Authors: Robert Muchamore
Lauren shrugged. ‘Knowing Kyle he traded it for a stack of pirate DVDs.’
The archive smelled of dust and furniture polish. It was only staffed during regular office hours so the reception desk was unmanned.
As Rat peered down the fifty-metre-long lines of metal shelves and filing cabinets to make sure they were alone, Lauren sat in front of an old PC with a glowing green screen. She looked for a mouse, but after a few seconds she realised there wasn’t one and used the cursor keys to navigate down the screen to a field marked SEARCH.
Lauren typed NORMAN LARGE and after twenty seconds a list of files and reference numbers scrolled up from the bottom of the screen.
After moving through the list, she spotted the
Personnel Record 1996
–
present
and jotted the shelf reference on to a Post-It, before pressing the escape button several times to clear the evidence of her search.
‘There’s nobody around,’ Rat confirmed, as Lauren stood up from the desk. ‘What’s down here? How come this place is so huge?’
‘There’s records on every CHERUB mission before 1992, after which they’re all computerised,’ Lauren explained. ‘Then there’s paper records for everyone who has ever visited campus and required security clearance, from the chairwoman all the way down to some bloke who popped in twenty-five years ago to replace the filter on a swimming pool. There’s also other stuff like contracts, building plans, accounts …’
Rat’s face lit up with mischief. ‘Are
our
personal files down here?’
Lauren shook her head. ‘Files on current agents and recent missions are in the mission preparation building, but they all get scanned and digitised after five years.’
‘Pity; a peek at our own files might have been a laugh.’
‘FGS-271C,’ Lauren said as she peered down one of the long lines of shelves. ‘Now where’s that gonna be …’
‘Tell you what,’ Rat said. ‘We’ll need to make photocopies. You start looking for the file; I’ll go over and make sure the copiers are switched on and warmed up.’
‘Good thinking,’ Lauren said, as she set off between the lines of shelving, trying to figure out the filing system.
It started out at AAA-000A, so she guessed that her reference starting with F would be in the second or third aisle. She found the Fs in less than a minute, but had to locate a sliding ladder and push it along the front of the shelving units to retrieve the chunky box file from its slot on the top shelf.
As Lauren opened the file for a quick peek the mound of papers inside spewed over the carpet.
‘Balls,’ she cursed.
Rat heard the noise and came jogging between the shelves to help her pick up. They were both tense, but couldn’t help laughing when they spotted a picture of a university-age Norman Large dressed in bleached jeans, sporting an extraordinary mullet hairstyle and holding a placard that said
LSE Student Union boycotts South African goods
.
Once the papers were back in order, Lauren took the file to a small table that lay between the ends of two storage racks and sifted through cream-coloured wallets until she came to the one marked
Descendants
.
‘It’s spooky to think that CHERUB will keep files on us for years after we leave,’ Rat said. ‘And not just on us, but our kids and our wives and stuff.’
‘It’s a big job making sure CHERUB stays a secret,’ Lauren nodded. ‘I’ve heard that there’s an enforcement unit of some of the toughest ex-cherubs. They go around making sure
nothing
ever leaks out.’
‘Like how?’
‘Whatever it takes, I guess.’
‘Cool,’ Rat grinned. ‘Do you reckon they kill people? Like, imagine if someone threatened to publish a book about CHERUB and there was no other way to stop them.’
Lauren shrugged impatiently. ‘I don’t know Rat, it’s just a rumour. At
this
moment, we have to look at this file and get out of here before we’re busted.’
She opened the Descendants file and quickly read the title page:
NORMAN LARGE
Descendants – 1
Name – Hayley June Large-Brooks
Born – 16.05.1991
Parents – N/A
NOTE – Hayley is the adopted daughter of Norman Large and his long-term partner Gareth Brooks.
‘It’s all here,’ Lauren said excitedly as she flipped through the pages. ‘Hayley’s school photos, dental records, DNA records, details of her birth parents and of where she goes to school. It’s even got what clubs she belongs to and details of her closest school friends.’
‘The copier should be warmed up by now.’
Lauren nodded as she followed Rat towards the copiers. The pages weren’t bound, so Rat pushed the entire stack into the document feeder and pressed the button to start copying.
