The General Read online

  2. TWINKLE

  ‘Will you all stop jabbering and shut the hell up!’ Lauren Adams yelled, as the thirteen-year-old wrapped her hands over her ears.

  She was in her eighth-floor room on CHERUB campus. Her bed had been tipped on its side to make space for the maps and diagrams spread across the carpet and she sat studying them with six fellow CHERUB agents: her boyfriend Rat, her best friend Bethany, Bethany’s eleven-year-old brother Jake, Rat’s best friend Andy Lagan and two eleven-year-old cherubs she barely knew called Ronan Walsh and Kevin Sumner.

  ‘If we’re gonna get picked to go to Las Vegas next month, we’ve got to get our plan straight and pull off this security test,’ Lauren continued firmly. ‘The ATCC is a new facility with state of the art security. We’ve got to get into the heart of the building and cause damage in the main control room.’

  Kevin was the smallest kid in the room and he looked at the maps nervously. ‘Which bit is the ATCC?’

  ‘The whole building, doofus,’ Jake Parker sighed noisily. ‘ATCC: Air Traffic Control Centre.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kevin said. ‘I thought it was one of the alarm thingies.’

  Bethany cuffed her brother Jake around the head. ‘Don’t bite Kevin’s head off, he’s only little.’

  Jake gave his sister the finger. ‘He’s less than a year younger than me, dog breath.’

  Rat sighed. ‘Don’t start fighting again you two … Christ, what’s that stink?’

  They all turned towards Ronan. He was a stocky lad, mad on rugby and combat training but less keen on showering afterwards. He’d just pulled off one of his muddy boots.

  ‘Put it back on,’ Bethany gasped as she wafted her hand. ‘How long have you been wearing those socks?’

  ‘My eyes are watering,’ Andy complained.

  ‘Only about a week,’ Ronan said as he buried his nose between his toes and took a long sniff.

  ‘Don’t!’ Bethany yelled. ‘Dirty animal.’

  ‘It’s harmless,’ Ronan grinned, as he swung his foot towards Bethany. ‘It’s just my natural bodily juices.’

  A couple of the lads laughed, but Lauren stepped over the maps and loomed above Ronan. ‘If you don’t put that boot back on, me and Bethany will drag you into the bathroom, strip you butt naked and scrub you with my toilet brush.’

  ‘Kinky,’ Andy laughed. ‘Stripped and scrubbed by two hot chicks …’

  ‘Two repugnant walruses, more like,’ Jake said.

  But Lauren shot the lads evil eyes and they both shut up. Ronan reluctantly pulled his boot back on and even though it was freezing outside, Bethany got up and flung open the balcony doors to clear the air.

  Lauren went back to squatting in front of the maps before speaking again. ‘I’ve got a good reputation and my black shirt,’ she said, stretching out her T-shirt to emphasise the point. ‘It won’t make much difference to me if we mess this up, but we need to pull it off if you three younger lads want a sniff of some decent missions any time soon. So you guys choose: screw around, or calm down and start taking this plan seriously.’

  Kevin, Ronan and Jake didn’t like admitting that Lauren was right, but she glowered until they all nodded.

  ‘OK,’ Lauren said. ‘I’m the only black shirt here, so I’m making myself Chairwoman. Any objections?’

  Lauren half expected a mutiny. But they all knew someone had to take charge if their plan was going to work.

  Rat raised his hand and waited for Lauren’s nod before he spoke. ‘Here’s where I see the problem with our plan right now,’ he said. ‘Bethany and Lauren do their bit at the front of the air traffic control centre, but me, Andy and the three little dudes are gonna end up at the back facing six adult security guards with no weapons.’

  ‘We need guns,’ Jake blurted. ‘Tranquilliser darts or stun guns at the least.’

  ‘Why don’t you read the mission briefing?’ Lauren sighed. ‘Our job is to test the security arrangements put in place by the private company at the new ATCC. If the government wanted people with Balaclavas and machine guns, they’d have sent in the army. We’ve got to dress and act like ordinary kids on a pre-Christmas rampage. We can use our mobiles, but no walkie-talkies. We can’t take listening devices, explosives, lock guns or anything else that your average thirteen-year-old doesn’t carry in the pocket of his hoodie.’

