Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (3 page)

‘Oww! Not
that
tight,’
Ling squealed as the instructor yanked on the strip.

‘The tighter it is, the easier to
defeat the locking mechanism,’ Steve replied with zero pity.

‘Good luck, skinny!’ called out
Jason.

Ling narrowed her half-moon eyes at him,
then raised her hands above her head. Despite her slender physique, she broke apart the
zip-tie on her first attempt.

‘Who needs muscles, eh?’ she
remarked with a ceremonial bow towards Jason.

‘My turn now,’ said Amir,
springing to his feet.

This time Steve tied Amir’s hands
behind his back. ‘Go for it.’

Bending over, Amir slammed his arms against
his backside. But the zip-tie failed to break. Amir tried again. Still it held.

‘Is this the same as the other
zip-ties?’ asked Amir.

Steve nodded.

‘Have another go,’ urged Connor.
‘You just need to get the right angle.’

Amir kept thumping away, but the zip-tie
refused to snap. Becoming more and more frustrated with each attempt, Amir waddled round
the restaurant’s private dining room, grunting, his arms flapping wildly.

‘He’s like a chicken doing a
breakdance!’ cracked Richie.

Everyone at the table
collapsed into fits of laughter as Amir stumbled into a chair and fell over.

Steve glanced across at Colonel Black,
unable to suppress a grin. ‘We should make this a regular party game!’

‘So whose idea was it to kidnap
me?’ asked Connor, eventually cutting Amir’s zip-tie for him.

‘Mine,’ said Jason, raising his
glass of Coke in salute.

Connor should have guessed. It was typical
of his Aussie rival’s sense of humour. ‘Couldn’t you have just ordered
me a taxi?’

Jason responded with an arch grin.
‘Wouldn’t have been half as much fun.’

Amir plonked himself down at the table
beside Connor. Studying the menu intently to hide his embarrassment, he whispered,
‘It’s harder than it looks.’

Connor nodded in sympathy.
‘Let’s just hope you’re not kidnapped with zip-ties on the mission,
eh?’

‘Yeah, your Principal might actually
die from laughter before being rescued!’ chortled Richie.

Amir sank back in his chair as if his plug
had been pulled. His fringe of slick black hair flopped forward, covering his dark brown
eyes but not hiding his dismay. Connor glared at Richie, whose caustic Irish wit had
fallen
far from the mark this time. Richie
shrugged an apology, but it was a little late for that.

Connor patted his friend on the shoulder.
‘Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.’

‘That’s all right for you to
say,’ muttered Amir. ‘You’ve earned your gold wings.’ He
indicated the gleaming badge pinned on Connor’s T-shirt: a winged shield with the
silhouette of a bodyguard at its centre. ‘I’m still unproven.’

Ever since joining Buddyguard the previous
year, Connor knew his friend had been desperate for the colonel to select him to lead a
mission. Now Amir was just three weeks from his first solo assignment and his nerves
were starting to show.

‘Don’t you remember how nervous
I was before my first assignment?’ said Connor. ‘I barely slept for a week.
And I’d only just completed basic training. You’ve the benefit of almost a
year of instruction, as well as learning from
all
my mistakes!’

Amir managed a strained smile.
‘Doesn’t make it any easier.’

‘From my experience, it isn’t
ever easy.’

‘But what if I fail? Like I just did
with the zip-ties. Or I freeze at the moment of an attack?’

‘You won’t,’ reassured
Connor. ‘Trust me, every bodyguard worries about such things. But, I promise you,
your training
will
kick in. You will react. Besides, I’ll be back at HQ
providing you support, instead of the other way round.’

Amir swallowed hard
and nodded. ‘Thanks. It’s good to know you’ll be there for
me.’

‘OK, birthday boy,’ interrupted
Charley, ‘what would you like?’

Connor turned to Charley, who was sitting
next to him. She looked stunning in a glittering silver top, her long blonde hair
braided into a golden plait and a touch of make-up highlighting her sky-blue eyes. It
took a few seconds for Connor to become aware of the waitress standing behind her,
patiently waiting for his order.

‘I can come back to you if you need
more time,’ said the waitress, smiling.

‘No, it’s all right,’
replied Connor, hurriedly scanning the menu and hoping Charley hadn’t noticed him
staring at her. He asked for a large steak with extra fries. The adrenalin rush of the
fake kidnapping had given him a serious appetite.

‘So, are you heading home to see your
family?’ Charley asked after placing her own order.

Connor nodded. ‘The colonel’s
given me leave at the end of the month.’

Charley studied his face, surprised to see a
frown. ‘Aren’t you excited to be going?’

He sighed quietly and, lowering his voice,
confessed, ‘Yes, it’s just … I’m worried how my mum will be. Last time
she was so weak.’

Charley’s hand touched his arm.
‘Look, if it would help, I can come with you.’

Connor hesitated. ‘Thanks, but I
don’t want to put you out.’

‘It’s not
a problem,’ she insisted. ‘Besides, I could do with a change of scene.
I’m getting cabin fever at HQ. Californian girls aren’t suited to long
winters stuck in Wales.’

Connor smiled. He had to admit it would be
good to have her company on the long train journey. And at least he could satisfy his
mother’s curiosity about his friends at his ‘private boarding
school’.

‘OK, that would be great –’ A
large box was thrust between him and Charley.

‘Present time!’ Ling announced
excitedly.

Connor dutifully unwrapped the gift and
laughed at what was inside.

‘To replace the one I broke,’
said Ling with a grin as Connor lifted out the padded headguard. Earlier that month
he’d been sparring with Ling and she’d executed a devastating jumping
axe-kick on him. The blow had split his old headguard in two, as well as losing him the
match.