It only took one person to watch the copier. Lauren backed gingerly towards the reception desk. She’d covered her tracks, but she was paranoid and wanted to make absolutely sure. As she turned away from the desk, she heard the lift doors opening.
‘Rat, someone’s coming,’ Lauren gasped, as she dived beneath the desk.
Rat looked around anxiously. He considered making a run and hiding amongst the shelves, but there wasn’t time and he ended up squeezing into a gap between the copier and the wall as a man stepped into the room.
Lauren peeked through a tiny crack of light between the back panel of the desk and the drawer unit. She recognised the brown suit and bald head of mission controller John Jones. John had worked with Lauren on two of her missions and they’d always got along; but that didn’t mean he’d let her off if he caught her rummaging through secret archives without permission.
John stopped walking and turned his head towards the noise coming out of the copying area, as the machine continued to swallow and spit pages from Hayley Large-Brooks’ file. John was about to head over and investigate, but Rat managed to squeeze his arm behind the copier and rip the plug out of the wall.
This turned the heat on to Lauren. As John decided that the noise must have been a gurgle from the ventilation system, he turned back towards reception to look up a shelf reference in the computerised catalogue.
There wasn’t much space under the desk. Lauren squeezed herself against the backboard as John’s shoe landed on the carpet, centimetres from her right boot. She’d be caught right away if John sat down and pulled the chair into the desk, but mercifully he was in a rush and he tapped at the keyboard while standing up.
‘Dammit,’ John said, as he thumped the keyboard and lowered himself into the chair.
Lauren shuddered as John sat down. She put her hand over her face, because if John moved forward quickly his knee would smash her in the mouth.
Please god don’t let him pull the chair in
, she thought, crossing her fingers as the mission controller stared curiously at a sheet of paper. After fifteen seconds – which felt more like fifteen years – John suddenly kicked the chair backwards and reached across to grab the telephone from the desk return.
The phone was as dated as all the other fittings in the archive. The metal bell inside dinged as John lifted the receiver and Lauren agonised as he entered the number using an old-fashioned dial.
‘Chris,’ John said, addressing his assistant. ‘I’m down in the archive, but I think I left the piece of paper with the list of documents I needed on my desk. I was wondering if you could remember the date of …’
John paused as his assistant said something on the other end of the line. When John opened his mouth again, he sounded a lot more cheerful.
‘So you came down and collected the documents last night …? Chris, you’re an
absolute
star! I was just on the way over to my office and I came down here to save on leg work … So they’re all waiting on my desk? Thanks very much and I’ll see you at the meeting this afternoon.’
John put the phone down and let the chair shoot backwards into a metal cabinet as he sprang cheerfully to his feet.
‘You’re a good man, Chris,’ John muttered to himself, as he picked his briefcase off the floor and headed out towards the lift.
Lauren crawled out and poked her eyes above the desk, then waited until she saw John’s legs disappear up the fire stairs before running over to Rat.
‘That was
too
close,’ Lauren huffed, as Rat plugged the copier back in. ‘He was practically touching me. I was already counting my punishment laps.’
‘Well we’re not out of the woods yet,’ Rat shrugged.
The machine had been in mid-copy when Rat pulled the plug, and the result was jammed paper and a control panel ablaze with warning lights.
‘Can you fix it?’ Lauren asked, as Rat crouched in front of the machine and opened a plastic flap.
‘I guess all those years working in the office at the Survivor’s Ark did teach me something,’ Rat said, as he expertly released a lever, then twisted a green wheel until two jammed sheets of paper rolled into the output tray.
He closed the flap and Lauren was relieved to see the red lights disappear and the words
ready to copy
appear on the touch screen.
‘Go and keep look-out,’ Rat said. ‘There’s only about six pages left. Then we’ll put the file back and get the hell out of here.’
Hayley Large-Brooks was a Year Ten student at St Aloysius girls’ school, which was six kilometres from campus. Cherubs often saw Aloysius girls when they went into town, so everyone knew the uniform.
Lauren cobbled together a copy from the stock of school uniform kept on campus, and when she dressed on Monday morning, the only way to distinguish her from a genuine St Aloysius pupil was the lack of a school crest on her green blazer.
