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Authors: Nick Hale

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BOOK: Close Range
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The men came through the crowd and Jake noticed they were some sort of officials. Both wore a uniform of navy trousers and light-blue shirts, with a badge on their chests. Not Customs, that was for sure. Their faces were impassive; now Jake came to think about it, they didn’t look like fans. Finally, as they emerged through the crush of bodies, Jake spotted they had automatics holstered at their hips.

‘Mi scusi, signore,’
one said with a heavy Italian accent. ‘Would you like to follow us?’

It wasn’t a question.

Jake took half a step towards his dad, but the other man side-stepped and dropped his hand to his gun. ‘This is not your business.’

Jake’s dad took a small step backwards, and raised his hands in surrender. The posture looked friendly, but Jake knew from his boxing classes that you put your hands up so they were better positioned to block or counter punch. It was a self-defence trick.

‘What’s this about?’ his dad asked.

‘Per favore,
Mr Bastin. We’d like to ask you some questions in private.’

The man who hadn’t spoken was eyeing Jake like he was something he’d just scraped off his shoe. There was a challenge in his stare that said,
Just try it, kid.
Or whatever ‘Just try it, kid’ translated to in Italian.

Jake returned the look, without blinking.

His dad maintained his subtle defensive posture. ‘Look, if you’ll just tell me …’

The speaker stepped forwards and grabbed Jake’s dad’s upper arm firmly. Jake noticed his father stiffen. Jake half expected him to break the hand away and snap the idiot’s
arm, but he looked across at Hayley. Jake’s mother hadn’t noticed what was happening and was still clicking away.

‘Fine,’ his dad said. ‘Jake, tell your mum I’ll be back soon.’

The men led his dad away, holding an arm each.

Jake followed a few steps. ‘Dad, what …’

His dad looked back over his shoulder. ‘Jake, stay here. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.’

Jake stopped and watched his dad go. This wasn’t right. Were the men police, or not? They hadn’t shown any ID. Did Italy have Secret Police? What if they loaded him into a car outside? Drove him somewhere? Jake prickled with indecision. He knew he should do something.

But with his mum here, what could he do? The last thing Jake wanted was to blow his dad’s cover.

‘Get off me!’

Jake spun round at his mum’s voice. He struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. Two figures, both dressed head to toe in black, wearing balaclavas, were attacking his mother!

2

‘H
ey!’ shouted Jake. One of the attackers had one hand round his mum’s waist, the other on the camera round her neck.

With a vicious yank, one of the masked men pulled the camera and its strap from Hayley’s neck. Jake went at him first, diving into his legs with a rugby tackle. He scythed the attacker down, but the guy was quick. He freed his arm from Jake’s grip and offloaded the camera to his accomplice, who caught it and started running.

The one beneath Jake backfisted the bridge of his nose, bringing a white explosion of pain. Jake fell back as the attacker wriggled free and went in the opposite direction.

Jake blinked the tears away and sprang up. His mother was pale with shock, but unharmed.

Jake sprinted along the terminal concourse. The attacker carrying his mum’s camera was twenty metres ahead, but a
crowd of Japanese tourists, all wheeling huge suitcases, chose that exact moment to pass ahead of him.

But instead of skidding to a halt the attacker took a light step up on to a case, and leapt high over two more carts. The tourists let out a collective gasp as the attacker sailed through the air and landed gracefully in a standing position.

What the …! thought Jake. I’m dealing with some sort of ninja.

The assailant with the camera turned and looked back for a moment, then set off again.

‘Out of the way!’ Jake yelled, waving his arms.

The tourists didn’t move fast enough, and Jake tripped over a fallen case. He sprawled across the polished floor, but pulled himself up. Ahead, Jake saw the attacker heading towards automatic doors at the far end leading outside. There were two security guards standing off to one side, sipping espressos at a café bar.

‘Stop him!’ Jake shouted. They turned lazily.
‘Attenzione!’
Jake tried, pointing. Slowly, they understood. One jogged across to block the fleeing thief, another unclipped his radio.

The thief saw and veered off sideways. He leapt over a set of seats, legs spread into the splits to clear the heads of dozing travellers, and headed towards an emergency exit. Jake cut across the diagonal to close the distance between
them. When the man reached the door, he slammed down the handle and burst through. Jake was ten metres behind.
There’s no way in hell you’re getting away from me.

