Bodyguard: Target (34 page)

‘Ash, five minutes to show
time!’ called Terry, knocking on his dressing-room door at the Staples Center
in downtown Los Angeles.

Charley stood with Big T either side of
the door, ready
to escort Ash to the stage.

Security was super-tight. No one was
allowed in or out without a pass and faces were being checked against computer
records. The entire security team was on duty and in a state of heightened alert.
Only an hour before Ash was due to perform, Kay had received a disturbing call from
the San Franciscan police. Brandon Mills had escaped earlier that
morning after the
vehicle taking him to the courthouse was involved in an accident. An official
manhunt was now under way.

On hearing the news, a heated argument
broke out among the team whether to go ahead with the gig. But Ash had been adamant
that he wouldn’t be terrorized into cancelling. These were the final two dates
of his sell-out tour, his fans were waiting and
he
wouldn’t
disappoint them. Terry had backed this decision, pointing out that
Brandon’s pass had been confiscated. And, after repeated reassurances
from Big T that his security could handle the threat, Kay had reluctantly
agreed.

Terry glanced at his watch impatiently.
‘Ash?’ he called. He was about to knock again when the door opened and
Ash emerged, shades on and stage
ready.

‘You all right?’ asked
Terry.

‘Yeah,’ replied Ash, his
voice still hoarse from the fire. ‘Just a little nervous, that’s
all.’

‘No need to be,’ said
Charley, offering him an encouraging smile even though she was as tense as a wire.
‘You’re safe as houses.’

Big T shot her a sideways look.
‘Now you’re stealing all my lines!’

Surrounded by his entourage,
Ash made
his way along the corridor towards the stage like a prize fighter about to enter the
arena. No one could have got near the rock star. Any attacker would have to battle
through a first ring of bodyguards, then tackle Big T and his legendary right hook,
after which they’d still face Charley, the final invisible ring of
defence.

Of course, Brandon Mills knew from
experience that Charley was someone to be reckoned with and he might even suspect
she was Ash’s personal bodyguard. But now the whole team knew who Brandon was,
every eye in the place would be on the lookout for him.

As they approached the auditorium, the
entourage split. Ash headed beneath the stage with Big T to the toaster lift, while
Charley and the other bodyguards
peeled off to take
up
strategic posts around the venue. Stationed in the wings, Charley peered out at the
stage to be confronted by an endless sea of faces. Once more the task ahead seemed
insurmountable.

How am I supposed to spot a killer
in a crowd of fifty thousand screaming fans?

Her eyes scanned the front rows of
frenzied teenage girls, embarrassingly excited
mums, pockets of rocker boys and a
handful of reluctant fathers dragged along yet secretly thrilled by a live rock
concert. The lack of adults, Charley realized, should make it easier to spot a lone
man in the crowd. But she couldn’t take anyone for granted. Brandon had
already shown a cunning talent for disguise.

As her gaze swept the audience, Charley
spied a familiar
ratty face in the press pit.

Gonzo.

How the hell has he, of all paps,
blagged a press pass for the final shows?
she wondered.

Then the house lights went down and the
video screens began their countdown. The crowd shouted along, cheering as the number
one flashed up on the monitors and a huge explosion rumbled through the arena. The
cascade of red and gold sparks lit
up the stage like a supernova and the
gut-thumping throb of a heartbeat blasted out of the speakers.

At that moment Charley was blind and
deaf to any threats.

The sound of a blazing fire grew and the
silhouette of a winged boy flitted from screen to screen until consumed by the
flames.

INDESTRUCTIBLE
…
IMPOSSIBLE
…
I’M
POSSIBLE!

Charley felt her stomach clench
as a
thunderclap heralded Ash’s dramatic entrance. From now on until the end of the
concert, Ash would be exposed and unguarded on the stage.

Charley could only watch, hope …
and react.

Shooting up from the toaster lift, Ash
flew through the air and landed to the sound of euphoric screaming. He stood, legs
astride, relishing the adulation.

Then Ash pumped a fist
in the air and
cried, ‘What’s up, Los Ang–’

But he didn’t finish the sentence.
On the massive screens overhead, in full glorious definition, every fan watched in
horror as a spurt of blood burst from Ash’s chest.

Charley was running before Ash even hit
the ground. At first she thought she was experiencing déjà vu, a flashback
to when the spotlight had almost crushed Ash. But then reality struck. She’d
seen the red laser dot – a second too late.

