56

“How’s Operation Hawk-Eye going?” asked Connor, happy to be back in the comms seat in Alpha team’s briefing room.

“Well, there’ve been no more eggs!” Amir replied, the monitor revealing a more confident expression on his friend’s face compared to the last time they’d spoken, when he’d failed to react after a protestor had slung an egg at his Principal. “But there was a bomb.”

“A bomb!” Connor exclaimed. “Are you all right? What happened?”

Amir nodded. “Thanks to your advice I spotted it early.” He waved a pair of sunglasses in front of the camera. “You reminded me that the mind is the best weapon. So, using my IT skills, I upgraded the lenses to detect sudden movements. My early-warning system helped me save my Principal by leaping in front of him as the bomb was thrown.”

“How on earth did you survive?”

“It was a water bomb,” explained Amir, laughing at Connor’s wide-eyed look of shock. “I got soaked!”

Connor laughed too. “Well, I’m pleased you’re in such high spirits. I’m just sorry I wasn’t around the last couple of weeks, but I’ve been a little tied up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Amir. “Charley’s been my support, and I know you were gunning for me too.” He moved closer to the screen and squinted. “I see you lost your watch. That thing was indestructible! Is there nothing you can’t lose or break on an assignment?”

Connor felt his face flush at being found out. He’d replaced the watch he’d given Henri with a brand-new Rangeman at airport duty-free on the way home. “How do you know?” he asked.

Amir rolled his eyes. “That’s the series three edition. It’s the newest model. You can tell by the red accents on the dial. Yours was a series two.”

“Well, whatever series, your gift was a godsend,” said Connor with a rueful smile. “I’d have literally been lost without it.”

“So how was Africa?” asked Amir.

Connor hesitated before replying. “It’s the most beautiful, awe-inspiring and . . . lethal place on Earth. Africa just gets under your skin. Despite everything that happened, I’d go back in a heartbeat. Although I might not take a safari anytime soon!”

“Sounds to me like you need a real vacation,” said Amir.

Connor nodded in agreement. “When you’re back, let’s ask the colonel for some time off.”

“Great idea! A guardian break!” There was a voice in the background and Amir glanced offscreen. “Sorry, Connor, I’ve got to go. Duty calls.”

“I understand. Stay safe, Amir. Alpha Control, signing off.”

As Connor closed down the video app, a clawed hand suddenly grabbed his left shoulder and he half jumped, half winced.

“Hey, pussycat!” said Ling, baring her teeth in a mock snarl. “When will you be ready for our final deciding match?”

“Not for a good few weeks,” he replied, loosening up his stiff shoulder. “The doctor says I need to rest; otherwise I’ll rip my stitches again.”

Ling tutted in disappointment. “Excuses, excuses,” she said. “I suppose we could play tic-tac-toe with your scars while we wait.”

“You need to let him rest, Ling,” said Charley, glancing over as she typed up the team’s daily occurrence log. “He’s still in recovery.”

“Why does Connor get all your sympathy?” Marc questioned, raising his own shirt to reveal a small scar across his belly. “I had my appendix taken out in an emergency operation!”

“Shame they didn’t take your voice box out at the same time,” said Jason. “Then we wouldn’t have to listen to all your complaining.”

“It’s nothing to joke about,” protested Marc. “I almost died.”

Connor said nothing, but he thought he’d prefer acute appendicitis to fighting rebel soldiers and wrestling crocodiles any day of the week. His lack of communication with his family would also have been far easier to explain to his gran. Instead he’d received a tongue-lashing over the phone from her that would’ve put even the fearsome Black Mamba in his place. Yet while he was in the doghouse with his gran, Connor received the good news that his mom’s MS was in remission, for the time being at least.

Richie shut down his laptop and headed for the door. “Hey, it’s pizza night in the cafeteria. Who’s coming?”

Everyone started packing up, except Charley.

“I’ll be along shortly,” she said, then sighed. “Just finishing off the log.”

“We’ll save you a slice,” yelled Ling, disappearing down the hallway with Jason.

As Marc hurried after them, Connor hung back. “I’ll catch up,” he said in answer to his friend’s questioning glance.

Alone in the briefing room with Charley, Connor wondered how to broach the subject that had been on his mind since his return from Burundi. As he tried to pluck up the courage, Charley looked over and said, “You don’t have to wait for me.”

“No, it’s okay,” he replied, feeling even more nervous than he did before an assignment. “I’ve been wanting to ask you . . . do you want to go out sometime? Catch a movie or something together?”

Charley stopped typing. “Are you . . . actually asking me out on a date?”

She suddenly sounded as nervous as he was.

Connor nodded.

Charley’s sky-blue eyes studied his face as if trying to judge whether he was joking. “Are you sure about this?”

“I’ve never been more sure,” he replied, remembering his kiss with Amber and what had really been wrong about it. The simple fact was that it hadn’t been Charley.

She spun her wheelchair toward him. “Because if you’re serious, you need to understand how I ended up in this chair and how that’s changed me.”

“I want to know,” said Connor, sitting down next to her. “I want to know everything about you.”

Taking a deep breath, Charley steeled herself to revisit her past. “Well . . . This is the first time that I’ve ever told anyone the full story . . .”