‘Where’s Arif and the truck?’ Jake asked.
‘He just left to drive to the supermarket,’ Rat said. ‘I tell you what, how about we send messengers off in different directions? There’s gotta be a farmhouse or something around here.’
‘Good idea,’ Lauren nodded. ‘Sort it out and someone else can take Large’s phone up to the top of the hill. You might get a signal from there.’
Rat picked Andy and three other fast runners and sent them off in different directions. A fifth was told to run up the adjacent hill.
‘Are you completely sure it isn’t one of his tricks?’ Jake asked suspiciously. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’
Bethany tutted. ‘Look at the state of him, moron. You can’t fake all that sweat.’
‘What if he took a special pill that made him go queasy, or something?’
‘Jake, you’re not helping,’ Bethany shouted. ‘And you’re starting to wind me up, so why don’t you get out of my face before I deck you?’
‘Try it,’ Jake sneered. ‘I might be little, but I’m harder than you.’
‘Oh you reckon?’ Bethany sneered back, giving her brother an almighty shove.
The crowd moved aside as Jake lashed out at his sister. His boot connected with her thigh but his fist swished past her nose, missing by millimetres. Bethany grabbed her brother’s flying arm and twisted it up behind his back. She took the elastic waistband of his tracksuit bottoms with her other hand, hitched him off the ground and slammed him down on his belly. Whilst Jake was still winded, Bethany straddled him and sat across his back.
‘Yeah Jake, you’re so hard,’ she yelled jubilantly.
Lauren was furious. She couldn’t believe that her best mate was having a pointless fight with her brother in the middle of a major crisis.
‘Leave it out,’ she screamed. ‘We all need to think straight. A few minutes could save his life.’
‘Coming through,’ a couple of girls shouted.
The pair had made a stretcher by breaking two wooden stakes from a nearby fence and running them through a couple of sleeping bags.
Jake was humiliated and tried to hide it as Bethany let him up. Meanwhile, the girls laid the stretcher on the grass beside Mr Large.
‘He’s really heavy; we’d best roll him on,’ Rat said.
Not only was Large extremely tall, he also carried a great mound of fat around his midriff.
It took five kids to roll him on to the sleeping-bag fabric. Once he was in position, Lauren and Rat took up the poles at the front, with the pair who’d made the stretcher at the back.
‘Heave,’ Lauren shouted, as the foursome bent at the knees and raised Mr Large off the ground.
Some of the other kids realised that they were struggling and took part of the weight by grabbing the poles along the side.
‘He stinks of booze,’ someone complained.
‘Which way?’ Rat groaned.
‘GRAHHHHHHHHH,’ Large shouted groggily.
‘He’s awake,’ said one of the boys standing along the side.
‘Forward,’ Lauren ordered. ‘Head towards the track, we’re about a mile from the main road. We can jog it in ten minutes and hitch a ride from there.’
But as Lauren and Rat stepped forward, Large insisted on sitting up.
‘Stay still,’ Bethany shouted desperately. ‘You’ve just had a heart attack.’
‘Poppycock,’ Large bellowed. ‘Let me off of this contraption.’
Large swung his legs around, upsetting the balance of the stretcher. The two girls at the back couldn’t hold on and the wooden beams slipped through their hands, splintering their fingers as the stretcher crashed to the ground. As the girls moaned in pain, Large made a brief attempt to stand up before clutching his chest and collapsing into another spasm.
‘I’m dying,’ he gasped.
Rat tried to calm him down. ‘You need to sit still, Norman. We’ve sent messengers in all directions to get help.’
‘Norman?’ Large growled. ‘How dare you call me Norman. You address me as sir.’
‘He’s drunk on top of everything else,’ Lauren said, shaking her head with contempt.
‘Shall we try getting him back on the stretcher?’ Bethany asked.
‘What’s the point? He’s too heavy for us to carry if he won’t stay still.’
‘I want my Hayley,’ Mr Large moaned as he sat in the grass. ‘I want to live to see my beautiful girl get married.’
