‘Exactly,’ Ethan said, laughing but only half sure that Natalka was joking. ‘I couldn’t even touch that thing after poo-fingers was all over the keys. I just left it there.’
‘You still trying to persuade your grandma to send you abroad?’
‘Trying,’ Ethan said. ‘But she’s got this thing about me not living in a protected bubble, and having to learn my own people’s culture. Whatever the hell that means . . .’
‘It’s mostly slaughtering goats and kidnapping brides around here,’ Natalka said, as she took a puff on her cigarette before offering it to Ethan. ‘You want?’
Ethan took a long drag on Natalka’s cigarette. The nicotine gave him a nice buzz as he looked up at the sky and spoke dreamily. ‘Right now I’d give anything for a big greasy burrito, a movie at the multiplex and a big Apple Store spend-up on my mom’s credit card.’
‘I’m with you,’ Natalka said, as Ethan took another long drag. ‘When you take me to America we’ll go crazy spending all the Aramov money you inherited from your mum! And give my ciggie back. I’ve only got two left and you’re smoking the whole bastard thing.’
‘Nobody smokes in America,’ Ethan said, laughing as he risked a cheeky final puff before giving the cigarette back. ‘They’re even worried that breathing other people’s smoke will give them cancer.’
Natalka laughed. ‘Everyone here drinks themselves to death long before they’re old enough to worry about cancer.’
By now they’d reached a main road a couple of hundred metres from the school, where the Kremlin Bus was waiting for them.
The Kremlin was the nickname given to a large, mostly residential, building at the edge of the airbase from which the Aramov Clan ran their operations. The locals had named it after the Russian president’s Moscow fortress because the Aramovs and most of the pilots and mechanics who lived there were Russian or Ukrainian, rather than native Kyrgyz.
Most Kremlin residents were men working away from home. But some had school-age kids, including Natalka’s mum who was a tough-as-boots Ukrainian-born cargo pilot.
All Kremlin kids made the half-hour drive into Bishkek to attend US11 where lessons were taught in Russian, rather than one of the rural schools where lessons were in Kyrgyz.
The little Kremlin kids got out of school twenty minutes before the older ones, and were already bouncing around the bus, bored off their heads. The twenty-four-seater was a quarter of a century old and was actually a crude Soviet design that wasn’t so much a bus as a truck with a corrugated aluminium hut welded on the back.
The driver was Alex Aramov, the sixteen-year-old son of Ethan’s uncle Leonid. He stood by the doorway with his nineteen-year-old brother Boris, both of them swigging bottles of Dutch beer.
Ethan had nothing in common with his two cousins, who’d both abandoned education at fifteen and now dedicated their lives to pumping weights on the massive outdoor stack behind the Kremlin, riding horses, chasing girls and generally using the Aramov name to act like big shots.
Once his empty beer had been smashed on the dirt road, Alex got behind the wheel. His driving style was about what you’d expect from a drunken teenager, and like everyone in Bishkek he drove with one hand on the steering wheel and one hovering over the horn, giving a blast every time he got near a junction, a sharp corner, or a fit woman.
The bus was only half full so Ethan and Natalka each got double seats and sat sideways with their trainers on the bench and their heads resting against the window. They didn’t bother talking, because it was too much effort competing with horn blasts, five little kids crawling under the seats throwing pistachio shells and the glassy-eyed stoner daughter of a Belarusian mechanic who had some kind of heavy beat coming out of her iPod.
‘Get me out of this zoo,’ Natalka groaned.
Ethan nodded in agreement as his teenaged cousin drove a corner way too fast. As Bishkek’s shabby low-rise streets passed by Ethan noticed that Natalka had undone two buttons on her plaid shirt, giving him a top-notch view down her cleavage.
‘Hey,’ a boy said, in English.
For an instant Ethan thought he’d been caught staring, but it was his little cousin Andre. It was hard to believe that this angel-faced ten-year-old was the son of Leonid Aramov, and brother of thuggish Alex and Boris.
‘Put your feet down,’ Andre said, as he squished on to the seat beside Ethan. ‘I want to practise my English on you.’
Andre had a certain charm which enabled him to be bossy without you really minding.
