21: Conference
George's announcement of an upcoming security mission barely caused a murmur amongst his friends, who were still more interested in teasing him about his new girlfriend. Nobody batted an eyelid when he left breakfast early the next week, dressed in jeans and a warm grey hoodie and hung around outside the cafeteria, waiting for Lucy.
"Of all the days for it to snow," Lucy said, brushing flakes off the hood of her coat as she came in through the front door and spotted George. "Looks like it'll melt by lunchtime, though."
"Are we going now?" George asked, since Lucy was going in the complete opposite direction to the car park.
"One thing, first," Lucy said, pointing to the lift. "We need to pay a visit to the archives."
George had never been down to the basement before, and the first thing that hit him was the smell of musty old paper. The retro green fixtures and fittings looked old-school and Lucy led him expertly past some ageing computers and desks near the door and down into the main part of the archive, where large wooden shelves held row after row of documents.
"1969, wow," George said, reading a year off a random shelf.
Lucy kept her voice down as she searched through the shelves, George following her. "Everything down here got digitised a few years ago, except for mission records pre-1990 and personnel files. Now it gets used as a dumping ground for new mission files the controllers can't be bothered to enter into the system, since in a few years someone will get fed up with the mess and force some Cherubs to do the digitising as punishment," Lucy told him. "The pre-1990 mission files are because a lot of them concern the ex-Soviet countries and CHERUB is worried about a cyber attack. And the personnel files are still here because technically you can't put personal data onto a computer system without that person's permission, and CHERUB doesn't want to post out hundreds of forms asking for permission to keep tabs on people."
George grinned. "Beautiful," he said, as Lucy paused in front of some of the personnel shelves. "Where's mine? I want to read my discipline reports."
"Agent records aren't kept down here, they're upstairs and much more secure," Lucy said. She opened a drawer labelled 'D-E' and started flicking through files until she pulled out a thick brown file with 'EDMONDS, DAVID' printed on a typewritten sticker which was curling at the edges.
"Who's David Edmonds and why are we looking at his file?" George asked, and Lucy jabbed him in the ribs.
"Keep it down," she hissed as she shoved the file into the drawstring bag she had in her pocket. "You carry this."
She slid the drawer closed and handed George the bag, which he hooked onto his back and followed her back the way they came. It was still deserted down here until they'd almost reached the lift, when the doors opened unexpectedly and John Jones, a balding mission controller with glasses and a gentle personality, stepped out, also surprised to see anyone else down here.
"Hi John," Lucy said, acting nonchalant. "It's a bit chilly this morning."
John nodded. "You could say that. The roads were a nightmare getting in this morning."
There was a pause and John looked at Lucy and George for a moment. "You know, you shouldn't really be down here," he started to say, but Lucy interrupted.
"James Adams wanted us to drop some documents off before we go out, to save him some time," Lucy said.
"I've told James about not leaving documents down here, they should be digitised and destroyed," John said, irritably. "He's the worst offender."
"Better run," Lucy said. "Have a good day, John."
John was distracted by his annoyance with James and left them to jump back into the lift, where Lucy breathed a sigh of relief as the doors slid shut.
"Close call," she said. "I'm absolutely not allowed in the archives since I'm not really a proper member of staff, but luckily so many ex-CHERUBS come and go that John doesn't know that."
With the weather icy, Lucy checked out a sporty-looking Golf GTI that George had helped Terry swap to a four-wheel drive system the previous year. It had good traction in the snowy car park and Lucy expertly shot down the drive and out onto the main road which had been cleared.
"So," Lucy said, when they were finally on the road moving briskly away from campus. "What's this I hear about George's new girlfriend?"
George rolled his eyes. "There's nothing to hear," he said. "Me and Bianca are going out, that's all. It's only been just over a week."
"Aw, little Georgey all grown up," Lucy teased. "And to think, I remember you as a ten-year-old fresh out of basic training, on your first proper mission."
"That was ages ago," George pointed out. "And anyway, I'm fifteen, which is basically the same age as you were back then."
"Touché," Lucy conceded, and giggled. "Oh, the things I used to get up to back when I was fifteen…"
The snow had mostly melted except for isolated patches, replaced by a kind of grey slush, by the time they pulled off the motorway ninety minutes later and into an anonymous-looking business park. Lucy pulled up in the car park of a budget hotel and spent a couple of minutes swapping her coat for a dark business jacket and brushing her hair.
"Lucy Chowdhury, I've booked the conference room for eleven," Lucy said to the woman behind the reception desk, then pointed her thumb at George. "My stepbrother's school is shut for the snow."
"Sorry to hear that," the woman said, sounding sympathetic with a strong eastern European accent. "The conference room is ready, there's tea and coffee in the flasks as well as milk."
"Perfect. When the others arrive just ask them to come straight in," Lucy said, turning to George. "You're going to sit quietly and do some work, I don't want to see your phone out or any texts from your mates."
George adopted a bored, surly look, and the receptionist smiled sympathetically at Lucy again. "My brother is similar, he never tries at school," she said, handing Lucy a plastic access card.
