Chapter 17 - Searching
The next day, Frank headed to St Hopes without Jack, "No child today Frank?" Mr Jeffries asked him as they both made their coffee in the staff room, Frank shook his head and pulled out a note from his pocket, "Doctor's note Mr J. Won't be in for the rest of the week – bad reaction to something, that's why he couldn't stay in class yesterday." Mr Jeffries took the note and studied it, it looked genuine, but had actually been forged by Stella just before she and Jack had left. "I'll swing by at the end of the days to collect any work for him, don't want him falling behind" Frank laughed, Mr Jeffries nodded and headed off to his form room where his class was waiting for him./p
"Rhydian called Oscar over to their table, "Where's Jack today? And yesterday?" Oscar made sure no one else was listening, "Official business, he'll be out for the rest of the week, just a heads up though, avoid the moors for a while yeah? Something's going down, don't want you guys getting picked up in the crossfire." Rhydian, Jana and Maddy nodded, and Oscar headed back to his own table as Mr Jeffries entered and began taking the register./p
"Meanwhile, Jack had let Stella put the jacket on him, and the two of them had just picked up the intelligence minister – Jack found it awkward because he kept patting him on the head, the intelligence minister didn't know about the existence of wolfbloods, and MI9 had made a promise to not reveal the secret. The three of them were in a large black van headed to the CHERUB campus, their van was stopped by armed guards at the gates, and the intelligence minister wound down his window and demanded to speak to Zara Asker. The guards nodded and phone Zara, Jack and Stella waited patiently, then the morse code began transmitting, it was from the team, Kerry had just messaged Carrie that Zara was headed back to campus in a panic, Jack put his paw on Stella's knee to let her know Zara was on her way and it had started, a code that they had worked out last night. Stella began tapping out a message in morse code to Stark back at MI9 HQ, letting him know to start tapping outgoing calls from all mobiles registered to Zara Asker, if she was calling anyone they would know what she was saying, and who she was saying it to./p
"Within an hour, Zara pulled up her car behind the van, and demanded everyone exit the vehicle and her guards were to search the van, they obliged and stepped out of the van. The intelligence minister, Stella and Jack stood to one side of the road, whilst the intelligence ministers protection stood to the other. Once the guards were certain that there was nothing to be smuggled in, they allowed them to enter the campus. Arriving with the intelligence minister meant that the camera's in Jacks jacket and collar, and Stella's clothes and bag didn't get picked up on the bug scanner, as they didn't have to go through it this time. They were taken through to Zara's office, and Stella sent another message to Stark through Jack's collar, letting him know they were in the office. The intelligence minister and Stella sat at one side of the desk, whilst Zara sat opposite them, Jack stayed at the back of the room, on a lead held by one of the intelligence ministers security guards./p
""Miss Asker, I have received intelligence on the wire that this campus has started to fail, underage drinking, drug use, and security leaks. Miss Morris here, is my best agent in the security service, highly trained and one of MI5's top security officers. She has a very high security clearance, she is going to spend the next few days going through every single room, computer and piece of equipment on this campus, anything out of the ordinary and she will report it directly to me. This is not up for negotiation Miss Asker, if you refuse, I will shut you down. Understood." Zara nodded, and the intelligence minister clicked his fingers, the guard holding Jack let go and Jack crossed the room and sat in between the minister and Stella. "Sniffer dog, nothing gets past him. If I find any of your agents have contraband, they will be out. I leave you in the hands of Miss Morris." The minister exited the office and was escorted back to his vehicle, Jack and Stella were alone. Zara was staring out of the large windows in her office, "What do you want me to do?" She asked her, "Call your staff, let them know we are here, and we will work unobstructed, we require keys to every room, that includes every single bedroom. And just leave us to work."/p
They started in Zara's office, despite Stella's pleas, Zara wouldn't leave, so they had to work around her. They started with paper files, Stella began digging through them, skim reading through everything but nothing was out of the ordinary, but they hit a wall as her laptop was missing, "I'm working out of the office for a while on a mission, speak to the intelligence minister, its an interagency mission with a team from MI9." Stella nodded and put Jack back on the lead, they had a map of the campus and made a plan, they started at the redshirt block whilst the kids were in school, it was also going to be the easiest place to search as those kids weren't going on missions yet, and the carers didn't have a high security clearance. As they expected, the search of the redshirt block took less than an hour, the only suspicious thing was a three week old sandwich./p
