the experiments done by the world’s two largest manufacturers of consumer products (washing powders, shaving foam, hair dyes, etc) and many experiments done by the world’s biggest drug companies. Fourteen million animals per year die in its labs.

  Quinn knew the campaign against Malarek would be the longest and most difficult of his life. But his small group did not have the resources to defeat a large multinational company, so he used his legendary status within the animal rights movement to form alliances with other liberationist groups in every country where Malarek does business.

  THE STING

  More than a dozen groups came together to form the Zebra Alliance. Unfortunately for Quinn, one of the American groups he’d contacted had been infiltrated by the FBI. Video recordings made by undercover FBI agents in which Quinn told an anecdote about toppling the crane were sent to the British authorities.

  Just weeks into the Zebra Alliance campaign, Quinn was arrested and charged with arson, conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and possession of illegal explosives. He faced life imprisonment, but after a six-week jury trial, Quinn was only found guilty on a single charge of arson. The judge sentenced him to six years in prison.

  THE AFM

  Many believed that the groups aligned against Malarek would crumble without Quinn’s leadership. While the American and Canadian campaign efforts were thoroughly infiltrated by the FBI and amounted to little more than a few heavily policed protest marches, the campaign against Malarek’s UK experimentation facility had a significant effect on its operations.

  Many suppliers withdrew services to the company after being harassed. Customers and employees were intimidated by threats of property destruction and the company was unable to renew insurance cover on its buildings.

  But eighteen months into Quinn’s prison sentence, the Zebra Alliance appeared to have hit a brick wall. Malarek UK had been granted special insurance cover by the British government and its parent company had just announced increased profits.

  Two days after the profits were announced, Malarek’s UK chairman, Fred Gibbons, was lying in bed when four masked women burst into his bedroom. The women grabbed Gibbons and beat him severely with aluminium baseball bats.

  Gibbons suffered sixteen broken bones, including a fractured skull. His wife was also badly beaten as she tried to fend off the attackers with a golf club.

  The Zebra Alliance was quick to distance itself from this attack. Quinn emphasised that the Alliance was a non-violent coalition and condemned the assault on Gibbons. A note left behind at the scene of the attack left a stark warning:

  The Animal Freedom Militia (AFM)

  Cordially invites Mr Frederick Gibbons

  To stop working for Malarek Research

  Because next time we’ll kill you!

  P.S. We know where your children live too!

  QUINN REACHES OUT

  Fred Gibbons spent two months recovering in hospital and resigned from Malarek Research on health grounds, but the Animal Freedom Militia was only beginning its campaign.

  Over the following months there were eleven more violent attacks on Malarek employees in the Avon area. A courier who made a delivery to the site had his home set on fire and a senior employee of a merchant bank that lent money to Malarek was blinded after acid was thrown in his face.

  Meanwhile, Ryan Quinn was stuck in prison, watching the non-violent, high-pressure strategy he’d pioneered with Zebra 84 being undermined by ultra-extremists. Quinn’s first chance for parole was coming up and he believed there were links between more extreme members of the Zebra Alliance and the Animal Freedom Militia.

  Quinn wanted the AFM destroyed before it permanently tarnished the reputation of a
ll animal liberation groups, but he was powerless while he rotted in prison. Quinn put out feelers to a contact within the intelligence service and made her an offer: if he was granted parole and released from prison, Quinn would help the intelligence services to infiltrate the Zebra Alliance and try to unearth the AFM suspects from within.

  Quinn’s only condition was that MI5 destroy all evidence relating to acts of sabotage carried out by members of the Zebra Alliance who opposed violence.

  The offer of cooperation was a huge surprise and the security services were keen to pursue it, but the FBI sting operation that had infiltrated numerous American liberationist groups was still fresh in everyone’s minds, and members of the Zebra Alliance were naturally going to be very suspicious of any newcomers. It was thought that, even with Quinn’s assistance, it would be virtually impossible for an adult to infiltrate the Zebra Alliance and uncover members with links to the AFM.

  Senior officials realised that cherubs would be the only intelligence agents who might stand a chance of successfully unearthing members of the Animal Freedom Militia.

  THE CHERUB MISSION

  In the four months since Ryan Quinn agreed to cooperate with the intelligence services, he has been visited by Zara Asker on a regular basis. She has been posing as Zara Wilson, an old schoolfriend who got back in touch with Quinn when she learned that he was being held in a prison close to her home.

  As soon as Quinn leaves prison, he will announce that he has fallen in love with Zara and is getting engaged. The couple will move into the village of Corbyn Copse, less than a mile from the Malarek Research facility, along with three CHERUB agents who will be posing as Zara Wilson’s children from her previous marriage.

  Kyle Blueman will play the role of Kyle Wilson. His age will be advanced by six months to seventeen so that he can carry a driving licence. James Adams will fill the role of James Wilson, a Year Nine pupil. The third member of the Wilson family will probably be younger and female, preferably in Year Seven or Eight.