CHERUB: The General (35 page)

As James looked down from the ceiling he saw a green hammer encased in glass, and below it a set of instructions on how to use it to smash the windows in case of an emergency.

‘Where you at?’ James asked anxiously, when Kazakov finally answered.

‘Cashing out took ages,’ Kazakov moaned. ‘I had to fill out a form before they’d pay my winnings. Money laundering regulations, apparently. I’m in the car, driving down ramps in the parking lot.’

‘Right,’ James said, putting his face up to the glass and shielding his eyes to cut out reflections. He spoke in a whisper so that the three passengers at the opposite end of the compartment didn’t overhear. ‘Security’s all over me. I’m looking at a big Denny’s restaurant on the north side of Reef Drive about five hundred metres from the junction with the Strip. That’s where I’m gonna try and meet you.’

‘Where are you now?’ Kazakov asked.

‘No time to explain,’ James said. ‘Just be there in five minutes’ time.’

He snapped the phone shut, then used his elbow to smash the piece of glass covering the hammer.

James didn’t want to be watched, so his first move was to jump high and swing the little hammer at the surveillance dome. It took two cracks to break it open, by which time one of the men sitting on the bench had jumped up.

‘What the hell d’ya think you’re doing?’

James tried to look menacing. ‘I’m not hurting you,’ he shouted. ‘Sit down.’

But he was a big fellow and he wasn’t going to be intimidated by a sixteen-year-old. James faced a dilemma: normally when he went on a mission and had to punch someone out it was for the greater good, but what about now? He didn’t like the idea of being a guy who broke someone’s nose just so that he could make a few bucks.

The guy stopped for an instant and James thought his threat had worked, but he took another step as James reached up and used the end of the hammer to rip the rotating camera out of its socket. He gave James a two-handed shove.

James was in deep shit and short of sitting down and waiting for a set of handcuffs he had no option but to lash out. He punched the big man hard in the face, then kneed him in the guts as he stumbled backwards. A final shove sent him crashing head first into the doors.

‘I told you to stay out of it,’ James warned, as the man’s girlfriend screamed out. ‘And she’d better cut that racket out as well.’

It was one of the worst moments of James’ life. He was scared, he’d just battered someone whose only motivation was to stop him from vandalising a train and despite a lifelong history of making bad decisions and doing stupid things, this felt like the worst.

But that didn’t mean James was in any mood to surrender and let his whole life go down the toilet. The window with the escape sign had a triangular sticker in the corner. A red dot in the centre had the words
strike here
encircling it.

James hit hard. The first blow cracked the shatterproof glass and the second turned it into a sheet of tiny pebbles. He stepped back, grabbed the overhead handrail with both hands and swung forwards. His trainers crashed through, knocking out the entire rectangle of glass and sending it hurtling down on to the road directly below.

James leaned through the hole and wasn’t impressed. The single rail was completely enclosed by the body of the train, which meant there was nothing but a fifteen-metre drop on to the six lane highway below. He looked back nervously at the big man, who sat on the floor by the doors, clutching his stomach while inspecting his sunglasses to see if they were broken.

James didn’t fancy his chances, but he imagined the reaction of Lauren and all his mates on campus if he got expelled, and for some reason the prospect of that humiliation seemed worse than the thought of plunging to his death.

It was too high to jump: even if he didn’t break both legs on landing he’d get hit by a car two seconds later. He’d have to climb up on the roof and drop down on to the concrete plinth along which the train ran.

He’d been over sections of the height obstacle on campus that were trickier, but the thing was he had no idea if there was any way down, except at the stations where the cops would be waiting for him.

There was a grab handle designed for maintenance and cleaning crews working on the outside of the train. James took hold, stepped up on to a plastic seat and then on to the window ledge itself.

‘You’re gonna kill yourself!’ the female passenger shouted.

‘Good,’ her boyfriend answered.

James was strong and had no problem twisting around to face the train and then swinging his legs up on to the roof. The train drew its current from the rail below, so there were no overhead cables to trouble him as he bolted across the curved plastic roof towards the rear of the train.

The train had an aerodynamically sloped nose at each end. James leaned over the rear of the roof to check where he was going and saw a girl of about six who was standing on the seats inside looking out. She screamed with fright and a tourist with a video camera swung around and filmed James as he slid down the glass nose and landed unsteadily on the metre-wide concrete plinth where the train met the track.

It was only now that it occurred to James that the double-ended train could run in either direction. There might be a reception party awaiting him in the Reef station, but he now realised they could just as easily run the train back towards the Vancouver, squishing him in the process.

It didn’t bear thinking about. James set off. The electrified track and running gear for the train were built into the sides of the plinth, so James had a narrow but completely flat concrete path ahead of him, vanishing into the darkness.

Running was dodgy, so James walked quickly before stopping to inspect the Y-shaped pylon twenty metres behind the train. Each end of the fork supported one lane of track, but there was a conspicuous absence of footholds or rungs to climb down and even if he slithered down into the seat of the Y he’d still be too high to jump.

As he walked on, he heard an alarming rumble. At first he thought his train was coming after him, but another had pulled out of the Reef station on the second track. It was accelerating hard and touched fifty miles an hour as it whizzed past in a blur of light. The rush of air forced James to crouch down and grasp the sides of the concrete plinth.

He stood up, increasingly desperate for an encounter with either a pylon fitted with rungs or a point where the track crossed a building and he could jump down on to a rooftop. As the train on the opposite track shrank into the distance its rear lights showed him the way: a tatty billboard advertising a call-girl service was mounted under the tracks less than fifty metres away.

James cast a nervous glance backwards and jogged briskly towards the sign. The train wasn’t moving, but alarmingly there were three police cruisers with flashing blue lights turning from the Strip on to Reef Drive.

