CHERUB: Guardian Angel (6 page)

‘Nothing,’ Daniel gasped, as he inspected the slab.

‘Well?’ Leon shouted from up top.

As Daniel stepped backwards shaking his head, Ning arrived and checked out the slab for herself.

‘There’s not even a tiny scratch,’ she shouted, as she went down on one knee. ‘I can’t believe it. How are we supposed to break this thing?’

‘Maybe this is a red herring,’ Daniel said, as he peeled his wet T-shirt over his head to wring out. ‘If this is unbreakable there
must
be another set of T-shirts hidden somewhere on the island.’

‘Where?’ Ning asked. ‘It’s not like we haven’t looked.’

Daniel glanced at his watch. ‘It’ll start getting dark in an hour. We can’t get the cannon back up the cliff, but we can take the slab in case we think of something else.’

‘There has to be a way to do this,’ Ning said, as she cupped her hands around her head. ‘We can’t fail now, we’ve got to
think
!’

The three trainees spent the remaining daylight hunting for more T-shirts, or a tool which would enable them to smash the glass slab. But they got nowhere and by 11.20 p.m. Ning, Daniel and Leon had given up. They sat around a fire close to the spot where they’d landed, staring at the stars and feeling sorry for themselves.

‘I just
know
the solution is gonna be something simple,’ Ning said, as she warmed her hands close to the flames. ‘We’ll kick ourselves
so
hard.’

‘At least it’s over,’ Leon said. ‘Get back to campus tomorrow. Proper hot shower, clean clothes, big greasy breakfast.’

‘And all our mates taking the piss because we failed training,’ Daniel added sourly.

Leon’s stomach rumbled as he sifted small pebbles between his fingers. ‘Even if we worked out what we were supposed to do now, it’s probably too late to get it done.’

‘Maybe the instructors forgot something,’ Ning said. ‘I mean, some piece of equipment we were supposed to have, because I just can’t think of a way to do this.’

As Ning spoke, Daniel heard a buzzing sound in his pocket. He dived into his shorts and pulled out a matchbox-sized walkie-talkie.

‘We’ve been expecting your call all day,’ Instructor Speaks said cheerfully. ‘Wearing those grey T-shirts yet?’

‘No, sir,’ Leon told the walkie-talkie miserably.

‘Ask him for a clue or something,’ Daniel whispered. ‘Can’t do any harm at this stage.’

Speaks’ crackly voice came over the intercom. ‘I didn’t copy that, trainee.’

‘It was nothing, sir,’ Leon said. ‘Just Daniel asking for a clue.’

Mr Speaks gave one of his most evil laughs, and the trainees were pretty sure they could hear Mr Kazakov chortling in the background too.

‘A clue,’ Speaks said incredulously. ‘How about I tell you what the glass is made of?’

‘I guess that could help,’ Leon said.

‘It’s bullet-proof glass,’ Speaks explained. ‘The kind you’d fit in the window of a presidential limousine. It’s designed to withstand three thousand degrees heat, or a direct hit from an artillery shell travelling at supersonic speed. Your chances of breaking it with anything on that island were nil.’

Leon gasped. ‘So there’s some other hidden T-shirts on the island somewhere?’

‘Nope,’ Speaks said.

Leon sounded irritated. ‘So how are we supposed to get our grey T-shirts?’

‘Trouble is, twelve trainees started basic training and with only three left we couldn’t really have any more dropping out on the last day. But rather than tell you you’d passed, we thought we’d make you suffer until the last moment.’

‘So this was impossible?’ Leon said, as Ning and Daniel joined him in staring incredulously at the walkie-talkie. ‘Does this mean we get our shirts?’

‘Mr Kazakov and I are about to get in a motorboat and come across from the next island. I’ve got some chicken and rice in a hot box, a few cold Cokes and three grey CHERUB T-shirts. I reckon you’ll be wearing them before midnight. Speaks out.’

‘This better not be some twisted joke,’ Ning said, as Leon put the radio back in his pocket. ‘If it is, I
swear
to God I’ll castrate one of those instructors.’

*

One of the few good things about being at the Kremlin – at least if your surname was Aramov – was the catering. Ethan set his alarm for 7.20 on school days and ten minutes later a woman would knock and bring in a tray of whatever he’d ordered from the basement kitchen before going to sleep the night before.

It had taken the chef a while to master American-style pancakes with bacon, but now that they’d had decent maple syrup flown in from Canada it was as good as anything Ethan had been served in a flash hotel.

