CHERUB: Man vs Beast (21 page)

‘Got ’em,’ James said.

‘OK, old timer,’ Tom yelled as he released his trainer and showed his strength, lifting the guard effortlessly to her feet with one arm. ‘Time for walkies and no messing.’

‘You’ll be fine if you do as you’re told,’ James added, figuring that he’d be Mr Nice to Tom’s Mr Nasty.

The woman shook with fear as the boys frogmarched her out of the compound, along the chain link perimeter fence and down an overgrown embankment at the edge of the next lot, which had apparently been abandoned by an engineering company.

‘On the ground,’ Tom ordered, giving the woman a shove.

Once she was face down in the grass, James taped up her wrists and ankles, then linked the two sets of bindings together, so that she was trussed and couldn’t roll off some place.

‘Right,’ James said, passing the guard’s car keys across to Tom. ‘You go across to the other side and get her car, I’ll help set up the fire.’

As Tom crossed the deserted road and headed for the parking lot outside the sorting office, James cut back around the gate and realised that he couldn’t remember where Kyle had parked.

‘Dude,’ James yelled cautiously, wanting to attract Kyle’s attention without alerting the whole world.

Kyle was so close his reply gave James a fright. James cut between two vans and found him at the back, with the hose connected up ready to spray the napalm.

‘I’ve got the controls on this tank sussed,’ Kyle said. ‘Do you want to go up front and drive?’

‘Right,’ James nodded.

‘Don’t forget to grab the backpack with all our stuff in when you get out.’

James climbed behind the wheel and turned the keys hanging off the steering column.

‘Keep it slow,’ Kyle yelled, as he stepped into the back of the van. ‘I don’t fancy falling out into a puddle of napalm.’

James put the van in first and crept out of the parking space, unfamiliar with the biting point of the clutch and anxious not to stall. As he drove at walking pace, Kyle leaned out the back doors with the hose, spraying globs of napalm over the fronts of the parked vehicles on either side and laying the odd streak across the Tarmac to ensure that the fire passed rapidly from one vehicle to the next.

There were four lines of vehicles, but Kyle was worried by the time they got halfway down the third. He scrambled inside the van and thumped on the divider. James pulled up and glanced back through the flap.

‘The pressure in the tank is down to nothing,’ Kyle explained. ‘However hard I crank the pump, I’m only getting a dribble. I want to make sure this van gets everything that’s left in there, because it’s covered in our fingerprints.’

‘Fair enough,’ James nodded.

James pulled the key out of the engine and felt a twinge of sympathy for a van that had turned its last wheel with less than 3,000 kilometres on the clock. He slung the backpack with all the maps and stuff over his shoulder and jumped out, catching the full-on stench of the jellied fuel they’d spread over more than sixty trucks and vans.

His stomach somersaulted as he realised that he was one crackle of static electricity away from being turned into a stick of charcoal. Kyle pointed the hose at the van and splattered it with the last of the napalm.

‘I’m shaking,’ James said, grinning uneasily at his gloved hands. ‘Let’s get out of here. Have you got the miniature bottles?’

Kyle nodded. ‘And the lighter’s in my back pocket.’

The boys moved quickly towards the gate, but pulled up sharp as they glanced at their only escape route: there was no sign of Tom, or the security guard’s car, but a Rapid Trak van was stopped outside the gate with its engine running and a uniformed driver stood in the kiosk using the telephone. Three more Rapid Trak employees were heading towards the scene.

‘Shit,’ James gasped. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘Where’s Tom?’ Kyle asked, glancing up and down the road.

‘Either he got nabbed getting in the guard’s car, or he chickened out when he saw the van pull up and the driver go looking for the security guard.’

‘Great,’ Kyle huffed.

‘So what do you reckon?’ James asked. ‘Run for it?’

‘No choice,’ Kyle said. ‘If we get busted our mission is down the pan, and I’m not gonna stand around here and wait to get roasted.’

James and Kyle started running and made it past the kiosk before the guy inside glimpsed their black outlines. He yelled out and the trio walking towards the scene gave chase as the boys broke into a full sprint up the middle of the deserted road. Two of the men were fat jellies, but the third was a massive black dude with a serious turn of speed.

By the time they’d run three hundred metres, he’d got close enough to James to bundle into him. From running at full pelt, James turned his ankle and clattered into the concrete, shredding his plastic gloves as he put his hands out to protect his face.

