CHERUB: The Syndicate

5: Exercise

George didn't manage to find any equipment but Ralph hit a goldmine; two boxes of extra ammunition and a rifle, while Letty had managed to find a set of two-way radios. George helped him carry it all back to the building where Katie and Kimberley were.

"Excellent," Katie said, examining the rifle. "It'll be nice to have something a bit more accurate."

"There's plenty of ammunition for it," Ralph said, unhooking his pack from his back and opening it.

Their attention was caught by a squeal of triumph coming from Kimberley, who was settled in the corner of the room with her netbook.

"The cameras are all interconnected over a wireless system. Obviously the security on it is rock-solid, but CHERUB's technology can crack it," she explained. "Given about ten minutes I will probably be able to monitor every camera in the compound."

George broke into a huge smile. "That's gonna give us a massive advantage."

Katie thought quickly. "Alright, well this is obviously too valuable to lose, so new plan. Who here is the best shot with a rifle?"

There was a period of silence while everyone waited for someone else to speak. Eventually Kimberley spoke up.

"I scored seventy-six percent on my accuracy rating during basic?" she ventured.

"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten all about that," Letty gasped. "I think I got eighty."

"I'm pretty sure I got ninety-something," George started, but Letty grinned at him.

"Nope, you got sixty-two, I can remember you whining about it all the next day," Letty replied. "You're definitely the worst shot here."

"Ralph?" Katie asked.

"I got ninety-two," he replied, looking a little embarrassed, although it was hard to tell with the helmet covering his face.

"Ninety-two is good enough for me," Katie said, handing him the rifle. "Kimberley, you take the netbook to the top of this building. It's about as well-protected as anywhere and it's not very conspicuous. We've got radios now, so you use that to let us know where the opposing teams are. Ralph, you go up to the roof or find a good window to shoot out of. You're going to cover the building in case it's attacked, but only in an emergency. I'd rather you two sit out the game quietly if possible."

Ralph looked a little put-out that he was going to miss the action, but he picked up the rifle and nodded.

"Finally, Letty, George, you two are coming with me. We'll take most of the ammo and stuff, and we're gonna go and try to find better equipment lying around. Kimberley, you'll keep us away from other teams, and come the morning, we'll use the cameras to home in on whoever has the most flags and steal them."

Everyone seemed okay with the plan, so once they'd all fitted and checked their radios were working, the three of them headed out of the building, staying low in case anyone was watching them.

"We'll ignore the nearby buildings for now and try to find stuff further away, which should deflect suspicion about where the other two are," Katie explained as they half-ran, half-crawled through an overgrown alleyway. "Someone might come to explore our drop point, but they'll assume we've had the best of the equipment and aren't likely to poke around too much."

It was still the summer, so the evenings were quite long and it took a while for the sun to head for the horizon. They didn't have night-vision scopes or anything, although their scavenging had come across plenty of extra ammunition for the handguns and some other mostly useless gadgets, like silencers for the guns and smoke grenades.