Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

the blockade. The impact was jarring, but not devastating enough to disable his
     own vehicle. In preparation for the training exercise, the car’s airbags had been
     disarmed so the collision didn’t trigger their inflation and cut the engine.
    As he pushed on through the blockade, Connor
     heard another horrible
scrunching
sound and went to brake.
    ‘Don’t stop,’ urged
     Charley.
    Connor kept his foot firmly on the
     accelerator, but thescraping between the cars
     was like fingernails being clawed down a chalkboard. Then, with a final
screech
, they were beyond the roadblock.
    Charley looked back out of the rear
     windscreen. ‘Don’t worry, it was just your front bumper,’ she said,
     keeping her voice light and breezy.
    Grimacing, Connor prayed Jody wouldn’t
     penalize him for such an error. He’d been warned about the danger of getting
     tangled up with another vehicle. Driving on, he tried to sneak a glance at Jody’s
     test sheet just as a masked man leapt into the road. On instinct, Connor braked,
     stopping a couple of metres short of hitting him. Unfazed, the attacker raised his gun
     and fired. A red paintball exploded on the windshield, directly in line with
     Connor’s head.
    ‘Test over,’ declared Jody.
    The gunman walked up to the driver’s
     side and tapped on the glass. Connor wound down the window. Bending down, the gunman
     removed his mask.
    ‘Better luck next time,’ said
     Bugsy as Jody put a cross through the last box on her clipboard. ‘Consider us even
     for kicking me in the jaw!’
    With a sinking heart, Connor flicked on the
     windscreen wipers and washed off the splodge of dripping paint. Turning the car round,
     he headed back to the starting point – the forecourt of the abandoned business park
     commandeered for the exercise. He stopped beside Amir, Ling, Jason and Richie, huddled
     in a group, all wrapped up in thick puffer jackets against the winter chill.
    Stepping out of the
     car, Connor noticed Marc clasping his right side as if in pain. ‘Are you all
     right?’ he asked.
    ‘Fine,’ replied Marc, waving him
     away. ‘The seat belt must have caught me when you did the emergency stop.
     Don’t worry about it.’
    ‘How did the test go?’ asked
     Amir, his breath puffing out in small white clouds in the cold air.
    Connor responded with a half-hearted
     smile.
    ‘Not good by the looks of it,’
     remarked Richie, examining the crumpled wing. ‘He’s trashed our
     car!’
    ‘Sorry,’ Connor mumbled.
     ‘I must have got caught up.’
    Jody inspected the damage herself.
     ‘It’s mostly cosmetic. The good thing was you didn’t stop and the car
     wasn’t disabled.’ She stood and addressed all of Alpha team. ‘The
     number-one rule in an ambush situation is to
always
keep moving
.’ Making another mark on her clipboard, she glanced over at
     Connor. ‘Shame you didn’t do that on the final stage of the
     exercise.’
    ‘But I’d have run Bugsy
     over,’ protested Connor.
    ‘It was
only
Bugsy,’
     she replied, the corner of her mouth curling up in a wry smile. ‘Seriously, in
     such a situation you shouldn’t hesitate to use your vehicle as a weapon to attack
     a threat head on.’
    ‘But you could kill someone!’
     said Amir.
    ‘That’s their decision. If
     there’s an armed attacker in front of your car, you either drive into, around or
     over that attacker. No hesitation. And, when you drive directly at the enemy, their
     self-preservation instincts kick in. This affects their ability to shoot straight, as
     well as shifting their focusfrom killing you
     to not getting hit themselves. Either way, the threat is neutralized or escape
     achieved.’
    ‘So I’ve failed the test
     then?’ said Connor, glumly looking at the smear of red paint still visible on the
     windscreen.
    ‘You’re technically dead,’
     Jody admitted. Then she gave him an encouraging wink. ‘However, your overall score
     was seventy-eight per cent. A solid