Striker Boy Kicks Out (29 page)

“Please!” Nat beseeched them. “I played in the final last night. I scored both goals. I
have
to get inside!”

“No pass, no entry!” said the guard.

“Just call Mr Mabena or one of his team!” cried Nat. “They'll know who I am. I need to go in. I think . . . I think . . . something bad, really bad, could be happening in there. PLEASE!”

They looked at him with disbelieving eyes. Nat groaned.

Not only do they not recognise me, they think I'm some sort of chancer-kid, trying to blag my way inside!

“Sorry,” said the second guard, “but it is a private event inside. You need to go.”

With an increasing sense of foreboding, Nat turned and ran. He sprinted past the front facade of the stadium and turned left onto a long road beside it. The stadium was now on his left – on the right was a very long, modern five-storey office block. At the end of the road was a high metal gate with spikes on top, which led to the Talorca club car park – the place where the players, manager and club president parked their cars. Victor Mabena's car would be inside there.

Nat stood with his hands on his hips, panting, unsure what to do.

And that's when he spotted it. At the far end of the street, some scaffolding was attached to the office block. He looked both ways. There was no one around. So he started to run.

He reached the scaffolding, jumped up, caught one of the metal bars and pulled himself on. Then he began to climb.

Luckily it was a Sunday, so there was no one working inside the office block and therefore no one to see him
climbing up this metal skeleton. At the top was a narrow wooden platform that went right around the building, giving access to all four sides. Nat began his ascent, but even though he was sweating profusely, progress was slow as he needed a new grip at each intersection.

When he reached the wooden platform, he climbed up one more section so that he was balancing on the very top metal bar of the scaffolding. His body swayed and he told himself not to look down. Without thinking about the consequences if he fell, he launched himself through the air and landed with a thud on a flat roof on the opposite building – La Plaza Stadium.

Now he had to get inside. He scanned the roof and saw a door in front of him. He tried it but it was locked. He hurried over the concrete, desperately looking for a way in. He passed sets of aerials and electrical pylons until he finally spied a chance. There was a large air vent tacked to a brick wall. It was old and rusty and Nat grabbed at it. At first it didn't give, but on his fourth yank, he pulled it off.

He looked through it and saw a short narrow tunnel. Kneeling down, he pushed the upper part of his body through the gap, followed by his legs. It was a tight squeeze, but he fitted in with a tiny bit of space to spare. Crawling was desperately slow and it took him a full ten minutes to reach the end, after which he lowered himself out, managing to swing his body round so that his legs hit the floor first. He was in a tiny square room with some brooms and mops stacked against one wall. Thankfully the door was open, and he walked out into a long corridor that
stretched in both directions, with doors on either side of it. He turned right and ran, reaching a downward flight of stairs at the end. He raced down this flight and then another two flights, until he found himself on the ground floor. He stopped in front of a large white plaque on the wall with directions to various parts of the stadium. One of them had a crossed knife and fork beside it.

The Banqueting Suite!
He'd seen it on José's plans.

He raced along the corridor and passed the kitchens, from which delicious smells wafted out. At the end of the corridor he saw two large wooden doors with glass portholes. He ran up and peered through one of these.

Inside was a large horseshoe of tables, at which sat the entire Hatton Rangers and Talorca parties. He spotted his dad sitting next to Emi and Kelvin. Ian Fox was beside Velasquez, the Talorca manager. Tieras was there with one of his kids – a girl aged about three – jumping up and down on his lap. In the middle of the front table, Victor Mabena had obviously just made some kind of speech because everyone was clapping and he was waving his arms to acknowledge them. He then made for a door at the far side of the room with the two henchman Nat had seen at the El Mar Stadium.

Mabena was on his way out. Nat had to find José.

He sprinted on down the corridor until he came to a lift. He looked at the numbers above it. There were six floors. He studied the sign and one word hit him.

Quinto.
Fifth.

He'd also seen that – this time on one of the technical
drawings in José's hideout. He hit the button to call the lift. It seemed to take forever and as every second passed, his mind tried to predict what José was up to.

Finally there was a clunk and the lift doors slid smoothly open. As Nat ran inside and pressed number five, he heard someone shouting his name from a distance. But he had no time to stop and chat. He had to find out what was going on. The lift started making its way upwards. It reached the fifth floor and Nat sprang out. He was faced by yet another corridor and another set of doors on each side. These weren't locked. He flung each of them open. They were offices but they were all empty. At the end of the corridor was a door that had a steel bottom half and a glass top half. He ran towards it.

When he was nearly upon it, he froze. Through the top glass half he could see José inside. He was with another man, who looked like an older version of him. José was holding a black metal panel that looked a bit like a TV remote in his hand. It had wires coming out of one end.

What on earth is that?

Nat took another couple of steps and watched as José and his friend walked towards a huge floor-to-ceiling window at the far side of the room and looked out. Nat followed their gaze. The window looked down onto the executive car park five floors below. Victor Mabena was striding towards his black Mercedes – his two assistants at his side.

