Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (35 page)

Glugging from a bottle of beer, General
Pascal snorted in amusement. ‘
If
you win, I’ll let the girl go. If
you don’t, then –’ the general shrugged – ‘you won’t be in any
state to care what happens to her.’

Amber stared down at Connor in mute terror
as Blaze ran the back edge of his machete across her cheek, goading Connor to react. But
this threat to Amber’s life only strengthened Connor’s resolve to fight to
his dying breath to save her.

‘Let battle begin!’ General
Pascal announced, raising his beer bottle in a salute.

Like a pack of ravenous hyenas, the crowd
whooped and whistled their approval.

Hornet roared straight in, charging across
the pit like a bull elephant. Connor stood his ground, poised on the balls of his feet,
waiting for the exact moment to make his move. Hornet lowered his head, turning it into
a battering ram that would flatten a tank. At the last second Connor sidestepped the boy
and simultaneously directed a hammer-fist strike to the base of his skull, targeting a
knock-out pressure point just below the right ear.

Hornet went down as
hard and heavy as the buffalo that the Wolf had shot. He slumped face first in the mud.
The whooping crowd fell silent, shocked at the impossibly swift defeat of their
champion. Then they began to jeer.

‘I win,’ declared Connor.

General Pascal smiled knowingly. ‘I
don’t think so,’ he replied, tilting his beer bottle in the direction of his
fallen soldier. ‘All you’ve done is make him angry.’

Connor turned to see Hornet up on his feet,
shaking his head clear, and back on the attack. Yelling a battle cry, he swung a
sledgehammer of a fist at Connor’s head. With barely time to duck, Connor stepped
forward and drove a vertical punch into the boy’s solar plexus. Grunting from the
force of the blow, Hornet grew more furious and elbowed Connor in the jaw. Already
weakened from No Mercy’s assault with his AK47, Connor was momentarily stunned and
reeled away as Hornet pressed his advantage and launched a blistering attack. He
hook-punched Connor in the gut, then pummelled him in the lower ribs. Connor gasped as a
fist struck home and opened up his stitched wound. Hornet saw the increased flare of
pain in Connor’s eyes and struck again.

As the boy pounded him with relentless fury,
the soldiers surrounding the pit began to chant, ‘
Hornet! Hornet!
Hornet!
’

Forced to retreat from the onslaught, Connor
soon found himself up against the wall of rebels. They pushed him back into the pit.
Hornet was waiting for him. He grabbed Connor, lifted him high in the air, then brought
him crashing down into a large pool of
muddy water. Connor crumpled like a rag doll. Hornet dropped on top of him and shoved
his head beneath the surface.

Cut off from air, Connor struggled in the
boy’s merciless grip. The shouts of the crowd became distorted and his mouth
flooded with marshy water. Briefly his head came up and, as he snatched a desperate
breath, he heard Amber screaming his name above the baying of the crowd. Then Hornet
forced him back under.

Spluttering and blinded, Connor tried to
buck his attacker off. But Hornet was simply too heavy and too strong. Feeling his own
strength fading fast, Connor knew he was in a fight to the death. In a last-ditch
attempt to free himself, he reached behind for Hornet’s inner thigh and pinched
the
yako
nerve point.

Nothing happened.

Connor squeezed harder. But Hornet kept him
pinned under the water. Perhaps the boy was tougher than Dredd, but Connor had seen Ling
use the exact same
nerve point on a two-hundred-pound hitman and that guy had leapt
away as if electrocuted. For some unexplained reason, Hornet was immune to the
technique.

Connor clawed at the mud around him, trying
to pull himself free. His hand came across a stone. He grabbed it and, in a final act of
survival, smashed the rock down on to his attacker’s bare foot. Hornet let out a
grunt of pain. Connor struck again. This time he heard a sickening crack of bones and
Hornet released his grip, rolling away in agony.

The crowd booed as Connor clambered back to
his feet.
However, by the time he turned
round to confront his opponent, Hornet had limped over to the edge of the pit and picked
up a shovel.

Wielding the shovel like a weapon, he
snarled, ‘Time to dig your grave!’

Connor instinctively reached for his
father’s knife on his hip, but discovered it missing. From the sidelines, No Mercy
waved the knife teasingly at him.

Hornet swung the shovel. Connor leapt back
as the metal edge almost sliced him in half, then ducked as the shovel came back at him.
Hornet roared in frustrated anger and brought the shovel arcing down on to
Connor’s head. With nowhere left to retreat, Connor had to dive to one side. As he
rolled back to his feet, Hornet took another swing and the shovel hit him square in the
back. Connor went down as if he’d been hit by a bus.

Winded and in pain, he crawled away through
the mud. Hornet bore down on him, raising the shovel to land the killing blow. In that
moment, Connor realized it was all over.

Then he heard Amber scream,
‘
Behind you!
’

Connor glanced over his shoulder. A metal
panning sieve lay discarded at the edge of the pit. It would have been out of his reach,
except that the boy soldier Dredd had casually kicked it down the slope to him. A small
gesture for the life debt he owed Connor.

Connor seized it and held it over himself as
a shield. Hornet’s shovel clashed loudly against the metal pan. Infuriated, he
struck again. Connor deflected the blow, then
kicked out with all his might at Hornet’s knee. There
was an excruciating crunch and the boy staggered backwards, screaming in pain.