‘You’re not going to die,’ Rat insisted, making a brave second stab at calming Large down. ‘You’re in shock. You’re very weak. You’ve got to lie flat on the ground and try to stay calm.’
Lauren felt massively relieved as she saw a set of car headlights crawling along the dirt track towards the lines of tents. It was a small Hyundai with an elderly lady behind the wheel and Rat’s mate Andy Lagan in the passenger seat. The woman looked appalled when she stepped out of the car and saw the giant man thrashing about on the ground.
‘He’s dead drunk,’ the woman said. ‘Are you sure he’s had a heart attack?’
Andy ran around from the passenger seat and tried to reassure the heavily perfumed woman that Mr Large wasn’t just roaring drunk.
‘I’m not having that in my car,’ she said indignantly. ‘I can smell the drink on him from here. It’s only done four thousand miles. What if he vomits inside?’
As she said this, Large twisted over on his side and made a deep groaning sound.
‘Now listen, lady,’ Lauren said desperately, ‘we’re out of options here. He could die. You’ve got to help us get him to the hospital.’
‘No, no, no. I’ll drive back to my house and call an ambulance from there. It’s less than ten minutes’ drive.’
Lauren couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘An ambulance might take a half hour or more to get here, you stupid old bat!’ Bethany squealed.
Lauren looked at Rat and pointed towards Mr Large. ‘Get him into that car.’
‘Hold on, young miss,’ the old lady yelled. ‘I’m not taking orders from you. I’m not driving that man anywhere.’
‘I’ll drive him then,’ Lauren shouted back. ‘Isn’t a man’s life slightly more important than your precious upholstery?’
Rat, Andy and several others began dragging Mr Large towards the car. The woman turned to go after them, but Lauren grabbed her willowy arm and pulled her back sharply.
‘I’m truly sorry,’ Lauren said, as she saw that the elderly lady was frightened and close to crying. It was odd that she’d been kindly enough to stop her car for Andy and drive to their aid, but now seemed more concerned about her car than Mr Large’s life. Lauren guessed it was just that she was old, eccentric and not up to handling stress.
‘Come on,’ Lauren said, trying a gentler tack as the lady struggled to free her arm. ‘We need your help. Can you tell us the way to the nearest hospital?’
But the old woman screamed and made a desperate sobbing noise, which made Lauren feel absolutely awful. The two girls who’d built the stretcher grabbed her flailing arms and tried getting her to calm down.
With all the madness going on, Lauren hadn’t noticed another messenger arriving inside a BMW. The wax-jacketed driver emerged, holding a leather bag of the type usually carried by doctors.
‘What is this, Lord Of The Flies?’ the man said, shaking his head as he surveyed the scene.
‘Are you a doctor?’ Rat asked.
‘A vet, I’m afraid,’ the man explained. He knelt over Mr Large and grabbed his wrist to take a pulse. ‘His heartbeat is extremely weak.’
‘Will he live?’ Rat asked.
‘Depends upon a lot of things,’ the vet said, as he reached into his pocket for his car keys and dangled them in front of Andy. ‘Two of you lads go around to the boot of my car. You’ll see a black oxygen cylinder and a box of disposable masks. It’s heavy, so lift it together. Pure oxygen will make his breathing easier and take some of the strain off his heart. Th
en we’ll lay him out over the back seat of my car and I’ll take him to Accident and Emergency.’
The presence of the vet was a great relief to the cherubs. Unfortunately, Lauren and Bethany still had the old woman on their hands.
‘I’m telling the police,’ the woman shouted, as she pointed accusingly at Lauren. ‘You’re car thieves, you … You tried to kidnap me.’
Lauren grasped the woman’s shoulder and spoke as gently as her adrenalin rush would let her. ‘Why don’t you take some deep breaths? We’ll make you a nice cup of tea and then you can drive home after you’ve calmed down.’
‘Criminals,’ the woman screamed again. She turned her head with surprising speed and bit on Lauren’s middle finger.
Lauren instinctively ripped her finger out of the woman’s mouth. Unfortunately, a denture came flying out with it and Lauren squealed in horror as the warm plastic teeth hit her in the face.
