CHERUB: The Fall - Robert Muchamore Page 0,12

hang about. As he sprang up, he heard a cop emerge at the top of the third-floor fire exit. He slipped over like James had almost done and yelled as he clonked down seven steps.

James ducked behind the parked cars as he raced towards the entrance gates. As usual there were two ancient Russian-built cop cars parked outside the entrance, but Vladimir Obidin’s bulletproof Mercedes had been parked across the road to stop any vehicles from escaping.

He emerged close to the headlamps of one police car and was relieved to find it empty, but a thuggish-looking driver was propped on the bonnet of the Merc, with a compact machine gun around his neck and a cigarette between his lips.

It wasn’t ideal, but James figured that one against one with surprise on his side was about as good as the odds were likely to get. Aware that the cop who’d slipped down the steps would soon be on his tail, he crept around to the back of the police car and poked his head up over the boot.

The driver looked spaced out and James considered shooting him, grabbing his machine gun and making off in the limo. But it would take time; his gun wasn’t silenced and with more police on the way, it could turn into a full-blown chase. Besides, there’s a big difference between shooting your way out of a corner and going on the offensive, and James wasn’t sure he had the heart to sneak up and shoot a man in the back.

So while the driver dropped his cigarette and ground it under a highly polished shoe, James ducked behind his car, crossed the deserted street and jogged stealthily into the blackness with only a trace of moonlight giving his position away.

He crossed a stretch of paving that ran between two high-rise housing blocks. By the time he’d reached a stairwell at the rear, three police cars and an ambulance had parked outside the Brezhnev Apartments, their flashing blue lights making quite a show in the powerless town.

James decided to run towards the derelict area near the edge of Aero City. He could hide in one of the thousands of abandoned apartments that had once housed the city’s factory workers. But first he had to get in touch with the CHERUB emergency desk and tell them what had happened.

He reached inside his jacket, then padded down his jeans and came to a horrible realisation.

His phone was still inside his school backpack and his backpack was still inside flat 2-17.

6. POOL

The boys’ gymnasium was one of the oldest buildings on CHERUB campus. It had recently been refurbished with the latest exercise machines and weight-training equipment. A small extension had been built to provide changing rooms and showers for girls and the derelict basement cinema where cherubs had watched newsreels and movies in the fifties and sixties had been stripped out and turned into a lounge, complete with pool, snooker and air hockey tables. Big-screen TVs showed sports channels, there were oversized sofas and the glass-fronted fridges and cupboards along one side of the room were stocked with snacks and soft drinks.

The lounge had been completed less than a month earlier and the novelty had yet to wear off. It was packed with cherubs whenever it was open and a rota restricted access to certain age groups to prevent overcrowding.

Cherubs usually had lessons on Saturday morning, but the lounge had been specially opened for the twenty-six kids who’d returned from the aborted training exercise in the Yorkshire Dales. After making grave threats to a bunch of younger kids who’d been hogging one of the full-sized snooker tables for more than an hour, Lauren, Rat, Bethany and Andy managed to get a game.

None of them was very good. Rat was the most naturally gifted player, but he’d spent the first eleven years of his life inside a religious cult and was struggling to master the rules.

‘So I’ve knocked in the red. Now what colour do I have to pot first?’

Lauren tutted. ‘Whatever colour you nominate, for the third time.’

‘But I thought you had to do yellow, green, brown, or whatever,’ Rat said.

‘That’s only after all the reds have been potted at the end.’

‘Right,’ Rat said. ‘Blue ball, corner pocket.’

Lauren, Andy and Bethany all went quiet as Rat lined up his shot.

‘AWWWOOOOOOOOOO,’ Andy howled, trying to sound like a wolf as he made Rat totally miscue his shot.

‘No way,’ Rat said, as he grabbed the white ball off the table. ‘I’m retaking