CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,79
him in the chest. The four electrified barbs sprung upwards and there were a dozen clicks, each one sending a fifty-thousand-volt pulse through the razor-sharp hooks.
Asif blacked out and hit the floor hard. Rat knelt across his chest and ripped the gun out of the holster under his blazer.
‘Who are you?’ Asif moaned.
‘Friends of Fahim,’ Lauren said, as she held the stun gun up so that Asif could see it. ‘If you don’t tell me where we can find him, I’m gonna zap you again.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Asif said.
Both kids backed off as Lauren gave a quick squeeze on the trigger. Asif screamed and twitched as the air filled with the smell of burned skin.
‘Tell me, now,’ Lauren demanded.
Rat pulled the cap off the pepper spray. ‘I’m gonna count to ten, then I’m gonna hold your eyeball open and spray it right in. Tell me where Fahim is, dirtbag!’
Lauren accidentally nudged the trigger, giving Asif another fifty thousand volts and almost frying Rat in the process.
‘Jesus,’ Rat screamed. ‘Careful with that thing.’
The third shock made Asif bite his tongue and blood began trickling out of his mouth.
Lauren and Rat had to sound confident, but cherubs weren’t supposed to threaten captives unless someone was in immediate danger of death, and while Fahim was in danger they had no grounds to believe that Hassam was going to kill him.
‘I’d better ring Mac and get permission,’ Rat said nervously, as he pulled out his phone. ‘We could get in deep shit if we overdo this.’
Jake took the call. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I need Mac,’ Rat shouted. ‘We’ve got Asif, but he won’t talk.’
‘Mac’s on my phone talking to the Met police. He’s trying to see if their number-plate cams have picked up any of the Bin Hassams’ cars.’
‘We need permission to extract information from Asif,’ Rat explained. ‘We’ve given him a few stun-gun blasts, but I can’t go any further unless Mac clears us.’
Jake tutted. ‘I can’t believe there were no incoming calls logged on his phone.’
Jake’s words hit Rat like a slap in the face. He looked up at Lauren. ‘His mobile,’ Rat gasped. ‘If there’s calls from whatever phone Hassam is using we can take the number and track his mobile signal.’
‘Oh crap,’ Lauren said.
Checking Asif’s mobile phone was the most obvious thing to do, but in their panic neither Rat nor Lauren had thought of it.
Jake overheard Lauren’s cursing on the other end of the phone and laughed. ‘Good job I mentioned it before you started pulling out his fingernails.’
Rat stared anxiously as Lauren pulled out Asif’s mobile. ‘Looks like a cheap pay-as-you-go,’ she said, as she flipped to the incoming calls. ‘We’re lucky the stun gun didn’t fry the circuits.’
Asif moaned and clutched his bleeding mouth as Lauren opened up the incoming-calls menu. She saw that all of Asif’s calls that morning had been to a single number and hit the green button to dial it. It rang three times before Hassam’s voice came on the line.
‘Asif, where are you? Is everything OK?’
Lauren hung up without saying a word. ‘It’s him,’ she said, looking at Rat. ‘I’ll call the number through to campus. They’ll be able to triangulate Hassam’s position in less than a minute.’
‘Thanks for the tip, Jake,’ Rat said, before ending the call.
‘Outwitted by the little squirt,’ Lauren sighed, as she dialled the campus control room. ‘I’ll never hear the end of this.’
32. BELT
The Volvo stopped in front of a mock-Tudor detached, with a For Sale sign planted on the front lawn and a rear garden backing on to a golf course. Hassam and Asif part-owned an estate agency, which gave them access to a number of vacant properties.
Asif’s wife Muna opened the front door as they stepped towards the house. Her seven-year-old daughter Jala was happy to see her older cousin and came running out to give him a hug.
‘Everyone inside,’ Hassam said firmly, giving his niece a pat on the back of her long dress. ‘Best to keep out of sight.’
While Fahim’s mum had adopted western dress and lifestyle after leaving the Middle East, Muna was in every way a traditional Arab wife. Fahim found his aunt a mysterious figure, because his Arabic was far from perfect and Muna’s English was even worse.
The smell of unpainted plaster clung to the air inside the newly refurbished property.
‘How’s my Asif?’ Muna asked anxiously.
‘OK, I think,’ Hassam said, as they moved up the hallway. ‘He’s fetching our documents and should be here soon.’