Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (18 page)

However, just as Connor thought they were in
the clear, two flat-bed jeeps appeared, blocking their escape.

‘Brace yourselves!’ Connor
shouted to Amber and Henri, both now mute with terror.

Dropping into second gear, Connor
accelerated hard up the slope. The gunmen in the jeeps began firing at them. Connor kept
going. The Land Rover struck the roadblock, smashing into the front wings of both
vehicles. The men on the backs of the jeeps were flung off. The Land Rover’s
bullbar crumpled but did its job of saving the engine from being crippled. Connor pushed
on through, metal scraping
on metal as the
two jeeps were shoved aside. With a final roar of the engine, the Land Rover burst free
and tore off down the road.

‘What happened back there? Who was
shooting at us?
Why
were they shooting at us?’ babbled Amber, propped up
in the passenger seat, the wind whistling through the broken windscreen and whipping at
her red hair.

‘I don’t know,’ said
Connor, focusing on the dirt road ahead. ‘All I know is we have to put some
distance between us and them. Are you hurt?’

Amber put a hand to her face. ‘I
don’t think so … it’s just a little cut.’

‘Good. Henri, how about
you?’

Her brother didn’t answer.

‘
Henri?
’ Connor
repeated louder. ‘Speak to us.’ He glanced into the rear-view mirror but
couldn’t see him. He prayed the boy hadn’t been shot.

Amber clambered round in her seat and looked
down into the footwell. ‘Henri, are you all right?’

She turned to Connor. ‘He’s not
responding.’

‘Can you see any blood?’

Amber shook her head. ‘No, he looks
fine.’

‘He’s probably in shock,’
explained Connor.

Amber reached
through to her brother and gently shook him. ‘Henri, are you OK?’ She shook
him again. ‘He’s nodding.’

Connor breathed a sigh of relief. It was a
miracle all three of them had escaped without injury. Then he noticed a patch of blood
staining the left-hand side of his T-shirt. He felt no pain, but the adrenalin was
probably masking that.

‘Our first priority is getting back to
the lodge,’ he announced, deciding not to examine his wound any further. Serious
or not, they couldn’t risk stopping so close to the ambush site.
‘That’ll be the most secure location. At least until Buddyguard can arrange
a flight out of here.’

‘But we can’t just …
leave,’ stuttered Amber, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘M-my parents
…’

Connor kept his eyes on the road, unable to
meet her pleading look. ‘If they’ve escaped, that’s where
they’ll go too,’ he replied.

‘
If?
’

‘Pass me my phone,’ he
instructed, wanting to avoid the topic, at least until they were out of immediate
danger. He indicated the back seat where he’d dropped it in the rush to protect
her. Amber numbly reached behind and it was this action that saved her life. A bullet
ripped through her headrest, missing her neck by a fraction. More lethal rounds zinged
past.

‘They’re following us!’
she yelled, sliding down low in her seat.

In the rear-view mirror, Connor saw a jeep
hurtling
along the road, a dust cloud
billowing up in its wake. Connor increased speed, urging the Land Rover to go faster.
The whole chassis shook as the dirt road punished the 4x4’s suspension. He
wrestled with the steering wheel, his bones jarring as they hit pothole after
pothole.

Another bullet ricocheted off the dashboard
and a glance behind told him what he feared most. The gunmen were gaining on them. And
they were still miles from the lodge. Realizing the odds of outrunning their pursuers
were close to zero, Connor made the decision to head off-road.

‘Where on earth are you going?’
said Amber, baffled by his seemingly crazy actions.

‘The jungle,’ he replied,
nodding towards the trees bordering the savannah. ‘We’ll try to lose them in
there.’

Connor weaved between the bushes at high
speed, taking advantage of their cover. As they bounced and rocked over the rugged
terrain, he almost collided head-on with a boulder, then narrowly avoided a clump of
trees. He simply ran straight over any small thorn bushes, their branches screeching and
scraping at the undercarriage.

‘Watch out!’ cried Amber.

A herd of impala bolted in fright, leaping
across their path. Connor swerved madly to avoid hitting them. Behind, the sound of
gunfire drew ever closer but he didn’t dare look back again for fear of crashing.
Cresting a slope, the Land Rover cleared the ground and came down with an almighty
thump. Part of the exhaust system fell off and the engine began roaring like a lion.
Caught in a deadly game of
hide-and-seek
with his pursuers, Connor drove on for all he was worth towards the sanctuary of the
jungle. The undergrowth thickened around them and for a moment he believed he’d
shaken them off. Then a blast of bullets pulverized a nearby tree trunk, bark and
splinters flying into their path.

Connor swung the Land Rover hard right,
following what appeared to be animal trails deeper into the jungle. Sunlight flickered
through the canopy overhead and the encroaching undergrowth slapped at the
vehicle’s sides. They quickly lost sight of their pursuers. Then without warning
the ground dropped away and the Land Rover tipped forward. It hurtled out of control
down a sheer slope, bouncing off rocks and careering through bushes. Connor, Amber and
Henri were flung around the cabin, powerless to stop their breakneck descent. A massive
tree loomed up in front of them and the Land Rover came to a violent shuddering halt,
the bonnet crumpling like cardboard as they struck the trunk head-on.

