Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (20 page)

Looking for a place to hide, he hustled
Amber and Henri into a crevice in the rocks. They lay flat, waiting for the
gunmen’s approach. Reaching for his belt, Connor unsheathed his father’s
knife. While it was no match for an assault rifle, he gained strength and courage from
having it in his grasp.

The noise grew louder. Connor could hear
Amber’s panicked breathing in his ear and feel Henri’s body trembling at his
side. His grip on the knife tightened as a bush only a few metres from them began to
shake. Then a snout with two large curved tusks appeared, followed by a large flattened
head and a grey bristled body. Snorting, a warthog trotted over the ridge, followed by a
litter of young piglets.

Connor relaxed his grip on the knife and
slowly let out the breath he’d been holding. The warthog suddenly turned her head
in their direction. Sniffing the air, she
grunted furiously, flattened her mane of bristles and bolted
away, her piglets squealing in terror as they too ran for cover.

Amber laughed, more in relief than anything.
‘I’m glad there’s something in this jungle more scared than us!’
she said.

But, as they crawled out of the crevice,
they discovered what the warthog and her piglets had really been running from.

A harsh hissing sound greeted them and
Connor’s blood turned to ice in his veins. Slithering over the rock towards them
was a long, slender olive-brown snake. Three metres in length and with a body as thick
as a man’s wrist, it was the largest snake Connor had ever seen. As it reared up
and challenged them with its dark malevolent eyes, Connor’s chest suddenly
tightened and he began to fight for breath. The sight of the snake turned his skin
clammy and his fingers went numb, until he could barely grip his knife any more.

‘I think we’re in its
lair,’ whispered Amber.

The pounding of his heart was so loud in his
ears that Connor heard her as if she was in another world. Her voice, distant and
ghost-like, drifted through his fearful state. ‘
We need to
move.
’

Hypnotized by the creature swaying before
him, his limbs had turned heavy as lead. However much he willed himself, he was rooted
to the spot by sheer terror.

Amber eased herself away. Henri went to do
the same
but, as soon as he moved, the snake
hissed sharply in warning. Rising a full metre off the ground, it opened its jaws to
reveal a pair of razor-sharp fangs and a jet-black mouth.

Henri froze. ‘A black mamba!’ he
gasped.

Connor now recognized the coffin-shaped head
that Gunner had described.
Believe me, you don’t want to meet one of those in
the bush.

Face-to-face with his darkest nightmare,
Connor couldn’t have agreed more. He knew from the ranger that the black mamba
possessed the most potent snake venom in the world. Unpredictable and highly aggressive,
in an attack it would strike multiple times, injecting lethal amounts of poison with
every bite. Within minutes, the victim would experience dizziness, sweating, crippling
headaches and severe abdominal pain. Their heartbeat would become erratic, leading to
violent convulsions and collapse. The whole body would go into shock, inducing vomiting,
fever and paralysis of the limbs. Finally, the victim would succumb to respiratory
failure or else a heart attack.

A horrific and agonizing death, whichever
way it ended.

All this knowledge only served to immobilize
Connor further.

The black mamba, its tongue flicking and
tasting the air, expanded its narrow hood and hissed aggressively. It made a mock charge
and Henri jerked back in panic. The sudden move triggered the black mamba to strike for
real.

Time seemed to slow as Connor battled his
phobia, struggling to overcome his self-induced paralysis and
protect Henri. But all he could do was watch as the
snake’s venomous fangs closed in on the boy.

Then a stick came crashing down on to the
head of the snake, clubbing it senseless. The stick struck again and again until it
snapped with the force of the blows, leaving the coffin-shaped head pulverized on the
rock.

Amber stood over the dead and battered
snake, her body trembling, her eyes fierce.

‘I don’t know about you two, but
I’ve had enough ambushes for one day.’

Connor knelt beside the teepee of sticks, his
knife and a flint stone in hand. Feeling as if he was back camping with his father, he
struck the edge of the blade against the flint, trying to create a spark and set the
small pile of wood shavings alight. He’d had reservations about making a fire.
There was a risk that the gunmen would spot the flames in the darkness. But he weighed
this against the danger from wild animals and the need for warmth during the chilly
night ahead.

They’d found the ideal place to set up
camp, a shallow cave a little further down from the ridge, where a stream ran through a
gully into a pool before flowing on through the jungle. Connor had made certain that the
cave was empty first, throwing in a stone, then checking the entrance for any signs that
an animal might be using it as a den. With no obvious remains of food or droppings, the
cave appeared uninhabited.

Connor struck the flint harder. Still
getting no spark, he persisted, becoming increasingly frustrated and worried he might
damage the steel blade. His memory of lighting
fires with his father seemed to be a simple matter of a
quick strike followed by the whole pyramid of sticks bursting into glorious flame. But
so far all he’d managed to do was graze his knuckles and blunt his knife.

After ten minutes of futile striking, he was
on the verge of giving up, when a single flicker like a tiny falling star dropped on to
the tinder. Connor blew softly, desperately trying to coax the spark into a flame. But
the small glow died away rapidly. Tired and hungry, he tossed aside the flint in a fit
of frustration.

‘Would this be easier?’ asked
Henri.

Glancing over, Connor saw he was holding up
a small book of matches.

‘Where did you get
those
?’ he cried.

Henri offered a sheepish grin. ‘My
back pocket.’

