HARD KNOCKS: Charlie Fox book three

by Zoe Sharp

Scorched and wounded, we were just aiming to score points. It was the way I’d feared it might go when I’d walked through the possibilities of coming clean with Sean, of telling him everything. It was precisely why I’d never had the courage to do so.

  My temper subsided, leaving me hollow and shaky in its wake. “They didn’t cut me,” I said, weary myself now. “That happened last winter. Somebody tried for a repeat performance.”

  “What happened?” Sean said. There was an odd note in his voice, as though he’d realised what we’d been doing, too. I glanced at him, but could read nothing in his face.

  “They didn’t succeed,” I said, my voice flat.

  “So this is the final version of this story is it, Charlie?” he said softly. “No more nasty little surprises in store?”

  “No. No more surprises,” I said, bitter. “What is it, Sean? You think I let them do that to me. You think I—”

  “You were good enough to have stopped them, Charlie,” he said, close to vehement. He was staring out across the Manor grounds to the far tree-line, avoiding my gaze. “I know you were. You know you were. You were the best.”

  It sounded like a recommendation, but underneath it his ultimate lack of trust burned like a needle in my arm. I shook my head. “Not when it mattered I wasn’t. I froze up. I panicked, OK? And you forget – they knew exactly the same moves I did. Exactly the same counters. They were one step ahead of me all the way.”

  “I’ve seen you in action. You didn’t freeze up then.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I agreed, “but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then.” I paused, then offered quietly, “Maybe knowing exactly what the penalties are for failing makes it easier to be brave.”

  He turned so abruptly it almost made me start, moved in close. He put his hands on my shoulders tentatively, as though afraid I’d break. “I’m just so sorry that I wasn’t there for you, Charlie,” he said, and I realised that all his anger and revulsion had been directed inwards.

  The unexpected relief caught me off guard, crumbled me. Tears sprang into my eyes, rolled down my face. Sean took one look at them, gave a sound that might have been a sigh, and gathered me into his arms.

  Just briefly, I struggled against him, but he tightened his grip, almost crushing me. In the end I gave in and simply clung to him, my cheek pressing wetly against his shoulder.

  He held me so tight I could hardly breathe, but I didn’t care. We stood like that for what seemed like a long time, not speaking. The whole school and Gregor Venko’s private army could have descended on us, and still I doubt we would have broken apart.

  Eventually I felt Sean’s head lift, felt his chin graze against my hair.

  “I am. So. Damned. Sorry,” he said, and I heard the anguish ripping through his voice as I registered that he’d been masking his own overspill of emotion as much as my own.

  He let me go then, stepped back from me, letting his hands drop away as though he couldn’t bear to touch me any more. “And it’s not enough, is it? Not nearly enough to even begin to heal what you went through because of me.”

  A cold dismay clutched at me. Sean’s anger I could deal with, anything else terrified me. I reached forwards and grabbed his arm, spinning him to face me.

  “Either you take me as I am today Sean, or you get out of my life and you leave me alone,” I said, my voice low with feeling, close to breaking altogether. “Make a choice, because I won’t have half measures from you.”

  And with that I turned my back and stalked away from him, not knowing if I’d just opened up the future for us, or cut it off at the knees before it could even begin.

  ***

  I found I was heading for the back of the Manor and having started in that direction, I kept going. There were the customary gaggle of smokers on the terrace, stamping their feet as they cupped their cold hands around their cigarettes. A grabbed opportunity to feed their addiction before the next lesson.

  As usual, Elsa was among them, even though I’d never actually noticed her light up. I saw her head lift as soon as I rounded the corner of the house and she watched my progress from there intently, hurrying to intercept me as I climbed the terrace steps. Her eyes darted over my face.

  “So, Charlie, what is this between you and Mr Meyer?” she asked right away. Loudly.

  I cursed inwardly even as I forced a smile between stiff lips.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, playing for time so I could move closer, force her to lower her voice a little. Even so, it was clear we had the full attention of everyone present. Romundstad and Craddock had edged nearer with barely disguised curiosity.

  “Oh come on, Charlie,” Elsa said, recognising my stall for what it was and giving me an old-fashioned look from behind the tinted lenses of her glasses. One that said, clearly, you’re going to have to do better than that.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I said, shrugging. “I did a course he was instructing on once, in the army. From what I can remember he was a right bastard back then, too.”

  “But apart from that, you don’t know him?” she insisted.

  I could feel the jaws of the trap opening on either side of me, but she was leaving me nowhere to go but straight in between them. “Not especially, no. Why?”

  Elsa smiled, almost gently. “Hofmann has just seen the two of you having what would seem to be a very personal argument,” she said.

  Ah. OK, Fox, now get out of that. It wasn’t going to be an easy escape, either. Even the non-smokers had come out onto the terrace now, on their way to the range. They were instantly aware that they’d walked into an atmosphere you needed a chainsaw to cut through. Although they hadn’t been in at the start of this encounter, they certainly seemed set to stay around for its climax.

