New Guard (CHERUB) - Robert Muchamore Page 0,14
a secure confinement facility. This would enable him to stay in his local area and carry on going to school, but ensure that he was closely monitored and subject to a strict curfew outside of school hours.
After four months of relatively good behaviour, Oliver has recently had his curfew and most other secure confinement conditions suspended.
THE ARREST
In July 2016, police arrested fifteen- and seventeen-year-old brothers in the Sandy Green area, acting on intelligence from MI5. The boys were linked to a series of armed petrol station robberies, the money from which was donated to a radical Islamic group.
When the teenagers’ bedrooms were searched, evidence was found that the boys had begun saving up to run away to North Africa and receive military training from a radical Islamic terror group. The boys are currently being held in custody, awaiting trial for the robberies.
When they were brought in for arrest, one officer on duty remembered that the younger boy had been caught truanting with Oliver Lakshmi the previous summer. This suggests the possibility that Oliver really might have some kind of information on radical Islamic groups.
MISSION PLAN
Daniel and Leon Sharma will move into the privately run Nurtrust Care Residence (NCR) in the Sandy Green area, with James Adams as mission controller. The twins’ role is to befriend Oliver Lakshmi and ascertain whether he has knowledge of Islamic terror groups, while simultaneously monitoring his behaviour to see if he will make a decent CHERUB recruit.
If information on radical Islamic groups is unearthed, an assessment will be made on whether to try and infiltrate the group, or to pass information on to the intelligence service and withdraw.
NOTE: ON THE 4TH DAY OF AUGUST 2016 THIS MISSION PLAN WAS PASSED UNANIMOUSLY BY THE CHERUB ETHICS COMMITTEE, ON CONDITION THAT ALL AGENTS UNDERSTAND THE FOLLOWING:
This mission has been classified MEDIUM RISK. All agents are reminded of their right to refuse to undertake this mission and to withdraw from it at any time.
9. ARRIVAL
James wanted to bring his motorbike, so he bent the under-age agents should only drive if they have to rule and let Leon and Daniel take a Focus ST with blacked-out windows from campus to Sandy Green.
James had rented a small flat above a Morrisons Local and had already been downstairs, sworn at the self-checkouts and made a brew by the time the twins tramped upstairs carrying some of his luggage.
‘You can’t park for shit,’ Leon teased.
James looked down from a bare-bulb landing, with the apartment door open. ‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘We parked the Focus in the lot out back, like you told us,’ Leon explained, as he crossed the threshold into the grimly furnished studio. Campus staff had already delivered most of James’ clothes and a pair of aluminium flight cases containing communication and surveillance equipment. ‘This nutter tried to reverse park and it was a total fiasco.’
Daniel tutted. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’
‘Did anyone see you?’ James asked warily.
‘Just some guy in a white van hooting,’ Leon said, grinning.
‘Cuppa?’ James asked. ‘Nurtrust is only a couple of hundred metres from here, so you’ll need to be discreet when you visit me.’
After tea and chocolate digestives, James helped the twins take the remaining luggage out of the Ford and sent them off to Nurtrust. Leon pressed a buzzer on a barred door, set between a betting shop and a local council office. The voice through the intercom was indecipherable, but he pushed when it buzzed and the pair found themselves in a graffitied hallway that smelled of cleaning product.
There was an office at the top of a staircase and a Sikh man in jacket and jeans greeted the pair at the top.
‘Leon and Daniel?’ he said, offering a hand to shake. ‘I’m Gurbir. Welcome to Nurtrust Sandy Green.’
They filled out forms and discussed rules. The whole time a girl in the next office sobbed helplessly. She was twelve and very skinny. She sat on an armchair with knees tucked under her chin and what looked like her worldly possessions split between a school backpack and a pair of canvas bags.
Daniel tried giving the girl a reassuring smile as Gurbir led them on a tour of what had once been the upper floor of a furniture showroom. A small kitchen gave off a smell of veg cooked to oblivion. There was a room with pool tables and vending machines, another with TV and battered recliner chairs.
‘You’re in rooms twelve and fifteen,’ Gurbir explained.
They passed a locked corridor.
‘Is that solitary, for if we misbehave?’
‘We have nine