‘Why on earth didn’t you give
them to me earlier?’ Connor said, shaking his head in disbelief as he grabbed the
book from him.

Henri shrugged an apology. ‘I forgot
I’d taken them from the lodge’s bar. Besides, you looked like you knew what
you were doing.’

‘I don’t have a clue what
I’m doing!’ shouted Connor.

Henri wore a wounded look. ‘But
you’re our bodyguard …’

Connor took a deep breath, trying to rein in
his annoyance. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. That snake freaked me
out, that’s all.’

He struck one of the matches and the tinder
immediately caught alight. With a few gentle puffs, he coaxed the
flames and the teepee of sticks began to crackle and burn.
‘So much for my SAS survival skills,’ he sighed, pocketing the matches and
hoping his father wasn’t looking down on him, shaking his head in despair.

At that moment Amber returned with another
armful of sticks for the fire. Or at least Connor thought they were sticks at first.
Instead she dumped the dead black mamba at his feet. Connor flinched and scrambled
away.

‘Dinner,’ Amber explained.

‘You’ve got to be
kidding!’ said Connor, eyeing the mamba warily, expecting it to come back to life
and strike at any moment.

‘Remember what Gunner said: snake is
steak in the bush. And we need to eat.’

Connor felt the ache in his stomach and knew
she was right. No wonder he was so short-tempered. Swallowing back his revulsion, he
forced himself to crouch beside the black mamba. He reached out a hand to hold the
snake’s head in position, but shuddered at the thought of touching the smooth oily
scales of the creature.

‘Sorry, I simply can’t do
it,’ he admitted, passing Amber his knife.

‘If it was a spider, I wouldn’t
be able to either,’ she replied.

Taking great care not to go anywhere near
the fangs, Amber used the blade to cut the snake’s head off. Then, once the fire
had settled down, she laid the body on the hot embers. The skin sizzled loudly and soon
after the
cave filled with the aroma of
cooking flesh. Despite his phobia of snakes, Connor’s mouth began to water in
anticipation.

Having each drunk from the pool using the
Lifestraw, they sat round the fire and waited for their snake dinner to be ready. Night
had truly fallen and their shadows played out against the cave wall. Insects whirred and
chirped, bats fluttered overhead and unseen creatures leapt from the branches,
screeching and hollering. The incessant noise of the jungle was unnerving and the three
of them huddled closer to the fire. Somewhere in the darkness they heard a series of low
threatening growls, like the sawing of wood.

Amber gazed nervously into the pitch-black.
‘What do you think that is?’ she whispered.

‘Whatever it is,’ Connor
replied, ‘it’s a long way from us.’ Or so he hoped.

After half an hour, Amber tested the snake
with his knife. ‘I think it’s cooked.’

Pulling the body off the coals, she sliced
it open and cut a portion of steaming meat for each of them.

Henri examined his unusual meal with
trepidation. ‘Do you think it’s safe to eat?’

‘The poison’s in the head,
according to Gunner, so it should be,’ replied Amber, sniffing her piece
cautiously.

Hunger overcoming his aversion to snake,
Connor took a bite. ‘Tastes like chicken!’ he said in surprise.

The other two tucked in, devouring their
meal quickly.
Once their bellies were full,
exhaustion soon overtook them.

‘I’ll build up the fire,’
said Connor as Amber settled her brother at the back of the cave.

As he piled on some larger logs, Connor
could hear the two of them whispering, their voices echoing off the rock wall.

‘Ow! The ground’s all
stony.’

Amber swept away the debris with her hand.
‘You can rest your head on these leaves,’ she said, gathering up some green
branches.

Henri lay down. ‘No animals will get
us, will they?’

Amber shook her head. ‘The fire will
scare them off. Now go to sleep.’

She appeared to hesitate, then leant forward
and kissed him on the forehead. Henri stared up at her, evidently surprised by her
unexpected tenderness. Then he said, ‘Mama and Papa are dead, aren’t
they?’ His tone was matter-of-fact and all the more heart-rending for it.

Amber stroked his tousles of red hair gently
from his face. ‘They might have escaped, like us.’

‘But how could they? They don’t
have a bodyguard like Connor to protect them.’

Amber glanced over her shoulder at Connor.
Their eyes met and he tried to offer her a reassuring smile. She turned back to her
brother. ‘I’m sure they’ll be waiting at the lodge for us,’ she
said. ‘Now close your eyes and get some rest. We’ve a long day
ahead.’

Connor could tell from the tremor in her
voice that
Amber was just barely holding it
together, trying not to show weakness in front of her brother. Connor admired her for
that. Prodding a stick into the fire, he watched the sparks spiral up into the night. He
too needed to appear strong for their benefit, but he felt the weight of responsibility
on his shoulders and a knot of deep anxiety gripping his stomach at the fear of failure.
If it hadn’t been for Amber’s brave actions, Henri would be dead or dying by
now, poisoned by the black mamba. And it would have been
his
fault. Even now
the very thought of that snake sent a shiver down his spine. His phobia had rendered him
powerless to protect either of them. He’d not been much of a bodyguard. More a
liability. What if he froze again and failed to react? Maybe not against a snake, but a
lion or a leopard or some other deadly animal. The incident had sown the seeds of doubt
and he seriously questioned if he was up to the task ahead.

Amber appeared quietly at his side, her eyes
glistening with tears.