CHERUB: Class A

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘I wish you were coming to Miami with me,’ he said.

  ‘It’s only a week,’ Kerry smiled. ‘And there’s one condition if I’m gonna be your girlfriend.’

  ‘What?’ James asked.

  ‘From now on, your underwear only gets worn once.’

  27. MIAMI

  James and Junior touched down in Miami on Saturday evening. Keith had changed his plans and flown out a couple of days earlier with his minder, George. The beefy ex-heavyweight met the boys at immigration and drove them to Keith’s house in a Range Rover.

  James spent the whole drive with his face stuck up against the window like a five-year-old. He loved the little differences that make you know you’re in a different country: traffic lights strung over the road on wires, billboards with prices marked in dollars, the huge double-trailer trucks that looked like they’d roll over your car without the man in the cab feeling so much as a jolt.

  Automatic gates parted obediently when the car got near Keith’s house. The pastel-blue building sprawled out behind a mass of palm trees. There were two storeys, with balconies overlooking the ocean and lush terraces planted with palm trees and flowering cacti.

  ‘Your dad is so loaded,’ James said as he stepped out of the car, shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘Come and check out his cars,’ Junior said.

  There was a separate garage, the size of which reminded James of a fire station. The boys wandered in as George dealt with their bags. There was a row of everyday modern BMWs and Mercedes, but the exciting stuff was parked behind: the outlines of seven Porsches, clad in protective blankets. Junior pulled up a corner of one, revealing a headlamp.

  ‘This ran in the Le Mans twenty-four-hour race,’ Junior said. ‘My dad had it taken up to Daytona for a track day. He got it up to three hundred kph on the straight.’

  ‘Class,’ James said.

  ‘Like my motors, James?’ Keith asked.

  James turned around to see Keith standing in the doorway, wearing pool shoes and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt.

  ‘You’ve got a different Porsche for every day of the week,’ James grinned.

  ‘I’ll take you for a cruise down South Beach in one of them tomorrow night,’ Keith said. ‘It’s all lit up with neon signs after dark and there’s heaps of great restaurants. Did you see anything else you wanted to do in that guidebook?’

  ‘Is it too far to go up to Orlando?’ James asked. ‘Junior said Universal Studios is cool.’

  ‘It’s a few hundred kilometres,’ Keith said. ‘But it’s no hassle driving out there. We can stay overnight and get a couple of theme parks in if you want. I’ve got some business to sort out, but that should be wrapped up in a day or two. Was there anywhere else?’

  James shrugged. ‘I dunno, don’t put yourself out or anything. Me and Junior can hang out on the beach, go shopping and stuff.’

  ‘The fan boats over the everglades are good fun,’ Keith said. ‘And how are you set for spending money?’ He pulled a roll of dollars from the back of his shorts.

  ‘I can’t take money off you as well,’ James said. ‘You’ve already paid for my flight and everything.’

  Keith handed James three hundred-dollar bills and gave the same to Junior.

  ‘Buy something for April at the mall,’ Keith said. ‘She’s sweet on you.’

  ‘Cheers,’ James said. ‘Is it all right if I use the phone to tell Zara I’ve arrived?’

  ‘Sure,’ Keith said, spreading his arms out wide. ‘With a house this size, the phone bill is the least of my worries.’

  After a quick call home, the two boys stripped to their boxers, jumped off the wooden decking at back of the house and sprinted across the deserted white beach towards the ocean. James was feeling grotty after eight hours crammed on an aeroplane, but all that washed away as he curled his toes in the mushy sand and let the sea water spew over his chest.

  ‘I’m so glad you came instead of Ringo,’ Junior said, raising his voice above the waves. ‘This week is gonna be such a laugh.’

  *

  James slept in one of the guest bedrooms. He had a four-poster bed, plus an en-suite bathroom with a giant marble tub. When he woke up, he slid on shorts and a T-shirt and opened up a set of glass doors that led on to a balcony overlooking the ocean. He took some of lungfuls of sea air and leaned against the metal railing, letting the sun toast his skin.

