Bodyguard--Recruit (Book 1)

by Chris Bradford

  “Are you still listening to me?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Can you pick up your sister next week?”

  “Of course,” he replied, groaning as if annoyed by the request, but the corners of his mouth flickered the faintest of smiles.

  Using a specialized download helper, Hazim extracted the image of the bike from the browser to his desktop. Then he dropped the file into an application called Scrub. The program opened up automatically and the bike appeared in a fresh window. The image immediately began to disintegrate.

  “Hazim, promise to join us for dinner tomorrow,” pleaded his mother. “It’s the weekend.”

  “Promise,” he replied, and put the phone down.

  The decrypting program had finished its work. The mangled bike was replaced by two lines of text that had been digitally embedded within the image:

  KINGFISHER LANDING 1030, STAFFORD, 3 DAYS.

  BEGIN SURVEILLANCE OF EAGLE’S NEST.

  23

  “What’s going on?” asked Connor as he hurried down the corridor and caught up with Amir and Marc. He’d been in his room packing to go home for summer vacation when his phone had pinged with a message from Colonel Black:

  Alpha team. Briefing room. ASAP.

  “Maybe he wants to wish us a happy vacation,” suggested Amir.

  “If only,” replied Marc. “I reckon it’s far more serious than that.”

  Jason and Ling joined them, and they entered the briefing room. Charley was already there, deep in discussion with the colonel. A nervous anticipation gripped Connor when he caught sight of Charley’s stunned expression. Whatever the colonel had to say, the news had evidently taken her by surprise.

  Hurriedly they found their seats. Colonel Black finished talking with Charley and turned to them. His face wore a rare smile.

  “Alpha team’s leave is postponed,” he announced, not even bothering to soften the blow.

  A groan of disappointment escaped Amir’s lips.

  The colonel disregarded this and continued, “Guardian has received a top-priority assignment. And a member of this team has been selected.”

  “Who?” asked Ling, perching on the edge of her seat in excitement.

  The colonel’s steel-gray eyes fell on Connor.

  “Me?” said Connor, almost breathless. As the realization sank in, he was unsure whether to be thrilled or terrified at the prospect of his first assignment.

  “Yeah, why Connor? He’s the newbie,” argued Jason, puffing up his chest. “Next to Charley, I’m the most experienced. It should be me.”

  “I admire your eagerness, Jason,” replied Colonel Black tactfully. “But, as with every assignment, it’s not simply about an operation being available; it’s about the guardian fitting the operation. This assignment is by order of the president of the United States. He chose Connor personally.”

  Connor was speechless. Surely he’d misunderstood. “He chose me specifically. Why?”

  “That information wasn’t disclosed,” replied the colonel. “It’ll be up to President Mendez to reveal his reasons, if he so wishes.”

  “It’s probably because of your martial arts credentials,” Charley suggested.

  “Well, it certainly can’t be for anything else!” mumbled Jason.

  Connor let the comment pass, understanding that Jason was crestfallen at not being chosen himself.

  “So who’s Connor protecting?” asked Marc.

  The colonel looked to Charley to respond.

  “Alicia Rosa Mendez,” she revealed. “The president’s daughter.”

  Marc whistled through his teeth in awe. “Better you than me, Connor.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Ling. “You’re going in at the deep end!”

  Connor thought there had to be some sort of mistake. “They’re right, Colonel. I haven’t even done a test operation yet.”

  The colonel looked him in the eye. “I won’t lie to you, Connor. This is the highest-profile assignment Guardian has ever been involved in. For us, we’re taking a huge gamble. For you, it will be a baptism of fire. But I’ve watched your progress closely. You possess your father’s ability to think on your feet—and, with any luck, his sixth sense to foresee danger too.”

