CHERUB: Guardian Angel Read Online Free Page A

China seeing what they were up to. Thirty years later, this run-down ex-military airfield made the perfect base for a smuggling operation.
    The Kremlin building itself was a typical Soviet-era monstrosity. Six storeys of prefabricated concrete situated half a kilometre from the airfield, but still close enough that the biggest of the Aramov Clan’s cargo planes would set the bronze hammer and sickle on the roof rattling when they took off.
    Two guards armed with Kalashnikovs held the lobby doors open as the kids came off the Kremlin bus. Getting to the lifts meant a walk over threadbare orange carpet tiles and on through a bar, where the only life at this time of day came from flashing lights on a line of fruit machines.
    ‘You wanna come up to my room later?’ Ethan asked Natalka. ‘I’ve got all them movies I bought at Dordoi Bazaar on Saturday.’
    Natalka didn’t exactly look thrilled at the prospect. ‘I’ll see,’ she said weakly.
    Ethan was disappointed, but tried not to let it show.
    Natalka shared a room with her mum on the first floor, so she took the stairs. The Aramovs all lived up top on the sixth floor and Ethan quickened his pace when he saw that cousin Andre was holding the lift for him.
    ‘Thanks,’ Ethan said, as he stepped into a narrow car with one bulb out of three working and a missing service panel at the back so that you could stick your arm out into the lift shaft.
    ‘That Natalka’s a cow,’ Andre said. ‘And she’ll never go out with you. She only likes older guys.’
    ‘We’re mates,’ Ethan said irritably. ‘And who says I fancy her?’
    The lift doors had half closed, but jammed until Andre gave them an almighty boot. ‘This lift is so crap!’
    ‘Like everything else around here,’ Ethan said.
    The doors almost closed at the second attempt, but a trainer wedged itself in the gap and Boris and Alex muscled their way in, each holding another bottle of beer.
    ‘Look who it is!’ Alex said drunkenly. ‘My geek baby brother and even geekier Yank cousin.’
    Boris laughed. ‘Probably going up to their room to snog each other.’
    ‘Show us how you do it,’ Alex said noisily, as the lift started going up. Then more aggressively as he faced Ethan off, ‘Go on.’
    ‘Show what?’ Ethan asked, trying to hide his fear.
    ‘Kiss your boyfriend,’ Alex explained, as he grabbed Ethan behind the neck and shoved him towards Andre.
    ‘I’m not gay,’ Andre protested, as he squirmed into a corner behind Boris. ‘Get off him.’
    ‘Or what?’ Alex repeated.
    ‘I’ll tell Grandma that you beat up the old kebab seller,’ Andre blurted. ‘Why’d you do that anyway? He was all right.’
    Boris solved the mystery. ‘We bought kebabs off him this morning. Gave him twenty som, but he only gave me change from ten.’
    ‘Called us thieving little liars , didn’t he, Boris?’ Alex added, as he got fed up with the kissing thing and let Ethan go. ‘Bet he’s sorry he said that right now.’
    ‘Gonna be in pain for days from that beating,’ Boris said, taking a cheerful slug of his beer. ‘He’s lucky I didn’t burn him up.’
    By this time the lift had stopped. The door jammed again but Alex strong-armed it the rest of the way.
    ‘Later, geeks!’ Alex said when they were all out in the sixth-floor hallway.
    Before heading off, Boris gave Ethan a shove into the wall. It wasn’t that hard, but Ethan caught his elbow on a radiator and winced with pain.
    ‘Your brothers are mental,’ Ethan said, shaking his head warily. ‘Stone-cold psychos.’
    Andre was concerned because Ethan seemed to be in more pain than a shove against the wall should have merited. ‘Is it where you got run over?’
    Ethan nodded. ‘My arm’s OK most of the time now, but not when some tit-head smashes into you.’
    ‘I can’t believe what they did to the old man,’ Andre said. ‘I wish I could help him.’
    ‘He’ll be in hiding,’ Ethan said.
    ‘I’m gonna see how Grandma is,’ Andre