‘Quit,’ James urged. ‘You’re smarter than me. If we planned this thing together …’
‘James …’ Kerry said, giggling.
‘You’re only doing the job for the big bucks,’ James said. ‘But who really cares about money?’
Now Kerry sounded a bit pissed off. ‘You only say that because you inherited plenty from your mother.’
‘I’ll look after you.’
‘I want my own career,’ Kerry said. ‘Not your charity … And you’re just saying this stuff because you’re stressed.’
James heard someone speak, and Kerry mouthing, ‘OK, OK.’ Then into the phone, ‘My meeting is about to start and my boss is glowering at me through a glass partition. I’ll call you later, OK?’
‘I love you,’ James said.
Kerry laughed. ‘I love you more. And don’t worry. Everyone will support you and you’ll do great.’
James heard a sound like a door opening, then the speaker went dead. He felt warm, imagining Kerry in her black business garb, pulling her close and smelling the top of her head. Then he started thinking about what Kerry had said.
She was right that he’d feel less overwhelmed once the shock had worn off. He started breaking the rescue mission down into manageable chunks and thinking about who he’d want alongside him in a situation where his life was on the line.
James hit the contacts button on his phone and scrolled down as far as B before dialling.
‘Yo, dumbass!’ Bruce Norris answered.
James smiled, as someone in the next cubicle ripped a huge fart. ‘Hey,’ James said. ‘Are you still on campus, helping out with combat training?’
‘For a few more days,’ Bruce said. ‘How’s Birmingham? How’s the mission?’
‘It’s taken an interesting turn,’ James admitted. ‘Is there any chance you’d be up for something violent and highly dangerous?’
‘Always,’ Bruce said.
‘Cool,’ James said. ‘Because I need people I trust. So I’m gonna try getting the old gang back together, for one last mission.’
The twins had school, but Ryan had nothing to do but kill time at Nurtrust. He’d spurned Rhea’s advances, out of respect for Leon, and spent all day Monday and Tuesday in his room, doing Skype sessions with a maths tutor on campus.
Like most CHERUB agents, Ryan had taken his exams at weird times, enabling his studies to fit between missions. This meant Ryan already had enough qualifications for university, but he was now studying some extra modules to give himself an advantage when he got there.
He kept checking his phone, but James had vanished and there had been no job offer, either from Uncle, or the site foreman. It was Thursday morning when he finally got a call from campus.
James Campus flashed on his caller ID, but it was a girl’s voice.
‘Ning, is that you?’
‘Who else, dear boy?’ Ning said, putting on a posh English accent. ‘Where you at?’
‘Bored off my head,’ Ryan said. ‘I’ve done so much math, I’m seeing imaginary numbers in my dreams. Now I’m out, picking my car up from the repair shop.’
Ning sounded amused. ‘You crashed?’
‘Nah, just someone messed with a wing mirror. So how come you’re at James’ desk?’
‘I help out in his office sometimes,’ Ning explained.
‘Is he coming back here, do you know?’
‘That’s why I’m calling,’ Ning explained. ‘You and your brothers have been reassigned.’
‘What?’ Ryan gasped. ‘I’ve unearthed all kinds of stuff up here.’
‘I don’t know all the details,’ Ning said. ‘But apparently an MI5 team has planted more bugs in Uncle’s cabin and home. And they’ve recruited informants. A cleaning lady and some dude at the scrapyard whose immigration status is dodgy.’
‘CHERUB agents shall only be placed at risk in scenarios where adult agents cannot perform equally well,’ Ryan said, quoting from the CHERUB training manual. ‘So I guess my ass is heading back to campus. The twins won’t be happy if they’re back on heavy drill.’
‘You won’t be on campus for long,’ Ning said. ‘James said you need to head over to his flat and meet a guy called Joffrey from MI5. Hand over all the receivers for the listening devices and pack his stuff up in the Ford Focus. Then you’ve gotta drive back to campus and pack your swimming trunks and suntan lotion, because we’re all heading off to the summer hostel. Me included.’
‘I’m confuzzled,’ Ryan admitted. ‘If you don’t know what’s going on, can I at least speak to James?’