‘I’m kinda beat,’ Ethan said. ‘Maybe later, in my room?’
Natalka liked teasing younger kids and shouted in Andre’s ear, ‘Give me your cigarettes.’
‘I’m not dumb enough to smoke,’ Andre said indignantly. ‘It’s bad for your health and it makes you smell like an old sock.’
‘Are you saying I smell?’ Natalka growled, as she bunched her fist. ‘Gimme your ciggies or I’ll bash you.’
Andre gave Natalka a pitying look to show that he wasn’t intimidated and spoke to Ethan in English. ‘I read a joke and I don’t understand.’
‘Go on then,’ Ethan said wearily.
‘What’s the Internet’s favourite animal?’ Andre asked.
‘Dunno,’ Ethan said.
‘The lynx,’ Andre said. ‘Do you get it?’
Ethan smiled. ‘It’s a pun; you know when a word has two meanings? A lynx – L Y N X – is a type of wild cat. Links – L I N K S – are what you click when you’re on the Internet.’
‘Right,’ Andre said, nodding keenly. ‘I’ve got another one.’
Before Andre could continue the bus jerked violently and driver Alex threw everyone forward by slamming the brake pedal. Natalka came off worst because she’d been sitting sideways and Andre made no attempt to hide his amusement as she sprawled over the appallingly filthy floor in front of her seat.
‘What now?’ Natalka asked, glaring at Andre as they came to a squealing halt. ‘Did we hit something?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised, the way my brother drives,’ Andre said.
Ethan turned to look out of the window. They’d left the built-up part of Bishkek and reached the start of the desolate mountain track that led up to the Kremlin. This stretch of potholed road was also used by trucks taking cargo from China to Russia, and a few locals scraped a living selling food and drink off roadside stands.
One of these sellers worked from a pitch twenty metres behind where they’d stopped. He sold spicy lamb kebabs cooked on a barbecue made out of an old oil drum. Natalka had made Ethan try them once and he’d found the kebabs delicious once he’d got over the fact that they were prepared by an elderly bloke who had an entire ecosystem growing under each nicotine-stained fingernail.
Within seconds of stopping, Alex and Boris had jumped off the bus and steamed towards the kebab seller. Boris inflated his beefy chest and shouted in Kyrgyz, a language he wasn’t fluent in, while Ethan hardly understood a word.
‘What’s his problem?’ Ethan asked.
Nobody answered because the kids were all piling towards the back of the bus to get a better view. There were more shouts in Kyrgyz and the old man looked scared as the muscular teens closed him down.
Alex threw a brutal punch, emphasising the blow with a shout of, ‘Ker-pow!’
When the old man hit the ground, Alex doubled him up by putting his trainer on his stomach and walking over him. Meantime, Boris launched a kick at the hot oil drum, spewing sparks and coals across the roadside.
The kebab seller groaned as Alex ground his hand under his heel.
‘Satisfied now, you old buzzard?’ Alex shouted, as he beamed with sadistic pleasure.
Boris had grabbed a set of metal cooking tongs and used them to pick up a lump of hot charcoal. As Boris closed on the old man, the kids on the bus winced or looked away.
Ethan turned towards Andre and shouted accusingly, ‘Why are they beating him?’
‘How should I know?’ Andre shouted back. ‘You t
hink I’m responsible for those nuts, just because they’re my brothers?’
‘We’re Aramov,’ Alex shouted in Russian as he stomped again. ‘Nobody messes with Aramov.’
Boris pushed the smoking coal up to the old man’s cheek, close enough to singe white facial hairs.
‘We see you again and you’re dead,’ Boris hissed. ‘No more warnings. Get out of town.’
3. GREY
Ning was strong, but she wasn’t a great swimmer. By the time she came out of the freezing water and staggered breathlessly up the shingle beach the twins had already stripped off and were towelling their cropped hair and pulling on dry clothes.
Leon looked wary as Ning crunched towards him. ‘I should have asked,’ he said, holding his hands up and half expecting a slap.
‘Whatever,’ Ning said, as she dumped her pack and started pulling off the dripping life vest.