  Bethany raised her hand and waved her mission briefing in the air. ‘But Lauren, it does also say that the security guards are backed up by a team of military police.’

  ‘With guns,’ Jake added.

  ‘Read it properly,’ Lauren said. ‘It’s a rapid response team stationed on an RAF base eight kilometres away. As long as we don’t give the regular security team at the ATCC time to sound the alarm, we’ll only be up against private security guards with batons and pepper spray.’

  ‘If only we knew exactly who these guards are,’ Bethany said. ‘I mean, they could be anything from doddery little old men to retired Special Forces.’

  Lauren shrugged. ‘When that control centre opens in the new year it’s gonna be in charge of every civilian and military flight from the Midlands right the way up to the Scottish highlands. Planes could drop out of the sky if it was blown up.’

  Ronan nodded solemnly. ‘So unless the security has been set up by total idiots, we won’t be facing a team of boy scouts.’

  ‘Why don’t we go over to Dennis King in Mission Preparation and say that we need more information on the security team?’ Andy asked.

  Lauren shook her head. ‘Security tests like this one are part mission, part training exercise. King might give us more information if we ask, but we’re supposed to devise our plan based on what they’ve given us. We’d get marked down in our assessment for sure.’

  ‘I know,’ Rat yelped triumphantly, as he smacked his fist into his palm. ‘Slingshots.’

  ‘What about them?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘Kids carry slingshots,’ Rat explained. ‘When I lived at the Ark in Australia I was always bored. One of the few toys I had was a slingshot. I used to fill it with rocks, pop out of a tunnel or a manhole, aim it at someone’s head and dive for cover before they knew what had hit ‘em. I caused at least a dozen concussions before Georgie caught me and had my butt paddled.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Lauren smiled, before Jake butted in.

  ‘I’m a good aim with a slingshot – we used to massacre squirrels with them over the back of campus.’

  Lauren didn’t like Jake and as an animal lover and vegetarian she was even less impressed than usual. ‘Excuse me?’ she said ferociously. ‘What have campus squirrels ever done to you?’

  ‘Not recently,’ Jake squirmed. ‘I’m talking about when I was a little red shirt, camping out in tents in the summer.’

  ‘Boys,’ Bethany said, shaking her head. ‘They all seem to go through a stage where all they want to do is kill stuff or set fire to it.’

  Rat tutted, ‘That’s completely sexist, Bethany. If I went around making generalisations like that about girls you’d—’

  Ronan spoke at the same time as Rat. ‘I love setting fire to stuff—’

  ‘All right,’ Lauren interrupted, clapping her hands together. ‘Let’s focus on the security test, shall we? There are definitely slingshots downstairs in the weapons storeroom and if you think they’ll help our cause, go and get some by all means.’

  ‘It’s been a while since I fired a slingshot,’ Rat said, glancing at his watch. ‘We’ve got a couple of hours before we leave, so I wouldn’t mind getting a bit of practice in.’

  Jake smirked, ‘We could shoot up the ducks on the lake.’

  ‘You’re not funny, Jake,’ Lauren said. ‘If I see you or anyone else hurting animals on campus I’ll pick you up and body-slam you so hard that you’ll piss blood for a month.’

  ‘Empty Coke cans make good targets,’ Kevin said, trying to be constructive.

  Jake nodded. ‘Especially if you paint squirrels on them.’

  ‘All right,
’ Lauren nodded, gritting her teeth and fighting the urge to jump on top of Jake and beat the crap out of him. ‘You boys can go off and play with your slingshots. But before you do, I reckon we should go through the whole plan one last time from the top. I want all of you to know your jobs off by heart. Bethany, why don’t you start?’

  3. SURGE

  After the Birmingham demo had turned violent the previous year Chris Bradford had found the police blocking every move the Street Action Group made. A hundred demonstrators would be met by two hundred cops. Bigger SAG events would be outlawed by local councils and anyone defying the ban found train stations closed, roads barricaded and lines of police eager to arrest anyone who stepped out of line.

