‘Cheers,’ James said. ‘I’d better run and get some breakfast before they pull the shutters down.’
The good thing about being late for breakfast was that there wasn’t a queue. The bad thing was that all the decent food had gone. After considering a sweaty-looking egg and bacon croissant, James settled on a mug of coffee and some fruit, which he’d be able to eat with one hand while he copied the homework.
He sat at an empty table so that he could concentrate. Unfortunately, he’d only done seven out of fifteen questions when the pips went for first lesson.
‘I need my work back,’ Kerry said, looming over James as more than a hundred cherubs filed out of the dining-room.
‘Just give me a minute.’
Kerry tutted. ‘We’ll be late. You’ve had the whole week to do it.’
‘You go,’ James spluttered, as he realised that his answer to question nine was more or less illegible. ‘Tell Norwood that I’m upstairs speaking to Meryl or something.’
‘OK. But it’s gonna look obvious if I haven’t got my homework and then you turn up with both sets.’
‘I only need five minutes and he always collects homework at the end.’
Kerry tutted again. ‘See you in there.’
Within another couple of minutes, there were less than a dozen kids left in the dining-room. James was scribbling his answer to the final question and eating the last mouthful of his banana when a shadow loomed over his page.
‘I’ll just be a sec,’ James said, without looking up from his page. He assumed it was one of the dinner ladies wanting to clear the table.
But a gruff boy’s voice came at him. ‘All right,
nark
.’
James looked up and saw a grey-shirt kid about a year younger than himself. His name was Stuart Russell and they were in a couple of lessons together, but the only thing James knew about Stuart was that he’d snogged Gabrielle at a Christmas party.
‘You what?’ James asked.
‘I called you a nark,’ Stuart said. ‘Helping the training instructors.’
James shook his head. ‘What’s
your
problem?’
‘Kevin Sumner’s my cousin. He told me what you did last night.’
James stood up warily. Stuart was smaller than him, but his confident air made James suspect that Stuart knew some moves.
‘Look,’ James said, raising his hands, ‘he’s a nice little dude and we’re trying to help him. Gotta be cruel to be kind, you know?’
Stuart raised a finger. ‘Well make sure he doesn’t get hurt, because I’ll hurt
you
if he does.’
‘You gonna hurt Bruce Norris, too?’ James asked.
Stuart suddenly looked a lot less sure of himself. He turned to face a friend of his who was sitting on a table a few metres away. ‘I thought you said it was Bruce Clark.’
The kid at the table shrugged. ‘Kevin just said the name Bruce …’
James couldn’t help smiling: Bruce Clark was a shy eleven-year-old who wouldn’t harm a fly. Bruce Norris was a campus Karate champion who would probably enjoy harming the fly and then go after its brothers and sisters for the hell of it.
‘Cat got your tongue, Stewey?’ James grinned. ‘Shall I pass your threat on to Bruce Norris?’
‘It’s still bogus,’ Stuart said, as he stepped back. ‘You screwed up and got two MI5 officers killed. I don’t know why you’re even on campus, let alone training other kids.’
James was better at turning the other cheek than he’d been when he first joined CHERUB, but the comment about the suspension riled him.
‘What do you know?’ he snapped. ‘You’re talking out of your arse.’
‘I know enough,’ Stuart mocked. ‘I bet they kick your butt out of here when the investigation finishes.’
James’ temper snapped and he lunged towards Stuart. His first punch slammed against Stuart’s nose, but the second only glanced the top of the grey-shirt’s head as he ducked out of the way. Stuart charged forward, butting James in the stomach. Chairs and tables grated across the floor as Stuart pushed James backwards and pinned him to a tabletop.
James was terrified that Stuart was going to punch his partially healed nose and was actually quite relieved when the chunky fist smacked him on the lips. As James tasted blood in his mouth, he punched Stuart in the ribs with enough force to unbalance him.
‘Break it up,’ one of the dinner ladies yelled, as James brought his knee up and knocked Stuart on to the floor.
As Stuart scrambled to his feet, the overweight dinner lady placed herself between them and brandished a soup ladle.
‘Show’s over,’ she shouted. James realised that everyone else in the canteen was watching them. ‘Get to your lessons.’
