Cherub Black Friday (6 page)

Kids and staff on CHERUB campus lined up for food from the same self-service kitchen, but staff could opt to eat in a separate dining-room. The racket from kids next door was heavily muffled and there were posh touches like tablecloths, better condiment holders and usually some poor kid on punishment duty to set out cutlery and clear tables. Most importantly, adults got three glass-fronted chillers stocked with booze and a swish espresso machine.

James and Amy caught up over fish and chips. They talked about old times and shared a bottle of white wine, while James packed his chips between slices of white bread.

‘I took Kerry to some poncy restaurant for her birthday,’ James said. ‘But it wasn’t half as good as a decent butty.’

‘Campus chips are the best,’ Amy replied, as she licked salt off her fingertips.

Their table was by a window, with a view over downward-sloping lawns to the side of the main building. In the distance, a twelve-metre-high corrugated fence cut across the landscape, above which poked cranes working on the Campus Village site. When complete, all CHERUB agents and campus-based staff would move to the village, while the main building would be redeveloped as an education and training centre.

‘I’ve been back to campus a few times in the last year,’ Amy said. ‘But I never get much chance to chill out.’

‘It’s cold, but I’ve been cooped up in a screaming car all day,’ James said. ‘You fancy a stroll? See what’s changed.’

Amy smiled at the prospect. ‘Bring on the nostalgia,’ she said, as her chair grated backwards.

Amy grabbed her coat and headed straight for the exit, but James went for the chillers and opened up two bottles of beer.

‘One for the road?’ James asked, as he held a bottle out to Amy.

‘I like the way you think,’ Amy said, as she took the bottle and gently sucked the foam bubbling out of the neck.

Most kids were indoors having dinner or doing homework, so James and Amy strolled through a crisp November evening with breath curling up in front of them.

‘So, do you think temporary training instructor might become permanent?’ Amy asked.

James shrugged. ‘It’s not impossible. It depends on what Kerry wants, and if I did come back I’d prefer to work on the mission side. Making ten-year-old trainees exercise until they spew doesn’t exactly push my buttons.’

‘You and Kerry have been together a long while now.’

James nodded. ‘Eight years on and off, but if I’m honest it’s more off than on right now.’

‘How come?’ Amy asked.

‘I got in shit,’ James admitted. ‘Me and a couple of maths geeks I graduated with have been making trips to Las Vegas to play blackjack.’

Amy looked surprised. ‘So you lost all your mum’s money?’

‘Nah. We had a card counting system and made a
bundle
,’ James said. ‘Casino security worked out what we were up to so they banned us from Vegas. That was a slap on the wrist, but a couple of the guys had serious student loans, so we put on disguises, went back for one last trip and ended up in the city jail.’

Amy gasped. ‘You went to prison?’

‘Las Vegas has laws on
prohibited persons
entering casinos. You can get two years’ prison time. Kerry freaked out when I got busted and called campus asking for help. We all accepted a plea bargain and got a two-thousand-dollar fine and three-month suspended sentence.’

‘Heavy,’ Amy said. ‘At least it was suspended.’

James nodded. ‘But it doesn’t make job hunting any easier when you get to that
have you ever been arrested
box on the application form.’

‘Nope,’ Amy said.

‘Anyway, Zara was short of instructors on campus, and Kerry wanted me to stay out of trouble. So here I am.’

‘Your mum left you plenty of money though,’ Amy noted.

James shrugged. ‘It wasn’t about money. Thing is, I drove a car in a high-speed chase when I was thirteen years old. I’ve tangled with motorbike gangs, hung out with terrorists and banged a drug dealer’s daughter in a bathtub. I think I did the casino stuff to get some of the old buzz back. The idea of nine-to-five in an office does my nut in.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Amy said. ‘Until I got the TFU job, I had no clue
what
I wanted to do with my life.’

They hadn’t been paying much attention to where they’d been strolling, but Amy and James found themselves approaching the side of the campus swimming complex. A few poolside lights shone through the windows of the main pool, but there was nobody swimming when Amy pressed her face up to a window.

‘New tiles,’ Amy said. ‘Very swish.’

But James was thinking of something else. ‘This is where we first met,’ he said, as he swigged from his beer. ‘2003, eleven-year-old CHERUB recruit James Adams can’t start basic training until his beautiful sixteen-year-old black-shirt instructor teaches him to swim.’

