Hostage (9 page)

‘But why?’

Charley sighed. ‘A friend of mine was
kidnapped. She was never seen again. I’ve always thought that if I’d known
how to protect her, I could have saved her.’

‘But what do your parents think about
you doing this?’

‘They died in a plane crash three
years ago.’

Connor felt his heart go out to her.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It’s all right,’ she
replied, her voice flat and unemotional. ‘I’ve kinda come to terms with it
now.’

But Connor recognized the brave face she put
on as the same one he used when someone asked about his dad. She couldn’t conceal
the deeper grain of sadness in her eyes.

They passed through the entrance hall in
silence. As they neared the bay window, a shaft of sunlight glinted off the badge on
Charley’s top. In an attempt to change the topic, Connor asked, ‘Tell me,
why’s your shield gold?’

Charley glanced down at the badge.
‘These are awarded for outstanding bravery in the line of duty.’

Intrigued, Connor asked, ‘What did you
do?’

Charley rolled to a stop by the window and
looked out at the mountains in the distance.

‘As buddyguards, we hope for the best,
but plan for the worst,’ she said softly. ‘Sometimes, the worst
happens.’

She chewed her lower lip pensively and went
silent on him.

Wishing he’d kept his mouth shut,
Connor decided not to push the subject any further. Charley seemed to appreciate this.
She forced a smile and her face brightened. ‘But don’t worry, Connor. As ops
leader, I’ll make certain that never happens to you.’

Descending the darkened staircase to the
basement level, Hazim walked along a short corridor, lit only by a bare bulb, and looked
inside an empty windowless white-walled cell. In the room opposite, Bahir glanced up
from a circuit board that he was soldering.

‘Malik’s asked me to check on
progress of the holding cell,’ explained Hazim. ‘He wants to know if
it’ll be one hundred per cent secure?’

‘When I’m finished,’ Bahir
stated, the glowing tip of the soldering iron reflecting in his metal-rimmed glasses,
‘a spider won’t be able to get in or out!’

He pointed to the narrow door Hazim had just
peered through. ‘That’s the only access and it has a reinforced
lock.’

‘What about electronic
communications?’

Bahir indicated a mobile phone on his desk.
‘See for yourself, no signal whatsoever.’

Hazim glanced at the display – the aerial
icon flashed
searching
.

‘I’ve installed a wide range of
electronic jammers,’ Bahir
quietly boasted, indicating his
spaghetti junction of wires and boxes on the table. ‘All operating on different
bandwidths. Each jammer has a back-up in case of failure. The system will block against
every cellular network – even the newer phones which hop between different
frequencies.’

Hazim nodded, as if understanding the
complex array of technical equipment before him. ‘What about bugs and
transmitters?’

Bahir snorted in disdain. ‘Useless.
All
radio signals are disrupted.’ He gave an oily smile.
‘I’ve employed subtle jamming too. No distortion or erratic tones – that
would be too easy to detect. Instead any listener will just hear silence, although
everything will seem superficially normal with their equipment.’

‘That’s pretty
impressive,’ said Hazim.

‘Of course it is,’ said Bahir,
returning to his work with a grin.

Hazim coughed politely for Bahir’s
attention. ‘Malik’s also concerned about thermal-imaging scanners. What
should I tell him?’

Without looking up, Bahir pointed to the
ceiling and walls. ‘A combination of aluminium layers and Plexiglas in the
construction will foil any attempts to scan this room for body heat – even if there was
a full-blown fire, they couldn’t detect it.’

‘Right,’ said Hazim. ‘And
what about
our
communications?’

Putting down the soldering iron, Bahir took
off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, clearly irritated
at being interrupted yet again. ‘The reach of the jammers is about nine metres,
so we’ll still be able to operate outside this zone. For internet access,
I’ve piggy-backed the neighbouring property’s telephone line and installed a
re-router.’

‘Isn’t that risky?’ gasped
Hazim. ‘Won’t it reveal our location?’

Bahir gave him a hard stare as if insulted
by the mere suggestion. ‘Not at all. The connection is bounced between a dozen
random servers worldwide, plus it’s protected by a few tricks of my own.
There’ll be no way they can trace the signal back here.’

‘And you’re
absolutely
certain this room is soundproof?’ Hazim asked.

‘On my life. Now let me get on with my
work,’ replied Bahir, replacing his glasses and picking up the soldering iron.
‘For all intents and purposes, this room is invisible to the eyes and ears of the
US government. In essence, it does
not
exist.’

Marc had been right. After a couple of weeks,
Connor’s brain was turning to mush. He had never envisaged the need to know so
much to become a bodyguard. There had been lectures on the law – Common, Civil and
Criminal. How to produce a threat assessment. The basics of operational planning.
Conflict management. Etiquette at formal functions. And even how to get safely in and
out of a car: the technique being to sit backside first, instead of stepping in with one
foot. Then if the car sped away in an emergency you simply lifted your legs – rather
than being dumped unceremoniously on the pavement as the vehicle shot off without
you.

