Striker Boy Kicks Out (13 page)

Elsewhere, in the warmth of the Andalusian night, Carlos and Rudy were driving along a narrow road. They didn't speak. In the back seat were two large, empty, black holdalls. If everything went according to plan tonight, the holdalls would be full on the return journey.

They hit the coastal road for a few miles and then turned inland, following a straight road for another few miles before a large industrial estate rose up in the distance. As they approached it, Rudy switched off the headlights and eased his speed to a crawl, using the moonlight as a guide. They parked at a distance of fifty metres and studied the estate for any signs of life. The entire area was bathed in darkness, apart from the odd light or two twinkling in the blackness.

Rudy moved the vehicle forward very slowly, the engine making almost no noise. He turned left onto a service road, which went down the side of the estate. There were ten units, each of which had a loading yard or car park at the back. Rudy stopped in the yard behind the third unit. They got out and took a holdall each from the backseat.

“Remember,” whispered Rudy, “we have ten minutes inside.”

“If we're fast, no one will know we've been inside or notice anything's gone,” agreed Carlos.

Rudy checked his watch. “Seven minutes ‘til the guards' changeover,” he whispered.

The minutes ticked by. Both of them felt their chests tighten as the adrenaline kicked in. When four minutes were up, Rudy gave Carlos a thumbs-up and they crept over to the giant steel door at the back of the unit. It was locked with two huge padlocks.

Carlos quickly pulled out a small tool for picking locks, and began working on the first padlock, while Rudy kept a lookout. Carlos had been taught well in prison, so he worked smoothly and efficiently. Thirty seconds later, the first padlock fell open. He moved straight on to the second padlock. This one was slightly trickier but he cracked it in just under forty seconds. He pocketed the two padlocks.

Rudy checked his watch and when another minute was up he nodded firmly. Carlos pulled open the steel door and they darted inside, pulling it shut behind them. Rudy took two small headlamps on straps out of his pocket and they affixed these to their foreheads. They hurried down a long aisle on either side of which were huge floor-to-ceiling storage units. Each unit contained boxes and crates of equipment with large signs on the shelves stating what they were.

When they reached the end of the aisle, they came to a walkway which cut between hundreds more shelving units.
Carlos indicated with his thumb for Rudy to go left while he went right. Splitting up would mean they'd locate what they were looking for far quicker. They strode into different aisles, checking the shelves and the labels.

Four minutes later they were both getting tense and frustrated. Their searches had revealed nothing and thin films of sweat were clinging to their foreheads. A couple more fruitless minutes and they were starting to panic. But then Rudy struck gold. He spotted a large sign in front of one of the shelves and a quick swivel of his head torch revealed exactly what he was looking for.

He tried to pull a crate down, but it was out of reach. He turned round and pulled a large box from the opposing shelving unit. Dragging this over, he stepped up onto it and brought down the crate he wanted. He unclipped the lid of the crate and shone his torch at its contents.

Perfect!

Hurriedly he emptied the contents of the crate into his holdall. He stretched up again, pushed the now-empty crate to the back of its row, dragging three full ones in front of it. To the naked eye, nothing had been touched. He then jumped down and replaced the box on the opposite unit.

Hearing footsteps at the end of the aisle, he turned and saw the silhouette of a figure. It was Carlos – he'd tell him the good news. He was about to call out when the figure switched on a torch and Rudy saw with horror that it wasn't Carlos.

It was a guard.

The guard had a large, aggressive-looking dog at his side.

NO!

Rudy checked his watch. There were still three minutes left of the ten. What the hell was the guard doing here?

“HEY!” yelled the guard. A second later, a deafening siren started wailing.

Rudy grabbed his holdall and ran, without a clue of Carlos's whereabouts.

The guard pelted after him, shouting at him to stop. The dog barked ferociously. If the guard let it off the leash, it'd be onto Rudy in seconds.

Rudy reached the end of the aisle and turned right, sprinting as fast as he could, his heart pounding wildly. About forty metres up ahead was the giant steel door. But when he looked round he saw that the guard and the dog were gaining on him.

Frantically, he sped up, pushing himself harder, knowing that to be caught with the contents of the holdall would land him in court and then jail for a very long time.

“STOP!” yelled the guard, his panting breath amplified in the echoing surrounds.

Rudy got to the door a few seconds before the guard. As he ran through, the guard finally let go of the dog – a gigantic Alsatian. The canine crashed towards his back. Rudy yelped in terror as the dog prepared to launch itself into the air with the intention of bringing him down.

But at that exact second there was screeching of tyres as
Carlos swerved the car towards Rudy and kicked open the passenger door.

“Get in!” yelled Carlos.

The dog pounced and Rudy ducked. The Alsatian flew over his head and came crashing down onto the tarmac a few metres in front of Rudy and a few metres short of the vehicle. Rudy swerved round the dog, leapt into the car and slammed the door. The tyres screeched as Carlos hit the accelerator. The dog span round and gave chase, yapping viciously and pounding forward.

“Hey you! Stop there!” screamed the guard, as the dog got ready for another leap.

The dog jumped, but Carlos swerved left and the canine missed the vehicle again. Carlos hurtled round the corner and crashed onto the service road. A few seconds later they skidded back onto the main road.

“You said we had ten minutes minimum!” roared Carlos, the veins on his neck pulsating with fury, as they sped away from the dog, the guard and the screaming sirens.

