16: Delivery
ASIS agreed with Katie and said he'd done the right thing, so George could relax a bit. They deemed it too risky to conduct an extended search of Zach's office unless his wife was out, and since she hardly ever left the house and definitely never did when George was there, it didn't seem like this was going to happen soon. George kept his eyes open for any clues as to where Zach kept his important information, and even spent thirty tense seconds searching the master bedroom for anything, but it looked as if he did everything via his computer. Some ASIS techies looked into his internet connection but he sent everything encrypted, which required special permission to decode and took ages. With no leads to go on from George's side of the mission and Katie just carrying on in the agency, their minds turned to more immediate matters.
Once George's school broke up for the summer, it was only a week until Christmas. George felt weird about lying by the pool in the sun when it was winter back in the UK, but Katie seemed to have adapted completely.
"This is my second Christmas in Australia, so you get used to it," she explained as she reclined next to Alice, both reading glossy magazines through their giant sunglasses.
There was no reason for either of them to go back to campus, so while George would have liked to see his friends, CHERUB didn't stump up the money for flights. Instead he spent an evening with Katie writing cards to everyone and then they posted them in a big parcel, which was cheaper than sending everything individually. There weren't any presents, but Katie assured George he'd get them when he got back.
Riley and his family were flying to California for three weeks so George didn't have to worry about seeing Riley. ASIS thought that the trip might be a cover for some meetings Zach would be having with organised gangs in the US, but no matter how deeply they dug, the trip appeared to be a totally innocent family holiday. Their house was protected by state-of-the-art security systems and while ASIS had the technology to disable them, they knew Zach would be having his house watched 24/7 and anyone hanging around would be reported instantly. This meant that with nothing happening on the Riley front, ASIS encouraged him to try and get involved with some of the local street gangs in the hope that it might reveal more information about the way they operated.
This was quite easy for George after the brawl, because he had a reputation as a hardcase and reports had filtered back from the police station that he'd kept his head there too. Long holidays always mean bored kids, so George was out and about almost every single day.
Street gangs in Melbourne were often divided racially, only admitting members with particular ethnic backgrounds. The only all-white gang in the local area was just a group of skinheads who didn't do much except occasionally smashing up a pub, so George found himself being drawn to a loose group made up of anyone the leaders found trustworthy. The core were Indonesian drug suppliers, but selling drugs was a risk they were willing to hand to anyone willing to listen to orders and not shop them to the police or a rival gang.
Surprisingly, George's way in was through Laurie, who'd done a couple of jobs for them before and reacted positively when George mentioned it after a kickabout.
"They like you after you beat up those Keilor guys," he explained. "They'd definitely let you do some lookout work or maybe carrying the packages."
"Well, could you put in a good word?" George asked hopefully.
"No problem. Just don't try and get Kev involved. He hates it and he'll probably give you a lecture once he finds out you're asking."
"Thanks for the heads-up," George said, picking his shirt up off the grass. "Let me know when I can start work."
Intelligence that ASIS had picked up suggested that street gangs were usually stretched thin during the Christmas period; a combination of a lot of parties and people having more money to spend. The gang got into contact with George the following evening when his mobile rang and he was told to go to a row of garages about a mile away.
"You Brian?" a skinny Indonesian with an almost-bald head said when he arrived.
"Yeah, that's me."
The man led George into an open garage that looked as if it served as a makeshift office, with a desk and chair set up. George guessed that it might be a drop-off for cash, but there was nothing tell-tale left lying around. The man sat down in the chair and looked up at George.
"I'm Kuwat," he said, holding out a hand for George to shake. His accent was unmistakeably Australian and George wondered if he'd been born in Australia. "Here's what's going to happen tonight. Someone will call you and tell you where to go, then you'll get there by ten o'clock. You'll wait outside for two hours and if you see anyone go in or out of the building, you ring the number and tell them, no matter who it is. Got it?"
"Sounds good."
"You'll get thirty dollars. I'll give you fifteen now and you get fifteen later if you don't run off halfway through. I probably don't need to tell you that if you don't do this properly, some of my friends will visit you at home."
George nodded. "Perfectly clear."
"Alright, off you go. Get this right and we've got plenty of uses for a kid like you who can handle himself. Cops never suspect a kid."
Since it looked like it was a drug deal, George kept note of everything he'd been told and everyone he saw, but ASIS wasn't too concerned about low-level stuff. It all got passed to the Victoria Police and George suspected it went straight to the bottom of their to-do pile. He didn't mind too much, though, since he was getting paid and it gave him something to do. Something came through on his phone almost every day and sometimes he got two jobs in an evening. It was all look-out stuff, but cash was pushed through the letterbox every morning and George was soon storing it away in his room, hoping nobody would ask for it back.
After George had been up for an early morning swim, he spotted Kuwat walking up the driveway and he said hello to him at the door.
