because I was aware of being new in the business and I hadn’t wanted to make waves, to come across as too pushy.
What a time to turn over a new leaf.
***
At the time of the abortive attack on Trey Pelzner I’d been in America for just four days. I’d flown into Miami International airport expecting a laid-back couple of weeks’ jaunt in the sun, and no trouble.
Officially, I’d been working for Sean Meyer’s exclusive close protection agency for six weeks by then. Unofficially, my involvement in the world of the professional bodyguard had begun at a dodgy training school in Germany shortly after New Year.
When that particular course had ended in disarray Sean had sent me off to study with various experts on a one-on-one basis. By the beginning of March they’d reckoned I was ready for my first assignment.
The Florida job had come up at short notice. I’d been away up in Lancashire visiting friends when Sean had phoned one morning and told me to get back down to King’s Langley fast, and to make sure I’d got my passport with me.
“Where am I going?” I’d asked, almost flustered. “What else do I need to bring?”
“Just pack some clothes for hot weather,” he’d replied. “We’re supplementing an existing security team and they’ll provide any equipment we need once we get out there.”
I heard the “we” rather than the singular and couldn’t help the relief. “Who’s the principal?”
“Nobody you’ve ever heard of, don’t worry – this is not a celebrity job,” Sean had said, and I could hear the lazy amusement in his voice. “It’s for a small software company based in Miramar in Florida. They’ve had some threats made against their staff and they’re getting jumpy, that’s all.”
I’d frowned. It didn’t exactly sound like cause for a mad dash halfway down country, let alone across the Atlantic. “So why are they bringing us in?”
“I came across the company’s director of security when I was teaching a hostage negotiation course in Virginia last year and we hit it off,” he’d said. “When they needed extra manpower, she came to me.”
There were times when I’d wondered if he still wanted me the way he once had, with that kind of desperate, all-consuming intensity. Was he just being considerate because of what he now knew I’d gone through, or did the wounds we’d both received at the hands of the army still run deep, even after five years?
Maybe I’d been just too proud, or too scared, to make the first move and find out. If it all went wrong this time, that would be the end of it.
“OK,” I’d said, checking my watch. “I’ll set off as soon as I’m sorted. I should be back down there in less than three hours.”
He’d restrained himself from reminding me that just shy of two hundred and thirty miles separated us. It may be colder, wetter, and more exposed, but riding a motorbike also means you don’t sit in traffic jams on the M6 all the way past Birmingham.
“That’s fine,” he’d said. “I’m just about to leave now, but Madeleine’s booked you on a flight out of Heathrow first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure she puts together some background info for you to read on the plane.”
But by the time the American Airlines 777 touched down in Miami the following afternoon I didn’t feel much more enlightened than I had done before I’d taken off. The promised dossier was scant, to say the least. Even from my limited association with Sean’s company, I knew he never took on a job without being fully aware of the facts. I wondered at his tie with this unknown female director of security, that he would drop everything for her to fly nearly five thousand miles apparently so ill-prepared.
The security director’s name was Gerri Raybourn. The file told me that much at least, and included a badly pixellated black and white picture of a slight blonde woman wearing a power suit and a don’t-mess-with-me expression.
The company she worked for was only vaguely described. They were a small independent software house, specialising mainly in accounting packages and data manipulation. Their turnover was modest and didn’t seem to be matching up to anyone’s projections, least of all their own.
In truth, the company’s markets were being swallowed up as the big boys stamped conformity across the sector. Taking it at face value, they were not quite sinking yet but the decks were certainly awash.
Ms Raybourn’s department within the company was more diminutive than her impressive title might have suggested. She just had a deputy director and two additional operatives to play with.
The step-up in security concerned one of their key program developers, Keith Pelzner, but no specific threats or incidents were noted.
It was a long flight and I hadn’t thought to buy a paperback at the airport, so I read and reread the file several times, trying to squeeze the last few drops of information out of every word and phrase. Despite that, nowhere did the document even begin to suggest why they should feel the need to import close protection personnel from the UK.
It was only much later that the thought occurred to me that maybe they just didn’t like the idea of getting their own people killed.
***
The flight had landed on time but it had taken a while to shuffle through Immigration and then my bag had, of course, been the last one off the carousel. When I finally made it out into the arrivals lounge I was dishevelled, tired, thirsty, and surprisingly chilly.
Gerri Raybourn herself was waiting to meet me in a tailored mint green suit and the kind of four-inch heels I couldn’t have successfully negotiated a flight of stairs in. She was holding up a piece of white card with my name written on it in a slightly childish hand. Her impatience showed only in the way her long painted nails drummed against the edge of the card. Her face was a perfectly made-up mask.
“Ms Raybourn?” I said, halting in front of her. There was a faint lift of one plucked eyebrow. I nodded to the card. “I’m Charlie Fox.”
Her confusion was momentary, quickly cloaked, and she held out her hand. I engaged it with care, not only because of those talon-like nails, but also because in the flesh she was a tiny woman, her hands half the size of mine. I needn’t have worried. She had a grip that could crack walnuts.
“Well, if you’re all set I’ll take you right on over to the house,” she said, looking dubiously at my rip-stop nylon squashy bag. I couldn’t tell from her expression if she thought I’d brought too much luggage, or not nearly enough.
She led me outside at a surprisingly brisk pace considering those shoes. As the sliding doors opened the wet Florida heat hit me in the face like a sneezing dragon. The surface of my skin went from shiver to sweat almost instantly. Then we were climbing into Gerri’s illegally parked Mercedes and she cranked the air conditioning on full almost before she even started the engine. So that was how she stopped her make-up sliding.
“So, Charlie,” she said as she pulled out fast into traffic. “I take it you’ve worked in the States some before?”
“No,” I said, wondering what exactly Sean had told her about me. Less, it would seem, than he’d told me about her. “Actually, this is my first time.”
She frowned, then said with the faintest touch of bite, “Well, I guess you’ll find we like to do things a little differently over here.”
In fact, it wasn’t until we’d navigated our way out of the airport complex and were onto the highway that I plucked up the courage to do so. But my tentative opening gambit of “Excuse me, but can you tell me wh—?” was cut short by the shrill ring of her mobile phone, amplified by the in-car kit it was slotted into.
She peered down at the tiny display, then leaned across and pressed a button to receive the call on hands-