James tried scrambling up, but an expertly aimed Karate kick slammed his ribcage and sent him crashing back to the tarmac. Kyle realised his companion was in trouble and turned back. The black guy went into a fighting stance and Kyle wasn’t confident: the guy was a slab, half a metre taller than him and clearly knew his stuff.

But salvation came as twin headlamps roared out of the darkness. Tom had pulled out of a side turning in the security guard’s Fiesta and ploughed into the giant at thirty miles an hour. He rolled up over the bonnet and smacked into the ground with a hollow thud that didn’t bear thinking about. For a second, James and Kyle froze in shock.

Then, as the car pulled up sharply, Kyle grabbed James’ arm to help him up.

‘You OK?’ Kyle asked.

‘Can’t breathe,’ James moaned, clutching his chest. ‘My ribs are killing me.’

Kyle opened the back door and took some of James’ weight as he staggered across and collapsed on to the rear seat.

‘Where’d you disappear to?’ Kyle asked angrily, slamming the front passenger door as Tom roared away.

‘I was waiting for you in the car outside,’ Tom explained. ‘But that dude pulled up in the Rapid Trak van. He saw there was no one in the kiosk and he started coming towards me, so I pulled out and went for a drive around the block.’

‘Idiot,’ Kyle said, as he ripped off his Balaclava. ‘He’s smaller than you and you had surprise on your side. Why didn’t you rush over and lay him out, instead of giving him a chance to call out the cavalry?’

‘Didn’t think,’ Tom confessed, taking another left, then pulling up at the rear of the Rapid Trak depot.

‘Why have you stopped?’ Kyle asked.

But Kyle realised before he heard Tom’s answer. In the panic to get away, he’d forgotten what they were doing in the first place. He opened the electric window while grabbing two miniature whiskey bottles out of his top. Each bottle had shredded paper poking out of the top and extra thick globs of napalm filling the bottom third.

‘Keep your foot on that accelerator ’cos this is really gonna blow,’ Kyle said.

He lit the paper shreds sticking out of the two miniature bottles and flung them high over the chain link fence. James and Kyle looked backwards as Tom downed the accelerator and shifted the car up through the gears.

But twenty seconds passed and nothing happened.

‘Shall we go back?’ Tom asked, slowing the car.

‘What are the odds on that?’ Kyle said furiously. ‘That whole place is soaked in fuel.’

‘Unbelievable,’ Tom gasped, hammering on the steering wheel as the car stopped moving.

‘We can’t turn back now,’ Kyle said. ‘The cops must be on their way. It’s too dan—’

The sky lit up before Kyle finished his sentence. The little Ford was several hundred metres clear of the depot, but the blast still made it wobble. Car alarms went off, windows in the surrounding buildings shattered and the blast of heat was so intense that James could feel it on his neck, magnified through the glass in the rear window.

The front tyres squealed as Tom floored the accelerator. They turned out of the industrial park and back on to the dual carriageway as a secondary explosion sent towers of flame fifty metres into the air. When the noise faded, they could hear police sirens in the distance.

Twenty minutes later, James, Kyle and Tom arrived at a mock-Tudor house seven kilometres outside of Wrexham. The light came on in the garage as they pulled on to the driveway and by the time they’d stopped inside, a lanky man had run around the back of the car and pulled down the metal door.

‘No sign of a tail?’ he asked, as three car doors opened.

‘Not as far as we can tell,’ Tom said.

‘I’m Mark,’ the beanpole said, as Kyle looked around and noticed that he wore disposable gloves and had a handgun tucked into the waistband of his shorts. ‘Leave your maps, dirty gloves and everything else we gave you inside the car. I’ll switch plates, take it across town and burn it out in a field before sunrise.’

James had to lean against the garage wall as he hobbled around the outside of the car.

‘How you doing?’ Kyle asked.

‘Got my wind back,’ James nodded. ‘But my ankle’s bloody agony.’

‘I’ve been listening to a police scanner all night,’ Mark said. ‘By the sound of things you three pulled it off good. There’s over two million quid’s worth of wheels in that depot and I doubt there’ll be a serviceable set left when the smoke clears.’

Tom looked at Mark. ‘I ran a guy down with the car. Did you overhear anything about that?’