Stuart and James were both muscular and could have easily shoved the dinner lady aside, but while they were both furious, neither lad was prepared to assault a member of staff.
As Stuart skulked off to collect his bag, James straightened up his clothes and realised that he’d been lucky: if a teacher or a member of the care staff had broken up the fight instead of a dinner lady, he’d probably be on his way to the chairman’s office instead of first lesson.
James turned back to the table he’d been working at and saw that his coffee mug had tipped over in the melee. His hastily scribbled homework was fine, but the top half of Kerry’s was soaked in a massive brown stain.
She was going to kill him.
*
Lauren phoned John as soon as Anna and all the other kids had cleared off to school.
‘I messed up,’ she confessed meekly.
‘What do you mean?’ John asked.
‘Anna wanted to use my phone and we could have logged her call, but I had to stop her ’cos I’ve got loads of personal messages and pictures on there.’
John tutted. ‘That’s the kind of mistake I’d expect from an agent on their first mission. You really ought to know better.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I guess it’s partly my fault: I should have set you up with a clean phone for the mission. These modern smart phones retain all kinds of data, even when you supposedly wipe the memory. Now let me think …’
John continued after a moment’s pause. ‘OK, we obviously want Anna to get access to your phone and have a record of everything she says. I’ll go into town and get you an identical replacement, then I’ll get the boffins on campus to tap into the cellular network and record all your calls. The only thing is, you’d better tone down the dirty talk with your boyfriend.’
‘Very funny,’ Lauren said dryly.
She liked working with John: some mission controllers would have gone on and on about not deleting the stuff from her phone, but John just accepted the apology and got on with it.
‘I’ll meet you in the baker’s at about two o’clock with the new phone, OK?’
‘Fine,’ Lauren said. ‘But there’s one other thing I was thinking about.’
‘What?’
‘Suppose we uncover this trafficking ring and put the baddies behind bars. Will they stick Anna back on the first plane to Russia?’
‘Anna’s future is down to the immigration authorities.’
‘Yeah,’ Lauren said, ‘but if I uncover who she is and she gets sent back home because of me, that’s … It’s like, I’m a cherub because I want to help people, but I won’t be helping Anna, will I?’
John sighed. ‘I see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure what I can do.’
‘Come
on
, John,’ Lauren said. ‘With all CHERUB’s resources, you’re telling me that you can’t swing it so that one little girl gets taken into care?’
John sighed. ‘I guess you’re right. I’m not promising anything but I’ll look into it.’
‘It wasn’t deliberate,’ James yelled, as he barged two of his classmates out of the doorway and sprinted down the corridor with Kerry on his tail.
‘You’re
dead
, Adams,’ Kerry screamed, as two little red-shirts jumped out of her way.
James sprinted around a corner, but dropped to a brisk walk when he saw two teachers stepping out of a classroom. He didn’t want to get yelled at for running. Kerry slowed down too and the chase continued at walking pace until James reached the staircase that led up to their rooms.
‘Come on Kerry!’ James said, as he leapt up the stairs two at a time. ‘Give us a break.’
Speed had always been James’ weakness and Kerry cornered him on the fourth-floor landing.
‘Dickhead,’ she snarled as she gave him two powerful beats to the upper arm. ‘I’ve got enough to do without getting a stupid detention because of you.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ James whined, as he rolled out his bottom lip to show where it had scabbed over. ‘Stuart Russell is a total moron.’
‘It’s nothing to do with that,’ Kerry snapped. ‘You copied it word for word.’
‘It wasn’t exactly the same.’
‘It took Mr Norwood all of two seconds to figure out. That’s the last time you ever copy my homework, James. I don’t care how much you beg.’
James anxiously ran his hand through his hair, which needed cutting. ‘How about we go back to my room and patch things up?’
‘Don’t push your luck,’ Kerry snarled. ‘I’ve got another lesson and
you’ve
got History coursework to do.’
‘Nah,’ James grinned. ‘Mr Pike’s getting me out of that, as long as Kevin Sumner makes it across the obstacle.’
‘That’s your problem, James,’ said Kerry. ‘You’re always trying to wing it. I bet that’s why your mission went tits up as well.’
James was stunned. ‘Pardon me?’
Kerry knew James was sensitive about being under investigation and realised she’d overstepped the mark. ‘Just ignore me, James. That was a stupid thing to say.’
