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

by Rob Aspinall

  “Exit stage left after the next tunnel,” Inge said.

  I looked ahead. Saw a tunnel burrowing its way in the side of the mountain. The drop into the valley had disappeared. High walls of rock and rubble either side. But beyond the tunnel, there were a series of bridges at regular intervals. A chance to bug out and take flight.

  We passed through the tunnel. Everything dark. Static in my ear. We broke into the daylight. The front of the train already rolling over a concrete bridge. It stood on giant legs that plunged into a river below.

  Inge and Ling were tiny black figures in the distance. They jumped from the train and swooped into the valley.

  “Meet you at the rendezvous,” Inge said. “Jump the first chance you get.”

  Oh, she didn’t have to worry about that. As soon as we broke out of the mountain walls and hit that bridge, I’d be off this sucker.

  But we had company.

  The belly of a helicopter. The blur of its rotors. It sped overhead and kept pace with the train a few carriages ahead of Bilal. A line dropped out of the chopper. A figure in black slid down at speed. The figure landed on the roof and the chopper pulled to a safe distance in the sky.

  “Emergency response,” Bilal said.

  “Only one guy?” Klaus said. “Pathetic . . . You want a hand?”

  “Sure, why not,” Bilal said, as the figure approached.

  Klaus ran forward and hopped onto Bilal’s carriage. I saw Bilal pull a pistol from his belt. He took a shot. The response guy jumped and rolled onto his carriage—the shot missing. He rose and disarmed Bilal. Used him as a human shield and beat Klaus to the punch with a pistol of his own.

  Klaus’s head jerked back. A puff of blood. His body collapsing. Bilal fought his way out of the hold. Both men slapped each other’s weapons away. Exchanged a flurry of self-defence moves.

  JPAC’s response guy was bigger, faster, stronger. A Type A for sure. He knocked Bilal off the train. But they were over the bridge. Bilal zipped away, his wings opening out. “Klaus is down,” he said. “I’m out of here.”

  “Shit,” I’m going too,” I said, the rear of the train finally rolling over the bridge.

  “Don't you dare,” Roni said. “You've gotta protect the dropbox. If anyone gets to it, I won’t have access to the data.”

  “Why the hell not?” I asked.

  “Cause I’m up against it here,” she said.

  “You’re up against it?”

  “I’m multitasking like a motherfucker,” she said. “Got an army of white hats trying to shut down the link. Getting through next gen security isn’t a cakewalk either, so stop complaining.”

  I watched my chance flash by to my left. The bridge almost at an end. Another lay ahead in the distance. But in the meantime, the response guy was coming my way, bounding over carriage roofs. And here came another tunnel. Everything black again. It seemed like an eternity in the dark.

  Come on, come on.

  We broke out into the light again. Klaus’s killer was close. Real close. A couple of carriages away. I reached for my Glock. Realised I’d lost it earlier. Wished I’d packed a backup—not that there had been room and weight was an issue, Ling had said.

  So I prepared myself to defend the carriage behind me. We had to protect the link. The killer took a running jump. He cleared the space between rooftops and landed on my carriage. He bent at the knees. Raised his head and fixed me with a liquid nitrogen stare.

  Holy ravioli.

  It was Philippe.

  14

  Fake Id

  I’m dressed much smarter now. Though tragically so in a baggy blue shirt and white—yes, white—chinos. I order a pair of cocktails at a beach bar. It’s packed with people dancing to samba. Locals and tourists alike.

  The sand is fine and the sea calm. The air warm and the moon full. Palm trees line the seafront streets and Christ the Redeemer is lit up high on a mountain.

  Guess we’re in Rio.

  The barman is a cool-looking dude with afro hair. “Come on, man,” he says with a wry smile. “IDs.”

  Jesus, even in my dreams, I’m getting ID’d. I whip out a driver’s licence. So does Inge. She’s young and fresh, yet to shed the puppy fat. But there’s no mistaking her. I reckon we’re talking fifteen, sixteen tops. We hand them over.