But once Ethan’s stomach was satisfied there was only the prospect of a grim Tuesday of school and another evening of movies or video games. When Ethan got to the school bus he was pissed off to find Natalka talking to Vladimir, the sixteen-year-old son of an aircraft mechanic.

Very few boys stayed at school beyond the age of fifteen and Vlad was no exception. He was using the bus to hitch a ride into Bishkek and he seemed to be trying to persuade Natalka to bunk off and spend the day in town with him. The dude had all the personality of a brick wall, but Natalka dug his muscular body and wavy blond hair and was flirting like mad.

‘Total slut,’ Andre said as he came up to Ethan. ‘Didn’t I say that just yesterday?’

Ethan tutted and looked irritated, but Andre spoke again before he thought of a response.

‘My dad wants to see you.’

Ethan gulped. Leonid Aramov didn’t summon people for tea and biscuits, or a nice chat.

‘What for?’

‘Don’t ask me. I just heard him telling Boris not to let you on the school bus.’

‘Did he sound angry?’ Ethan asked.

Andre smirked. ‘My dad always sounds angry.’

Ethan grew more anxious when his nineteen-year-old cousin Boris came bounding out of the Kremlin lobby and gave the bus keys to Vlad.

‘You know the route?’ Boris barked.

As Vlad settled in the driving seat and the other kids started boarding the bus, Boris took Ethan by his upper arm and gave him a yank.

‘Your uncle wants to see you at the stable.’

Ethan had assumed Leonid would want to see him in his sixth-floor office. Trekking out to the Aramovs’ stables made matters more sinister. The only positive thing was that it seemed unlikely that his uncle would try anything underhand after it had been announced that he wanted to see him at the stables in front of a dozen witnesses.

The stables were a kilometre’s walk across rocky ground.

‘You know why your dad wants to see me?’ Ethan asked, as he struggled to keep pace with his much larger cousin.

‘Just shut your face and do what you’re told,’ Boris snapped back.

There was a steep downwards slope on the final approach to the stables. The ground was slippery and when Ethan hesitated, Boris gave him an almighty shove accompanied by an enthusiastic shout of, ‘DOOSH!’

Ethan crashed forward, sprawling out and smashing his elbow on a wooden post. Boris closed in and threw a kick, but as Ethan flinched Boris pulled the blow.

‘How can a skinny tit like you be related to me?’ Boris shouted, getting his head right in Ethan’s face as he yanked him to his feet. ‘I’ve plucked chickens that are tougher than you.’

Ethan shuddered as his cousin walked close behind him. The stable block was in an L-shape, running along two sides of a muddy paddock. Most of the horses kept here were used by Aramov security men who patrolled the surrounding hillsides looking for thieves, spies and covert surveillance devices.

Leonid Aramov’s stable office had a big stone fireplace and hunting trophies mounted on the wall behind his desk. He wasn’t as pumped as his two sons, but Leonid’s eyes were mean little slits and he fitted the Russian gangster stereotype nicely with a tight leather jacket and three days’ stubble.

‘My little nephew,’ Leonid said. ‘How are you settling in?’

‘I’m getting by,’ Ethan said, feeling uncomfortable with Boris towering behind and the thought that the man at the desk had almost certainly ordered his mother’s death.

Leonid went into his desk drawer. He pulled out a small stack of papers and beckoned Ethan closer.

‘SatCom Internet bill,’ Leonid explained, waggling papers in the air as Boris shoved Ethan closer to the desk. ‘Our bill has been four or five hundred US dollars a month since forever. But you arrive and suddenly, we get bills for sixteen hundred, eighteen hundred dollars.’

Ethan pretended to be mystified. ‘I don’t have a computer. I’m not even allowed to use the Internet.’

‘Cut the shit,’ Leonid boomed, as he made an angry stab with his pointing finger. ‘Only family can get on the sixth floor and use computers on the satellite link.’

‘There’s loads of staff on our floor,’ Ethan said.

‘Whoever it is uses a proxy and wipes their history every time they log off, so we can’t tell what they’ve been looking at,’ Leonid said. ‘Do you think your grandma’s nurse could manage that? Or that one of the other staff would suddenly start doing it as a kid who happens to know an awful lot about computers arrives on our floor?’

Boris growled in Ethan’s ear. ‘Confess or I’ll pulp you.’

‘OK, I admit it,’ Ethan said. ‘My mum left me money. So what if I surfed a few sites? I’ll
pay
for your satellite bandwidth.’

