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  ‘Get moving,’ Kerry said anxiously, looking at James. ‘He’ll start coming around in no time and I don’t want to have to knock him out twice.’

  James stepped over Joe and ran into the flat, checking inside every room to make sure nobody else was home. There were pizza boxes and rubbish everywhere. The smell of stale cigarette smoke made his eyes water. Once he knew the flat was empty, he helped Kerry drag the semi-conscious Joe through to the living-room.

  ‘Find something to tie him up with,’ Kerry shouted.

  James ripped the electric cables out of the back of the video and the satellite box. Joe struggled a bit, but they managed to knot the flex tightly around his wrists and ankles.

  ‘Where’s our drugs, Joe?’ Kerry asked, bunching her fist in the air above him.

  ‘How old are you guys?’ Joe grinned. ‘Thirteen, fourteen?’

  ‘Nearly thirteen,’ James said.

  ‘I’ve seen it all now,’ Joe said. ‘You guys were supposed to get scared and run home to Mummy.’

  ‘Shut it,’ Kerry said in a firm voice. ‘From now on, you talk when I say so and you better make sure I like the answer. So, for the second time, Joe, where are our drugs?’

  ‘Found ’em,’ James said, spotting the two backpacks beside the couch.

  He unzipped them, making sure the stuff was still inside.

  ‘Look for the gun, and anything else you don’t want him coming after us with,’ Kerry said. She kept Joe under control while James searched the flat. The shotgun was inside Joe’s leather jacket, hanging up by the front door. James found a pistol and more drugs under the bed. It was cocaine in one-gram bags, identical to what James delivered most nights.

  He’d been trained where to look for hidden stuff and an uneven piece of skirting was a dead giveaway. James pulled it off and found two supermarket carrier bags stuffed with more cocaine, and a few thousand pounds in scrunched-up cash. James stuffed the drugs into the carrier bags on top of the money and carried the lot into the living-room.

  ‘Shall we take all this?’ James asked.

  ‘Why not?’ Kerry said, smiling. ‘He made us suffer.’

  ‘We better not hang around here,’ James said.

  ‘You kids are in way over your heads,’ Joe gasped.

  Kerry bunched up her fist. ‘Did I ask for your opinion?’

  She grabbed a wad of serviettes out of a greasy pizza box and forced them into Joe’s mouth.

  ‘Are we gonna call a cab, or what?’ James asked.

  Kerry pointed at a picture on the wall. ‘Is that parked around here somewhere?’

  James looked over his shoulder at a framed photo of a slimmer, younger Joe, standing in front of an American car. It was a fancy two-seater, with mad-looking air scoops on the bonnet and a two-tone orange paint job. James read the little gold plaque stuck on the frame: 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1. Tuned to 496 Horsepower.

  ‘They look like car keys on the coffee table,’ Kerry said.

  Joe wriggled his arms and furiously tried to shout something through the serviettes plugging his mouth.

  James grinned as he picked up the keys. ‘Sure beats hanging around for a mini-cab to turn up. Where’s it parked?’

  ‘You wouldn’t leave that on the street around here. It must be in one of the garages out the back.’ Kerry pulled the soggy wad of tissue out of Joe’s mouth. ‘What’s your garage number?’

  ‘If you touch my car,’ Joe gasped, spitting bits of white fluff off his tongue, ‘you’re both dead.’

  Kerry smashed her trainer into Joe’s guts.

  ‘Next time it’ll be your balls …’ Kerry shouted, as Joe groaned in agony. ‘What’s your garage number?’

  ‘No way,’ Joe grunted.

  ‘James,’ Kerry said sweetly, ‘hand me the gun, please.’

  James passed it across. Kerry pulled down on the stock to load it and pointed the sawn-off barrel at Joe’s knees.

  ‘The next word out of your mouth had better be a garage number,’ Kerry snarled. ‘Or it’s gonna take a miracle to get the bloodstain out of this carpet.’

  James knew Kerry wouldn’t pull the trigger, but she put on a good act and Joe wasn’t so confident.

  ‘Forty-two,’ Joe said.

