CHERUB: Mad Dogs (31 page)

John’s demeanour and Chloe being female was enough for Simeon to decide that they were cops. ‘I could have you for this,’ he said, wagging his finger as he sat down. ‘There’s proper procedure.’

‘There certainly is,’ John said, as he reached across the desk and pulled Simeon’s phone off the hook. ‘But you can’t make a complaint if you don’t know who we are.’

‘The security services are always interested in the drug business,’ Chloe said, as she flashed a fake MI5 ID. ‘Drug smugglers and terrorists are almost interchangeable when you get to the top level.’

‘But a man should only have one master,’ John added.

Chloe smiled. ‘And a man with two should at least have the common sense to switch his mobile phone once in a while.’

‘If you have information, arrest me,’ Simeon boomed, sweeping his hand through the air. ‘Otherwise get outta my face.’

‘We
could
arrest you,’ John said. ‘But you’re not that big a fish.’

‘We’re more interested in what might happen if recordings of conversations between yourself and Sasha Thompson slipped into the hands of Major Dee,’ Chloe said. ‘What was it you said yesterday?
Don’t worry Sasha old friend, I’ll be sending some juicy business your way soon
.’

John nodded. ‘And the amount of paperwork we have to fill in if we bust anybody these days, it would be so much easier to have Major Dee deal with matters …’

Simeon ran nervous fingers through his greying stubble. ‘Will you pay me for information?’

John and Chloe both laughed. ‘We think you’re making enough already,’ John said.

‘We’re looking at the big picture here,’ Chloe said. ‘You’re leaking information so that Sasha Thompson can rip off Major Dee. If you can tell us exactly where it’s going to take place, the cops can set up surveillance and tape the whole show.’

Simeon shrugged. ‘You don’t need me for that if you’re listening to my phone calls already.’

‘It’s a one-shot deal,’ Chloe explained. ‘We want to know every detail; not just what goes between you and Sasha over the telephone. If we get it right we’ll have strong evidence of Major Dee, Sasha Thompson and all of their little helpers handling drugs and guns.’

‘And what happens to me?’ Simeon said. ‘They’d kill me, in prison or out. I’d need full immunity and a free ride out of the country.’

‘You’re not getting immunity,’ John said. ‘But we’ll turn a blind eye long enough for you to move your assets out of the country and ship out to Jamaica, or wherever else you think you’ll be safe. I know that’s not perfect, but it’s better than an appointment with Major Dee’s cordless drill.’

Simeon sucked air between his teeth. ‘It could be difficult …’ he said. ‘Very tough to get Sasha and the Major together at one time. They’re both cautious men.’

‘The Mad Dogs are a small crew,’ Chloe said. ‘Sasha coordinates all of the big robberies personally.’

Simeon steepled his fingers and nodded. ‘There is one way, but …’

‘But what?’ John asked.

‘Major Dee rarely handles major deals himself. But he’s desperate to stop the Mad Dogs stealing from him. If the Major was tipped off about being robbed by the Mad Dogs, he’d be in on the ambush for sure.’

John whistled. ‘So you tip Sasha off about a drug deal, you also find a way to tip Major Dee off about being robbed, and the cops will be on hand to film the entire show.’

‘It’s quite a plan, Simeon,’ Chloe said. ‘Maybe you could balance a ball on the end of your nose at the same time.’

‘I’m fifty-three years old,’ Simeon replied. ‘I don’t want to go to prison and I don’t want Major Dee to kill me. I’m not stupid. People at your level only approach people like me when the game is already rigged. I’ll work with you, but I have a solicitor in London. I want paperwork drawn up guaranteeing me safe passage out of the country, signed by whoever my solicitor wants it signed by to make it legal.’

‘Sounds fair,’ Chloe said. ‘But what’s our timescale for you setting this up? Are we talking weeks, months, or what?’

‘Major Dee has two or three large shipments of cocaine coming out of Jamaica every week,’ Simeon explained. ‘But Sasha needs time to plan carefully and I suppose the police would need time to set up surveillance too?’

‘Absolutely,’ Chloe nodded.

‘Then perhaps ten days. There’s regular shipment that comes in by container. I’ve never mentioned it to Sasha because it’s one of Major Dee’s mainstays.’

Chloe looked baffled, but John understood.

‘You earn plenty out of Major Dee,’ John clarified. ‘You only want Sasha to skim off some cream, not to destroy the whole Slasher Boys organisation.’

