Authors: Robert Muchamore
‘It’s obviously good news that we’ve got a realistic chance of getting convictions for the robbery,’ John said. ‘The bad news is that three of our four suspects have no criminal record, one of them is an ex-policeman and even Leon
Tarasov
only has a few minor blotches on his copybook. They didn’t use guns and the only violence employed was when they
duffed
up Eric Crisp to make it look like he wasn’t in on the deal. So, despite the large sum of money involved, none of our baddies would be looking at particularly long prison sentences. Four to six years would be my guess. With parole and remission, they’d all be out inside three.’
James looked gutted. ‘Is that all they’d get?’
‘Maybe a little more for Michael Patel because he’s a serving police officer,’ Mr Schott said. ‘Other than that, John is absolutely right.’
‘That’s bull,’ Dave yelled furiously. ‘What about Will? The poor kid’s dead.’
John grinned. ‘Boys, keep your hair on and let me finish. I’ve studied the photographs of Will’s body again and I can’t help agreeing with your theory that Michael Patel touching an obviously dead body was a highly suspicious thing to do. He was tangled up in a robbery with Will and on the scene at the time he died. The data disk hidden inside the computer indicates that Will either wanted evidence against his partners if things turned bad, or he was trying to blackmail them for a bigger share of the loot. Taking all of this into account, I now think it’s highly probable that Michael Patel killed Will Clarke. Are we all agreed on that?’
John looked to everyone in turn for confirmation. Lauren and Kerry both nodded.
‘Ninety per cent certain that he killed him,’ Dave said.
James shook his head. ‘Eighty per cent, more like.’
Chloe smiled. ‘Well I’m not going to put a number on it, but I think he probably did.’
Mr Schott nodded.
John looked at Millie last. She seemed upset and for a second James thought she was going to start blubbing again. Her eyes narrowed into determined little slits as she spoke. ‘I’d like to see Michael Patel go to prison for a
very
long time.’
‘So we agree,’ Dave said, looking at Mr Schott, ‘but to get Michael convicted of murder, you’ve got to convince a jury of twelve people beyond any reasonable doubt. We don’t have anything strong enough to do that, do we?’
Mr Schott shook his head. ‘Not even close. We’re all basing our presumptions of guilt on the fact that Patel touched the body, but a smart lawyer will defend Michael by claiming that he acted strangely because he was traumatised by what had just happened. Even if some of the jury members thought Patel was probably guilty, the judge would instruct them to find him innocent even if they entertained moderate doubts.’
‘We’ve all got doubts ourselves,’ Chloe reminded everyone.
‘Does that mean we’re bummed?’ Lauren asked.
‘There’s little chance of turning up more evidence via conventional investigative methods,’ John said. ‘We’re going to have to get a confession.’
‘You’re tripping,’ James said, shaking his head. ‘
Tarasov
and Patel will never confess, not in a million years.’
John smiled. ‘Credit me with
some
intelligence, James. I’m not planning to take
Tarasov
and Patel down to Palm Hill police station, make them a nice cup of
rosie
and ask them to do the decent thing. I’m talking about a sting operation. We’re going to have to devise a trap.’
‘How?’ James asked.
‘I’ve got a few ideas,’ John said. ‘But it’s going to take time and a lot of detailed preparation to get all of the elements into place.’
‘How long?’ Dave asked.
‘Ten days, perhaps,’ John shrugged. ‘Maybe a fortnight.’
‘So what do we do until then?’ Lauren asked.
‘James and Dave stay at Palm Hill, keeping in with the
Tarasovs
and seeing what else they can dig up. I expect you and Kerry will be able to go back to campus until a day or two before we’re ready to roll.’
The plan took longer than expected to come together; not that James minded. He spent the nineteen days after John announced his scheme bumming around Palm Hill with Max and Charlie: playing football, riding bikes, cruising the shops, hanging out at the reservoir and making out with Hannah whenever her parents weren’t keeping tabs. It wasn’t as much fun as the CHERUB hostel would have been, but James was determined to enjoy himself because he knew it was the closest to a summer holiday he’d get.
Tuesday, 20:58
What started out as a low-key mission had turned into the most technically complex CHERUB operation James had been involved with. The sting was going to be controlled from the suite adjoining the one John Jones had been living in.
James passed through the connecting door, stepping gingerly over a dozen tangled cables. There were three satellite dishes rigged up on the balcony. The beds had been put in storage and replaced by metal racks stacked up with computers, monitors, tape drives, telephones, back-up power supplies and two-way radio equipment. The only active screens showed Internet weather forecasts, one from the BBC and one from CNN.
Chloe was crawling behind the racks with a bunch of cables draped over her shoulder and she looked stressed out. James leaned over one of the computers and menacingly wiggled a finger in front of the reset switch.
‘Here, Chloe, what would happen if I pushed this button?’
‘Don’t you
dare
,’ Chloe yelled. ‘Unless you fancy spending the next six months in traction.’
James looked at the two weather forecasts. ‘Has John given the go-ahead yet?’
Chloe’s voice strained from beneath a chipboard shelf, as she reached for a power socket. ‘Not yet, but it looks OK. The BBC were saying rain earlier in the day, but they’ve changed their minds now.’
‘Why’s the weather so important, anyway?’ James asked.
‘Some of our listening posts are using laser microphones and all our link-ups are via satellite. If it rains heavily, especially thunderstorms, half of our signals will go down the toilet.’
‘Right, like when you’re watching football on Sky and the picture freezes as Thierry Henry’s running on goal.’
‘That’s it exactly,’ Chloe said.
‘I don’t think I’ve seen so many wires before in my whole life.’
