39. TENTS.

Cruising at eight hundred metres, cold air blasting from the east and the autopilot making corrections with the flaps. The world seemed beautiful from up here, but Lauren couldn't get the bodies out of her head. She'd killed a man on her first mission, aged eleven, but that was a him-or-me. This had been like some weird one-sided video game.

All that CHERUB training, versus some grandpas. Lauren felt naive now, jumping at a chance to relive old times when James called her up. Now she wanted to get back to Texas. The little house she shared on the edge of a racetrack. Rat making scrambled eggs in his mechanic's overall. Kissing her neck and saying how much he loved her.

Touchdown was seven hundred metres inside the Turkish border. An unfinished eight-lane highway, leading to a border crossing planned before Syria's civil war. As Lauren flicked off autopilot for landing, the dirty white ground west of the road emerged as a neat grid of refugee tents. As Lauren took the plane down, Sachs looked down into the refugee's world: standpipe queues, trash piles and street football.

Tovah had taken off last, but without the weight of a pa.s.senger she'd arrived first, pulling off a delicate landing on undamaged rear wheels. Bruce had touched down a minute before Lauren, though she didn't understand why Zahra was climbing out the back.

'All good?' Tovah yelled, jogging alongside as Lauren locked her ground brake and ripped off her helmet.

'Clear run, no bother,' Lauren said, as she straddled out.

Sachs was a big man, and while gravity had helped him bed in, he tilted the little plane as he tried getting out. Lauren and Tovah tugged from either side, and Sachs burst out laughing as he popped out.

'I was proper wedged,' Sachs beamed, then moaned in pain as his knee gave way to cramp.

'Whoa,' Lauren said, grabbing the big man's arm.

When Sachs' helmet came free, Lauren saw red eyes and tears streaming down his face. Arms matted with thick hair pulled her into a sweaty hug.

'Rescued by a beautiful young lady,' Sachs sobbed. Then roared, 'You little hero!'

'It's OK,' Lauren said, smiling helplessly as Sachs thumped her on the back.

'I thought they'd kill me,' Sachs said. 'Cannae wait to get a pie, a pint and a round of golf!'

The greater good, Lauren thought to herself. But she still pictured dead bodies as Ryan and Yuen made a b.u.mpy touchdown. Yuen was another happy camper, making his own way out and getting into a triumphant man-hug with Sachs.

Ryan wasn't doing so well. His right arm seemed paralysed and his hand was dark red from blood that had run down inside of his shirt and soaked his cuff. After removing his helmet one-handed, Ryan squatted down and Lauren saw that he was pale and breathless.

'OK, pal?' Lauren asked, as she rushed over.

'Been better,' he confessed.

Ryan had told everyone inside the supermarket that his arm was OK and they'd been too busy to do anything but take his word. Now, Lauren studied a gory mess around his upper arm and realised that the screwdriver he'd been stabbed with had snapped at the handle, leaving the metal shaft sticking out of his bicep. It hadn't caught a vein or artery, but Ryan's pallor suggested that he'd lost a lot of blood.

Lauren yelled at Bruce to find a medical kit, as she pulled a hunting knife holstered to her belt and slit Ryan's shirt open, just above the wound.

'Where's your stab proofing?' Lauren asked.

'I took it off in the night,' Ryan said. 'It's tight, I hate it.'

Bruce had found a first-aid kit and overheard as he closed in. 'Lucky you quit CHERUB,' he noted. 'You'd get at least two hundred punishment laps for skimping on protective gear.'

Ryan winced as Lauren pulled the slashed shirt over Ryan's hand, exposing a well-muscled but b.l.o.o.d.y arm.

'I'm not pulling out the screwdriver in case it spurts,' Lauren said. 'He needs a proper doctor.'

James and Kyle were ten metres from touchdown as Bruce and Lauren carried Ryan towards a waiting minibus.

The refugee camp was separated from the abandoned highway by fifty metres and a wire fence. But the fence had breaks and curious kids who'd spotted the gliders landing were edging closer.

'We have to ship out,' Tovah shouted, as James and Kyle hopped up. 'The last thing we need is a brat with a camera phone. Get your wings deflated and your planes in the back of my truck.'

