‘Make it sound good or I’ll cut off your ding-dong,’ Lauren added.
‘Whatever happened to sugar and spice and all things nice?’ Joe groaned.
Bethany placed her trainer between Joe’s shoulder blades and shifted her whole weight on to the heel.
‘God,’ Joe said, moaning in agony.
‘Plenty more where that came from for a man who says the wrong thing,’ Bethany warned, as she leaned forward and held the walkie-talkie in front of Joe’s mouth. ‘Speak.’
‘Joe at the entry point here, guys. Sorry to disturb you but I just saw something out back by the grain silo.’
‘Probably a sheep,’ came the reply, as laughter rattled in the background. ‘We’re watching a DVD, Joe. And it’s bloody
freezing
out there.’
Lauren was shocked by the casual reply. All radio traffic during the security test was being recorded and that line would probably be enough to cost the private security company its contract.
‘Lazy buggers,’ Bethany hissed, glowering at Joe as she held the handset in front of his mouth. ‘Tell them it’s a definite intruder.’
‘Guys, I’m not messing here,’ Joe said. ‘Someone’s moving around out there. If you don’t check it out I’m gonna have to report you.’
‘Whoooo,
Joseph,
laying down the law,’ the dude on the other end of the radio laughed. ‘OK, big man, if you want to be a hard arse. We’ll go check it out, but you can keep your mitts away from the Cup-A-Soups and Lemsips in my locker from now on.’
‘Well done,’ Bethany said, as she took her trainer off Joe’s back and pocketed the radio. ‘Now open wide.’
Joe reluctantly allowed Bethany to stuff his mouth with a ball of screwed-up tape before winding the roll several times around his head, covering his eyes and mouth but leaving his nostrils free to breathe.
Lauren pulled out her phone. ‘Rat,’ she said. ‘Security team should be coming your way. And based on what we’ve just heard, you shouldn’t have too much to worry about.’
‘Lauren says the security team are a bunch of pussies,’ Rat said happily, as he pocketed his phone.
*
When the team had studied the plans for the new control centre, they’d noticed that while the front was protected with heavy railings, the large expanse of land behind was secured by the kind of wire-mesh fencing you’d expect to see around your local swing park rather than a high-security installation.
The original design had called for the heavy railings all around, but the local council had objected because it would spoil the landscape, and nobody had made a fuss because the lighter fence saved half a million in building costs. It was exactly the kind of design weakness that security-test programmes run by CHERUB and MI5 were designed to unearth.
While Lauren and Bethany entered from the front, Rat and the other four boys had squelched across the surrounding farmland. Once they got within twenty metres of the perimeter, Rat, Andy and Jake kept watch while the two youngest boys had crawled up to the fence on their bellies and each made a hole with their wire cutters.
Ronan’s hole was large and obvious. He’d folded back the wire and left a bright orange skiing glove snagged on it. Kevin’s hole was twenty metres away. It was smaller and he’d pulled the wire back tight, making it near impossible to spot in the dark.
Andy was first to spot several torches flickering between newly planted saplings in the grounds.
‘I see five, I think,’ Jake said, as he peered through a tiny set of binoculars.
‘Shit,’ Rat said. ‘Means there’s probably still one guy wandering around inside. Jake, Andy, Ronan, you move up and get ready to go inside.’
‘Aye aye, Captain Rathbone,’ Andy said, before saluting his friend and scuttling off over the soft ground with Jake and Ronan in tow.
There were three hundred metres between the back of the control centre and the fence. The five uniformed guards were walking together, chatting casually, mucking around with their torches and one was even lighting up a cigarette.
‘They’re not taking it seriously,’ Rat said, as he turned towards Kevin. ‘How much security training do you reckon they’ve had?’
Kevin smiled uneasily. ‘Half a day, at most.’
‘You feeling OK now?’
‘Bit nervous,’ Kevin admitted. ‘I know this isn’t a big deal compared to some missions, but it’s my first time doing CHERUB stuff out in the real world.’