The conference room was basic and, apart from a table that could seat twelve and a shelf with the hot drinks on it, didn't have any other amenities except a view of the car park through some sparse shrubs. Lucy closed the door behind them and drew the blinds, making the room dull, then flicked on the bank of yellowing lights.
"Let's have a look at Mr Edmonds' file," Lucy said, pouring coffee from the flask into a paper cup.
"He's ex-CHERUB?" George asked, digging the file out of his bag and handing it to Lucy, who opened it up and spread it out on the table.
"Born 1977, active agent 1987 to 1994," Lucy read out. "Finished a black shirt, impressive list of missions, too." She pointed to a green stamp on the front page of David's file, underneath his picture and a red stamp which said 'RETIRED'. The green one read 'F.A.N.G.'.
"What's FANG?" George asked.
"Former Agent Notification Group," Lucy said. "These are the guys you really shouldn't mess with, but we're gonna mess with."
Before she could elaborate, there was a loud roar from an engine outside, and when Lucy twitched the blind out of the way, they could see James pulling off his helmet and undoing the top third of his motorcycle leathers.
"Nice bike," George said when James walked in, a shirt and tie on under his jacket, running a hand through his hair to try and flatten it slightly.
"Thanks," James said, eyeing Lucy's coffee. "Any more where that came from? And I see you've got David's file."
"No problems, except a close shave with John Jones," Lucy told him, pointing to the coffee flask. "I may have dropped you in it with him."
"Me and John go way back, any grumbles are only skin deep," James said dismissively as he got coffee for himself. "How's David looking?"
"We only just cracked it open but he looks like a tough nut," Lucy admitted. "Perfect mission record, straight into the S.A.S. after CHERUB, ten years unblemished service there until he was injured in Iraq and invalided out. A year's rehabilitation and he's been a FANG since."
James blew out his cheeks. "Well, he doesn't sound like the ideal candidate to try and put pressure on, but we'll try."
"I still don't know what FANG is," George said, annoyed.
"Former Agent Notification Group," James told him.
"Yes, I know that, but what does it mean?" George asked again.
"When you retire as a CHERUB agent, you pass over to FANG's jurisdiction," James explained. "Their job is to keep track of you, make sure you're not selling state secrets to the tabloids, or hanging out with suspected enemy spies, or developing a crippling crack addiction. Anything that would jeopardise the existence of CHERUB."
"Like, enforcers?" George asked. "They'll come round and kill you if you say you're going to the papers?"
James laughed. "No, not exactly. Mostly they operate in the shadows, just passing information over to the authorities if they feel something needs to happen. So, for example, if you were addicted to crack, you'd suddenly find a friendly doctor knocking on your door and referring you to a plush rehab clinic. Or if you were talking to a journalist, you might get a late-night visit from the police reminding you about your responsibilities, and all of those journalist's notes would disappear."
"Court cases involving the secret services take place behind closed doors, so if you really were going to do something drastic, they'll just have you arrested and banged up," Lucy added.
"Nasty," George said, looking at the tiny snapshot picture of David Edmonds from when he was an agent. "So what do we want with him?"
"His colleague is William Shepherd, that bloke from the ethics committee who's running the investigation into Michael's whereabouts," Lucy said. "They're both in FANG, but we're concerned that if Michael makes it back into Europe, FANG will pick up on it and feed back to CHERUB before we're ready."
"Shepherd is a bit of a hard-arse, but I reckon we might have a decent chance of persuading this David guy to suppress information about Michael until he's back in the UK," James added. "It's better to come clean up front, especially since FANG are pretty sophisticated and not much gets past them."
There was a knock on the door of the room and Lucy swept the file off the desk and tucked it back into George's bag, out of sight, while James got up, straightened his tie and opened the door.
The man outside was a grown-up version of the teenager whose picture George had just been examining. He was still in good shape, but he'd lost most of his hair and part of the left side of his face was now covered in purple burn scars. Like James, he was wearing a business suit, and he held out a hand to James to shake. His other hand was holding a lightweight crutch.
"David, thanks for coming," James said, warmly.
"Call me Dave," Edmonds laughed. "Lucy, nice to see you."
"You, too," Lucy replied, getting up and leaning over the table to shake his hand too as he moved into the room, still gripping the crutch but otherwise rock steady on his feet.
"This one's too young to be in my jurisdiction yet," Dave smiled, looking at George.
"George Knight," George said, and Dave's handshake was crunchingly hard.
"Take a seat," James said, and Dave sat himself down with an empty seat either side, looking from Lucy to James to George and back again, propping his crutch on an empty chair.
"Let me guess…" Dave smiled, his eyes twinkling. "You're the Michael Jaarsveld appreciation society."
James laughed. "Nothing gets past you guys at FANG," he admitted.
"When I got your call I had my suspicions, but admittedly I'd expected to see Zara," Dave said, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped around his stomach.
Lucy shifted in her chair a little. "This meeting's not officially on the books," she said, anxiously.
Now Dave looked intrigued. "You've got my attention," he said. "Hypothetically, if Michael's been naughty, I can step in, but what are we talking about? Drugs?"
James looked slightly nervous. "Potentially murder," he said, and watched as the FANG man's expression changed to one of real interest.
"Well then, tell me more," Dave said, holding his hands out in a friendly way. "I've got all day."