CHERUB: The Sleepwalker (11 page)

‘Kneel down and put your hands on your head,’ Dave Moss shouted, as he cruised downhill astride his quad.

Dana thought about running and she might even have tried if she’d been a hundred metres from the main building, but she was still over a kilometre away and there was no realistic chance of outrunning three riders over open ground.

As Dana knelt down with her hands raised, the rider coming up from the lake drove to within five metres and hurled a set of handcuffs into the grass in front of her.

‘You know what to do, Dana,’ she said. ‘No sudden moves or we’ll shoot the shit out of you.’

Lauren’s journey wasn’t pleasant, but as she’d predicted, nobody wanted to follow her through the mud. The ditches were clogged with litter and debris which made it impossible to walk barefoot. When she clambered out near the western edge of the basic training compound, her first task was to remove her sodden boots and pour out the water.

She ran barefoot to a storage shed and used a standpipe on the outside to scrub away the worst of the mud and an assortment of beetles. She deliberately left the dirt on her face, because her pale skin would catch the light. After cleaning the night-vision goggles with her dry T-shirt she quickly donned it, along with her shorts.

After a glance around to make sure nobody was coming after her, Lauren kept low as she headed across the dry earth, but she was alarmed by the loud squelching of her sodden boots. She suspected someone might be stationed at the entrance of the training compound and also knew that the central part of the training area was saturated with video cameras. Luckily, Lauren’s days of clearing ditches had taught her about a rarely used side gate that led out of the training compound and into the undergrowth beneath the tall obstacle where cherubs were trained to overcome their fear of heights.

She moved swiftly, with the night vision over her eyes and Siobhan’s pack on her shoulder. But even with the red shirt’s equipment, Lauren didn’t fancy her chances of covering the open ground between the woods and the main building on foot.

The obvious answer was to grab one of the campus golf buggies. The white shirts might shoot at her, but damaging other vehicles was expensive as well as dangerous so it was banned on training exercises. If she got into a buggy she’d be able to cruise all the way back to the main building, unless she got shot up so badly that she fell out.

There were two dozen carts around campus which the staff used to move quickly between different areas. Kids were only supposed to use them under special circumstances, like if someone was injured or there was a heavy load to carry.

Lauren hoped one of the electric carts would be parked behind the gardeners’ storage building, but she faced two problems. Firstly, the staff were always bitching about who used the buggies for what and sod’s law dictated that whenever you really needed a buggy they’d all be parked on the opposite side of campus. Second, the enemy would know the value of the carts, so even if she found one there was likely to be a crew of red and white shirts waiting in ambush.

A little concrete strip was situated behind the gardeners’ store and Lauren smiled as she poked her head out of the undergrowth and eyeballed one of the larger pick-up-style carts that were used by the maintenance staff.

Before breaking into the open, Lauren turned up the sensitivity of her goggles and made a careful study of her surroundings in night-vision mode, before flipping the switch and repeating the process with infra-red. There were a few boot marks in the mud at either side of the concrete, but they were small prints and widely spaced, suggesting a pair of red shirts who’d been running after someone rather than the more cautious movements of someone setting a trap.

Lauren’s boot squelched as she stood up. She kept low as she rounded the back of the cart and pulled out the recharging plug, before swinging into the driver’s seat. Her nose caught the stench of rotten food and she felt queasy as she glanced in the back and saw thousands of flies partying on orange peel and mouldy bread. It seemed that the cart had been used for a refuse run and nobody had bothered to hose it out after a bag burst.

Whatever it smelled like, it was a ride, and Lauren dropped the handbrake and pressed the accelerator. The cart jerked forward about five centimetres before the motor gave out. She drifted to a halt less than a metre from her starting point.

‘Knob,’ Lauren steamed, as she hammered the steering wheel. The cart
might
have broken down, but more likely it had been sabotaged by the white shirts. This meant that even if she found another cart, it would probably be in the same condition.

Being right next to the gardeners’ shed, Lauren considered grabbing one of the ride-on mowers inside, but their top speed was less than eight kilometres an hour and while ramming a golf cart with a quad bike would be considered a serious breach of the rules, there was no reason why someone couldn’t run up alongside and knock her off a slow-moving lawnmower.

