Cherub Black Friday (16 page)

Either way, Ryan now had to rely on his eyes. It would be too risky to follow Igor in visual range for long, but Ryan didn’t want to go back to the Kremlin with nothing, so he decided to take a chance and follow Igor for a couple of minutes.

Igor had a backpack and two big shopping bags. Ryan realised he was heading for his old Toyota wagon. But instead of driving off, the Russian locked the shopping in the back before crossing the car park and entering a shabby café alongside the bazaar’s metal-canopied bus station.

Once Ryan was sure Igor was staying, he headed inside himself. The café’s strip lighting was dazzling after the outdoor cloud. There were fifty tables, but only six customers.

All were men and Ryan got a shock when he noticed a stage at the back with a couple of not-very-attractive women dancing and vaguely making threats to take their tops off. There was also a bar where more women stood about in short skirts and too much make-up. Most were so skinny that Ryan reckoned they had to be drug addicts.

Igor was at a table off to the side of the stage, speaking with another blond Russian who could have been Igor’s brother, though he was bigger and had a squashed-up nose. Before Ryan could learn any more a buxom waitress came over and spoke words she’d clearly said a million times before.

‘I’m Lulu your hostess, can I get you something to drink?’

‘Coke,’ Ryan said warily.

‘Right you are, sweetie,’ Lulu said, jotting something on her pad and pointing towards the bar. ‘Any of our girls catching your eye?’

‘I just thought it was a normal café,’ Ryan explained. ‘I don’t have to  …  I mean, can I just have a drink while I wait for my bus?’

‘Free country,’ Lulu said, before crouching down and winking. ‘Don’t be shy. Call me if you want a girl to come over.’

‘Really, I’m great,’ Ryan said. ‘I’ve got a girlfriend.’

He felt like adding,
a girlfriend who isn’t a prostitute
.

Once the waitress had cleared off, Ryan tried working out what Igor and the squashed nose were up to. They didn’t have much to say to each other, but Igor slid some papers across the table and a roll of money in an elastic band went the other way.

Ryan had been looking for some form of electronic communication, but Leonid Aramov had lost most of his fortune when TFU hacked into his online banking. After being bitten once, it made sense that Leonid would revert to more traditional face-to-face communication for his Kremlin spy.

‘Coke,’ the waitress said, as she banged a bottle and glass on the table, along with a bill for three times what it would have cost in any café that didn’t have ugly women dancing about.

Ryan wanted a picture of Igor’s companion. The iPhone would be too obvious, but he had a sugar-cube-sized spy camera in case something cropped up. As Ryan raised the bottle of Coke to his lips, he simultaneously aimed the tiny camera and clicked off three pictures of the Russian.

He only just got them in time. As a belch rose up Ryan’s throat from the Coke bubbles, Igor and squashed nose parted with kisses on the cheek. The big dude headed off behind the bar as Igor went for the exit. But before he made it, he took a swerve and came for Ryan.

His tone wasn’t angry, but wasn’t friendly either. ‘I saw you in the mirror when I was having my hair cut. Then again in the parking lot.’

Ryan’s guts flipped, but he kept his voice casual and changed the subject to sidestep a
was I or wasn’t I following you
type conversation.

‘You’re Kremlin,’ Ryan said, smiling with recognition. ‘You played poker with my dad a few times.’

‘Kazakov’s boy,’ Igor said, his tone warming. ‘I heard what happened, I’m sorry.’

Ryan shrugged and looked down at his spitting Coke. ‘Shit happens.’

‘You haven’t bought much for someone who’s been walking the bazaar for three hours,’ Igor noted.

‘Gotta keep an eye on my money,’ Ryan said. ‘Dad left a few thousand, but I don’t know when I’ll get any more. Just came out to wander. Walls of my room were closing in on me.’

‘And you came in here for  …  ?’

‘I’d heard you could get a girl in here,’ Ryan said. ‘Thought it might make me feel better.’

Igor laughed. ‘There’s a hundred better places than this if you want a girl.’

Ryan spoke quietly. ‘I’d happily pay these women to put more clothes on.’

Igor roared with laughter, then stuck a ten-som note on Ryan’s table to pay for his Coke. ‘You heading back?’ he asked. ‘You want a lift?’

‘For sure,’ Ryan said.

‘Igor kept asking questions about America, but I didn’t give much away,’ Ryan told Amy. ‘Just that we lost Irena’s money and I made it to the liaison in New York on a Greyhound bus.’