‘Don’t worry,’ Kyle said as they headed down the back stairs towards the car park, ‘nobody will ever notice if you keep your coat zipped.’
Like all cherubs, Kyle had learned to drive as soon as he was tall enough, but now he’d turned seventeen he’d been issued with a driving licence and was allowed to use the pool cars, provided he drove sensibly and mucked in with shuttling younger kids around.
When they reached the fire exit at the bottom of the staircase, Kyle stepped into the crisp morning air and glanced around, making sure there was nobody about.
Lauren was nervous as they walked briskly across the tarmac. She was supposed to be at an 8 a.m. combat-training session in the dojo, but she’d sent Miss Takada an instant message saying that she’d twisted her ankle. Takada was strict, and if she found out that Lauren had bunked off, her punishment would be two gruelling weeks scrubbing the dojo floor, cleaning the changing rooms and laundering the mountain of sweaty combat suits and damp towels used by the hundred-plus cherubs who trained there every day.
Kyle slid a plipper from inside his tracksuit top and pressed the button to unlock an anonymous Mazda estate. As he buckled up in the front, Lauren clambered in the back and squeezed herself into the footwell behind the front seats so that she wasn’t seen as they drove out. Unfortunately, CHERUB pool cars were unloved and the carpet was covered in mud and biscuit crumbs.
Once Kyle had rolled over the speed bumps and pushed his card into the security gate to leave campus, Lauren climbed up on to the seat and brushed the filth off her jacket and uniform before pulling her mobile out of her pocket. She dialled James.
‘Any sign?’ Lauren asked.
James was camped out in the trees around the back of Norman Large’s house, with binoculars around his neck.
‘Hayley’s got her uniform on,’ James said. ‘Gareth Brooks headed off for work about an hour ago, so it looks like Large is gonna drive her to school.’
Lauren looked at her watch. ‘They’re cutting it fine aren’t they?’
‘Don’t blame
me
, I’m only watching,’ James said. ‘And I think Meatball has picked up my scent. He’s running around in the Askers’ garden and yapping like crazy.’
‘Clever dog,’ Lauren grinned, before remembering that she was in a tight spot. ‘This is such a pain. I’ve
got
to head back to campus and get into CHERUB uniform before first lesson.’
‘Stop worrying,’ James said. ‘We timed it all out and Takada is the only person you have to worry about.’
‘It’s OK for
you
,’ Lauren moaned. ‘You’ve got the week off and Kyle’s only got one A-level to revise for—’
‘Here we go,’ James interrupted. ‘Hayley and Large have just opened the front door. You’ll be following a dark blue Renault Megane.’
Lauren banged on the headrest behind Kyle. ‘Slow down, they’re about to leave.’
But the road leading out of campus was lined with cameras which the CHERUB security staff monitored for any suspicious activity.
‘I can’t,’ Kyle said. ‘It’ll be too obvious that we’re following them.’
But Kyle did slow down slightly, and he rolled past the isolated parade of houses where Mr Large and the Askers lived as Hayley was climbing into the front passenger seat of the Renault.
‘She’s a
big
girl,’ Kyle grinned. ‘Even bigger than in the pictures.’
Lauren giggled. ‘I know, James is really pissed off.’
Apart from the odd tractor, there were never hold-ups on the country roads around campus and the drive to the school took less than ten minutes. Along the way, Kyle deliberately took a wrong turn on to a housing estate and reversed out once Mr Large’s car was ahead of them.
St Aloysius was an old building set amidst hockey fields and an athletics track. At this time of the day – less than ten minutes before morning registration – the narrow hill leading up to the school was crammed with parents, parking in the middle of the road to drop off their daughters.
Kyle found himself snarled in traffic a few hundred metres from the school gates, with Mr Large’s Renault four vehicles ahead of them. After standing still for several minutes, Kyle noticed Hayley step out of the Renault and throw a pack over her shoulder.
‘Looks like she’s walking the last couple of hundred metres,’ Kyle said. ‘Hopefully Large won’t be looking in your direction, but keep your collar up and your hair over your face until you’ve gone past.’
‘No worries,’ Lauren said, as she scooted across the back seat and stepped into the cold air. ‘Don’t drive too far away, I’ve got to make my History lesson or I’m dead meat.’