James worried about what would happen with him and Kerry, especially with everyone else watching. He sat down. Kerry sat with one of her girlfriends a few seats away. James was relieved, but disappointed as well. The more he thought about it, the more he realised how much he liked her.
*
Four days into his timetable James realised he could live with it. In his old life he’d always got up late, sat in class mucking about all day then come home and either played Playstation, watched TV, or hung out on the estate with his friends. Most of the time he was bored. The routine at CHERUB was hard but it never got dull.
You weren’t allowed to slack off in lessons. Every class had ten kids or fewer, which meant as soon as you stopped working the teacher was on your back asking what the problem was. Pupils were picked by ability not age. Some classes, like James’ advanced maths group, had kids who were fifteen and sixteen. His Spanish, Russian and self-defence classes were with six- to nine-year-olds.
Punishments were psycho if you got out of line. James swore in history and got a ten-hour shift repainting the lines in the staff car park. Next day his palms and knees were blistered from crawling around on tarmac.
Most days had a PE session. After training, James was really fit. Two hours’ running around felt like a warm-up. They started with circuit training inside the gym. The second half was always a game of football or rugby. James liked it best when they played Girls versus Boys, which usually went a bit mad, with insane tackles and punch-ups breaking out everywhere. What the girls lacked in strength they made up for with cunning and gang tactics. Boys always scored most goals, the girls edged the carnage.
After lessons James got an hour’s rest before dinner, then it was a scramble to do homework, before rushing off to extra martial arts training. James volunteered because he was ashamed that half the nine-year-olds at CHERUB could beat him in a fight. On the nights he didn’t have martial arts he’d go to the junior building and hang out with Lauren.
At the end of each day James was worn out. He’d sit in his bath and watch whatever was on TV through the doorway before drying off and collapsing into bed.
28. DETAIL
It was two months since training. Kerry had done a mission, come back, and gone on another. She was so superior about it, James could have thumped her. Gabrielle was in Jamaica. Connor had disappeared with Shakeel. Bruce was away for days at a time. Kyle went off one morning promising that this mission was going to earn him his navy shirt. James was still at CHERUB and felt like a lemon.
Amy was the only one who hadn’t been away. She spent hours on the eighth floor in one of the Mission Preparation rooms. James still got to swim with her four times a week. He was good now. Four hundred metres front crawl, keeping his body under the water and tipping his face to the side to breathe without lifting his head out of the water. He never got scared and Amy said his stroke was almost perfect.
*
James and Amy were putting their uniforms back on. All they’d done was swim lengths together, then sit on the poolside and talk for a bit.
‘That was our last lesson,’ Amy said.
James had known it was coming for ages, but that didn’t stop him feeling bad. He liked hanging around with Amy. She was funny and always gave good advice on stuff.
‘Is your mission starting?’ James asked, sitting down to lace up his boots.
‘In a couple of weeks,’ Amy said. ‘I need to devote all my time to it.’
‘I’ll miss having lessons with you. You’re a brilliant teacher.’
‘Thanks, James, you’re sweet. You should go swimming with Kerry when she gets back. You swim as well as she does now, probably better.’
‘She’ll be too busy rubbing my nose in it about her mission experience. I saw Meryl Spencer again yesterday, she still says there’s no mission for me.’
‘I can confess now,’ Amy said. ‘I had you suspended from mission activity.’
‘Because of swimming?’ James asked.
Amy went in her swimming bag and got out a plastic card. James had seen people swipe them in the lift to get up to the secure part of the main building where missions were planned.
‘This is yours,’ Amy said, handing it across.
James broke out smiling. ‘I’ve got a mission with you?’
‘Yes,’ Amy said. ‘I put in some work on this job before you even came here. When you arrived I realised we looked alike. Same colour hair, similar build. I knew you could pass as my little brother. We set you up with Kerry so you had the best chance of passing training. I wasn’t happy when I heard you started a fight with her and nearly got thrown out.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ James said. ‘I was so dumb.’