Meanwhile, Rat, Andy and the vet had settled Mr Large in the rear of the BMW and the vet had fitted him with an oxygen mask.
‘Have you got no other adults here?’ the vet asked the girls.
‘There’s one,’ Lauren nodded, as she clamped her bloody finger beneath her armpit. ‘But he’s gone into town to buy groceries. I expect he’ll be back pretty soon.’
‘Right,’ the vet nodded. ‘I’ll call the police and tell them you’re out here. I don’t like the thought of leaving you lot unsupervised for too long.’ Then he turned and looked at the old lady. ‘You look like you’ve had a bit of a turn, my dear. How about you take a ride to the hospital with me?’
‘Yes,’ the woman sobbed. ‘Get me away from these animals. This one attacked me, now she’s stolen my teeth.’
‘That’s not what happened,’ Lauren said defensively.
The vet gave Lauren a reassuring look. ‘OK, my dear,’ he said to the old woman as he put an arm around her back. ‘No hanging around; I’ve got a very sick man in the back seat.’
Bethany chased after the two adults and caught up just as they were getting in the BMW.
‘That’s her teeth,’ Bethany explained, as she handed them to the vet. ‘They’ve been in the grass, so you’d better rinse them off before they go back in her mouth.’
5. RAID
The electricity had gone off before James’ room had warmed up, so he’d carried his duvet and pillows through to the living-room and spent the evening snuggled up on the sofa, reading an out-of-date motorbike magazine by the dim glow of a portable gas lamp.
He’d been asleep for several hours when he woke with a jolt and an eerie sense that something was up.
‘The boy’s not in bed,’ a man shouted angrily.
The men were in the hallway just a few metres away; hard to say how many. James realised that the sound of them kicking the front door in had woken him up.
‘Check the living-room,’ Vladimir Obidin shouted fiercely.
James shuddered when he recognised the voice. This wasn’t a burglary. Something had gone seriously wrong at the meeting.
He threw off his duvet and spun towards the door that he knew would crash open at any second. The only light was a tiny glimmer through the curtains and James felt blindly along the sideboard, desperate for some kind of weapon. He stopped when his hand touched the base of Boris’ marble and glass cigar lighter.
‘Got him, boss,’ one of Obidin’s henchmen shouted, as he burst through the door and blasted powerful xenon torchlight in James’ face.
Boris and Isla were only supposed to be having a business meeting with Denis Obidin. Maybe their cover got blown, or … But James had to shut out the whys and wherefores and concentrate on not ending up in a cell facing an angry Vladimir Obidin and his blow lamp.
James charged into the light, clattering into his assailant as he swung the heavy cigar lighter and smashed it into the side of the man’s skull. It was too dark to see if the first blow had knocked him cold, but the second left no room for doubt. James spotted a holster under the man’s jacket and reached towards it, but found two men plucking him off the ground before he got hold of the gun.
Each man tucked a hand under one of James’ armpits and made the room shudder as they slammed his back against the wall. The larger man punched him in the stomach.
‘Keep him conscious,’ Vladimir shouted from the kitchen. ‘He’s our only link to those bastards.’
The punch would have crumpled most grown men, but James had taken worse in combat training and surprised his attacker by kicking him in the balls. As his assailant doubled over and stumbled backwards into the coffee table, James reached out for the other man and grabbed his long hair. He quickly looped some hair around his wrist. The man threw a soft punch as James snapped his arm backwards.
The hair pulled tight and the dude’s neck crunched. He went down so fast that James barely managed to let go before going down on top of him.
After a panicked breath, James ran forward to finish off the man who was trying to untangle himself from the coffee table. There was enough light from the abandoned torch for James to see him reach for his gun. James grabbed his wrist, twisted the pistol out of his grasp and pulped the man’s face by repeatedly smashing the barrel against the bridge of his nose.
Three down, one to go, James thought, backing up to the wall as he inspected the automatic pistol in his bloody left hand. He wasn’t familiar with the type, but it looked like it was ready to shoot.
Vladimir Obidin shouted from the kitchen. ‘Mikhail, what’s going on? Cuff the boy and start searching.’
