Bodyguard (Bodyguard 5)

by Chris Bradford

  ‘Confess, traitor!’ said the voice once more.

  Inside the hood Feliks hadn’t heard the voice clearly, but now he recognized it … Stas!

  His tormentor stepped out of the shadows, Vadik to his right, the high-powered spring-loaded staple gun primed like a real automatic weapon. Alexei, Zak and Gleb hung round too, vampires to the brutal interrogation.

  ‘Do it!’ Stas ordered.

  With a sadistic grin, Vadik pressed the staple gun to the side of Feliks’s neck and pulled the trigger.

  Feliks’s eyes flared wide. The heavy-duty staples felt like red-hot pins being driven through his skin. He let out an almighty scream, only for it to be smothered by the rag.

  ‘CONFESS!’ Stas repeated. The word sounded like a hammer blow to Feliks each time.

  Feliks tried to talk, but all that came out was a muffled whimper.

  With an amused smirk, Stas pulled out the gag. ‘Are you ready to confess?’

  ‘W-w-what do you want me to confess to?’ Feliks spluttered.

  ‘Boris’s accident,’ said Stas. ‘We know he was pushed. We know you arranged it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talk–’

  Stas rammed the rag back in and Vadik raised the staple gun again.

  ‘Put a staple in his eye,’ ordered Stas.

  Vadik looked twice at his friend. ‘Are you sure –’

  ‘Do as I order.’

  Vadik shrugged and lined up the gun.

  ‘Hold on! Aren’t you going a bit far, Stas?’ questioned Gleb. He and Alexei both looked uncomfortable at the direction the interrogation was taking.

  Stas glared at him. ‘Do I need to remind you that Boris still has his leg in a cast?’ he snapped. ‘This little runt Feliks has got to admit his guilt. Then justice can be served and we can punish him for his crime.’

  As Vadik approached, gun in hand, Feliks struggled wildly in the chair, whipping his head from side to side, trying to shift out of the line of fire.

  ‘Gleb, hold his head,’ Stas ordered. When Gleb didn’t move, he barked, ‘Now!’

  Reluctantly, Gleb took Feliks’s head in his hands. But he needed Alexei’s help.

  As the dark line of the staple gun’s mouth drew closer and closer, Feliks clamped his eyelids shut, yelling and screaming through his gag. Hoping against hope they wouldn’t really do it.

  Then he felt fingers prising his eyelids open. And he knew they would.

  ‘He’s in the boiler room!’ said Connor, rushing to the door and yanking on the handle.

  But the door wouldn’t budge.

  A voice they knew only too well demanded, ‘This is your last chance … CONFESS!’

  Through a narrow grimy window at knee-height, Connor spotted Stas looming over the sorry figure of their Principal bound to a chair and bleeding. Vadik held a staple gun levelled at Feliks’s right eye.

  ‘They’re torturing him!’ cried Anastasia. ‘You’ve got to stop them!’

  Jason now leant his weight against the door. In the basement Feliks looked like he was desperately trying to speak and Stas pulled a rag from his mouth.

  ‘OK, OK, I confess!’ Feliks blabbed, tears running down his cheeks. ‘I got my bodyguard Timur to rough Boris up … but the way he treated me at the club, he deserved it!’

  Stas crossed his arms in triumph. ‘And you, Feliks, deserve a bit more face control. Vadik, staple back his ears!’

  Together Connor and Jason barged their shoulders against the door. It grated open a fraction. They charged once more and the three of them rushed inside.

  ‘STOP!’ Connor shouted as Vadik pressed the staple gun to Feliks’s ear.

  Vadik glanced up, sneering. ‘Your guardian angels are too late, Feliks.’

  The staple gun kechunked and planted its metal prongs into Feliks’s right earlobe, pinning it to his skull. Feliks let out a wail of pain.

  Jason bounded down the stairs and rugby-tackled Vadik. The two of them went flying, the staple gun skittering across the concrete floor. Connor was right behind him, charging over to protect Feliks.

  But the mop-haired Alexei stepped into his path. The boy had picked up a piece of steel pipe from a toolbox and now swung it at Connor’s head. Connor barely ducked in time and was forced to retreat as Alexei lashed out with the pipe.