‘You’ll be lucky,’ Ning said. ‘He’s just got back to campus, but he’s buzzing about like an over-caffeinated bluebottle, planning some kind of secret mission.’
‘All CHERUB missions are secret,’ Ryan pointed out.
Ning shrugged. ‘Yeah, well this one’s even more secret than usual.’
26. HOSTEL
James hadn’t been to the CHERUB summer hostel in five years. Although it was autumn, the first sunlight caught the water around the Mediterranean island as the fifteen-seat executive jet made a banked turn and aligned with a short landing strip.
‘Happy memories,’ Bruce said, from the seat across the aisle, as he looked at the giant outdoor pool and rows of accommodation huts. These housed over a hundred CHERUB agents for twelve weeks between June and September, but out of season the population dwindled to a husband and wife caretaker and a small security team.
Besides James and Bruce, the little jet carried five agents. Ryan, Ning, Leon, Daniel and Ryan’s chunky best mate, Alfie. There was also a chef, a cleaner, training instructors Capstick and McEwen and two assistant instructors.
Alfie, Ning and the twins had a slide-out table between their seats and a rowdy game of Cards Against Humanity on the go. James was more interested in the fact that he had mobile reception for the first time in two hours.
He picked up three voicemails. The first was from Amy Collins, who’d been James’ mentor when he first arrived at campus thirteen years earlier.
‘Good to hear your message, James,’ Amy’s recorded voice said. ‘But I’m with the FBI now, so I’ve got my own undercover stuff going on and there’s no way I can get out of it.’
‘Amy’s out,’ James told Bruce, his seat juddering as the jet touched down.
The landing strip was short, so everyone got thrown as the pilot used wing flaps and reverse thrust to slow down.
‘Pity,’ Bruce said, as he braced hands against a bulkhead. ‘She’d have been perfect.’
‘I’ve put some other calls in,’ James said.
‘What about the twins, Callum and Connor?’ Bruce suggested.
‘Final year of their masters degrees,’ James explained. ‘They can’t take time out. Gabrielle’s busy. Rat damaged his neck in a racing car last year.’
‘Shakeel?’ Bruce suggested.
James shook his head and laughed. ‘He’s in Brisbane, running some Internet start-up with guys he met at uni. Plus, the last time I saw Shak he’d totally let himself go. Must have weighed more than a hundred kilos.’
‘Really?’ Bruce said. ‘Unbelievable!’
The plane U-turned at the end of the landing strip and taxied back towards a dilapidated hut. A ground attendant in Royal Air Force uniform ran out to place blocks in front of the wheels as the exit swung open.
James was out behind the two instructors and stepped on to the tarmac just as his sister came jogging out of the hut, dressed in shorts and her Rathbone Racing team hat.
‘Thanks for coming,’ James said, as he gave her a hug.
Lauren smiled. ‘Thought I’d come and save your ass one last time.’
James’ mate Kyle was behind and shook Bruce’s hand. ‘Your employers were OK?’ Bruce asked.
Kyle laughed. ‘It’s a charity. They’ve never got any money. My boss wasn’t keen to lose me, but when I mentioned six weeks’ unpaid leave, the finance department practically bit my arm off.’
As
Bruce kissed Lauren, James turned his attention to an austere, dark-eyed woman. She was petite but muscular, with black hair curling down her back, and clad in combat shorts and a white vest.
‘Tovah?’ James said, offering a handshake. ‘Thank you so much for coming at short notice.’
Thirty years old, Tovah spoke with a deep Israeli accent. ‘Excited to finally meet you, Mr Adams.’
‘Call me James,’ he said, as Ryan led the rest of the youngsters out of the jet. ‘I can’t thank you and your government enough for your help.’
‘No problem,’ Tovah said, as Bruce closed in.
‘My very good friend Bruce,’ James said, as he shook hands. ‘Bruce, this is Tovah, who absolutely isn’t from the Israeli intelligence service.’
Tovah smiled and shrugged innocently. ‘I barely even know where Israel is.’
‘So why are you here?’ Bruce asked.
Tovah cracked a huge smile. ‘I’m here to teach you guys to fly.’