‘Precisely,’ Simeon nodded. ‘I have a friend who can give me exact information on the delivery of cocaine by this afternoon. I can tell Sasha about the delivery immediately, but letting Major Dee know that he is likely to be robbed is more complex. I’ll have to put some thought into exactly how we achieve that.’

‘Obviously we can help you out,’ Chloe said. ‘But now you’re working for us you’ll have to stay in touch and we’ll need to know where you are at all times.’

Simeon stood up and reached casually across the desk to shake hands. ‘If you’re fair with me you’ll have no problem,’ he said.

James hadn’t seen Junior since their hug on Tuesday night. He called up during a rare appearance at school and James agreed to meet him by the gates as he left. It was a bright afternoon and the boys pouring out of the tatty school building were all in shirt sleeves.

‘I called yesterday to see if you were OK, but your phone was off or something,’ James said.

‘It’s my mum,’ Junior explained. ‘Woke me up at seven yesterday morning and told me to put on a shirt and tie. She’d stitched me up with an interview at yet another private school. It was right in the middle of nowhere, with all these kids playing rugby and countryside all around it. God it was a toilet…’

‘You’re not going are you?’ James said anxiously. ‘I’m on the waiting list at this school. If you leave, I might have to start getting educated again.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Junior grinned. ‘I didn’t want my ma getting upset, so I played along during the interview and stuff, but this idiot deputy headmaster kept going on about the cadet force and how they liked to
mould young boys like me
, as if I was Blu Tack or something. Then he started talking about the Inter-House Cup, which was like
why do I give a shit
? The thing was, I never actually thought they’d accept me, but this place must have been in serious need of pupils because they offered to take me for a trial period.’

‘Oh crap!’ James gasped.

‘I totally freaked,’ Junior continued. ‘I mean, I didn’t mind playing along when I didn’t think they’d take me, but once I realised that I was like
millimetres
from going back to boarding school I went nuts. I started making really loud chicken noises and there were some little kids outside the window and I leaned up to the glass and yelled
do any of you fags want to buy cocaine
?’

James laughed uneasily. ‘You’re a nutter.’ He was worried about the way Junior was going off the rails.

‘It got me out of the school, but it wasn’t really funny ’cos my mum was bawling her eyes out,’ Junior said. ‘I mean, I know she cares about me, James, but I wish she’d leave me alone. I’m never gonna be the little lawyer that she wants me to be. I ended up promising that I was going to knuckle down at school and try getting my GCSEs.’

‘So she was OK after that?’

‘She was better, but she’s not a Muppet. Just because I’m in school today doesn’t mean that I’ll be in school tomorrow … And you know what I was talking about the other night?’

‘What?’ James said, though he knew and he’d been dreading it.

‘I’ve got a job,’ Junior said. ‘There’s a kid in my tutor group called Alom. His parents run some chicken-shit travel agency in town. They’ve got a
bureau de change
in there as well and there’s always cash in the safe because they do money transfers. You know, like people sending money home to their relatives abroad and that?’

‘And what do
you
know about cracking safes?’ James asked cynically.

‘Not a sausage, but I do know how to stick a gun to someone’s temple and say,
Open the safe or I’m gonna decorate the wall with your brains
.’

As Junior said this he unzipped his school pack, revealing a gun. James eyed the rough metal seams, and noticed that the handle was made out of shiny plastic instead of wood.

‘That’s so fake,’ James said. ‘It looks like an Airfix kit.’

‘It’s a blank firing replica,’ Junior said. ‘But it’s been drilled out to fire real ammunition.’

Britain has some of the tightest gun controls in the world. These crudely converted weapons were common, but James wasn’t impressed.

‘I wouldn’t touch one of those,’ he warned. ‘You pull the trigger and it’s as likely to explode in your hand as fire a bullet.’

‘But the dude’s not gonna
know
that when I stick it in his face, is he? And besides, you’ve got that little gun. That’s a quality piece.’

‘When are you gonna do it?’ James asked, as they walked past a huge crowd of kids at a bus stop.

‘I cased the joint last night. They open early and shut late.’

James shook his head. ‘Junior, you don’t case a joint in
one
night. Me and Bruce spent three weeks looking at that hard front before Sasha moved on it.’

‘It’s one old Indian dude,’ Junior said, sounding narked. ‘He carries the key to the safe with a big bunch of other keys on his belt. We get up early tomorrow morning. We grab him just as he opens, he pulls out the money and we’re out with five grand in under five minutes.’