Lauren was exposed for as long as she sat in the buggy and there was a chance she’d been spotted on a video camera, so she dived back into the undergrowth and crawled fifty metres, ending up in one of the landing nets beneath the height obstacle.

‘Use your training,’ she whispered to herself, as she racked her brains. ‘Think, think, think.’

She didn’t fancy her chances over open ground against a team of quad bikes. On the other hand, by following the ditches and crossing the training compound she’d emerged on the opposite side of campus, far from the other black shirts, and this gave her an outside chance of making it. Plus, this side of campus was more built up than the area around the lake.

Lauren considered each stage of her route. She’d have to run two hundred metres across open ground and the first place she’d be able to shelter was around the back of the vehicle workshop.

A smile broke over Lauren’s muddy face as she thought about the evening before and James’ hundred-kilometre-an-hour racing buggy.

*

The white shirts took their time rescuing James from the net and McEwen didn’t bother letting it down gently.

‘You extra-soft-toilet-tissue-using, worm-like bag of gloop,’ McEwen screamed, as he gave James an almighty kick up the arse.

‘Hey, there are rules,’ James yelled. ‘You can’t kick me.’

‘Do I look like someone who gives a shit?’ McEwen grinned, pointing his rifle at James’ nuts. ‘Get moving.’

The delay in letting James down meant that Dana actually returned to the starting point in the far corner of campus before him. James gave her a kiss before throwing over her boot.

‘What’s the situation?’ James asked, as he looked around and saw several other black shirts preparing to set off for a second run. The instructors, Kazakov and Pike, were monitoring communications from the warmth of their hut.

‘It’s grimmer than a shit sandwich,’ Dana reported. ‘At least half of us have been captured once already, it sounds like several others are pinned down under fire from the red shirts and I’ve not heard from anyone who’s made it more than a few hundred metres on to the open ground. There’s at least ten quad bikes out there and the red shirts are lined up on the edge of the woods acting as scouts and snipers. A group of six black shirts set off a few minutes ago, but I knew you were due back so I told them I’d wait.’

‘Do you think a bigger group might get somewhere?’ James asked. ‘We could wait for more people.’

Dana raised an uncertain eyebrow. ‘I guess if they all rushed out at once, most of them would get picked up, but one or two might get away. But it’s going to get harder as the night goes on. I mean, once people start escaping there are going to be more white shirts after fewer targets.’

‘See your point,’ James nodded.

‘The only good news is that a few of the red shirts have had their equipment taken and two more were in an accident with a quad bike, so this time there should be fewer guns pointing at us.’

‘What about Lauren?’ James asked. ‘Any sign of her?’

‘Not that I’ve heard,’ Dana said, as she looked at her watch. ‘It’s slow going through those ditches though. I expect she’s only just reached open ground.’

‘There’s no point trying to run out in the open with no equipment,’ James said, frustrated. ‘Ambushing and nabbing equipment is the only way for us to go.’

Dana nodded. ‘Lure in one of the quad bikes and knock the rider off, but it won’t be easy. So many of us black shirts got caught so quickly that we’re all gonna be trying the same kind of tactics.’

‘We might as well be moving as standing here,’ James said, and Dana nodded.

They headed towards a white shirt called Jennie Ross. She stood at the edge of the clearing with a clipboard and a pen behind her ear.

‘Ready for another shot?’ she asked cheerfully. ‘Agents were made of tougher stuff in my day.’

‘Seems the birds were a lot uglier though,’ James grinned.

The white shirt took a whistle out of her jacket. ‘You’ve got forty seconds’ immunity from when I blow the whistle.’ Then she turned and shouted into the trees. ‘Two more suckers heading out on my mark.’

A shot cracked the air and hit the ground a metre past Lauren. She dived behind a line of shrubs as a second shot whacked the heel of her boot, then looked up and peeked between the branches. Night vision showed her a single red-shirt sniper lying on the flat roof of the vehicle workshop.

Lauren thought about starting a shoot-out, but the red shirt had the dual advantages of body armour and a radio to call for backup. So she shouted out, trying to sound younger than she was.

