Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (34 page)

Connor ducked down as another guard strolled
past.
For no apparent reason, the soldier
kicked one of the sleeping workers in the gut. As his victim groaned in shock and pain,
the soldier walked off chuckling to himself. Connor realized more than ever that he had
to get Henri out. The boy wouldn’t last another day under such treatment.

He finally spotted Henri, slightly apart
from the other men at the back of one of the shelters. He was curled up in the foetal
position, his body trembling like a leaf, his strained wheezing for breath cutting
through the ragged snores of the other workers.

Silently Connor crept round, keeping to the
shadows and away from the light of the fires. Kneeling beside Henri, he placed a gentle
hand on the boy’s shoulder and a finger to his lips. Henri flinched and his eyes
widened in horror.

‘It’s me, Connor,’ he
whispered, realizing his blackened face must look nightmarish to the poor traumatized
boy.

‘They said … you were dead,’ he
rasped.

‘Well, I’m not. And neither is
your sister.’

It took a moment for this to sink in, then
Henri managed a weak smile. Connor produced the inhaler and helped Henri with it. After
a minute or so, his breathing hadn’t eased, so he administered two more doses
until gradually the wheezing subsided. Although Henri needed more time to recover,
Connor couldn’t risk delaying much longer. A guard could pass by at any
second.

‘Can you walk?’ he
whispered.

Henri nodded. As Connor pulled him into a
sitting position, one of the workers opened his eyes and looked
directly at them. Connor froze, waiting to see what the
man’s reaction would be.

‘
C’est mon ami
,’
Henri explained.

The man winked, as if to say their secret
was safe with him, and closed his eyes again.

Henri winced as Connor dragged him to his
feet.

‘I’m OK,’ he whispered,
putting on a brave face.

Connor could feel the criss-cross of raised
welts that the bamboo cane had inflicted upon his body and realized that Henri must be
in excruciating pain. Admiring the boy’s courage, he gently placed Henri’s
arm over his shoulder and helped him towards the river. As they stumbled through the
dug-out pits and waterlogged ditches, Connor glanced back to check there were no guards
in sight. Thankfully the rebels still appeared to be absorbed in their card games.
Helping Henri up the opposite bank, Connor knew they were going to make it.

They were almost within reach of the cover
of the bushes when there was a shout. All of a sudden torchbeams cut through the
darkness like swords. More shouts broke out and for a moment Connor believed
they’d been spotted.

But the alarm hadn’t been raised for
them.

Further upstream Amber was being frogmarched
into the rebel camp at gunpoint.

Connor bundled Henri into the bushes. They
charged along a trail, foliage slapping at their faces in the pitch-darkness. Gunfire
roared and the jungle erupted around them, tracer bullets shredding leaves and
pulverizing tree trunks. As they ducked the gunfire, Henri’s foot snagged on a
root and they both tumbled to the ground. The shouts of the rebels closed in on them.
Winded, Connor hauled Henri back to his feet and they stumbled on blindly.

Connor cursed his luck. He was back to
square one, his only achievement being to swap one Principal for the other.
But how
had Amber been caught?
Zuzu must have betrayed them. He realized her
superstition of the hill and fearful reaction to the Black Mamba had merely been an act.
He
should
have trusted his gut instinct and overruled Amber, making sure they
returned to the lodge.

But it was too late for hindsight and
regret. The jungle was swarming with rebels and survival was all that counted.

Soldiers crashed through the bushes to the
right and left of them, bursts of gunfire lighting up the darkness like firecrackers.
Connor, however, sensed some chaos in the rebels’
movements. Their search seemed too widespread and too random
for them to be hunting him and Henri specifically. Connor guessed that they didn’t
yet know Henri was missing and so the mobilization of soldiers was just a knee-jerk
reaction to an unexpected intruder. This might play to their advantage if they could
find a place to hide and wait out the haphazard search.

As they scrambled up a slope, they passed an
old tree with a hollowed-out trunk.

‘In there,’ Connor instructed,
hoping no poisonous insects or snakes had made it their home.

Henri knelt down and looked inside.
‘But it’s not big enough for us both.’

‘It doesn’t need to be.
I’m going to rescue your sister.’

Henri’s eyes widened.
‘How?’

‘I’ve yet to figure that out.
But I need you hidden from the rebels to do so.’

Henri reluctantly crawled inside the hollow.
Connor covered the entrance with fallen branches and leaves. It wouldn’t fool a
tracker, but at night it disguised the hole well enough to pass a cursory
inspection.

Henri peered out. ‘You won’t
leave me here, will you?’

Connor shook his head. ‘No – but, if
for any reason I’m not back by dawn, head south to the lodge.’

Connor could see this prospect terrified
him. Removing his Rangeman watch, he reached in and attached it to Henri’s wrist.
‘Press here for the compass,’ he explained. ‘It was a special birthday
present, so take good care of it until I return.’

Henri nodded, the
responsibility of the watch appearing to give him some comfort, or at least a sense of
purpose.

