Authors: Robert Muchamore
‘Six-zero-three-one.’
‘Pat, is that you? Is he home?’
‘Oh, hi Millie,’ Patricia said. She yelled after her husband, before putting her mouth back to the receiver. ‘You must come round to dinner again some time, by the way.’
‘That would be nice,’ Millie lied, as she overheard the
Patels
’ three-year-old daughter, Charlotte, screaming in the background. ‘It sounds like the young lady doesn’t want to go to bed,’ she added.
‘She’s been a pain all day. First she wouldn’t get in the bath. Now she’s refusing to get out.’ Patricia shouted out again, ‘
Michael
, are you going to take this call or not? I can’t leave Charlotte alone in the water.’
Patricia put the receiver down and dashed off. Michael picked it up twenty seconds later. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,
guv
. What’s up?’
Millie had practised the lie a hundred times over the previous week. ‘Afraid I’m the bearer of bad news, Mike. Remember you pulled in a kid called James Holmes over by the reservoir a few Saturdays back?’
Michael nodded at the receiver. ‘Yeah, the tough little brat, turned over a couple of real hard cases. What about him?’
‘I’ve got heads up that Holmes’ solicitor has filed a complaint against you. James claims you knocked his head against the roof as you put him into the car. You’ll get the official two-eight-nine notification some time tomorrow. You’ll obviously have to go over to CIB for an interview about it at some stage, but I thought you’d want to know now, so you can check your notebook and get your details straight.’
‘Appreciated boss. Usual story I suppose: it’ll be my word against Holmes’, but it’s still a damned nuisance. It’ll be half a day wasted dealing with CIB, when I’ve got a million better things I could be doing.’
Millie turned the screw a little tighter. ‘I did get one other detail: James’ solicitor reckons he’s got hold of some CCTV footage of the incident.’
‘Oh,’ Mike said, audibly shocked. He missed a couple of beats before covering himself. ‘He can have all the CCTV he likes, boss, because nothing happened.’
‘Of course,’ Millie said. ‘I know you’re whiter than white, Michael. You’ve got nothing to worry about and you know I’ll be supporting you all the way. I just thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.’
21:17
John snapped his mobile shut and tucked it into his jacket as he headed down the deserted seventeenth-floor corridor. Greg and Ray walked in step behind him.
‘Good news?’ Greg asked.
John nodded. ‘That was Millie calling. She’s a good cop, but she’s tearing herself apart over all that’s been happening. She’s just spoken to Patel. She reckons he swallowed her line about the phoney complaint. He won’t be sleeping easy tonight with that hanging over his head.’
‘So how old are these cherubs?’ Ron asked.
‘Dave’s the oldest, he’s seventeen. James and Kerry are thirteen and Lauren is ten. You’ve got to remember though, they aren’t ordinary kids. They’re all intelligent, disciplined and highly trained. The things I’ve seen them accomplish in the year that I’ve worked for CHERUB have been astonishing.’
John slid his key card into the lock and pushed the door open, revealing a scene of destruction. There were sofa cushions scattered about, dots of popcorn everywhere, streaks of water across the carpet and puddles on the furniture.
James nearly crashed into John, as he sprinted out of the toilet holding an ice bucket filled with water.
‘Oh …’ James said, wilting under John’s scowl.
John looked set to kill. ‘James, what in the name of
god
are you playing at?’
‘We’re just messing,’ James said, glancing around at the carnage. ‘I suppose we got carried away.’
Kerry burst out of the bedroom, holding a plastic water bottle and using a pillow as a shield. ‘I’m gonna make you guys so wet …’ she said, tailing off abruptly when she spotted the three men standing in the doorway.
‘You two stand over there,’ John yelled, pointing at the wall. ‘Where’s the other one?’
Lauren meekly emerged from beneath a pile of sofa cushions in the far corner. She had a gigantic Coke stain down her T-shirt and significantly more popcorn stuck to her clothes than James or Kerry.