She was angry, not so much because she begrudged Leon a Jaffa Cake but because going down her pack was an invasion of privacy. But she let it go because she might need the twins’ help later on.
Ning had a change of clothes, but the instructors hadn’t given her time to take off her boots before diving in, so she’d be squelching on cold, wet feet for the rest of the day.
‘Split up or stay together?’ Leon asked, as he looked about thoughtfully. ‘The island doesn’t seem very big.’
‘I reckon we can cover the whole place in an hour or so,’ Daniel said. ‘They’ll have to go easy on us. Nine trainees failed already and they’ve got to get some new recruits out of this course!’
‘I’m not sure that’s how it works,’ Ning said. ‘The passing standard is fixed. You either make it or you don’t.’
But while Daniel and Ning debated, Leon was walking across the beach towards something he’d eyed sticking out of the reeds.
Leon called excitedly, ‘Stop yapping and get over here, losers.’
As Ning zipped a dry hoodie and hurried up the beach, Leon cautiously stepped into the reeds, studying a battered metal trunk designed for carrying ammunition.
‘Watch it,’ Daniel warned. ‘It might be booby-trapped.’
Ning had learned that lesson on the third day of training, when she’d run eagerly towards her target only to snag a trap and spend the next two and a half hours swaying from a net in the branches of a tree.
‘I’m not that dumb,’ Leon said. ‘Find me a stick or something.’
The case’s lid had a locking clasp, but there was no padlock fitted. Daniel found a nice long chunk of driftwood and held it out towards his brother.
‘I found the box,’ Leon said, as he backed away from the stick. ‘You open it.’
‘I’ll toss you for it,’ Daniel said. ‘Except I haven’t got a coin.’
Ning sighed and snatched the stick. ‘Grow up,’ she grunted.
Kids in basic training quickly realise that instructors aren’t out to actually kill them, so as Ning hooked the metre-long stick under the rim of the metal box’s lid, she was more wary than afraid: a swarm of angry bugs, an electric shock or the flash of a stun grenade were possible, but it wasn’t like she was about to get her legs blown off.
Leon and Daniel shielded their eyes as Ning lifted the lid and kept the maximum possible distance between the box and herself.
The hollow clank of the hinged lid was an anticlimax. The box seemed full, with the top layer of contents wrapped in a red-and-white-checked tablecloth. Ning peeled the cloth away, revealing a continental-style spread of boiled eggs, cheese, sliced meats and a vacuum flask filled with hot tea.
‘Take it out carefully, you never know,’ Daniel warned.
But Leon’s growling stomach made him brave and he dived in and started cramming slices of salami down his neck.
‘Oh man, I need this!’ he said, grinning wildly.
Ning was more interested in getting warm and began unscrewing the hot flask. They could see bottles of mineral water and something wrapped in brown paper directly below.
‘All right to nab the last boiled egg?’ Leon asked keenly, with both cheeks bulging. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about today. And I think you’re right, Daniel. They can’t run basic training for three and a half months and end up without a single qualified agent.’
‘Famous last words if I ever heard them,’ Ning said, as she rolled a salami slice around a stick of cheese and pushed it into her mouth. ‘One of you grab the cloth. I wanna see what’s underneath.’
Leon took the cloth and dabbed up cheese crumbs with his fingertip, while Ning lifted the water bottles out of the box and then began cautiously unwrapping the brown paper package.
‘T-shirts,’ Ning gasped, as she saw the grey fabric and the unmistakable outline of a CHERUB logo inside a rectangular glass box.
The twins zoomed in so fast that they almost cracked heads.
‘Is it all three shirts?’ Leon asked anxiously.
Making one shirt easy to find so that the trainees fought over it was exactly the kind of trick the instructors would pull. Breakfast had warmed their spirits, but a horrible tension came over the trio the instant Leon queried the number of shirts.
‘If you get your giant heads out of my light I might be able to tell you,’ Ning said angrily.
But the twins wouldn’t back off: Ning was stronger than them and if she got her hands on a shirt first they wouldn’t be able to stop her putting it on.
‘Drawing lots is the only fair way to do it,’ Daniel suggested.
‘I’m injured,’ Leon pointed out.