  The coastline was dotted with yachts and motor launches out for a Sunday morning cruise. An elderly Hispanic gardener was hosing the terraces below. The man nodded politely when their eyes met. It made James wonder where he’d end up in life. Would he have the $10 million ocean-front house, or would he be like the crinkled old guy who watered the flowers?

  ‘Yo,’ Junior shouted.

  He came strolling through James’ bedroom and stepped on to the balcony.

  ‘What you doing out here?’ Junior asked.

  James shrugged. ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘Dumb idea,’ Junior said. ‘Thinking wears out your brain. My dad wants us downstairs. We’re going to IHOP for breakfast.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘It’s a pancake place,’ Junior explained. ‘I’m getting a stack of strawberry whipped cream pancakes. They give you so many you can barely move when you finish. Dad and George are going into town for some business meeting, so they’re dropping us at the mega-mall. It’s about twenty times the size of the Reeve Centre. We can spill some dosh on shopping, then there’s a sixteen-screen cinema and a rollercoaster if we get bored.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ James grinned.

  *

  James bought himself new jeans and swimming shorts and a couple of CDs, including one as a present for Kerry; then they caught a movie and waited around until George arrived to collect them. It was mid-afternoon when they got back to the house.

  ‘How was the meeting?’ James asked.

  ‘Good,’ Keith grinned. ‘Very, very good.’

  ‘Does that mean I’ll be able to go back to making money from deliveries?’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Keith said awkwardly. ‘Everything is gonna be different. Do you fancy going for a swim now the sun’s lower?’

  ‘Actually,’ James said, ‘do you mind if I use your laptop to e-mail my family?’

  ‘No worries,’ Keith said.

  George, Keith and Junior put on swimming shorts and walked down to the sea. Once they were out of sight, James raced up to his room and got a couple of USB memory sticks and a hacker’s toolkit CD-ROM out of the bottom of his bag. He climbed on to one of the metal stools at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, turned on Keith’s laptop and connected to the internet.

  James clicked on Hotmail and checked the e-mails, in an account he’d set up for his James Beckett alias. He had three messages from April, including one that contained a blurry photo of April and Erin in their ski suits with the message Miss U already, April, XXX. James replied insincerely with Miss U2, before writing a longer message to Kerry, gloating about the weather and the beautiful house he was staying in.

  When he’d finished typing his e-mails, James stood up and peeked out the window, making sure Keith, George and Junior were well clear of the house. As he flipped confidently through the files on the laptop, he realised that his marathon training sessions with Amy had been worth the brain-ache.

  He clicked on Keith’s documents folder. There were a couple of hundred files inside. Most had a little padlock symbol next to them, meaning they were encrypted. James decided it was too risky trying to read stuff with Keith just down on the beach. Instead, he plugged a memory card into the USB socket on the side of the laptop. The card was only the size of a pen top, but it held as much data as six CDs.

  A grey box popped up on the screen: New USB device detected. James checked the size of Keith’s documents folder and realised there was enough space on the memory card to copy the whole lot over. He waited a couple of anxious minutes while the computer copied Keith’s files. Then he switche
d off the laptop and walked back to his bedroom. He got his mobile out of his luggage and set it to search for an American network. When it found a connection, James speed-dialled the number of a local Drug Enforcement Agency office he’d been given before he left.

  John Jones answered. ‘James?’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Settled in OK?’ John asked.

  ‘Not bad,’ James said. ‘You?’

  ‘My flight was fine, but the heat out here does me in. I’m more of a fish-and-chip-supper-on-a-cold-winter-night kind of guy.’

  ‘I can’t talk for long,’ James said. ‘But I’ve been through Keith’s laptop.’

  ‘Anything exciting?’

  ‘Dunno,’ James said. ‘I checked for fancy stuff, like hidden partitions on the hard drive, but there’s none of that. All Keith’s documents are encrypted. I didn’t want to fiddle about trying to open them. I’ve copied the whole lot on to a memory card for you guys to deal with.’

  ‘Good work,’ John said.