  Connor was taken aback by the unexpected comparison to his father. Their course had been so full-on, he’d not had the opportunity to talk with the colonel about his father’s past life. But clearly Colonel Black had been noting the similarities. It was a boost to his confidence, but Connor couldn’t help feeling a new pressure on his shoulders of having to live up to the colonel’s high expectations.

  “Operation Hidden Shield will commence forthwith,” declared Colonel Black. “Charley, I want a full profile on the Principal by 0900 hours tomorrow. Amir, prep a go-bag with all the appropriate tactical items. Ling, Marc and Jason, you’re responsible for compiling the operation folder. I want maps of all primary locations, threat assessments, sit reps on known hostiles, key personnel and any other relevant information that might help Connor in his task. Connor, come with me for further briefing.”

  For a moment, Alpha team sat stock-still in their chairs, caught like rabbits in the headlights.

  “What are you waiting for?” barked the colonel. “You have your orders.”

  At his command, they rushed to their stations in the briefing room. Alpha team had run through operational planning situations in training on countless occasions. But this time there was an urgency to their actions. This time it was for real.

  24

  Connor hardly slept all night. What reason could one of the most powerful leaders in the world have for selecting me to protect his daughter?

  His martial arts skills couldn’t be the only justification. Jason was an equal match to him—in fact, Connor had learned that his rival had once been the Australian Junior Champion. There had to be another reason. But Connor couldn’t think what it was. Aside from his twelve weeks of training, he had no real-world experience of being a bodyguard, which worried him deeply. Connor wondered if it was a case of mistaken identity and the president actually believed he was choosing someone else.

  But the colonel assured him that there’d been no mistake. He was to work alongside the US Secret Service, the Homeland Security department responsible for the protection of the first family. He would be reporting directly to its head, Dirk Moran, while maintaining a line of communication with the Guardian organization in the United Kingdom in case he needed additional support. His mission was to ensure the safety of the president’s daughter at all times, particularly in those instances when Secret Service agents couldn’t be immediately at hand. The threat level for the operation was deemed Category 1: Life-Threatening.

  Connor’s mind whirled with the possibilities—angry mobs, long-range snipers, knife-wielding assassins, exploding car bombs . . . The danger list went on and on. And he was to be the hidden shield between those threats and the life of the president’s daughter. The sheer scale of the task ahead was almost paralyzing. He wondered if his father had ever felt like this before any of his assignments. Or did seasoned bodyguards get used to the pressure? Perhaps it was like a constant trickle of electricity running through their veins, so they felt, yet suppressed, their fears.

  And Connor’s greatest fear was that he would fail. That at the moment of an attack he would react too late—or, worse still, not react at all.

  25

  At 9:00, Connor, bleary-eyed and groggy from lack of sleep, joined Alpha team in the briefing room. The other members looked equally exhausted from their late-night research.

  “As you know, your Principal is Alicia Rosa Mendez,” said Charley, beginning her presentation as soon as Connor was seated. She clicked a remote to display the photo of a young girl on the overhead screen. “Of Mexican-American descent, she is the only daughter of Emilia and Antonio Mendez, the current pres
ident of the United States.”

  Connor studied the photo. Alicia had chocolate-brown eyes, a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth smile and a mass of dark curly hair that fell past her shoulders. She looked like any other person his age. It was hard to imagine her as a target for assassins and kidnappers. But that’s exactly what she was.

  “According to my research and press reports, Alicia is fun-loving and headstrong, and possesses an impulsive streak. She has slipped her Secret Service protection on several occasions. And, as I understand from the colonel, that is the main reason the president has requested a guardian.”

  Colonel Black nodded in confirmation. “It’s your job, Connor, to stick to her like glue.”

  Connor briefly wondered how he’d manage that without becoming an annoying hanger-on.

  “Alicia attends Montarose School in Washington, DC, where you’re now enrolled on a student exchange program for the last two weeks of the semester,” Charley explained. “Her grades are good, if not outstanding. Favorite subjects appear to be art, photography and dance. She’s in good shape—”

  “Most definitely,” said Marc with a rakish grin.