“I told you – I staked the guards out for five nights!” shouted Rudy. “Ten minutes was the shortest time they took! How was I to know they'd take less time tonight?”

“You weren't,” replied Carlos, forcing himself to calm down. “They must have heard us!”

“They couldn't have,” countered Rudy. “The guard's hut is a long way from the steel door at the back.”

“Alright, alright,” said Carlos. “Did you get the stuff?”

“Yes,” replied Rudy.

Carlos took a deep breath. “Well done,” he nodded. “And you made it look like we didn't take anything? The guy who chased you won't know?”

Rudy thought about the guard appearing at the end of the aisle where he'd found what they were looking for. “He was at least twenty metres away,” explained Rudy. “I don't think he saw exactly where I was.”

“Let's hope not,” said Carlos.

They didn't talk again until they reached the barn. Rudy picked his holdall off the backseat and took it into the barn, followed by Carlos.

Once they were inside, Carlos opened the holdall and shone his torch down into it.

“Excellent work,” he said. “We can now move on to the next stage.”

They shook hands, before Rudy hurried back outside and sped off into the night.

“You may ask why we're here,” said Ian Fox.

Nat had got a call early the next morning telling him that the team bus would be picking him up on the coastal road in an hour. He and the other players had been bussed to a large stretch of unattended beach a couple of miles up the coast from Talorca. The sky was light blue, with only a few tiny wisps of cloud. A couple of waterskiers could be seen in the distance.

“To make sandcastles?” shouted Adilson, which got a big laugh.

“Very funny,” grinned Fox, “but wrong!”

There were expectant expressions on the players' faces as they waited for their manager to go on.

“Believe it or not, Stan and I have brought you here for a little bit of fun.”

“What's fun?” called Emi. Cue more laughs.

“We're going to mix it with some serious training,” said Fox. “Last night was a decent result, but we need
your performances to step up a gear against our Italian friends from Lazio tomorrow night.”

A
decent
result! Is that the most positive thing the boss can say about us beating Celtic?

“Stan is going to take you through some runs,” declared Fox.

Evans called everyone into a bunch and after some stretches he got them jogging on the sand. After this, they did sideways runs and sprints. Everyone was in a good mood and Nat was soon caught up in the atmosphere.

After some two-v-two workouts, in which Nat and Adilson were paired against Emi and Andy Young, Nat excelled in a series of five-a-sides. His session on the beach the other day had been fun, but these games were joyous. He was by far the most experienced squad member at playing beach football and this shone through. His turn of speed, tricks and movement were all excellent, and a couple of times he drew applause from his teammates.

“Have you been playing on Copacabana beach?” enquired Adilson, with a wide grin.

Nat laughed nervously at Adilson's spot-on guess. He would have loved to tell Adilson the truth about his time on Copacabana beach, but this would stand at odds with his official backstory about having lived in America. So he just said, “I wish,” and carried on.

The penultimate game was held up when Paulo Carigio and Dean Jobson collided as they both went for the same ball. Being on the same side, one of them should have
called for it, but, as was their occasional habit, neither of them did. They were about to have a go at each other but Fox got in between them quickly and was locked into a small ‘discussion' with them. It looked a little heated, but a minute later the boss was patting them both on the back, and play restarted.

In the last of the five-a-sides, Nat left the Wildman kicking at air and rounded Graham Dalston with a beautiful twist before thumping the ball home.

“What did you have for breakfast?” asked Stan Evans as the session ended and everyone flopped down onto the sand, taking swigs from the water bottles being handed out.

Nat was pleased about Stan Evans's praise, but as always he wished that Ian Fox would acknowledge him too. Fox did approach him but it wasn't to shower him with praise.

“I saw your old friend Ray Swinton this morning,” Fox informed Nat quietly.

“He's not my friend,” replied Nat.

“Whatever,” went on Fox. “He's out here to cover the tournament for the
Sunday Crest
. Seemed a tiny bit jittery.”

Nat frowned.

“I'm sure it's nothing,” replied Fox. “Anyway, I thought I'd mention it to you so you're not too surprised when you see him. I'm sure he'll want to interview you along with lots of our players.”

“That's OK by me,” replied Nat, who, in truth, would be very happy not to see Swinton again for a good while.

After a swim back at the team hotel, Nat hung out in the lobby with Emi. Emi's dad was making progress and there was still no negative news from the tests the hospital was running. They were just about to order a drink when Hatton Rangers's press and PR woman Helen Aldershot approached them. She had short blond hair cut in a bob and round, rosy cheeks.

“Hi guys,” she said. “I've just had a request for an interview from a Spanish radio station. They wanted Adilson because his Spanish is pretty good, but he's not around. So they asked if I had a couple of other players who were up for a bit of a laugh and you two came to mind. Would you be interested?”

“Er . . . we don't speak Spanish,” said Emi.

“That's not a problem,” smiled Aldershot. “The DJ whose show you'd be on has an English mother, so he'd do the interview in English and simultaneously translate it.”

“Sounds a bit complicated,” said Nat.

“I think they know what they're doing,” replied Aldershot. “And it would be good for spreading the Hatton Rangers brand.”

“What do you reckon?” asked Emi, glancing at Nat.

Nat thought it over. He wanted to say no, as any contact with the press wasn't a particularly welcome prospect in his position, but he didn't want to appear too defensive.