CHERUB: Brigands M.C. - Robert Muchamore Page 0,96

turn up, so it seemed fair that he should take the dirty end of the job. The hold’s metal floor boomed as his trainers landed in a fine layer of silt, with a centimetre of water sloshing about. He was overpowered by the warm fishy air as Julian passed down an inspection lamp that clipped over a hook on the ceiling.

‘You OK?’ Julian asked.

Nigel didn’t answer because he thought he might puke if he opened his mouth. He reached into the dirt and pulled up a sodden wooden board that latched over the sill of the hatch to make a ramp.

The trawler had slowed to a crawl and the pink buoy now bobbed five metres off the port side. Paul threw out a grappling hook and snared the rope attached to the base of the buoy. He then hauled the buoy in, hooked the rope over a pulley above the deck and looped the end around an electric winch.

The rear of the boat dipped as the winch raised the package from the sea bed fifty metres below. It emerged from the water, a sandy rectangle the size of a freezer and wrapped in a rubber membrane sealed with epoxy resin.

‘Give us a hand here,’ Woodhead ordered, as he leaned precariously over the side of the boat and grabbed a rope attached to the bottom of the package to help swing it around on deck. Julian tried to help and almost got his arm crushed as the boat rocked and the package slammed against the hull.

For their second attempt Woodhead snared the rope on the bottom of the package with the grappling hook, Julian took the top end and the pair managed to manhandle it on to the deck.

‘Jesus,’ Woodhead gasped, groaning from the exertion and wiping the sweat off his brow. ‘You did good. Now start slitting and sliding.’

As Riggs lined the boat up with the second buoy, Julian and Woodhead worked frantically. They slit open the rubber membrane and inspected the cardboard boxes inside.

‘It’s all dry,’ Woodhead grinned. ‘And that’s a lot of shooters.’

The writing on the boxes was mostly in Chinese script, but it didn’t take a genius to work out what was inside. Some were plain cardboard, but others were retail packs, printed in colour and advertising the benefits of the guns or bullets inside them.

Pulling up the packages and stashing the cargo was the riskiest part of the smuggling operation, especially on a calm summer Saturday when the yachts and pleasure craft were cruising and coastguard helicopters had plenty of moonlight to work with. Woodhead and Julian worked fast, carrying the heavy boxes across deck and sliding them down to Nigel who stacked them up in the stinking hold.

*

If you travelled with the Brigands you were expected to fight with the Brigands, so James had no choice as everyone piled out from between the tents, grabbing tent pegs, hammers, bike chains or whatever else came to hand.

Although the Führer had voted against the fight, his reputation as an outstanding leader meant that he was in charge of the attack. Two chapters including London would go after Satan’s Prodigy, four would attack the more numerous Vengefuls, while the Cardiff chapter would stay back to defend the camp. Most hangers-on and puppet gang members would fight with whatever Brigands chapter had brought them, but Cardiff didn’t have much backup so the Führer ordered two chapters of the Monster Bunch to stay behind.

As a hang-around, James could have gone with any group he fancied, but he chose safety over the chance of further fighting glory and stayed back with Will and the other Monsters. As six Brigands chapters led a noisy charge downhill, James joined a defensive line on the edge of camp. He stood two metres from Will, arms folded and wearing his new riding gloves with a length of bike chain wound around his left fist.

Satan’s Prodigy were a powerful gang, but their fourteen chapters were all based in northern England or Scotland and only two of them had come south for the Tea Party. The Brigands arrived to find that the Prodigy had packed up and taken refuge on other parts of Outlaw Hill. It was a victory of sorts, but most likely the start of a bitter feud that would flare up at runs and gatherings over months or years.

The Vengefuls were tougher opponents. The Brigands outnumbered them, but any Vengeful showing his face after the earlier rout was going to be tough and well