Bodyguard: Target (29 page)

‘What about this one?’ asked
Ash, pointing to a solid gold Rolex in the jewellery store’s display case.

‘Very nice,’ said Charley.
But she barely gave the watch a second glance. Her senses
were on full alert. She
was convinced someone was following them.

They were browsing in the Grand Canal
Shoppes mall inside the Palazzo Hotel. A mini-indoor Venice, it boasted high-end
designer shops, upscale boutiques and even water-filled canals complete with
gondolas to take people around the mall.

Pete had once again led the paparazzi on
a wild goose chase, allowing
Ash and Charley to slip away unseen. Ash had admitted
he was feeling a little low and Kay had recommended some retail therapy before his
gig that evening. At first Charley had thought Ash’s mood was to do with
bumping into his ex-girlfriend, then she recalled the day’s date from the
operation folder. It was the anniversary of his mother’s death.

As Ash continued to browse the
rows of
designer watches, Charley studied the reflection in the plate glass of the store
window. Applying her anti-surveillance training, she was
looking for multiple sightings and any sign of unnatural behaviour among the passing
shoppers: people peeping round corners, fidgeting or acting shifty, showing a vacant
expression, talking to themselves or fixated on their target.

A steady stream of tourists and shoppers
ambled by. Some loitered, others browsed, a few took holiday snaps by the mock
canals. But there weren’t any faces Charley recognized and no individual stood
out from the crowd.

Yet her gut told her someone was out
there, watching, waiting, preying on them.

‘Have you seen these bracelets,
Charley?’ said Ash, beckoning her into
the adjacent store.

The shop assistant welcomed them and
laid out a selection of silver and gold designs. Ash ran his gaze over them, then
turned to Charley. ‘Which one do you like the best?’ he asked.

Charley took a moment from her
surveillance to have a quick glance. Her eyes were instantly drawn to a simple
bracelet woven from three bands of white gold. ‘That one’s
beautiful,’ she said.

‘I’ll get it for you,’
said Ash, pulling out his wallet.

‘But it’s five thousand
dollars!’ protested Charley.

He smiled at her. ‘So?
You’re worth it.’

Charley put her hand over his wallet.
‘Listen, it’s very sweet of you, Ash. But I can’t accept
it.’

Ash ignored her, handed the shop
assistant his debit card and looped the white-gold
bracelet around Charley’s
wrist. ‘A thank-you gift,’ he said. ‘For saving my
life.’

As she admired the
exquisite piece of jewellery, wondering how she could refuse now, Charley heard the
faintest click of a camera.

‘It’ll be an engagement ring
next,’ said a snide voice.

At once she knew who’d been
following them. Charley couldn’t believe it. Was there no place
Gonzo
couldn’t find them? Hounded at every turn, tormented at every moment, she was
truly experiencing the claustrophobic nightmare of being a celebrity in the
twenty-first century – no privacy, no boundaries, no escape.

Gonzo was their very own stalker.

‘Go crawl back into whatever sewer
you came from!’ Ash snapped.

‘That’s no way to treat a
friend,’ replied the
pap.

‘Friend? Even my worst enemy is
more of a friend than you.’

‘Harsh, but you’ve got a lot
of enemies from what I hear.’

Fuming, Ash stormed out of the
store.

‘Just leave us alone,
Gonzo,’ said Charley, struggling to keep the anger out of her voice.

But Gonzo stalked them through the
shopping mall, snapping and filming away non-stop. Each time they entered
a store,
he’d wait outside, his lens tracking their every movement.

‘I’ll have you
arrested,’ Charley threatened as they came out of a boutique.

‘I know my rights. I’m on
public property – nothing you can do about it.’

Charley felt her
fury rising with the man. Even while they had lunch, his camera recorded their every
mouthful. They visited a designer clothes store.
When they came out, they passed a
florist and Gonzo goaded Ash once again. ‘How about a bouquet for your
girlfriend? And don’t forget … one for your mother! Lilies are a good
choice.’

Charley noticed Ash’s eyes redden
and his fists clench. Gonzo had taken it too far, even for a paparazzi. Charley felt
something snap inside her too. What right did this piece of scum have
to stalk and
harass them? What right did he have to bring up Ash’s dead mother? What right
did he have to bait people purely for the purposes of a ‘unique’ photo
he could sell for thousands?

Charley reached into her bag and pulled
out a small canister. Before Gonzo knew what was happening, she sprayed his camera
lens and face with red gel. Spluttering and swearing, Gonzo
furiously tried to wipe
the gunk from his eyes.

‘Sorry about that,’ said
Charley. ‘It just went off in my hand by accident.’

As Charley sauntered away with Ash, who
was staring at her in stunned admiration, Gonzo yelled after them,
‘You’ll live to regret that,
chica
!’

Charley woke to the insistent blare of
her alarm clock. Surely it couldn’t be morning already? Often on this tour she
was so exhausted that she lost track of time, with no idea what day it
was, let
alone which hotel she was sleeping in. After a while the bedrooms all looked the
same. She vaguely recalled they’d reached San Francisco. The gig in Las Vegas
had gone without a hitch, as had the ones in Salt Lake City and Seattle, and they
were now entering the final phase of the tour. She only had to keep Ash safe a few
more days, then the threat of ‘No more encores’
would be just that
– an empty threat.

Groggily, she reached over to switch off
the clock. But the alarm continued to ring in her ears. Shrugging off sleep, she
smelt the acrid tinge of smoke in the air. At once she sat bolt upright in bed.

