Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3)

by Chris Bradford

  The lower-ranked hyenas, pushed out by the dominant females, instantly turned their attention to the human intruders. Staring at their newfound prey with dark hungry eyes, they bared their teeth, drool dripping from their ravenous mouths. One by one, the other hyenas fell silent as they became aware of the presence of Connor, Amber and Henri.

  Faced by such a fearsome pack of wild animals, it took all Connor’s willpower not to simply turn and flee. But he knew from Gunner’s advice to do such a thing would trigger the hunting instinct.

  ‘Back away,’ he whispered, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. ‘Slowly.’

  Amber managed the slightest of nods in acknowledgement. They retreated a step at a time, drawing back into the cover of the thicket. The hyenas advanced in slow deliberate paces, determined to keep their quarry in sight. Henri glanced behind to see where he was walking and a large hyena with a ripped ear stealthily closed the gap.

  ‘Don’t take your eyes off them,’ Connor warned. ‘As soon as you do, they’ll attack.’

  They were almost concealed within the thicket when the matriarch of the clan let out a haunting whoop and all of a sudden the hyenas launched themselves. Survival instinct overruling any ranger’s advice, Amber, Henri and Connor ran for their lives. They fled through the bush, not caring as the thorns of a wait-a-while tore at their clothes and ripped their skin. Maniacal giggles and growls pursued them on all sides and Connor caught flashes of sandy-brown hair, black snouts and muscular forelegs closing in.

  The three of them broke from the thicket and into the long grass. The hyenas matched them pace for pace, boxing them in but not yet attacking. For a brief second Connor wondered why – then realized the pack was simply tiring them out to make the kill easier.

  ‘The trees!’ cried Amber, pointing to a copse of acacia further up the slope.

  Connor saw them too and, recalling Gunner saying that hyenas couldn’t climb, shepherded his two Principals towards the promised sanctuary of the trees. But they were forced to change direction when a huge snarling hyena blocked their path. They ran across a slope, skirting round a huge pile of boulders as they looked for another way through. Henri was wheezing heavily by now, his face pale with the exertion.

  ‘Up there,’ Connor shouted, spotting a narrow gully between the massive boulders.

  Taking advantage of a gap in the pack, he led the way to the opening. But the moment they reached it the hyena with the ripped ear lunged at Henri. Panicking, Henri fled in the opposite direction and was soon lost from sight in the tall grass. Connor could hear the pack whooping and howling as they hunted down the youngest and weakest of their chosen prey.

  ‘We have to save him!’ Amber cried.

  But the hunt wasn’t over for them either. Two hyenas were pursuing them up the gully. Then another appeared at the top. Trapped, Connor searched frantically for a different escape route.

  ‘In there,’ he said, spotting a narrow gap between two gigantic boulders.

  ‘It’s too small,’ cried Amber.

  Faced with no alternative and the hyenas bearing down on them, Connor shoved her towards the hole. Slender as she was, Amber still struggled to wiggle through. He tossed in his Go-bag, then sucked in his chest as he scrambled after her. But he got stuck halfway, the rocks seeming to press down on him, crushing the breath from his body. He could hear the hyenas bounding towards his exposed flailing legs. Amber, who’d managed to crawl into a little hollow beneath the boulders, tugged frantically on his arms. With a final desperate squirm, Connor scraped through the suffocating gap, just as the hyenas’ jaws snapped at his disappearing feet.

  Connor and Amber lay pressed against one another in the cramped confines of the hollow. The three hyenas snarled and scratched at the entrance, frustrated at being so close yet unable to sink their teeth into their prey.

  ‘What now?’ shrieked Amber as she desperately tried to avoid their probing forepaws.

  ‘Don’t worry – they can’t get to us,’ said Connor, glad the hyenas’ heavily built shoulders barred them entering any further.

  ‘But we have to get out! We need to rescue Henri!’

  A wave of guilt consumed Connor. He dared not think about the poor boy’s fate. But how could he be expected to protect two individuals at once? Especially against a pack of hunting hyenas. He and Amber had barely escaped with their own lives – and they weren’t out of trouble yet.

  ‘We’ll find him,’ said Connor, hearing the hollowness in his own promise.

