Charley nervously settled herself in the seat opposite the stranger. Deputy Sheriff Valdez remained at the coffee bar, a discreet distance away but within earshot. His continued presence reassured Charley, but her heart still raced. What did this scarred man want?
‘What I’m about to discuss with you is highly classified,’ said the stranger, his hands folded over a mysterious brown folder on the table. ‘In the interests of national security, you’re not to discuss this with anyone. Understood?’
Charley swallowed uneasily and a shiver ran down her spine. Whatever this man wanted with her, it was serious. She gave a hesitant nod.
‘My name is Colonel Black. I head up a close-protection organization known as Buddyguard – a covert independent agency with ties to the British government’s security and intelligence service –’
‘Am I in danger?’ Charley interrupted, her chest tightening.
‘Far from it,’ he replied with a steely smile. ‘In fact, you’re the sort of person we’re looking for to protect others from danger.’
Charley frowned, her anxiety now replaced by confusion. ‘Me? What are you talking about?’
‘I’m here to recruit you as a bodyguard.’
Charley burst into laughter. She half-expected a cameraman to pop up, with a zany presenter announcing she was on a prank TV show. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘Deadly serious,’ he replied, his gaze unwavering.
From the severe expression on his face, Charley got the sense this colonel wasn’t the sort of man who made jokes often, if at all. She glanced over at Valdez for confirmation. The deputy sheriff nodded; evidently he’d been convinced by the man’s credentials.
‘You do realize I’m only fourteen,’ she told the colonel.
‘The best bodyguard is the one nobody notices,’ he replied. ‘That’s why young people like yourself make exceptional bodyguards.’
‘But I thought all bodyguards were muscle-bound guys. I’m a girl, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘That gives you a distinct advantage,’ stated the colonel. ‘A female bodyguard can blend into any crowd and is often mistaken for a girlfriend or an assistant of the Principal – the person you’ve been assigned to protect. But she can drop you with an elbow or a roundhouse punch faster than you could shake somebody’s hand. As I said, the best bodyguard is one nobody notices – which makes girls among the very best.’
Charley’s head was spinning. This was beyond anything she’d expected. If not a potential stalker, she’d assumed the stranger might be a truancy officer or an official from child-welfare services. But the head of a secret bodyguard agency!
‘Why me?’ she eventually asked.
‘You’ve proved you have the skills and talent.’
Charley blinked. ‘I have?’
‘Rescuing that boy from the shark was evidence of your courage,’ he explained. ‘Willingness to risk your own life for another is a crucial factor in being a bodyguard.’
‘But that was stupid of me … I wasn’t even thinking.’
‘No, you were acting on your natural instinct.’
‘But I’m not bodyguard material,’ insisted Charley.
‘Really?’ challenged the colonel, his flint-grey eyes narrowing. ‘What’s the registration of the white SUV?’
‘Ermm … 6GDG468,’ Charley answered, thrown by the sudden switch in topic.
‘When did you first notice the vehicle?’
‘On my foster-parents’ street.’
‘And when did you realize it was following you?’
‘At the traffic lights.’
‘What did the driver look like?’
‘Bald, slightly fat with a goatee. Why all these questions?’
‘That follow was set up to test your observation skills. And it’s clear you’ve passed with flying colours –’
‘You’re saying that was a test?’ Charley cut in, her earlier panic now turning to anger.
‘Yes, the man who tailed you is called Bugsy,’ the colonel revealed, pointing through the window to her ‘stalker’ leaning against the bonnet of the re-parked SUV. He gave Charley a little wave. ‘Bugsy is the surveillance tutor for our recruits. But don’t ever tell him he’s fat. He won’t forgive you for that.’
‘I won’t forgive him for scaring the hell out of me!’ Charley muttered, her anger replaced by relief that she didn’t have a crazed bald man pursuing her after all.
‘You also employed some excellent anti-surveillance techniques, especially the use of reflections in the shop window. That’s another core set of skills a bodyguard needs,’ the colonel explained. ‘And it’s evident you know martial arts from the damage you inflicted on my shin!’
Charley offered a wry smile. The shin kick was her one small victory in the whole set-up. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said with blatant lack of sympathy.
‘No need to apologize,’ he replied drily. ‘Your reaction was reassuringly quick and effective. Are you still training?’
Charley shook her head. ‘No, I quit the self-defence classes when I moved here.’
The colonel frowned. ‘Why didn’t you join another martial arts club? There’s a jujitsu dojo just down the street.’
‘My foster-parents aren’t keen on girls fighting,’ she explained with a sigh. ‘In fact they’re not keen on anything I like doing. They’re quite … traditional in their ways.’
‘Would you like to start training again?’
Charley shrugged. ‘Sure. My dad always hoped I’d become a black belt.’
‘Well, you can wear any colour belt you like,’ replied the colonel. ‘The style of martial arts you’d be taught isn’t based on grades in the dojo; it’s based on its effectiveness in the street.’