FIRE!

Barefoot and in only her T-shirt and
shorts, Charley grabbed Ash’s spare key card from the bedside table and
sprinted
for the door. Bugsy’s emergency fire training had drilled into her
that every second counted in a fire. She
tested the temperature
of the door handle, then pressed the back of her hand to the door itself. Both were
cool to the touch. Confident she wouldn’t stumble straight into a blaze, she
opened the door and peered out.

A noxious grey haze immediately
enveloped her and
she started coughing. The corridor was filled with smoke. Guests
in all states of dress and undress were fleeing in panic, many with no idea where
the nearest fire escapes were and running the wrong way. Jessie and Zoe flew past,
along with other members of the road crew.

‘Have you seen Ash?’ Charley
called out.

‘No!’ cried Zoe, not
stopping as she disappeared into
the haze of smoke.

Pulling her T-shirt up to her mouth,
Charley hammered on Ash’s door. No answer.

She guessed that Big T had already
evacuated him. But she couldn’t take that chance. Slotting the key card into
the lock, she accessed his suite.

‘ASH?’ she called, hurrying
through the lounge to the bedroom.

A figure lay sprawled underneath the
covers. Charley
wondered how on earth Ash could sleep through the klaxon of the fire
alarm. Then she spotted the in-ear noise-cancellation headphones.

Charley shook Ash awake. ‘GET
UP!’ she shouted.

Ash blearily opened his eyes.
‘What! W-what’s going on?’

‘Fire!’ explained Charley as
she dashed into the en suite bathroom and soaked a couple of hand towels. When she
came back,
Ash was busy gathering up his songbook, laptop
and acoustic guitar. ‘Leave them! We don’t have time.’

‘My life ain’t worth living
without my guitar,’ said Ash as he stuffed his songbook into his shorts.

‘If we don’t get out
now
, you won’t have a life, never mind a guitar!’ She
grabbed his arm and hauled him to the door. She opened it a crack and smoke surged
into the
room. She slammed it shut.

Ash looked to the balcony. ‘Why
don’t we jump?’ he suggested.

Charley gave a strained smile. ‘We
could. But the pool’s on the other side.’

She handed him a dripping wet towel.
‘Put this over your mouth and stay close.’

Crouching low to the floor to avoid the
worst of the smoke, she eased the door open and led Ash out. The corridor was
now a
darkening tunnel of grey-white fog. It was impossible to see more than a few feet.
She could hear a few straggling guests coughing and spluttering, and in the far
distance the howl of fire engines. From her security checks on arrival at the hotel,
she knew the nearest fire exit was eight doors and one corridor down. Keeping a hand
to the wall, she counted them off as they
scurried like frightened mice along the
carpet. Her eyes stung from the toxic smoke and she now appreciated how easily
disorientated a person could get in a fire. There was no sense of distance or
direction; everywhere was a murky grey cloud, furniture and figures appearing and
disappearing like ghosts.

After what seemed
an age, they reached the fire door. She pushed against
the locking bar, but it
wouldn’t budge. Charley shoved harder. To no avail. Now she knew why the hotel
guests had been fleeing in the other direction.

‘Let me … have a go,’
Ash coughed, taking the damp towel from his mouth.

He kicked at the bar. Nothing. So he
barged his shoulder against the door. This time it screeched open a fraction. A lick
of flames shot out. Ash
leapt back, yelling as the sleeve of his top caught alight.
The flames rapidly spread across his back.

On impulse Charley dragged him to the
floor and rolled him on the carpet. At the same time, she smothered him with her
body. She knew her T-shirt was fireproof and prayed she could put out the flames
before Ash was seriously burnt.

‘I’m … all
right,’ gasped Ash, his
top singed black.

But they were now in even more immediate
danger. The corridor was on fire. Despite the door being open only a crack, it was
enough for the blaze on the other side to finger its way in. Cursing herself for not
checking the door first, she pulled Ash to his knees and headed back the other way.
Having lost their wet towels, their lungs now filled with suffocating
smoke.
Coughing and choking, they crawled along the corridor. But in their hurry to escape
the advancing flames Charley lost count of the doors. With no clue in which
direction or how far the next fire exit was, the two of them stumbled on
blindly.

Ash was coughing uncontrollably and
Charley’s head
pounded and she felt sick. The flames
would be the last of their worries.
She knew from Bugsy that the majority of deaths
in a fire were caused by smoke inhalation rather than burns. They had to escape the
corridor and find clear air.

Blinking away acrid tears, Charley
reached out desperately in front of her. In the gloom, she discovered a door to a
guest room had been left ajar. Pulling Ash inside, she kicked the door shut behind
them. Smoke
hung around the ceiling in a thick cloud and still seeped in round the
frame. But it was a far better situation than the corridor. Leaving Ash hacking on
the floor, she threw any towels that she could find into the bath and ran the taps.
As soon as the towels were wet, she stuffed them against the edges of the door.

‘Charley! Look at this!’
croaked Ash, leaning out of the balcony
window for fresh air.

Six floors down, a huge crowd had
gathered in the darkness. Fire engines, their lights flashing and reflecting off the
other buildings, jammed the streets. The beam of a searchlight swept the hotel and
illuminated the two of them in the window.

Ash looked at Charley, his face streaked
black with soot, and said, ‘Take a leap of faith?’

With a final
glance back at the
smouldering door, Charley nodded and climbed over the balcony. Hand in hand, they
jumped.