HARD KNOCKS: Charlie Fox book three

by Zoe Sharp

  He waved a hand at the trees that surrounded us. They went off in all directions as far as you could see. The mist had penetrated between the trunks of them now, beginning to thicken.

  “Further along this track is a big crossroads, like an intersection,” Figgis went on. “Those of you with Mr Todd, Mr O’Neill, and Mr Rebanks will form the principal vehicle and two chase cars and attempt to drive through that intersection. Myself and Mr Blakemore’s vehicles will attempt to stop you. We’ll run through it once for you, then you’ll all get to have a drive.” He glanced around at the trees and sniffed. “If this bloody fog doesn’t get any worse.”

  We got back into the cars and waited until Blakemore and Figgis had disappeared. That left Todd with the lead vehicle. He checked his watch, then turned and grinned at me. “Don’t look so scared, Fox, you won’t need your seatbelt,” he jeered. “This isn’t a full contact sport and we know what we’re doing.”

  I smiled sweetly at him and pointedly belted up anyway.

  Todd set off with lurching gusto, leaving the other two Audis scrambling to keep up. We got up to a ridiculous speed for the conditions, the trees whipping past outside my window. They seemed so close if I’d put my hand out I would have lost my fingers.

  Then the trees widened out into the clearing Figgis had mentioned. Suddenly the two ambush Audis were streaking out from the other tracks. One slewed across in front of Todd. I twisted in my seat and saw the other come screaming out from the opposite direction, aiming to cut off our escape route to the rear. It was timed to perfection, I had to give them that.

  Todd wrenched at the steering wheel, sending the Audi slithering sideways, and just managed to fishtail round the car that was blocking us. We came within a hair’s breadth of slamming into the side of it in the process.

  We carried on another fifty metres or so down the track, then Todd stood on the brakes and reversed back to the intersection. Everyone else was already out of the cars by the time we arrived.

  “Very good, Mr Todd,” Figgis said, and I couldn’t help but hear the note of lazy amusement in his voice. He nodded towards the vehicles which had been following us, and which had been neatly boxed in. “Only trouble is, you’re the lead car, not the one containing your principal, which was in the centre. So, although you’ve managed to evade this ambush, your principal is now in the hands of kidnappers or assassins.”

  Todd glowered at him. Figgis turned to the rest of us, smiling. “I’m sure you’re all aware of the old maxim in this industry – never outlive your principal. It’s no good you making good your own escape and leaving your boss behind. It’s bad for your professional reputation and besides anything else, if you lose him, who’s going to pay your wages?”

  We grinned back at him. It was difficult not to, and once Todd had finished sulking we climbed back into the cars for another run. This time, Todd was in the passenger seat, with Hofmann behind the wheel. Figgis swapped the order round, too, so that now we were the filling in the three-Audi sandwich, and then sent us back up the track to our starting point.

  Hofmann was a big lumbering figure, and his reactions just didn’t seem fast enough to evade Figgis and Blakemore’s trap, even though we all knew it was coming. Jan, behind us at the wheel of Rebanks’s car, did manage to zip past, but received the same criticism that Todd had.

  We went back and did it all again. And again.

  In fact, we went backwards and forwards a dozen times. I fared no better than the others. I was thankful when my turn was over, and I could relinquish control of the Audi to McKenna. Besides, he drove so badly it even made me look good. Romunstad’s rallying experience made him the star of the exercise.

  Getting back up the forest track to our starting point had become a race for most of the boys. They were treating it like their own personal closed stage, safe in the knowledge that they weren’t going to meet anyone coming the other way. Even the gradually encroaching fog hadn’t slowed them down, although visibility was worsening all the time.

  Declan was driving the lead car, and Hofmann was behind the wheel of ours, sticking to the Irishman’s tail like he was slipstreaming him. I daren’t look, but I was pretty sure that Craddock, at the wheel of the car behind us, was just as close to our rear bumper. We were approaching our turnaround point.

  “I dread to think what Major Gilby’s going to say,” I remarked loudly over the frantically revving engine, “if we prang all three cars at the same time.”

  In the front passenger seat, Todd turned round to grin at me. He opened his mouth, no doubt to make some smart alec reply, but if he actually spoke, I never heard it.

  At that moment we seemed to pick up the most enormous stone chip. It landed with a crack in the centre of the front windscreen, which split right the way across in both directions.

  Ahead of us, Declan’s brake lights blazed. Hofmann hit the brakes and the back end of Declan’s car at almost the same instant. The impact was a jarring crunch that threw me forwards against my jammed seatbelt, the diagonal jerking my shoulder. I saw the lead Audi flick out sideways off to the right of the track, bouncing down nose-first into the trees.

  If I’d had the time to think about it, I would have put the accident down to sheer bad driving. It was only when Declan’s car was out of the way that I saw the familiar black Peugeot sideways across the track less than fifty metres in front, blocking the way.

  Behind it stood four men with machine pistols, their muzzles flashing like strobes as they fired at us.