"In the time it had taken Stella and Jack to search the redshirt block, Zara had pulled the CHERUBs out of school and they were sat in the MI High teams HQ, "What the hell is going on?" The Head of MI9 said as she exited the lift, they were all sat waiting for her, "Where is Jack?" Frank produced a copy of the doctors note he had given to Mr Jeffries that morning, The Head of MI9 knew it was a fake, but accepted it, which made Zara and John Jones also accept the note, "Why have you requested this emergency meeting Miss Asker?" "I had the intelligence minister in my office this morning, insisting a security sweep, he turned up with some woman and a sniffer dog, they are currently going through every document and every bedroom I have, is this to do with this interagency thing?" The Head of MI9 shrugged, "You've never had one before?" Frank asked her, "No, we haven't, we are a trusted agency" "So are we, we're held to a high standard, we voluntarily have one every year, and every agent has an annual assessment, is randomly drug and alcohol tested, and their homes are searched at random, all my staff consent to this. It seems you were overdue." Zara sat back in her chair defeated./p
The dojo, canteen and school block were also easy to search, nothing was suspicious or out of the ordinary, which was something that they were expecting. Jack and Stella headed over to the accommodation block, they knew it would take longer than a day, but they wanted to make a start. They started at the bottom floor and these were rooms by younger agents, much like the redshirt block, there was very little that made them question a security threat, they weren't expecting a 12 year old to be selling state secrets, or using drugs. As they climbed through the floors, the kids started to finish lessons, Stella knocked on a door on the third floor, a teenage boy answered, "Yes?" he looked down and saw Jack, "Security search, step out of the room please." The boy nodded and opened his door fully, "Name?" Stella asked him, the boy handed her his ID card, "Jake Parker, we wont be long." They searched his room, but nothing came up, they knew that something was going on with James and Lauren and their group of friends, but it would look too suspicious if it was just their rooms which were searched, so they continued this charade of searching everywhere. When they exited Jake Parker's room, they sat a rather large, athletically built woman stood next to him, she extended her hand to Stella, who shook it, Jack sat down next to her, on guard. "Meryl Spencer, Handler, I heard you were here Miss Morris, anything in Mr Parkers room?" She asked her, Stella shook her head, "Not unless you count a backlog of dirty laundry Miss Spencer." Meryl laughed and invited Stella down for dinner with her, she hesitated, but then received a text from Stark, saying it would be good to see what she knows. Stella agreed to dinner with Meryl Spencer once she had finished this floor. Meryl agreed and wanted to stay for the remainder of the room, which Stella agreed to. They didn't find anything other than more piles of dirty washing in the rest of the rooms, but as they were leaving the accommodation block, a teenage boy ran into them, "Sorry Meryl!" the boy shouted as he carried on running down the corridor, "Bruce Norris!" she shouted, Jack stopped in his tracks and ducked back behind Stella, Bruce was in the Dojo when he floored Lauren in wolf form, he hoped he didn't remember him. "What are you doing?" Meryl asked as Bruce turned around, he held his hands behind his back, clearly hiding something. "Just going for dinner Meryl, the twins are back from Ireland, just excited to see them" "What's in your hands?" She asked him, Bruce guiltily shrugged. Stella took over, "Place what ever is in your hands on the floor and stand palms flat against the wall." She handed Jack over to Meryl as Bruce put a carrier bag on the floor. Stella pat him down and ordered him to turn out his pockets, other teenagers were starting to come out of their room to see what was going on, "Back inside, or use the back stairs – move!" Meryl shouted. The teenagers rolled their eyes and some went back in their rooms, and some went downstairs. Stella put the contents of Bruce's pockets on the floor and whistled, Jack pulled on his lead and Meryl was pulled over to the contents of his pockets and the bag. Bruce was still facing the wall, Jack barked and sat down, "What's that mean?" Bruce said worriedly, "What's he found?" Meryl asked, Stella knocked on the nearest bedroom door and a 13 year old girl answered, "Do you need to come back in miss?" the girl asked, Stella shook her head, "Can we borrow your room?" Stella asked, the girl nodded, "I was heading for dinner anyway, can I leave my laptop running or do you need it? I'm downloading something for French?" "No, no, I don't need your laptop, I just don't want to do this next part in the corridor." The girl smiled and left the room, leaving the door open. Stella ordered Bruce and Meryl into the room, they sat on the girls bed and Stella looked through the contents of the bag, pirated DVD's, a suspicious looking bag of plants, and some paperwork. The contents of his pockets were also analysed, but the mints turned out just to be mints. Stella held the bag of plants to Jacks nose and he barked and sat down again. She pulled a test kit out of her bag, and the contents were analysed and came back as cannabis. She then looked through the paperwork, it was documents relating to the MI9 mockingbird mission, and several sets of building blueprints, ranging from a generic office blocks, to prisons. Stella reached down to Jacks collar and turned on the emergency button, letting Frank and the team see and hear what was happening along with Agent Stark./p
