CHERUB: Maximum Security (30 page)

Gabrielle and Kerry were the only ones there. James sat opposite them.

‘Where is everyone?’

‘Callum, Connor and Shakeel are still away on their recruitment missions,’ Gabrielle explained. ‘Bruce is on a mission in Norfolk and Kyle’s over at the back of campus, up to his waist in slurry.’

‘And
I’ve
got a bone to pick with you,’ Kerry said, folding her arms seriously.

James grinned as he crammed in a fork-load of spaghetti. ‘Oh, that
does
make a change.’

‘I hear you’ve been cheating on me while I was away.’

James inhaled two hundred strands of spaghetti as he gasped. He couldn’t believe that this had happened after Lauren had promised not to tell.

‘Listen…’ James coughed. ‘Whatever she told you, it’s not true.’

Kerry shook her head slowly, as James hacked chewed-up pasta into a serviette.

‘Don’t lie to me, James. Bruce and half a dozen other guys saw everything that happened.’

Now James was seriously confused. ‘
Bruce?
’

‘I’m OK with it,’ Kerry said. ‘You know, if you ever feel that you want to explore your gay side …’

‘My what?’ James gasped, shaking his head. ‘What are you on about?’

‘Look,’ Kerry giggled, ‘I just wanted you to know that if you ever feel the urge to snog Kyle again, I won’t be holding any grudges.’

James felt like a five-billion-ton weight had lifted off his chest as the pieces fitted together. This had nothing to do with Becky. Kerry was winding him up about the time he’d kissed Kyle as a joke after fitness training.

‘Yeah, me and Kyle,’ James groaned, as he desperately tried to recap everything he’d said to make sure he hadn’t accidentally given the game away. He realised the pasta had probably saved him. He dreaded to think what he might have blurted if he hadn’t been choking. ‘Real funny … Did I hear you say Kyle’s on punishment cleaning out ditches again?’

Gabrielle nodded. ‘That boy is
so
dumb.’

‘Why?’ James grinned. ‘What’s he done this time?’

‘You remember the little DVD production line he was running?’

James nodded, his mouth too full to speak.

‘I think the staff were prepared to turn a blind eye while he was running off the odd movie for his mates,’ Gabrielle explained. ‘But he started getting greedy.’

‘How come?’ James asked.

‘Kyle started getting more orders than he could handle by himself, so he employed Jake Parker to help burn the DVDs and put the labels on.’

James nodded. ‘I know Jake, he’s Bethany’s little brother.’

‘Jake thought it would be funny to mix up the labels.’

James broke into a smile. ‘That’s
not
good.’

‘No it wasn’t,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Especially not when a bunch of six-year-olds ended up at a sleepover with a copy of
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
instead of
Harry Potter
.’

‘Classic,’ James yelled, banging on the tabletop and howling with laughter.

Kerry kicked him under the table. ‘It’s not funny, James. One poor kid peed her nightie.’

‘I guess it’s not really funny,’ James said, before erupting into a fresh round of hysterics.

Kerry was struggling to keep a straight face herself. She leaned across the table and stared into James’ eyes. He wiped the Bolognese from his mouth and kissed Kerry on the lips. It was good to have her back.

JANE OXFORD did not cooperate with the FBI. She refused to answer any questions, except to acknowledge her name. She faces charges for murder, racketeering and weapons smuggling and can expect to spend the rest of her life in prison. The complexity of the charges against her mean that a trial is unlikely to take place for several years. In the meantime, she remains on remand at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

After Jane’s arrest, the FBI used information in her possession at the time to uncover homes and assets she controlled around the world. As more secrets were unveiled, it became clear that Jane Oxford had changed the focus of her operations from stealing weapons, to stealing the technology underlying them. She then used front companies, such as Etienne Defence Consultancy, to sell this knowledge on to other weapons manufacturers.

With the global armaments industry turning over half a trillion dollars a year, Jane found this business far more lucrative than selling arms to terrorist groups and poverty-stricken third-world governments. The FBI has already uncovered assets belonging to Jane Oxford worth more than $1.4 billion. Not only is this figure well in excess of what the FBI had expected to find, it is more than Jane’s relatively modest lifestyle would ever have required. It seems that, true to her psychological profile, Jane Oxford carried on her criminal activities purely for the thrill of it.

So far, no specific information has been found about the PGSLM Buddy missiles. The FBI now suspect the missiles were stolen to order on behalf of a rival weapons manufacturer. However, until concrete evidence is found, there is no way to be certain of this. The possibility remains that the weapons have fallen into the hands of terrorists or even that Jane Oxford did not steal them at all.

CURTIS OXFORD was reclassified as an escape risk and returned to a single cell inside Arizona Max, after forty-eight hours in the hole.

A few months later, Curtis’ Las Vegas based ‘uncles’ discovered that the psychiatrist who recommended he be sent to the Arizona-based military school was being investigated for accepting money in return for recommending his patients to the school. They instructed a lawyer to appeal Curtis’ case, on the grounds that the murders he committed were a result of the inappropriate advice given by the corrupt psychiatrist.

On appeal, the judge accepted the arguments of Curtis’ lawyers, stating that: ‘
Curtis Oxford has a long history of mental health problems. While Curtis must clearly still accept some responsibility for these very grave actions, this new evidence shows that it was inappropriate to try and sentence him as an adult
.’

Curtis’ original convictions for first-degree murder were quashed. Charges relating to the death of Scott Warren and the subsequent escape were also dropped. Three weeks later, Curtis pleaded guilty to four counts of the lesser charge of manslaughter in an Arizona youth court. Following a detailed psychiatric evaluation, he received a sentence of seven years, to be served in a medium-security young offenders institution. The families of the three people Curtis shot appeared on a local TV station saying that they were appalled by this decision.