  I glanced around at the avid faces long enough to discomfort them, for their eyes to shift away, before I looked back at Elsa. “Maybe,” I said, calm, level, “I just take a very personal exception to letting anybody kick me around.”

  ***

  Elsa stayed a studious distance during the walk down to the armoury, where Figgis had taken charge of distributing the SIGs and speed-draw holsters to the lot of us. Most probably, she would have liked to have kept away from me after that, too, but fate in the form of O’Neill had other ideas.

  He led us to the outdoor range where we’d first practised our speed-draw drills, and announced that we would be working on threat-reaction exercises, and we’d be doing it in pairs. As he read off names down his list my heart dropped at the same rate.

  “Charlie,” O’Neill said, inevitably, flicking his eyes briefly in my direction, “you’ll be with Elsa.”

  We walked to our designated lane without making eye contact. I plonked my carry tray down onto the bench at the back and concentrated on loading the SIG’s magazine from the box of nine-mil rounds, keeping my head down. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Elsa doing the same. If the layout of the bench had allowed us to work with our backs to each other, we would have done it.

  By the time we were all loaded up and ready, Major Gilby hadn’t put in an appearance. Neither had Sean. No doubt they were taking advantage of having the remaining three instructors nursemaiding us to formulate their strategy over Gregor Venko. I couldn’t suppress a pang of churlish disappointment that I hadn’t been included in that briefing. After all, it was as much my neck on the block as theirs.

  I forced myself to concentrate on O’Neill’s words as he went through the drill. In turn each of us would play bodyguard to the other, he said. At a shouted signal we would assume an armed threat had been made to our principal. We would shield them with our body while retreating towards cover and firing at the target. He made it sound so simple. First lightly grease camel before passing it through eye of needle.

  We had half a dozen practice runs first, magazines out, stumbling over our own – and our partner’s – feet. Hoisting another person’s weight onto your back, one-handed, takes as much technique as brute strength. Romu
ndstad, in the next lane along to our left, seemed to have mastered it. Beyond him, Jan was swinging Declan over her shoulder with an ease that he couldn’t match when it was his turn, much to his clear discomfort. The likes of Hofmann and Craddock simply relied on their muscles.

  On the first of the real deal, Elsa grabbed me and managed to drag me away from the designated source of danger, jolting my tender ribcage with a roughness than might, or might not, have been deliberate on her part.

  The second time it was my turn. Todd’s bellowed warning sounded muted under the ear defenders we were all wearing. I grabbed a big handful of the German woman’s collar, twisted my body in front of hers as I started to turn, getting my hips under hers to lift her feet off the ground like I was going for a judo throw.

  I’d already drawn the SIG, acquired my target, and I squeezed the trigger with my arm still bent, feeling the gun kick in my hand. As I backed away I snapped off two more fast shots, my arm fully extended now. I knew before I’d fired them that they were good. That they would hit the target right in the centre, would be closely grouped.

  And then, behind me, Elsa jerked herself half out of my grasp and went dead weight. I’d taken such a firm grip on her collar that I couldn’t immediately disentangle myself. My only option was to go with her as she went down.

  We fell in a mess of arms and legs with me mainly on top, which saved me from further damage, but can’t have done Elsa much good. She gave a single low cry, little more than a loud gasp, as I landed on top of her. In trying desperately to stay light I inevitably made myself heavier. Sod’s law. I rolled away untidily onto my knees, wondering what the hell was wrong with her.

  Elsa was lying on her back, pupils dilated with shock, staring up at the sky. Her hands flapped weakly against the ground a couple of times, like the last beats of a drowning fish.

  I unsnapped the catch on her holster, yanked down the zip on her jacket. Underneath it she was wearing a black fleece and I opened the collar, trying to help her breathe. She didn’t speak, didn’t move her head, but her eyes flicked to mine, wide with panic and with pain. I ran both hands up her sides from waistband to armpit. My left one came away wet and sticky.

  A shadow loomed over me. Todd.

  “Made a mess of that one, didn’t you, Fox?” he sneered, and then he saw the blood on my hands.

  “If you can stop being a smart-arse for one fucking minute, get a medic,” I snapped. “She’s been shot.”

  O’Neill arrived at a run, carrying a medical pack. He moved me aside with the confident but slightly puzzled air of an actor who thought he’d already played this scene and isn’t sure if he should be improvising or sticking to the same script.

  Once he knelt by Elsa’s side, though, and saw the blood now staining the ground beneath her, he faltered, hands fluttering. In the end, it was Romundstad who took the half-opened field dressing from his nerveless fingers. Me who slit Elsa’s shirt and fleece open so we could see what we were dealing with.

  She’d been lucky. The bullet had struck her side, but at a shallow angle, ploughing a livid gouge along the groove between her lower ribs before exiting skin and clothing at her back. It was a flesh wound, little more. Bloody and dramatic rather than life-threatening, but it could clearly have been so much worse.