  ‘How hard was that?’ Kerry said. ‘And if you’re lying, I’ll come back here in a minute and blow off your foot before I ask again.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Joe gasped. ‘I lied … It’s in number eighteen. Why don’t you call a cab? It’s a very powerful car. Do you kids even know how to drive?’

  ‘Don’t you worry yourself about that,’ James said.

  All CHERUB agents are taught to drive. It’s essential to be able to escape on wheels if things turn nasty.

  ‘Why don’t you take a pair of Joe’s trainers?’ Kerry asked.

  ‘Too big,’ James said. ‘They’ll be like clown shoes on me.’

  ‘We better rip the phones out,’ Kerry said. ‘We don’t want him calling his pals before we’re well on our way.’

  She pulled the phone out and kicked the socket off the wall with her heel. James pocketed Joe’s mobile and demolished the extension in the bedroom.

  Kerry grabbed both backpacks.

  ‘Ready to go?’ she asked.

  James got the carrier bags with the money, pistol and Joe’s drugs. They went out of the front door and walked briskly along the balcony, down the stairs and around to the garages at the back. Kerry’s head was spinning so fast, she never noticed that she still had the shotgun in her hand.

  The padlock sprang open and James noisily rolled up the metal door of garage number eighteen. The Mustang looked better than the day it had come out of the showroom, thirty-five years earlier. Crazy Joe had spent serious money on it.

  ‘Bags I’m driving,’ James said, unlocking the driver’s door and lowering himself into the leather seat. Kerry didn’t care, she wasn’t into cars.

  James moved the seat as far forward as it would go so he could reach the pedals. He’d learned on the private roads around campus in a little car with an engine the size of a thimble. He wasn’t prepared for the thunderstorm when the tuned V8 blasted to life, juddering through the pedals into his socked feet.

  ‘Hooooooly mother,’ James grinned, searching for the headlight control.

  The road ahead lit up and the dials on the dashboard turned electric blue. James put the automatic gearbox in drive and rolled the gargling beast out of its pen.

  The first couple of kilometres were dodgy. The car had big acceleration, but the brakes had much less bite than on a modern car. It caught James out when he nearly went into the back of someone at the first set of traffic lights. Once they were a few kilometres clear, he parked. Kerry found a road atlas under her seat and worked out the route home. By the time they got on to the motorway, James was feeling confident. When the road ahead was clear, he couldn’t resist slamming the accelerator and taking it up to 110mph.

  The trim inside the car started to shake and Kerry started going bananas.

  ‘Really sensible, James,’ she shouted. ‘Two kids in a stolen car carrying guns and drugs. I tell you what: why don’t we attract lots of attention by slaughtering the speed limit?’

  After seeing the way she’d dealt with Joe, James decided it might be best if he slowed down.

  *

  They parked the stolen Mustang at the back of a DIY store about a kilometre from Thornton. It was gone eleven o’clock and, now the adrenalin rush had worn off, James and Kerry felt like they could sleep for twenty hours.

  ‘We could leave the keys in the door and someone will nick it,’ James said.

  ‘It’s got our fingerprints all over,’ Kerry said. ‘Joyriders usually burn cars out. If we don’t want it to look suspicious, that’s what we’ll have to do.’

  James gave the car an admiring glance. ‘Seems a shame to kill it.’

  Kerry leaned inside and flipped open the glove box. She found Joe’s cigarettes and lighter, then tore pages out of the road atla
s and screwed them up into loose balls. When there was a mound of paper on the passenger seat, she flicked the lighter and set the edges alight. They left the passenger door open so the fire could breathe, then ducked into some trees and waited until they were sure the flames had taken hold.

  The front seats were quickly ablaze. Once the roof lining caught, the flames flashed into the back. The whole interior glowed orange and smoke started curling out from under the hood.

  ‘Better run,’ James said. ‘There’s bound to be a security guard round here somewhere.’

  They’d only gone a hundred metres when the heat blew out one of the back tyres. A few seconds later, the fuel caught and the back end of the car went up in a fireball.

  It was less than a kilometre home, but they were feeling their injuries and the walk seemed to take for ever. James had a pounding headache. When they staggered through to the kitchen, Ewart jumped up from the table, surprised by the state they were in. He made them both hot drinks and sandwiches while Zara and Nicole cleaned up their cuts and bruises.