  Anastasia darted forward to rescue Feliks, but was grabbed from behind by the meat mountain Gleb. She struggled wildly in his iron grip. Meanwhile Jason and Vadik wrestled on the ground. Then Vadik managed to pin Jason down and began pounding him in the face with his fist.

  ‘Time to break your nose now!’ he snarled.

  Stas watched the melee with ruthless glee. ‘No mercy, boys. They’re as guilty as this traitor.’

  Stas punched the bound Feliks in the gut. Feliks doubled over in his chair. Wild-eyed and gasping for breath, he could only watch as his rescuers were beaten to a pulp.

  Cornered by Alexei, Connor wished he had the XT torch with him. But it was still in his Go-bag in the common room. Connor caught a glancing blow to his left arm, the pain jolting like an electric stun gun. Then Alexei took an overhead swing at his head. Connor raised his other arm to protect himself, bracing himself for a broken bone. But the tip of the pipe smashed into an overhead duct instead, and a geyser of scorching steam gushed into the room.

  With Alexei distracted by the steam, Connor dived forward, ramming his shoulder into his attacker’s midriff. The boy let out a pained gasp and Connor propelled Alexei into the boiler behind. Then, as if he was back in the kickboxing ring, Connor drove his fist in a ferocious upper cut, catching Alexei under the jaw. The boy’s head rocked back, his eyes rolled in their sockets and he collapsed to the floor. The pipe clattered away under the boiler.

  Connor turned to help the others. Through the haze of steam he saw that Jason was still locked in a vicious brawl with Vadik. His bottom lip was split, his nose bleeding and his left eye swollen, but at least he’d wriggled out of the pin-down. Meanwhile Gleb had lifted Anastasia off the ground and was crushing the breath from her in a bear hug. But she was still fighting on. Snapping her head back, she smashed Gleb on the bridge of the nose. He staggered under the impact and Anastasia slipped free of his grip. Then she roundhouse-kicked him in the thigh.

  Realizing that Anastasia could handle her own battle, Connor rushed to release Feliks, only to be confronted by Stas.

  ‘Get out of my way,’ warned Connor.

  ‘Never mess with a Russian,’ Stas replied. Out of nowhere he pulled a flick-knife. The blade swiped through the air, its tip flashing like lightning.

  Connor leapt back as the steel sliced across his chest. Its razor edge cut the front of his school shirt to shreds … but thankfully the stab-proof fabric of his T-shirt beneath stopped the blade going any further. Stas slashed again. This time the knife hit Connor’s left forearm. With nothing to protect him, the blade lacerated his bare skin. His arm still numb from the pipe attack, Connor hardly felt the cut, but blood ran freely from the wound.

  Stas advanced, the blade flicking out like the stinger of a scorpion.

  It’s not knife defence. It’s knife survival. His instructor’s words of warning came back to Connor as he ducked, dived and dodged to avoid the lethal blade.

  Seize, Strike and Subdue.

  As Stas thrust at his stomach, Connor stepped swiftly to one side and grabbed the outstretched arm. Spinning into Stas’s body, Connor put him into an armlock and wrenched hard on the elbow joint to force him to let go of the knife. But Stas clung on. In their tussle for control, they lurched round the room, banging into the boiler, then the pipes, then the wall. Stas was strong and Connor was fast losing his grip. After enduring two fights and with an injured arm, his chances of surviving this brawl were low. As they rebounded off a wall and passed beneath the damaged pipe, in a last desperate effort to disarm him, Connor shoved Stas’s hand into the blistering hot steam. Stas screamed and dropped the knife. Then Connor hit him in the jaw with a spinning elbow-strike
. The boy fell to his knees, dazed and clutching his scalded hand.

  Seize, Strike and Subdue!

  And Anastasia had subdued Gleb. Pinned against the wall, his face screwed up in agony, the boy was begging her to stop as she drove a knuckle into the base of his neck. Connor couldn’t help smiling: she was targeting a particularly excruciating kyusho nerve point. The girl had some serious martial arts skills! Meanwhile, Jason had managed to put Vadik in a sleeper hold until the boy passed out in his arms.

  Panting hard, Jason joined Connor in the middle of the room. The basement looked like a war zone, bodies lying everywhere.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Jason, nodding at Connor’s arm.

