CHAPTER 1
Amber was sick and tired of just sitting in the car. It wasn't fair she had been chosen for this job while the others were out actually doing something. Hex sat next to her, his eyes locked on the screen as he typed. Earlier she had watched him fondly, but now even her affection had been overcome by impatience. 'What time is it?' asked Amber irritably. Hex lifted his green eyes from the screen to glare at her. 'You asked that two minutes ago.'
She scowled, slumping back in her seat. 'Just humor me, will you?'
Hex's eyes softened as he noted her impatience. If he hadn't been a loner by nature, he would probably have felt exactly the same. Alex, Paulo and Li were out in the field, roaming the streets of Shengmei, China, and searching for one man in particular – Ricky Chang.
Ever since being stranded on one of the many islands scattered around Indonesia, they had become a tight knit team. They had come from different corners of the world, only having been dragged together for what had been called "the trip of a lifetime". They found themselves on a boat named The Phoenix in the sea of Indonesia under the name of A-Watch. Rich girl Amber and code-loving Hex had hated each other more than anything, and their fighting wore down the patience of everyone else on the ship. Li and Paulo flirted more than they did their work, and Alex had separated himself from the group, unwilling to get in trouble because of the foolish antics of the others in his team. At the time, it had seemed impossible for a strong, trust-worthy team to be made out from them, but after falling asleep together on the lifeboat after a forbidden meal, they woke up and found themselves stranded in the middle of a turquoise sea. After they had landed on a deserted island, they found they were forced to rely on each other's skills – and that mentality had stuck ever since.
Hex shuddered as he recalled the terrifying, never-ending days on that island. He had been bitten by a komodo dragon and the whole team had had to fight to keep him alive, carrying him across half the island to find only a trio of pirates and a family of prisoners waiting for them. The man of the family was Phillip Larrousse, a rich surgeon who owned the yacht the pirates had hijacked, and they had managed to save him, his wife and his two children from possible death. They had also managed to call for help from his yacht, which Amber had bravely swum to, hardly missing a fierce encounter with a group of sharks. In the end, Amber's uncle John Middleton saved them. After all they had been through together, they had decided not to break up and return back to their normal lives, but instead managed to encourage Amber's uncle to allow them to continue on with the work Amber's parents had been doing before their untimely death. Together, they named themselves Alpha Force. The label was made up from their first initials: Alex, Li, Paulo, Hex and Amber. And with every approaching holiday, the five teenagers eagerly awaited seeing each other again to embark on another mission and to right everything that was wrong. It was their job – even though John Middleton usually didn't know the half of it.
This holiday was different from the others. This time they weren't taking a break from school; rather, they were meeting up after their first years of adulthood. After their last successful mission in the highlands of Scotland, where they'd been stationed to run a week's worth of activities for troubled kids but ended up instead chasing members of a drug scam, they'd returned to their homes to continue on with their lives: Amber had gone to university in Boston so she'd have the skills to lead her parents' company; Hex had retreated back to London where he'd attended the Imperial College to study IT and computer science; Alex had joined his first year of the military; Paulo had returned to Argentina to his family ranch which he hoped to run on his own someday; and, finally, Li had gone travelling like her parents had, rock climbing and visiting zoological sites all over the world. Currently, she was stationed nearby her uncle's traditional martial arts school, learning the trade so she could take over the teaching. Although Alpha Force had initially hoped they'd continue working together in the future, they were more likely to do well in their own trades and continue only meeting up during the holidays.
This year, on their first holiday after leaving school, they had met up to come to China so that they could volunteer in one of the poor local institutes and teach English to the students. It had been Li's idea, as she had heard about the small school from her uncle. After they finished with the school they would go to Li's temporary home in the countryside and spend the rest of their holiday rock climbing and learning martial arts in her uncle's traditional institute. They'd all been excited for the chance and had hoped that for once they'd be able to stay out of trouble and keep Amber's uncle happy.
Unfortunately, that hadn't worked out so well. On their second day working at the school they found out about Ricky Chang, a trafficker alike to the Scorpion whom they had met in Africa and had left dead at the bottom of a well in a local desert village. They'd found out about Chang when one of the children in their class had gone missing. When they asked one of the other students about it he simply said his friend was going to America to work. Which, from past experience, Alpha Force knew was fishy. Hex, on his ever humble and efficient state-of-the-art palmtop, had found out the rest from his online friends. Ricky Chang was a well-known human trafficker, though he was rich enough to stay out of trouble. He trafficked any locals who came to him for help and they never ended up where they expected to. Like the Scorpion's trafficked children, they wound up in slavery or absolute poverty, in worse conditions than they had been before. Often they were stuck their whole lives trying to pay Chang back for the expenses of trafficking them, which was why he was so rich in the first place.