They were back in the map-room on the fourth floor and Amy was plugging Ryan’s miniature camera into her laptop.

‘Hello, stranger,’ Amy said excitedly, when the first of Ryan’s three photos cropped up.

Ryan moved closer as Amy zoomed in on the dude with the squashed nose.

‘Know him?’ Ryan asked. ‘They’re quite alike. Brothers maybe?’

‘I don’t know if they’re related,’ Amy said, as she used the track pad to zoom the face. ‘But you remember the explosion on the beach?’

‘Not something I’m likely to forget,’ Ryan said, remembering the first phase of the Aramov mission.

He’d been staying at a beachfront house in California, a few doors from Ethan and Galenka Aramov. His mission was to befriend Ethan and pick up information about the clan. This ended abruptly when two goons rocked up in rubber dinghies, murdered Galenka and blew up her house. Ethan only survived because Ryan helped him escape through a window minutes before a bomb went off.

‘After you ran back to our house with Ethan, I crept between the houses and got a glimpse at the two assassins as they left,’ Amy explained. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s one of them.’

Ryan felt a tingle of excitement. This all but confirmed Igor’s link to Leonid. ‘How certain are you?’ he asked.

‘Ninety-six point three four per cent,’ Amy joked. ‘It’s a distinctive face, but Ethan got a much better look at the assassins. I’ll e-mail the photo to Ted Brasker and he can get Ethan to confirm the ID.’

‘And what next?’ Ryan asked.

‘I’ll have to try and find out more about Mr Squashed-Nose, but that’ll be hard without more manpower.’

‘Can we get someone in?’

Amy shook her head. ‘We’re supposed to be winding down the Aramov Clan. I’m gonna have a hard time getting extra agents on board for a side mission.’

‘I thought Dr D was keen on catching Leonid,’ Ryan said.

‘Undoubtedly. But she’s serving out her last weeks before forced retirement, with the head of the CIA and the Intelligence Secretary right on her back.’

‘What about CHERUB?’ Ryan asked. ‘Zara was
totally
on our side in the meeting.’

‘Could be worth a shot,’ Amy said, smiling as she realised this was a decent idea. ‘You’re more than a pretty face, Ryan.’

Ryan grinned, like you’d expect a teenage boy to grin when a hot girl throws out a compliment.

‘Igor wants to be my new best friend,’ Ryan said. ‘On the drive back to the Kremlin, he wanted to know if I’d heard any gossip. I mentioned that Andre Aramov was a mate. He got excited and told me he’d make it worth my while if I heard anything interesting.’

‘Good stuff,’ Amy said. ‘Tamara’s got this idea that Leonid will reach out to her if he hears that she’s in trouble.’

‘So do I tell Igor she’s in trouble?’ Ryan said.

Amy shook her head. ‘Not yet. Keep friendly with Igor, but don’t push too hard or he’ll get suspicious. I’ll speak to Zara on campus. She’s got years of experience and we need to work out how to play this. We want to lure Leonid Aramov out of hiding, but he’s utterly ruthless, so we’ve got to do it in a way that doesn’t lead to Andre and Tamara getting killed.’

The following morning, Zara Asker knocked on a door in the second-floor staff corridor on CHERUB campus.

‘I’m in the nuddy!’ James Adams shouted anxiously. ‘Gimme two secs.’

James answered the door with dripping hair, a towelling robe and a dour expression.

‘How’s it going?’ Zara asked, as she glanced about. ‘You look rough.’

The room was messy, with a brown stain where a coffee mug had been smashed against the wall.

‘I’ll clean that up,’ James said awkwardly.

‘I’m more worried about what caused it,’ Zara said. ‘Are you OK?’

James shrugged. ‘My girlfriend, Kerry,’ he explained. ‘She was supposed to be flying to campus for Christmas once she’d sat her last exam. Now she’s saying the flight’s too expensive.’

Zara looked surprised. ‘If Kerry has financial problems we can look into it. CHERUB supports all its retired agents.’

James shook his head. ‘I’m not short of a few quid. I’d pay her fare, no problem. It feels like she doesn’t want to be around me any more.’

‘There’s counsellors on campus if you want to talk it over,’ Zara said. ‘I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but I’ve got a full morning and I came here to talk to you about something else.’

‘Sorry,’ James said, as he picked a couple of china fragments off the carpet and dropped them into a pedal bin. ‘You’ve got four kids and a mental job. The last thing you want to hear about is my love life.’