  Hofmann suddenly went into overdrive. He spun the wheel over to the left and grabbed for the handbrake without having to be told. The move would have been textbook if it hadn’t been for the car behind. Craddock rammed the Audi’s rear wing just as we started to swing round.

  Our car flipped over, still travelling at speed. My world went haywire and turned upside down. I wrapped my arms round my head as the side window nearest to me crazed and shattered, showering me with chunks of glass. Sticks and leaves and stones were scooped inside as we scraped along the forest track on our roof.

  It seemed to take a long time before we came to a stop. The floormat had dropped onto my feet, trapping them in the footwell and for a moment I panicked. I released my seatbelt without thinking about it, dropping painfully into the roof of the car in a tangle of arms and legs. Beside me, Elsa was moving groggily, bleeding from a cut on her forehead. McKenna was hanging slumped alongside her, not moving.

  In the front Hofmann was uninjured, but the windscreen pillars had folded down slightly, encroaching on his position, and his size meant he was struggling to get free. He was wrenching at the steering wheel, heaving at it with enough strength to set the car rocking.

  The smell of petrol burned the back of my throat. Behind me I could hear the fuel pump still whining, even though the engine had stalled. It was Todd who reached over and switched off the ignition.

  “Is everybody OK?” he demanded.

  From somewhere above us came the rattle of automatic gunfire. I flinched and thought of the petrol. The desire to get out of that car was overwhelming. I bit down hard on it.

  Hofmann had managed to bend the bottom edge of the steering wheel almost double. He pulled his legs free, swivelled in his seat, and kicked the buckled driver’s door so hard it exploded open.

  Todd grabbed his arm. “Wait,” he said. “Where are they?”

  I ducked down and peered out through my side window. After he’d punted us up the rear end, Craddock had brought the last Audi to a halt about five metres behind us, slanted across the track. Figgis, who’d been with him, was out of the car holding a Beretta twelve-bore pump-action shotgun. As I watched, he jacked the first round into the chamber, brought the butt up to his shoulder, and fired. I don’t know what kind of slugs he had in that thing, but the noise was incredible.

  The men from the Peugeot weren’t expecting an armed response. They ducked back behind their car.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got some covering fire.”<
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  My door wouldn’t open, but the broken window was plenty big enough to squeeze out of if you were determined you could do it. Elsa followed me out and we dodged round to the other side to help Hofmann drag McKenna clear. By the time Todd was out of the car, one of the school SIGs had appeared in his hand and he looked itching to use it.

  We ran back behind Figgis’s car, keeping low. I looked across to where the first Audi had taken a nose-dive into the trees. The occupants had all managed to scramble out and now they fell back to join us. It was getting crowded back there, but I was amazed to discover that nobody had been seriously injured in the pile-up.

  “Keep the bastards pinned down,” Todd shouted.

  “I’m doing my best,” Figgis said with surprising calm. He let off another shot, exploding the rear tyre of the Peugeot and peppering the wing.

  “What the hell are Blakemore and O’Neill doing?” Todd snapped. “Can’t they hear this lot going down?”

  One of the shooters popped up from behind the front end of the Peugeot and let loose another burst. The gun was short, similar to an IMI Mini-Uzi, but with a bulky foregrip just under the business end of the barrel. I didn’t recognise the make and didn’t feel inclined to spend time finding out.

  “We have to get into the forest,” Jan said curtly. “With this mist we can find better cover there.”

  Todd, Rebanks and Figgis exchanged glances, then nodded. “When I give the signal,” Rebanks said, tense, “we all scatter, OK?”

  “Who are these people?” Elsa asked, her face dead white. “Why are they shooting at us?” Nobody bothered to answer.

  Hofmann picked up McKenna, who was starting to come round, but was still groggy. Rebanks drew a SIG from inside his jacket and cocked it. Did the instructors go armed at all times, I wondered, or had they just been expecting trouble today?

  “OK, now!” Rebanks shouted. The three of them jumped up, firing, and the rest of us ran for the trees.

  We ran in an outward dispersal pattern. I ended up on the extreme left, a lot closer to the ambush than I would have liked. I resisted the urge to run directly away from the gunmen. Too many of us clumped together presented too tempting a target.

  As it was I heard the high-pitched whine of several rounds whistling past me and thunking into the surrounding tree trucks. My imagination placed them closer than reality, but I tried not to think about that.

  It wasn’t a new experience to be faced with people shooting at me. Still, this time they hadn’t been sent with the express purpose of killing me. At least, I hoped not.

  A revving engine made me glance back over my shoulder. I’d come maybe a hundred and fifty metres from the ambush site, and already the fog was making the view back dusty and faint. I slowed, jumped over a fallen trunk, and crouched down behind it. As I watched, another of the school Audis slithered to a halt behind Craddock’s car and Blakemore and O’Neill jumped out of it. O’Neill was holding another Beretta twelve-bore. He hung the gun round the front of the Audi and pumped three fast rounds into the front end of the Peugeot. The tyres blew out immediately and the car collapsed down onto its rims.