Kerry left her apartment at 6 a.m. She took a ten-minute taxi and forty-storey elevator ride to visit her bank’s legal department. The walnut conference table was set up with coffee, juice and breakfast pastries. She’d been through thirty pages of a contract with a one-eyebrowed lawyer and her two assistants when the phone in the centre of the table rang.
‘My apologies,’ the lawyer said, as she grabbed her coat and briefcase and beckoned the assistants. ‘I’ve been called to a meeting in Amsterdam. They’re setting up a jet at London City.’
Kerry rattled the two-hundred-page document in front of her. ‘Will you be back to finish this today?’
‘Unlikely,’ the lawyer said. ‘Call my office when my secretary gets in. I’ll try and get you some time tomorrow.’
‘Is there anyone else … ?’ Kerry asked, as the trio steamed out, grabbing smartphones and scooping documents off the table. ‘Shit.’
Kerry thumped on the table. Her boss, Doug, would chuck his toys out of his pram when he found out. She drained tepid black coffee and scoffed a mini-cinnamon Danish, before grabbing a phone off the table and calling her boss. Doug wasn’t at his desk yet, so Kerry left the building and strode fifteen minutes to her bank’s other tower at the opposite side of Canary Wharf.
Doug erupted the moment she got out of the twentysecond-floor elevator.
‘Why aren’t you with Doreen?’
‘She had to go to Amsterdam.’
‘You what?’ Doug shouted, as he beckoned Kerry. ‘My office.’
‘I couldn’t help it,’ Kerry said. ‘I was there, she got called away.’
They’d reached Doug’s corner office, with river views and a giant TV showing the Bloomberg channel.
‘Why did you use Doreen on legal for this contract?’ Doug roared, as he sat behind the desk. ‘You know how busy she gets.’
‘You said it was important. You told me to get the best person.’
‘She’s always super busy,’ Doug roared. ‘I need this contract for the meeting at eleven. Do you think the Korean consortium will arrive with a half-assed, half-finished proposal?’
‘I could call around,’ Kerry said. ‘See who else is free. Or get outside legal in to look at it.’
‘Not in two hours, Chang,’ Doug moaned, as he reached out for a phone. ‘Why didn’t you sit down with Doreen last night?’
‘I didn’t leave this office until nine,’ Kerry said, tempted to add two hours after you.
Doug dialled someone on his desk phone, but got an engaged tone and slammed it down. ‘You don’t seem to get things done, Chang,’ Doug snapped. ‘And if you can’t, I’ll source people who can.’
Kerry’s boss was always moody. It wasn’t usually a good idea to talk back, but she was determined not to cop all the blame.
‘Doreen and I had the contract drafted ten days ago,’ Kerry pointed out. ‘You were the one who sat on it for a week and only noticed the errors yesterday.’
‘I’m busy, in case you haven’t noticed.’
Kerry snorted. ‘You left early to play golf two afternoons this week. I’ve been here until eight every night, trying to sort this leasing deal.’
Doug stood up and roared. ‘How dare you speak to me like that in my own office. You’ve worked here less than two years. I’ve had unpaid interns who are more effective than you.’
‘You’re a bully,’ Kerry told her boss, as he moved around the table and faced her off.
‘Sweetheart, if you can’t take the heat …’
‘Do you want me to try and find someone from another law firm, or not?’ Kerry asked. ‘And I am not your sweetheart.’
‘Whatever,’ Doug said. ‘You made the problem, you solve it.’
Kerry made a little grunt as she spun on high heels and left her boss’ office.
‘You OK?’ a colleague asked, seeing a tear in Kerry’s eye as she strode twenty paces to her windowless office.
‘I’ll live,’ Kerry said unconvincingly.
But the tears kept welling when Kerry reached her desk. Besides the contract her boss was yelling about, there were files for three more deals on her desk: finance for a soft drink bottling plant in Chile, a deal to lease trains in Russia and a Spanish billionaire who was planning to buy a Welsh furniture maker, fire all the workers and move production to a giant factory he was building in Romania.
If nothing happened, she’d get through all of her work by 7 p.m., but something always happened. Kerry groaned as her mobile buzzed, but smiled when she saw a picture message from James on the screen. It showed the peeling frontage of accommodation hut 32 at the CHERUB summer hostel.