‘Don’t shoot,’ she squeaked. ‘I’m a friendly but my headset has broken.’

She watched the red shirt swing around suspiciously and raise his hand. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ he asked.

Lauren smiled; the youngster hadn’t considered that another red shirt might have had their night-vision goggles snatched.

‘Three fingers,’ Lauren shouted, as she stood up and gave a friendly wave. Although she was smaller than any of the other black shirts, she was still bigger than any red shirt and she hoped that the boy wouldn’t work this out until she got up close.

‘How’d you bust your radio?’ the red shirt asked.

‘I fell in a ditch and it got a soaking,’ Lauren explained as she jogged up to the side of the building. Even if the red shirt realised who she was now, he’d have to lean awkwardly over the guttering to get a shot in.

‘What’s happening on the radio?’ Lauren asked. ‘Have you had contact with any black shirts?’

‘It’s dead over here,’ the red shirt said dejectedly. ‘They sent me to check on anyone coming through the training compound, but all the action’s on the other side of campus.’

‘Same here,’ Lauren said. ‘I haven’t seen a sausage. I might head over there; do you want to come with?’

The red shirt swung his legs over the side of the roof and dropped down. Before he got his balance, Lauren launched a vicious Karate kick. Her boot thumped the little red shirt’s stomach and he doubled over.

‘By the way, I lied,’ Lauren smiled, as she swept the red shirt’s feet away and pinned him down in the gravel.

The red shirt cursed his luck: he’d fallen for Lauren’s ruse because her voice seemed familiar. But she wasn’t a fellow red shirt; she was the girl who helped the little kids in the junior block. He made a desperate grab for the transmit button on his microphone, but Lauren ripped the headset away from his mouth before digging the point of her elbow against the back of his neck. Shards of gravel dug into his face.

‘Glad you volunteered for this little game?’ Lauren snarled. ‘I want your jacket, your ammunition and everything else you’ve got. Then you’d better walk back to the junior block ’cos if I see your face again tonight I might not be such a sweetie pie.’

‘OK,’ said the kid, making the gravel shuffle as he tried to nod.

Once she’d stripped the red shirt’s equipment and sent him on his way, Lauren fixed on the headset so that she could listen to all the communications going back and forth between the white shirts and the instructors. Finally she squeezed into the red shirt’s coat. It was too small to button up and short on the sleeves, but it had a fur lining and it was bliss to have something covering her arms.

Despite the red shirt’s solemn promise, Lauren knew he was angry and would probably try reporting what had happened. She had to move fast, so it was a relief that the back door of the vehicle workshop had been left unlocked. This was common on campus, where burglars were unheard of and rogue cherubs knew they’d be caught on CCTV if they tried stealing anything.

The first thing she passed was the burned-out shell of Shakeel’s cart. It sat on bare wheel rims, filling its surroundings with a vague odour of burned plastic. James’ team’s buggy was up against the wall at the front and to her relief it hadn’t been stripped down after the race.

After flipping on the lamp over a workbench so that she could see, Lauren found the switch for the electronic door at the front and clambered into the seat. As the aluminium door rolled noisily towards the ceiling, she pressed the start button and the motorbike engine blasted into life.

*

Lauren had learned to drive when she was ten years old and got scheduled for at least an hour’s driving practice every month. CHERUB didn’t encourage agents to go out joyriding, but driving was a vital skill that most agents would use to escape from a sticky situation at some point in their careers.

CHERUB had a variety of pool cars and Lauren had sat behind the wheel of everything from Mercedes and Range Rovers down to Minis and mopeds. The one thing all of them had in common was that the manufacturers had invested millions in their development, making sure all the components worked together and that the steering and handling were expertly tuned.

By contrast, Lauren was now driving a golf buggy that had been converted by her brother and three of his mates. If you did anything more than gently dab the accelerator, the back wheels spun like crazy. The brakes had been designed for sedate progress around a golf course and she was stunned when she first used them and found that nothing happened for almost a second. When she squeezed harder the beefed-up rear brakes bit, sending a shower of sparks flying out from the rear wheels and hurling her forward in her seat.