“PAL?” asked Connor, having never heard of such a martial art style.
“Pain-assisted learning,” replied his instructor with a wicked grin.
Asking Ling to step aside, he stood in front of Connor. Holding out a muscular arm, he gently fended Connor off with his fingertips.
“Have you heard of Bruce Lee’s one-inch punch?”
Connor nodded.
“Well, this is the one-inch push.”
With barely more than a flick of his wrist, Steve palmed Connor in the chest. Taken completely by surprise, Connor staggered backward and then collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. A concussive wave of pain spread through his lungs, and his chest felt as if it had imploded.
“Effective, isn’t it?” commented Steve, helping him back to his feet.
Rubbing his chest, Connor managed a small grunt of acknowledgment. These skills were on a totally different level from his kickboxing and jujitsu training.
While Connor recovered, Steve explained the workings of the technique. “Like a coiled-up spring, you drive your body weight through your arm and into the person’s chest. This move can be as powerful as a punch, but you appear to be doing hardly anything. So, if your victim complains, what are they going to say?” Steve put on a whiny, petulant voice. “He pushed me, Officer!”
The class laughed. Then, putting on chest pads, they began practicing the two techniques on one another. Connor was partnered with Jason.
“That looked like it really hurt,” said Jason with the trace of a smile.
“Felt like he cracked a rib,” Connor replied, still rubbing his chest.
“Well, I’d better let you go first, then. Give you time to recover.”
Connor got the distinct impression that Jason was implying he was weak rather than making the offer out of any friendly concern. Just you wait, Connor thought, holding out his arm to fend off his partner.
Jason strode forward, seemingly utterly confident of overpowering Connor. Then he grimaced in pain and frustration as he failed to push past Connor’s finger.
“So it really does work!” he exclaimed.
“Oh yes, but not as much as this,” replied Connor, copying his instructor’s movements for the second attack. Letting his arm flex like a spitting cobra, he one-inch-pushed Jason in the chest.
Even with the protective pad, Jason grunted in shock and doubled over.
“I see . . . what you mean,” he groaned.
“Sorry,” said Connor, surprising even himself with the force of the strike.
“Don’t worry . . . mate,” said Jason, standing upright. “Now it’s my turn!”
Jason didn’t bother with the single-finger technique. He went straight to the one-inch push. Connor flew backward, barreling into two students from Delta team.
“I like this attack,” said Jason, cracking his knuckles. “Move over, Bruce Lee!”
Apologizing to the two recruits, Connor returned to face his partner. Although his chest throbbed madly, he tried not to show any pain.
“Not bad,” he wheezed—then one-inch-pushed Jason.
Jason fell flat on the floor. Gasping for breath, his face contorted in fury, he leaped to his feet and immediately took his turn, striking even harder this time. They continued to exchange pushes, their chests becoming more bruised and battered with every attempt to outdo each other. Then, without warning, their training suddenly escalated into a full-blown fight, and Connor found himself tussling with Jason on the gym floor.
Two meaty hands seized them by the scruffs of their necks and pulled them apart. Their instructor lifted them off the ground until they were at his eye level.
“Anger is only one letter away from danger,” Steve warned them sternly. “Control your anger. Otherwise anger will control you and you’ll lose focus. As a guardian, you want to fight smarter, not harder. Do you two understand?”
Chastened, Connor and Jason nodded in response.
“Good. Now shake up and make up,” Steve ordered.
Still dangling off the floor, Connor offered his hand to Jason. He had no idea who’d started the fight, but he knew the last thing he needed was an enemy on the team. “Sorry. Looks like we got a bit carried away.”
After a moment’s hesitation the other boy shook it. “No worries. At least we’ve battle-tested the technique!” he said, grinning.
With the apologies made, their instructor seemed satisfied and dropped them both to the ground.
“Well, now you’ve mastered the one-inch push,” he mocked. “We’ll finish with one last technique—the head twist.”
This time Steve selected a tall boy from Delta team for his demonstration.
“Again, there is very little to this defensive attack. That’s what makes it effective. Lift the chin, twist the head and simply push down.”
Steve grabbed the boy’s jaw and, in an effortless push and twist, made the boy collapse like a concertina.
“Basically, where the head goes, the body follows,” he explained.
Connor was impressed—the move used the same principles as jujitsu in exploiting the weaknesses of the human body. With it, he should be able to take anyone down in a few seconds.
“That’s fine if you’re similar heights. But how’s Charley going to manage that one?” questioned Amir, referring to her using a wheelchair.
Before Steve could answer, Charley rolled her chair over Amir’s toes. He squealed in pain. She punched him in the stomach and he doubled over. Then she grabbed his head and twisted him to the ground.
“Very easily,” replied Charley as Amir lay bowed and defeated at her feet.
16
Connor looked into the athletic wear store window on the second floor of Cardiff’s Queens Arcade. He barely noticed the display of Nike sneakers on sale. Instead, his eyes were focused on the reflection in the glass. A steady stream of people was passing behind him. Most, if not all, were innocent shoppers. But among that Saturday crowd someone was following him. He didn’t know who yet, but he was determined to find out.