‘I’m just glad you didn’t
crack my skull open,’ said Connor, admiring the new full-face guard with
shock-suppression gel for maximum protection. ‘That would’ve been a lot
harder to replace.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said
Ling. ‘I saw some footballs about your size. Give me something else to
kick!’

‘That’s if you’re still
standing,’ Connor shot back. With the score even at four bouts each, they both
knew their next sparring match would be hard fought. He’d even heard rumours that
the instructors were laying down bets on who would win.

Jason tossed Connor a
poorly wrapped gift. ‘Hope it fits.’

The packaging split open on landing to
reveal a garish yellow T-shirt with the picture of a koala with sharpened teeth and the
warning
BEWARE DROP BEARS
!
The design was a painful
reminder of the time he’d fallen for Jason’s hoax about killer koalas.
Holding the T-shirt against himself for size, Connor couldn’t help but smile.

‘Is it bulletproof?’ he
asked.

‘Nah,’ said Jason in his Aussie
twang. ‘But it’s guaranteed to repel drop bears!’

‘Like the aftershave you wear to repel
girls then?’ quipped Richie, causing the others to laugh.

Jason snarled. ‘Hey, my aftershave
works just fine,’ he said, putting an arm round Ling.

Ling smiled sweetly before elbowing him hard
in the ribs.

Jason doubled over in pain.
‘
Oof!
Talk about tough love,’ he wheezed.

While Jason recovered from Ling’s
‘affectionate’ elbow strike, Connor unwrapped his other gifts. Marc had
bought him a designer shirt from Paris. Richie had given him the latest
Assassin’s Creed
game, and last but not least was a joint gift from
Amir and Charley.

‘I hope you like it,’ said
Charley, biting her lower lip anxiously as she handed him a small presentation box.
‘Amir helped choose it.’

Connor pulled off the lid. Inside was a
G-Shock Rangeman watch.

Amir leant over, eager
to show him the watch’s features. ‘It’s solar powered with multi-band
6 atomic timekeeping, auto-LED super illuminator, a triple sensor and digital compass.
But, most important for you, it’s waterproof and shock resistant. Engineered to
stand up to the most gruelling conditions imaginable. Basically, this is one gadget you
won’t
be able to break.’

‘Thanks, guys … it’s
awesome,’ said Connor, slipping the watch on and holding up his wrist for the
others to admire it.

‘An ideal gift for a bodyguard,’
remarked Colonel Black with a nod of approval. ‘An accurate timepiece is essential
on missions. But there’s one final present to go.’

He slid a set of car keys down the glass
table to Connor. Everyone’s jaws dropped open in shock.

‘You’re giving him a
car
!’ exclaimed Jason.

‘Driving lessons, to be exact,’
replied Jody. ‘The car is for all Alpha team to use.’

Connor picked up the keys, staring at them
in astonishment. ‘But I’m too young to drive.’

Colonel Black shook his head. ‘In a
dangerous situation, no bodyguard’s too young.’

‘The heart of Africa will
beat
again!’ exclaimed Michel Feruzi. The Burundian Minister for Trade and Tourism
thumped the well-worn wooden conference table with a fleshy fist, the glasses of iced
water tinkling from his overzealous blow.

‘I agree,’ chimed Uzair Mossi,
the eyes of the Finance Minister sparkling like the very diamonds they were talking
about. ‘Too long has Burundi been the poor man of this rich continent. If the
rumours are true, then this is a turning point for our nation, a –’

President Bagaza held up his hand for
silence and waited for his ministers to curb their premature celebrations. He did not
share their enthusiasm at the news.

‘Angola. Sierra Leone. Liberia. The
Congo,’ he stated in his low solemn tone. ‘Do their tragic histories not
mean anything to you?’ He let the ghosts of each country’s brutal civil war,
fuelled by blood diamonds, settle in the minds of his ministers before continuing.
‘The reported discovery of a diamond field is a reason to both rejoice and
despair. After a generation of tribal conflict, our country’s peace is
fragile at best. We cannot,
must
not
, let ourselves be dragged back into civil war.’

The ministers exchanged uneasy looks.
Although the bloodshed was over a decade ago, scars still ran deep and the tensions
between rival Hutu and Tutsi factions bubbled just beneath the surface, even within the
government itself.

‘The president is right,’
declared Minister Feruzi, his chair creaking as he settled his ample bulk into the seat.
‘We’ve only recently relocated all the Batwa tribes from the expanded Ruvubu
National Park. If they learn that there’s a diamond field, they’ll make a
claim over their ancestral lands. We cannot allow one minority tribal group to solely
benefit. The whole country must prosper from this discovery.’

‘That’s
if
there are
diamonds in the first place,’ commented the Minister for Energy and Mines. Adrien
Rawasa, a thin man with a shaved head, hollow cheeks and rounded spectacles, stood and
tapped a faded out-of-date geological map of Burundi on the whitewashed wall.

‘As you’re well aware, Mr
President, our mining sector is still in its infancy. We have substantial deposits of
nickel, cobalt and copper that can only be exploited with the help of foreign investors.
We even have some seams of gold and uranium. But we’re not blessed – or cursed as
you may see it – with the same bounty of natural resources as our neighbours. The land
within the national park isn’t typical of the geology in which diamonds are found.
The rumour might well have started from stones illegally smuggled across the border from
the Congo or Rwanda.’

‘But is it
conceivable there
could
be diamonds in the park?’ questioned President
Bagaza.