  ‘The only thing is, how do I get the card to you?’

  ‘We can arrange an unscheduled rubbish collection for this evening. Have you got something you want to throw out that you can hide the memory card inside?’

  James looked around the room.

  ‘There’s a half-eaten box of Milk Duds I got at the cinema,’ he said. ‘I can stick the memory card inside that then throw it out.’

  ‘Perfect,’ John said. ‘Scrunch the box up, so the card doesn’t fall out. Then make sure you put your rubbish in the main bins out by the road. We’ll send a dustcart along to pick them up.’

  ‘Will you guys be able to break the encryption?’ James asked.

  ‘Depends what software Keith’s using,’ John said. ‘But probably. Is there anything else you’d like to report?’

  ‘One thing Keith said struck me as odd,’ James said. ‘I asked him when I’d be able to go back to making deliveries. Keith goes, I don’t know, everything’s gonna be different.’

  ‘Hmm,’ John said. ‘I’ve no idea why he’d say that, but it’s certainly interesting.’

  ‘I better go anyway,’ James said. ‘They’ll be wondering what I’m doing.’

  ‘OK then,’ John said. ‘Keep up the good work and watch out for yourself.’

  28. ORLANDO

  James was having one of the best weeks of his life. Monday he went out on a fishing boat with Junior. He’d never fished out in the ocean, but the crew showed him the basics and helped him reel his first catch.

  He called John Jones from the beach that evening with some snippets he’d picked up from Keith’s telephone conversations. John told James that American drug enforcement agents had retrieved his Milk Duds box and MI5 specialists had managed to read most of the files. They contained details of several foreign bank accounts with transactions linking Keith to a money-laundering operation whose speciality was collecting your cash, bouncing it around the world banking system until it was untraceable and finally depositing it in an anonymous foreign bank account – minus their 25% commission.

  John didn’t think it was enough information to get Keith convicted, but he reckoned it was a useful piece of the jigsaw.

  The next day, James, Junior and Keith set off early for the 350-kilometre drive up to Orlando. It was low season, so the boys had a great time at Islands of Adventure, scaring themselves witless on all the rollercoasters and simulator rides, without wasting too much time queuing. James went nuts in the gift shop, buying T-shirts for Kyle and Kerry and a little bib and shorts for Joshua. When he went to pay at the till, Keith put the whole lot on his credit card.

  By mid-afternoon, they were all knackered and sunburnt, so they checked into a hotel and showered before heading down to the restaurant. They got an outdoor table at the edge of a man-made lake with ducks and fountains in the middle. Keith ordered tagliatelle, while James and Junior got half-pound burgers and fries. The waitress brought walnut bread and olive oil to the table while they waited for their food.

  ‘I think I’m safe to talk here,’ Keith said. ‘Unless a bunch of cops followed me up here and they’re pointing a parabolic microphone at me from the other side of the lake.’

  James looked away from the ducks, which were scrapping over a handful of bread he’d thrown into the pond a second before he noticed the Please Do Not Feed The Ducks sign.

  ‘Talk about what?’ Junior asked.

  ‘Anything,’ Keith said.

  ‘Do you think the cops are listening to you most of the time?’ James asked.

  ‘The cops have got microphones everywhere,’ Keith said. ‘The house in Luton, the house in Miami, my cars, my offices. I don’t even know what people I can trust any more. I’ve even got the secret service after me.’

  ‘MI5?’ James asked.

  ‘They’ve been after me ever since the corruption allegations inside Operation Snort,’ Keith nodded. ‘One of my better sources told me George is working for the cops. I don’t think it’s true, but you can never be sure. He’s a family man with a couple of kids. If the cops threatened him with a long stretch in prison, who knows what he’d be prepared to do?’

  ‘Are you gonna have him whacked?’ Junior asked.

  Keith burst out laughing. ‘Son, if I had somebody killed every time I heard a rumour about an informant, I’d be a mass murderer. The cops plant most of these rumours, hoping it will create friction inside KMG. We get our own back by dropping rumours that straight cops are taking bribes.’

