CHERUB: Class A - Robert Muchamore Page 0,77

room only had a long narrow window up near the ceiling. He’d never get through before the man shot him.
There was a key inside the door. Turning the lock bought James a few seconds. He pushed an armchair against the door as the gunman rattled the handle on the outside. James desperately needed some kind of weapon.
‘Unlock this or I’ll shoot you to pieces,’ the man shouted, as he pounded the door with his fist.
James slid one of Keith’s LPs off its rack. He’d learned in weapons training that you can make a dagger by shattering any object made out of hard plastic. He leaned the record sleeve against the wall and stamped on it with his bloody trainer.
The gunman shoulder-charged the door.
One of his colleagues shouted after him from the kitchen. ‘You need a hand?’
The gunman didn’t sound worried. ‘It’s just some smartass kid who’s gonna be feeling a lot of pain real soon.’
Three deafening shots fired into the door, blasting away the lock. James tipped the pieces of the album out of its sleeve and grabbed the longest shard of what, until a few moments earlier, had been a valuable purple vinyl edition of Led Zeppelin IV.
The gunman kicked the door twice, barging the armchair out of the way. James backed up to the wall beside the door, with the shard of purple vinyl clutched tightly in his hand. His heart drummed like it was set to burst. If he got this wrong, he’d end up with a bullet through his head.
The second he saw the pistol coming through the door, James grabbed the muzzle with one hand while plunging the sharp piece of plastic into the gunman’s wrist. The man screamed out. His fingers sprang apart and James snatched the gun, before backing up to the opposite wall and turning it around so that his finger was on the trigger.
The man tugged the plastic out of his arm as he stumbled over the armchair. He faced James off with a self-assured grin.
‘Big gun for a little boy, eh?’ he said, showing off a rack of yellow teeth. ‘Are you really gonna shoot me?’
Some sort of commotion broke out in the kitchen. Keith Moore screamed in pain.
‘Get on your knees and put your hands on your head,’ James stuttered.
The man edged closer. James remembered his firearms training: from a safe position you can shoot to wound, but if you’re in mortal danger you can’t risk missing. You have to aim for the biggest target: the chest.
‘Don’t make me shoot you,’ James said desperately.
The gun weighed a billion tons in his trembling hands. The man ignored the threat and kept moving closer. James didn’t want to shoot, but what choice was there? He held his breath to steady the gun.
‘You ain’t gonna kill noooooobody,’ the man sneered, as he lifted his shoe off the carpet, preparing to take a step that would bring James into reach.
A shockwave ripped through the room. The bullet slammed into the gunman’s chest from less than two metres. His feet lifted off the floor as his body crashed backwards into the upturned armchair. Stunned by the fact that he’d just fired a bullet into a real human being, James felt sick as he scrambled over his bleeding victim and out into the hallway.
James ran into the back living-room, planning to escape via the beach, but another gunman was frogmarching Junior across the sand towards the house. He ducked back into the hallway, hoping the man walking up the beach hadn’t spotted him. It could only be a matter of seconds before the men in the kitchen came out to investigate the gunshot. The only way out the front of the house was by walking past the kitchen door, which would be suicidal. That only left one option.
Still holding the pistol, James ran upstairs. He went into his room, grabbed his mobile phone off the bedside table and called John Jones. A woman answered.
‘Is John Jones there?’
‘I’m Beverly Shapiro,’ the woman said. ‘Is that James Beckett?’
‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘Where’s John?’
‘He’s in the restroom. You sound worried, James. You can talk to me. I’m the Drug Enforcement Agency officer working with John.’
James gasped with relief. ‘Thank god. Listen, I’m at Keith Moore’s house. There’s a whole bunch of gunmen downstairs. They’re beating Keith up, trying to get some kind of information out of him.’
‘I’ll call the local cops out,’ Beverly said. ‘Can you make it out of the house?’
‘They caught Junior running down the beach. I