  Elbowing O’Neill aside completely, Romundstad packed the dressings along the course of the wound, wrapped them tightly to staunch the flow. He seemed to be coping so well that Todd and Figgis didn’t try to take over from him.

  One of them must have been in touch with the Manor as soon as the incident occurred, because Gilby appeared at this point, along with Sean, who went straight to Elsa’s side. The Major asked O’Neill for a prognosis, but grew quickly impatient with his vague replies.

  Romundstad handed over responsibility for Elsa’s immediate care to Sean with obvious relief. He got as far as one of the loading benches, which he slumped onto like a man who’s just unexpectedly run the hundred-metre sprint in a world record time. As he wiped the sweat from his bushy moustache, his bloodstained fingers were shaking.

  As for Elsa, Sean’s increase in pressure on the site of the wound provoked a moan of protest, but he didn’t let up. All the while he spoke to her quietly, letting his tone soothe as much as his words.

  “I think we need a rapid medevac, Major,” he said quietly over his shoulder, as polite and calm as though he was suggesting a choice of wine with dinner.

  Gilby nodded and pulled out his mobile phone, moving off to one side to bark orders into it in quick-fire German.

  It hit me right about then, in the lull after the action, that Elsa had actually been shot. It might have been an accident, but it could just as easily have been a calculated attempt at murder.

  The question was, was she the intended target, or was I?

  The rest of the students milled about, abruptly lost and directionless. Eventually it was Figgis who went round collecting up the SIGs for return to the armoury. It was only at this point that he realised we were one missing. Student plus firearm, that is.

  “Has anyone seen Miss King?” Figgis asked, anxious.

  No one answered. I cast back. Jan had been there on the terrace, listening unashamedly to my exchange with Elsa and she’d been behind me in the queue when the SIGs were handed out.

  Then I’d seen her expertly manhandling Declan in the next but one lane to mine. The next lane but one to the left, I recalled. Mind you, Romundstad had been positioned on that side of me, too, as had Hofmann.

  I allowed my gaze to skim over both men. Romundstad was still looking dazed, but Hofmann’s expression was harder to read. Grim, masked. If I’d had to put an emotion on him at that moment, I would have gone for a deep and abiding anger.

  The Major finished his phone call and started organising us into search parties, claiming that Jan might have wandered off suffering from shock. It was clear he didn’t believe this supposition any more than we did, but none of us felt inclined to stand around and argue the point with him.

  I started off with the others, but Gilby called me back.

  “You were closest to Frau Schmitt,” he said. “Perhaps you have some idea what might have happened?”

  But before I could answer Figgis came running from the direction of the armoury. He wasn’t a natural athlete, his anatomy more suited to being behind the wheel of a car than on his feet. The sight of his ungainly frame at full pelt was all the more alarming because of that.

  “Sir,” he said breathlessly to Gilby as he reached us, his face ashen, “I think you’d better come quickly. There’s something you need to see.”

  The Major shot Figgis a daggered glance and let out his breath in an annoyed spurt. “What is it man?” he snapped.

  Figgis’s long face screwed into discomfort. His eyes flipped from Gilby, to Sean, to me, and back again. He all but shuffled his feet.

  “Well sir—” He stopped, but decided there was no other way of saying it, regardless of who might be listening in. “It’s the boy, sir,” he blurted then. “He’s gone.”

  Twenty-four

  This time the Major didn’t exclude me from his war cabinet. He would have had a fight on his hands if he’d tried.

  So, I found myself back in the same chair in his study that I’d taken after Venko’s departure. Was it really only a few hours ago? At least, I realised, my body seemed to be aching less than it had done then. I was either working through the stiffness, or I was going numb.

  “Well I still don’t like it, sir,” Todd said on a growl. “It seems a mite too convenient that he arrives, and the next moment the kid’s snatched from under our noses.” He glared, taking in both Sean and me in the same sweep. “How do we know we can trust either of them?”

  “We don’t have a choice – not now,” Gilby said. He was slumped in his chair behind the desk. Defeat gave him a sulky air.

  Figgis and O’Neill were sitting on the far side of the room, as though trying to put distance between us. Sean was standing lea
ning against the wall by the window. He’d never liked to sit when there was something going on. It was the only give-away to his inner restlessness, but anyone who didn’t know him would not have doubted his calm at this moment.

  I studied the thoughtful set of his face, trying to read what was revolving behind those liquid dark eyes. It wasn’t easy.

  Despite everything that had happened since, I couldn’t help myself going back to our last conversation. I sweated at the realisation that I’d thrown down an ultimatum, a take-it-or-leave-it flat choice, to a man who wouldn’t be bullied or cajoled into making any decision. Had I blown it?

  I looked away, flushed with a sudden guilt that I could be wondering about my relationship with Sean amid all this chaos and bloodshed. The truth was, I couldn’t help it. I craved some small sign of his acceptance of my past, my failings, like an addict craves the reassuring twist of foil. Logic just didn’t come into it.