  These tough police tactics had crushed dozens of strikes and anti-government groups since they were first used during the miners’ strike in the mid-1980s. To get around them Chris Bradford had created the impression that SAG was imploding by staging ever smaller actions that drew tiny crowds and an ever smaller number of police officers to keep them in line.

  Once the police guard was down, Bradford organised the most ambitious anti-government SAG demo ever and Christmas was the perfect time to pull it off. If you want mayhem on the streets you need lots of bored young men, and school and university holidays are the time to find them. The cops would be at full stretch dealing with drunken revellers, while at the same time lots of officers would be taking leave. Most importantly, the run-up to Christmas is a quiet time for newspapers and TV, so you’re guaranteed top spot on the news if you pull off something spectacular.

  James Adams had successfully infiltrated SAG and he knew Bradford’s plan. He’d told his mission controller John Jones, but John chose not to pass the information to the police. James was investigating the more serious possibility of SAG turning into a terrorist group and Bradford would have suspected a mole inside his organisation if he’d emerged from Covent Garden underground station and discovered hundreds of cops waiting for him.

  It’s a problem with all kinds of intelligence work: agents go undercover and get information, but you can’t make use of it without compromising their safety. James couldn’t help wondering if they’d made the right decision as hundreds of protestors steamed down the Strand towards Trafalgar Square.

  The noise was deafening and although James was nervous, he got a buzz from being part of such a powerful group. Missiles flew overhead and glass was shattering on both sides of the street. Diners in festive hats screamed as a paving slab crashed through the window of a Japanese restaurant. Seconds later the leaded glass frontage of a Georgian theatre was kicked in, the box office was shattered and posters of the cast were ripped off the awnings and flung into the air.

  Office workers and shoppers sheltered in doorways. Shop staff rushed to lock doors as the throbbing chant of ‘SAG, SAG, SAG!’ roared down the street.

  SAG had sympathisers in some of London’s roughest neighbourhoods and James was impressed that they’d pulled together a diverse crowd of activists and troublemakers without the cops getting wind. Chris Bradford said he’d be happy with a hundred and fifty protestors, but the crowd was now three times that. They divided evenly between the pavements on opposite sides of the road, with the overflow wading between four lanes of gridlocked traffic.

  Two minutes after they entered the Strand the pavements ahead of the marchers were bare. Pedestrians were either locked inside shops or had cut up one of the many side streets to avoid the chanting mob.

  Most of those who didn’t get out of the way in time were ignored and a few homeless who sheltered in the area found protestors showering them with coins and wishing them Merry Christmas. It wasn’t such a good day if you were a drunken office worker, returning from a liquid lunch in a pinstripe suit and expensive watch. While the majority of the crowd was happy to chant and trash property, one especially intimidating group of youths grabbed anyone who looked like they had a bit of money and ordered them to hand it over.

  ‘SAG, SAG, SAG!’ James chanted, repeatedly punching the air as the crowd jostled on all sides and broken glass crunched under his boots. He had to live up to his green Mohican and his role as a young anarchist so he took an enthusiastic kick, ripping the door mirror off a chauffeur-driven Mercedes trapped in the traffic between two buses. He grabbed the mirror out of the gutter and looked around, but couldn’t find anything to throw it at.

  A second later, James found himself bundling into the person in front. The crowd behind squashed up and stopped moving. Everyone was surprised and the chanting died down as James leaned into the road to see what was going on.

  Charing Cross railway station was less than fifty metres ahead and Nelson’s Column was lit up in the distance, but flashing blue lights and a line of police cars stretched across the road ahead.

  ‘Nazis,’ spat a bloke who was practically breathing down James’ neck. ‘How’d they get here so bloody fast?’

  James didn’t speak, but he knew there was a flaw in Bradford’s plan: one of London’s largest police stations was less than fifty metres from the route of the planned march. When the superintendent in charge of the Charing Cross police station heard that the march was getting out of control, he’d ordered several vehicles to drive out of a basement garage and blockade the entire width of the Strand.

  Every officer inside the station – including plenty who hadn’t been away from a desk in years – was ordered to kit up in full riot gear. More than fifty cops now stood behind the barricade with some less mobile officers jogging out clumsily to join them.