‘I’ve been hearing good things about your work,’ Zara said. ‘Ning and Alfie were complimentary about the way you handled the driving course.
Tough but fun
, apparently. And Mr Pike says it’s been really useful having you helping out with training this week. There’s going to be a vacancy now that Kazakov’s gone. I’d look upon you favourably if you applied.’

James nodded. ‘I miss the buzz of CHERUB. I like being back on campus, but I don’t think I’m cut out to be a training instructor. You need a certain meanness to put kids through basic training and I don’t have it. I think the job would make me miserable.’

Zara nodded. ‘I couldn’t do it either. But we’re looking to replace Kazakov. His role spanned training and mission control. Would you consider a role that mixed the two?’

James smiled, then nodded uncertainly. ‘I think Kerry wants to stay in the US for at least a couple more years.’

‘We’re short-staffed right now,’ Zara said. ‘I’m happy for you to continue working for CHERUB on a casual basis for another month or two, but I’ll need a decision early in the New Year.’

‘I’ll have a think,’ James said.

‘I know you’ve been helping Mr Pike with on-campus training, but there’s something else I need you to do. A little side project.’

‘What?’ James asked.

‘You know Amy works for TFU?’

‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘She seemed to be really enjoying herself.’

‘TFU is getting axed because of its role in the Black Friday attacks. But Amy wants to track down a guy named Leonid Aramov before the shutters go down and needs our help. I’ll send you a briefing with the full background story on Leonid Aramov and TFU’s Aramov Clan operation, but it basically boils down to this:

‘Amy and I have devised a plan to find Leonid Aramov using his ex-wife and eleven-year-old son as bait. The trouble is, they’re likely to encounter moderate danger and neither has any kind of combat or espionage training.’

‘So, some kind of express training programme?’ James asked.

‘MI6 will take care of Tamara,’ Zara said. ‘They have an established rapid training program designed for diplomats being deployed to high-risk countries. But the only expertise in training a boy like Andre Aramov is here on campus.’

James nodded. ‘So I’d be training this kid one-on-one. How long would I get?’

‘Ten days,’ Zara said. ‘That’s not enough time to significantly improve strength or fitness levels. You’ll need to devise a programme concentrating on essentials. Basic self-defence moves, weapons handling, safe communication protocol. I’ll get Mr Pike to help you draw up the programme, and this is high priority so you’ll have your pick of resources. If you need other agents or staff on hand, they’re yours.’

‘Why are you picking me?’ James asked warily. ‘Aren’t there more experienced instructors who’d do a better job?’

Zara smiled. ‘First off, Amy says Andre’s timid and you have a good rapport with younger kids. I made you godfather to my eldest, after all. Second, Andre’s first language is Russian. His English is patchy and Kazakov was my only other Russian-speaking instructor. I’m sorry to throw you in at the deep end, but the training department is stretched supermodel-thin right now.’

Amy set her alarm for 4:30 a.m., dressed quickly and headed from her bed in Josef Aramov’s spare room to his brother Leonid’s old quarters down the hallway.

Andre answered the door in pyjamas. Amy squeezed past wheelie bags and backpacks in the hallway and into a kitchen where Tamara stood at the stove warming a saucepan of milk.

‘All packed?’ Amy asked. ‘Don’t worry about what you’ve left. I’ll make sure nobody gets in here while you’re away.’

Tamara made a big fuss of getting Andre to eat a hot breakfast. ‘It’ll be weird British food on the plane, Andre. I know how fussy you are.’

But Andre was up three hours earlier than usual and his stomach could only handle a couple of mouthfuls. Ryan knocked twenty minutes later and Amy gave their plan a final run-through when Andre emerged from the shower.

‘It’s got to look like you two vanished into thin air to maximise the drama,’ Amy began. ‘Hoods and gloves on at all times to minimise the chance of you being recognised as you leave. Take the stairs down, go out the rear fire exit, cross country to the stables and up the side of the valley. The ground’s icy, so be careful.’

‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ Andre asked.

‘Ryan knows the way,’ Amy said. ‘I’m supposed to be Uncle Josef’s girlfriend. Too many questions will get asked if I’m seen helping you two escape. When you get to the top of the valley, there will be a car and driver waiting. He’ll have your boarding passes and British passports in false names. It’s forty minutes’ drive to Manas International. The British Airways flight takes off at eight a.m. We’re not expecting difficulties, but an MI6 agent posing as BA cabin crew will meet you once you’ve passed through security. She’ll take you to a VIP room, so that other passengers don’t see you before you board the plane.’