  ‘Shower and go to bed,’ Zara said, after they’d explained what had happened. ‘Don’t bother getting up for school in the morning. You both need a good day’s rest.’

  ‘I better ring Kelvin first,’ James said.

  ‘OK,’ Ewart said. ‘Do that while Kerry’s in the shower, then go straight to bed.’

  18. RISKS

  James was out as soon as he hit the pillow and the next thing he knew it was 10 a.m. the following morning. He had six huge bruises, a couple of grazes and a giant scab on his bottom lip. When he stood up, his thigh muscle felt tight and he could only manage short steps.

  Down in the kitchen, Joshua was on the floor playing with some magnets he’d pulled off the fridge door and Kerry was at the table in her nightshirt. She looked shell-shocked.

  ‘Sleep OK?’ James asked.

  ‘Not bad,’ Kerry said. ‘Zara just made a pot of tea if you want some.’

  James poured a mug and got a bowl of cereal.

  ‘I can’t believe all we went through last night,’ Kerry grinned. ‘If I didn’t hurt in ten places, I might believe it was all a dream.’

  ‘Same here,’ James smiled. ‘You were so tough on Crazy Joe when you had him tied up. I know you’ve got a temper, but I’ve never seen you juiced-up like that before.’

  ‘I was so angry,’ Kerry said. ‘I mean, what kind of scuzzball pays skinheads to beat up kids?’

  ‘At least Kelvin seemed cool when I explained how we got the drugs back; and we saved the mission.’

  Zara stepped in from the garden and threw an empty laundry basket down beside the washing machine. She’d heard James’ last line.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘sometimes a mission isn’t worth saving.’

  ‘What?’ James gasped.

  Kerry looked surprised as well.

  ‘I respect what you two did last night,’ Zara said. ‘You made a decision under tricky circumstances and it came off. But Ewart and I both feel you should have come home. It was an unacceptable risk going up against a man with a gun.’

  James and Kerry both looked wounded.

  ‘There’s no need for those faces,’ Zara said.

  She picked Joshua off the floor and sat him on her lap at the table.

  ‘CHERUB is one of the most secret organisations in the world,’ Zara explained. ‘Only two people in the British government know it exists: the Intelligence Minister and the Prime Minister. When politicians first find out about CHERUB, they’re usually queasy about putting kids in danger. Then Mac explains about all the useful work cherubs do and the lengths we go to to make you guys safe.

  ‘Imagine if you two had been hurt, or even killed, last night. Mac would have had to go to London to explain the facts: two kids got mugged and went chasing after an armed drug dealer. At the least, Mac and the senior people within CHERUB would be sacked for letting something so irresponsible happen. The politicians might even decide they can’t stomach what CHERUB does and shut the whole show down.’

  Kerry nodded. ‘When you put it like that, I can see it wasn’t worth it.’

  ‘Sorry,’ James said.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,’ Zara smiled. ‘Just try to be less gung-ho from now on.’

  *

  Kelvin rang James’ mobile around midday.

  ‘I’ve been making calls about what happened,’ he said. ‘Can you meet us down here at the boxing club and bring everything you got off Crazy Joe with you?’

  ‘I’m not in shit, am I?’ James asked.

  ‘No, no way,’ Kelvin said. ‘I just want you to fetch the stuff down and we’ll see you right. And that bird you had with you.’

  ‘Kerry,’ James said.

  ‘Yeah, bring her as well.’

  *

  Kerry had never been up to the boxing club. The gym was quiet at this time of day; just a few of the more serious boxers putting themselves through punishing workouts. Ken, as always, sat in his chair holding a mug of tea and watching everything that happened.

  ‘They’re using my office,’ he said. ‘Knock before you go in.’

  A gigantic man in a suit and tie stood guard at the door of the dingy office. James did a double take when he got inside. Crazy Joe was leaning against the back wall; he had a bloodstained dressing over a cut in his forehead. Kelvin sat on a cabinet off to one side and the big cheese himself was in the cracked leather chair at the desk.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Keith Moore said.

  He didn’t look like anyone special. A smallish man, with cropped brown hair. He wore Levis and a white polo shirt. The only conspicuous sign of wealth was a chunky gold ring.