‘Only that there was an ambulance called to the scene,’ Mark said, as he produced three sets of disposable gloves from his shirt pocket. ‘Come through to the house. Afraid you’ll have to wear these, and for safety’s sake, I’d strongly recommend that you burn the shoes and clothing you used in tonight’s operation when you get home.’

‘Our mum’s gonna love having to shell out for two new pairs of trainers,’ Kyle said, as he helped James limp through a connecting door into a smartly fitted kitchen.

‘Money is one thing the AFA doesn’t worry about,’ Mark smiled. ‘I’ll sort you out with enough cash to replace everything before you go.’

‘Is this your house?’ James asked.

Mark shook his head as he leaned into the garage and flicked out the light. ‘It’s a holiday let. We’re nicely out of the way and we’ve paid for two weeks’ rent, so I’ll have plenty of time to clear up after you’ve gone.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You three don’t want to be hanging around this area for too long, but I know you’ve been on the go for hours, so you’re welcome to take a breather before setting off in the other car. I’ll put the kettle on, there’s samosas in the fridge, or I can make sandwiches if you’d prefer.’

‘Samosas sound great,’ Kyle said, ‘but I’m worried about the state James is in. He’s all grazed and bloody and he’ll stand out a mile if the cops stop us at a roadblock or anything. Can he take a shower?’

‘Sounds like a sensible precaution,’ Mark nodded. ‘The bathroom is at the top of the stairs. Clean towels are on the rail. I’ll make sure everything is scrubbed down with bleach before I leave.’

‘I’ll help you up the stairs,’ Kyle said, looking at James.

James hobbled out of the kitchen and along a short hallway. He looked back at Kyle when he reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’ll manage,’ he said.

‘I’ll make sure Mark and Tom don’t come upstairs,’ Kyle whispered rapidly. ‘Take the quickest shower you can, then check out the bedrooms and see if you can find any of Mark’s stuff. This is gonna be our only chance to get something solid on the AFA before we’re dragged into the major operation.’

‘OK,’ James nodded. ‘But I’m not gonna be moving anywhere quickly, so you’d better kick up a fuss if anyone starts up the stairs.’

*

Mark gave them another map with a different route home. It was farther, but quicker because it involved crossing back into England and riding the whole way on the motorway.

The car was a chunky Nissan X-Trail and it was 2:30 a.m. by the time they set off, so the traffic was light. Tom dozed in the front passenger seat and James laid out in the back.

Kyle was shattered and fought to stay awake as the cat’s-eyes marking out the lanes tried to hypnotise him. He played mental games to stop himself from nodding off: doing times tables and working his way through the alphabet trying to think of car brands, rock groups, or foods that started with each letter.

He knew that driving when you’re sleepy is dangerous and was tempted by the signs advertising rooms from £39 a night. But he reckoned they’d all be chock full with families who’d given up on the traffic jams and even if they weren’t, he wouldn’t be able to check in without a credit card.

But despite drifting out of lane a couple of times and one hair-raising moment when he found himself closing up rapidly on a coach that had no business in the fast lane of a motorway, everyone was still alive when he pulled into Rigsworth services at a quarter to six in the morning.

The sky was a mix of orange and mauve as he stopped in a bay twenty metres from where he’d collected the van eleven hours earlier.

Kyle unclipped his seat-belt and gave Tom a shove. ‘Wakey, wakey.’

‘Tell me that wasn’t all a dream,’ Tom grinned, as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. ‘We kicked some ass, didn’t we?’

James glanced at his watch before sticking his head between the two front seats. ‘You made good time, Kyle.’

‘I’m wiped out,’ Kyle said. ‘How’re your war wounds?’

James pulled up his T-shirt and inspected the purple and black blotches across his chest. ‘Tender,’ James said, prodding himself gently. ‘I don’t reckon anything’s broken though, it doesn’t hurt bad enough.’

‘What about your ankle?’

‘It’s swollen, but I can’t really tell until I get out and put some weight on it.’

All three boys needed the toilet. They gathered up their stuff before popping their doors open. James was first out, leaning against the roof as he took his first tentative steps. Each one sent a sharp pain up his leg, but he’d walked off a similar injury during basic training and at least this time he didn’t have to run an assault course while an instructor screamed that he was a lazy worm who was faking the injury.

‘I’ve got to shut the keys inside the car,’ Kyle said, as he took in a refreshing lungful of morning air. ‘Make sure you’ve got everything ’cos we’ll be locked out.’