  The barman shakes his head. “Either you’re all looking younger, or I’m getting older.”

  I laugh and shrug.

  The barman hands the IDs back. “Two caipirinhas, coming right up.”

  With cocktails in hand, we mosey onto the dance floor. I suck on my drink. No idea what it is, but it tastes fit. A sweet lime zing that’s easy to knock back.

  After some more dancing and a couple more drinks, the crowd on the beach gets bigger. Tighter.

  I feel a bit floaty from the cocktails.

  Me and Inge are forced together by the swelling crowd. Body against body. Eyes smiling into eyes.

  Are we—?

  Yep, we are.

  We kiss. She smells of strawberries, like always.

  I feel something move downstairs. So weird when this happens.

  And suddenly we’re drunker than before. Stumbling along the beach, hands all over each other. Laughing our little socks off at who knows what.

  We make our way onto the seafront streets.

  We’re approached by six guys. Mean-looking. They surround us. Tell us to give them our wallets. We burst out laughing.

  A few of them take out knives. Hold them at their sides. Tell us again.

  I stop laughing long enough to talk. “Not tonight guys,” I say.

  “Give us your fucking wallets,” one says, shoving me.

  Another takes a shine to Inge. Runs a hand up and down her side.

  “May I?” Inge asks me, nodding towards Mr Handsy.

  “Go ahead,” I say.

  She puts a gentle hand on the guy’s face. Steps in close into him. The guy can’t believe his luck. Until she sticks a thumb in his left eyeball and twists.

  He screams in pain. She drops him with a knee to the nuts.

  The other guys fly at us. We’re a bit of an uncoordinated mess, so it takes us a good ten seconds to put them all down.

  Inge throws her arms around my neck. “Darling, you were wonderful,” she says, planting one on me.

  “No darling, you were,” I say.

  As the men moan and groan and bleed on the ground, Inge stares into my eyes. “The perfect end to the perfect—” She hiccups. We laugh. Lean in for another kiss. Lime and coconut on her breath.

  Then the whoop of a siren.

  Flashing blue lights.

  A face full of blinding torchlight.

  Two Rio policemen staring right at us.

  15

  Reunion

  My heart sang.

  I felt a wave of relief.

  And I had so many questions.

  What are you doing here?

  How’d you find me?

  Where’ve you been?

  But first I needed to explain that Inge and the others were on our side. That Philippe had killed the wrong man in Klaus, not realising he and the others weren’t JPAC agents anymore.

  “Thank God you’re alive,” is the first thing that came out of my mouth. I walked towards him, ready to throw him a hug whether he liked it or not.

  He countered the hug with a punch. I ducked out of instinct. He shoved me backwards.

  “Haha, very funny,” I said.

  He came right at me. A one-two combo. I blocked and danced away. “What are you doing?” I said.

  Philippe wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat. He was in the mood for fighting and shooting and killing anything in his path. I didn’t see any sign of the man I knew in his eyes.

  He couldn’t be working for JPAC, could he?

  No time to think, only to block, duck and throw a few punches of my own. He countered with ease and swept my legs from under me. I hit the deck hard on my side. He stepped over me, heading fo
r the data vault.

  I guess that was a yes, then.

  I jumped to my feet and ran at him. I fly-kicked him in the back. He landed on all fours. Rose and turned towards me.

  “You done yet?” I asked Roni.

  “One second,” she said. “Jeez.”

  I back-pedalled, drawing Philippe away from the data vault. He re-engaged. I ducked under a punch and landed a rat-a-tat hit in his ribs. He took it without a peep. Got me in a death grip on the shoulder. I yelped and knocked his arm away with one of the moves he’d taught me. I grabbed his arm and judo-threw him over a shoulder.

  He rolled with it and threw me over in the same move. I spun onto my feet. He came at me again. Stronger and faster than I remembered. Not like in training. This was Philippe with the handbrake off. He caught me in the chest with a winding blow. I flew at him and he took me down. He stood over me. A backup pistol pulled from a velcro pocket on his right thigh.