With a final check that the hole was
completely hidden, Connor doubled back down the trail, being careful to avoid detection
by the soldiers still scouring the jungle around him. His aim was to infiltrate their
line and find a concealed spot on the riverbank from which to locate Amber. After that
–

The barrel of an AK47 materialized from the
darkness and was thrust into Connor’s face.

‘Don’t shoot!’ he cried,
holding up his hands as the boy in the red beret began to squeeze the trigger.

His eyes flickering open, Connor found
himself staring into the face of death for a second time that night. He’d seen it
first when the boy soldier had pressed the cold steel barrel of the AK47 against his
forehead. Believing his life to be over, a nightmarish vision had flashed before him
until, at the very last second, No Mercy had released the pressure on the rifle’s
trigger. Instead Connor had received a brutal blow to the jaw with the gun’s
stock. When he came to, Connor was confronted by death again. But this time the face was
real. Black as coal, with pockmarked skin and fathomless eyes as inhuman as a
snake’s, it glared at him with cruel hard intent.

‘
Où est le
garçon?
’
it asked him
.

In his dazed state, Connor didn’t
answer. His lack of response resulted in a savage slap across his cheek, the blow so
hard his head rang like a bell. Blinking back tears of pain, he tried to focus on his
tormentor’s face. He was almost blinded by the harsh light from a kerosene lamp,
then the Black Mamba himself swam into his vision.

‘
Où est le
garçon?
’
General Pascal repeated
.

‘I …
don’t understand,’ Connor murmured.

‘
Anglais!
’ he remarked,
raising an eyebrow in surprise. He switched to a heavily accented English.
‘Where’s the boy?’

‘What boy?’ Connor replied.

The general struck him again. Stars flared
before his eyes and Connor tasted blood as his lip split. But he’d been knocked
around enough in kickboxing class to be able to take a few blows.

‘The ambassador’s son. Or do you
need another reminder?’ The general raised his hand again to strike.

Bracing himself for the inevitable pain,
Connor didn’t even flinch at the threat. But, rather than hit him, General Pascal
broke into a broad grin. ‘I like this one. He’s got spirit,’ he
announced to the soldiers encircling them. The general turned back to Connor, propped up
against a rock in the heart of the rebel camp. ‘It’s no matter. We’ll
find the boy in the morning. I hear from Blaze you’re quite some fighter.
Defeating
two
of my soldiers.’

Connor glanced over and spotted the rebel
he’d kicked into the wait-a-while bush. The man’s face, arms and legs were
lacerated with small weeping cuts. Beside him stood Dredd, his mauled arm hanging
useless in a bloody bandage at his side, but at least he was alive.

‘Let’s have some sport,
boys,’ declared General Pascal. ‘I want to see this White Warrior in action
for myself. Hornet!’

He beckoned over a boy soldier wearing a
blue New Orleans Hornets T-shirt. Thickset with a heavy brow and a
permanent scowl, the boy matched Connor for height but
easily out-gunned him in the muscle department. He looked like he’d been raised on
a diet of buffalo and pure brutality.

‘Let’s see how you fare against
my champion.’

‘I’ve no desire to fight
him,’ said Connor tiredly, aware he probably didn’t have much choice in the
matter.

The general jutted his chin in the direction
of Blaze, who stepped into the circle of light, dragging Amber with him. She appeared
shaken but unhurt.

‘Connor!’ she gasped, rushing
forward.

But Blaze yanked her back, unsheathed his
machete and held the blade to her throat.

General Pascal grinned at Connor. ‘Is
that enough incentive for you?’

A ring of kerosene lamps marked the boundary
of the dug-out pit, casting a bright stadium-like glow over the waterlogged ground.
Rebel soldiers jostled for position on the edge, eager for a good view of the impending
death match between Hornet and the White Warrior.

Connor glanced up at the hostile crowd.
He’d experienced some tough bouts in his rise to becoming UK Junior Kickboxing
Champion, but this made each and every one of them seem like a playground fight by
comparison.

On the opposite side of the pit, Hornet
pulled off his T-shirt to reveal a rippling six-pack and a multitude of scars, clear
evidence that he was a hardened fighter. In his injured and exhausted state, Connor
realized his chances of defeating the boy were close to zero. But he refused to let
himself think like that. His kickboxing trainer, Dan, had instilled in him an
indomitable fighting spirit:
The will to win is the way to win.

Connor went through his pre-match rituals,
shaking his limbs loose, stretching and bringing his mind into sharp focus. He knew he
couldn’t conquer his opponent through
strength, so he’d have to be quicker, more agile and
more cunning in his fight strategy. He needed to end it fast and hard.

‘This isn’t a dance!’
shouted one of the boy soldiers as Connor limbered up his legs. The crowd burst into
mocking laughter.

Connor ignored the heckle and called up to
General Pascal, reclined in a deckchair at the edge of the ring as if he was some Roman
emperor. ‘What if I beat your champion?’