CHERUB: The General (13 page)

‘In pitch darkness?’ Bethany huffed. ‘And the cops will find out where they are as soon as they untie the guards.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Andy sighed. ‘But we’ll never get that tarp over the wire, so why not give it a go?’

As Andy turned around he saw two small figures racing across the grass, with half a dozen RAF police and a pair of dogs on leads chasing after them.

‘Over here,’ Andy shouted, waving.

‘What are you doing?’ Bethany gasped, batting Andy’s arms down and trying to cover his mouth. But Kevin and Ronan had already turned towards them.

‘Straighten out the tarp,’ Andy ordered. ‘Let’s get back up there.’

‘Why?’ Bethany shouted. ‘And who put you in charge?’

‘Trust me,’ Andy said firmly.

He seemed confident, so despite complaining Bethany helped him flatten the tarp, draped it over her shoulder and they started climbing again. As they neared the razor wire, Ronan and Kevin arrived, with cops and dogs a couple of hundred metres behind and gaining.

‘You two climb up under this tarp, then push it over the wires,’ Andy ordered.

Ronan didn’t get it straight away, but Kevin had done a training exercise where his team used a similar technique to get through coils of barbed wire by trampling it down under tent fabric and planks of wood.

The small footholds meant the eleven-year-olds had an easier time climbing up the four metres of wire than their older team-mates. As Bethany and Andy stretched the hanging tarp between them, Kevin led the way climbing the fence beneath it.

When he got near the top he pushed the tarp outwards, so that the top bulged out around his head, then gripped the fence with one hand while using the other to start feeding it over the razor wire. Ronan had now worked out what they were trying to do and joined in, while with the tarp’s weight now shared by four instead of two, Andy and Bethany could reach up and fling the corners.

‘Are we there?’ Kevin asked, as the barking dogs closed to within ten metres of the fence.

Andy nodded as he saw the thick tarp spread over the wires, but it was too dark to see whether any of the barbs were poking through, or know for sure that the razor wire wouldn’t slice through both the tarp and his fingers when he grabbed hold of it.

‘Feels OK,’ Andy said, relieved, as he swung his leg over and bounced gently on the coils of barbed wire.

‘Get down from there!’ an RAF officer shouted. Two dogs snarled and jumped at the fence, but didn’t get within a metre of the quartet’s legs.

Andy swung his legs over on to the far side of the fence before jumping clear and rolling as he landed on the soft ground.

Kevin and Bethany followed within seconds.

‘AARGHHH,’ Bethany screamed. ‘I landed in a cow pat. It’s all over me!’

There was nothing to stop the RAF officers from scaling over the tarp behind them, so before jumping down, Ronan squirted it with the pepper spray he’d taken from a guard and lit it with a lighter.

As Ronan landed, the pepper spray ignited and the plastic covering over the tarp began to smoulder. But one RAF officer seemed determined to hoist himself over the flaming sheet and the razor wire, so Andy grabbed the last bearing out of his coat pocket and shot him in the chest from less than five metres.

‘Does anybody have wire cutters?’ a policeman shouted.

‘Flank them,’ a military policeman yelled. ‘Get men out the front gate into the fields to hunt them down.’

Andy was impressed at Ronan’s quick thinking. ‘Where’d you get the lighter from?’

‘Had it in my jeans,’ Ronan said, ankles slipping as he ran through heavy mud. ‘I’ve always enjoyed setting light to stuff.’

‘Nice one,’ Andy said, grabbing his phone to call his mission controller as the four cherubs set off across the dark field. ‘Dennis it’s Andy, we need a fast pick-up … That far? I know there’s cops everywhere boss, but—’

‘What’s the matter?’ Ronan asked, as Andy snapped his phone shut angrily.

‘Dennis won’t drive in to pick us up. He says too many questions will be asked if he’s spotted picking us up on a main road. He’s set a new rendezvous point five kilometres across country.’

The four cherubs groaned. After all they’d been through, none of them fancied a five-kilometre run across muddy farmland.