‘Sorry mate, but I don’t like it,’ James said.

‘What!’ Junior gasped. ‘This is a sweet job, James. I’ve had my eye on it for a while.’

‘Sasha won’t—’

Junior cut him off. ‘Don’t mention that man’s name, OK? Maybe
you’re
raking it in, but I’ve got six quid and an HMV voucher my mum gave me for Easter; and that’s no exaggeration.’

James decided to play for time. ‘I’m not saying no, but remember what I said about getting some money together and setting up our own crew properly? I can lend you a few hundred to tide you over until then.’

‘I’m sick of hand-outs,’ Junior yelled. ‘All my life I’ve been Keith Moore’s son, or I’ve had my mum on my back, or Sasha looking out for me. I want my own action. I can rob the travel agent tomorrow. Then I’ll use the money to buy some coke and grass and I can sell it around at school. The sixth formers snort and smoke like there’s no tomorrow, but they’re too scared to approach a dealer on the street so they’ll always pay over the odds. Give it a month and we could have twenty or thirty grand, fit girls on our arms and all the white powder we can stick up our noses.’

James shrugged. ‘It just isn’t the right time for me, Junior.’

‘You know what your problem is?’ Junior sneered. ‘You’re chicken.’

James tutted. ‘Yeah I’m chicken. I just helped take down a hard front for Sasha. That’s how chicken I am.’

‘There you go again,’ Junior shouted. ‘Sasha, Sasha, Sasha. Stick with him then, arsehole. I planned the travel agent as a one-man job anyway, so I’m going in tomorrow whether you and your boyfriend like it or not.’

‘Junior, calm down,’ James said, as he tried to grab Junior’s arm. ‘There’s kids everywhere.’

But Junior shoved James away. ‘Get your hands
off
me. You’re treating me like a baby, same as everyone else.’

‘Come on, mate,’ James said.

Junior’s push almost knocked him into a Year-Eight kid walking behind them.

By the time James had regained his footing and told the kid he was sorry, Junior was storming down the road. James knew there was no point going after him.

*

Bruce was lying on his bed at the Zoo when Chloe called.

‘The meeting went really well,’ she said. ‘Simeon’s going to set up a deal for next Wednesday. The ethics committee aren’t gonna be happy when they hear about the hard front, so this is going to be our only shot at taking down Major Dee and Sasha before we’re all hauled back to campus.’

‘At least we’ve got a chance,’ Bruce said hopefully.

‘Simeon
is
making all the right noises, but he’s hardly what I’d call trustworthy and we’ll have to keep our eyes on him. I want you and James to stick as close to Sasha as you can. He seems pleased with you boys, so hopefully he’ll drop some hints at the planning stage. The police have also been doing surveillance on Sasha, but so far they’ve got nothing except blurry photos and I wouldn’t hold out much hope of things improving.’

‘It’s a small crew,’ Bruce said. ‘So even if we’re not involved in the planning, Sasha’s bound to want us involved in the robbery.’

‘Hopefully so,’ Chloe said. ‘I’m going to ask Michael to do exactly the same for Major Dee’s side of the operation. I’m liaising with Chief Inspector Rush on the anti-gang taskforce, but he’s concerned that his unit isn’t a hundred per cent leak free, so he’s getting experts in from another force to run the surveillance operation. The local coppers won’t be told what’s going on until shortly before they have to move in and make arrests.’

‘I’ll make sure James is in the loop,’ Bruce said.

‘Where’s he disappeared to?’

‘He went to meet Junior,’ Bruce said, as he glanced at the watch resting on his bedside table. ‘I thought they’d go into town or something, but James called to say that he was coming back here, so I expect we’ll head over to Sasha’s later on.’

‘OK, keep in touch,’ Chloe said.

Bruce put his phone down and headed off to the toilet for a pee. James was in the bedroom when he got back and he wasn’t happy.

‘Junior’s
such
a moron,’ James yelled furiously, as he pulled his top off and flung it at his bed.

‘What’s he done?’

‘He’s got a crappy converted pistol and he’s planning to rob some travel agent first thing tomorrow morning. I did everything I could to talk him out of it, but he won’t listen.’

Bruce shrugged. ‘He’s a spoilt brat. What did you expect?’

James looked surprised. ‘I thought you said he was OK.’