Brigands M. C. (41 page)

To prove her point, Holly deftly pulled off her T-shirt, then dropped her shorts and showed Dante the back of her leg. ‘See my bruises?’ she said proudly. ‘I got them at skiing.’

‘I’ve never been skiing,’ Dante said. ‘I’d probably be useless and crash.’

Holly laughed, making a noise like an explosion. ‘I could teach you,’ she said. ‘I’m the second best skier out of all the girls who hadn’t been before.’

Once Holly had her pyjamas on she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Dante had spent all the time since he arrived with Holly, so he used the break to grab his dirty laundry and dump it into his washing basket. Then he unpacked his PSP and some of his other things, until Holly came out and stood in front of him with her mouth open.

‘Clean?’ Holly asked, as she blew toothpasty breath over him.

Dante realised that this must be something the carers in the junior block did to make sure all the little kids were brushing properly. ‘Looks good to me,’ he smiled. ‘Come and sit on the bed for a minute. Let me show you this.’

As Holly jumped on the bed, Dante unrolled the photograph from the Brigands’ barbecue and pointed to the boy standing in the centre of the picture. ‘Do you know who that is?’ he asked.

Holly shook her head, but then put a hand over her mouth. ‘Was that
you
?’

‘Yep,’ Dante said, before pointing his finger up at Scotty. ‘And that’s your daddy.’

Holly had seen a couple of blurry police surveillance photographs of her father and nodded.

‘That’s your sister Lizzie sulking, your brother Jordan pulling a silly face and that’s our mum,’ Dante said. ‘And what do you think that tiny lump she’s holding is?’

Holly moved her head closer to the picture. ‘Me,’ she said, before smiling and resting her head on Dante’s shoulder. ‘But now it’s you and me and we both live at CHERUB.’

Dante gave his little sister a squeeze and kissed the top of her head.

‘I’m getting in bed,’ Holly yawned, almost headbutting Dante as she shot up and dived excitedly on to her mattress. ‘It’s really cool having my big brother back. We can do everything together when we get to the summer hostel.’

Dante flipped out his main light and lay across his bed watching Holly going to sleep. Every so often she’d open one eye and then giggle naughtily when Dante poked his tongue out at her. The photo lay on the bed and Dante couldn’t not look at the Führer. His mind drifted back to the night before and he tried figuring out why he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

Seeing the Führer’s flabby body through the crosshairs had transformed him from the figure of doom who chased Dante through his nightmares into a middle-aged man who was only breathing because Dante had spared his life.

The mission had gone wrong and the Führer wasn’t behind bars. Maybe people like Chloe Blake and Ross Johnson would find a way to bring the Führer to justice. Maybe he’d rot in jail, maybe he’d meet a violent end at the hands of another biker, or maybe the Führer would die blissfully happy at the age of a hundred and five.

Dante thought about this and was shocked to realise that he no longer cared. As he watched Holly sleep, Dante understood that revenge wouldn’t have brought his family back. He hadn’t gone to the Führer’s house to kill him, he’d gone to say goodbye to his past.

The 2008 Rebel Tea Party marked the beginning of a major war, both within the Brigands and with rival gangs such as the Bitch Slappers, Satan’s Prodigy and Vengeful Bastards.

One of the first casualties was London chapter president SEALCLUBBER, who was found murdered in his London home. RALPH DONNINGTON (AKA THE FÜHRER) was questioned in connection with the killing and later replaced Sealclubber as the Brigands’ National President.

The Dutch Brigand and explosives expert JONAS HAARDEN (AKA DOODS) is still thought to be at large, possibly within the United Kingdom.

Ex-Brigand PAUL WOODHEAD was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for his role in weapons smuggling operations. Trawler captain JOHNNY RIGGS was sentenced to seven years. NIGEL CONNOR was sentenced to thirty months in a young offenders’ institution.

JULIAN HARGREAVES pleaded guilty to all weapons smuggling charges but was released unconditionally and praised by the trial judge for his bravery in coming forward to give evidence. Following a series of instances of vandalism and harassment against his family, Julian now attends a fee-paying school in London, while his father JONTY HARGREAVES has sold his apartment in Marina Heights.

Devon police say that these sentences and the seizure of the trawler
Brixton Riots
have had a significant effect on the Brigands’ ability to smuggle weapons into the United Kingdom.

MARTIN DONNINGTON continues to manage the Marina Heights crêpe stand. He has booked a round-theworld air ticket and hopes to have saved enough money to spend the whole of 2009 travelling the world.

His younger brother JOE DONNINGTON paired off with ANNA CONNOR after Dante and Lauren returned to campus.

In an internal police report, Chief Inspector ROSS JOHNSON was criticised for continuing the weapons purchase operation after the undercover role of Sergeant NEIL GAUCHE was unearthed and for the consequent loss of £316,000.

The role of CHERUB agents in the latter stages of the operation could not be revealed to the team that wrote the report. Johnson was saved from demotion following the personal intervention of CHERUB chairwoman Zara Asker.