James only had seconds before the lack of a reply made Vladimir suspicious. He used them to shut off the torch and creep out into the hallway.
‘Mikhail?’ Vladimir repeated, sounding a touch uneasy now. ‘Did he get away?’
James crouched down low. A flickering light came through the kitchen doorway, suggesting that Vladimir was nosing around with a torch.
‘Have you got the boy or not?’
James was tempted to throw a smartass line back at Vladimir. But he thought he’d leave the comebacks to Hollywood and let Vladimir stay confused.
‘Guys?’ Obidin said, with something in his voice that James had never heard before: fear.
Buoyed by Obidin’s discomfort, James crept right up to the kitchen door as Obidin turned off his torch. James would have happily made a run for the front door, but he’d have to pass the kitchen to get there and that would give Vladimir an easy shot at him.
James considered backing up and jumping off the living-room balcony, but they were two storeys up and even if he landed without injuring himself, he’d probably be spotted by the rentacops who stood guard at the front of the building.
As James crept closer to the kitchen door, he heard Vladimir whispering into his police radio. ‘This is VO1. Requesting urgent assistance. All nearby units come to Brezhnev Apartments, flat two stroke seventeen. Searching for a boy aged fourteen or fifteen. Blond hair, stocky build. Looks like he’s taken out three officers already.’
James realised that he had to deal with Obidin and get out of the building before he had half of Aero City’s police force on his back. Judging by Obidin’s voice, James reckoned he was near the washing machine at the back of the room.
He poked his arm through the doorway and fired three shots into the darkness. If Obidin had kept still, James would have shot him in the chest, but Obidin had also decided to take the offensive and was walking towards the door. As James’ bullets ripped through the metal shell of the washing machine, he sensed Obidin standing less than a metre away from him.
James practically swallowed his tongue with fright, but he had his finger on the trigger and realised that whoever got the first shot in would win the duel. While Obidin took aim, James fired, shooting Obidin in the thigh from point-blank range.
The force of the bullet knocked Obidin backwards. James bundled on top and snatched Obidin’s gun, before racing back to the living-room.
After checking that the other three men w
ere still unconscious, James grabbed his trainers from in front of the couch and slipped them on. With the gun poised, he walked back into the hallway, trying to ignore Vladimir’s moans as he put on his jacket and stepped through what remained of the front door.
The corridor was pitch black, but as James reached the stairwell he spotted torch beams and heard men with equipment jangling up the stairs: backup. Returning to the apartment seemed like a bad idea and James couldn’t go down, so he took an instant decision and raced up the musty staircase to the top floor. The unlit third-floor corridor bought him time, but if Obidin was still conscious and told the cops that he’d only just run out, they’d be on to him in seconds.
James considered his options, none of which looked good: he could stay where he was and get caught; going up on the roof would only buy an extra half minute; and if he knocked on any of the apartment doors, it was unlikely that anyone would let him in. His only realistic option was to run down the metal fire escape at the back of the building, but wouldn’t the cops have it covered?
However improbable escape seemed, James wasn’t giving up. He’d just shot the chief of police and the cops around here weren’t big on human rights. If they got him in a cell, they’d torture him until they got answers.
A blast of cold air hit James as he broke open the fire door. His haste almost cost him as his trainer glided across icy metal. There was a flurry of snow and a touch of light coming from the headlamps of the police cars parked at the front of the building. James looked down and couldn’t see anyone about, but it was impossible to be sure: the night was as black as the cops’ uniforms.
The steps were in a tight spiral and James moved as fast as he could, trying to keep his footsteps silent, with one freezing hand on the snowy railing and the other clutching his gun. He took another look when he got near the bottom, but there was still no sign of life and he made it safely to the tarmac.
James was in a parking lot, surrounded by cheap cars owned by the residents. Whilst little money had been spent on the upkeep of the Brezhnev Apartments, the perimeter was well defended and James realised that he’d have as much difficulty climbing out over the four-metre-high spiked railings as kidnappers and thieves were supposed to have climbing in.