Leonid rose up from his desk and thumped the table. ‘I don’t like that smart mouth. You were
told
not to communicate with anyone from your past life. The CIA and FBI will be monitoring all your online accounts. The clan still has major business interests in the United States and after your mother’s death and your disappearance the authorities there are over us like a rash. You start spouting your mouth off about something you shouldn’t and you could screw that up.’

‘You think I’m an idiot?’ Ethan snapped back. ‘I’m not a baby. You think I didn’t keep secrets when I lived with my mum in California?’

Ethan heard an almighty crack as Boris smacked him around the back of the head. ‘You dare talk back to my father?’

As Ethan stumbled, Leonid walked around the desk to face him off.

‘There’s a natural order to things,’ Leonid explained. ‘I’m at the top, you’re at the bottom. If I can’t trust you when you’re living two rooms away, I sure can’t trust you to keep your trap shut when you’re off at some poncy school in Dubai.’

To drive the argument home Leonid twisted Ethan’s ear.

‘You can’t stop me from going to boarding school,’ Ethan said, his voice getting higher as his uncle cranked up the pain. ‘You’re not the boss of the clan. It’s up to Irena.’

‘I ought to smash your fingers for this defiance,’ Leonid shouted. ‘You’d better learn to respect me, because your grandma won’t be around for much longer, and then . . .’

‘Then what?’ Ethan shouted, as Leonid tailed off. ‘Maybe I’ll get murdered, like my mom did?’

Leonid laughed and snapped his fingers. ‘If I wanted you killed, I could kill you like that.’

‘If that was true I doubt I’d be standing here,’ Ethan scoffed. ‘Irena has eyes and ears all over the Kremlin. You might act like the big man, but you can’t take a shit without your mommy knowing all about it.’

Leonid cracked a knuckle, then laughed incredulously. ‘What makes you so sure that I killed your mother?’

Ethan shrugged. ‘It would make a
lot
of sense.’

‘You have no idea what you’re talking about and you’d best be careful who you go spouting your theories to,’ Leonid said. ‘Besides, I’m not here to debate with a child. Just stay away from the computers or there will be deep trouble.’

Ethan shook his head contemptuously as he turned towards the office door. This insolence popped Leonid’s fuse and within seconds Ethan found himself face down against the desktop, with Leonid’s thumb jammed painfully between his shoulder blades.

Leonid looked at Boris as Ethan squirmed. ‘Get the cosh.’

‘Piss off,’ Ethan spat.

Ethan couldn’t look around far enough to see Boris taking a half-metre-long rubber cosh out of a filing cabinet, but he felt Leonid ripping his jeans and boxers down to his knees in a single violent stroke.

‘Noooo!’ Ethan moaned, as Leonid enthusiastically swung the cosh against his bare arse.

The pain was extraordinary and the humiliation compounded by Boris howling with laughter and pulling an Android phone out of a pocket.

‘Say cheese!’ Boris whooped, as he snapped a picture. ‘I wonder what Natalka will say when she sees this.’

Fortunately Leonid only gave his nephew three strokes before turning Ethan on to his back and eyeballing him.

‘Mouth shut, fingers off computers,’ Leonid ordered. ‘And no school for the rest of this month. You can come out here to the stables and shovel horse shit.’

‘I’ll tell Irena,’ Ethan said. ‘She’s my guardian, not you.’

‘You don’t know my mother so well,’ Leonid laughed. ‘Go
right
ahead. Tell her you’ve been using her computer when she ordered you not to, but don’t be surprised if one of her security guards gives you a
lot
worse than three strokes on the arse.’

Ethan wasn’t sure if Leonid was bluffing as he meekly pulled his trousers back over his stinging arse, but he’d heard that Irena could be ruthless with family members who pissed her off and he’d already pushed Leonid as far as he dared.

Leonid smiled. ‘Right, Boris, go introduce our little California girl to the stable hands. And tell ’em that if I catch Ethan slacking, I’ll blame them and dock them half a day’s pay.’

CHERUB campus always looked immaculate, not least because there were plenty of kids on punishment duty sweeping paths, pulling weeds and mowing several hundred acres of lawn. On this sunny March day it looked especially picturesque because the sun had come out and the Japanese cherry trees lining the central path from the education block to the training compound were in full blossom.

‘Spring pisses me off,’ Amy Collins said, rubbing her nose before exploding into a sneezing fit. ‘Stupid pollen.’

The stunning twenty-four-year-old was strolling alongside Ryan Sharma. She was a former CHERUB agent who now worked for TFU (Transnational Facilitator Unit), a branch of the American intelligence service that was targeting the Aramov Clan. She’d also played the role of Ryan’s older sister on his mission in California.