They jogged at a steady pace, occasionally bumping into each other in the dark.

Kevin looked at Bethany. ‘Did you really land in cow shit?’ he asked.

‘Yes I did,’ Bethany snapped. ‘I’m covered in it and if any of you so much as smirks, I swear I’ll kick you
so
hard …’

‘So the dogs got Jake,’ Kevin said, trying to change the subject because he didn’t want to start laughing. ‘What’s happened to Rat and Lauren?’

*

Rat had seen this moment in movies a hundred times. The car hits the fence, the posts holding it up shatter and it blasts on to the road with a shower of sparks dragging behind it.

‘Brace yourself,’ Rat shouted to Lauren, as he realised to his horror that he hadn’t buckled his seatbelt in the rush to escape.

He glanced at the speedo as the small Fiat ploughed towards the fence. But the front wheels couldn’t grip in the mud and they ploughed into the fence at less than twenty miles an hour. There was a great metallic crash and a loud bang as the front airbag exploded in Rat’s face. One of the concrete posts snapped and the nose of the car reared up high into the air until they were almost vertical.

Lauren thought the car was going to topple backwards on to its roof, but the other fence post finally snapped. The car tipped forwards and began sliding down a muddy embankment.

‘Hit the gas,’ Lauren screamed. ‘Have you stalled it again?’

Rat’s ears rang from the airbag explosion and he could only just hear Lauren’s orders.

‘Engine’s dead,’ he yelled back, as a haze of white powder from the airbag filled the air. ‘Must be a safety cut-out when the car tips up that much.’

It was pitch dark and Rat couldn’t see over the semi-inflated remains of the airbag, but he could feel the car sliding gently down an embankment. He squeezed the brakes full on, but it had no effect because the wheels were aquaplaning.

After a ten-second slide, the front of the car hit a tree, turned sideways and came to a halt in a twenty-five centimetre deep puddle. Lauren pushed her door, but it only opened far enough to embed itself in the mud and flood the car with brown water.

As they crawled over to the passenger side, which pointed into the air, a mixture of regular cops and military police scrambled down the muddy slope and surrounded the car. Lauren heard the unmistakeable click of a rifle being loaded, and while she doubted the RAF police would shoot a couple of unarmed kids, the sound still sent a shudder down her back.

‘Get out of the car, keep your hands where I can see ‘em,’ a man shouted as he grabbed a door and wrenched Rat from the front passenger seat. Lauren found her own way out, but in the chaos she’d forgotten her twisted ankle and collapsed into the deep puddle.

A huge RAF policeman yanked Lauren up and pushed her against the car. As she struggled to blink muddy water out of her eyes she looked up and saw a series of photographic flashes fired off from the edge of the puddle.

Lauren buried her face in her hands as the military policeman dragged her backwards out of the water.

‘Get that camera out of my face,’ she screamed. ‘Go on, piss right off!’

‘So it’s all over?’ Dana said.

It was Saturday morning. James sat on a swivel chair in the middle of his room. There was a bath-towel stretched underneath it to catch falling hair.

‘Yep,’ James nodded. ‘Bradford was my target, but he’s been busted and I can’t go back undercover because officially I’m on the run.’

‘The riot looked like a laugh,’ Dana smiled, as she clipped a plastic comb to a set of hair clippers. ‘Are you sure you want a number one? ‘Cos once I start there’s no going back.’

James nodded. ‘I only re-dyed it two weeks ago. If you leave it any longer I’ll still have green bits at the tips. Besides, the last time I cut it really short you said it was sexy.’

‘If you say so,’ Dana said half-heartedly, as she turned on the battery-powered clippers.

She started with the tallest part of the Mohican and clumps of green-tinted hair rolled down James’ back and landed on the towel.

‘Is everything OK with you?’ James asked.

‘Pardon?’ Dana said, switching off the buzzing clippers.

James tilted his head up to look at Dana standing behind him. ‘While I was away, you acted kind of distant … I mean, I sent you messages and you never answered me half the time, or called back.’