  “I mean healthy,” corrected Charley, shooting him a glare. “Alicia enjoys track and field, and is the captain of the school team. She holds the fastest time for the four hundred meters. So, Connor, you’ll be thankful for all those early-morning runs.”

  Connor and Marc exchanged sideways glances and smirked at each other. Marc had found a shortcut on Alpha team’s running route, knocking a good couple of miles off the training. Connor now wished he’d done the full circuit. He was going to suffer for it if he had to keep up with his Principal.

  Charley clicked to a new slide titled “Medical History.”

  “Known medical issues include mild allergies and a history of childhood epilepsy.”

  “Does that mean she might have a fit?” asked Connor, concerned.

  Charley gave a noncommittal shrug. “According to the doctor’s reports, her epilepsy seems to have stopped naturally in the last year or so. But it’s still something to be aware of. Factors like emotional stress, sleep deprivation and flashing lights have the potential to trigger a seizure.”

  “I’ve put some information on epilepsy in the operation folder,” Ling interrupted, handing Connor a small USB drive. “There’s an action-on sheet explaining how to handle a seizure.”

  “Thanks,” replied Connor, plugging the drive into his laptop.

  “The files are all encrypted,” she explained, “and accessed by fingerprint recognition.” She pointed to the thumb-sized scanner built into the body of his laptop. “I’ve already programmed it to accept yours. There are also files on Washington, DC, Montarose School, and the White House staff you’ll meet, and a hot list identifying the potential threats she faces.”

  “It’s a long list,” said Jason, yawning widely. “I should know. I was working on it right through the night.”

  “Perhaps then you’ll give Connor a summary of the key groups that pose a risk,” suggested Charley.

  “Sure,” he replied, getting up from his seat and joining her at the front. He took a deep breath and offered Connor a pitying look. “Well, the leader of the free world certainly has some enemies, and Alicia, as his daughter, faces the same dangers. The problems in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan mean that fundamentalists are a major threat. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are just two of the extremist groups who have the United States and its president in their sights. But it’s unlikely they’ll target our Principal directly, since their usual methods of attack are bombings, sabotage and scare tactics. Then closer to home, but no less fanatical, are the white supremacists, who dislike having a Latino man as president. They’re a real and present danger. Next, we’ve got the potential for stalkers and lone-wolf assassins—these are almost impossible to identify before they strike, and you’ll have to rely on Secret Service intelligence. And, finally, there are the mentally ill, who according to the Secret Service, account for three-quarters of known threats made against the president and his family.”

  Jason put on a cheery smile for Connor, whose expression had dropped at the seemingly endless list of threats.

  “So to put it simply, mate, the world’s your enemy.”

  26

  “Here’s your go-bag,” said Amir, dumping a sleek charcoal-colored backpack on the table. “It contains all you need to run this operation effectively.”

  He pulled out a super-slim phone from the front pocket.

  “Next-generation smartphone,” he said, admiring its sleek, elegant form. “Bugsy enhanced this specifically for your assignment. First, fingerprint identification to protect access.” He pressed his thumb to the screen, the phone came to life and the Guardian’s gleaming winged shield rotated in 3-D on the retina display. “I’m currently programmed in, as are you. But the operating system is firewalled, and any critical breach of it will wipe the hard drive. But don’t worry—all stored data is wirelessly backed up to our servers.”

  His index finger selected an app in the top corner. A crystal-clear bird’s-eye view of the Welsh mountains appeared, a small green dot pulsing inside a building that Connor recognized as Guardian headquarters.

  “Advanced Mapping app, accurate to the meter with pinpoint GPS,” explained Amir. “In addition, all the Washington maps are preloaded, plus internal layouts for key buildings such as the White House—at least, those we’ve got access to—the National Air and Space Museum and the Kennedy Center. Whatever happens, you won’t get lost. Nor will your Principal.”