‘You were sweet back then,’ Amy said. ‘That tatty Arsenal shirt with Viera on the back! They’d sheared all your hair off, you were new on campus and you acted like you were scared of your own shadow.’

‘I got such a crush on you, but I felt like a nobody,’ James confessed. ‘You were all mature and sophisticated.’

James wasn’t sure Amy heard what he said, because she’d pushed the pool’s main door and stepped into a lobby. James followed, enjoying the warmth, while breathing chlorine and hearing the familiar rumble of the pool’s ventilation system.

‘I fancy a swim,’ Amy said.

James could hear kids shrieking in the adjoining leisure pool as he studied the notices in the lobby:
No outdoor shoes. No running. No screaming. No using the pool when lifeguard is not present
.

‘There’ll be towels in the changing room,’ James said.

Amy slid her coat down her arms and dropped it on a bench as she stepped through a pair of doors that led to poolside. James was allegedly a grown-up now, but he was still awed as he watched Amy kick off her shoes and start unbuttoning her blouse.

‘You joining me?’ Amy asked, as she dropped her skirt and started peeling off one stocking. ‘Or do you plan to keep staring like a pervert?’

‘Pervert,’ James said, but he’d already started pulling his T-shirt over his head. Amy had dived in by the time James had his jeans around his ankles and the first thing Amy did was dig both arms into the water and give him a soaking.

‘Mind my clothes!’ James yelled. ‘We’ve gotta walk back and it’s cold.’

‘Stop me,’ Amy said, as she splashed again.

As James kicked his clothes bundle against the wall and dived in, Amy started an athletic swim towards the deep end. He couldn’t catch up, but James eventually got Amy cornered and she looked
amazing
as she trod water in the half-light, with reflections dancing across her face.

‘You’ve still got one sock on,’ Amy said.

As James looked down to confirm that he was sock-free, Amy used the instant of distraction to try swimming out of her corner. If she’d wanted to escape she could have climbed out of the pool, but this was a game and she’d made for a gap where there wasn’t one. Almost as if she
wanted
James to grab her.

James felt awkward as he got an arm around Amy’s waist. He kept his grip loose so that Amy could break free, but she pulled in close and relaxed her body like she wanted to be kissed.

‘Where’s this going?’ James stuttered. ‘I had no idea you liked me.’

Amy laughed. ‘Back when you were eleven? No! But a girl can do worse than James Adams at twenty-one.’

James had fantasised about Amy since he’d first got interested in girls. Kerry flashed through his mind, but this wasn’t something he could turn down.

‘Mind you, I’ve spent the last seven months living in a country where most men smoke sixty a day, bathe monthly and get their brides by kidnapping them. So my standards might have dropped a little.’

They kicked into shallower water, kissing on the mouth when they reached the side of the pool.

‘Just so you’re clear, there’s nothing to this,’ Amy said, as she broke off. ‘Two old mates who fancy each other. What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing at all,’ James said, as Amy’s fingers dug into his back and her mouth closed in for another kiss.

The guy with the teenage moustache drove for twenty minutes, then ditched the old taxi in an empty high-school parking lot. He then drove on with Ryan squeezed in the middle seat of a Chrysler sedan, between Mumin and Kazakov.

An hour later, they turned off a remote highway and clattered over a mile of dirt to a farm property with a foreclosure notice and
Sale by Auction
sign by the entry gate.

Ryan didn’t know agriculture, but guessed this had been a dairy farm, based on outdoor pens tall enough to hold big animals and refrigerated tanks at the side of a huge aluminium-sided shed.

Ten trucks were parked in front of a big ranch house, but these were smaller than the ones that picked up the cargo at the airport. A mobile home stood on bricks a couple of hundred metres from the main house. The Chrysler dropped off Ryan, Kazakov and Mumin there, while Elbaz and the teen rolled on to the house.

The mobile home was grotty inside, with the smell of stale piss coming out of the bathroom and a summer’s worth of dead insects dotting the floor.

‘It’s not great, but you’ll be here less than twenty-four hours,’ Mumin said, before pointing at two black wheelie cases lying flat on a sofa in the bay window at the far end. ‘That’s what you’re here for.’

Kazakov unzipped the bags and threw back canvas flaps, unveiling stacks of fifty- and hundred-dollar bills. IDoJ believed that the Aramov Clan needed this untraceable cash inside the USA to pay for clan matriarch Irena Aramov’s cancer treatment. In reality, the FBI was paying for Irena’s treatment and the cash was an excuse that enabled Ryan and Kazakov to track the IDoJ operation from Kyrgyzstan to the US, via China.