Walking on, Connor headed down the escalator to the ground level of the shopping center. He crossed the polished tiled floor and stopped beside the information sign. Pretending to be lost, he examined the map, then casually glanced around. As his eyes swept the atrium, he scanned the faces of the people descending the escalator: a blond-haired woman in a green jacket . . . a harassed-looking mother clasping her toddler’s hand . . . two teenage girls plastered with eyeliner and lipstick . . . a man on his phone—
Hadn’t he seen that face before?
The square jaw. The broad nose. The deep-set eyes. Although Connor couldn’t be certain, he thought he’d noticed the man earlier while browsing in the video-game store.
Connor decided not to hang around. He headed along the central concourse toward the south exit. All the while he kept his eye on reflections in the plate-glass windows. Twice he caught glimpses of the square-jawed man. But was the man actually following him or just innocently leaving by the same route?
To test his hunch, Connor stopped outside a fashion store. After a few paces, the man paused at a newsstand and began studying the papers. Connor felt his pulse quicken. This could be pure coincidence still, but the man’s behavior seemed increasingly suspicious. He was leafing through the newspapers without really looking at them. At the same time he was mumbling to himself—or perhaps into a concealed radio?
Connor now needed to prove beyond a doubt that this individual was on his tail. But he didn’t want to alert the man that he suspected anything. That would scare him off—and then Connor might never find out who this person was or why he was following him. He glimpsed a gold stud in the man’s right ear and made a mental note of it. Then he headed for the exit.
When he reached the glass doors, he held them open to let a woman with a stroller through, and took the oppor
tunity to subtly check behind him.
The concourse was busy with shoppers. But the man was nowhere in sight.
Maybe all this bodyguard training is making me paranoid? Connor thought.
Stepping outside into the bright spring sunshine, he turned right to weave between the hordes of people milling along Queen Street. The air was filled with the shouts of street hawkers and the strumming of street musicians. A local bus roared by, sending up a cloud of diesel fumes.
Connor glanced at the time on his phone. He had five minutes before he was due to meet the others. Heading along the road, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was still being watched—though he realized that if anyone was following him now, it would be almost impossible to spot them among the crowds. What he needed was a quieter yet public area to draw the individual out into the open.
Up ahead, a blue sign pointed toward a parking garage. Perfect.
Connor checked for traffic, then crossed the road. As he reached the opposite curb, he heard the blast of a car horn. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the square-jawed man had narrowly missed being run over. Although Connor’s gaze was directly upon him, the man deliberately avoided eye contact by staring at a blond-haired woman in a red jacket and sunglasses standing at a bus stop. But Connor wasn’t fooled. This man was after him.
Quickening his pace, Connor turned right through a pedestrian walkway to the parking lot. His tail would have to follow him through the narrow alley—and if he did, Connor’s suspicions would be confirmed.
He was halfway across the parking lot, and still the man hadn’t appeared. Just as he thought he’d lost him, Connor spied the man standing by the ticket machine at the lot’s main entrance. Clearly out of breath from running, the man was pretending to look in his pockets for change. While he was distracted, Connor whipped out his phone and took a picture of him. With the evidence in his pocket, Connor ducked behind a van, intending to escape and return to the others. But a stocky man with a head as bald as a bowling ball stepped out and confronted him.
17
The man was chewing slowly on a stick of gum as he blocked Connor’s way.
“Did you get a good shot?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Connor, showing his phone to his surveillance tutor. “It was the square-jawed man with the gold stud in his right ear.”
Bugsy raised an eyebrow, mildly impressed. “And what about the woman who was following you? Did you take a photo of her too?”
Connor’s brow creased in puzzlement. “What woman?”
“The blonde in the green jacket.”
Connor vaguely remembered someone fitting that description, but couldn’t quite place where he’d seen her.
“What about the one in the red jacket and sunglasses?” asked Bugsy.
“You mean the woman by the bus stop?”
Bugsy nodded.
“No,” admitted Connor. “That was the first time I’d seen her.”
“They’re the same person,” revealed his surveillance tutor with a grin. “Just a reversible coat and sunglasses. It’s amazing how a simple disguise can be enough to fool the untrained observer. And a word of warning: women are far better chameleons than men in that regard.”
Charley and the rest of Alpha team appeared from behind the van.
“So how did Connor fare at anti-surveillance?” Bugsy asked them.
“Pretty good. For a first attempt,” said Amir, punching Connor lightly on the arm.
“He kept his techniques covert,” observed Marc. “Nice use of windows and natural looking around.”
Connor smiled, pleased by his friends’ compliments.
“Until he stared right at his tail in the main street, that is,” Jason was keen to point out. “That was overt. The guy knew he was onto him then.”
Connor hadn’t expected praise from Jason—and didn’t get any. Their relationship was still pretty frosty after their unarmed combat tussle the week before.
“But loads of people looked,” argued Ling. “That idiot almost got himself killed.”
