Truly Deadly: The Complete Series: (YA Spy Thriller Books 1-5)

by Rob Aspinall

  “Sultan,” he said in a deep, distorted voice, “my apologies for interrupting your day.”

  “Not even man enough to show your face,” said the sultan.

  “Oh, come now. Don’t look so surprised,” Shadow Man said. “Y’all know the importance of anonymity in our organisation.”

  “What do you want?” asked the sultan.

  “What I want is for you to honour our agreement,” Shadow Man said. “You do remember promising to sign on that little dotted line. The one that said signature?”

  “The treaty, yes,” the sultan said. “I’ve decided to abstain.”

  “Why ever so?” asked Shadow Man.

  The sultan gestured as if holding the universe in his hands. “God created this,” he said. “Everything. Everyone. Who are we to undo his work?”

  “Well, that is disappointing,” said Shadow Man. “I wish you would reconsider.”

  “Think of your wives and all those children,” said Nathan.

  “I am thinking of them. I will not dishonour my faith, my country or my family. Not any more than I already have.”

  He held his head up straight and proud. “Do as you will.”

  “Very well, Sultan,” Shadow Man said. “There’s always another willing committee member … Mr Moore …”

  Nathan closed the laptop and signalled his henchmen. They got busy setting up a video camera on a tripod.

  “Look, Sultan,” Nathan said, bending over him with his hands on his knees. “I’m a nice guy. So I’ll give you one last chance. Please sign the agreement. If you don’t, someone else will.”

  The sultan looked dead ahead at the wall, refusing Nathan the courtesy of eye contact.

  “I know where I’m going,” he said. “And I know where you’re all going too. Judgement awaits us all.”

  “Ooh,” Nathan said, mock shivering, his team laughing. “You’re up,” he said to me with a slap on the arm.

  The sultan was hoisted out of the chair and dragged by the armpits in front of the camera. Faces were concealed beneath headscarves and shades. I hung mine around my face too, itchy and musty. One of the men brought out something long and flat wrapped in a white cloth. He held it on flat palms while another one unwrapped the object inside and offered it to me.

  Holy shit! A huge, brutal meat cleaver.

  My eyes lingered on the sultan, already deep in prayer.

  “Well, come on then,” Nathan said to me. “Chop, chop!”

  I took hold of the cleaver, heavy and razor sharp.

  Okay, wake up, Lorna! Wake up now!

  I sighed in resignation and stepped into position behind the sultan, who was forced to kneel on the floor and injected with a sedative. His head hung low, exposing his deep brown, perspiring neck.

  Nathan stood beside me and addressed the camera in fluent Arabic. He talked about striking at the heart of capitalism. How the sultan, like so many Middle Eastern leaders, had colluded with Western enemies, sold the soul of his nation and brought disgrace on his people. How an example must be made.

  “Judgement awaits us all,” he said, stealing the sultan’s line.

  He nodded at me and stepped aside. I lined the blade up over the sultan’s neck. I wanted to stop my right hand. I wanted to scream. But I had zero control. Again, I was just a passenger in a sick nightmare that my eyes were glued open to.

  I raised the cleaver and, in one swift, smooth arc, brought it down towards the top of the sultan’s neck. It sliced through clean, like chopping through a large ham. His head rolled clean off his shoulders onto the floor with a wet thud, blood gushing out through the base of the skull.

  “Two birds. One head,” Nathan said with a smirk, as soon as the camera was turned off.

  The sultan’s face stared blankly up at me as I wiped off the end of the cleaver with the cloth it came in.

  #horrific #mindpuke

  5

  Scar Tissue

  I woke up gasping, sheets soaked in cold sweat. I’d never had dreams like these, even when I used to dream of my heart stopping. I wondered where the mind got all its information from. And why the two dreams in question seemed to stitch together. Eventually, I fell asleep again and let it slide from my mind.

  It was my first week back at home. My bedroom dresser was full of cards, flowers and chocolates I wasn’t allowed to munch on. I had to eat healthily until I got back on my feet, which was slowly but surely happening. The immunosuppressants had seen an unseasonal late summer cold come and go, but at least my moon face had eased off back to normal. And as much as I scoured my chin, lip and cheeks in the mirror, I couldn’t find a single hair.