Charley was first at Ash’s side,
shielding his body from whatever attack might come next. He lay in a pool of his own
blood, spluttering and writhing in pain. His shades dislodged, hazel eyes bulging,
he caught sight of Charley and desperately tried to focus on her face.

‘H-h-help!’ he gasped,
clasping her wrist.

‘Don’t
try to speak,’
said Charley as she rapidly assessed his condition. His shirt was soaked with blood,
his breathing wet and rapid, and his pulse erratic.

Ripping off his top to examine the
damage, Charley discovered a small round puncture wound in his upper-right
chest.

A bullet hole.

Big T, now at her side, barked into his
mic. ‘
Gunshot confirmed. Secure all exits.
Suspect armed and
dangerous.
’

In her earpiece,
Charley heard a burst of security chatter. More and more people crowded round the
bleeding body. Kay, Terry, Zoe, Jessie, band members, roadies … even Gonzo,
who’d broken through the security line determined to capture the money shot
that would become the defining image for the world’s media. In the background,
Charley
was dimly aware of chaos in the arena, fans screaming and panicked parents
fleeing with their children in their arms.

The venue’s medic appeared with a
first-aid kit and dropped down opposite Charley.

Ash was now panting rapidly, each breath
more strained. His chest barely moved and there was a blue tinge to his lips.

‘Oh my!’ exclaimed the
medic, turning pale at the
profusion of blood.

When he failed to act, and simply stared
at the dying rock star, Charley took the situation into her own hands. ‘Give
me your med-kit,’ she ordered.

In his shocked state, he handed it over.
Rummaging through the bag, Charley found a large-bore needle with a one-way valve
and tore off the sterilized wrapper.

‘What are you doing?’ the
medic cried,
suddenly alert that a teenage girl was about to perform a serious
medical procedure.

‘He’s suffering a tension
pneumothorax,’ explained Charley, locating the second intercostal space on
Ash’s chest. ‘His injured lung will collapse and he’ll die if we
don’t release the pressure.’

Placing the sharp point against his
skin, Charley prayed
her diagnosis was correct and that
she
didn’t puncture any vital organs. But there was no time to hesitate.
Ash’s life was on a knife’s edge. She drove the needle in at ninety
degrees. Ash was in too much pain to notice it slide between his ribs and penetrate
deep into his chest cavity. Opening the valve, a sharp hiss of air was heard and
Ash’s breathing immediately eased.

But the medical emergency wasn’t
over yet. In her head Charley ran through
Dr ABC
again. Big T was dealing
with the danger. Ash was still responsive. His airway and breathing were stabilized,
at least for the time being. But, judging by the ever-expanding pool of blood on the
stage, Ash’s circulation was the critical issue now.

Kay was on the phone to the emergency
services. ‘
Of course he has insurance!
Just send a bloody
helicopter!
’

‘He needs fluids,’ said
Charley urgently.

The medic nodded and took out a pouch of
saline solution, a sterile tube and a cannula. With practised efficiency, he
inserted the cannula into Ash’s forearm, while Charley set to work bandaging
and sealing the open chest wound.

Yet, despite all their efforts,
Ash’s condition continued
to deteriorate. His breathing was shallow, his heart
rate more erratic than ever. Then suddenly his eyes rolled back in their sockets and
his head flopped to the side.

‘Ash! Stay with us!’ cried
Charley, shaking his shoulder. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’

But Ash no longer responded. Charley
looked to the medic for help.

‘Possible
internal bleeding,’ he said, noticing
the saline solution already
three-quarters empty. ‘Little we can do until we get him to a
hospital.’

He took out the other saline pouch in
the med-kit, but as he was attaching it to the drip Charley noticed Ash had stopped
breathing altogether. The medic checked his pulse. ‘His heart’s
stopped!’

The two of them immediately commenced
CPR, the medic administering
chest compressions while Charley delivered the rescue
breaths. They were still going when two paramedics arrived on the scene.

Exhausted and emotionally drained,
Charley didn’t put up any resistance as the paramedics took over.

Not long after their initial assessment
and attempts at resuscitation, the older of the two spoke to his colleague:
‘Record time of death as 20:16
hours. Cause of death: gunshot
trauma.’

The words hit Charley like a punch to
the guts. For a moment, she simply stared at the paramedic, imagining … hoping
… praying she’d heard wrong. Ash
couldn’t
be dead.

‘I’m sorry for your
loss,’ said the paramedic, as he ran through the routine death-declaration
procedure.

Stifling a sob, Kay’s knees went
weak and Terry
had to support her. Big T stood motionless and silent as a rock.
Charley clutched Ash’s lifeless hand in her own and wept.