Nat looked from Mabena to the panel with wires and back again.

And that's when it hit him like a powerful punch in the face.

Mabena.

The coach crash.

Mabena's executive car.

José believed Mabena's lax safety regime had led to the coach crash that killed his father and left his football career in tatters. His father had been killed in one of Mabena's vehicles. Mabena had been spared any punishment by the courts.

It wasn't car theft José and his accomplice were going to carry out. They'd placed a bomb underneath Victor Mabena's car and they were about to set it off! The black panel in José's hand was the detonation unit.

Nat threw open the door and raced towards them.

Nat saw through the window that Mabena had nearly reached his car.

José and the other man heard Nat's footsteps and span round.

“It's DIXON!” screamed José in Spanish. “The football player from the villa!”

“Get him, Rudy!” shouted the other man.

Nat had no time to ask why he had called José by another name, because José pressed a button on the panel, threw it over to his accomplice, and flew at Nat.

Nat's extra training with Stan Evans before the Celtic game came into instant use. He barged into José's shoulder with every ounce of momentum. José toppled and, as he fell, Nat kicked his bad leg for good measure. He knew it was a cruel thing to do, but the situation demanded it.

José let out a howl of pain and hit the floor. In the second Nat watched José fall, the other man pushed him in the chest. They both fell and, as he crashed down, Nat caught a glimpse of the panel.

Forty-two, forty-one, forty. . .

José must have activated the countdown. In less than a minute the bomb would go off! Mabena and the others would be blasted to smithereens!

The older man was now pinning Nat down on the floor, one hand on his throat, the other gripping the panel with a clenched fist.

Thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two. . .

Nat grabbed his hand with both of his own, but his strength was being sapped as his oxygen supply was being cut off.

Twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two. . .

The older man tightened his grip. Nat felt shooting pains of agony down his throat and in his chest. Four people were about to die.

Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen. . .

Nat threw his right arm out behind him across the carpet, frantically looking for something to grab hold of.

“That man killed our father!” shouted Nat's attacker. “Now it's his turn to die!”

Twelve, eleven, ten. . .

At that second, Nat's hand came into contact with something round and hard. It was a marble doorstop. It must have been knocked across the floor when he burst in. With incredible effort, he raised it above his head and smashed it against the side of the older man's face. With a scream, the man crashed off him, clutching his face in agony.

Eight, seven, six. . .

Nat jolted upwards and snatched the panel from the
man's grasp. At that second, he spotted a tiny switch on the underside of the panel.

Four, three, two. . .

Nat pressed the switch as hard as he could, waiting for the blast below. But the digital countdown stopped. On one second.

The switch must be an override button. If he hadn't pressed it, carnage would have ensued. Nat staggered to his feet and looked out of the window. The back lights glowed on Mabena's car and the driver eased it out of the parking space.

José and the other man were both on the ground, moaning like wounded animals. The door swung open and Nat's father strode into the room. He looked at the two prostrate bodies and at the black panel his son was holding.

“Nat,” gaped Dave, “what the hell's going on? Where have you been?”

“How did you know I was here?” panted Nat.

“Well, you didn't show up at the lunch,” replied Dave, staring at the moaning figures lying on the floor, “so I was worried about you. And you weren't answering your mobile. Kelvin saw you at the door, looking into the banqueting hall, and told me. So I went out to find you and saw you disappearing into the lift. I called your name but you ran in. When I made it to the lift I saw from the display that you'd gone to the fifth floor. I pressed and pressed to recall the lift but it didn't come so I took the stairs. I heard some sort of commotion coming from in
here and then I burst in. Now will you tell me what's going on?”

Nat gave his dad a very quick résumé of what had just happened. He'd only just finished when two security guards from the club ran in and he had to explain the situation all over again, this time in slow English. They immediately made some calls and five minutes later the place was crawling with Spanish police officers. Mabena's car was contacted and was ordered to stop while the bomb squad arrived and took care of the device fitted to its underside. One of the officers on the fifth floor administered some first aid to the older man's cut head, and then he and José were handcuffed.

“He killed our father!” shouted José defiantly, as they were led away.

Following this, Nat was asked to give a statement to the police, but they had to wait until one of their number who spoke fluent English arrived. During the wait, Stan Evans and Ian Fox appeared, having been told the bare bones of what had taken place. They both looked at Nat in astonishment.

“Was getting into a scrape with Chris Webb not enough for you?” asked a disbelieving Fox.

“I didn't mean to get involved,” replied Nat. “If I hadn't checked out the coach crash on the internet I would have never made the connection. It was when I discovered my ID pass was missing that I realised something might be up.”

“Well, we're all glad that you did, son,” said Fox gravely.
“Looks like you just saved four people's lives. Whatever those lads think of Mabena and his coaches, killing him and three others is not the right way to go about seeking justice. Just think of the agony it would have caused for
their
relatives.”