  A quick inspection confirmed the cut wasn’t deep, but it still stung like hell. ‘I’ll live,’ Connor said. ‘How about you?’

  Jason sucked at his split lip and tentatively touched his bleeding nose and bruised eye. ‘Pretty decent war wounds, I’d say.’

  ‘Hey, is someone going to free me?’ demanded Feliks.

  Retrieving Stas’s flick-knife, Connor cut his bonds. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  Feliks shook him off, strode over to Stas and kicked him in the gut. Groaning, Stas curled into the foetal position as Feliks kicked him again, before picking up the staple gun. ‘Hold him down,’ Feliks ordered, a sadistic grin twisting his thin lips. ‘Let’s see how he likes being staple-gunned!’

  Connor shook his head. ‘No, Feliks! I know you’re angry and hurting. But that isn’t the way to solve this.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but it will make me feel better.’ Feliks held the staple gun to Stas’s forehead and fired.

  Stas howled in agony, blood springing from the two puncture wounds. Then Feliks grabbed him by the hair and forced the gun to his lips. ‘Now his big mouth!’

  As Connor moved to stop Feliks, a voice bellowed, ‘What the hell is going on down here?’

  Connor turned to see the oil-stained figure of the school’s caretaker at the top of the stairs, his face a thunderstorm of fury and outrage.

  Stas stared down at the bearskin rug at his feet, the two staple holes in his forehead witness to the flush of bitter shame rising in his cheeks. His father sat stiff in his leather armchair in the mansion’s oak-panelled study, his hands clenching the armrests so hard he looked like he might rip them off.

  ‘I-I-I’m sorry, P–’

  ‘Speak up!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Papa, but it wasn’t my fault. We were –’

  A brutal slap across his face cut him off mid-sentence.

  ‘I don’t want excuses,’ snapped his father, the man’s deep-set eyes blazing with fury. ‘Suspended! Maybe even expelled! That isn’t what’s expected of the son of the Director of the FSB.’

  Stas’s cheek stung like fire and his head rang. He swallowed hard, trying to hold back the hot rush of tears. He knew from bitter experience that crying would do him no good. That would just result in another beating. Much as Stas admired his father, he was a man to be feared. One who punished rather than praised. As he so often reminded Stas, he hadn’t risen to the top of the FSB security agency by being soft or weak-minded.

  ‘I gave you a simple job to do,’ said his father, his tone dangerously even. ‘How come you failed me?’

  Stas looked up, angry defiance in his eyes. ‘I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. I’ve bullied Feliks, spread rumours, isolated him at school, even tortured him. The boy was broken!’

  ‘I’m not talking about that,’ said his father dismissively. ‘Your prime mistake was to get caught.’

  His father shook his head in dismay. ‘If you’re to follow in my footsteps, you’ll have to cover your tracks better than that. Now I have to mop up your mess! Clear our name and our connection to this debacle.’

  Stas held his father’s glare. ‘We wouldn’t have been caught if it wasn’t for his stupid cousins!’

  His father frowned. ‘His cousins?’

  Stas nodded. ‘They’re martial arts experts of some sort, even that new girl. We stood no chance.’

  His father leant forward in his chair, suddenly interested. ‘Tell me everything you know about these so-called cousins.’

  Stas began listing his observations, when his mother entered the study. A short, plump woman with curly brown hair, she was the complete opposite to her husband – warm, gentle and caring.

  ‘Stas, my boy, dinner’s ready,’ she said, her joyful smile wilting as she noted the red mark on her son’s cheek. She turned to her husband. But years of living with the man had taught her not to intervene in such matters. ‘Will you be joining us for dinner?’

  His father gave a single nod.

  ‘That makes a nice change,’ said his mother, her tone light. But Stas understood the insinuation in her reply. His father had been spending one too many nights away from home.

  ‘By the way, the office called,’ his mother added as she led Stas towards the dining room. ‘Your assistant says a banker has been found murdered in the Khimki Forest. An FSB agent has been assigned and is looking into it. He believes it’s a Bratva hit job.’

  His father swore under his breath. ‘That’s all I need, what with Viktor Malkov’s rally happening tomorrow!’

