CHERUB: The Fall - Robert Muchamore Page 0,78

to speak with Denis Obidin.

Obidin remains in typically bullish mood, but many commentators say that the closure is the final nail in Obidin’s dream of building a modern Russian aerospace industry to compete with America and the Europeans.

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‘All seems to tie up somehow,’ James said. ‘Lord Hilton withdraws funding from Denis Obidin’s pet project. They have some kind of falling out and Hilton ends up paying Boris and Isla to kill him.’

‘I can see that,’ Dana nodded. ‘Two businessmen falling out is nothing to write home about, but this is in an entirely different league. What did Obidin have that makes Lord Hilton turn to the dirty deeds department?’

‘Something that threatens his life, his career, or his family.’

‘Obviously,’ Dana said. ‘Ahhh, got her. I’ve found a website for an air show that took place back in 2002. Members of the press wishing to interview Lord Hilton should in the first instance contact his personal assistant Madeline Cowell.’

‘Blimey,’ James said. ‘So that’s Lord Hilton’s business partner, personal assistant and one of his top scientists all bumped off in the space of three weeks. You’d think someone would have twigged.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Dana said. ‘The secretary was an old lady and Obidin was three thousand kilometres away. The only death likely to raise an eyebrow in this country is the scientist.’

‘So, apart from Lord Hilton and his son, the journalist Jason McLoud and this Sarah Thomas woman are the only ones on the list who are still alive.’

‘Exactly,’ Dana nodded.

James thought for a few seconds. ‘Anything on who Sarah Thomas is?’

‘The name is way too common,’ Dana said. ‘I just went into the CHERUB server and accessed the UK electoral roll. There are five thousand three hundred and seventeen people in Britain called Sarah Thomas.’

‘So what next?’

Dana pointed at the piles of papers.

‘Keep shuffling, dude.’

32. ROCK

James and Dana kept going until past midnight. Ewart had apparently conducted a thorough investigation with the help of personal contacts inside MI5 and the CIA. He seemed to have uncovered most of the truth behind the disastrous Aero City mission.

Lord Hilton’s son, Sebastian, had run Hilton Aerospace’s Russian operations until 1998, when he had left the company to begin a career in politics. During this time, Denis Obidin had gathered some dirt on Sebastian Hilton. When Lord Hilton said he was going to stop funding the ceramic engine research, Obidin had blackmailed him, threatening to ruin his son’s budding political career unless .. .

None of the paperwork said what Obidin’s hold over Sebastian Hilton was, or what Obidin had asked of Lord Hilton in return for his silence. But it was clear that instead of coughing up, recently appointed junior intelligence minister Sebastian Hilton had used a combination of his father’s money and his ministerial power to have Obidin killed.

He’d set Boris and Isla up on a legitimate mission in Aero City and then paid them $100,000 to kill Denis. Apparently, a couple of other people who knew or suspected the truth – such as the scientist and Lord Hilton’s retired personal assistant – had also been eliminated.

Sebastian Hilton assumed that he’d be able to use his connections inside MI5 to keep a lid on his dodgy dealings. Unfortunately, as the junior intelligence minister he’d never been told about the existence of CHERUB and neither had Boris or Isla.

They received a nasty shock when senior MI5 and CHERUB officials reviewed the slow progress of Boris and Isla’s mission and decided to send a CHERUB agent in to help them unearth the truth about Denis Obidin’s illegal arms sales.

James’ presence was a worry, but not enough to knock Sebastian Hilton or Boris and Isla off their stride. Their plan stayed the same: Boris and Isla would murder Denis Obidin, then escape Aero City and claim that they had killed him in self defence following a violent argument. The fact that James would most likely be captured, tortured and killed by Vladimir Obidin concerned them so little that they hadn’t even bothered to think up an excuse for him to get out of town on the night of the murder.

After the killing, Boris and Isla would have returned to Britain and pocketed Lord Hilton’s money. Following a short investigation in which Boris and Isla would have been the only credible witnesses, James’ death would be written off as a side effect of a mission that went tragically wrong.

Fortunately for James, Sebastian Hilton had miscalculated. Boris and