‘Only your bloody finger!’ Daniel scoffed. ‘Besides, whoever gets the shirt can still help the other trainees.’
‘Shut up, both of you,’ Ning said. She was getting frustrated because it was dark inside the box and the brown paper was held in place with thick parcel tape which was a bugger to rip.
When she finally snapped it and tore the paper away, Ning immediately noticed the number of shirts inside the glass box.
‘It’s all three of ’em,’ she said. ‘But this is too easy.’
When Ning tilted the glass box on its side to unsnag the wrapping trapped beneath, she was shocked by how heavy it was. Then she noticed that the shirts hadn’t moved when she’d tilted it.
‘This thing’s solid,’ Ning said. ‘Back out.’
As the boys backed away from the trunk, Ning grasped the glass-encased T-shirts. It took all her strength to lift it out of the trunk, then it slipped from Ning’s grasp and hit the shingles with a big crunch.
‘Christ that weighs a ton,’ Ning moaned.
‘We need something thick and heavy to smash it open,’ Daniel said.
‘How about your head?’ Leon suggested.
‘You funny man,’ Daniel said, as he picked up the biggest rock he could see. ‘Mind your eyes. This might end up with glass flying everywhere.’
Daniel raised the rock above his head and thrust it down against the middle of the glass slab. There was a hollow chinking sound and another when he made a second attempt. But Ning was disappointed when she crouched down and inspected the glass.
‘Not even a scratch,’ she said.
‘Maybe try breaking bits off from the edge rather than smashing the whole thing in the middle,’ Leon suggested.
‘Worth a try,’ Daniel agreed.
Daniel yelped with pain as he bashed the rock against the edge of the glass slab. The rock had shattered on impact and the sharp edge had cut his palm open.
‘Shit!’ Daniel yelled, as he staggered backwards clutching a bloody hand. ‘Stupid poxy bloody rock.’
‘Leon, make him a bandage out of the tablecloth,’ Ning suggested.
‘It’s not that bad,’ Daniel said, as he rubbed his bloody hand against the sleeve of his fleece. ‘Just stings like hell.’
‘So what now?’ Leon asked. ‘Make a fire and see if it melts?’
‘Perhaps,’ Ning said thoughtfully, ‘but I doubt it’ll be that easy. There’s going to be something on this island that enables u
s to break that glass. We’ve got to scout around and try to find it.’
‘I hate Kazakov and Speaks,’ Leon said, shaking his head as he kicked up a storm of little pebbles. ‘I bet those two dicks are warm, and dry, and laughing their arses off right now.’
4. KREMLIN
The ideal spot for an airfield is a large flat area, with run-off areas for bad landings and nothing too tall nearby so that aircraft can take off gently and even glide back to the runway if they suffer an engine failure on take-off.
The Aramov Clan’s base was the exact opposite of this. The cramped facility had hangars, fuel tanks and the stripped-out hulks of Soviet military aircraft close to the runway and it was set in the base of a valley. On approach and take-off, pilots had to bank sharply and fly through a three-hundred-metre-wide channel, and if they got their heading wrong the plane would smash into the side of a mountain.
But the old Soviet Union Air Force had built an airbase in this location for a reason: radar waves can’t see through mountains and spy satellites have a tough time penetrating the dense cloud that forms around mountain peaks.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Soviet bombers and spy planes could take off and land here without America or China seeing what they were up to. Thirty years later, this run-down ex-military airfield made the perfect base for a smuggling operation.
The Kremlin building itself was a typical Soviet-era monstrosity. Six storeys of prefabricated concrete situated half a kilometre from the airfield, but still close enough that the biggest of the Aramov Clan’s cargo planes would set the bronze hammer and sickle on the roof rattling when they took off.
Two guards armed with Kalashnikovs held the lobby doors open as the kids came off the Kremlin bus. Getting to the lifts meant a walk over threadbare orange carpet tiles and on through a bar, where the only life at this time of day came from flashing lights on a line of fruit machines.
‘You wanna come up to my room later?’ Ethan asked Natalka. ‘I’ve got all them movies I bought at Dordoi Bazaar on Saturday.’
Natalka didn’t exactly look thrilled at the prospect. ‘I’ll see,’ she said weakly.