People's Republic

by Robert Muchamore

‘They’re dead,’ Ning said, dumb with shock.

  ‘No good to us alive, were they?’ Ingrid said.

  ‘When did you learn to shoot?’

  ‘I told you before. I was a medic in the British Army before I met your father.’

  Ning had heard Ingrid mention her spell in the army. But it got treated as a joke: like finding out that your fat uncle once ran marathons, or that the cop in the family used to be a car thief.

  ‘I was a crap soldier and a piss poor medic,’ Ingrid explained. ‘But I could always shoot straight.’

  Ning followed Ingrid across the hall to the nursery. She’d always found the changing table and the baby toys depressing. Ingrid had miscarried four babies before the Fus adopted Ning, but the nursery remained, awaiting a biological miracle.

  But Ning now saw another reason for keeping the cot. Its foam mattress had been ripped apart in the search, but the officers hadn’t discovered the false panel in the cot’s underside, which had dropped open to reveal a hidden compartment when Ingrid unscrewed the wooden legs.

  As well as the gun Ingrid had already used, there was a second smaller pistol, six clips filled with ammunition and a mound of cling-film-wrapped wads filled with yuan, euros, US dollars and gold ingots.

  The presence of this cache caused a radical shift in the way Ning thought of her family. When she woke up that morning, she’d believed her stepfather was a hardworking businessman. Remote, and occasionally scary, but definitely not the kind of man who kept money and guns in the nursery.

  ‘I have to know what’s going on,’ Ning shouted. ‘I have to know now.’

  Ingrid looked uncomfortable. ‘Babes, I swear on my life I will tell you, but we can’t stick around here.’

  Ingrid found a wheeled suitcase in one of the wardrobes, and began stuffing it with money and ammunition.

  ‘There’s a red emergency bag already packed in my wardrobe,’ Ingrid said. ‘Grab that, then wash that blood off your face, but don’t take all day over it.’

  Ning did as she was told, feeling sick as she wetted a flannel. When she was clean, she ditched the cat suit and slipped into jeans, hoodie and trainers.

  She met Ingrid by the utility room door, assuming they’d walk back to the BMW.

  ‘It’s a waste of time walking across country again,’ Ingrid said. ‘It’ll be a while before they realise what’s happened here. We’ll drive the cop car back into the city. It shouldn’t take long, we’ll be going against the rush hour traffic.’

  ‘Then what?’ Ning asked, running around to the passenger side of the brown car as Ingrid took the driving seat.

  When they were belted up and the engine was running, Ingrid handed Ning her mobile. ‘Call Wei and tell him I’ve got the money,’ she said.

  The villa had a long front driveway with gates that parted automatically as the brown car approached. Ning’s heart was thudding, but the ringing from the bullet had died back to a hum and she drew some comfort from Wei’s involvement in their escape plan. He was soberer and less impulsive than Ingrid.

  ‘Ning, is that you?’ Wei said warmly, when he answered. ‘How are you coping?’

  ‘Not brilliantly,’ Ning admitted.

  The car jolted and nearly went into a dramatic stall as Ingrid slotted the police car into fifth gear, when she’d been going for third.

  ‘Chinky shite box!’ Ingrid shouted.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Wei asked.

  ‘Ingrid just asked me to call you and say that she has the money,’ Ning said, fighting a wavering voice.

  ‘Good,’ Wei said. ‘I’ve set you up at the Pink Bird Motel. It’s dingy, but it’s out of the way and any taxi driver will be able to find it for you. You’re booked in under the name of Gong. The room has been paid for in cash.’

  ‘Pink Bird, name of Gong. Got it,’ Ning said.

  ‘Don’t go to the check-in desk. It’s room 205 on the second floor. The room is unlocked, you’ll find your key in the bathroom, tucked inside a towel. It’s better if you stay out of sight as much as you can, but you’ll need to eat. There’s no room service, but there’s a supermarket and a couple of cafes across the parking lot. Someone should be in touch with instructions within forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Will you come and see us?’ Ning asked.

  ‘Can’t,’ Wei said firmly. ‘Ingrid understands and you should too. You’ve got to avoid all unnecessary contact. That includes rogue calls to school friends or that boy you fancy. The cops can triangulate your position from a cell phone signal. Both of you to ditch your mobiles as soon as this call is over.’