  ‘Have you ever had anyone killed?’ Junior asked.

  ‘I get problems and I tell people to make them go away,’ Keith said. ‘It’s not my business to know whether they tickle the guy’s feet until he promises to be a good boy, or chuck him off a tenth-floor balcony.’

  ‘Cool,’ Junior said, grinning.

  ‘You know that scene in the movies, where the car’s heading for the edge of the cliff, and the cop cars are chasing?’ Keith asked. ‘That’s where everyone thinks I’m at, but the cops don’t realise something.’

  ‘What?’ Junior said.

  ‘I’ve bailed out of the car,’ Keith said. ‘Everyone thinks I’m out here buying drugs, trying to get KMG up and running again. I’ve made a few noises in that direction, but all I’m really doing is settling debts and sorting out finances. I’ll be staying in America for a few months, until things die down back home, then I’m gonna rest on my laurels. How many millions does a man need anyway?’

  ‘That’s cool, Dad,’ Junior smiled. ‘I don’t ever want you going to prison.’

  ‘What will happen to KMG without you?’ James asked.

  ‘I expect it’ll break into a thousand pieces,’ Keith said. ‘Some people will go to prison. Some of the ones left on the outside will make contacts with my overseas suppliers and start importing cocaine themselves. In a year or two, nobody will even remember me. The same guys will be making deliveries and selling coke on the street; it’ll just be new faces supplying them and stacking the big money into foreign bank accounts. Give it four or five years and you’ll probably find one group has become dominant; a new KMG. The police will set up another Operation Snort type deal; they’ll break it up. Then the whole cycle will start again.’

  ‘Stopping KMG must have some effect on the cocaine trade,’ James said.

  ‘The police have budget cuts and efficiency targets, the drug dealers have got billions of pounds,’ Keith said. ‘It’s like the weediest kid in Year Seven picking a fight with the entire Year Twelve rugby team. The police might land the odd punch, but they’re always gonna get their arses kicked at the end of the day.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll stay out of prison?’ James asked.

  ‘I’m shelling out enough in bribes and legal fees,’ Keith said. ‘So let’s hope for the best, eh?’

  The waitress came over with the three plates of food.

  ‘Anyway,’ Keith said, shovelling down his first mouthful of pasta, ‘all this serious talk’s gonna spoil my appetite. You boys want to
go see a movie or something tonight?’

  *

  James waited until Junior was asleep before slipping out of the hotel room. He made his nightly call to John Jones from an alcove down the corridor that had an ice dispenser and a couple of Pepsi machines in it. James explained about Keith’s retirement plans.

  ‘We’ve tracked down more of Keith’s money with the information you copied off the computer,’ John said. ‘I was starting to suspect Keith wasn’t in Miami to do a drug deal and what you said confirms that. But I still don’t think he’s told you the whole truth.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ James asked.

  ‘We traced a transaction from one of Keith’s bank accounts in Trinidad. Keith just purchased half a million dollars worth of US treasury bonds in the name of Erin Moore. We contacted the bank and asked for details. Keith Moore has handed the bonds over to the bank, with instructions to sell them on Erin Moore’s eighteenth birthday and pay her the money. Keith has made similar transactions for Junior, April and Ringo. He’s also set up a trust fund for his ex-wife. He’s paid off the mortgages for the two houses in England and sold the house in Miami for a lot less than it’s worth, to raise fast cash.’

  ‘But Keith told me he’s planning to stay in Miami until the heat dies down back in England.’

  ‘There’s a new owner moving into the Miami house in three weeks,’ John said. ‘And we can’t find any trace of the eleven million dollars he got from the sale.’

  ‘Do you think he’s using the money to buy drugs?’ James asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘How many boats have you seen since you got to Miami?’ John asked.

  ‘Millions,’ James said. ‘They’re everywhere.’

  ‘Once he’s set up the arrangements to provide for his family, I think Keith is going to sneak out of the house, climb aboard one of those boats and vanish like a puff of smoke.’

  ‘How come?’ James said.