"The red emergency phone in HQ rang, Frank answered and told the Head of MI9, who ushered the CHERUBs out of St Hopes, "Security Sweep, quickly, they've got something." Stella was waiting for the go ahead to start questioning Bruce Norris, she kept one hand on Jack's collar whilst flicking through the DVD's to see which movies had been pirated. Once the morse code came through on the collar she turned to Bruce Norris and Meryl Spencer and pulled out a set of handcuffs. "Bruce Norris, I'm arresting you on suspicion of piracy, possession of a Class C drug, and espionage, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law." The MI High team watched through the computer and saw the teenager being arrested, "Where will they send him?" Rose asked, "Here" The Head of MI9 said, as she turned back to the computer./p
"Do you have anything you want to say right now Mr Norris?" Bruce nodded, "I was just getting rid of them, my friends told me to do it." Bruce said, Stella looked at Jack, Jack barked and headed to the bathroom, Stella uncuffed one of Bruce's hands and cuffed him to the headboard before following Jack into the bathroom, Stella took off the Jacket and Jack was in human form, "He was with us in the dojo when we came here," Jack whispered, "good friends with the two boys on the mission, we bring him whilst we do those four's rooms, and then we pass him onto Stark, agreed?" Stella nodded and held the jacket up for Jack to put back on./p
"Right, you come with me." Stella said pointing at Bruce, "We have four rooms on floor six and one of floor eight we want to do, before we finish up here, you'll be taken to a holding cell and will be questioned by another high rank agent – unless you start speaking whilst we search." Bruce nodded and the four of them headed up to the sixth floor. They started in Bruce's room, Jack was let in first and there was nothing, Stella went in and went through all of his files, and his computers, but again there was nothing, maybe Bruce was telling the truth. There wasn't a lingering smell of cannabis, that Jack would have been able to smell if the drugs were actually Bruce's. They moved across the hall, "Kerry Chang?" Meryl asked as they entered the room, "We're here because of a tip off" Stella said. In Kerry's room, they found a few bottles of alcohol and some of the pirated DVD's, but nothing that would have her as the leak. Stella made a note of what they had found and place it in evidence bags. She placed a red tape across Kerry's door, so they would know if anyone entered, but also so they knew that had already searched this room./p
"They went across the hall and started on Kyle's room, Jack barked immediately as the door opened, Stella let him off the lead and he sat in front of Kyle's wardrobe, where they found another small bag of cannabis. Stella bagged it, along with everything needed to make pirated DVD's. Jack dove under the bed and pulled out a carrier bag of similar building blueprints. Stella made a note of it and they went to James' room. Jack didn't alert to anything, but they found more alcohol, and mission briefings that contained classified information, along with more MI9 documents, including images taken of Jack, Rose, Carrie, Oscar, Frank and Stark when they were on Campus. Once they were satisfied they had got everything they headed to Laurens room. "So who gave you the tip off?" Stella asked Bruce, "My mates, they're on a mission with the chairwoman."/p
;"Lauren's room was fairly bare, and they found nothing of interest except for a pirated copy of Pirates of the Caribbean. Jack secretly was happy that she wasn't involved. They skipped dinner and took Bruce straight to the hotel to be picked up by other agents, where he would be taken to MI9 holding cells. After Bruce had gone, Jack returned to human form and flopped on the bed, "what do you think they want with the blueprints?" "Not a clue, there's nothing special about the office buildings, the prison though, that's Darkmere prison, its where some of the worst criminals are held." "Are they planning a mission to Darkmere?" Jack asked, Stella shook her head, "We control Darkmere, we'd know." The laptop began to ring, and they answered, it was the rest of the team./p
"So who's definitely involved?" The Head of MI9 asked,/p
""James Adams and Kyle Blueman both had building plans for office buildings, warehouses and Darkmere Prison, Adams had other documents relating to MI9, reports from Operation Mockingbird, photos of London, Stark and the kids, Blueman potentially had those too, Mr Norris doesn't know which room he pulled each document from, claims he didn't read them before bagging them. Blueman had some cannabis and appears to be running a DVD pirating scheme. Adams and Chang had alcohol – so we've got underage drinking. Adams junior is the only one of the four clean." Stella said./p
"We didn't get Zara's laptop, but I think I've copied everything, tomorrow we have the training grounds, the mission control block and the rest of the accommodation to do." Jack added./p
"Did you encounter any resistance?" Frank asked, "Zara had no option, the minister told her she would lose her job if she didn't let us do our work" Stella said, "Yeah, she came here complaining – she felt insulted." Frank added. "What of the kid you got?" Rose asked,/p
""Bruce Norris, MI9 came to pick him up just before you called, he was the kid in the dojo with us, I don't think he's involved, he was clean and so was his room, he said he got a tip off from one of the guys on the mission, was just doing a favour to his friends." Jack replied./p