They were outside, where green-and-white taxis lined up to take arrivals away to their destinations. As the attacker sprinted across the taxi lane, one blasted its horn, brakes screeching. Smoke climbed over the wheels. For a moment, Jake thought it would collide with the thief, but the fleeing man deftly sidestepped away, bracing with his hands against the bonnet. As he made to run again, Jake leapt and slid feet-first across the bonnet. He reached and his hand closed on the camera.

‘Got you, you scum!’ he said. He tugged at the camera, but the strap was wound round the thief’s wrist.

At the doors, across the taxi rank, Jake saw the security guards emerging.

‘Over here!’ he shouted, clinging to the camera with all his strength.

He felt a sharp pain in his kidney, and went down on one knee. Then another blow to his neck. Jake cried out and fell against the bonnet, feeling the camera slip out of his loosened grip. The other attacker was standing over him. He stepped back to stamp on Jake’s head, but Jake dodged and the foot caught the camera, smashing it into the metalwork of the car.

Jake rolled off the bonnet, and brought up his fists. His blood was pounding. He moved sideways to keep one attacker in front of the other, and sent a jab at the closest. The thief weaved. Jake followed up with a feint, then sent a blow into the guy’s stomach. It connected with a satisfying thump. With a grunt, the thief doubled up. Jake was following with a knee to the face when the second attacker twisted and sent a roundhouse kick into his jaw. Jake had no chance. He spun round, lost his balance and managed to get a hand out before he hit the tarmac. His shoulder crunched into the ground, but he kept his head up. As he rolled over, he watched the black-clad assailants sprint off through a flowerbed. More car horns blasted.

The security guards arrived at his side as Jake steadied himself on an elbow. The camera, with the lens broken into several pieces, lay on the ground in front of the stalled taxi, whose driver was standing amazed behind his open door.

‘Va bene?’
said one of the guards. ‘You OK?’

Jake stood up and brushed the grit off his clothes. His jaw felt like someone had hit him with a sledgehammer.

No,
he thought, stooping to pick up the wrecked camera,
I’m not OK.

Who the hell
were
those people?

*

Back in the terminal building, the security guards were speaking with his mum.

‘I’ve told you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know who they were.’

Jake held the pieces of camera in his open hands. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I couldn’t stop them.’

Her face fell as she spotted the camera. ‘Oh, it’s ruined!’ she cried. ‘Are you all right, though?’

‘I’ll live,’ he said.

His dad arrived at their side. ‘Sorry I took so long.’

Jake tried to catch his dad’s eye to see what was up, but his mum got in first. ‘Never there when you’re needed …’ she sighed.

‘What are you talking about?’ his dad asked, stepping forwards and reaching for Jake’s mum. ‘Are you all right? What’s happened?’

She batted his arms away. ‘We were
attacked,’
she said.

Jake’s dad looked at the security guards, then Jake.

‘They were trying to steal Mum’s camera,’ Jake said.

‘We have many pickpockets in the airport,’ said the security guard. He motioned to the camera, or what was left of it. ‘It is best not to have such expensive objects on display.’

His mum’s face flushed. ‘If you did your job better …’

While his mum started ranting, Jake pulled his dad aside. ‘They weren’t pickpockets, Dad.’ He remembered how the
attacker had vaulted over the luggage trolley, their clothes, the way they’d fought. ‘They were professionals.’

His dad’s tongue played inside his cheek as he thought. He looked over at Jake’s mum, who was still arguing with the security guards.

‘Dad, what’s going on?’ hissed Jake.

His dad shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

Jake’s temper flared once more. His dad was clearly holding something back.

‘And what happened to you?’ he said. ‘Who were those people you went off with?’ He added, sarcastically, ‘People from Sky Sports?’

The security guards were taking some details down from his mum who stood with arms akimbo looking ready to blow her top again.

‘Very funny,’ whispered his father. ‘They were immigration people – just had a couple of things to check with my papers.’

Jake could tell when it was no use pushing.

‘Come on,’ said his mum, walking over. ‘I’ve had about enough of airports for today.’