‘You’re lucky Kerry didn’t retaliate. All she had to do was flip you up and break your arm and you would have been out of training. Nobody would have blamed her either.’
‘I was on top of her,’ James said. ‘She couldn’t get up.’
Amy laughed, ‘If you got on top of Kerry it’s because she let you. She could squash you like an egg under her boot if she wanted.’
‘Is she that good?’ James asked.
Amy nodded. ‘She must like you a lot to let you off like that.’
*
The eighth floor was exactly like the accommodation floors below: a long corridor with rooms off either side. Entering the Mission Preparation room meant swiping your security card and staring into a red light while the blood vessels in your retina were scanned for identification.
After the hi-tech entry, James expected something flash inside: a map of the world with a bank of computer screens above it or something. It was actually a bit of a dump. Old computers, chairs with sponge bursting out of cushions and metal cabinets covered with stacks of files and papers. The only good feature was the view over campus.
Ewart Asker stuck his hand out for James to shake and introduced himself as the Mission Controller. He was in his twenties, CHERUB uniform, bleached hair with black roots and a stud through his tongue.
‘First mission, James,’ Ewart said. ‘Worried?’
James shrugged. ‘Should I be?’
Ewart laughed. ‘I’m nervous, James. This baby is complicated. You wouldn’t normally get something like this until you’d done a few easy missions, but we needed a twelve-year-old boy who could pass for Amy’s brother, and you’re the best we’ve got.
‘There’s a ton of stuff to learn. I’ve cut your school schedule back. Amy has written a mission dossier for you. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. The mission starts in about ten days.’
James pulled up a chair and opened the briefing:
**CLASSIFIED**
MISSION BRIEFING FOR JAMES ADAMS
DO NOT REMOVE FROM ROOM 812
DO NOT COPY OR MAKE NOTES
(1) Fort Harmony
In 1612 King James made a fifty square kilometre area near the Welsh village of Craddogh into common land. The charter allowed people to graze animals and build a small shelter on the land. By the 1870s everyone who lived on Craddogh Common had moved to the village to work in the coal mine. Nobody lived on the land for the next ninety-seven years.
In 1950 Craddogh Common was made part of West Monmouthshire National Park. In 1967 a small group of hippies led by a woman called Gladys Dunn settled on Craddogh Common. Gladys named the settlement Fort Harmony. They kept chickens and built wooden shelters, claiming they could do so under the 1612 charter.
At first the National Park tolerated the settlers, but numbers grew, and within three years about 270 hippies lived in a hundred or so ramshackle buildings. The National Park Authority began legal action to evict the hippies. After two years the High Court decided that the king’s charter ended when Craddogh Common was made part of the National Park. The court gave the hippies one week to pack up and leave.
The hippies would not go. Police began destroying huts and arresting the hippies in the winter of 1972. The size of the community soon dropped to less than fifty, b
ut this hard core was determined to stay.
(2) The Battle
The Fort Harmony residents fled every day, allowing police to demolish the shelters. They returned and made new shelters every night. The hippies dug underground tunnels. They also dug traps for the police to fall into.
In one incident a series of nets were hidden under leaves. When police moved in to demolish huts, the trap was sprung. Three policemen were left swinging in nets twenty metres above ground. The hippies tied off the nets and ran away. A fire engine came to the rescue, but got bogged down in thick mud. It was seven hours before firemen found a way to cut down the nets without their cargo crashing to earth. Pictures of the policemen in the nets made most newspapers the following day.
Newspaper coverage of the battle attracted dozens of new residents to Fort Harmony.
On 26 August 1973, police launched an all-out effort to destroy Fort Harmony. Three hundred police were drafted from across Britain. Television and newspaper journalists watched. Roads were blocked to stop supporters reaching Fort Harmony. Police destroyed the camp and arrested anyone who resisted. By late morning only twenty hippies remained, all barricaded in underground tunnels. Police decided entering the tunnels was too dangerous and waited for the hippies to come out for food and water.