Rat put a reassuring hand on Kevin’s shoulder as he pulled out his mobile. ‘It’s definitely only five guys,’ he said. ‘I’d better call Lauren and tell her to go find the sixth.’
‘Someone could be off sick or something,’ Kevin said.
Andy, Jake and Ronan had reached the fence. The area inside was alarmed and they couldn’t enter the compound until they were sure the motion sensors were switched off.
‘Faces down, boys,’ Andy whispered, as a powerful torchlight swept across the ground.
As expected, the guards spotted Ronan’s hole and the bright orange glove.
‘Hey, Karen,’ one of the guards shouted into his radio. ‘Looks like Joe was right. Someone’s cut the fence, but they can’t have got in because they’d have set off the alarm. I’m gonna go take a look, so I need the sensors off.’
Andy didn’t hear the reply, but he knew that the sensors were off when two of the guards started walking towards the hole. Their three companions seemed content that they’d found the source of the problem and stopped searching with their torches.
‘Like a charm,’ Andy whispered, grinning to Jake and Ronan as he led the way through the other hole. ‘Keep the noise down and don’t look up unless you have to ‘cos your faces will catch the light.’
Jake tutted as he followed Andy through. ‘Do I look like an idiot?’
‘Pretty much,’ Ronan smirked.
Kevin breathed deeply as the two guards approached the other hole. Rat took his slingshot and a cloth bag filled with ball bearings out of his jacket. The fence was ten metres away, it was dark and there was drizzle in the air but he was still confident about making the shot.
‘Kids,’ the guard said dismissively as he picked up the child-sized glove hooked to the gap in the fence. ‘Little fellow left his glove behind.’
Ronan had deliberately left hand and trainer prints in the mud and the guard shone his torch at the ground, inspecting them. ‘Ten or eleven years old, I’d guess,’ he said finally.
His bald-headed colleague nodded. ‘We’d better go under and see if they’re still out there,’ he said. ‘Joe only saw them a minute ago.’
‘Sod that,’ came the reply. ‘You fancy crawling through all that mud? And if we catch the little buggers we’re just as likely to get done for assault.’
‘I’m just saying, Ken,’ the baldy said, as he straightened up and put his cap on his head, ‘the high-ups are bound to launch an investigation, so we’d better make ourselves look good.’
Ken realised his colleague was right, but he paused, looking for any excuse not to get muddy. ‘Handprints,’ he said happily. ‘That’s forensic evidence, and there’s no way I can get through without disturbing it.’
‘Dammit,’ Rat muttered. He’d hoped to ambush the guard as he crawled through the fence.
The trouble with shooting while the guards were inside was that the ball bearing could hit the wire mesh and ricochet. The two guards were about to walk away and Rat realised it was his best chance.
He bobbed out of the damp grass, stretched the slingshot to its fullest extent and aimed for Ken’s body. A head shot would have been more effective, but the midriff was a larger target and they weren’t trying to kill him. The steel ball hit the fencing and ricocheted upwards, knocking off the guard’s hat.
‘What the heck?’ Ken said, mystified by the sudden loss of his hat but not realising that he was under fire.
Rat moved closer and his second shot passed clean through the mesh, slamming Ken in the gut and knocking the wind right out of him. Kevin was a metre behind and fired at the bald guard. They didn’t want to seriously hurt anyone, but Kevin had only had one short slingshot practice and the metal ball went high. It hit in the neck, making the guard yelp with pain.
Five seconds had elapsed since Rat’s first shot and the other three guards now realised their colleagues were under attack. Their first thoughts were terrorists with silenced hand guns, rather than boys with slingshots.
‘Get out of here,’ one of them shouted.
But the trio of guards had been outflanked by Andy, Jake and Ronan. As they turned to run back to the building the three cherubs broke cover and fired a volley of ball bearings from less than ten metres. The first round of shots knocked down two guards with blows to the gut and chest, but Ronan missed the one farthest away and gasped in horror as the man went for his radio.