  ‘Not before those hyenas have finished with him!’

  Amber began to sob – fear, shock and grief all welling up at once. ‘Why did we ever come to Burundi? Why? This is a living hell! My parents murdered … my brother eaten alive … I – I …’

  Connor drew Amber close, letting her cry herself out. The horrors of the past twenty-four hours were enough to break anyone. In fact, he was surprised that she’d held it together for so long. Despite all his hostile environment training, even he was on the point of snapping. Connor had thought his previous two missions would have prepared him for any eventuality. But it dawned on him that nothing could have prepared him for Africa. Violent ambushes, murdering gunmen, deadly snakes and man-eating hyenas – Operation Lionheart had been woefully underestimated in terms of threat level and required security support. His only comfort was that he’d failed to call in at two consecutive report times. Alarm bells would be ringing back at HQ and Charley would be investigating the problem, establishing the reason for the communication breakdown and implementing a search-and-rescue operation.

  They just had to stay alive until rescue arrived.

  Amber’s sobbing faded and Connor became aware that the hyenas had gone quiet too.

  ‘Do you think they’ve given up?’ whispered Amber, her head still resting against his chest.

  Shifting closer to the entrance, Connor peered out. The sun glared down on an empty patch of scrub and bare rock, a flurry of paw marks in the dirt the only evidence that hyenas had been there at all.

  ‘Maybe,’ he replied, edging further out for a better look.

  Suddenly he was nose-to-nose with a snarling hyena. Connor jerked back into the hollow. The hyena whooped and began to dig more furiously than before.

  ‘I guess that answers your question,’ said Connor, shocked at the calculating nature of the animals. He’d spotted the other two hyenas patiently waiting on a boulder, ready to pounce as soon as they emerged.

  Connor searched frantically for another way out of their tiny refuge, but they were well and truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. The hollow backed up against another immovable boulder and any openings were barely large enough for a rabbit to fit through. Desperation had driven him to think this gap offered some sort of escape. Now it was destined to be their grave.

  The hyena’s claws continued to rip at the ground, the entrance hole growing by the minute. Soon the opening would be large enough for its shoulders to pass through and its jaws to enter the hollow and rip them limb from limb.

  Amber began her own frantic attempt at digging, using a stone to gouge out a hole behind her. As dirt rained in on them, Connor realized she had entered into a race that they were guaranteed to lose. He drew his father’s knife. He’d have to kill the beast before it dug its way in first. But the broad bony skull looked impenetrable, even with a survival knife, and the sharp-pointed teeth appeared fearsome weapons to overcome. It would be a bloody and fraught fight to the death for one of them.

  As Connor steeled himself for an attack, a gunshot rang out, startling the hyena, and it stopped digging. More heavy gunfire caused it to turn tail and flee. Connor and Amber exchanged a glance, at once relieved yet fearful of what was to come next.

  They heard the sound of heavy boots crunching in the dirt.

  ‘I saw them enter the gully, Blaze,’ said a boy’s voice.

  ‘Then where are they?’ growled a deeper voice that Connor recognized as belonging to the rebel with mirrored sunglasses
.

  A shadow passed across the hollow’s entrance and Connor spotted a pair of black boots and the bare feet of a boy, no more than a couple of metres from their hidingplace.

  ‘Maybe they escaped.’

  Suddenly Amber’s body went rigid. Disturbed by her earlier digging, a small oil-black spider with a bulbous abdomen had emerged and was crawling across her arm. Realizing Amber was about to scream and give away their location, Connor clamped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes grew wide with sheer terror as the eight-legged arachnid crept up her arm and towards her neck.

  ‘Did you see them escape?’ Blaze questioned.

  ‘No,’ replied the boy.

  As the spider reached her shoulder, Connor noticed a distinctive red hourglass marking on its underbelly. At once he felt Amber’s paralysing fear seep into his own bones.

  ‘Then search the gully, top to bottom,’ ordered Blaze. ‘Leave no stone unturned.’

  The black widow continued its slow yet deliberate journey up Amber’s neck. Neither Connor nor Amber could move, both held captive by the venomous spider as it probed her cheek with its forelegs, its multiple eyes glistening in the hollow’s dim light.