Groaning in pain, Connor pressed the palm of
his hand to where he’d hit his forehead on the steering wheel. Blood was seeping
from a gash above his left eye. He was dazed but alive. Amber was slumped next to him,
her head lolling on the door frame.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, laying a
hand on her shoulder.

Amber let out a soft moan. ‘I think
so,’ she managed to reply. To add to the cut on her cheek, she now had a split
lip, countless grazes and a dark bruise along her thigh.

‘Anything broken?’

‘Yes … my camera.’ She held up
the shattered remains. ‘But I’ll survive.’

Clambering out of
the vehicle, Connor’s legs gave way beneath him and he had to drag himself back to
standing. He peered into the rear compartment. Henri was curled up in the foetal
position at the bottom of the footwell.

‘How about you, Henri?’ Connor
asked, gradually feeling his strength and senses returning.

Henri gave him a thumbs up. Connor smiled.
From what he could see, his position in the footwell had protected him from the worst of
the crash, although he was going to sport some pretty impressive bruises. Connor held
out his hand and pulled Henri from the wreckage, before going round to help Amber out
through her window.

Surveying the scene, Connor discovered that
he’d driven into a hidden ravine. The Land Rover was a write-off, the crash having
broken the front axle and torn off the nearside wheel. The only way they’d be
getting to the lodge now was on foot.

Reaching inside the vehicle, Connor
retrieved his Go-bag. He also found his binoculars jammed against the door. But,
worryingly, there was no sign of his phone. He leant in further through the window to
look under the seats when suddenly the jungle erupted with the sound of gunfire. Connor
dived behind the nearest tree, dragging Amber and Henri with him. The gunmen were now at
the top of the ravine, shooting blindly into the bushes. With no time to grab anything
else, Connor propelled Amber and Henri forward and the three of them fled for their
lives.

‘It’s hard to dodge a spear that
comes from behind!’ growled President Bagaza.

He knelt in the bloodstained sand, his hands
bound but his head held high. The unexpected appearance of Black Mamba, still alive, had
shocked him and his surviving guards. But he was determined not to show any weakness in
front of his lifelong adversary.

General Pascal sneered and prodded the
president’s belly with the tip of his boot. ‘You’ve gone soft while in
office, Bagaza.’

‘You’re still the coward you
always were, Pascal. Killing innocent women and children. And when you can’t kill
them –’ the president glanced over at No Mercy – ‘you use them to fight your
own battles.’

General Pascal laughed. ‘As if
you
haven’t committed enough of your own crimes! Your hands are as
dirty as mine.’

‘At least I’ve tried to wash
them of my sins. I’ve brought this country back from the brink,’ argued the
president fiercely. ‘Are you determined to plunge us back
into civil war
just
to line your own pockets with
diamonds?’

‘Why not? You appear to have done well
enough from the last war. Now it’s my turn. I’ve decided to run for
president.’

President Bagaza couldn’t hide his
astonishment. ‘But … no one will vote for you! Not the Black Mamba.’

‘Are you so certain?’ The
general turned to his rebel soldiers. ‘Who thinks I should be
president?’

Every one to a man and child raised their
hands.

‘How about my old friend here?’
he said, patting President Bagaza amiably on the shoulder.

All the hands dropped.

General Pascal offered his opponent a
conciliatory smile. ‘Election over. You lose.’

He drew his Glock 17 pistol and shot
President Bagaza straight through the eye. The president flopped backwards into the
dirt. Holstering his gun, the general stepped over the lifeless body of his enemy, then
strolled up the bank.

‘What about the prisoners?’
asked Blaze, waving the barrel of his AK47 at the row of terrified guards.

General Pascal considered them for a moment,
then said, ‘Give them a choice of long or short sleeves.’

The guards exchanged horrified looks as
Blaze produced his machete. Two gunmen seized the first guard in line and the rebel
fighter indicated the elbow or wrist as to where he’d hack the man’s limb
off. As the guard began begging for mercy, a jeep skidded to a stop at the top of the
riverbank. A soldier jumped out and saluted the
general. ‘We caught up with the first vehicle but lost
the children.’

‘How could you
lose
three
children in a Land Rover?’ demanded General Pascal, his tone exasperated.

‘They drove into a ravine,’
explained the soldier.

General Pascal gave a snort of amusement.
‘Are they dead?’

The soldier shook his head. ‘They
disappeared into the jungle.’

The smile evaporated from the
general’s face. ‘My orders were explicit. No one must be allowed to escape.
No one can raise the alarm.’

The general turned to Blaze.

‘
Hunt them down!
’

‘I think we’ve lost them,’
said Connor, slowing their pace through the bushes.

‘I think
we’re
lost,’ replied Amber with an uncertain glance at the encroaching jungle.