  Rehab was painfully slow and boring. Endless stretching, bending, slow-walking and core exercises.

  Once, just once, I wanted to do something stupid, like sky dive or bungee jump. Well, neither of those – I hated heights. Especially jumping off and out of things. Point is, I wanted to cut loose once in a while like normal folk did. Instead, life was a crushingly repetitive list of pre-planned dos and don’ts mapped out by time and date on a multicolour spreadsheet.

  Diet.

  Exercise.

  Drugs.

  Scans.

  Biopsies.

  Psychotherapy.

  Physiotherapy.

  I had a team of specialists watching me like hawks.

  With Auntie Claire and Plastic Jesus watching over me too, they needn’t have worried. Even before Becki came round to visit, she was given a strict set of instructions over the phone. Don’t make me laugh too hard. No pillow fighting or choreographed dancing. Just like the doctors and nurses, I know she was only doing it because she cared. And I appreciated it, I really did. But choreographed dancing? What were we, ten?

  So embarrassing.

  I tried seven different outfits before Becki came round. I wanted to look like Lorna again. Not Frankenstein’s uglier sister. I stared at my scar in the mirror. Do I wear it loud and proud when I’m out in public or keep it covered up?

  For the past couple of years, my heart hadn’t been the only thing on the fritz. My social life stunk like microwaved dog plop and the only selfies I could muster were of me in bed. Me having a scan. Me resting in a chair. Me hoisting up my medical smock. And, ooh, here’s me dancing round a drip-feeder pole.

  When your friends are hanging out and you’re stuck at home, trying to catch up on all the schoolwork you’ve missed, it doesn’t feel great. Especially when you’ve watched your tomboy best friend, Becki, turn into the Hottest Girl in School™ overnight. So fit she bagged a Saturday job at Hollister.

  I decided the best course of action was to spend the rest of my life covering up the scar. I plumped for a black polo neck and skinny blue jeans, a pointless choice on this occasion.

  The second she breezed through the door, Becki said, “Let’s see it then. Come on.”

  I sighed and lifted my top.

  “Ooh, it’s massive,” she said. “Can I touch it?”

  “Yeah, if you like.”

  Becki teased a manicured finger down the thick, hardening scar between my tits. I felt a tingle. Still sensitive.

  “Just think, there’s a man’s organ in there,” she said as I pulled my top down, “pumping away inside you.”

  Becki burst out laughing. She loved a good innuendo. She was always on about sex. A lot of it was just talk. She was too beautiful to give it out that easy. Besides, I knew she was saving herself for Johnny, a uni student she worked with at Hollister. He was six-four with abs you could grate cheese on. He was also twenty-one with a boyfriend called Lars. Becki was convinced he’d turn.

  “He’s just confused,” she said, breaking into my box of chocolates.

  “No one that fit can be gay,” she said. “I mean, properly gay.”

  “Almost all the fittest guys are gay, Becks.”

  “Fuck you, bitch. He’s just not met the twins yet,” she said, pulling her white vest top down and jiggling her breathtaking cleavage.

  Breathtaking?
Yes, breathtaking. No sense in denying it.

  “So when are you allowed back into the land of the living?” Becki asked.

  “About three weeks. I’ve got loads of physio and check-ups first. So fill me in,” I said, putting on some indie music. “What’s the latest goss?”

  Becki gave me the full run-down on all the goings-on over the summer between finishing our GCSEs and now, on the brink of returning to school to do our sixth-form A levels.

  With my health deteriorating, I’d scraped through my finals at home. I’d then spent the holidays watching box sets and looking at other people’s beach snaps. So, I couldn’t wait to start sixth form and see my friends again. In the meantime, there was rehab and sleep.