  Amber closed her own eyes as her worst nightmare stared directly at her. Connor could feel a cold sweat break out on her skin as the spider crawled across her face. Its legs brushed against his fingers, which were still clamped over Amber’s mouth. But he dared not knock the black widow off. They had nowhere to go and a single bite from such a spider could inject a lethal neurotoxin, resulting in burning pain, vomiting, swelling and even death.

  In the gully, the soldiers were working their way down, searching every nook and crevice. Connor could hear them getting closer with each passing second. Amber was now as pale as death, the spider passing across her right eyelid. She twitched in panic and the black widow stopped, probing her soft skin with its two front legs.

  Footsteps approached their hollow, the entrance darkening as a soldier bent down to look inside. Then a second gunshot went off, swiftly followed by several more blasts.

  ‘Over here!’ came a distant cry.

  The shadow disappeared from their entrance, the crunch of feet on earth rapidly receding. But neither Connor nor Amber could risk moving. The black widow was now painstakingly making its way through her tangle of red hair. Connor prayed the creature wouldn’t decide to make a nest there. Amber had her eyes fixed on his, utter desperation filling them as she heard the whisper of the eight-legged creature pass her ear.

  After what seemed an eternity, the spider crawled out on to the rock and disappeared into a dark fissure.

  ‘It’s gone,’ whispered Connor.

  As if woken from a trance, Amber bolted for the entrance.

  ‘No!’ hissed Connor. ‘They might still be out there.’

  But Amber was paying him no heed. She scrambled out of the hollow and into the sunlight. Left with no other choice, Connor shoved his Go-bag through the opening and followed close behind. He found Amber sitting on a rock, panting rapidly, her hands trembling. Connor quickly scanned the gully. Thankfully there were no soldiers or hyenas in sight. He knelt before Amber.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  Still in post-phobic shock, her eyes glassy and unfocused, she didn’t reply. But the colour in her cheeks seemed to be slowly returning. Connor touched her arm and she almost leapt out of her skin.

  ‘It’s all right,’ soothed Connor. ‘You’re safe now.’

  ‘Safe?’ said Amber, staring at him incredulously, then waving her hand at the surrounding savannah. ‘You call this safe?’

  She stood and began striding down the gully. Connor grabbed her arm.

  ‘Let me go,’ she demanded with a fierce glare at him.

  ‘But that’s the direction the gunmen went,’ argued Connor.

  ‘It’s also the way my brother went,’ she replied, shaking herself free from his grip and dashing out of the gully.

  Shouldering his Go-bag, Connor raced after her, expecting at any moment to run straight into the rebel soldiers … or the open jaws of a bloodthirsty hyena. He almost lost sight of Amber among the tall grasses but finally caught up with her kneeling at the base of a small acacia tree. Henri’s inhaler was lying discarded in the dirt beside a pool of sticky blood, a cloud of flies buzzing over its surface. Connor felt his heart sink. They were too late.

  ‘Have you … found him?’ he asked, fearing the hyenas had torn the boy apart.

  ‘It isn’t his blood,’ said Amber quietly as she retrieved the inhaler. She indicated a dead hyena sprawled on the ground behind the tree, its belly exploded open by a high-calibre round. ‘My brother must have reached this tree. He was safe. He escaped the hyenas, but –’ she looked up at him, her eyes rimmed red with tears – ‘not the gunmen.’

  They’d both heard the repeated blasts of gunfire and the rebel soldier shout out. However, that didn’t necessarily mean Henri had been shot. The evidence suggested the rebel had saved her brother from being eaten by the hyenas. That was surely a good sign. But what had happened to Henri afterwards? That was the question.

  Was he injured? Had he escaped? Or had the soldier captured him?

  From a nearby bush came a pained high-pitched cry.

  ‘Henri?’ called Amber in desperate hope.

  They rushed over only to discover a wounded hyena. It lifted its head at their approach, revealing a torn ear, and snarled at them. Bullets had reduced the animal’s hindquarters to a bloody, furry mess, yet the beast still clung on to life. It lunged at them with its forepaws, its jaws snapping in agonized torment. Even as it was dying, the hyena seemed determined to kill them.

  Connor and Amber backed cautiously away.