  But he had to prep the weapon. It bought me a second of life.

  “Okay, I’m done,” Roni said. “Killing the link.”

  Speaking of which, Philippe was about to kill my link, too.

  He aimed the gun and took the shot.

  16

  Roll With It

  I rolled to my right. Philippe’s bullet lodging in the carriage roof. I kept rolling until I felt nothing but fresh air.

  I straightened out and flew clear of the bridge, wings out and the air catching me as I fell.

  I looked over my right shoulder and saw Philippe standing on the train, gun in hand, watching me go. I turned and pulled my mask over my face. Breathed the oxygen in deep.

  I spoke into the comms. But all I got was static. So I flew fast into the valley, brushing the tops of the pine, wondering where the hell I was.

  Oh, and one smidge of a technical issue . . . I didn't know how to land.

  I came in fast. Too fast. My target a grass field. My ingenious plan to use the wings to brake, then drop to a soft tumble or a running landing in the thick grass.

  And this field was perfect. It was rolling down at a gentle angle. But on my final approach, I came in too low. I clipped a hedgerow with my feet. It threw me off. Spun me into a three-sixty roll. I missed my landing and straightened up to brake.

  The wings caught, but not as hard as on the train. I drifted towards the end of the field where—oh, no, no, no.

  A bog of brown, sticky peat waited for me at the bottom of the field. Animal poo and God knows what else in there.

  I tried to pull out of the landing, to drift on by.

  No such luck.

  Gravity coughed and gave me a gentle tug.

  I ploughed into the stuff. Face-first into the bog. It was thick and gloopy and stunk to high heaven of cow dung.

  At least it was a soft landing.

  I trudged along a winding country road. Hair, skin and flight suit caked in fast-drying slop.

  I had zero clue where I was, so I called Inge. Her phone was busy. The slop had invaded the comms, ruining the earpiece and getting inside the mask.

  So I swallowed my nerves.

  I called Alex.

  “Lorna. How’s it going?”

  “Um, awesome, fab. How about you?”

  “I’m good," he said. "So what’s up?”

  “I’ve got kind of a problem.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, I’m in the middle of nowhere and I need to get to somewhere instead.”

  “Huh?”

  “What I mean is, I’m in Siberia. I wondered if you could tell me—”

  “Siberia’s a pretty big place,” Alexei said. “Thirteen million square kilometres.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “Stupid—”

  “But hang on. I can track your phone on GPS.”

  “You can?”

  “Yeah, got this cool new app. Give me a minute . . .”

  I gave him a minute

  “Got you,” Alex said. “You’re in the Baikal Mountains.”

  “Ah, the Baikal Mountains,” I said. “Where is that exactly?”

  It didn’t sound anywhere near the rendezvous point. But then we were all supposed to be bugging out together. I guess Inge didn’t count on Philippe turning up and batting for the other side.

  “Hey, why don’t I come and pick you up?” Alex asked me.

  “What?”

  “I’m on the jet, heading out of Ukraine. We can stop off and pick you up.”

  “Oh no, you don’t have to do that.”

  “It’s no big deal. Hang on—” I heard Alex talking to the pilot. After a couple of minutes he came back on the line. “Yeah, we can re-route. The pilot knows the area. There’s an old Soviet airbase about seven miles north of you. It's a straight road. Keep walking and you’ll get there.”

  “No, no, Alex. Really, you don’t—”

  “It’s a two-hour detour at most, Lorna.”

  “But aren’t you busy? I mean, you’re an important guy now. You’ve got things to do. Big business stuff to handle.”

  “Nah,” he said. “I’m heading to Italy for some sun. I can delay it a couple of hours. It’d be nice to see you.”

  “I don’t want to cause a fuss,” I said.

  “You don’t want to see me, Lorna?”

  “No, I mean, yes. Of course I do. It’s just—”

  “Then it’s done. See you soon.”

  He hung up. I pocketed the phone.

