The recruit, p.14
The Recruit, page 14
Jaz slid through the small front hedge, to the base of the biggest tree and climbed up the small wooden pegs stuck in its trunk.
‘Howdy, howdy neighbour. Was just lighting the burner,’ said Anna. She was in the corner of the square wooden tree house, next to the window that overlooked the whole street. Jaz crawled in and over to the other corner and sat on a pillow. Yes, they’d put a few creature comforts in here over the years, along with some goods. Once it was matches and cigarettes they’d stolen, when they went through a ‘trying to smoke’ stage, but now their possessions were a gas burner, a couple of sticks and a large packet of marshmallows, two pairs of binoculars and a portable DVD player with a small collection of their favourite movies. Jaz threw a sleeping bag over her legs to keep out the chill. Anna was already rugged up in her pink fluffy dressing gown.
This place had always been their haven, a place they were alone to talk or just watch a movie together during the week. Most times, it would be two o’clock before they’d creep back to their rooms, their bellies full of gooey marshmallows.
‘Here, check this out,’ said Anna as she passed a pair of binoculars over. ‘Looks like Mr Cooper is on the couch again. Do you think Mrs Cooper finally found out he’d been stopping three doors up for a little after work fun?’
‘Ha, quite possible.’ Jaz put the binoculars down, picked up her roasting stick, and poked on two marshmallows before putting them above the flame on the burner.
‘Mum’s taking me shopping tomorrow for a ball dress, do you wanna come with us and get yours?’ said Anna, pulling the outer cooked shell of her marshmallow off and popping it into her mouth.
‘Oh, I’ve already got mine,’ Jaz said and then realised she’d have to lie to her best friend.
Anna scoffed. ‘When!’
‘Today. I left the gym cos Bags was there and went for a look-see and found the coolest silver and blue dress.’ Jaz was rather scared at how easily the lie came out. If she took on the life of an agent, lying would be a huge part of the job.
‘No fair. You should have taken me! Now I’m going to have my mum trying to convince me to go for some virginal white dress that covers me from neck to toe.’
Jaz laughed and nearly choked on her marshmallow.
‘Sorry, do you want me to come with you anyway? I can pick out the really short slutty ones so your mum might come back to a half normal dress.’
‘Nah, don’t worry about it. Mum’s got dentist appointments for both of us. I’d hate you to have to sit through them and then have us spit all over you when we try to talk with numb lips.’ Anna put a pink marshmallow on her stick and then eyeballed Jaz. ‘Hey, what is it with that jumper? You must like it — you’re wearing it a lot.’
‘I don’t wear this all the time!’ Jaz said defensively.
‘Jaz, I’ve seen you in it four times in the last week. Normally you wear your black one.’
‘Well this one is nice and big and warm, is that okay?’ said Jaz, lifting up the grey hoodie over her head as if to show its warmth. The jumper was always at the end of her bed and it was just the first one she picked up. That’s all, she told herself. It had nothing to do with Ryan. It didn’t even smell like him anymore.
‘Oooh, touchy,’ said Anna as she turned off the burner. Five marshmallows was their usual limit. ‘So shall we watch a movie? The battery is fully charged; or you wanna talk and do the neighbourhood watch?’
Anna liked to call it that instead of spying. When they were fourteen they saw an unknown van pull into Mr Cooper’s place while he was on holidays. It looked suss, so Anna called the police on her mobile and they watched as the police arrived and caught the burglars carrying out the big plasma TV. Ever since then Anna feels vindicated for the spying they did. Really, it was quite entertaining. Ryan’s words of ‘don’t just look…see’ came to her. This was sort of like that. They noticed when things were different or unusual in their street. Like the time they caught Jessica, a fifteen-year-old who lives across the street, sneaking out of her house and getting into her boyfriend’s ute. They’d also seen Mrs Bovell sculling liquid from a bottle when her husband wasn’t looking. They soon found out that she was at sent to a rehab clinic for alcohol addiction.
Anna reckoned it was their own fault. If people wanted stuff private, they should shut their blinds at night.
Either way it had given them plenty of entertainment over the years.
‘How about we watch a movie. What shall we have tonight?’ Jaz asked.