Leaping up, Connor smashed the shovel from
Hornet’s grip with the pan, then caught him across the jaw with it. Discarding the
pan, he locked his hands round the dazed boy’s neck and yanked him down hard on to
his driving knee. Blood spurted from Hornet’s flattened nose. Connor repeated the
knee strike over and over, knocking the boy senseless. When his opponent’s legs
went from under him, he released his grip and let Hornet collapse in the mud. Fuelled by
rage and the instinct to survive at all costs, Connor now picked up the shovel and
lifted it high above his head to strike a final blow. Crippled and half-unconscious,
Hornet held up a hand in a pitiful attempt to defend himself.

‘
Kill! Kill! Kill!
’
chanted the soldiers, caught up in the bloodlust.

Connor hesitated only briefly, then brought
the shovel down with all his strength, striking a rock beside Hornet’s head.

There was a groan of disappointment from the
crowd.

‘How could he miss?’ cried one
of the soldiers.

Weary and battleworn, Connor tossed the
shovel aside. ‘I don’t kill,’ he said, more to himself than the rebel
crowd. ‘I protect.’

Connor stood defiant before General Pascal.
‘You promised to let Amber go.’

The general drained his beer bottle and
discarded it in the pit. ‘Only if you won.’

Gloating at Connor’s indignant and
crestfallen expression, Blaze kept holding the machete to Amber’s throat.

‘But I defeated your champion!’
Connor protested, pointing to the groaning Hornet being borne away by his fellow
soldiers.

‘No, you lost,’ declared the
general. He stabbed a finger in Connor’s chest. ‘Showing mercy makes you
weak. Only the death of your enemy makes you a true victor. But you will learn that – in
time.’

‘What do you mean?’

General Pascal’s eyes twinkled.
‘You’re
my
White Warrior now.’

Connor stared at him in disbelief.
‘I’ll never fight for you.’

The general laughed. ‘But you just
did!’

‘No, I fought for Amber’s
freedom.’

General Pascal
laughed. ‘How romantic. For that gesture, I’ll let her live. But only for as
long as you remain my champion.’

He turned his attention to Amber. Stroking a
lock of her fine hair between his fingers, he mused, ‘Maybe I could take this
flame-haired beauty for my wife?’

Connor felt his blood start to boil.

‘Oh, don’t worry, my White
Warrior. I’ll take
good
care of her.’

The general looked to Blaze. ‘Tie them
both up. We don’t want them running away. And in the morning hunt down her baby
brother. I want that little rat back in its trap.’

Blaze sheathed his machete with a growl of
disappointment and ordered No Mercy over. ‘Help me secure these two,’ he
muttered.

With a gun to his back, Connor realized any
further resistance was futile. As the two of them were roughly manhandled over to a
stand of trees, Connor caught a faint whiff of expensive aftershave. The scent was out
of place among these unwashed rebels and he looked sharply round. Just beyond the light
of the kerosene lamps, a man stood in the shadows. It was too dark to make him out, but
General Pascal had walked over to talk with the mysterious stranger.

As Blaze and No Mercy bound them, Connor
strained to hear their conversation.

‘… keeping these children captive
could draw unwanted international attention,’ the man was saying.

‘Why?
They’ll be presumed dead in the ambush,’ replied the general.
‘Besides, the boy has great potential.’

‘I don’t care what you do with
them,’ said the man. ‘Just make sure they never leave this valley
alive.’

Broken, beaten and bleeding, Connor bowed his
head in defeat. Bound to the trunk of a tree, the prisoner of a crazed rebel tyrant and
lost to the outside world, their fate was all but sealed. He knew that by now Buddyguard
would be going into overdrive to locate him and his Principals. But what hope did they
have of finding them in a hidden valley in a country soon to be torn apart by civil war?
General Pascal could spirit them away into the jungle at a moment’s notice. Or
kill and bury them at the first sign of a rescue attempt.

No Mercy stood guard a short distance away,
playfully flipping Connor’s knife in his hand. Connor watched bitterly as the
blade twirled and glinted in the light of a kerosene lamp. He could hear his
father’s voice ordering him to
never give in, never give up
. However,
confronted with the harsh reality of their situation, he couldn’t even hold on to
the slightest shred of hope. His spirits were at their lowest ebb, lost in a pit of
despair. He’d given his all to protect Amber and Henri, but in the end it
hadn’t been enough.

‘Are you
OK?’ whispered Amber. She was slumped in the dirt beside him, her arms lashed
behind her back to the opposite tree.

Connor raised his lolling head.
‘I’ve been better,’ he replied, attempting a smile, but even that
hurt.

Amber looked his battered body over with sad
guilt-ridden eyes. ‘I’m … so sorry,’ she wept.

‘For what?’ he murmured.

‘For getting us into this mess. For
the pain you’ve gone through trying to protect me.’ The tears now flowed
freely down her dirt-stained cheeks. ‘You were right. We should have gone back to
the lodge. Contacted help. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just so
desperate to get Henri back. This is
all
my fault –’

‘No, it’s not,’ Connor cut
in. ‘I made the decision to come here. It was my duty to protect
both
of
you.’

Amber gazed at him with deep affection.
‘And you did rescue my brother. For that, I’ll be grateful for the rest of
my life … however long that might be,’ she added with a weak smile.

Connor’s thoughts went to Henri hiding
alone in the dark hollow of the tree, waiting for their return. A return that would
never happen. He prayed the boy would leave at first light, before the rebels began
their search. Otherwise their sacrifice would have been for nothing.

‘How did you get caught by the
way?’ Connor asked Amber.

‘A guard sneaked up on me from
behind.’