  6

  Morning Jog

  I found myself jogging on a sandy beach in black running Lycra, wearing some vom-inducing yellow trainers. Fashion-wise, I didn’t know what my subconscious dream generator was playing at, but it knew how to create a nice beach. It was quiet and overcast, the sea grey under the sky and waves crashing noisily just a few feet away. It was cool and fresh and it felt fab to be running where none of the paranoia hawks could hold me back. I hadn’t run in years, yet here I was, pounding along through the sand like a pro. Judging by the mini mansions that sat back off the beach beyond the long grass, this looked a lot like millionaire country. America? It definitely wasn’t Britain. A chunky blonde jogger-mom ran past in the opposite direction with a chocolate lab.

  “Good morning!” she said in a New York accent.

  Yep, I was in America. The Hamptons? I kept running, loving the freedom of movement in my body, the giant gulps of fresh air and the gentle spray of the sea on my face. Also loving the cry of the gulls in the air. Reminded me of an early family trip to the seaside, before Dad lost his job and went suicidal, and Mum went on permanent vacation as a result.

  Everything was so vivid and linear. Not like the random dreams I was used to. You know, talking sandwiches and trampolining polar bears.

  Had to be the drugs.

  Jogger-mom aside, the beach was deserted. Save for a few small figures in the distance. They seemed to be running together. The more I gained on them, the easier I could make them out. A couple of moving tree trunks in shorts and blue cagoule jackets behind. A smaller, older man in a hi-vis yellow vest, out in front. Dream body got to within a hundred feet and kept pace. They headed off the beach and up a narrow wooden footbridge into the surrounding vegetation. Clearly I was following them. My feet drummed over the weather-beaten boards of the footbridge, then muffled out again on the narrow, sandy path that cut between two grassy dunes like the scar that ran between my boobs. The path led into an overgrown area of trees and bushes, crunching underfoot as the sand thinned out. A cool mist drifted in off the sea, spooking the place up. Anyone or anything could be in here. Murderers. Ghosts. Snakes. Or, even worse, murderer ghost snakes!

  In the thick woodland mist, I lost sight of the three men, but I could hear them snapping their way through twigs and branches. I pulled a handgun from under the thin dark cagoule completing the gym-wanker look. It had a silencer on the end. Oh boy, here we went.

  The path broke out of the trees, but stayed narrow and dicey. A high cliff face to my right. A sheer drop to the left, down to a swirling pool of slippery black rocks and crash-happy waves. The path ran on a curve, obscuring my view ahead. By the time I rounded the bend, the men had stopped in a natural resting area where the path briefly widened out. The burly bodyguards took a breather while their boss sucked in the view.

  I tossed the gun over the cliff edge before anyone saw. The two big guys stepped out in front of me and flagged me down, both with hands on weapons holstered under their running jackets.

  There was a totally bald guy and another with a shaved head. Both looked ex-military.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Baldy in a deep American accent. “We’re going to have to search you.”

  Sir? WTF?

  Their boss glanced over his shoulder as if this kind of thing happened all the time.

  “Arms out, please,” said Shaved Head, before padding me down.

  Baldy spoke into a tiny mic on the inside of his collar. “We’ve got an unfamiliar running the trail.”

  Shaved Head finished copping a feel. “He’s clean,” he said.

  “Okay, we’re clear,” Baldy said into the mic. “Sorry for the inconvenience, sir,” he said to me. “Have a nice day.”

  I nodded at them and lingered a moment, pulling my calf up against my thigh, a steadying hand against the cliff wall. The minders were losing patience.

  “Have a nice day, sir.”

  “Time to go, sir.”

  “All right. Get this clown outta here,” said the boss.

  Shaved Head approached me with his weapon out, the other backing him up.

  “Playtime’s over buddy,” said Shaved Head. “Final warning.”

  I let him get close, then, in a flash, I twisted and snapped his arm at the wrist, the gun spinning up into the air. Before Baldy could react, I caught the weapon in my spare hand and, phtum-phtum, put a couple of silencer rounds in his chest. He dropped dead on the floor. Shaven Head chopped the gun from my hand. He came at me with a kick and a punch with his good arm. I blocked both before driving the bottom of my left palm into his sternum. I kicked out the back of his knee and drove the point of my elbow into the base of his neck. He collapsed limp against the cliff wall.

  I scooped up the gun, only to see the boss sprinting away. I put a bullet in Shaven Head’s back and took off after him along the coastal path.