  His mother shook her head in sympathetic dismay. ‘The Bratva certainly make life difficult for you, my dear.’

  His father rose from his chair. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, but I will have to check it out.’

  ‘What, now?’ his mother exclaimed. ‘What about dinner?’

  His father let out a weary sigh. ‘You’re right. The dead banker is going nowhere. I’ll deal with it in the morning.’

  ‘Look at the crowds!’ said Feliks, pointing with glee to the masses gathered in Triumfalnaya Square for the Our Russia rally. ‘They’ve all come to see my father.’

  This was the first time Connor had witnessed Feliks truly smile since his assault in the boiler room the previous day. Perhaps even since the start of the operation. His humiliation and torture at the hands of Stas and Vadik had left Feliks more morose than ever and in desperate need of a boost in self-esteem. A situation made worse due to their suspension from school pending further investigation – and the possibility of expulsion hanging over them, even for Stas and Vadik.

  But for now the brutal battle in the boiler room seemed a world away from the cheering chaos of the rally, and it was obvious Felix was not only proud of his father but bolstered by his father’s popularity too. Yet harsh reminders of the incident could be seen on all of them. Feliks was dotted with plasters on his hands, arms, ears and neck. And though Jason had managed to escape having his nose broken, he looked like he’d been in a car crash, with a black eye, swollen lip and bruised cheek. Connor had his left arm bandaged, the knife cut superficial yet painful. Anastasia had got off the lightest with just a few bruised ribs and Connor guessed the worst for her was the threat of expulsion.

  They all stood together on one side of a scaffolded stage, sheltered behind a tower of speakers. The throng of faces and waving flags stretched in all directions, filling the square and spilling over into the nearby streets. Dominating the centre of the demonstration stood the resolute and imperious statue of the famous Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. And at the far end of the square, rising up like a Soviet rocket, was the sand-coloured facade of the Peking Hotel with its neo-Gothic clock tower and golden spire.

  Connor scanned the crowd. He quickly spotted the FSB agent with the bob of dark hair, trying to blend in with the Our Russia supporters. But he was careful not to show any recognition, wanting to maintain the small advantage he now had over her. The other people around her appeared to be genuine supporters. There was a heavy police presence in the square and Malkov’s security team guarded the stage. While Viktor was the prime target for an attack at the rally, Connor knew that Feliks was at risk too – no more proof was needed than the two attempts at the ice rink and Red Square, first to kidnap him, then to kill him. It would have been far safer for him to stay at the
mansion, but there’d been no way Feliks was going to miss his father’s rally.

  Timur stood close, the big man packing a concealed MP-9. Jason was on equally high alert, having learnt his lesson the previous day. So Connor got no arguments this time when he told him to take point. In fact Jason was following all his orders without a single complaint. In their debrief to HQ over Feliks’s abduction, Connor had left out his partner’s failure to keep watch over their Principal, for which Jason was grateful. He knew he’d failed in his duty and clearly appreciated Connor covering for him.

  ‘I wish my parents could see this,’ said Anastasia, gazing in wonder at the vast crowd. ‘So many people taking a stand against corruption.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ll see it on TV,’ Feliks suggested.

  ‘That’s if the state media doesn’t censor the coverage,’ said his father with a wry grin. ‘Even if they do, though, news of this rally will spread through our supporters.’

  Viktor put an arm round his son, obviously enjoying the mass of people chanting his name to the wintry sky. ‘This is what it’s all about, Feliks,’ he said. ‘Planting the thought of freedom in people’s minds. Watering it with words, and letting the seed grow. Until it blossoms into something great and powerful.’

  Viktor looked his son in the eye. ‘And when I’m in power, no one will dare touch you again. Not even the son of the FSB Director!’

  Feliks gazed at his father in awe and admiration.

  Dmitry approached. ‘We’re all set to go,’ he informed Viktor. ‘But I still have concerns.’

  Viktor smiled. ‘What do you have to be concerned about, my friend? Just look at the support we have. This is a true turning point in Russian history.’

  ‘I too want to make history, but not at the expense of your life,’ said Dmitry gravely.

  Viktor frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Dmitry glanced in the direction of Timur, then lowered his voice. ‘Without Lazar overseeing the team, security isn’t as tight as I’d like.’