‘James, I’m trying to concentrate here,’ Chloe said irritably. ‘I’ve got thirty-seven electrical devices going into four wall sockets, more than fifty cables to plug in and a
WiFi
network to set up. I don’t mean to be rude, but can you
please
go next door and sit with Kerry and your sister.’
‘Sorry,’ James said, holding up his hands. ‘Give us a shout if you need anything.’
James turned around and headed back through the connecting door. Kerry and Lauren had both been watching TV when he stepped out a minute earlier, but the set was off now and they’d both disappeared. James figured they’d gone into their bedroom. He sat on the sofa, hit the power button and flipped until he found an episode of
Futurama
.
After thirty seconds, the lights went out. James felt the back of his T-shirt being grabbed, followed by a shower of popcorn going down his neck.
‘
Aaagghh!
’ James yelled, jumping up as Kerry switched the lights back on.
Lauren sprung from behind the sofa with a massive grin on her face. James ripped off his T-shirt and flicked away the bits of popcorn stuck to his back.
‘You are
so
dead, Lauren.’
Lauren grinned. ‘
Gotta
catch me to kill me.’
James closed down on the sofa. Lauren was fast and could wriggle for England. James knew whichever way he moved, she’d dive out the opposite side. To get around this, he charged at the sofa and pushed it backwards. When Lauren realised she was about to get pinned to the wall, she scrambled up over the sofa and collapsed on to the cushions. James stopped pushing and dived on to his sister’s back. She tried to break out, but James had enough of a weight advantage to hold her.
‘I can’t breathe,’ Lauren moaned as he squashed her.
James scooped a handful of the loose popcorn off the sofa with one hand and tugged the elastic of Lauren’s shorts with the other.
‘James
no
,’ Lauren squealed. ‘Not down my knickers. This is war, James.
LET ME GO
.’
21:06
John was seventeen floors down in a corner of the hotel bar, as far as he could get from the other guests. Two stocky men passed through a set of double doors and John reflected that somehow, years of police and intelligence work had given him the nose to spot a plain-clothes cop a mile off: jeans, beer gut, ski jacket. There was even something about the way they spoke.
‘You must be John Jones,’ the older one said, as he dumped an Adidas sports bag on the carpet.
John reached out to shake their hands. ‘Greg Jackson and Ray
McLad
, I believe. Grab a seat. What are you drinking?’
Ray and Greg worked for the Metropolitan Police Complaints Investigation Bureau. CIB officers specialise in dealing with corruption and allegations made against fellow officers.
‘We were intrigued by your e-mail,’ Greg said, as John returned, placing three pints of beer on the table and sliding back into his seat. ‘Not much in the way of specifics, but you’re talking about a big collar: bent cops, robbery and murder all in one go. So what’s the deal?’
‘In a nutshell, my plan is to take our two main suspects, make them fighting mad and set them at each other’s throats. If all goes well, they’ll end up in a confrontation, recounting past misdeeds while we’ve got a microphone aimed at them.’
Ray nodded. ‘How come you wanted us involved? Intelligence usually likes to snaffle all the glory for itself.’
‘I’ve been working with a community policewoman called Millie
Kentner
, but the rest of my operatives are a bit on the unusual side,’ John explained. ‘They can’t show their faces in open court without undermining the security of an organisation that doesn’t officially exist. So, if we pull this off, we’ll package all the evidence up so it looks like everything was done by Millie and you two. I’d imagine a chief inspector’s badge will be within easy grasp.’
Both cops tried to act like they weren’t impressed, but couldn’t help smiling into their pint glasses as they drank.
‘When you say your agents are unusual, are we talking about informants, or what?’ Greg asked.
‘Far more exotic that that,’ John grinned. ‘An old friend of mine recommended you guys because you’ve worked with MI5 before, but I’m still going to remind you where you stand: if you ever disclose any information about the agents you’ll be working with over the next couple of days, you’ll be undermining dozens of undercover missions throughout the world and putting lives at risk. If you leave us in a position where we have to choose between your lives and the safety of our agents, you might find yourselves in some very hot water.’
Greg and Ray exchanged a look, as if to say:
Is this joker full of his own importance, or what?
John didn’t mind; he knew the cops would take the threat seriously enough when they learned the truth.
‘Finish your pints, then I’ll take you upstairs to meet the cherubs,’ John said.
Ray scratched his nose. ‘What’s a cherub when he’s out to lunch?’
21:11
Millie had worked out of the same cramped office since she first came to Palm Hill in 1996. For nine years she’d been dedicated to her job. She’d pulled twelve-hour shifts, attended community meetings that dragged into the early hours of the morning and often came in on her days off to catch up with paperwork.
Discovering Michael Patel’s criminal past had shattered Millie’s confidence. How good a cop could she really be if she hadn’t noticed that her right-hand man was a bully, a thief and probably a murderer to boot? However the sting operation went, Millie had decided to quit the force as soon as it was over.
She had a mound of paperwork to deal with, but she’d spent the past half an hour brooding into the bottom of a coffee cup, with her black
stockinged
feet resting on her desktop. When the mobile in her top pocket started to vibrate it was Chloe back at the hotel.
‘Sorry we kept you waiting,’ Chloe said. ‘The weather looks good for tomorrow. I called John for confirmation and he’s cleared us to go.’
‘Got that,’ Millie said, breaking into what felt like her first smile in days. ‘I just hope this works out.’
‘Don’t sweat it,’ Chloe said. ‘John really knows his stuff. He was running operations like this when you and I were in nappies.’
Millie ended the call. She knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but it was a relief to be underway after nearly three weeks of preparations. She slipped her feet back into her shoes, rolled her chair forward and grabbed the receiver of the landline phone on her desk. Her finger tapped in memory seventy-three: Michael Patel’s home number.