  Great. Was there a thing worse than getting stranded and starving and torn to pieces by Siberian wolves? Yes. It was being rescued by your new biggest crush looking and stinking like a mega-turd.

  Worse still, I didn’t have a mirror. And I had a long walk ahead of me.

  That was until a beaten-up old blue truck pulled alongside me. It carried pigs on the back. The driver asked me if I wanted a lift up the road. He was an old man with jet-black hair, wearing a baggy blue boiler suit.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. I started towards the passenger door of the cab. A hand on the handle.

  He shook his head and thumbed towards the back.

  17

  Animal Welfare

  I rode in the back of the truck on a wooden box, surrounded by massive, oinking pigs. I didn’t know who stunk worse. Them or me. They pushed and shoved. Big hairy, slimy noses getting in my face and fat, heavy bums pushing up against me.

  I’m sure one of them farted. And the sound of all the oinking was deafening.

  I stayed tight to the side of the truck, feeling every jolt from the potholes in the road.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t so passionate about being a veggie again. I’d disciplined myself long enough for my meat cravings to totally disappear. One of a number Philippe-isms I’d managed to shake off since the surgery, including, ahem, admiring the female form.

  Yet right that minute, I could have gone for a bacon butty.

  Then I instantly felt guilty.

  The pigs were probably off to some slaughterhouse somewhere.

  Oh God, the thought was terrible.

  Poor, fat oinks. Didn’t know what was about to hit them. I’d seen videos. Terrible, terrible videos on Youtube.

  I saw a sign up ahead for Baikal Airbase. It waited behind a barb-wire fence and keep out signs.

  I pushed my way through the pigs and banged on the roof of the cab. The farmer slowed and I made my way to the back of the truck. I climbed over the rear door and landed on the road.

  I looked at the bolt on the door. Looked in the eyes of a pig sticking its snout through the panels.

  I went for it, sliding the bolt open. Pulling the door down. It dropped to the road with a clang. I stepped aside as the pigs trundled off.

  The farmer was out of the cab, going mental.

  Most of the pigs hung around the truck, but one of them made a dash for it.

  The farmer pulled a shotgun from the cab.

  I was on him fast. “No!” I screamed, pushing the barrel into the air. The gun boomed and echoed. Birds broke from t
rees. The pigs squealed and ran into the surrounding trees and bushes. I snatched the shotgun off the driver and reversed it on him.

  “You’ve cost me a big price,” the man said.

  “Here,” I said, unzipping a pocket.

  I’d had the good sense to bring cash. I always did since Mexico City, in case I needed to buy or bribe my way out of a situation. “How much?” I asked the driver.

  “All of it,” he said.

  The glint in his eye told me it was way more than he’d get for the pigs. I was happy to hand it over.

  “Get out of here,” I said.

  He smiled and pocketed the money in the breast of his boiler suit. “Saves me a trip to the abattoir.”

  I knew it.

  I emptied the remaining shell from the shotgun and handed it back. The driver turned the truck around and rumbled off with a toot of the horn.

  I took a look around. The pigs had vanished, clear of the road.

  Good luck little piggies. Run wild and free.

  I found the entrance to the airbase. There was a narrow gap between rusting metal gates, chained together. I squatted and squeezed through.

  I made my way across half a mile of overgrown grass to an airstrip.

  It was windy. Chilly. Camouflaged hangars in the near distance. A giant airstrip running left to right in front of me.

  I heard the Gulfstream jet before I saw it.

  A silver bullet with wings dropping out of the sky to my far left. It touched down on the tarmac a mile away and sped towards me. I stayed back a distance as it rolled by. It taxied and did a slow U-turn in front of a hangar.

  I fiddled with my hair—like it made any mother-flipping difference. I was a mess. A walking pile of cow dung. He probably had a leggy über-model on the plane with him. Some kind of talking magazine cover with a glass of champers in hand.

  The stairs dropped. My stomach plunged. Out stepped Alexei in a blue suit and white shirt, surfer hair perfectly imperfect. Black tie strung low round his neck.

  He broke into laughter, holding his nose. “What happened?”