Anna flipped through the collection in the DVD folder. ‘Sweet Home Alabama? The Ugly Truth? Avatar?’
‘How about SALT?’
‘Okey dokey, SALT it is.’ While Anna put the disc in the player, Jaz stretched her legs out under the sleeping bag and propped herself up against the wall of the tree house. Anna brought over her pillow for their backs and snuggled under the sleeping bag before putting the player on their legs.
‘Lights please?’
Anna reached up and drew a curtain across their window so the streetlights wouldn’t shine in and their light wouldn’t shine out.
‘Cool, I love the action in this movie.’
Jaz nodded and wondered if she could pick up spy tips from the movie. She figured they had to base it on something, who’s to say it wouldn’t work in real life. As the movie played out, Jaz found her mind wandering to Ryan and their day in the city, and by the end of the movie she’d accumulated another stream of questions for him. What other weapons has he used? Has he killed anyone? Or seen someone die? How many agents were there in Australia? God, so many questions. But she figured a lot of them she wouldn’t get answers for until she was sworn in as an agent. She was thinking about this stuff an awful lot lately. Did that mean that she wanted to do it? Jaz searched her mind, hoping for an answer, but nothing came to her. She just wasn’t sure.
Chapter 19
‘Are you ready for me, Thomas?’
‘Bring it on, Fletcher!’
Jaz moved, shifting her weight from left to right, trying to pre-empt his attack.
‘No holding back today,’ she said. ‘I’m not injured anymore.’
‘Alright, just remember you asked for it.’ Ryan smiled like the devil.
‘Just not my face, okay. I have a ball coming up. I don’t need to be looking like the bride of Frankenstein.’
‘Got it, no head shots…or groin shots for that matter,’ Ryan added.
Jaz laughed and threw a punch, trying to catch him off guard.
‘Oooh, she’s quick today. Someone came to win!’
‘I always come to win.’ Jaz laughed as she narrowly missed taking a hit to her stomach. Damn that was close. Pay attention, Thomas, she scolded herself. It didn’t help that Ryan had taken his shirt of to fight. It was hard enough to concentrate without his perfect chest and arms on display. Ryan’s fist got her in the stomach, wind exploding from mouth with the force. Jaz could handle the pain, just not the humiliation. Concentrate, she scolded herself.
They’d been ducking and diving, punching and attacking with such force that after ten minutes Jaz was sweating so much she stripped off her shirt down to her small crop top. Hell, if he can fight shirtless so could she…well, nearly shirtless. Her dad’s necklace hung just above her breasts.
She saw his eyes flick to her chest and used this distraction to kick his feet out from under him. He landed with a thud on the mat and she quickly jumped on top to hold him down. ‘That’s a trick you taught me, distract and hit. Did you like it?’
‘You learn fast.’ Ryan smiled before turning his hips under Jaz and throwing her to the mat and quickly rolled onto her, holding her body belly down. ‘But here’s another one, don’t ever let your guard down. Never think you have won and relax.’
Ryan had her pinned tight to the ground. ‘Okay, you win let me up,’ she begged.
‘No.’
‘NO?’
‘This isn’t over. Anything is still possible, as everything has more than one option. Think hard, Thomas! Don’t just give up because you think you’re in an unbeatable position.’
Jaz did as he said and begun to assess her situation. Quickly she latched her legs up behind her as she arched her back up towards him. Thank God for the bendy yoga moves. She grabbed him around the neck with her feet and dragged him off to the side. It was enough to be able to roll on her side and, rather scrappily, she pounced back on him. She would not win any awards for that graceless move, but like he said, when it’s life or death, me or them, you do what you have to. Jaz trapped his legs down under hers and held his arms down.
‘Like that,’ she puffed just inches from his face.
His eyebrow arched up cutely. ‘Yes, just like that.’ Ryan was also breathing heavily.
Jaz tried not to realise just how close he was, and just how much of his body lay pressed against hers. She diverted her eyes to the side and saw Ryan’s tattoo on his inside arm. ‘Forever’, but it was the initials C.C. under it that she couldn’t see that held her thoughts. ‘Your mate Chris, was he an agent?’
Ryan nodded slightly. ‘Remember how I told you my last operation was to go in and rescue an agent that had been compromised?’