‘This behaviour is ridiculous,’ John screamed. ‘Millie has set off the sting operation, there’s a room next door packed with tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of electronic equipment and you three are throwing water around and acting like a bunch of five-year-olds.’
He pointed at Lauren. ‘
You
, get in the shower right now. The other two, I want you to straighten up, wipe up the puddles and pick every piece of popcorn off this carpet. And be quick about it, because if this place isn’t cleared up by the time Dave gets here, I’m gonna start dishing out punishment laps.’
Ray and Greg were grinning at each other as they stepped into the lounge area and began brushing popcorn off a couple of the sofa cushions.
‘Highly disciplined,’ Greg laughed.
John allowed himself to smile as everyone mucked in with the clearing up. ‘No matter how much we train ’em, they’re still kids.’
21:32
James returned the vacuum cleaner to the housekeeping cupboard at the end of the hotel corridor. Now they’d finished cleaning up, he realised he needed a shower to get all the bits of toffee off his skin, but Kerry was queuing outside the door and Lauren was still in there.
He battered the door. ‘Get a move on, Lauren. Any normal person takes five minutes, not twenty.’
‘Use the shower in the other room,’ she yelled back.
‘We can’t,’ Kerry yelled. ‘Chloe’s got cables running from the shaving socket. You can’t close the door and the steam might blow everything up.’
‘OK,’ Lauren tutted. ‘I’ll be two more minutes.’
James and Kerry leaned against the wall near the entrance of the room, facing each other. John and the two cops were drooling over the surveillance equipment in the next room. Kerry’s face was red from chasing around. She wore a giant T-shirt that almost went down to the bottom of her shorts and one lemon trainer sock. The other one had gone missing during the battle.
James suspected Kerry’s feelings towards him were starting to mellow. They’d hurled abuse, popcorn and cushions at each other, but still hadn’t managed a normal conversation, except when they’d had to talk during mission preparations.
James looked up when he noticed Kerry smiling to herself. He tested the water with a single word. ‘What?’
Kerry’s look stiffened when James spoke, but after a second she grinned and looked up at him.
‘You look funny with all that popcorn stuck in your hair,’ she muttered, as if she didn’t really want to say it.
James couldn’t read Kerry’s body language. Her expression seemed a lot like the way she used to look at him before they kissed. Or was it anger?
With Kerry’s temper, James knew he’d wind up on the floor in an excruciating arm-lock if he got this wrong, but he fancied her so much it was making him loopy. He’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly in his life and she was standing less than a metre away with nobody else around.
James took half a step forward, so that Kerry was right in his face. Her dark brown eyes kept staring up, but refused to give any obvious signal. He kissed her on the cheek, then backed away, as if he’d jabbed a snake with a sharp stick.
Kerry’s smile grew and James felt a massive rush as he realised his bravery had paid off. She grabbed James around his waist, pushed him back against the wall and they started
snogging
. It lasted for about twenty seconds, when the latch clicked inside the bathroom door. Kerry stepped backwards and acted innocent as Lauren emerged, wearing an adult-length robe that dragged along the floor.
‘Finished,’ she announced, as she cut across the carpet towards the bedroom.
Once Lauren was out of sight, James moved in to start
snogging
again, but Kerry’s expression had changed completely. She shoved him away.
‘I’m still not talking to you,’ she said firmly, as she slid into the bathroom and shut the door in his face.
23:07
A grey VW van pulled up directly opposite the
Patels
’ house. Dave switched off the lights and engine, climbed out of the cab and walked around the outside to join James and Kerry in the back.
‘All OK?’ Dave asked.
James had never felt so confused in his life, but Dave was asking about the mission, not his relationship with Kerry.
‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘Except it’s boiling in here.’