“I think Connor was clever to use the alley as a ‘choke point,’” noted Charley.
“Agreed,” said Bugsy. “If any tail had followed him through, their surveillance would have been exposed. But he still failed to spot the woman.”
He pointed to a blue estate car two rows behind Connor. The blond-haired woman was behind the wheel. She gave Connor a teasing wave. Beside her sat the square-jawed man with the gold stud.
“You must remember that experienced operatives work in teams. There won’t be just one person following you or your Principal. And they’ll take turns to avoid detection.”
Connor nodded, his lesson learned. Bugsy had been training Alpha team in anti-surveillance techniques for the past week. He’d explained that any coordinated attack was always preceded by a period of surveillance. If that surveillance was detected early enough, the attack might be abandoned. The problem was spotting the operatives in the first place. And if the enemy was an organized terrorist group, then they would be highly trained and virtually impossible to detect.
“Criminals, terrorists and kidnappers look the same as everyone else,” Bugsy reminded them. “Men, women, young and old, any could be monitoring your Principal. Children—just like you—are also used as information gatherers. A skilled operative will be the ‘gray’ person, the one who blends into a crowd—so you have to suspect everyone.”
He popped another stick of chewing gum into his mouth before offering the packet around.
“The key to identifying surveillance is to force multiple sightings and unnatural behavior,” he explained, chewing voraciously. “Drop a piece of paper and see if anyone picks it up to examine it. Frequently change direction—although try to have a reason for doing that, because otherwise the technique is quite obvious. Get on a bus and jump off at the next stop.”
“You could use your smartphone to scan the area for Bluetooth devices,” suggested Amir. “If the same username pops up in two or more locations, then you’ve got a ping.”
Bugsy grinned as he chewed. “Now that’s a new trick!” he remarked, nodding appreciatively at his student. “In terms of unnatural behavior, look for people peering around corners, over stands or through doors and windows. Check for ‘mirroring’—if you cross the road, who else crosses the road? They’ll have some means of communication, so watch out for a clenched fist or mic switch. A vacant expression on a person can be a dead giveaway—they’re concentrating on a radio transmission. Fidgeting, talking to themselves or the avoidance of eye contact are all possible signs. Also be vigilant for handovers. If you suspect an individual, watch them closely but covertly. They may identify another operative by hand signals, eye contact or using a cell phone.”
Connor now realized that the square-jawed man’s stare at the blond-haired woman had been a blatant signal—and he’d missed it.
“Anti-surveillance is sometimes the only way to meet a threat and deter—or even survive—an attack,” Bugsy emphasized. “So stay in Code Yellow and keep your eyes peeled for repeated sightings. Remember: Once is happenstance. Twice is circumstance. Three times means enemy action.”
18
Hazim kept the submachine gun tucked into his shoulder as he crouched behind the rusting oil barrel. A soldier with a rifle emerged from behind a building to his left. Hazim squeezed the trigger. His weapon let loose a deafening barrage. The soldier was hit in quick succession by four body shots.
Almost immediately two more soldiers appeared. Kedar, who stood in the shelter of a nearby doorway, raked them with gunfire. Then a woman darted across from the opposite building. Hazim targeted her, but his initial burst of bullets missed. Hurriedly re-aiming, he fired again. The woman was winged twice in the hip before going down.
More enemies popped up. Hazim sprayed them in a deadly hail of gunfire, the submachine gun ja
rring against his shoulder like a jackhammer. His palms became sticky with sweat, and a red haze seized him as the gun thundered in his grip. He spun on a girl standing in a doorway. His bullets ripped through her too. Only too late did he realize his mistake as the teddy bear clasped in her arms was shredded into tatters.
“Cease fire!” barked Kedar.
Hazim took a trembling finger off the trigger. His breathing was rapid, and the air was tainted with the smell of burned gunpowder and hot metal.
“Good shooting,” commended Kedar, slapping Hazim on the back.
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to kill the girl,” replied Hazim. “I lost control.”
Kedar grinned. “It’s easily done. With one of those guns in your hand, you can feel invincible. But you must remain focused.”
Kedar reset the cardboard targets on the private shooting range and turned to the other men in the group.
“The Secret Service agents will be well armed and highly trained,” he warned them. “That’s why we must be capable of holding our own in a gun battle.”
He raised his compact submachine gun aloft. “But don’t worry, we’ll possess equal firepower and meet force with force.”
Kedar aimed at the farthest target on the range and planted a bullet straight between the figure’s eyes, before obliterating the target’s head.
19
The crack of a gunshot shattered the peace of the valley, sending a flock of startled birds into the sky.
“RUN!” bawled Amir into Connor’s ear.
Roughly seized by the shoulder, Connor was spun around and shoved in the direction opposite of the shooter. Amir was directly behind him, holding his body close to shield Connor from the threat. Like some mad three-legged race, they sprinted across the field for the safety of a stone wall.
“Keep going,” ordered Amir, gripping him tightly.
Bodyguard--Recruit (Book 1) Page 7
