Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (10 page)

It had fallen to Bugsy to supply Connor with
his gear and, by the looks of it, his surveillance instructor had done a thorough job.
He was equipped with a comprehensive first-aid kit, including emergency antibiotics,
syringes and sterile needles – vital in a country with almost non-existent
medical facilities. There were spare malaria
tablets, sun lotion and DEET insect repellent. He had his sunglasses from his previous
assignment – essential for daytime, but equally useful at night due to the layer of
nano-photonic film that converted infra-red light to visible, enabling him to see in the
dark. He also had a Maglite with spare batteries, a portable solar charger for his
smartphone and a pair of high-powered compact binoculars. Among his clothes, Bugsy had
supplied a stab-proof short-sleeved shirt, cargo trousers and a baseball cap with
integrated neck shade. But the standard-issue bulletproof jacket would simply be too hot
to wear in this climate. He’d have to rely on the Go-bag’s internal
body-armour panel for protection against any gun attack.

The most intriguing item of kit was a slim
blue tube with a drinking nozzle at one end. A ‘Lifestraw’ Bugsy had called
it. The device instantly turned muddy puddles into clean drinking water simply by
sucking through the tube. With a distinct lack of sanitation in Burundi, the last thing
Connor needed as a bodyguard was to come down with diarrhoea. Small enough to fit in his
pocket, the Lifestraw, Bugsy had assured him, removed 99.9 per cent of waterborne
bacteria and could filter a thousand litres, enough for one person for an entire
year.

‘Unusual kit for a holiday,’
said a gravelly accented voice in English.

Connor spun to see a stocky man in a khaki
shirt and knee-length shorts standing at his open doorway. He wore desert boots and a
wide-brimmed safari hat. His suntanned
face
was rugged, furnished with a goatee beard, and deeply lined from a life spent
outdoors.

‘I’m Joseph Gunner,’ said
the man, entering the room and extending his hand in greeting. ‘But you can just
call me Gunner. I’m your park ranger.’

‘Hi, I’m Connor.’

‘You’re British!’ he
remarked, somewhat surprised and, judging by the extra squeeze in his handshake, pleased
at the discovery.

Connor nodded. ‘Where are you from?
You don’t sound or look like you’re from Burundi.’

‘South Africa, born and bred,’
he replied with a hint of pride. ‘Used to work in Kruger National Park until I was
offered this opportunity.’ He cast his eye over the gear spread across the bed.
‘You’re more prepared than most tourists. What are you, a boy
scout?’

‘Sort of,’ admitted Connor,
beginning to repack.

The ranger pointed to the knife. ‘Do
you mind?’ he asked, picking it up.

Connor shook his head. ‘It was my
father’s.’

Gunner examined it. ‘Well, he’s
a man who knows his knives. Solid wooden handle. Full tang.’ Eyeing the blade, he
carefully ran a finger along its edge before grunting in satisfaction.
‘There’s a saying in bushcraft:
You’re only as sharp as your
knife
. Glad to see you’ve kept this one well honed.’

Resheathing the blade, he handed it back to
Connor, who felt oddly gratified that his father’s heirloom was held in such high
regard.

‘Always
important to carry a good knife in the bush,’ Gunner explained, tapping an
impressively large hunter’s knife on his hip. The ranger picked up the SAS
handbook lying on the bed and leafed through the pages. ‘You interested in
survival skills then?’

Connor nodded. ‘More than you might
believe.’

Gunner smiled. ‘Well, you’ve
certainly come to the right place to test them out.’

No Mercy stood guard on an outcrop of rock
overlooking the hidden valley. Below, men worked like ants, digging at the earth with
shovels and their bare hands. Like layers of peeling skin, the green vegetation was
stripped back to expose rocks and mud and hopefully diamonds. Other press-ganged workers
panned the sediment of the dammed river for the precious stones. They toiled in grim
silence, their clothes mud-stained and drenched in sweat.

Keeping a watchful eye over their labours,
General Pascal’s army of child soldiers stood with their guns lazily trained on
the men who were all old enough to be their fathers. Not that any of them thought they
needed fathers now they were warriors of the ANL. No Mercy dimly recalled he’d
once had a father, but the general had shown him the weakness of such men. His father
had failed to protect his family – slaughtered at the hands of a rival rebel group. And
now they were all gone No Mercy only had himself to fend for and he wouldn’t be as
feeble as his father. The general had taught him the power of the gun. And led him on to
the righteous path of glory.

No Mercy heard a whoop
and saw one man stand up, his arm raised high.

General Pascal, reclining in a plastic
deckchair beneath the shade of a palm tree and sipping from a water bottle, beckoned the
worker over. The man handed the general his find. Closing one eye, General Pascal held
the rock up to the sparkling sunlight and inspected the stone. Even from where No Mercy
stood, he could see the reflected gleam and the grin spread across the general’s
pockmarked face.

Another diamond had been found.

General Pascal waved the worker away, no
longer interested, and the man trudged to the makeshift workers’ camp, little more
than some pieces of tarpaulin strung between the trees. For his valuable find,
he’d been rewarded with an hour’s extra rest and a double ration of
food.

No Mercy, impelled by the call of nature,
left his lookout point and found a suitable clump of bushes. Resting his AK47 against a
tree, he pulled down his trousers and squatted. As he wiped himself with a leaf, he
heard a rustle in the bushes. No Mercy stayed very quiet. This was leopard country,
after all.

Silently pulling up his trousers, he
listened to the noise drawing ever closer. Then he spied movement and the olive-green
uniform of a park ranger materialized out of the bush. The ranger, shouldering a
backpack and carrying a rifle, approached the outcrop. The sight of the open-cast mine
in the valley below stopped him in his tracks.