  ‘Please disperse immediately,’ a tannoy inside one of the police cars blurted. ‘We’re expecting more reinforcements shortly. You will be arrested and could face serious charges.’

  After the announcement the cops tried to psyche the crowd out by drumming their batons on their plastic riot shields, and it seemed to work.

  There was an eerie stillness as the crowd sought direction. James watched hundreds of plumes of warm breath wafting up into the darkening sky. The police lights mingled with Christmas lights and it felt like a break between hymns at an outdoor carol service. But menace hung in the air and James noticed that some of the protestors on the edge of the crowd were filtering away into the side streets.

  As the number of people disappearing up the side streets grew, the mood deflated and it appeared the march was going to fizzle. But everything changed when an orange streak shot down from a third-storey window and exploded into a ball of flame between two of the parked police cars.

  Beyond James’ line of sight, several activists had forced a glass door and climbed a flight of steps into an office suite above the shops. They’d opened a window and thrown out a petrol bomb.

  As the crowd cheered and whistled, more bombs rained down, spewing burning petrol over the road and setting light to the police cars as the officers scrambled from their barricade in total panic.

  The big drum started banging again and the whole crowd was jumping into the air and shouting at the top of its voice, ‘SAG, SAG, SAG!’

  James thought he’d known everything about Bradford’s plan. But he hadn’t known about the petrol bombs, and the way they’d been expertly aimed at the police lines made it seem more like a planned operation than a spur of the moment thing.

  ‘SAG, SAG, SAG!’

  Anyone who wasn’t shouting was whistling and it made James’ ears hurt. But even though the police officers had backed off there was no way forward through the line of flaming cars.

  The man holding the stolen megaphone came to the rescue, giving the crowd their orders: ‘Trash the Savoy, trash the Savoy!’

  ‘Bloody good idea,’ someone shouted, as the mob turned on its heels and began heading back the way it had come, towards one of London’s largest and fanciest hotels. James was much nearer the back of the mob than the front and it was almost a minute before he was back on the move.

  ‘We just burned the coppers, we just burned the coppers. La-la, la-la, la-la, hey!’

 
; Amidst the chaos and the sound of more breaking glass, James felt his phone vibrating inside his pocket. There was too much noise to hold a conversation, so he was relieved to see a text message from Dana:

  HAVE YOU SEEN MY GREEN TRACKSUIT TOP?

  James was pleased to hear from his girl, but disappointed that she’d ignored his message about missing her. It was a struggle tapping out the reply with bodies jostling on all sides, and one bloke almost knocked the phone from his hand.

  THINK I SAW IT UNDER MY BED, he replied.

  As James pocketed the phone he bumped into the person in front and looked up. The noise of the crowd had dipped again and he could hear the distinctive sound of cops whacking batons on their plastic riot shields.

  With police blocking the road ahead and a flaming barricade behind, James was just one of three hundred heads that turned towards the side streets looking for a way out, but they’d all been blocked off by white cars with blue flashing lights.

  *

  Back on campus, Rat, Andy, Jake, Kevin and Ronan were charging down the main staircase, heading from Lauren’s eighth-floor room to the weapons storage cupboard on the ground floor.

  ‘Who the hell does Lauren Adams think she is?’ Jake moaned as he swung around the end of a banister. ‘Stuck up little troll…’

  ‘You’re talking about my girlfriend,’ Rat warned.

  Andy knew they had to work as a team and tried smoothing things over. ‘Lauren might be full of it, but she knows her stuff, Jake. She’s got one of the best mission records of anyone on campus and she’s still only thirteen …’

  Ronan giggled. ‘If she had massive jugs like Bethany she’d be perfect.’

  Andy and Rat both laughed. ‘I swear they get bigger every time I see her,’ Rat said.

  ‘You’re talking about my sister,’ Jake said bitterly.

  ‘Give over, Jake,’ Andy said. ‘You two hate each other.’

  ‘Andy’s in love with Bethany,’ Rat teased, as Ronan jumped half a flight of stairs on to the sixth-floor landing, making a massive thud. ‘But he’s too much of a shitter to ask her out.’