The billboard was ten metres high, made from aluminium sheet and held up by three wooden trusses which were bolted to the roof of a fast-food joint directly below. It topped out a few centimetres below the monorail plinth and James rolled over the edge and lowered his foot on to the top of the aluminium.

It had to withstand desert winds, so James knew the structure would hold his weight, but he still got a fright as he clutched the aluminium bar at the top of the billboard. The whole frame flexed and the aluminium sheets boomed under his weight.

The next phase was similar to the pole slide on the height obstacle on campus, except for the added complication of having to negotiate past spotlights mounted atop the billboard. The casings were hot enough to melt skin and swarms of desert moths swirled around them.

It took James half a minute to make it three metres from the monorail track and on to the top of an angled wooden truss. He clutched the side and shuffled down the forty-five degree angle before landing gently on the flat roof of the food joint.

Away from the Strip the streets of Las Vegas are pretty deserted. As far as James could tell nobody had seen him climb down, but the police would take about a second to figure out his escape route once they arrived and shone torch beams up at the monorail track.

James kept low as he walked across the single-storey roof. When he peered over the guttering, he was pleased to find himself facing a brick wall and a deserted rear parking lot, rather than the glass-windowed restaurant packed with diners he’d have found out front.

He dropped off the roof, his nose filled with the smells of food waste and cooking oil as he jogged around to the front of the restaurant. He was actually at the rear of a cluster of fast-food joints built around a small parking lot off Reef Drive.

Customers sat at outdoor tables in the chilly night air eating burgers and fried chicken, and nobody looked James’ way as he did his best to change his appearance: pulling off his baseball cap and dark sweatshirt to reveal a pale orange polo shirt beneath it.

The driveway at the front of the outdoor food court led on to Reef Drive itself. The Strip casinos were ablaze with light and in front of it were the two monorail tracks and the raised pedestrian walkway. James’ train was now rolling towards the Reef station at walking pace while a pair of police cars was parked directly under the bridge. They’d shut off one side of the road because of the pane of shattered glass.

James walked past a line of tacky souvenir stores, towards the brightly lit Denny’s sign, looking for a break in the traffic. He dashed in front of a tour bus, then vaulted the metal division in the road’s centre before strolling across the other side, which was blocked by the cops.

Much to James’ relief, Kazakov was waiting in the black Ford. James ripped off his backpack and climbed into the front passenger seat.

‘What happened?’ Kazakov gasped. ‘You got something to do with them cops back there?’

‘Drive now, talk later,’ James said firmly. ‘They’ll figure out where I went in a minute or two and seal off this whole block.’

Kazakov pulled out of his parking space. ‘If the cops are on our backs, we’d better leave town.’

‘Yeah,’ James nodded. ‘Airport here might be a bit dodgy. We should drive to Los Angeles. There’s loads of flights to Britain from there.’

Kazakov glanced at James. ‘Drive through the night, get a flight early tomorrow morning. You ring the control room on campus, get them to sort some flights.’

‘Right,’ James nodded. ‘What if they ask why we’re not flying out from Vegas?’

‘Christ knows,’ Kazakov said. ‘Tell them we fancied a road trip.’

‘What about this car? It belongs to Fort Reagan.’

‘General O’Halloran said to leave it at the airport,’ Kazakov smiled. ‘He didn’t say
which
airport.’

The main Interstate between California and Nevada runs parallel to the western side of the Strip. James had been too overwhelmed to pay attention to where they were going and was surprised to feel the car accelerate. He looked out the window as Kazakov sped up an onramp and pulled on to the eight lanes of Interstate Five.

It was eleven at night. The road moved freely but the traffic was heavy and James felt a wave of relief as he relaxed into his seat, revelling in the anonymity of their black Ford. The southern end of the Las Vegas Strip was already shrinking into the distance and James realised that they’d got away with …
something.

He jolted up in his seat and turned to Kazakov. ‘How much?’ he blurted.

‘Receipt’s in the glove box.’ Kazakov smiled.

James popped the flap and saw a clear plastic wallet with a stack of bills inside. He unravelled the bag and looked at the receipt.
The Vancouver, $92,300, please visit again next time you’re in town!

‘Not bad for one night’s work,’ James grinned. ‘Not bad at all.’

Less than ten minutes earlier James had experienced one of the worst moments of his life. He’d taken a massive risk and still felt guilty about the man he’d beaten up in the monorail carriage, but now he was mostly elated as his head was filled with all the things that $30,766 could buy: nice clothes, days out, expensive meals, treats for girlfriends, holidays, a flash motorbike.

‘Tell nobody on campus,’ Kazakov said firmly. ‘Spend it carefully. Don’t be flash.’

‘I know, boss,’ James smiled. ‘I’m not stupid.’

As James spoke a huge 4x4 cut in front of them, forcing Kazakov to squeeze the brake pedal. ‘American idiot!’ he shouted, blasting the horn before turning to glance at James. ‘Make that phone call to campus,’ he ordered. ‘Sort the plane tickets. I can’t stay in this country for another day.’

Ten days later

‘Come in,’ James shouted.

He’d finished afternoon lessons and was lying on his bed trying not to think about a particularly nasty essay he’d been set for his English GCSE.

Lauren came around the door. She looked tired and her hair was wet, like she’d just had a shower.

‘Welcome home,’ James smiled. ‘Good time? How’d the rest of the exercise go?’

Lauren crashed in the swivel chair at her brother’s desk. ‘Not bad,’ she said, kicking the carpet with her socked foot and starting to twirl slowly. ‘The exercise was lame after Kazakov left. They brought in all these extra rules. Both sides were doing everything by the book, and of course the American commander had no idea what cherubs are capable of. By the sixth day Sarge got so bored that we started a mini revolt with the SAS guys and we killed our commander and started a riot.’