‘Yeah.’ Jaz was still trying to bring her breathing back under control.
‘It was Chris and I…I couldn’t get there in time. I saw the whole thing through my scope.’
Ryan’s body tensed underneath her and his eyes went cold with anger.
‘You saw your mate die?’ she whispered. Jaz relaxed her grasp on Ryan as the reality of what he’d just said gripped her. ‘Oh, Ryan…’ She went to say sorry but he cut her off.
‘They had obviously found out he was an agent and he’d been summonsed out to see the boss man. I was casing his huge house, which is on a big block in the bush on the outskirts of the city. His pool area is edged in a glass fence that over looks a steep cliff off the side of a hill. I was on a nearby hill just casing out the joint, seeing where I could get in to find Chris, unable to act but I could see them clearly.’ He swallowed with difficulty. ‘Chris and the boss were leaning against the glass fence, looking out over the bush, talking, when the boss’s right-hand-man, they call him Franko, pulled out a gun from the other side of the pool and shot him in the head. So quickly, I didn’t have time to get a shot off. The boss then walked away while Franko pushed him over the fence and watched him fall down the cliff face.’
Jaz released his arms and sat up covering her mouth with her hand. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t find the words to express her horror. She slid off Ryan to the mat as he sat up. ‘What…?’ Her eyes probed his.
‘What happened next?’ he asked for her. ‘Well Franko and the boss no doubt dusted off their hands, had a drink and probably ordered someone to clean up the mess they’d left. I didn’t stick around to find out. I took off down the hill to get to Chris.’
Jaz’s eyes just about fell out of her head. She couldn’t imagine what state Ryan would have found Chris in. She couldn’t imagine seeing a wound in his head, let alone broken bones and scrapes from the fall. She shivered with repulsion. ‘Was he alive when you found him?’
Ryan turned his head, as if he was looking out the front windows of the gym, but his expression was blank and unseeing. ‘No, he would have been dead the moment he went over the railing.’ He paused, only their steady breathing could be heard in the empty gym. ‘It took me over six hours to carry his body back out to where my vehicle was hiding. We’ve been best mates since I was recruited. I will not rest until I can avenge his death.’ His words were venomous.
Jaz saw Ryan swallow, his eyes set hard while her own eyes filled with tears. She reached out for him, rubbing his arms and rested her chin on his shoulder. His pain was still so raw. She remembered him when he’d first came to the gym. They’d had some fun together and he obviously could hide his pain. Right now she realised just how well he’d hidden it.
She wanted to ask him how they’d covered up Chris’s death for his family, but knew that it didn’t really matter. They would have found a way to hide the truth and after all, it wouldn’t change the fact that Chris was gone. Jaz wasn’t going to learn anything by that, so she swallowed her question and just sat there silently with Ryan as she blinked away her own tears.
It felt like hours, but maybe it was minutes, before Ryan turned to Jaz and smiled. He took a deep breath to steady himself before reaching out to touch her necklace as she dropped her arms from the embrace.
‘Is this special? I’ve never seen you without it,’ he asked as he tried to read the medallion.
‘It’s St Michael, he’s an archangel. Apparently, he’s like this commander of God’s army against Satan’s forces.’
‘Sound’s like a cool dude.’
Jaz grinned as Ryan’s thumb ran over the medallion. ‘I’m not religious; I wear it because it’s from my dad. He gave it to my mum before I was born and it’s all I have of him. He died.’ Jaz turned the medallion over to show Ryan the engraving on the back. ‘Mum hates that I found this and kept it. But I refuse to give it back. It’s all I have of him.’
She watched Ryan read the engraving on the back. Salvatore D.L. His body suddenly went rigid as his eyes flicked up to hers. ‘Have you ever tried to find out what this means?’
‘Well it could be my dad’s name or maybe his dad’s name, or a favourite uncle. I don’t know because Mum won’t tell me anything about him or this. But Anna and I Googled it, but do you know how many Salvatore’s there are out there? And who knows what the D and L stand for. That could give a million middle name and last name combinations. Mum threatens to take it off me if I ask too many questions. She just reminds me that Paul is my dad, has been since I was two and that’s all that matters. He loves me.’ Jaz sighed. ‘But still I see I’m different from them and I want to at least know something about my real father. Even if he is dead.’
