Chapter 1
Casey Stanmore stood in the morning sun, she was a little short for her age and she hated it, her long brown hair waving slightly in the breeze. She had a Nike bag on her back. In her hand was a blue card, with the word Oyster stamped across it. The ticket barrier buzzed when she swiped the card, indicating should could proceed.
Casey was no ordinary fourteen year old girl, she was part of a government organisation Cherub, a group of children used as spies. Today was unusual for her, mission controller John Jones had approached her about a week earlier. Normally security checks where simple, sneak a bomb onto a plane, spend a day or to in another country and come home but not this one.
*Classified Mission briefing*
*For Casey Stanmore*
On the seventh of July 2005, several explosive devices where set off on the London underground by terrorists. In just under a weeks time it will be the third anniversary of the bombings.
Transport for London have tasked the security forces with trying to find holes in there new security.
Normally we would provide the agent with a detailed plan of how to undertake the operation. This time will be different. The agent involved will have to device a suitable plan to cause as much disruption as possible to the London underground, and put the plan in operation.
The agent can decide which resources they require.
*End of briefing*
An extract from a mission briefing for Casey Stanmore.
Today was the big for Casey, she was already a navy shirt, but today could make her a black shirt. In the preceding month she has spent every minute of her time methodically planning the fake terrorist attacks. Over thirty Cherubs would be involved, one of the largest missions ever undertaken by Cherub.
It was just coming to the end of what the underground staff refer to as the morning peak. Casey had asked her friend Karl to assist her with some of the technical aspects of the mission, within a few hours he had stolen the identity of one of the train drivers, and used this information to gather information on the train timetables for the network as well as passenger load details and a ream of other technical information.
Stage one of the operation was simple, Casey planned to take a train from East Ham, to Acton town, where it would go out of service and travel to Ealing common depot. Here she could begin the operation.
A rush of air greeted her as the train entered the platform, it ground to a halt and with a loud hiss from the air-operated doors they slid open. Towards the end of a carriage sat a girl, slightly taller than Casey, brown hair with blond highlights and an iPhone in her hand.
If someone was paying the slightest bit of interest, no body would have though these two girls had even met before. Casey sat slightly to the right and opposite the Emily, her best mate since she was small.
Now within Casey's hand was her iPhone, she pressed the on button and swiped her finger to unlock it, to an outsider it looked just like a normal phone, it was in many respects, but tapping the screen in a certain way opened a hidden menu. Her finger tapped down on the chat button. The screen turned white with a keyboard at the bottom.
A message appeared on the screen.
"Everyone's in position. Just give the signal."
A smile appeared on Casey's face. After that she sat back flicked on a movie and watched, while her journey passed away.
After forty five minutes she slipped her phone into her pocket and stood up, the trains PA crackled into life.
"This is the District line service to Acton town, all change, this train terminates here."
Casey pretended to leave with the crowd, but instead she held back. Once the doors had closed she ducked behind one of the partitions which separated the door area from the seating. She doubted the driver would look here. Sure enough the grinding sound of the inter-carriage door opening warned her of the drivers approach. Just as planned he walked by without noticing here, after he disappeared through the door at the opposite end of the carriage out came her phone again, she held it to her ear and began to speak.
"Listen up people, I'm on the trains heading for Target area 1. We're bang on schedule."
The vibration through the vinyl floor increased and she sensed the train was moving, the floor was a state, but if she sat in a seat she would most certainly be noticed by a member of staff.
The journey into the depot was quick, and within a few minutes she heard the driver turn the engines off and step out onto the gravel, now was the time to move. From her backpack she took two boards, they where magnetic, the seat where she was sitting contained some of the trains vital on board systems, without which the train wouldn't move.
Once the devices where magnetised in place and secure, she wired them into the circuitry. When she gave the signal, this train would come to an instant holt, the power would cut, and the emergency batteries would dye. Effectively the train would be dead in the water.
Over the next hour she crept quietly from train to train, planting identical devices in each. Once she had done approximately fifteen trains, she decided it was time to leave. After a quick dash to the fence, she clambered over.