'You heard the lady,' James shouted, as Kyle opened the valve to start deflating their wing.

Sachs and Yuen helped out, collapsing the carbon fibre strut work of Lauren's plane, then lifting it into the back of an unmarked truck. Kyle and James lifted their plane in last, giving some of the others a noisy shove to make room.

'That's the lot,' James told Tovah, as he glanced back along the road to be certain. 'Not a bad result.'

'I guess it's goodbye,' Tovah said, as Kyle grabbed a swinging handle and pulled down the metal shutter on the back of the truck.

James hugged Tovah and cheekily whispered, 'Free Palestine,' in the Israeli agent's ear.

'Screw you,' Tovah said, smirking. 'Keep safe and give Kerry my love.'

Bruce was attending to Ryan in the back of a waiting minibus. Sachs and Yuen were climbing in through the little bus's side door, but Zahra stood awkwardly in the middle of the tarmac.

'Are you taking her?' James asked Tovah, as she climbed into the driver's side of the unmarked truck.

'What am I gonna do with her?' Tovah asked, as she pointed towards the increasing gathering of kids. 'There's a refugee camp right there.'

James considered this as Tovah started the engine and pulled off. He wasn't an expert on Syrian ethnicity, but knew that most of the refugees camped in northern Turkey were Kurds, and since Zahra and her brother had been with Islamic State, she most definitely wasn't.

'We can't leave her here,' James told Kyle, before dashing across and grabbing Zahra's arm.

The girl looked back, frightened and uncertain. Two strange men with a.s.sault rifles and body armour, marching her towards a waiting minibus, as Tovah roared off in the truck. She seemed better when she got inside and sat next to Bruce. Ryan was the only one who spoke good Arabic, but he was sprawled out in the rear, babbling.

'I should have worn the stabby vest,' Ryan said, grinning. 'I'm sorry, James Adams. Mr Mission Controller ... Sir, yes sir!'

'Gave him a morphine shot for the pain,' Lauren explained, clambering into the driver's seat, as James pulled shut the sliding side door. 'I'll drive, if we're all in?'

'Sure you're a good enough driver?' James teased, as he took the front pa.s.senger seat.

'Oh you're witty,' Lauren said, feeling more like herself now that she was among friends and had stuff to do. 'According to the mission plan, there's a private clinic five kilometres from here. Twenty-four hours, with doctors that speak English.'

'Sounds like a plan,' James said, looking behind as Lauren hit the gas pedal. 'Everyone else OK?'

Sachs and Yuen nodded happily. Bruce and Kyle were stripping off weapons and body armour. Zahra didn't look too bad for a kid who was in a strange country, with strange people, including the one who'd shot her only living relative two hours earlier.

James opened the glove box and was pleased to find British diplomatic pa.s.sports, for everyone except Zahra. Plus a plastic wallet containing a selection of mobile phones and personal effects that they'd abandoned before setting off the day before.

After taking his phone and pa.s.sport and pa.s.sing the wallet back to the next row, James dialled the control room on campus. John Jones answered.

'We're all out, one moderate injury and we picked up a stray,' James said. 'We'll take Ryan to the clinic. How's our ride out looking?'

'RAF have a jet on standby in Cyprus which can be with you in ninety minutes,' John said. 'Now Sachs and Yuen are safe, I'll contact MI5. Hopefully Uncle and his a.s.sociates will be behind bars before he hears about the rescue.'

'Nice,' James said, as Lauren turned the minibus off of the unfinished highway, pulling into a tight gap on a busy local road. 'You might as well get that plane dispatched from Cyprus. I'll stay back here if Ryan needs to stay in hospital, but there's no reason everyone else can't head straight home.'

'Roger that,' John said. 'It's a pity this is an off-theradar mission you know, James. This could have done your career a lot of good.'

James cracked a wry smile. 'I'll still have your job in two years, boss,' he joked. 'Chairman of CHERUB before I turn thirty-five.'

'You can have my job,' John grunted. 'Ning's here with me in the control room, she's got a call to patch through.'

There was a bit of fiddling at the other end, before James reached behind and handed his phone to Kam Yuen.

'It's for you, buddy.'