  We dropped down into a claustrophobic passage between rocks. I tried to line up a shot, but the world had gone all bouncy on the uneven rocky ground. Suddenly, I lost my footing and skidded on the shingle underfoot, grazing a hand as I reached out to steady myself, but I stayed upright and kept on going.

  Running wasn’t fun anymore and my hand stung like hell. I broke out into a clearing, rubber soles squeaking on slippy dew grass, my breath blowing holes in the mist that sat like an eight-foot-deep white carpet. Visibility was next to zero, the only sound the crashing of waves.

  I moved fast and light, gun down in two hands at the ready. It seemed a pointless, clueless task until I spotted him in his hi-vis vest. He was just standing there, twenty feet away, probably as disoriented as I was. I took aim and double-tapped him dead centre in his back.

  But something was wrong.

  The running vest hadn’t dropped.

  He was still standing.

  I approached slowly, silently through the mist until I was almost on him.

  Close up, it became obvious. He’d removed the vest and used it as a decoy. It hung from a wooden post, the last remnant of a ripped-up fence. I poked my fingers through the bullet holes in the vest, then let it go. It caught on the wind and danced out to sea.

  Just then, I realised how close I was to the edge of the cliff. Running footsteps came at me from behind. I half-turned in time to get hit in the head by a large, heavy fence post. It rocked me back on my heels.

  “I was in the Marine Corps, asshole,” the boss said. “I can do this all day long.”

  He spat out the words, saliva stringing in the wind. I was already off balance when he lunged forward with the post, jabbing it in my chest and pushing me back until I ran out of cliff.

  As I fell back, I brought the gun up and popped off a shot. It punched a dark-red hole right between the man’s eyes. I twisted in the air so I was falling feet first, the water rushing at me faster than you can say brown trousers.

  Ska-boom! I plunged in deep, the impact nothing compared to the shock of ice-cold sea water.

  I kicked and dove deeper, but the current was boss. It pushed me back up and spat me out into the fresh air, just in time for a huge wave to crash over my head and push me down again. Beneath the surface, another body plunged into the water, missing me by a foot. It was Mr I’m-Angry-and-I’ve-Got-a-Fence-Post. He floated face down, dead in the ey
es, blood clouding out pale from the bullet wound. The water carried us both towards the rocks at speed. I held on to the body and used it like a dead-guy airbag. We smashed against the rocks and got sucked back out. Then back again, and again.

  I was running out of air fast. Come on, body. Think.

  It did. My eyes lingered on a sharp, craggy bit on the rock wall, just above the surface. I stole a breath on the way back out. Then, as we went in for the next smash, I put both hands on the face of the corpse. As we hit the cliff, I drove the back of his skull onto the crag.

  I heard a sickening crack. It stuck. And I stuck to the body, using the guy’s head and shoulders as impromptu steps. Before the next big wave hit, I made it onto a natural ledge running along the cliff.

  Slowly but surely, I shuffled along, stopping and hanging on when the waves hit. Each one a freezing wall.

  Finally, I made it to a tiny secluded cove. I flopped on my back in the wet sand, puffing out big breaths at the sky, coughing out salt water. After a few seconds’ rest, I got to my feet and jogged up a steep, winding set of steps to the top, thigh muscles on fire. Distant sirens wailed on the wind. Shivering, wet and tired, I slipped into the mist.

  7

  Under Scrutiny

  Tests, tests and more tests. Dr J leafed through the results of my scans, biopsies, bloods and EKGs as the rain fell outside the window … as it did almost every day in sunny Manchester. Except it wasn’t exciting rain. Monsoon rain. Spectacular power shower one minute, tropical sun the next. It was industrial northern city rain that wore you down 24/7, one drop at a time.

  Still, Dr J had good news for once. “I’m going to lower the dose of your immunosuppressants.”

  “Yes!” I said, doing a fist pump. Fewer drugs meant fewer nasty side effects.

  “Only by a little. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said, doing his best to kill my buzz. “But the results look reasonably positive. The organ is strong and you’re displaying relatively few symptoms of immunodeficiency.”