The Recruit (17 page)

Jaz’s phone went off as she pulled it from the waistband of her skirt. ‘Oh no, busted. It’s from Anna, wondering where I am. She said she was sitting all alone in the school caf but luckily, Taylor kept her company. I’m now demoted to second best friend.’ Jaz laughed and texted her back. ‘I just told her we went to The Ring for a work-out.’

‘You hungry?’

‘Could eat a horse,’ she replied.

They grabbed a bite at the Carillon food court, both Chinese, before heading back through the shops. Jaz saw a dress shop and turned her eyes to Ryan. ‘Look, normally a dress shop is the last place I’d be, but I can’t go to the ball naked now, can I?’

His eyebrows shot up and then he shrugged. ‘Oh I don’t know, I think you’d be the best dressed there,’ Ryan laughed.

‘Pleeeeease, can we go in?’ He sighed and she took that as a yes. Jaz grabbed his arm and dragged him into the shop. ‘You can stand here and tell me what you think. I need a guy’s opinion.’ Jaz parked Ryan in front of the change rooms before heading off to find some dresses. She went for the blue ones, Taylor did suggest it after all. On the way back to the change rooms she saw a silvery blue halter neck dress and grabbed that too before strutting into the change rooms past Ryan who looked less than enthusiastic.

‘Shouldn’t you be doing this with your mum?’ asked Ryan, whose foot she could hear tapping away impatiently.

‘My mum works and just gave me money to find something. She probably thinks I’m not even going to go. But I have a date now, so I have to.’

‘Ah huh. So who’s the lucky fella?’

Jaz burst into laughter as she walked out. ‘I look like I’m being strangled. Check out all these straps. Any good?’

‘No.’

She tried on the next one.

‘You didn’t say who you were going with?’

Jaz didn’t know why he cared. ‘Taylor is taking me. Just as a friend,’ she said coming out with another dress on.

‘No.’

And then another.

‘No.’

‘Damn you Ryan, are you going to like any of them?’ Jaz reached for the silvery one and slipped it on. She smiled at the image in the mirror. The dress started at the top in a silver halter and blended through to a vibrant blue. Fitted like a glove too. This was her favourite. She sashayed out of the change room for Ryan’s opinion. But she didn’t need to hear it as she could see the awe in his eyes.

‘You like?’

‘Definitely, that one is perfect. I even like it with your boots,’ he commented.

Jaz hiked up the hem and showed them off. She felt giddy at the look in his eyes. There was heat simmering in the deep depths before he blinked it away and said quickly, ‘Come on, grab that one and let’s get going. I’ve had more than my quota of dresses.’

Jaz almost squealed with delight, almost. With a smile she went and got changed. After paying for the dress, she looped her hand through Ryan’s arm. ‘Not a bad day’s recon, and a dress and a jacket for our troubles.’

Ryan looked across at her and raised that funny eyebrow. ‘Yeah, it wasn’t
too
painful.’

‘Thanks Ryan, today was great,’ she said meaningfully. ‘Can we do this again tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Not on your life!’ he laughed.

At eleven o’clock that night, Jaz jumped out of bed and stuffed it with pillows. She threw a jumper on over her singlet and stepped into her warm Ugg boots, tucking in her black pyjama pants. Quietly she opened her window and crawled out onto the small roof below it. She left the window open just a fraction before walking carefully to the garage roof that met with the house. After scaling across the garage, she climbed down the lattice on the other side, dodging the rose bush at the bottom. Many times she’d had to get Anna to pick thorns buried into her hands, legs or backside after a failed escape.

She crept through the front of her neighbour’s yard to Anna’s house. Being only a house away was another reason they’d been friends since they were babies. The Johnsons had a bigger property and in their front yard were two big lilac trees amongst the landscaped gardens. Anna’s dad had always wanted a tree house as a little boy and even though they only had Anna, he still had one built. The girls had loved it; it had become
their
place and at least once a week they would sneak out at night and catch up in the tree house.

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.

‘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.’