‘Two million, cash,’ Mumin said. ‘Count if you like, but it might take a while.’

‘I’ll trust you,’ Kazakov said. Then added casually, ‘People who short-change the Aramov Clan don’t usually live for long.’

‘The remaining four point two has been transferred to your listed bank accounts in sums ranging from twenty to eighty thousand dollars,’ Mumin continued. ‘Your people should be able to confirm receipt shortly after the banks open tomorrow morning.’

As Mumin continued, Ryan was transfixed by the contents of the battered wheelie cases. ‘You have television and a shower. We put a couple of bags of groceries in the cupboard. I checked the microwave, but unfortunately there’s no gas bottle for the cooker.’

‘We’re in the middle of nowhere,’ Kazakov noted. ‘We’ll need a vehicle to take us out of here.’

Mumin nodded. ‘When our vans leave, you’ll be given keys to a hire car. Nobody will come looking for the car until the seven-day hire ends. Dump it when you’re done.’

As Kazakov zipped the wheelie cases and tested their weight, Ryan slid his backpack down his arm and braved the evil-smelling bathroom.

‘We’re not locking you in, but we’d prefer it if you didn’t wander,’ Mumin said. ‘The fewer people who see your face the better.’

‘And vice versa,’ Kazakov said. ‘We’ll shower and sleep. Maybe catch a couple of quarters of football.’

The cramped plastic toilet had yellowed with age and there was stomach-churning filth on the toilet brush. Ryan turned the tap for the shower and got a drizzle. There was a half-bottle of flamingo-pink shampoo that looked like it had been left by the previous owners and two raggedy towels that Ryan wouldn’t have wiped his arse on.

When he’d finished peeing and stepped out, Mumin was gone and Kazakov was filling a titchy electric kettle he’d found in one of the cupboards.

‘So how are we doing?’ Ryan asked warily.

There was a chance the van was bugged, so Kazakov set a tap running full blast and beckoned Ryan closer before speaking quietly.

‘They’re ruthless,’ Kazakov said. ‘They wouldn’t have brought us here if they wanted us dead.’

‘Is the money real?’ Ryan asked.

‘As far as I can tell,’ Kazakov said. ‘And they think we’re who we say we are.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Ryan asked.

‘They haven’t searched us, or taken our phones,’ Kazakov said. ‘IDoJ are clearly hoping for an on-going relationship with the Aramov Clan, so they can’t treat us like prisoners.’

‘What about the explosives?’ Ryan asked. ‘There’s been no sign of them, except the first few minutes when we pulled out of the airport.’

‘We changed cars; if the explosives are coming here they’ll almost certainly change trucks too,’ Kazakov said. ‘It takes time to load and unload, and they’ll take different routes to avoid suspicion.’

Ryan nodded, as he pulled out his phone and switched it on. ‘So it’s unlikely they’d get here before us, but we should keep an eye out for trucks arriving.’

Kazakov had switched the kettle on and by this time it was making enough noise for him to turn off the tap.

‘Do you think the FBI tracked us here?’ Ryan asked.

‘No way to know,’ Kazakov said. ‘If they did, lucky us. But we have to assume that we’re on our own and act accordingly.’

Ryan looked at the face of his phone and saw the no- signal bar. ‘I guess it was never likely to work out here in the middle of nowhere.’

‘We’ve only got one bathroom,’ Kazakov said. ‘If I get in the shower and take my time, how about you take a stroll up to the house and try working out what’s going on?’

‘And if I’m caught?’

‘Don’t sneak around,’ Kazakov said. ‘Stick your hands in your pockets and take a stroll. If they stop you, just say your guts are playing up. Your dad’s in the shower and you were looking for somewhere to take a shit.’

‘Right,’ Ryan said. ‘Shall I go now?’

Kazakov shook his head. ‘Give it half an hour. Rest up and give them a chance to let their guard down. Plus it’ll be nearly dark by then.’

As the sun set in Alabama, it was 4 a.m. on CHERUB campus. James Adams was sleeping in the third-floor quarters he was sharing with Bruce when he got woken by an unfamiliar ringtone.

‘Are you gonna answer that?’ James shouted, as he sat up.