‘Stuart said something about that as well. Is that what everyone’s saying about me?’
Kerry turned to head back downstairs, but James grabbed her arm. ‘Don’t walk away from me.’
‘James, I’ve got a lesson to go to.’
‘I want to know, Kerry.’
Kerry looked down at the floor. ‘There’s a rumour going around that you were filmed planting the bugs and that that’s why the two MI5 agents got killed.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kerry shrugged. ‘It’s just campus gossip, everyone’s talking about it.’
‘Do
you
believe it?’
‘Of course I don’t.’
‘But you just said
I bet that’s why your mission went tits up
. It’s hardly a ringing endorsement.’
Kerry squirmed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
James felt like he’d been stabbed through the heart. ‘Then what
did
you mean?’
‘It was … James, I’m gonna be late for my lesson.’
Kerry backed away and started down the stairs. When she was out of sight, James bunched his fists and considered punching the wall, but he’d tried it once before and discovered that it hurt a lot more in real life than when people did it in the movies.
He started heading up towards his room, but changed his mind before he reached the next landing. He’d not heard from Ewart since his answering machine messages on Saturday morning and he wanted to know what was going on with the investigation.
*
The mission preparation building was one of the most modern on CHERUB campus. Ewart Asker’s office had a smart maple desk with framed photos of his family hidden behind teetering stacks of paperwork.
‘Take a seat,’ Ewart said, pointing James towards the two suede sofas by the window. ‘Have you come up with any new information?’
‘Afraid not,’ James said, as he sat down. ‘I haven’t heard from you in a few days and I was wondering what was going on.’
Ewart shrugged. ‘We’re going nowhere fast.’
‘Wasn’t I supposed to be going down to MI5 in London to answer some more questions?’
‘I knocked that on the head,’ Ewart said. ‘To be honest I had a blazing row with them. They’re asking you to go back to London and go through the same testimony for a third time. As far as I can tell, the only reason for them to do that is if they’re trying to trip you up and discredit your evidence.
‘Meanwhile, MI5 are stalling and refusing to send me a large amount of information that I requested on Boris and Isla. So I’ve told them, they’re not getting another interview with you until they start full cooperation with me.’
‘How did that go down?’
‘Like a hungry Rottweiler in a chicken coop,’ Ewart said. ‘The head of MI5 has been on the phone to Zara complaining about my conduct. The intelligence minister doesn’t like the fact that CHERUB and MI5 are conducting separate inquiries and is talking about sending in an independent investigator. But it’s not like some failing secondary school or the Post Office, you can’t just give an outsider open access to the intelligence services.’
‘The thing is, Ewart, there are all these rumours going around on campus that I’m going to cop the blame for the two MI5 agents being killed. Which means I’ll either be booted out of CHERUB, or spend the rest of my time here doing recruitment missions and crappy little security checks.’
Ewart shrugged. ‘You’ll just have to develop a tough skin where gossip is concerned, James. You know how it is, you start off with two plus two and by the time it’s spent a few days in the campus rumour mill, kids are making it add up to four hundred and fifty.’
‘But even Kerry believes it; or at least half believes it.’
‘I told you at the start, James, this investigation is probably going to take months. Any rumours that you hear are completely baseless. Our problem is that we have
nothing
to go on, apart from Boris and Isla’s dead bodies and your testimony.’
‘How do you rate your chances of getting the video from the CIA?’
‘We’re trying our best,’ Ewart said. ‘But it could take weeks and there’s always a chance that we won’t get it at all.’
James smiled awkwardly. ‘Do
you
believe me, Ewart?’
‘I’ve no reason to think that you’re lying,’ Ewart said. ‘You’ve had a few discipline problems, but your record as a CHERUB agent is rock solid. The trouble is, MI5 are saying the same thing about Boris and Isla. They’d put in more than forty years’ loyal service for MI5 between the two of them and their personnel records are unblemished – not that they’re allowing me to see them.
‘Basically James, MI5 are saying that their agents are clean. They’re trying to tell the intelligence minister that you’re to blame for everything that went wrong in Aero City. I’m trying to tell the intelligence minister that we’ve got no reason to distrust you and that MI5 are holding back information and refusing to cooperate with my investigation.’