  ‘Right,’ Ning said sadly. ‘We might never see you again.’

  ‘Never is a long time,’ Wei said. ‘But not any time soon.’

  Ning hung up and gave the hotel details to Ingrid, who fought the gear lever as they approached the on-ramp leading up to the highway.

  ‘We’ll take the car into town and pick up a taxi,’ Ingrid said. ‘Maybe even a couple of taxis to throw them off the scent. Where’s your phone?’

  ‘Inside my boot, back at LS18.’

  ‘Just as well,’ Ingrid said, as she snatched her phone from Ning.

  With one hand on the steering wheel, Ingrid pressed the button to open her window, then flung her phone into the overgrown area separating them from the oncoming traffic.

  ‘Time to vanish,’ she said.

  10. PARTICIPATE

  Amy had worked hard persuading Dr D to use a CHERUB agent to infiltrate Gillian Kitsell’s home, and her new career at TFU depended on the success of the mission. She was too professional to let Ryan sense her angst, but she wanted him on top form and pampered him with a beautifully cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs, crispy bacon and mushrooms.

  Ryan was paying the price for pounding the heavy bag the night before, with stiff knuckles and a bruised toe. But he was too proud to admit it and was actually in a decent mood because Amy’s plan gave him hope.

  Ryan had been enrolled in seventh grade at Twin Lakes Middle School. Santa Cruz had a reputation for good state education, so even wealthy kids like Ethan Kitsell attended regular schools.

  For their plan to work Ryan had to arrive late to third period gym class. He avoided the school bus and Amy drove him an hour later in a Mercedes SL. With the sun up, the roof down and Muse blasting on the stereo, it was a perfect California moment.

  Twin Lakes Middle School had grown with the population. Amy parked in front of an old brick schoolhouse that was now used for admin and remedial classes. Beyond was a shabby block of one-storey classrooms built in the sixties and a more recent block with a banked roof that led up to a sports hall at the far end.

  ‘Got everything you need?’ Amy asked, as Ryan stepped out of the Merc.

  ‘Checked and double-checked,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Great,’ Amy said. ‘And no pressure, but I was up half the night locating that set of master keys, so if you screw this up I might kick your arse.’

  Ryan knew Amy was joking and gave her the finger, before slamming the car door and heading up the steps into the admin block.

  The bleeps for the start of third period went as Ryan handed over an absence note, explaining that he was late due to a small burglary at their home.

  ‘I hope they didn’t steal anything valuable,’ the elderly school secretary said.

  ‘My dad scared ’em off,’ Ryan explained, as he stood with his elbows resting on a high counter. ‘They didn’t get much, but we waited ages for the cops to arrive, and they wanted to question all of us.’

  The secretary wheeled her chair back towards the counter. ‘Are you English?’ she asked, as she slapped a mauve hall pass on the counter in front of Ryan.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ryan said. ‘My dad’s moved out here for work.’

  ‘My brother was stationed over there. USAF missile base, back in the eighties.’

  ‘Cool,’ Ryan said disinterestedly. ‘So I show this to Mr Oldfield when I get to the gym?’

  The woman glanced at her
watch. ‘If you move fast, you’ll only miss a couple of minutes.’

  But Ryan needed to work in an empty changing room, so he ducked into the toilet for a while, before slowly crossing a sunny courtyard and entering the new building.

  His trainers squeaked on scuffed tiles as he walked the length of a deserted corridor. When he reached the Phys Ed department, he stood outside the boys’ changing room and pretended to drink from a water fountain.

  When boys got changed they made a racket, but it was quiet which meant they’d already moved into the sports hall. Unfortunately Mr Oldfield had locked the outer door of the changing room, so Ryan had to walk into the gym, dodging three classes of girls running basketball drills, while seventh-grade boys ran laps around the perimeter, except Yannis who sat on a bench in his regular clothes, no doubt claiming an asthma attack for the seven hundredth time.

  Mr Oldfield was bald, thickset and had a moustache. He hadn’t got the memo about really tight gym shorts being out of fashion, so he always looked like he’d just returned from a gay pride march.