Gradually she became aware of a
heartless photographer snapping away right next to her, capturing her grief from
every angle.

Charley could take
no more.

‘
You vulture!
’ she
spat at him. ‘Have you no respect?’

Zooming his lens in on her tear-stained
face, Gonzo answered with another flash of his camera.

Big T wrapped Charley in one of his
massive arms and led her away from the frenzy of photographers that had now
descended on the stage.

‘Charley, you did all that you
could for Ash,’
he said, his voice on the point of cracking. ‘But we
still have a job to do.’

Stunned with grief, Charley barely heard
him. Ash was unique among all the boys she’d ever met. And only now did she
realize how much he’d worked his way into her heart. She felt another hole of
grief open up next to those for her parents and Kerry.

‘Brandon’s somewhere in this
building and
we have to hunt him down,’ said Big T fiercely. ‘We owe it
to Ash to find his killer.’

Charley gazed at the white-gold bracelet
on her wrist, now glittering against the blood from Ash’s wound. Her sorrow
turned to anger: Brandon would pay. He
couldn’t
be allowed to escape.
Leaving the stage, she took a last glance back at her rock star. The paparazzi
buzzed like flies over
his dead body as the paramedic removed the cannula from
Ash’s tattooed arm.

Then it hit her.
‘That’s not Ash!’

‘Charley, don’t fool
yourself,’ said Big T softly. ‘Denial is a natural stage of the
grie–’

‘Ash’s phoenix tattoo is on
his
left
arm, not his right!’ she cut in.

Big T’s bald head swivelled round
like an owl’s and he stared at the body lying on
the stage. ‘
Sweet
Mother of Mercy!
’

‘That’s got to be
Pete,’ said Charley, at once saddened and elated at her discovery.
‘Which means … Ash must be at the psychiatric clinic.’

Big T’s thick brow creased into a
frown as he tried to get his head round this. ‘Keep it quiet until I’ve
got confirmation from the clinic. We don’t want to raise anyone’s hopes
… or alert
Brandon to his mistake.’

As Big T stepped away to tell Kay,
Charley spotted Gonzo heading backstage. She wondered what the little creep was
sticking his nose into now. Then a thought struck her. On his camera he probably had
photos of the moments running up to Ash’s – or Pete’s –
murder. This might give vital clues about where the gunshot had come from and
Brandon’s location,
even his possible escape route.

Maybe Gonzo could prove useful for
once.

‘Hey, Gonzo!’ called
Charley, hurrying after him.

But he didn’t seem to hear.
Pushing through the blackout curtains, she saw his wiry figure disappear down a
corridor.
Why is he in such a rush?
she wondered.

She chased him through the warren of
backstage
tunnels, always several steps behind.
He rounded a
corner and when she reached it Gonzo was nowhere in sight.

Then she heard a door click shut at the
far end of the hallway. Dashing down to the door marked
BAY
D: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
, she barged her way through into a darkened
loading bay. Gonzo was scurrying across the concrete towards an as-yet unsecured
exit.

‘Hey, Gonzo, hold up!’ she
shouted.

Startled, the pap guy froze and turned,
as if caught in the beam of a searchlight, but immediately relaxed when he saw
Charley. ‘If it isn’t Ash’s guardian angel,’ he sneered.
‘Not much left to guard now, have you?’

Charley ignored the cruel taunt.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she demanded, running over to
him.

‘None of your business.’

‘I think it is. The
venue’s
in lock-down.’

‘I’ve got to take these
photos to my agency
right now
,’ he snapped. ‘If I don’t,
I’ll miss the scoop of a lifetime.’

‘Can I have a look first?’
Charley asked.

Gonzo blinked. ‘Not on your
life.’

‘I’m not going to delete
them,’ she said, reaching out to the camera dangling round his neck.
‘They could hold clues to identify the gunman.’

Gonzo clasped the camera to his chest as
if she was asking him to hand over his own baby.

‘I only want to look,’
insisted Charley. ‘Surely you owe me that?’

‘I owe you nothing!’ he
spat, turning to leave.

Big T’s voice
sounded in her earpiece. ‘
Charley, where are you?
’

‘In loading bay D,’ she
responded into her mic.

‘
Security upda
…
’ Interference
broke up the signal. ‘
Caught … in
San Jose … killer is …
’

‘Say again,’ said Charley,
clasping a hand to her ear.

‘…
the killer
isn’t Brandon.
’