‘But what if it’s not good, he’s not good? Maybe your mum is saving you from something horrible. Have you ever thought of that?’
‘Sometimes I do. Yet when Mum does talk about him, like when she slips up, I can tell she cared about him. I believe she loved him.’ Jaz pulled her necklace from Ryan’s hand and let it fall back against her chest. ‘I got his skin tone and my mum’s blue eyes. A rather weird mix,’ said Jaz with a shrug.
‘But it’s what makes you so captivating.’
Ryan’s voice was soft and quiet but the words he spoke reverberated through her body like he’d shouted them. Jaz was sure he was aware of the electricity sparking between them too.
‘The name Salvatore certainly goes with my skin tone,’ she added.
Cold detached eyes looked across at the far wall, in a way that brought chills to Jaz’s skin. ‘What? What’s wrong?’
Ryan stood up. ‘Nothing. It’s not you. If we don’t get moving again we’ll probably seize up.’
Jaz took his hand as he pulled her up but his eyes avoided her. Was he upset that she’d seen him at his weakest? Blokes like to pretend they are tough and he is a secret super agent, so it’s probably twice as bad. Ryan went to walk away but she grabbed his hand. ‘You okay?’
He tensed but then squeezed her hand, his shoulders dropping slightly. ‘Sorry. It’s not you.’ He sighed. ‘You know how you hate certain names attached to an awful memory or person?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jaz, instantly thinking of Minka. Just the sound of it grated up her spine.
‘Well, I meet a lot of shady characters so I dislike a lot of names. Salvatore just happens to be one of them.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t worry about it Jaz. It’s just a name that rubs me up the wrong way. I can’t help how I feel when I hear it.’ Ryan squeezed her hand before walking away.
Jaz didn’t know what else to say. So she just reverted back to what was normal and safe. Picking up her shirt she yelled to him. ‘You know I won that round, don’t you?’
Ryan glanced back, for a moment his old playful smile returned. ‘You hang on to that, as it won’t happen again.’ But his face darkened before he turned back towards the change rooms.
Oh well. She couldn’t expect him to be joyful after he’d just unloaded that painful burden. Maybe she wasn’t even supposed to know about it. What if she doesn’t join up, will they kill her for having too much knowledge?
Jaz laughed at herself. Talk about overactive imagination.
Chapter 20
The siren rang out and you could feel the relief of five hundred students as they headed for the exit doors like stampeding cattle. Jaz was walking with Taylor. They’d had the same last class together, which was her favourite because he was in it. They strolled along as kids rushed by, eager to escape school. Taylor’s name was called out every so often in a ‘bye, catch ya tomorrow’. No one around here would exert that much effort on Jaz, but if she were as popular as Taylor was then maybe she’d have more than three friends. Four if you counted Ryan!
‘So I was talking to Anna in History and she’s keen to come to the firing range today, are you? I know Bags has The Ring open on a Thursday, so no excuses.’ Taylor grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Com’on, you know you want to.’
‘Why, have all your popular mates deserted you?’ she laughed as she enjoyed his warm hand.
All too soon, Taylor let go of her hand to put it over his heart. ‘Oww, Jasmine! It hurts me to hear you say that. You know you and Anna are at the top of the list.’
‘I heard my name. I hope it wasn’t spoken in vain!’
‘It’s Anna Banana. Hey beautiful, ready to knock some rust off your aim?’ Taylor joked.
Anna had her hair swept up in a loose bun, with a few soft curls that had dropped free. She really was beautiful when she wasn’t hiding behind a book or computer screen.
‘Yep! You coming too, Jazzy?’
Jaz normally would have jumped at the chance but a part of her wanted to go to The Ring and see how Ryan was today. Yesterday had been so full of emotion and weirdness and she wanted to make sure things were still okay between them. But she didn’t want to miss out on going to the range with Taylor. He was really making the effort to spend more time with them than with his more popular friends of late. She wondered if there was something behind it, or maybe he’d just finally realised what a hissy cat Minka and her friends could be. Whatever the reason she didn’t want it to slip by either.