'h.e.l.lo?' Kam said curiously, then burst into tears when he heard his daughter's voice. 'I'm so happy, baby,' he blubbed. 'I thought I was never going to speak to you again.'

40. BROMANCE.

Six weeks later.

Zahra pulled a plastic chair up to a desk, bruised and slightly breathless. The twelve-year-old wore muddy boots, combat trousers and an orange CHERUB T-shirt splattered with chicken blood. CHERUB's chairman Ewart Asker sat across the desk, half smiling.

'You did very well on the recruitment tests,' Ewart began. 'Your English is improving, but we'll need to work some more on that, along with your upper body strength and swimming before you'd be able to commence basic training.'

Zahra smiled at the news. 'How far to then?' she asked.

'Basic training lasts one hundred days. If you progress well, I would like to think that you'll be more than capable of joining the trainee group that commences at the beginning of April.'

'OK,' Zahra said. 'I will try. And to work very hard.'

'But I must ask one more thing,' Ewart said. 'Your father died fighting to free Syria from the a.s.sad regime. Your brother died fighting for Islamic State, and was killed by a former CHERUB agent. How does that make you feel?'

Zahra's face was a puzzle, as she struggled to answer in a language she'd been learning for less than two months.

'I like to learn,' Zahra said. 'Learn science and math. Police stop all girls learning my home. Brother make me boy. He stop me from being forced to marry or get raped. He was not a real Islamic fighter. But no jobs. He only make money as fighter.'

Ewart nodded and smiled. 'I understand.'

'I like campus very much and not frightened of work hard,' Zahra continued. 'Theo, who showed me around, was very nice. I might make world better if I am live here.'

'I think that's exactly what you're going to do,' Ewart said, as he reached across the desk to shake hands. 'Congratulations and welcome to CHERUB.'

CHERUB campus was January cold as Ryan Sharma waited outside the mission control building. The entry system was having a hissy fit until James Adams came and let him in.

'Good to see you, buddy,' James said. 'Come on through. How's the arm?'

Dressed in a white CHERUB T-shirt, Ryan waved to a couple of familiar faces in the control room as they set off for James' office.

'It's healed,' Ryan said. 'Two more sessions with the physiotherapist.'

'See this?' James said, as he pointed to the door of one of the small offices along the hallway. The sign read Kerry Chang, Junior Mission Controller.

'So you're her boss,' Ryan said, smiling.

'I'm a full mission controller,' James said. 'So I'm senior to her, but I'm not her line manager or anything, thank G.o.d.'

'Is she in?'

James shook his head. 'Still in a leg brace. Had to go down to London to see her surgeon today.'

'Ning said you set a date.'

James laughed. 'Ning has a big mouth, it's supposed to be on the QT ... But yeah, I've got some leave booked for Easter time. So we're getting hitched in Vegas, then we're driving up Route 66 to Chicago for our honeymoon.'

'Nice,' Ryan said. 'Motorbikes?'

'I wish,' James said. 'Kerry does ride, but she's not into bikes like I am.'

'The way you ride, I'm not surprised,' Ryan noted.

James tutted. 'So I found a company that hires out old cars and we're gonna do it in a vintage Ford Mustang. Plus, Lauren's season will have started, so we're going to see a couple of her races along the way.'

By this time they'd entered James' office. Ning sat at James' desk dealing with some admin and she cracked a big smile and jumped up to hug Ryan.

'What are you doing here?' Ning gasped, surprised. 'I've not seen you since Christmas.'

'You're always busy whenever I want to meet up in town,' Ryan explained. 'But I had to come back to campus today to pick up some new ident.i.ty papers and consolidated exam certificates for my uni applications.'

'And for this,' James said, pulling an envelope out of his desk drawer. 'It's all on paper because I don't want an electronic trail.'

Ning looked curious as Ryan took the envelope. 'Really appreciate this, James.'

'You'd b.l.o.o.d.y better,' James said. 'I had to go into follow-up files from the Aramov mission. I could totally get my a.s.s kicked off campus for doing this.'

Now Ning was practically bursting. 'What are you two up to?'

James smirked. 'Think Ning can keep a secret? The way I keep quiet about the twenty-four-year-old boyfriend she's got stashed away in Thailand?'