Surveillance vans aren’t air-conditioned, because the noise it would make is a give-away. The rear compartment contained three office chairs, which were bolted to the floor in front of a bank of monitors and VCRs. These were linked to hidden cameras and microphones built into the exterior and roof. The lack of ventilation, combined with the heat coming off the electronic gear pushed the temperature into the forties on this warm August evening.
‘Kerry, have you got the laser microphone lined up yet?’ Dave asked.
‘It’s a bit cranky,’ Kerry said, as she leaned over a console adjusting a row of knobs beneath a small TV screen.
As she fiddled, the picture changed from white to black, before settling into a steady bluish hue.
‘OK,’ Dave said, as he fed digital audio tapes into two recorders. ‘Now line it up on the house. You want to get a window dead in the centre so that it picks up the vibrations when people speak.’
Kerry tutted. ‘I know what I’m doing, Dave.’ She used a joystick to line up the image on a window. ‘Ready when you are, James.’
James hit a switch to activate the laser. The invisible beam detected vibrations in the glass and relayed a crude impression of any noises or speech going on inside the house. The output was set to max volume and James lunged at the control to turn it down before it fried their eardrums.
‘
The Israeli government says that it’s trying to calm tension in the region following
…’
‘TV news,’ James said.
Dave nodded. ‘Kerry, line that microphone up on some of the other windows. Then save the positions in memory and keep flicking between them.’
Dave pulled a two-way radio out of his pocket. Its signal was digitally encrypted, so nobody could listen in. ‘Base, this is Dave inside unit one. We’re in position and we have good sound, but Michael’s still up watching TV.’
‘Roger that,’ Chloe answered. ‘John is in position at the railway arch. Tell us when you’re ready to move in.’
Wednesday, 00:57
They’d been sweltering in the van for two hours. James had managed to nod off on the floor, while Kerry and Dave took turns monitoring the sounds inside the house.
The TV went off at 00:22. They tracked the sound of Michael Patel walking upstairs, brushing his teeth and flushing the toilet. Patricia woke up as her husband climbed into bed. At 00:30 Michael told his wife that he loved her and that he’d checked on their daughter. The microphone began picking up a gentle snoring sound at 00:37.
‘They’ve been asleep for twenty minutes,’ Kerry said. ‘That’s long enough, isn’t it?’
Dave nodded, as he pulled his radio out of his pocket. ‘Base, I think the
Patels
are asleep. We’re moving in.’
‘Copy that, Dave,’ Chloe answered.
Dave pinched James’ nose to wake him up. He gasped through his mouth before opening his eyes and shooting up from the floor of the van.
‘Joanna,’ James gasped.
‘Who’s Joanna?’ Dave said with raised eyebrows, as James yawned and rubbed his hand over his face.
‘I was having this weird dream. I was in a tent with this girl I met on my first mission. But Clint Eastwood and my
nan
kept flying over in a hot air balloon and dropping rocks on us.’
‘A dream like that probably means something really profound,’ Dave grinned.
Kerry couldn’t resist chipping in. ‘It means he’s an idiot and we knew
that
already.’
‘Are they asleep now?’ James yawned.
Dave nodded. ‘You’re going in.’
James grabbed the backpack he’d been using as a
pillow.He
pulled out his radio and fitted the earpiece. ‘Testing, testing, James testing.’
Chloe came back in his ear. ‘Hearing you loud and clear, James.’
Kerry did a radio test, then she and James pulled on disposable gloves and baseball caps. Kerry fitted an attachment to the front of her lock gun and tucked it into the front pocket of her shorts. Dave checked all the monitors to make sure nobody was walking along the street outside, then switched out the lights, so that James and Kerry weren’t seen as they jumped out the back doors.
‘Good luck out there,’ Dave whispered. ‘I’ll radio right away if the mike picks up any movement inside the house.’
Kerry led James across the road and up the
Patels
’ driveway, passing their BMW. She pushed the lock gun into the deadlock and made easy work of undoing it, before swapping to a different-shaped pick and attacking the regular lock.