CHERUB: The Fall - Robert Muchamore Page 0,66
this, have you?’
‘No,’ Lauren said. ‘But I’m worried sick. I think we’ll have to tell someone. They could grab you off the street. I came out here because for all we know, they’re waiting outside the ACC gates right now.’
‘What can we do?’
‘I’ve got twenty quid,’ Lauren said. ‘The longer we stand around here, the more chance that they’ll spot us. We’ll find a McDonald’s or somewhere warm and think everything through.’
‘I guess,’ Anna said, as she spun around.
Lauren’s phone rang as they started walking. It was John.
‘Pretend like you’re speaking to your best friend,’ he said.
‘Hi, Bethany,’ Lauren said enthusiastically.
‘I’ve thought it through,’ John said. ‘I’ve had a good look around and I can’t see the bad guys, but the mobile phone signal says they’re less than three hundred metres away. Head for the café on the corner. I’ll be your social worker, same as when you arrived on Sunday. When I come in, you tell Anna that you got scared and told me what was going on. I’ll tell her that she can have full British citizenship and protection if she tells us everything she knows.’
‘Can you do that?’ Lauren asked.
‘I had a word with Zara; she says the easiest thing is to fill in the paperwork as if we’re recruiting Anna into CHERUB. Then we’ll reject her application and send her out for adoption.’
‘What if we kept the item?’ Lauren was trying not to let Anna tag on to the conversation. Fortunately, she didn’t speak much English anyway.
‘I considered that,’ John said. ‘You said Anna’s bright, but she’s twelve already and there’s not much of her. By the time we’ve taught her enough English to get through basic training and toughened her up a bit, she’d be too old.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Lauren sighed. ‘I would have loved to come to your birthday party.’
‘I won’t be able to park on the main road,’ John said. ‘So I’ll be walking right behind you. I’ve got a gun, just in case they show their faces.’
‘I’ll send you a nice card,’ Lauren said. ‘Speak soon, bye.’
‘Who was that?’ Anna asked, as Lauren pocketed her phone.
‘Mate of mine,’ Lauren explained, switching back to Russian. ‘Wanted me to go to her party, but didn’t realise that I’d moved down here.’
‘Pity,’ Anna said.
Lauren pointed out the café on the opposite corner. ‘We can cross over and go in there, they do nice cakes.’
They were approaching the no-parking zone leading up to a pedestrian crossing when a battered Toyota saloon screeched to a halt alongside them. Lauren turned and saw two burly men staring right at her.
‘Run,’ she screamed, giving Anna a shove as the back of the car opened and a Reebok trainer stepped into the gutter.
To Lauren’s horror, Anna only managed two steps before the momentum from the push sent her sprawling across the pavement. Realising that Anna wouldn’t be able to outrun two grown men, Lauren went on the offensive. As the man in the Reeboks stood up, Lauren charged forward and kicked him in the balls. He crumpled over as she slammed her palm into his solar plexus, punched him in the face and crunched his arm in the car door.
Meanwhile, the driver stepped into the road, sprinted around the car and grabbed Anna off the pavement. He shouted to Lauren in English: ‘Hey, little girl.’
Lauren caught the light glinting from the saw-toothed blade at Anna’s throat.
‘Get in the car or I cut her head off.’
Lauren looked over her shoulder, but there was no sign of John. A woman screamed hey from the opposite side of the road as her buggy-pushing friend dialled the police on her mobile.
The man Lauren had beaten groaned as he grabbed the car door and used it to lever himself out of the gutter. Meanwhile, his knife-wielding companion bundled Anna into the front passenger seat. Once the knife was away from Anna’s throat, Lauren considered going back on the attack, but within a second, she had a gun pressed against her temple.
‘Little bitch,’ the bloody-nosed man spat, as he grabbed Lauren’s jacket and thrust her inside the car.
Lauren ended up straddling the back seat and the man sat on her, crushing her legs as he pulled shut the rear door. As the driver slammed his door and dropped the handbrake, his companion shoved Lauren’s legs from beneath him, before banging her head against the door trim and cracking his hand across her face.
‘Kick me in the balls, eh?’ he shouted, as Lauren collapsed across her seat.