At 5 p.m. a section of tunnel collapsed under a passing police car. Police rushed to grab a pair of legs sticking out of the earth. Joshua Dunn, aged nine, son of the founder of Fort Harmony, was pulled out of the mud. While two officers held the wriggling boy by his ankles, a third officer hit him over the head with a truncheon. A photographer captured the brutality. Pictures of the boy being stretchered into an ambulance made the television news. This incident caused a surge of public support for the hippies.
The crowd tying to break through blockades and reach Fort Harmony grew to more than a thousand. By midnight the police were exhausted. There were no reinforcements. By 3 a.m. the following morning police lines were broken. At sunrise on 27 August, over 700 supporters were camping in the mud around Fort Harmony. A stream of cars and vans brought wood and supplies to build new shelters. The hippies left the tunnels and began rebuilding their homes.
Next morning the photograph of police beating nine-year-old Joshua Dunn made the front page of every newspaper in Britain. The police announced they would withdraw and destroy the camp at a later date. The police made a plan. A thousand officers would be needed to remove all trace of Fort Harmony while successfully blockading the surrounding countryside. The police and National Park Authority didn’t have enough money to pay for such a massive operation, so nothing further was done.
(3) Fort Harmony Today
Thirty years later Fort Harmony still exists. The residents live a harsh life, without running water or electricity in their homes. Camp founder, Gladys Dunn, is now seventy-six. She wrote a bestselling autobiography in 1979. Her three sons – including Joshua, who suffered brain damage from the police assault – still live on site, as do many of her ten grandchildren and twenty-eight great-grandchildren. The camp has about sixty permanent residents. In warmer months Fort Harmony swells to as many as two hundred, mostly students and backpackers who think Gladys Dunn is a hero.
(4) Green Brooke
By 1996 the nearby village of Craddogh was in crisis. The coal mine was closed. Over half the population was unemployed and the village population had fallen from 2,000 residents in 1970 to less than 300. Run-down houses and mountains of black coal waste meant tourists didn’t stop at Craddogh on their way to Fort Harmony or the National Parks.
Because of the high local unemployment, the National Park allowed Green Brooke Conference Centre to be built on part of Craddogh Common. Green Brooke opened in 2002. It is enclosed by a five-metre-high fence with video cameras and electrified razor-wire along the top. The Centre hosts conferences and training courses. Facilities include a 765 room hotel, 1200 seat auditorium, gym, spa, and two golf courses. There is parking for 1000 cars and thirty helicopters.
Many residents of Craddogh and Fort Harmony work in Green Brooke as receptionists, cooks and cleaners.
(5) Petrocon 2004
In late 2003 Green Brooke announced the most prestigious event in its brief history. Petrocon takes place in May 2004. It is a secretive three-day meeting of two hundred oil executives and politicians. The media is kept out. Among the guests will be oil ministers from Nigeria and Saudi Arabia and the chief executives of every major oil company. The two most important guests will be the United States Secretary of Energy and the Deputy Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Security will be handled by the Diplomatic Protection Branch of the police, with MI5 and a small unit from CHERUB.
(6) Help Earth
At the end of 2003 a series of bombs were posted to United States Congressmen and members of the British Parliament who support the oil industry. Four workers in the US Congress building suffered injuries. Help Earth claimed responsibility. A month later a French oil company executive working in Venezuela was killed by a car bomb. Help Earth again claimed responsibility.
Shortly before its first attacks, Help Earth sent letters to the editors of several international newspapers, stating its aim to ‘Bring an end to the environmental carnage wreaked on our planet by the international oil companies and the politicians who support them.’ It then added, ‘Help Earth! is the desperate cry of our dying planet. Time is running out. We are prepared to use violent means in the battle to save our environment.’