And this was just the start. He still had
ten weeks of
basic
training ahead. On top of that, they were expected to attend
normal lessons too! Maths, history, English and all the other subjects Connor had hoped
to escape by joining Buddyguard. But Colonel Black took all aspects of his
recruits’ training seriously. ‘In all but the most extreme circumstances, a
professional bodyguard uses brain over brawn,’ he explained. ‘And that means
being educated and informed.’

After another marathon day of non-stop lessons
and fitness training, Connor collapsed on the sofa in Alpha team’s common room.
‘When will we get some time off?’ he asked.

Ling, helping herself to a Diet Coke from
the fridge, merely laughed. ‘You mean, for good behaviour? We might have a trip to
Cardiff every so often. But don’t get your hopes up. This course is full
on.’

She pointed to the next week’s
timetable pinned on the noticeboard.

‘Read it and weep!’

Dragging himself from the sofa, Connor
passed Amir, who was busily tapping away on his keyboard. ‘Don’t you ever
stop working?’

‘This isn’t work, it’s
programming,’ explained Amir, his eyes fixated on the screen. ‘I’m
creating a bodyguard app.’

‘What will it do?’ asked Connor,
trying to get a look.

Amir tapped the side of his nose with a
finger to indicate a secret. ‘I’ll tell you when it works.’

‘Sounds intriguing.’

‘Don’t get too excited,’
smirked Ling. ‘Amir’s last app fried his phone!’

Amir shot her evils. ‘The phone just
couldn’t handle the sheer awesomeness of my programming, that’s
all.’

‘Whatever,’ said Ling, sipping
her can of Coke and strolling out.

Connor scanned the timetable. He groaned
when he saw double maths was the opener for Monday morning. His eyes skipped over the
standard subjects to the bodyguard
lessons – which, if the truth be
known, fascinated him. Even if they were demanding and pushing him to his limit, he
realized this was the sort of training his father must have done.

Foot drills. World affairs. Hostage survival. Route planning. Embus Debus. Vehicle
searches. Unarmed combat –

A relieved smile broke across Connor’s
face. At least he’d be one step ahead of the others in that class.

Connor entered the sports hall with Charley
and the rest of Alpha team. A group of kids hung around the basketball court. When they
spotted Charley, they strolled over.

‘Aren’t you that surfer
girl?’ asked a young lad with wavy brown hair. ‘Charley Hunter?’

Charley nodded.

‘Wow!’ he said, eyes widening in
star-struck glee. He turned to his friends. ‘I told you so. This girl was the
Quiksilver Junior Surfing Champion. She conquered the Banzai Pipeline in
Hawaii.’

The kids began to crowd round her
wheelchair. One of the girls produced a pen and asked for an autograph. Worried that
Charley was going to be mobbed, Connor stepped forward.

‘Hey, watch it!’ snarled a boy
dressed in combats and a death-metal T-shirt, his way blocked by Connor.

‘Sorry, mate, but you need to give her
some space.’

‘I just wanted to get her
autograph,’ mumbled the boy, moodily stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Suddenly Connor caught sight of a blade.
‘KNIFE!’ he shouted, as the boy thrust for Charley.

Relying on his jujitsu training, Connor
grabbed the boy’s wrist. He was almost too late, the tip of the blade sweeping a
hair’s breadth from Charley’s throat. The other kids scattered in panic as
the two of them fought for control over the lethal weapon. Connor twisted the
boy’s arm using
kote-gaeshi
technique to drive him to the floor. The boy
still refused to let go of the knife. Jason dived on top, pinning the attacker to the
ground, while Ling and Amir rushed Charley towards the exit.

A man clapped for them to stop.

‘Excellent reactions,’ commended
their unarmed combat instructor, Steve. Ex-British Special Forces, he was a six-foot-two
man-mountain with skin dark as ebony and the muscles of a gladiator. He’d also
been the other phoney police officer involved in Connor’s recruitment. ‘That
training exercise demonstrates how difficult it is to foresee an attack. But you handled
it well. The Principal was saved.’

He glanced at the red ink line marking
Connor’s left forearm where the rubber knife had caught him.

‘You, on the other hand, are seriously
injured.’

Connor grimaced, disappointed with himself
for not managing to cleanly disarm the attacker from Delta team.

‘Knife attacks are possibly the most
dangerous of all close-quarter combat situations. That’s why the best way to
tackle a threat is not to tackle it at all,’ Steve explained as he collected the
training weapon. ‘Avoidance and escape
should always be your
first priority as a bodyguard. This is
not
cowardice. Remember, it’s far
better to make a good run than a bad stand.’

He beckoned for Alpha and Delta teams to
gather round.

‘However, there will be times when
escape is impossible and you must take the threat head on to defend yourself and your
Principal. If you’re forced to fight, end it fast. It should be over within five
to ten seconds. A punch to the face. A knife-hand strike to the throat. A kick to the
groin. Whatever it takes.’

Steve slammed a meaty fist into the palm of
his hand for emphasis. The class all nodded obediently. They’d spent the first
hour of the lesson doing pad work. Drilling jabs, crosses, front-kicks and roundhouses
over and over in order to commit them to muscle memory – so that the techniques became
instinctive rather than reactive. For Connor, this was already the case. So, while many
of the other recruits struggled to master the moves, he relished getting his teeth back
into his martial arts training.