New Guard (CHERUB) (18 page)

‘You guys should probably take things slow today,’ Leon added, as he stuffed scrambled egg into his mouth. ‘People your age gotta think about your blood pressure.’

‘Or popping your haemorrhoids,’ Alfie added, as his table erupted in laughter.

Friendly whoops went up as Kerry rolled in. Lauren and Kyle gave her hugs.

Kerry turned sharply and looked at Bruce. ‘So, when do we get to smack these sarcastic brats around the dojo?’ she asked.

‘Soon enough,’ Bruce said, as he took a seat next to Lauren. ‘See how smart they are tomorrow morning, when they’ve got no front teeth.’

‘I’m not scared of you,’ Alfie told Bruce. ‘I’ve found bigger objects than you up my nose.’

Laughter roared around the current agents’ table. James gave Kerry a kiss as they passed in opposite directions. James with his plate stacked, Kerry heading to the buffet. As James settled between Lauren and Kyle, Tovah darted out of the kitchen, holding a fruit plate covered in cling film.

‘What?’ James asked, as he poached a hash brown on his fork.

‘Bad news,’ Tovah told James. ‘I did some calculations. If you want to fly on this mission, you need to lose four kilos.’

James gawped as Tovah swapped his bacon and eggs for sliced melon, garnished with two red grapes.

‘You’re kidding me,’ James said, pointing at Kyle. ‘He’s fatter than me.’

‘Hey!’ Kyle yelped.

Tovah shook her head. ‘Kyle may be overweight for his body size, but he’s shorter so he’s still only sixty-four kilos.
You
need to be under seventy-five.’

Everyone apart from James started laughing.

‘Who ate all the pies?’ the teens at the next table started singing. ‘Who ate all the pies?’

‘These sausages are dee-licious,’ Kerry teased, as James glowered at his melon. ‘Is it every meal, or just breakfast?’

‘Every meal,’ Tovah said. ‘Serious calorie restriction is the only way James can drop four kilos in five weeks.’

‘Hey,’ James growled, as Lauren snapped a pic with her phone. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Had to, bro,’ Lauren explained. ‘Your expression right now is priceless!’

While CHERUB had blown its investment budget on the swanky new Campus Village, the summer hostel had been neglected. The gym was no exception, with creaky floorboards, cracked glazing and fighting mats patched up with duct tape.

Capstick led the training session, starting with laps and stretches. Kyle hadn’t sparred for ages, but triumphed over aches and put on a decent show sparring with Leon. Daniel got outclassed by Tovah. As the two biggest, James paired with Alfie, and their session got red-faced and bad-tempered as it progressed. Bruce and Kerry had been sparring since they were nine years old, but since Kerry hadn’t trained intensely since leaving uni, Bruce had to go easy.

After ninety minutes and a few partner swaps, Tovah, the five Currents and the five Crustys lined up breathlessly in front of Capstick and McEwen.

‘Yawl worked hard,’ Capstick said, smiling. ‘Especially you, Kyle, blowing off a lot of cobwebs.’

Kyle smiled as Bruce slapped him between the shoulder blades.

‘But,’ Capstick said dramatically. ‘Since Currents and Crustys are in competition, I want each side to pick their three best fighters for three bouts. Winners get first dibs at showers and lunch buffet. Losers run ten laps and wipe down sweaty mats.’

Since Ning and Alfie were mates and Leon and Daniel were his little brothers, Ryan had assumed a leadership role amongst the Currents, and led the quintet into a circle by the back wall.

‘Bruce is going to beat whoever,’ Alfie began. ‘Ning’s too fast for James, Kyle’s a wreck and I reckon Ning can take Kerry or Lauren, because they’re both out of practice.’

Ryan nodded in agreement. ‘So if Bruce wins his bout and Ning wins hers, it’ll all be down to the third match-up.’

‘Hang on,’ Ning said. ‘I’m the best, Bruce is the best. We should fight each other.’

The four lads shook their heads. ‘Nah, we have to be tactical,’ Ryan said.

Ning smiled. ‘I’ve been hearing about the legendary Bruce Norris since my first dojo session on campus. I’ve
always
wanted to fight him.’

‘But then we’ll be a bout down,’ Ryan said. ‘What’s the point?’

Ning put indignant hands on hips. ‘Who says I can’t win?’

The boys laughed and shook their heads.

‘Ning, for god’s sake,’ Alfie said. ‘Bruce won the All-in Campus Fighting Championship every year from when he was
thirteen
. He’s been training some of the best young fighters on campus.’