  The four gunmen must have realised by this time that the balance of power had begun to swing against them. The arrival of the second shotgun tipped it altogether. One of them jumped back into the car and tried to start the engine. Blakemore, Todd and Rebanks started pouring shots into the front screen, while Figgis and O’Neill pounded the engine bay with the Berettas.

  Within moments there was a small explosive woof as leaking fuel was ignited by the spark from the car’s own ignition system. The driver abandoned his efforts and dived out as the flames started to lick around the edges of the bonnet. The four of them fled into the forest.

  The other three must have gone in the opposite direction, but I didn’t see where. The driver, on the other hand, was heading straight for my location, pausing every half a dozen strides or so to rake the trees behind him with automatic fire.

  I ducked down out of sight, adrenaline coursing through my body, shouting at me to get out of there, fast. It was much harder to stay put than to run, but right now I was fairly well hidden and I knew it was my best option. That didn’t mean I had to like it. I glanced round, and my eye lighted on a weighty branch close by. I carefully eased it within reach, and waited.

  Blakemore came pounding through the forest on the driver’s tail, unheeding of the bursts of fire splintering the trees around him. I was reminded strongly again of Sean. That head-down sheer bloody-minded determination.

  Blakemore was firing as he ran, keeping the SIG out in front of him. Even so, it was luck more than judgement that he winged the driver in the right arm as he hurdled a pile of logs. I suspect that he was aiming square for the centre of his body.

  With a yell of pain the driver let go of the machine pistol and stumbled, going down on his knees less than ten metres from my position. Before he could rise again, Blakemore was on him.

  He lifted the man off the ground and slammed him back against the nearest tree.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” he demanded.

  When the man didn’t answer, Blakemore reached down and gripped him hard round his bicep, digging in cruelly to the leaking wound with his thumb. I saw the driver’s body twist with pain, but still he wouldn’t speak.

  Frustration bloomed across Blakemore’s face. He brought the SIG up and shoved the barrel into the other man’s mouth. The driver’s eyes widened as his head was forced back, smacking into the trunk behind him. The raised foresight dug into his palate, burning him, drawing blood.

  “You’ll speak now or you’ll never speak again,” Blakemore hissed.

  Something in his eyes told me he wasn’t kidding. The instructor had the flat cool eyes of someone who could take a life without sweating over it and still look himself in the mirror every morning afterwards.

  I knew what it was to take a life, but there wasn’t a day went past when I didn’t wish the circumstances had been different. That didn’t mean I couldn’t do it again, but I wouldn’t go deliberately looking for the opportunity, either.

  I stood up. Blakemore’s head snapped round to face me, and didn’t relax when he saw who it was.

  “Charlie,” he said, not shifting the SIG from the driver’s mouth. “Get out of here.”

  I knew what he was telling me to do, but I wouldn’t play. Instead I stepped over my protective log and moved forwards to pick up the man’s machine pistol from where it had fallen. It was surprisingly lightweight and with the stock retracted it seemed shorter than the nine-mil SMGs I’d fired in the army. I settled the gun in my hands and pointed it in Blakemore’s direction. He didn’t look surprised about it.

  “Either let the police deal with him, or let him go,” I said. “I’m not going to stand by and watch you commit murder.”

  Blakemore snorted. “What do you think this bastard and his mates were trying to do to you?”

  I didn’t answer, just stood there and kept the gun steady. After a moment Blakemore removed the SIG from the driver’s mouth, looking disgusted with himself that he’d been manoeuvred into doing so, and straightened up.

  The man didn’t need telling twice that this was his chance. He started to scrabble away, but before he’d got far Blakemore leaned down and grabbed his coat collar, pushing his face close and speaking in fast, almost garbled German. Then he shoved the man aside and moved towards me, not even bothering to watch the driver’s frantic, lurching escape into the mist-shrouded trees.

  Blakemore took the machine pistol out of my hands carefully, as though he still wasn’t quite sure if I was going to shoot him with it. I let him take it because my brain couldn’t think of a good enough reason to stop him. I jerked my head to indicate the rest of the instructors.

  “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

  He sighed. “Come on,” he said, side-stepping my question. “We need to find the others. Make sure nobody’s hurt.”

>   I stood for another few seconds, my feet rooted, then I followed his lead. All the time I was searching through little-used areas of my memory, piecing together a ragged translation of Blakemore’s rapid words to the driver of the Peugeot.

  My German vocabulary came back to me with painful slowness. When I thought I’d got all the words I didn’t believe the sense I’d made of them, so I went back and checked them again.

  By the time we were back at the crash site I knew I hadn’t made a mistake about what Blakemore had said.

  The other students and instructors gradually congregated near the three remaining Audis that were relatively undamaged. I could tell straight away the ones who’d been under fire before. They were taking the whole thing much better than those who’d been civilians all their lives.

  O’Neill was one of the last to regroup. He came sauntering in with the Beretta resting on his shoulder like a machete. He nodded at the machine pistol Blakemore was holding. “Did you get one of them?”