  ‘We have to find Henri,’ insisted Amber.

  ‘Our best hope is to reach the lodge and call for back-up.’

  ‘No,’ said Amber firmly. ‘I won’t leave my brother alone in this hellhole. I need to find out what’s happened to him.’

  It was a catch-22 situation. Connor couldn’t abandon Henri to his fate. Yet he couldn’t lead Amber into further danger. She was the one Principal left under his protection. That made her his priority. Or did it? They were both equally important. But should he risk one to save the other? It was a gamble that could result in him losing both Principals, as well as his own life.

  Hearing a rustle in the grass behind him, Connor spun to confront a rebel soldier emerging from the bushes. Before the man could level his AK47, Connor hip-shoved Amber to one side, sending her flying into the cover of the tree. Then he launched himself at the soldier, taking three running steps to add power to his flying side-kick. The soldier, completely unprepared for the speed and suddenness of the attack, was struck in the chest. The technique, a speciality of Connor’s in kickboxing matches, impacted so hard that Connor heard a rib crack as the soldier was knocked off his feet. The man tumbled backwards into the heart of a wait-a-while bush and was instantly ensnared. Scrambling to seize hold of his AK47, he only entangled himself further until the bush had wrapped round him like a ball of barbed wire. Helpless in its clutches, bleeding from multiple cuts and wheezing from a broken rib, the soldier cried out for help.

  Connor turned to Amber to make their escape but, before they could, the barrel of a gun was pressed into the small of his back.

  ‘Don’t m–’

  Not waiting for the rebel to finish his sentence, Connor pivoted on the spot, knocking the barrel aside with his elbow, and struck full force with a one-inch-push to the chest. The modified palm strike not only smashed the solar plexus, winding his attacker, but sent him flying several metres back. A burst of rapid gunfire filled the air, bullets shooting off in all directions as the rebel crashed down hard on to the ground. Connor dropped to one knee while Amber cowered behind the protection of the tree trunk, splinters of bark flying.

  For the first time Connor got a good look at his attacker. It was the boy soldier with the black bandana, the letters DREDD etched in white across the fro
nt. He wore the same dead-eyed gaze as when he’d shot at their Land Rover, and his right ear was missing, as if it had been hacked off by a machete. The boy was slightly smaller than Connor but, hardened from a life of warfare in the jungle, he was already rising to his feet. Connor couldn’t let that happen. He rushed over and kicked the assault rifle from his grasp.

  Trained only in fist brawls, Dredd bulldozed head-first into Connor’s stomach. The tactic, inelegant but effective, knocked the wind out of Connor and they both tumbled to the ground. Dredd knelt up first, pinning Connor’s arms with his knees, then pummelling him with his fists. Connor’s head rang as he was pounded with knuckles hard as iron. Somewhere far off he heard Amber cry out his name and the howl of the wounded hyena. Connor bucked and arched his back, trying to dislodge Dredd from his dominant position as a particularly vicious strike split his left eyebrow. Blood pouring into his eye, Connor’s vision became blurred. If he didn’t do something soon, he’d be beaten to death.

  He tried to reach for his knife, but the handle was caught beneath him and his arms were still pinned.

  Come on, hotshot. The round’s not over yet.

  Ling’s ringside taunts filled his head. Their matches had not only toughened him up but also taught him a trick or two. One of her favoured techniques was to attack nerve points – kyusho-jitsu – enabling her to disable limbs, inflict extreme pain and break down the body’s ability to fight, nerve by nerve.

  Dredd stopped battering him with his fists but only to grab a large stone. Through the red filter of his vision, Connor saw the boy lift it high above his head. Realizing with horror that a single strike would be the end of him, Connor reached for the yako point – halfway up the boy’s inner thigh. He pinched and twisted the nerve near the skin’s surface.

  Dredd leapt off him with a high-pitched yelp of pain, then a moment later began screaming. Dazed and bloodied, Connor crawled away. Even he was amazed the nerve point was so effective. Then he saw that the boy had rolled into the wounded hyena’s reach. Its jaws had clamped round Dredd’s upper arm, which it was now ravaging between its teeth. In agonized panic, Dredd battered at the hyena’s head with the rock. But he was having little effect on the enraged animal.