Johnson continues to work with CHERUB mission controller CHLOE BLAKE with a view to staging another anti biker mission.

Neil Gauche’s attachment to the National Police Biker Task Force has now ended and he has returned to work as a detective in his native Leicestershire.

Ex-CHERUB agent and child psychologist JENNIFER MITCHUM is partially retired, but works part time on CHERUB campus studying the background of potential recruits and counselling agents who have returned from difficult missions.

CHERUB chairwoman ZARA ASKER gave birth to her third child, a boy, JONAH EWART ASKER.

In its report on the biker mission, the CHERUB Ethics Committee criticised JAKE McEWEN for his assault on the police officer, and his excessively violent interrogation of Julian Hargreaves. McEwen is slowly archiving five thousand files in the basement of the main building on CHERUB campus. Zara Asker has also sent him for anger management training.

JAMES ADAMS, LAUREN ADAMS and DANTE WELSH all flew off to the CHERUB summer hostel the week after they returned from their mission. James Adams and his Kawasaki ER5 remain on standby for a possible reprisal in the role of biker James Raven.

After a tsunami causes massive devastation to a tropical island, its governor sends in the bulldozers to knock down villages, replacing them with luxury hotels.

Guarding the corrupt governor’s family isn’t James Adams’ idea of the perfect mission, especially as it’s going to be his last as a CHERUB agent. And then retired colleague Kyle Blueman comes up with an unofficial and highly dangerous plan of his own.

James must choose between loyalty to CHERUB, and loyalty to his oldest friend.

Plus:

James gets back on his ER5 to tidy up unfinished business from Brigands M.C.

James and Kerry – how will it end?

James meets his dad.

Uncle Ron gets out of prison.

The final epilogue – find out what happens to all the major characters.

Get ready for James’ final adventure –
Shadow Wave
coming soon.

Read on for
The Switch
–
Callum and Connor star in a special
CHERUB bonus story!

Wednesday, 10.37 a.m.

‘So what’s with you two?’ Maureen Evans asked.

As an assistant mission controller Maureen didn’t get her own office, but her boss Chloe was working in Devon and wouldn’t be back any time soon. The two fourteen-year-olds facing her across Chloe’s desk were identical twins. Fair haired, slim, not bad looking.

Callum had been dragged away from a training exercise. He’d left muddy boots at the door, but still had beads of sweat streaking down his face and dark patches under the arms of his navy CHERUB shirt. Connor had been taken out of maths class, so his hair was carefully spiked and he wasn’t stinking up the room.

Neither twin said a word.

‘I’ve got a mission,’ Maureen explained. ‘We’ll need to make a fast switch. I don’t care what your personal problems are, I need to know if you can work together and I need the answer now.’

Connor broke the silence. ‘My problem is that my brother is a selfish, lying dickhead.’

Callum swelled up in his seat. ‘
I’m
a dickhead? You’re just pissed off because you struck out as usual.’

‘Just die,’ Connor shouted. ‘That girl was after me the whole time. You ripped me off.’

Maureen didn’t understand and didn’t particularly want to understand, but she needed the two lads for her mission. ‘Why don’t you both calm down and explain what happened?’

They spoke simultaneously:

‘This cheating turd—’

‘He’s a total scumbag, you can’t reason with him—’

Maureen took a breath, pointed at Connor and spoke firmly. ‘You first.’

Connor glowered at his brother as he began to explain. ‘We went to the bowling alley Saturday night. I got talking to this girl on the next lane. We were getting along great. Eating my nachos, joking about and stuff. But I offered to buy the girl a coke, then realised I didn’t have any money. Tight-wad here wouldn’t lend me a cent—’

Callum interrupted. ‘You
always
borrow money and never pay me back. You owe me about thirty quid.’

Connor stood up and yelped indignantly. ‘
I
owe
you
money,’ he gasped. ‘You’re the one who borrowed fifty euros when we were at summer hostel, and what about my G-Star jeans that you’ve had for three months?’

Callum stood up and the twins went eyeball to eyeball. ‘You said I could have those jeans, so don’t give me that shit. And you wore my leather jacket for months and brought it back with the pocket hanging off.’

‘Sit
down
,’ Maureen shouted. She pointed at Callum. ‘You can have your say when he’s finished his story.’

The twins made identical sighs as they settled back into their chairs. Maureen smiled at how they sat forwards with their ankles crossed: they acted the same even when they hated each other.

‘Please continue your fascinating story, Connor,’ Maureen said.

‘Typical, take his side,’ Callum moaned, as he slumped in the chair and tipped his head back.

‘Callum wouldn’t lend me shit, so I went off to find Mo, who was playing a few lanes over. Then I went off to get the cokes. There was a mega queue, so I was gone for ages and when I get back this piece of work is sitting with my girl, hands up her shirt and tongue down her neck.’

Maureen stifled a smile.

‘She thought you’d ditched her,’ Callum explained. ‘I just wandered over and she started being really friendly.’