  ‘I haven’t had the pleasure before,’ Keith said, reaching over and shaking James’ and Kerry’s hands. ‘Have you brought everything you took off Joe?’

  James rattled the carrier bags between his legs.

  ‘It’s all in there.’

  ‘I take it you know who I am?’ Keith asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘I’ve seen you at your house. I was on the Playstation with Junior.’

  ‘My business runs itself these days,’ Keith said. ‘People go off to South America to buy stock, stock arrives, stock gets distributed.’

  James noticed that he never referred to drugs or cocaine, in case the room was bugged.

  Keith continued, ‘Sometimes I go for weeks hearing the same message: all the usual problems, boss, but nothing we can’t handle. Then, just when you think nothing is ever going to excite you, something turns up like what you two did last night.’

  ‘It was a test, wasn’t it?’ Kerry asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ Keith smiled. ‘You won’t last long in business without loyal people. The best way to find what they’re made of is to give them some fake merchandise and put them in a situation like we put you two in last night. Some people get scared and turn hysterical. Those are the ones who’ll cause problems if they get busted. We have to kick them out. Some people are sorry for losing the merchandise, but they tough it out and beg for another chance. That’s what we’re hoping for: guts and determination. Until last night, though, nobody ever showed enough guts to hunt down and get revenge on the guys we paid to rob them. What you two did was very impressive.’

  James and Kerry both smiled.

  ‘This is all nice and cosy,’ Crazy Joe said bitterly. ‘But what about my stuff?’

  ‘Yes,’ Keith said. ‘You’ll have to return what you took from Joe.’

  ‘What about us?’ James said. ‘I’ve lost my best trainers. We both lost our watches and mobiles and stuff.’

  ‘Joe can return them,’ Keith said.

  Joe cleared his throat. ‘Actually, I said the two guys who duffed them up could keep what they took.’

  ‘OK,’ Keith said. ‘Take five hundred quid out of Joe’s money, that’ll cover it.’

  ‘That’s a bit steep,’ Joe said tersely. ‘It’s not my fault the brat was wearing expensive trainers.’<
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  Keith repeated himself. ‘Take five hundred quid out of Joe’s money, that’ll cover it.’

  He didn’t change his tone or anything, but Joe knew his place and didn’t push the argument. James took five hundred pounds and split it with Kerry. After that, he slid the carrier bags over to Joe.

  ‘Is that everything you took?’ Keith asked.

  James nodded. ‘Everything.’

  ‘Where’s my Mustang parked?’ Joe asked.

  James and Kerry looked awkwardly at each other.

  ‘We were scared you’d report it stolen and our fingerprints were all over the inside,’ James said.

  ‘You didn’t clean them off with white spirit, did you?’ Joe asked. ‘White spirit dries out the leather.’

  ‘No, we didn’t,’ James said. ‘We, erm …’

  He didn’t have the bottle to say it.

  ‘We burned the car out,’ Kerry blurted.

  ‘You did what?’ Crazy Joe shouted, lunging over the desk and grabbing James by his T-shirt.

  ‘Let him go,’ Keith said, firmly.

  ‘I’ll kill these little pricks,’ Joe shouted, dragging James across the desk and trying to get his hands around his throat. James thrashed about, trying to push Joe off.

  Joe had ignored Keith’s order, so Keith gave Kelvin the nod. Joe was no match for the powerfully built boxer; Kelvin picked up the fat man like he weighed nothing, banged him against the wall and slapped him around the face. Joe let out a high-pitched yowl that could have come from an eight-year-old girl.

  ‘That car was my baby,’ he sobbed. ‘I spent months working on her.’

  Kelvin backed off with a stunned look on his face. Joe dabbed up tears with the end of his beard.

  ‘Wasn’t it insured?’ Keith asked.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Joe sniffled. ‘I invested love in that car. You’ll never get that back.’

  Keith was killing himself laughing. ‘Joe, it’s only a car. Get a grip on yourself.’

  ‘Those kids should pay damages, or something. They shouldn’t get away with it.’

  ‘Joe,’ Keith said, looking a little angry. ‘It’s not my fault you let yourself get outwitted by two twelve-year-olds. I’ve done what you wanted, now get out of here before I ask my minder to step inside and knock your head through the wall.’