It has also emerged that Jane Oxford had set up a trust fund for her son, thought to be worth more than $30 million. This money has been thoroughly laundered through the international banking system and FBI sources believe it will be impossible to prove that it is the proceeds of criminal activity. When he is released from prison in 2012, Curtis Oxford will be an extremely wealthy young man.

Among the other prisoners, ELWOOD and KIRCH both turned eighteen and were moved into the adult section of Arizona Max shortly after the escape. The brothers STANLEY and RAYMOND DUFF fully recovered from their injuries and returned to cell T4 once the riot damage had been repaired.

The Arizona Department of Prisons has a long-standing policy of naming cellblocks after officers who died in the line of duty. The SCOTT WARREN memorial cellblock is due to open soon in a new prison complex east of Phoenix. The inquiry into the escape made several recommendations for tightening up security inside Arizona Max. These included replacing the oversensitive doors and issuing all correctional officers with personal attack alarms that activate automatically when an officer is knocked down. A lack of money means these recommendations are unlikely to be implemented.

WARREN REISE (a.k.a. Scott Warren), quit his job as an FBI special agent so that he could spend more time with his wife and three young children. THEODORE MONROE and MARVIN TELLER remain on the FBI team investigating the legacy of Jane Oxford’s criminal activities.

PAULA PARTRIDGE was questioned by police in California and Arizona. They saw no reason to doubt her story about being held hostage. She later received an undisclosed compensation payment from the Arizona Department of Prisons and $7,000 from a news agency for an interview about her ‘Terrifying ordeal at the hands of ruthless teenage killers’. The article appeared in more than one hundred newspapers and magazines across the United States and around the world. The money enabled Paula to move out of the trailer park and make the down payment on a small house. She also took her daughter, HOLLY PARTRIDGE, for an overnight stay at Disneyland.

VAUGHN LITTLE’s ranch was searched by the FBI and a significant cache of illegal weapons was found. These included Glock machine pistols, mortar rounds and sniper rifles. Vaughn and his wife LISA LITTLE were charged with harbouring a fugitive and possession of unlicensed firearms with intent to sell. Vaughn was sentenced to eight years in prison while Lisa received a term of four years. The ranch and Arabian horses had to be sold to pay legal costs and REBECCA LITTLE (Becky) moved to live with her eldest sister in California.

EUGENE DRISCOLL recovered fully after the Biro was removed from his neck. WILLIAM BENTLEY (Bill) similarly recovered from the gunshot wounds inflicted by Marvin Teller. Police checks indicated that the two men had been working together as contract killers for more than forty years. They were wanted for thirty murders, in eleven US states and two Canadian provinces.

After the two men had recovered, the FBI transported them to Texas. Following a three-week trial, they were found guilty of six counts of murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection. The lengthy appeals process means it will be several years before their death sentences are carried out.

DAVE MOSS was quietly removed from his guarded room in the Arizona hospital and arrived back at CHERUB campus a few days after James and Lauren. He resumed light physical training shortly after returning and was declared fully fit two months later, when ultrasound scans showed that the blood clot on his chest had dissolved.

A detailed report is written on every CHERUB mission. The report on the prison break congratulated all participants for the overall success of the mission. However, JAMES ADAMS was severely criticised for his reckless crashing of the Toyota and Dave Moss for falling asleep and almost allowing James to be stabbed by Stanley Duff.

Only LAUREN ADAMS escaped without rebuke. The report described her as ‘Courageous, clear thinking, cooperative’, and as a ‘young agent with massive future potential’. After reading the report, Dr McAfferty decided that her role in the mission justified giving her the navy T-shirt, making her one of the youngest ever to wear it.

While the staff at CHERUB had some reservations about the performance of their young agents, over in America the CIA and FBI were delighted with the capture of Jane Oxford. Four weeks after James returned to campus, Dr McAfferty received a package from CIA headquarters. It contained three boxes made of highly polished piano wood, one each for James, Dave and Lauren.

James wondered what was in the box when he came up to his room after lessons and spotted it resting on his pillow. He pulled open the tightly sprung hinge and stared at the gold disc, with the head of an American eagle at the centre of a five-pointed star, before reading the inscription beneath it:

The Intelligence Star is a medal
awarded by the United States for a
voluntary act, or acts, of courage
performed under hazardous
conditions, or for outstanding
achievements or services rendered
with distinction under conditions
of grave risk.

James couldn’t help grinning as he turned the medal over and read his name engraved on the back.

READ ON FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER
OF THE NEXT CHERUB BOOK,
THE KILLING
.

For the past three years George Stein has worked as an economics teacher at the exclusive Trinity Day school near Cambridge. Recently, information has come to light suggesting that Stein may have links with the environmental terrorist group Help Earth. (Excerpt from CHERUB mission briefing for Callum Reilly and Shakeel ‘Shak’ Dajani.)

JUNE 2005

It was a fine day and this part of Cambridge had the whiff of serious money. The immaculate lawns were coiffured by professional gardeners and James drooled over the expensive lumps of German metal parked on the driveways. He was walking with Shakeel and both boys felt self-conscious in the summer uniform of Trinity school. It consisted of a white shirt, a tie, grey trousers with orange piping, an orange and grey blazer and matching felt cap.

‘I’m telling you,’ James moaned, ‘even if you sat down and tried
really
hard, I don’t think you could come up with a way to make this uniform look any dumber.’

‘I dunno, James. Maybe we could have partridge feathers sticking out of the hats or something.’

‘And these trousers were meant for Callum’s skinny butt. They’re killing my balls.’

Shak couldn’t help seeing the funny side of James’ discomfort. ‘You can’t blame Callum for pulling out of the mission at the last minute. It’s that stomach bug that’s going around campus.’