Ryan nodded. ‘Bruce has been living in Thailand. He teaches Muay Thai boxing to
Thai
people.’

‘I can take him,’ Ning said, pounding a fist into her palm. ‘I’m fighting Bruce, that’s all there is to it.’

Lauren Adams faced Ryan in an even first bout. Ryan’s height and speed, versus Lauren’s technique and low centre of gravity. After a lot of circling, Lauren suckered Ryan into overreaching on a punch. She went low, tripped, flipped and won with an arm bar.

Alfie and James repeated their sparring from earlier. Bulky and slow, they grunted, turned red and wound up on the floor in a stalemate. Capstick declared Alfie a narrow winner, mainly because he wanted the third bout to count for something.

Bruce Norris was a few centimetres shorter than an average bloke. Slim, muscular and so fast that opponents often found themselves on the floor and bloody-nosed before they got to make their first move. Ning was the same height. Her broad back and muscular arms made the Chinese state pick her as a future Olympic boxer when she was a little kid and you could see why as she went eye-to-eye with Bruce.

‘Fight,’ Capstick snapped, as the sweaty onlookers hummed with excitement.

Bruce did what he did. He swept in fast and brought Ning down with a leg hook. It looked like it was over inside three seconds as Bruce dived on Ning’s back and tried to wrench her arm. But her powerful shoulders didn’t yield the way Bruce expected and there was huge power in the flying knee that slammed him in the ribs and sent him off balance.

Now Ning rolled on top. Bruce writhed as Ning got a knee across his chest and started pounding his face with her gloved fists. If more was at stake, Bruce might have taken the pain and tried to throw her off, but he didn’t fancy doing the rest of his mission prep trying to breathe through a broken nose, so he thumped on the mat to submit.

The crowd seemed delighted by Ning’s shock victory. Even the Crustys, who now faced gym laps.

‘Losing it, Bruce!’ Alfie shouted.

Ning’s own celebration was muted. She knew Bruce had made a tactical surrender as she gave him a hand off the mat and strolled towards an equipment bin, peeling her gloves.

‘You hit
hard
,’ Bruce said, grinning.

Ning had beaten enough boys over the years to appreciate the ones who didn’t bitch and make excuses when they lost.

‘You’ve never seen me fight,’ Ning said. ‘I’ve seen videos of your campus championship bouts. You always did the same thing against fighters in the early rounds, when you thought it would be easy.’

‘My mistake,’ Bruce said, smirking as he ripped off a boxing glove and lobbed it into a canvas bag. ‘I certainly respect you now. And I’ve broken my nose too many times down the years to push that one too far.’

Ning shrugged. ‘You’d beat me every time if you knew my fighting style.’

‘But you played me,’ Bruce said, unable to contain a huge smile as he eyed Ning. ‘Gotta admire that. You heading straight to uni when you leave CHERUB?’

‘Can’t decide,’ Ning said.

‘I’m good mates with the owner of the dojo where I work in Thailand. If you wanted a gap year, I could probably get you work as a trainer. Maybe even earn something on the side from professional bouts, if you’re that way inclined.’

‘It’s a thought,’ Ning said brightly. ‘I came out of China penniless, so I could certainly use some funds.’

‘Pay’s not great,’ Bruce admitted. ‘But the lifestyle’s cool. You can find yourself a nice Aussie surfer boyfriend.’

Ning looked awkwardly at her feet and grunted. ‘All guys ever want is skinny girls with giant boobs.’

Bruce laughed. ‘Don’t be so down on yourself. Loads of guys would go for you.’

Ning snorted. ‘Like who?’

Bruce smiled. ‘Like me.’

Ning was flattered and erupted in a big smile, but it was also weird because she couldn’t work out if Bruce was flirting, or just being kind. Bruce felt just as awkward, because he’d realised that he
was
flirting. But he wasn’t on some Thai beach. He’d been working as CHERUB staff, and Ning was a seventeen-year-old agent.

As the pair flushed red, they were both relieved to see Instructor McEwen coming their way, pointing at Bruce.

‘Join the other Crustys,’ McEwen shouted. ‘Ten laps. And Ning, get your sweaty ass out of my gym and into the shower.’

James lunched on hummus and carrot batons while everyone else got pizza, but he cheered up when he took charge of fifteen 450cc Honda bikes.

‘Who’s ridden a motorbike before?’ James asked, as the two teams and four training staff gathered.