His dad seemed only too happy to oblige, and muttered something to his mum about Italy having a bad reputation for pickpockets. Jake trailed after them, replaying the attack in his mind. Pickpockets didn’t wear balaclavas. Nor were
they typically trained in ju-jitsu, or whatever it was. This had something to do with his dad’s mission, for sure, but it seemed to have taken everyone by surprise.

3

‘H
i, this is Steve Bastin. I can’t take your call at the moment, but …’

Jake hung up for the third time that morning. Why had his dad switched off his phone? He was probably doing some sort of covert work. But after all they’d been through in Russia he wouldn’t let himself be shut out.

Equally, his dad might be in the studio, going through technical checks and preparing for his commentary duties on the Brotherhood Tournament. Either way, it didn’t make Jake’s day any less boring. His mum had woken him up at the crack of dawn saying she needed an assistant on her latest shoot.

Hayley was in the kitchen of her tiny Milan apartment – Jake could hear the Gaggia machine gurgling from the lounge. This flat was in the Zona Tortona, an up-and- coming area of high-end fashion boutiques and cafés. Most people in the street below looked like they belonged on
the catwalk, and Jake guessed that appealed to someone like his mother.

Jake tried his dad again with the same result. He’d do anything to get out of this photo shoot. Standing around while his mum took pictures was
not
how he planned to spend his time in Milan.

Hayley walked into the sitting room, sipping her coffee. She’d tied her hair back, and was dressed simply in jeans and T-shirt, which looked plain but Jake knew had probably cost hundreds of euros. ‘You ready?’

‘Do I have to?’ Jake asked, giving his best cheeky grin – the one he used to pull when he was eight and she didn’t want to let him out to play football. ‘I could just stay here and watch TV.’

‘No way,’ Jake’s mum said. ‘Your dad might be happy to leave you alone in strange cities, but I’m not. And I might need your muscles to shift a few things for me. There’ll be models there …’ She left it hanging.

Jake saw it was useless to resist. ‘Well, if you
really
need me.’

‘Thanks, Jake.’ She ruffled his hair like he was a kid. He guessed he deserved that for the eight-year-old grin. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘it would be good to spend more time together, wouldn’t it?’

She also knew how to play the guilt trip.

‘I guess so,’ Jake said, peeling himself off the sofa.

‘Good,’ she said, then pointed to a bag near the coat stand. ‘Since you’re such a strong lad, you can carry my camera case.’

Last week he was dodging bullets in a rooftop restaurant. This week he was a carthorse. How things had changed.

His mum drove like a maniac, even by Italian standards. She threw the little Fiat 500 round corners as though she was in a rally, finding gaps in the traffic where Jake couldn’t see one. For the most part, Milan could have been any other commercial European city, but Jake saw occasional signs to galleries and museums and other tourist attractions. He caught glimpses of the Duomo – the main cathedral – rising above the buildings around.

‘You’ll be learning to drive soon, I guess,’ she said. ‘You’re seventeen next year.’

Jake gripped the door for support as she squeezed the car between a truck and a 4x4. If either had swerved, they’d have been crushed like a tin can.

‘I might ask Dad to teach me,’ he replied.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked, glancing at him with the hint of a smile.

They left the main road, and headed between tall office blocks.

‘Will there be anything for me to do at this shoot?’ Jake asked.

‘You can help dress the models, if you want,’ his mum said, winking.

‘Mum!’ Jake protested. He squirmed in discomfort.

‘I’m just saying, no drooling, no trying to chat them up.’ She was smiling a little. ‘These girls are professionals.’

Were all mothers like this? ‘I’m not going to hit on them.’

Soon the office blocks gave way to smaller shops, and the architecture became more traditionally Italian. Stucco buildings, washing hanging out across the street.

‘Seriously, I need you to be on your best behaviour,’ his mum said, as they stopped at a crossroads. ‘This Granble shoot is a big deal.’

‘Who’s Granble?’ asked Jake. ‘Some up-his-own-arse designer?’

‘Far from it,’ his mum said, suddenly very businesslike. ‘Anders Granble owns the Granble Diamond Company. He’s South African. A very, very wealthy man.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ Jake said.

BOOK: Close Range
5.99Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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