The Recruit

At school, the other kids push James around because he lives at Fort Harmony. After a few kids try to rough him up, James punches one and runs away, and he spends the rest of the day “paranoid that everyone was staring at him like a freak” (272). Later, the boy brings a bunch of friends to beat James up, and James goes to the first-aid room until the end of the school day. On the bus that afternoon, Joanna sits with James and invites him to her house to have a bath, knowing Fort Harmony’s residents don’t bathe often.

Back at Fort Harmony, James tells Sebastian and Clark he got beat up at school. Sebastian and Clark understand because they used to get beat up until they got big enough to intimidate the other kids. James finds he likes the boys better now that he’s gotten to know them, and when he asks why they weren’t friendly at first, the boys tell him, “If you got treated like you were today, every single day since you were five years old, you wouldn’t be friendly either” (279). Sebastian and Clark’s suspected terrorist brothers have a workshop somewhere in Fort Harmony. To have time to search for it, James decides to get suspended from school for a few days. James also talks to some of the adults about why they live at Fort Harmony. The place used to be a symbol that a few people could stand up to the government and win, but now, no one’s sure what it stands for.

After snooping around Fort Harmony, James is able to collect critical information, like bank account numbers, for one of the Help Earth suspects. His handler also dug up information, but even with all that, there isn’t enough to prove the man is part of Help Earth. James’s handler also knows about Joanna and buys her favorite chocolates for James to give her. James is excited about how she’ll react until he realizes that “when the mission ended he’d have to go back to CHERUB and never see her again” (288). The next day at school, James purposefully gets into a fight and gets suspended.

After James’s fight, the school’s headmistress called the previous school he supposedly got suspended from. Fortunately, she called the fake number CHERUB set up, not the actual school, but James’s handler is having James grounded, so he can’t leave Fort Harmony for a week. When James asks about Joanna, his handler tells him to remember his mission, adding, “You mess up like this again and I’ll have you back at CHERUB scrubbing toilets on your hands and knees” (292). James goes off to sulk and finds an entrance to an underground tunnel that’s padlocked.

James and Amy investigate and work out that the Help Earth operatives are smuggling bomb parts through a hole in the fence using remote-controlled cars. With this, there’s enough to get the boys thrown in jail, but Amy feels bad for the one she’s gotten close to because he seems to only be trying to impress his brothers. When James makes fun of Amy for caring about a geek, she scolds him, saying, “There’s more to a guy than looking good and having big muscles” (297).

Amy wakes James in the middle of the night. Their handler called and is on his way to pick them up because “our lives are in danger if we don’t get out fast” (298). In the car, James is administered pills and injections because what he found was a bioweapon with anthrax, not a bomb. James is rushed to the hospital, where he is given medication and tested for the disease, which comes back positive.

After a rough 30 hours, the level of anthrax in James’s blood finally starts to go down. Five of the six suspected Help Earth operatives were arrested, and the last has disappeared. Later, Mac informs James that the strain of anthrax he got was actually a weak version and that all his symptoms were from the medication. The terrorists had planned to use this weaker strain to immunize the people who work at the convention center so the more deadly strain would only kill the oil executives. Amy returned to Fort Harmony with a cover story for James, and after James recovers from the drugs, he returns to Fort Harmony. On the way, he reads about the missing member of the terrorist group. The newspapers make him sound horrible, but “James could only remember a big friendly American who cared about workers’ rights and the environment” (309).

Back at Fort Harmony, Sebastian and Clark are more upset about their brothers getting busted than they are about the people who would have died because they feel the rich oil executives have it coming for poisoning the planet. The boys share stories of the stuff their brothers did in prison before, making it clear the two admire them, and though James doesn’t agree with murder, he “almost felt bad about being one of the people who’d got them caught” (314).

In the middle of the night, the police swarm Fort Harmony, pulling everyone out of their homes to fulfill a court order from 30 years ago that the place be emptied. The police indiscriminately handcuff people and beat anyone who argues. One of the brothers is hauled off, and the other vows that if the cops send him away, “I’ll stab a cop myself so I can stay with him” (319).

The police round all the Fort Harmony residents up at a local church hall, where James ponders whether his mission was actually a success. After a while, he gives up because all he can understand is that “he’d stopped one small bunch of bad guys killing a big bunch of bad guys, and as a result the good guys got chucked out of their homes by another bunch of bad guys” (321). Unable to find Amy, James goes to Joanna’s house to call her. Amy is with their handler and will be there soon. Joanna gives James her number, and James feels sad because he knows he won’t be able to stay in touch with her.

Back at CHERUB, James visits Mac, who talks James through his doubts about whether the mission was worthwhile. Mac confirms oil companies do terrible things to people because they can get away with it and admits that he shares the terrorist group’s ideals, just without the violence, because “killing people never solves anything” (331). MI5 knows where the last Health Earth operative is and hopes he’ll lead the agency to other members of the group. Mac tells James he did an outstanding job on the mission overall and gives him a navy T-shirt—meaning James is a senior-level CHERUB now. At breakfast the next day, James’s friends beg him to take off the shirt before someone beats him up, and they are amazed to learn James earned it after only one mission.

The Epilogue offers closure for some of the book’s side characters. James’s uncle is still in prison and not doing well. One of the women from Fort Harmony bought a farm in Spain and now hosts several people who moved there after the original was closed down. Other members of Fort Harmony were released from police custody and have moved on. Two of the terrorist operatives were convicted and sentenced to at least 25 years in prison. The man MI5 was following gave them the slip. Lauren will start basic training soon, and James is preparing for his second mission.