Peaceful environmental groups are at pains to distance themselves from Help Earth and have helped investigators compile a list of likely terrorist suspects. Despite this, nobody involved with Help Earth has been identified, although several environmental campaigners with a violent history are under suspicion. Four of these suspects are current residents of Fort Harmony.
The limited information on Help Earth suggests an attack on Petrocon 2004 is likely. The size and nature of the attack is unknown. It could range from a small bomb destroying a car or helicopter, to a device capable of killing hundreds.
Any Help Earth members planning terrorist action at Petrocon 2004 will probably attempt to make links with Fort Harmony residents for the following reasons:
a) Many Fort Harmony residents are veteran environmental campaigners.
b) All Fort Harmony residents have a good knowledge of the local area.
c) Many Fort Harmony residents have worked inside Green Brooke and can provide terrorists with information on operations and security.
(7) The Role of CHERUB
MI5 already has informers and undercover agents within the environmental movement. However M15 wants extra agents at Fort Harmony in the build-up to Petrocon 2004.
Any new adult residents arriving at Fort Harmony before Petrocon will be suspected of being undercover police or MI5 operatives. The chances of them getting useful information are small. Therefore it has been decided that two CHERUB operatives posing as relatives of Cathy Dunn, a long-standing member of the Fort Harmony community, will have the best chance of a successful undercover mission. Children will not be suspected of being intelligence agents, and they should mix easily with other members of the community.
29. AUNTIE
James reckoned he now knew more about Fort Harmony than anyone, including the people who lived there. He’d read Gladys Dunn’s autobiography and three other books, as well as seeing tons of press cuttings, videos and police files. He’d memorised the names and faces of every current Fort Harmony resident and loads of regular visitors. James also read the criminal records and MI5 files on anyone likely to be involved in the terrorist group Help Earth.
James’ undercover name was Ross Leigh. His job was to hang out with kids at Fort Harmony, picking up gossip, sticking his nose where it didn’t belong and reporting anything suspicious to CHERUB.
James had a mobile to call Ewart Asker. Ewart was staying at Green Brooke for the duration of the mission. James’ other equipment included a digital camera, his loc
k gun and a can of pepper spray that was only for an emergency.
Amy was his sister, Courtney Leigh. Her job was to befriend Scargill Dunn, the seventeen-year-old grandson of Fort Harmony founder Gladys Dunn. Scargill was a loner who had dropped out of school and washed dishes in the kitchen at Green Brooke.
Scargill’s twenty-two-year-old twin brothers, Fire and World, had both served short prison sentences for attacking the chairman of a fast food chain. MI5 believed Fire, World and a couple called Bungle and Eleanor Evans were the residents of Fort Harmony most likely to be part of Help Earth.
*
Cathy Dunn had briefly been married to Fire, World and Scargill’s dad, some years before they were born. Since then, Cathy had lived alone at Fort Harmony. Like most residents she grew food and kept a few chickens, but it wasn’t enough to survive. She did odd jobs when they cropped up: cleaning, fruit picking. Sometimes Cathy sold information to the police.
There were always a few dodgy people at Fort Harmony. If a drug dealer or a runaway kid turned up, Cathy would walk to Craddogh and call from the village phone box. Half the time the police weren’t interested in what Cathy had to tell them. If they were, they only paid ten or twenty quid. Maybe fifty if it was a drug dealer and they caught him with a lot of stuff.
Cathy wasn’t comfortable being a snitch, but sometimes it made the difference between having enough to buy a bottle of gas for the heater and freezing in her hut.
After Petrocon was announced the police got more interested in what Cathy had to say. The value of information went up. Cathy got at least thirty pounds every time, and they wanted to know everything that was going on at Fort Harmony. Who came, who went, if anyone did anything suspicious, if there was an argument. Cathy got a taste for the money. She soon had a roll of notes stashed in a baked bean tin.
CHERUB: The Recruit Page 17