Cautiously the ranger backed away from the
edge. From his hip he pulled out a two-way radio. Only as he went to
switch it on did he spot No Mercy crouching in the bush. For
a moment, they both stared at one another, neither knowing who was hunter and who was
prey.

The ranger offered a tentative smile and put
a finger to his lips. No Mercy nodded in obedience.

Reassured, the ranger whispered into the
radio’s mic, ‘
Echo 1 to Echo 2, over.
’

The radio crackled. No Mercy stood,
revealing his combat fatigues and the AK47 in his grip. The ranger’s expression
went from shock to horror as No Mercy depressed the trigger. Bullets ripped into the
ranger’s body and he fell to the ground, dead.

The radio, still clasped in the
ranger’s hand, burst into life. ‘
Echo 2 to Echo 1. I hear gunfire. Are
you OK? Over.
’

No Mercy stood beside the twitching body of
the ranger, watching the blood flow over the edge of the outcrop. He felt no emotion
having killed the man. No guilt. No thrill. Nothing. Just an enveloping numbness. Above
the dull ringing in his ears, caused by the thunderous roar of the AK47, he heard
something crashing through the undergrowth. He spun to see another ranger appear.
Without a second’s thought, he shot this man too.

The ranger collapsed in a heap. But he
wasn’t dead – not yet. He made wet choking sounds as he gasped for breath. No
Mercy approached, gun in hand, barrel still emitting a wisp of smoke.

‘P-please … have m-mercy,’
begged the ranger, holding up a trembling hand in surrender, his eyes full of fear.

‘That’s
not how I got my name,’ No Mercy replied, planting the barrel on the man’s
forehead.

‘Hold your fire!’ ordered
General Pascal, appearing with a unit of soldiers.

The boy backed down, not caring whether the
man lived or died. He’d done his duty and kept the valley guarded.

General Pascal knelt beside the dying man.
‘I’m sorry, my friend. My soldier is trigger-happy. There has been a grave
misunderstanding.’

The ranger nodded, his fingers slick with
blood where they clasped at his chest wound.

The general unclipped the man’s radio
from his hip. ‘Tell me, where are the other rangers so I can contact them for
medical help?’

The ranger shook his head feebly. ‘No
more in this … sector,’ he wheezed.

‘No! Then what are you doing
here?’

‘Looking for … poachers.’

‘There are no poachers here,’
assured General Pascal, then his expression hardened. ‘What are you
really
looking for?’

The ranger’s glassy eyes squinted in
puzzlement before widening in sheer agony as the general drove the radio’s aerial
into the open wound. He let out a tortured scream.

‘Who sent you?’ demanded the
general, twisting the radio.

‘The president …’ gasped the
ranger, ‘at the safari lodge.’

‘Really?’ said the general,
brightening at the news.
Discarding the
blood-smeared radio, he rose to his feet and clamped a hand on No Mercy’s
shoulder. ‘Excellent work, my young warrior.’ He took off his red beret and
fitted it on the boy’s head. ‘Consider yourself promoted to
captain.’

No Mercy felt a burst of pride.

‘Now take this ranger to the
river.’

No Mercy’s brow furrowed in confusion.
‘You want me to let him go?’

‘In a manner of speaking. Yes. The
crocodiles are hungry!’

‘See anything?’ asked Henri
eagerly.

Connor lowered his binoculars. After
prepping his Go-bag for the safari drive the next day and sending a message to Charley
to confirm their safe arrival, he’d set off on a security sweep of the lodge. He
needed to know the building’s layout and where his Principals and the other guests
resided. He also had to familiarize himself with the surrounding grounds. Pinpoint where
the entrance and exit points were. What access roads the park had. Establish routes out
in case they needed to make a quick escape. Identify any areas vulnerable to attack or
infiltration. And determine what security measures, if any, were in place.

Henri had joined him on this task, thinking
Connor was looking for lions and other big game. Amber had still been unpacking and said
she’d join them later at the swimming pool.

‘Not yet,’ replied Connor,
passing Henri the binoculars to have a look for himself.

So far what Connor had seen hadn’t
given him any reassurance. The lodge was the perfect setting for a holiday
but a nightmare in terms of close protection.
While their location on the ridge offered unbroken views of the valley and its wildlife,
it also meant they were open and exposed. A potential enemy could approach from any
direction. And the advantage gained from being able to spot someone a mile off was lost
due to the cover provided by the long grasses and clumps of bush carpeting the
landscape.

The lodge itself possessed no perimeter
alarm system. Nor did it have CCTV. The bedrooms weren’t even equipped with fire
alarms. And the luxury of the glass-fronted suites was a major liability when it came to
providing a safe barrier for his Principals in their rooms – a single gunshot would
shatter the entire wall. Connor had inspected the door locks on his own suite and
discovered they were flimsy. One hard kick and an intruder could break in with little
problem.

The only fixed security measure Connor could
identify was the electric fence – a substandard three-wire barrier that encircled the
lodge – or at least partly did. He’d already spotted two sections that had fallen
flat, stretching the wires to breaking point. He would have to inform Gunner of this and
hope they were fixed quickly.

There were park rangers around, monitoring
for intrusion by wild animals. But his key concern was the presidential guard. This
should have been their primary ring of defence. Yet the unit of soldiers patrolling the
grounds appeared relaxed to the point of negligence. Some were chatting and smoking in
small groups, others strolled wearily from one patch of shade to the next, while at
least two
guards were fast asleep at their
posts. Maybe it was the heat, or the lack of obvious threat in such a remote location,
but the presidential guard didn’t appear to be guarding anything or anyone.