One message to the remaining guard in the control room and they’d have a dozen expertly trained military police officers plus the local on their backs. Luckily, Rat had pushed through the hole in the fence and knocked the guy who’d been hit in the head cold with a well aimed kick. As he stood up, he grabbed one of the metal balls from inside his coat and fired a superb long-range shot at the last guard. As he fell, a second shot from Jake slammed him in the back.
The five guards were all down, but only one was unconscious. Kevin launched an assault on the first guard by the fence, thrusting his palm against the man’s temple and then snatching the pepper spray off his belt while he was in a daze. After subduing the guard by the fence with two squirts from the canister and a threat of more, he worked with Rat to bind his wrists and ankles with tape while the other lads moved to quickly incapacitate the others.
Andy had the toughest looking guard to deal with, but the steel ball to the gut had knocked the wind out of him and he meekly offered his wrists up to be bound after a hard kick in the stomach.
Ronan and Jake had a fight on their hands, but they pinned the guard down between them and subdued him with half a can of his own pepper spray. Rat simply reloaded his slingshot and closed the last guard down, aiming at his head from point-blank range.
‘Toss your radio,’ Rat ordered. ‘Put your hands where I can see ‘em and wait for my little friend with the gaffer tape.’
Kevin took less than a minute to bind up the unconscious guard by the gate, then he rushed over to deal with Rat’s prisoner. Once everyone’s hands and feet were secure, Rat looked around.
‘Nice work boys,’ he said, as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket to call Lauren.
‘How’s it going?’ she asked.
‘We’ve got the security team all bound up out here. You’d better head inside and grab that last man before he starts wondering why all his buddies have gone so quiet.’
He might have called himself Rich Kline, but as soon as the door of his hotel suite opened James recognised Rich Davis. He was fatter, balder and the seventies-style sideburns were gone, but this was definitely the man who’d once topped the Ulster Constabulary’s most wanted list.
‘Mr Bradford,’ Rich said, as he grudgingly reached out to shake hands.
James was pleased to see clean laundry hanging on the wardrobe door and half eaten room-service sandwiches. These personal effects would make planting the tracking device much easier.
‘Everyone calls me Bradford,’ he smiled, as his big hands met with Rich’s. ‘Good to finally meet you.’
‘Wish I could say the same,’ Rich said, before breaking into a rattly cough. ‘I never thought I’d be out on the streets again, Bradford. Cops gave me thirty years on fit-up charges. If it wasn’t for the peace accord I’d still be in maximum security lockup. The British government did everything they could to get me and now you’re public enemy number one, they’ll do everything they can to get you.
‘If they can’t get you the honest way, they’ll fit you up and you’ll be doing twenty-five years before you know it. That’s why you can’t take
stupid
risks, like turning up here in that shit-box car with a kid with bright green hair.’
‘He’s sixteen,’ Bradford said defiantly. ‘Knows how to fight. Too young to be a cop or a journo.’
James knew Rich Davis was trying to establish dominance: making them wait, the overbearing tone and the slab of a bodyguard standing in the doorway behind them cracking his knuckles. Davis didn’t want to negotiate with Bradford, he wanted to show him who was the boss.
Davis addressed his bodyguard. ‘Check both of them for bugs, then take the boy downstairs and buy him a lollipop.’
‘James stays here with
me,’
Bradford said, trying to sound tough, but a tremor in his voice gave him away.
The bodyguard grabbed a bug detector and closed up behind Bradford, sweeping it over his clothes. James had a listening device and two trackers but wasn’t worried: CHERUB used technology way too advanced for such a crude device to pick up.
‘No phones, no bugs, guv,’ the guard said to Davis. He turned to James. ‘Come on son, let the grown-ups talk.’
James gave the bodyguard evil eyes. He had to gather intelligence and plant the tracking device and he couldn’t do either if he wasn’t in the room. On the other hand, forcing the issue would risk destroying the relationship between Bradford and Davis before they learned anything about the Irishman’s weapons smuggling operation.