Black Friday (CHERUB) - Robert Muchamore Page 0,101

Beetle looking towards the apartment entrance and got a surprise when Tamara rolled up alongside and blasted the horn.

‘More room in here,’ Tamara said.

James had his own bag and the missile in the little Volkswagen, so while he hadn’t thought about using Leonid’s car, he was grateful for the extra space and there was never any harm in being bullet-proofed while riding around Ciudad Juárez in the dark.

James threw the missile and his backpack on the plush rear seat and told Tamara to head to the highway and follow signs for the US border.

‘Leonid’s dead,’ Tamara said coldly. ‘Is anyone likely to have a problem with that?’

‘He went for my mum,’ Andre added.

James half smiled. ‘Intelligence services aren’t supposed to go around assassinating people, but I can’t see anyone being too upset.’

Tamara had only ever driven on the relatively quiet roads around the Kremlin. Her driving was erratic and she clipped a couple of kerbs before James told them to leave the highway and park at the gates of a construction site.

Hao-Jing had programmed the factory coordinates into the PGSLM. After resting it on the roof of the car as the missile’s computer booted up, James transferred it carefully on to his shoulder, making sure he had it positioned upwards, with twenty metres of clear air in front of him.

With the missile balanced, he used his free arm to tap in the launch code – which was a factory default 000000. After that he pressed a red pre-launch button, which set a hydraulic pump hammering in his ear. After twenty seconds the pressure light came on and he squeezed the launch trigger.

The first second of the flight was powered by compressed air. This gave the missile a chance to clear its launch tube before the rocket came alive with a sharp crack, blinding light and enough heat to suck moisture out of the air in James’ next breath.

The rocket-powered missile shot upwards, accelerating to four hundred metres and 1,100kph in under ten seconds. At this point the rocket only had enough fuel to run for twenty seconds, but that was enough to fly up to five kilometres, then make a corkscrewing downwards glide and accurately hit a target the size of a sofa.

James lobbed the lightweight metal launch tube over the building-site fence and had one leg back inside the Lexus as a huge bang erupted four kilometres away.

‘Hell yeah!’ Andre shouted, as he turned back to give James a high five. But James looked uneasy. ‘What’s the matter?’

James didn’t answer until the boom of a secondary explosion ripped across the city.

‘How many people were in there?’ James asked. ‘Hopefully just a few security guards, but it might be a lot more if they’re still producing missiles.’

James’ phone started ringing as Tamara started driving. It was Dr D.

‘CIA had an infrared satellite camera targeting the site. Congratulations, James, it looks like the factory’s been ripped out of the ground.’

James ended the call quickly because Tamara was pulling back on to the highway and needed directions. Once they were on course, James went into his backpack and handed Andre a pair of US passports.

‘One for you, one for your mum,’ James explained. ‘I’ve got to make one quick call to get this car cleared for the priority channel. The border’s less than three kilometres. I’ve booked us a hotel in El Paso and with any luck we’ll be in our rooms in time to see in the New Year.’

46. GIRLS

Word of Leonid Aramov’s death reached the Kremlin a few days into 2013, but from a population that once topped seven hundred, less than thirty were there to hear the news. The last aircrew left the following day, flying three dilapidated planes to a breakers’ yard in India, before taking commercial flights onwards to uncertain futures in Russia and the Ukraine.

A dozen-strong American demolition crew arrived hours later. Only a small team keeping the runway deiced and a few Aramov security men stood watch as they began drilling holes and filling them with sticks of dynamite.

The Kremlin was built of prefabricated concrete sections that the experts predicted would collapse with minimal explosives. The real work was in destroying the airfield, tearing up metre-thick runways so that nobody could resume operations from this near-perfect smuggling den.

Ryan’s mission had ended with Igor’s death, but Amy stuck to her word and let him stay on, marking his time with Natalka, counting in days, hours, then minutes. The night of January 9th was a blizzard and