He flipped open the brown folder on the table and Charley saw a ream of papers with her name on, along with a pile of photographs. Several were recent, including some long-distance shots of her rescuing the boy from the great white. The colonel flicked through to a section headed ‘EDUCATION’.
‘I see from your school reports that you were an A-grade student until recently,’ he said. ‘Why the sudden drop-off?’
‘I couldn’t see the point,’ Charley replied with sharp honesty, shocked that the colonel had so much information on her.
Colonel Black considered this. ‘Loss of focus? That’s understandable considering what you’ve been through in your life.’ He flipped past police reports on Kerry’s abduction, news clippings of her parents’ hijacked flight and confidential files regarding her fostering. ‘But the way you’re –’
Charley slammed her hand down on the file. ‘How did you get all this personal stuff on me?’ she demanded.
‘Online research and a few connections,’ he replied. ‘But, as I was saying, the way you’re going you’re headed on a self-destructive course. Charley, you need to –’
‘Listen, General –’
‘Colonel,’ he corrected her sharply.
‘Sorry, Colonel. I really think you’ve got the wrong person. I’m no bodyguard. When my best friend was kidnapped, I …’ Charley suddenly felt herself choking up. ‘I did nothing. I froze. I … failed Kerry.’
‘You were ten years old, Charley,’ said the colonel matter-of-factly. ‘You can’t blame yourself for what happened. But you can stop those things happening to others.’
Fighting back tears at the painful memory of her friend’s abduction, Charley quietly asked, ‘How?’
; ‘By becoming a bodyguard for other young at-risk individuals.’
Charley stared through the window at the passing traffic, her mind a whirl of conflicting thoughts and emotions. She felt both thrilled and deeply uneasy at the proposal, flattered but puzzled that he’d selected her. How had this so-called colonel found her in the first place? Was he taking advantage of her vulnerable background? Was the whole thing a set-up or a real opportunity?
The colonel closed the file and laid a black business card on the table. Charley glanced at the silver embossed logo of a shield with guardian wings.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘Your future.’
Charley eyed the single phone number running along the bottom edge.
‘It’s entirely up to you whether you call,’ said the colonel, rising to his feet. ‘But ask yourself this: do you want to run scared all your life? Or do you want to take a stand and fight back?’
Charley felt the warm night breeze caress her as she sat on the golden sand, listening to the waves roll in. Further down the beach a campfire flickered orange, illuminating the pack of young surfers gathered to party and surf the night away. Someone was playing an acoustic guitar and singing, ‘We all need a shelter to keep us from the rain. Without love, we’re just laying on the tracks waiting for a train …’
The song’s lyrics hit home hard for Charley. They seemed to sum up her situation. Without her parents, or her best friend, life felt desperately empty and without purpose. She was struggling on a daily basis to fight off depression. Only her surfing gave her a brief respite from the constant storm raging in her mind. No wonder her foster-parents despaired at her! But was she now being offered a shelter from that storm – a chance to give her life real purpose?
The other surfers joined in the chorus and Charley recognized the song as Ash Wild’s ‘Only Raining’. There was barely a radio station that wasn’t playing the track at the moment. The teenage rock star from Britain had taken the Billboard charts by storm.
‘It’s only raining on you, only raining. It’s only raining on you right now, but the sun will soon shine through …’
Charley prayed that it would. She’d been caught in the rain for so long now that she’d forgotten what it was like for life to shine upon her. But should she take the extreme decision of joining a secret security agency? The whole concept of young bodyguards seemed not only insane but illegal. And could she trust the colonel? His recruitment methods seemed wildly unorthodox. Yet Deputy Sheriff Valdez had checked the organization’s credentials and they’d proved to be solid.
The song came to an end and the surfers’ applause and laughter carried to her on the breeze. It sounded distant and faint as if from another dimension, and at that moment Charley did feel caught between two worlds – the dead-end one she was familiar with, and a new one that offered a whole host of possibilities. Perhaps it even offered redemption – a unique chance to atone for her failure to save her friend Kerry.
How she wished she had someone she could talk to.
Charley stared up at the heavens, awash with gleaming stars. ‘What should I do?’ she whispered in a prayer to her parents. How she missed them – her mother’s kindness and the loving way she used to brush Charley’s hair before bed; her father’s strength and the warm secure embrace of his arms. She searched the constellations, wondering if her parents were somewhere up there. ‘Should I become a bodyguard?’ she asked.
A shooting star traced a line across the sky.
Charley had her answer … but did it mean yes or no?
‘There you are!’ said a delighted voice as Bud materialized out of the darkness and plonked himself down beside her. ‘I was beginning to think you’d sneaked away again. What are you doing over here all alone?’
Charley offered him an apologetic shrug. ‘I needed some space to think.’
‘About what?’ he asked, shifting closer.
Charley sighed and hesitated. She hardly knew Bud, but who else could she talk to? Besides, he seemed a genuinely nice guy and had proven trustworthy by not revealing her name to the press. ‘Have you ever been faced with an impossible decision? One that could change your life forever?’