"Hi Brian. I just heard that your aunt works at our bank and your sister is the glamour girl down at the agency," he said with a lecherous grin that made George feel slightly unwell. "Your family is as solid as it gets, so expect more work to come your way."
"Thanks," George replied, pleased he was on the fast track to more money.
"We probably need a delivery boy over Christmas if you're interested. Peak period, pays double plus people usually tip heavily."
"Definitely! Just let me know the usual way."
"Good man. Well, see you around," Kuwat said, peering past George and into the house in case Alice or Katie were around, but George closed the door before he could stare for too long.
Deliveries were even easier than look-out jobs. Alice had been talking about spending a few days somewhere for a holiday, but with George employed over Christmas that was put on hold.
"ASIS have been going through all of the stuff I've been sending and apparently they're starting to fill in some big blanks in the jigsaw," Katie told him half a week before Christmas. "We need to have a big briefing in the next month, so do you think you can get some time off near your birthday?"
"Should be able to," George nodded. "I'll let them know next time I contact them."
"I'll tell ASIS. You can use it as an opportunity to pass on what you know about your gang as well."
"I get the impression it's a fairly minor gang. They don't deliver much outside St Albans and the leaders seem to be a group of three or four guys who just employ bored kids or whatever. I even think that Kuwat has a job somewhere," George replied. "I'll let them know anyway."
"Anyway, Alice and I are planning to go down to St Kilda's beach on Christmas day if the weather is good enough. You want to come?"
Christmas on the beach sounded like fun so George agreed, planning to take a few pictures to torment his friends back on campus.
The only problem was that the weather deteriorated in the lead-up to Christmas and after some minor thunderstorms were reported on Christmas Eve, Alice wasn't keen on going.
"We'll just stay here, I think," she said, keeping her eye on the 24-hour weather forecast. "It'll be miserable if it rains."
George and Katie had each received a pile of cards redirected from campus, addressed to their undercover names. George was pleased to get cards from Letty, Rex, Michael, Lucy and everyone else he'd done basic training with. There was even one from Rex's sister. Katie had only half as many, but she was still an outcast on campus and it was hardly surprising.
CHERUB protocol said that agents had to destroy cards within twenty-four hours to prevent them from compromising the mission, but George sellotaped his up in his room, thinking it unlikely that anyone would be raiding his room any time soon.
Christmas morning was a cooked breakfast from Alice, complete with presents. There was nothing from campus, but Katie and Alice had got together and bought him a smart-looking watch.
"If it's a bit big now you can take some of the links out of the strap," Alice explained as he tried it on. "Look after it, though, and it'll probably last twenty years or more."
George had decided to make use of the wad of cash sitting in his room and bought Alice a handbag he'd seen in a designer outlet and Katie a pair of shoes she'd been looking at online. This earned him a double kiss on the cheek from both of them, which made him go bright red.
By the time they were sitting down to eat lunch there were some severe thunderstorms passing by and they had a shower of giant hailstones, which at least provided plenty of entertainment. The weather channel suggested that they weren't getting the worst of it, but when George poked his head out of the front door he spotted two parked cars with smashed windscreens.
"Never seen anything like this at this time of year," Alice said, sounding slightly worried as rumbles of thunder passed overhead. "Usually it's a heatwave going into January, not hailstorms."
"It's a bit more like being at home," George said, looking at the hailstones covering the grass outside. "Not that it ever snows very much at Christmas at home."
In the afternoon, once most of the weather seemed to have passed, they went for a walk to burn off the food and see what damage had been done. It was mostly damage to cars, but there were some houses with crippled roofs.
"I wonder if it's like this all across Melbourne," Alice wondered aloud as they crunched across hailstones on their way across the park. "If everywhere's as damaged as this the insurance companies will be wetting themselves."
"Good thing you keep yours in the garage," Katie said, grinning. "Think it'll affect the bank?"
Alice shrugged. "It'll hurt the shares of insurance companies, but not enough to cause more than a ripple."
George picked up a couple of hailstones and threw them across the park. "It'd make for a brutal snowball fight."
The local news said the damage was mostly in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, and George got his phone call as usual so he went out to make the deliveries. It was certainly the most eventful Christmas he could remember and made him feel slightly better about missing all the festivities back on campus, including the riotous present-opening session which, according to his new watch, would be going on just as he was handing over parcels of marijuana for cash.
"Keep the change," a drunk bloke wearing a paper hat said as he passed George an AU$50 note. George was used to large tips from drunken idiots and didn't bother to say thank you as he grabbed his bike and headed home, hoping his phone wouldn't ring again. That had been his fifteenth delivery of the night, easily a record, and he guessed that nobody else was working, either due to it being Christmas or the weather earlier. Either way, he didn't mind. A quick mental calculation as he cycled led to the revelation that at the double rate, he'd made more than AU$500 for one evening's work. Only problem was that he expected CHERUB to reclaim it all.