Dana turned the clippers back on. ‘Keep your head still or we’ll be here all day.’

‘That’s
exactly
the kind of thing I’m talking about,’ James said bitterly.

‘What
are
you on about?’

‘Changing the subject.’

Dana leaned forward and kissed James’ cheek. ‘I’ve been busy,’ she said. ‘I had that rotten cold and the coursework for my art A-level is doing my head in.’

‘But everything’s OK, isn’t it?’ James said. ‘I’ve seen your paintings. Even the ones you say are rubbish are a million times better than anything I could do.’

Dana tilted James’ head forward and started clipping the back of his neck. As she worked, James reached backwards and pushed his hand up Dana’s baggy shorts.

‘Stop buggering about you randy git,’ she snapped. ‘If you don’t keep still, your hair’s gonna end up a right state.’

But James ignored Dana and yanked her shorts down to her knees.

‘Get off,’ she said, turning off the clippers before rapping James on the head with them.

James tutted. ‘We were all over each other before I went off on the mission.’

‘I’m not in the mood,’ Dana said firmly. ‘Keep your head
still.’

‘Come
ooooooon
,’ James begged, before jumping off the chair and making a grab for Dana’s bum. ‘I haven’t seen you for three weeks. My nuts are swollen up like mangos.’

‘Quit pestering me,’ Dana yelled, giving James a shove and throwing the clippers at his bed. ‘You can cut your own bloody hair.’

‘What!’ James gasped, as he chased Dana out into the corridor. ‘I’m sorry. I was only messing about.’

‘Learn some respect, arsehole,’ Dana shouted, before heading up the stairs to her room. ‘If I say I’m not in the mood, it means I’m not in the mood.’

As he headed back towards his room, James saw Kevin leaning sleepily out of his room across the hallway, dressed in the grey CHERUB T-shirt and underpants he’d slept in.

‘Sorry mate,’ James sighed. ‘I know you had a late night. I didn’t wake you up did I?’

Kevin was a recently qualified agent and he hadn’t settled into life in the new building. He wanted James to be his friend and wouldn’t have complained even if he had been woken up.

‘Nah,’ Kevin yawned. ‘I need to get down to the dining-room before they stop serving breakfast, anyway.’

James saw his hair in a mirror as he stepped back into his room. In some spots he was virtually bald, while other areas still had long tufts of spiky green hair.

‘What a state,’ James said.

‘Do you want me to help tidy up your hair?’ Kevin asked. ‘We used to do each other’s over in the junior block, rather than queuing up for hours when the barber comes around.’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ James said eagerly. ‘I could probably reach around and finish it off myself, but it’s a lot easier when someone else does it.’

‘I’ll just get dressed,’ Kevin said.

James sat back on the chair as Kevin came into the room, tying the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms before picking up the clippers.

‘Women,’ James sighed. ‘If you want my advice Kevin, keep them out of your life as long as you possibly can.’

‘I’ll try,’ Kevin smiled, as he turned on the clippers and started working on the tufts of green hair. ‘Keep your head still.’

‘I don’t know what’s up with Dana. Before I went away we were in the zone, you know? Now it’s like,
poof.
She doesn’t answer my calls; she doesn’t like me touching her. I mean, what the hell is with that?’

Kevin wondered if he should tell James that he’d seen Dana cheating. But Lauren had warned him not to get involved and James had a reputation for lashing out at the wrong people when he got angry.

‘Sorry, mate,’ James said, as the mirror on the front of his wardrobe caught the look of discomfort on Kevin’s face. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you by talking about my love life.’

‘Guess I’ll be going through the same in a few years,’ Kevin said awkwardly.

‘You’re better at haircutting than Dana, anyway,’ James smiled, as Kevin skilfully moved the clippers over James’ head.

Kevin smirked. ‘I’ll be expecting a decent tip then.’

After Dana’s moodiness, James appreciated the company of a cheerful eleven-year-old who he knew looked up to him.

‘So how was your little mission with my sister last night?’ James asked. ‘I hear there was some trouble.’