  ‘Hall pass,’ Oldfield said, as he ripped it from Ryan’s hand, then looked at his watch. ‘This says 10:48. Where you been these past eleven minutes, son?’

  ‘I had to walk right down from the admin unit, sir.’

  Oldfield made a contemptuous sucking sound. ‘You think kicking your heels means you won’t have to participate?’ he said, as he pointed across the gym to the inner door of the changing room. ‘Well you got that wrong. And you’d better be out here in four minutes or you can see me after school Monday for detention.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ryan said sourly.

  Ryan had to get into the changing room for his plan to work, but he acted all pissy as he jogged across the gym. He’d shown little enthusiasm in PE class ever since he arrived, because acting the jock wouldn’t win favour with a geek like Ethan.

  As Oldfield lined the boys up for their next exercise, Ryan’s nose got a blast of boy stink. The locker room was designed for a whole year group of 150 boys to change. There was a smart central area, with play boards and padded benches arranged in a horseshoe where coaches could draw diagrams and whip up team spirit before a big game. One side had the coaches’ office and shower block, while the rest was slatted benches and rows of lockers radiating out from the centre.

  With less than forty boys out in the gym, most of the locker space was free. The seventh grade cliques all had regular spots. Ethan wasn’t proud of his body, and changed at the far end of a row with Yannis and some other nobodies.

  Ryan’s plan was easy to explain, but hard to execute. He had to get a bully pissed off at Ethan, then step in and save the day before Ethan got his butt kicked. The major complicating factors were that the plan couldn’t work if anyone knew Ryan had caused the trouble, and the fact that Ryan’s class didn’t really have any bullies.

  There were a few tough kids, but Twin Lakes Middle was in a solid neighbourhood and its seventh graders didn’t habitually stab each other or make nerds drink toilet water.

  The one source of tension Ryan had picked up at Twin Lakes was racial. Of the fourteen boys in class 7G, nine were white, one came from India and the other four were Latino. A lot of the white kids were rich. They lived in boss neighbourhoods near the ocean and mostly hung out with other white kids. The Latinos tended to be poorer. Many of their parents worked menial jobs, in restaurants, gas stations and even as maids or servants for rich families.

  There was no bully in Ryan and Ethan’s class, but there was one kid who was tough and volatile. Guillermo was heavyset, ten centimetres taller than Ryan and none too bright. In the three weeks Ryan had been at Twin Lakes, he’d seen Guillermo storm out of classes, punch lockers and throw a massive hissy fit when he couldn’t find his homework.

  Ryan’s first task was to locate Guillermo’s locker. He always changed with a big group of Latino boys in the row of lockers furthest from the coaches’ office. Once Ryan had checked the toilets and shower cubicles to make sure he was alone he headed up there, placed his pack on a bench and unzipped it to reveal a clear-lidded tackle box. It was divided into thirty small compartments, each containing several keys.

  CHERUB agents are taught techniques for picking locks, but it’s a slow process and Ryan had to open multiple lockers to find Guillermo’s stuff. Luckily lockers are only designed to prevent casual theft. There are always master keys so that teachers, swim instructors or whoever can replace lost keys. After making calls to the FBI regional office in San Francisco Amy had got a set of master keys for all the most common types of locker.

  According to the embossed logos on the front, Ryan was looking at lockers made by Nova. The master keys were arranged alphabetically and tagged by manufacturer. Ryan found eight keys for Nova. Four were obviously the wrong shape, two were complicated jobs tagged luxe and golf which didn’t sound right. The final pair were almost identical and tagged Nova standard A & B.

  Ryan took the A key and used it to open the first two closed lockers, hoping to find Guillermo-sized clothes and his distinctive green and orange backpack. The third locker needed the B key, and confusingly contained the phones and wallets of three lads who’d left their book bags and clothes out on benches.

  After deciding that none of the stuff on hooks was Guillermo’s, Ryan opened two more lockers before straddling the changing bench to try the other side. The first one was the jackpot: the green and orange bag, with Guillermo’s shorts, basketball vest and hoodie dumped on top of it.

  But someone was coming into the room. Shawn was a black kid, not in Ryan’s class. The only time Ryan had spoken to him was when they’d been on the same team doing relay runs in gym class earlier that week.

