yell at the rowdy group of red-shirts outside, James looked up at Dana with a hint of desperation. Her beefy thigh muscles loomed over him and her entire bodyweight pressed on his shoulders.
‘Let us up,’ James gasped. ‘It’s over.’
Dana gave him an evil smile. James didn’t know Dana all that well. She was a loner, still a grey shirt after five years of CHERUB missions and notoriously bitter towards younger kids like him who’d achieved better things.
‘This is because I’m a navy shirt, isn’t it?’ James said. ‘Well maybe you’ve been unlucky, or whatever, but you can’t blame me for that.’
‘It’s not that,’ Dana grinned.
‘C’mon, let me up,’ James said, getting angry as he tried to wriggle out. ‘Takada’s gonna have a right go if she comes back and sees we’re not running.’
‘She’ll be a few minutes helping the little kids get changed.I’ve got long enough.’
‘Long enough for what?’
‘You’ll see,’ Dana said, shuffling forwards so that her bum loomed over James’ head.
James heard a rumbling sound from inside Dana’s shorts and felt a blast of warm air.
‘Oh, Jeeeeeesus,’ James whined, screwing up his face.
Dana started laughing as she rolled off and found her feet.
‘You’re an animal,’ James groaned, wafting his hand in front of his face. ‘That’s putrid. I’ll get you back for that.’
He couldn’t help seeing the funny side. He liked Dana, even though she was an oddball.
Dana shrugged. ‘Don’t expect me to lose any sleep.’
James’ laughter dried up as he staggered towards the dojo exit, grabbed his trainers and began stripping off his padding. Twenty laps around the dojo takes half an hour when you’re knackered, and it was freezing outside.
2. CLYDE
The Echelon security network is the world’s most sophisticated electronic surveillance system. It is jointly run by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and the intelligence services of several friendly nations, including Great Britain and Australia.
Echelon monitors communications, including telephone calls, e-mails and faxes passing via microwave links, communications satellites and fibre optic cables. The system currently scans nine billion private messages and conversations per day.
Every hour, approximately one million messages containing trigger words such as bomb, terrorist, napalm, or phrases such as Help Earth or Al Qaeda are picked out and stored by the system. These suspicious messages are run through logic analysing software that is capable of determining the emotional state of a person from their voice, or the likely context of suspicious words in an e-mail or text message.
Of the million messages stored each hour by Echelon, about 20,000 will be flagged by the computer and read by one of 2,000 monitoring staff on duty at any given time.
In late 2005, an Echelon station in south-east Asia intercepted an e-mail message between two unknown parties. The e-mail mentioned a possible Help Earth attack in Hong Kong and the involvement of a sixteen-year-old environmental campaigner named Clyde Xu.
Rather than arresting the young suspect, it has been decided to infiltrate Xu’s family in the hope that more senior figures within Help Earth can be uncovered. (Excerpt from a CHERUB mission briefing for Kyle Blueman, Kerry Chang and Bruce Norris.)
Hong Kong, February 2006
Kerry Chang broke into a jog when she spotted Rebecca Xu leaning against a lamppost waiting for her. The two thirteen-year-olds wore school uniform – blue blouse, navy skirt and pullover, white tights – and were mixed up with hundreds of others dressed the same way. Some were heading home alone, some stood in groups gossiping, while others cut precariously into four lanes of snarled up traffic, trying to catch a double-decker bus parked at a stop on the opposite side of the road.
‘Good day?’ Kerry asked, speaking in Cantonese.
Rebecca shrugged. ‘School’s school, you know how it goes.’
Kerry knew how she felt. When an undercover mission drags on, the person you’re pretending to be starts getting mixed up with who you really are. She’d now been attending Prince of Wales School for six weeks and had settled into a rut.
Rebecca started walking.
‘Aren’t we waiting for Bruce?’ Kerry asked.
‘Detention,’ Rebecca smiled. ‘I thought you knew. Your brother’s such an idiot.’
‘Stepbrother,’ Kerry said. ‘No shared genes, thank you very much. What’s he gone and done now?’
‘Oh, just him and his stupid mates yapping all through maths class. Mr Lee chucked a mental and told them to come back after school.’
Kerry shook her head. ‘I wish I was in your class. I’ve got nobody to talk to all day.’
Rebecca smiled. ‘But we’d probably get in trouble for chatting all the time.’
The air-conditioned school was always chilly, but