  He passed Connor a stylish red Armani-branded phone case with a butterfly logo.

  “Thanks, but it’s a bit girly for me,” said Connor, handing it back.

  “The case isn’t for you,” Amir replied. “It’s your gift to Alicia and contains a miniature homing beacon. The encoded signal is linked to this Tracker app.” He touched a green target icon on the smartphone’s screen. The map reappeared, now overlaid with a grid and a flashing red dot beside the blue. “It’ll locate the case anywhere within fifteen kilometers and calculate the quickest route from your position. Bugsy recommends that you keep this feature secret—it’s for emergency use only.”

  Amir held up the phone and pointed to the tiny lens on the back. “Ten-megapixel camera with optical zoom, high-definition video, night-vision and instant-face-recognition software. Film or photograph a crowd and it’ll ping an individual that it’s seen before at a different location. If it records multiple occurrences, the app will highlight the suspected face in red. But Bugsy says not to rely on this app. The Mark One eyeball is always your best piece of surveillance gear.”

  Amir winked and Connor laughed. Bugsy often referred to his eyes as “Mark One.”

  Opening a small fabric pouch, Amir handed Connor a tiny flesh-colored earpiece.

  “For when you want to communicate covertly,” he explained. “It has a vibrational mic that will pick up your voice. The smartphone acts as your transceiver. Just remember, the battery life of the earpiece is limited. Eight hours tops before a recharge is needed.”

  His finger flicked across the smartphone’s screen. “There are a whole bunch of other apps, like Mission Status, Threat Level and SOS—that’s my own program,” Amir said proudly.

  “So it worked!” Connor said. “Can you tell me what it’s for now?”

  “Real emergencies,” Amir replied, his expression serious. “Even when you don’t have a phone signal, the SOS app can send a short burst of location data to a GPS satellite, and it’s bounced back here to headquarters. Works anywhere in the world. Drains the battery like crazy, mind you. I’m still trying to fix that. But you can explore all these apps when you’re on the plane. I’ve also added the latest Angry Birds game in case you get bored.”

  “Not much chance of that!” replied Connor.

  Amir laid the smartphone gently on
the table, seeming almost reluctant to let it go. Connor knew his friend was a bit of a tech-head and was dying to keep it for himself.

  “That’s the showpiece,” Amir sighed, returning to the bag. “The other items I’ve prepped include a basic medical kit, a mini–halogen flashlight, prepaid credit cards and this set of clothes for high-threat situations.”

  Alongside the rest of the gear, he laid a baseball hat, a pair of sunglasses, a black T-shirt, a cream-colored dress shirt and a styled leather jacket.

  “Jody promises me that they’ll fit. Why not try them on for size?”

  Connor slipped on the jacket. The cut was perfect, the quality equal to top-brand Italian leather, but the weight was odd.

  “Feels a little . . . heavy,” he remarked.

  “That’s because it’s bulletproof,” explained Amir. “Both this and the shirt can stop a handgun at close range. The jacket’s stab-proof too, as is this T-shirt.”

  Connor took a moment to inspect the clothes more closely. His fingers felt the thick cotton-like fabric of the collared shirt. “Are you sure this will stop a bullet?”

  Amir nodded with the utmost conviction. “You can ask Jody, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Why not?”

  “When I did, she shot me.”

  “What?” exclaimed Connor, not sure he’d heard right.

  Amir lifted his shirt to reveal a purple bruise across his chest. “She got me to wear one. It’s constructed from a high-tech woven fabric that ‘catches’ the bullet and spreads the impact over the whole torso rather than in one specific area. So I can guarantee you—on my life—that the shirt works.”

  “I bet that hurt, though,” said Connor, grimacing as Amir re-covered his bruised chest.

  “I’d be lying if I said no. It felt like a battering ram. But at the time I was more worried about the contents of my pants! She scared me half to death. I’m never going to hand in homework late again.”