Lauren, Bruce, Alfie, Ryan and one of the training assistants raised their hands.

‘These are 450 CRF dirt bikes,’ James explained. ‘Almost indestructible. Top speed is only around a hundred and thirty kph, but they’re built with high ground clearance and fat tyres that make them good on the kind of terrain we’ll encounter in northern Syria. These are stock Hondas for training purposes, but for the mission we’ll be making a few adaptations so that they’re better able to carry equipment, and a custom gear setting to give us a higher top speed on open roads.

‘To begin, I’d like those of us who’ve ridden before to help me get motorbike virgins used to the controls with a few gentle runs. After that, we’ll take a little cross-country ride out to meet Tovah, who’ll be taking the second leg of the afternoon’s training.’

As the most experienced riders, James and Lauren took the lead, showing the others how to fit protective clothing and use the voice-operated microphones inside their helmets, before sending them off for an experimental ride back and forth along the single-track road that ran between the hostel’s main admin building and the dock where supplies got landed.

With clear skies and a mid-afternoon temperature touching twenty degrees, James led riders with varying degrees of confidence along a dirt track. Kyle moaned that his shoulders hurt, and almost inevitably Leon, Daniel and Alfie earned James’ wrath, first by starting a race, then by charging across a stream and soaking Kerry and Capstick.

The last kilometre took them down a steep dirt footpath to the edge of the strip where their plane had landed the day before. James opened his throttle and there was a deafening wail as the other bikes and their dusty riders took off in a plume of exhaust. After turning a gentle arc, they stepped off bikes on the part of the landing strip that jutted into the sea.

Tovah was waiting. She had a bright yellow pick-up filled with equipment, and a strange contraption on the ground. It looked like a two-man bobsled, but it had rubber wheels set wide apart at the back and a third directly below its bullet-shaped nose.

‘Gather round,’ Tovah said, as she thumped on the carbon fibre tub. ‘Here’s a question for all of you. Imagine that you’ve driven or parachuted into enemy territory under cover of darkness. But getting away won’t be so easy, because you’ve blown up the local oil well and rescued a pair of engineers. There’s only one road in or out of the area, and there are half a dozen Islamic State-controlled checkpoints between your butts and the Turkish border. The question is, how do you get away?’

As Tovah spoke, she hit a plastic catch, opening up the tub. Within a few seconds she’d reached inside, pivoting and telescoping various carbon fibre struts. She clipped a Plexiglas screen to the outside of the tub, flipped out a control stick, and finally pulled a cord, activating a compressed-air cylinder that rapidly turned sagging nylon into an eight-metre aerofoil wing.

‘The PX1 was jointly developed by US and Israeli special forces,’ Tovah explained. ‘It has a range of two hundred kilometres with a payload of a hundred and fifty kilos. It flies at around a hundred kilometres per hour if there’s no headwind, makes less than eighty decibels of noise from a distance of fifty metres and since it’s small and mostly made of carbon fibre, it’s invisible to all but the most advanced forms of radar. Now, who wants to come for a ride with me?’

James stepped up and Tovah nodded.

‘I thought he was too heavy,’ Alfie noted.

Tovah smiled. ‘He needs to be lighter for a hundred-kilometre mission flight,’ she explained. ‘But we’ll get him off the runway for a little demo.’

James took a helmet and went to sit in the rear passenger seat, but Tovah told him to go up front before helping him fix the five-point harness.

‘This one’s a trainer,’ she told James, as she straddled a seat close behind. ‘I’ve got duplicate controls in the back.’

James was looking at three smartphone-sized instrument screens and a dozen switches and buttons.

‘Where are the rocket launchers?’ he joked.

Tovah’s voice came through a microphone in his helmet. ‘Guess which one you press first?’

James saw a circular red button marked
start
directly in the control stick between his legs. When he pushed it there was a barely perceptible whirr from the engine above his head.

‘Now go to menu, launch, take-off and set parameters to three and weather to good.’

James followed the instructions until the left-hand display flashed up a green
go
sign.

‘Now gently raise the throttle lever, which is down on your right.’

The little propeller behind Tovah’s head grew noisier as the microlight plane started rolling.

‘Good,’ Tovah soothed. ‘Now all the way up, full throttle. And when you see sixty kph on the speed dial, you need to gently pull the control stick towards yourself.’

James wasn’t exactly sure where the speedo was, but the microlight had been designed for special forces rather than professional pilots and the screen started flashing yellow as soon as he hit sixty.