Just landed. Remember what we got up to in here, back in Summer 08?
Kerry zoomed the picture message as Doug walked by, bawling out someone else. She could see a tiny James, reflected in the hut’s front window, with his camera phone in front of his face and the black skinny jeans that made his bum look good. She’d never wanted to hug him so badly and her fingers hovered over the keyboard on her screen, before typing:
2 late 2 join the gang?
James was online and replied instantly. Heck no!!! RU serious?
Deadly serious.
Kerry trembled as she opened her briefcase. She tipped all the work papers on to her desk, took out her work phone and laptop. Then she replaced them with a framed desk photo of James and the bobble head Elvis and Jesus figures stuck to the top of her monitor.
She spent a couple of minutes stripping a few compromising pages from the file on the furniture factory takeover. She dropped them into an envelope, did a quick Google search and addressed it to the editor of a local newspaper based close to the Welsh furniture factory. It wouldn’t stop the takeover, but at least the bank and the billionaire wouldn’t be able to lie about the takeover benefiting the workers and local community.
Kerry stripped the ID badge from around her neck and hooked it over the monitor before stepping into the hallway. There was a photocopier at the end and Doug was there, looming over a curly-haired graduate yelling, I need those figures by yesterday!
Part of Kerry wanted to take a short run, sweep her boss’ legs and flatten his nose. Part of her wanted to say goodbye to some co-workers she considered friends. But mostly, she just wanted to be out of here.
She handed the envelope to a receptionist. ‘That needs to be sent by urgent courier,’ Kerry explained. ‘Tell Doug I’ve found an outside lawyer and I’m heading there now to sort the Kobyashi contract.’
Kerry’s brain churned as the lift took her down. Thinking about the salary she’d given up and six-figure bonus due in January. Was it crazy to quit a sought-after job for some high-risk mission halfway around the world?
The weird thing was, she’d never felt more sure of anything in her life.
27. DRAWL
‘G’day,’ Capstick shouted, in his annoying Aussie drawl. ‘I’ve got good news.’
The squat instructor stood by the summer hostel swimming pool. Ning, Ryan, Leon, Daniel and Alfie faced him in the
ir CHERUB uniform, while two assistant instructors stood at a console nearby, working out how to retract the electric pool cover.
‘Normally, my job is to persecute you kids and get you into the best shape possible,’ Capstick continued. ‘But this is a different situation. I have twenty-eight days to prepare former CHERUB agents for a highly dangerous mission. They left CHERUB more than five years ago, and most of them now spend their days sat on fat lazy asses behind a desk. Your job is to motivate the grown-ups by showing them how far they’ve fallen off the pace. You’re gonna go on training runs with them. You’ll spar with them, play sport with them and study with them. It’s old CHERUB versus new and I want you to show no mercy.’
‘Current versus Crusty,’ Ryan suggested.
Capstick wagged a finger and laughed. ‘I like those names. So go get your swimmers on, ’cos we’re gonna start with some fun in the pool.’
‘Look at that,’ Bruce teased, poking the ripple of flab over the waistband of Kyle’s swim shorts. ‘And when did that skin last catch some sun?’
‘Screw you,’ Kyle said, as the pair followed James down a curved path running between the accommodation huts and the main pool. ‘Just because I haven’t spent the last year bumming around on some beach in Thailand.’
‘Bumming around!’ Bruce snorted. ‘Six hours’ training four days a week, plus I was teaching Muay Thai classes.’
Lauren was waiting for them. Sat on a low wall, in pool shoes and a Lycra one-piece. She had a decent tan for someone with a pale complexion. Her shoulders and arms were ripped, because motor sport puts massive strain on the neck.
‘I see a dividing line,’ Bruce told Lauren, as she stood up. ‘Those who respect their bodies, and those who gave up.’
Lauren smirked when she saw Kyle. ‘You’re actually chubbier than James.’
‘Hey!’ James yelled. ‘Mission controllers have to train. I’m not that unfit.’
‘I hate all of you,’ Kyle noted, as they rounded a line of trees and reached the edge of the pool.
‘Aww crap,’ James said, as soon as he saw what was about to happen. ‘I hate this game.’