Bud furrowed his brow thoughtfully. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But I suppose it’d be like confronting that epic wave, the one that promises to break so sweetly.’ He pointed to the ocean, his hand rising and falling to indicate the immense size of the swell. ‘A legendary wave! You may never have surfed anything so huge in your life. The chances are you’ll wipe out big time. But – and this is the killer – you might conquer it and ride all the way in.’
He turned to Charley, his eyes gleaming with an irresistible zeal. ‘That wave might come only once in a lifetime, Charley. So I say, go for it!’ He slipped an arm round her waist. ‘Now, what is this impossible decision?’
Charley was momentarily stunned by the clarity of his answer. On an impulse, she kissed Bud full on the lips, then stood up and brushed the sand from her shorts.
‘W-where are you going?’ Bud asked breathlessly, a baffled and forlorn expression on his face as she strode off up the beach.
Charley called back from the darkness, ‘To catch that once-in-a-lifetime wave!’
‘I saw you stroll across the market place. I caught your walk but not your face,’ sang Ash Wild with gutsy energy into the studio mic. ‘Yet what I saw in that one short glimpse is all my mind has thought of since …’
Ash strummed hard on his electric guitar, a bluesy rock riff that harked back to Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Child’. The drummer and bassist were grooving behind him, their rhythms locked in tight. The keyboard player, his head bobbing to the beat, stabbed at his Hammond organ, counterpointing Ash’s driving guitar line. When the chorus kicked in, the four of them belted out in harmony, ‘Beautiful from afar, but far from beautiful!’
At its climax, Ash launched into a blistering guitar solo, his fingers ripping up the fretboard. Eyes shut tight and lower lip clamped between his teeth, he pulled every last drop of emotion from the notes he struck. Then, at the solo’s peak, a string snapped.
‘Damn it!’ Ash swore as the guitar detuned and he hit a bum note. He threw it to the floor in frustration where it clanged and screamed in protest. ‘I was finally about to nail that solo!’
With a furious kick, he punted his drinks bottle, spraying soda over everyone’s gear. The drummer rolled his eyes at the bass player, who reached over and pulled the plug to the guitar amp, cutting the ear-splitting feedback.
‘Let’s take a break,’ came the producer’s weary voice over the studio monitors.
Ash stormed out of the studio and into the control room. The producer, a long-haired legend known as ‘Don Sonic’, was stationed at a colossal mixing desk like Sulu from Star Trek. He leant back in his chair and interlocked his fingers behind his head.
‘I reckon we can patch together a complete solo from the other fifty or so takes,’ he suggested.
‘That’s not good enough!’ Ash muttered with a sullen shake of his head. ‘It’ll sound false.’
‘To you maybe, but not your fans. I can make it appear seamless for the record.’
Ash stomped up the basement studio’s stairs. ‘Never. We’ll try it again later.’
Don called after him, ‘You’re a perfectionist, Ash. That’s your gift … and your problem!’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ mumbled Ash, but he knew his producer was right. And that’s what frustrated the hell out of him. He could reco
rd a song a million times, yet it never matched the ideal version in his head.
At the top of the stairs, he turned right into a sleek open-plan kitchen. An ageing hulk of a man in a faded black T-shirt, its seams stretched by his bulging tattooed arms, leant against the breakfast bar. He was idly flipping through a tabloid newspaper and sipping from a mug of black coffee.
‘Hi, Big T,’ said Ash, acknowledging his bodyguard.
‘Ash,’ he grunted with a nod of his bald domed head. Closing the paper, he took up position by the patio doors, where he casually scanned the garden beyond, taking in its designer wooden decking, oval swimming pool and hot tub.
Ash appreciated Big T. The man knew when to talk and when to give him space. Opening the refrigerator door, Ash took out a fresh soda and twisted off the cap. There was a sharp hiss as the contents foamed up. Quickly putting his lips to the top, he took a long slug and closed his eyes. Ash tried to calm himself down. Just like the fizz in a soda bottle, if he got shaken up, his emotions exploded uncontrollably – often with regrettable consequences. Yet it was this same deep well of emotion that compelled him to write his songs – both a blessing and a curse, he supposed.
Wandering through to the dining room, Ash was greeted by a table overflowing with letters, parcels, teddy bears and bouquets of flowers. On the far side of this mountain of mail sat a young brunette woman in a pearl-white silk blouse and pencil skirt. Her delicate chin was cupped in the palm of one hand as she skim-read a letter.
‘Is this all for me, Zoe?’ he asked, picking up an envelope with his name scrawled in red ink and dotted with glittery hearts and kisses.
‘No, darling, not all of it,’ the publicity executive murmured, her accent polished by a private-school education. Ash frowned in mild disappointment. Then Zoe pointed a manicured finger towards the hallway. ‘There’re another six mail bags out there. Whoever leaked your home address on the internet has a lot to answer for!’
Sighing, Zoe returned to sorting the piles of fan mail. Ash picked up a random letter from one of the stacks:
Bodyguard: Target Page 3