  ‘Oldfield’s got some major bug up his arse this morning,’ Shawn moaned, as he tore off a grey T-shirt revealing good muscles with a light sweat on them. ‘Must have worn this shirt for PE twenty times, but today he says I’ve got to wear the proper shirt with the Twin Lakes logo.’

  Ryan tried to sound smooth, though he knew it looked odd, being in front of an open locker in the wrong part of the locker room.

  ‘You’re new, ain’t ya?’ Shawn said, as he disappeared down another row of lockers. ‘I’d put your stuff down here, unless you wanna get towel whipped by a bunch of taco eaters.’

  ‘Could be right, yeah,’ Ryan said. ‘Thanks for the tip.’

  Shawn’s locker slammed and he jogged out in his proper PE shirt, muttering about Mr Oldfield enjoying sexual relations with his own mother. Ryan gave it a couple of seconds before turning back to Guillermo’s locker.

  As he rummaged through a pair of shorts with pizza sauce spattered down the legs, Guillermo’s phone and keys slid out of the pocket, bouncing off the bottom of the locker and hitting the tiled floor hard. The phone was a Nokia brick from the stone age, covered with marker pen and smiley faces drawn in nail varnish.

  Ryan decided it would be good to leave the keys on the floor in front of Guillermo’s locker. He then shut the metal door, grabbed his pack and crossed to the area where Ethan and Yannis changed.

  Ethan was easier because he always used the same locker, though Ryan had to give master key B a good jiggle before it popped open.

  Ryan jumped as Mr Oldfield shouted through the door leading in from the gym. ‘Ryan Brasker, you have sixty seconds or I’m in your face holding a detention slip.’

  The jolt threw Ryan into a shudder, wasting valuable seconds. Once he was sure Mr Oldfield had gone away, Ryan switched Guillermo’s phone from vibrate to the loudest ring setting before reaching inside Ethan’s locker.

  Ethan’s pack was stuffed with books, as well as sandwiches and a wodge of Internet printouts from a chess site. Ryan pushed his hand inside the pack, dropped Guillermo’s Nokia down amidst pencil stubs and long-forgotten chocolate bars, then slammed the metal door.

  This crucial part of the operation was over, but Ryan still didn’t fancy detention. He’d prepared for a quick change by wearing his Twin Lakes PE top
under an unbuttoned shirt and his green school issue shorts were revealed as he tugged down baggy cargo shorts and pulled them over his trainers.

  Ryan crossed to the back of the room again and shoved his own stuff into a locker a few doors along from Guillermo. He pulled the rubber band with the key attached over his wrist and jogged out. Mr Oldfield was waiting for him by the exit as boys climbed ropes in the background.

  ‘Something’s not right with you, Brasker,’ Oldfield said.

  Ryan wondered if Shawn had become suspicious and snitched. ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ he said warily.

  ‘You pack muscle,’ Oldfield said, as he leaned in close. ‘You ever wrestled?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Ryan said.

  ‘You’re built like a kid who could wrestle or play ball. But your attitude stinks.’

  Ryan didn’t answer.

  ‘Don’t it?’ Oldfield repeated, loud enough for the kids doing rope work to glance around.

  ‘If you say so, sir,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Twenty laps, then join the rest of the group. Now move!’

  Ryan stifled a smile as he started to run. Twenty laps of a little gym was nothing, and despite a couple of close scrapes, the first part of the plan was in place.

  11. GYM

  The lunch bell was ten minutes away as three classes of seventh-grade boys fed into the locker room. A few went for showers, but the majority settled for a squirt of body spray and a dry top.

  The six Latino boys grouped at the back with Guillermo were all in the no-shower camp. Ryan stood a couple of metres from them, wiping a sweaty chest with his balled-up PE shirt.

  Guillermo discovered his house keys on the floor when he stepped up to open his locker. Just as Ryan hoped, he noticed that his phone was missing when he dropped the keys back into the pocket of his shorts.

  Loads of kids were shouting and locker doors slammed, but everyone heard Guillermo’s high-pitched shout.

  ‘Which one of you dick wads took my phone?’

  Nobody took much notice. Guillermo took everything out of his locker to make sure it hadn’t dropped down at the back, then did a three-sixty look around, before crouching down and peering under the slatted changing bench.