Black Friday (CHERUB) - Robert Muchamore Page 0,71
you to travel with a covert tracking device or any other equipment. It’s a near certainty you’ll be told to abandon your mobile phones and Wi-Fi devices because they can be tracked down. If you can find a way to communicate with us en-route to Mexico that’s great, but don’t take any kind of risk. The important thing is to get to Mexico safely, and let us know where you are shortly after you arrive.’
‘Got it,’ Andre said.
‘I’ll try and be on the ground in Mexico before you arrive, but it’s a big country and we don’t know where you’ll be heading. So it may be a day or two before I’m there covering your backs.’
33. WORK
Tamara wanted to treat Andre on Christmas Day, but couldn’t splurge because Leonid had been told they were desperate for money and he might be having them watched. It would have been impossible to hide presents in their tiny room, but Dubai was an Islamic state so everywhere was open and the pair took a short taxi ride to a mall.
They ate a modest turkey dinner on an indoor terrace overlooking shops, straddled fake jet skis in an amusement arcade and came away with some posh chocolates and a few bits of extra clothing. Andre was depressed by the thought of a fourth evening lolling about in their dismal room with no video games and no English or Russian language stations on the TV.
He was squatting on a mattress, feeding laces into a new pair of trainers, when he caught a whiff of smoke. It was wafting from a window on the next level down and he took the bolts off their door and stepped out on to the balcony, which ran the length of their floor.
As more residents joined Andre on the balcony, men on the next level down tried dousing the flames with water buckets.
Andre shouted back through the open front door, ‘Mum, I think it’s serious.’
A few people had decided to head for the stairs, but others stood around, hoping things would calm down before they had to leave their rooms. Thickening smoke and the eruption of a fire alarm changed the mood and Tamara had angst in her voice as she tapped Andre on the shoulder and handed him a backpack. They kept everything packed, as per Leonid’s orders.
‘We’d better take this,’ she said. ‘It’s all we’ve got.’
As Tamara grabbed a larger pack, Andre dashed back inside and picked up his watch, the Nokia phone and a carrier bag from the mall. The smoke was dense enough to taste as they merged into a crowd heading for the staircase.
At ground level, caretakers were running towards the block, pulling on fluorescent fire-marshal vests. The escape routes had been designed for two or three people per apartment, but with up to ten in each, the stairs quickly jammed.
Everyone seemed content to shuffle until there was a loud bang, most likely the bottle from an unauthorised gas stove. Andre found himself crushed and panicked as everyone pushed down the stairs. A few men in construction gear discovered that they could exit more quickly by swinging on to an overhang and sliding down a pipe.
Eventually Andre reached the bottom step, with his mum a little behind and a fire marshal herding everyone to an assembly point in the courtyard of an adjoining block. When the pair arrived, they turned back and stood watching burgeoning flames, amidst a group of Pakistanis whose matching polo shirts bore the logo of a company that installed elevators.
‘Andre, Tamara,’ a man said softly. ‘Don’t look around. Someone may be watching us.’
Andre glimpsed back instinctively and saw a black man in a grey blazer and sunglasses. He had the slim build and high cheekbones of an Ethiopian, or Kenyan.
‘My name is Kenneth,’ the man said, speaking English with a strong East African accent. ‘I have a blue Saab parked at the end of block six. Give me thirty seconds. When you meet me I’ll be at the wheel with the engine running.’
Smoke now wafted out of doorways on the next floor up, and people recoiled as a second gas bottle exploded. Andre was shocked by the realisation that this fire had been set to create confusion and enable them to get away without being observed.
A pair of fire engines were closing in as Andre and Tamara set off. The Saab was unlocked; they both got in the same rear door, with Andre scrambling across to the far seat, and Kenneth