Ricky Chang, unlike the Scorpion, didn't rely on lies to steal people away from their homes and force them into slavery. He was stealthy and in control; he stole them away in the darkness and set them on ships due to depart at dawn, heading to places only he knew.
Ricky Chang was a snakehead. And he knew exactly what he was doing.
Now, Amber shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked out of the window. 'So where are they now? Do you think they'll find him?'
'Wait…' Hex tailed off, his eyes following the three tracer dots as they moved across the screen. 'They're stopping.'
Amber twitched impatiently and tried to stay in her seat, half of her aching to move over towards Hex and look over his shoulder at the screen and see what was happening. 'They've stopped at a café,' said Hex finally. 'Maybe Chang's in there.'
Amber sat up straight, wondering if there was a chance she could do something to help. 'What's this café called?'
'Taeng Fong.' Amber nodded and started to climb over into the driver's seat, but Hex groaned. 'No, please don't. Your driving's going to make me lose my breakfast.'
Amber shot him a glower over her shoulder, climbing fully behind the wheel and buckling her seatbelt. 'Shut up, code boy, and strap yourself in. This is going to be a bumpy ride.'
Alex leaned back in his chair, trying to look like a curious tourist, but nothing he did was going to stop the café workers from staring at his fair Northumbrian looks. Paulo's easy, laid-back Argentinean attitude wasn't helping him much, either. Only Li didn't stand out, her fine-boned Anglo-Chinese features fitting her in with the rest of the crowd. They all wore holiday clothes and backpacks to assist on their tourist cover and had been walking through the village for two hours before they spotted Ricky Chang sitting in the dark corner of Taeng Fong café, looking as if he was waiting for an appointment. He kept on looking their way, which wasn't helping with their cover, and they kept looking his, searching for whoever might be joining him. 'This is boring,' sighed Li, reading through a paper menu.
'Would you prefer to be stuck in a car for a couple hours?' asked Alex.
'Of course I don't!' exclaimed Li. 'But I want some action!'
Alex shot her a warning look and she lowered her voice. 'He's not doing anything, and neither are we.' She cast a disapproving look at him and Paulo. 'And you two are sticking out like sore thumbs.'
'But in a good way, yes?' asked Paulo, raking his dark curls back from his handsome face with a grin. Li rolled her eyes. 'Either way, you're standing out, and you need to fix it. Obviously they don't get many tourists here.'
'I'm not sure there's much we can do,' said Alex. 'Unless I dye my hair black and wear contacts. And if Paulo powders his skin white and shrinks a few inches.'
'Shrink?' asked Paulo, looking shocked. 'No way!'
'Let's just order,' muttered Li, but she couldn't hide the smile which turned up the corners of her mouth. She lifted her hand to call for a waiter and a young man hurried over to get their order. 'You guys having coffee?' she asked Paulo and Alex.
They nodded their agreement. When the waiter arrived at their table, Li asked for four coffees in Chinese and watched as he hastened to write their orders down. When he had finished, she glanced back over her shoulder to where Ricky was sitting and frowned up at the waiter. 'Who's he?' Alex and Paulo's eyebrows raised, wondering what she was asking. The waiter looked back at Ricky's table nervously. 'His name is Ricky Chang. He's a frequent visitor here.'
'Well, he keeps staring,' said Li, trying to sound annoyed. The waiter didn't seem to know how to answer her. 'I'll get your order,' he replied quickly. Then he gathered up their menus and walked stiffly away. Li turned back to the table and both Alex and Paulo stared at her, waiting for her to tell them what she and the waiter had talked about. 'It's definitely Ricky,' said Li, her voice lowered. Paulo glanced over her shoulder and saw Ricky staring back at him while sipping tea, his eyes narrowed. He quickly looked away. 'I think he is suspicious of us,' whispered Paulo.
'Well thanks for that, Sherlock.' Li rolled her eyes again.
'I think we should leave after this drink,' said Alex in a low voice, looking uncomfortable. Both Li and Paulo looked over at him. 'Why? What is it?' asked Li.
'Because two big men appeared over there,' he said, nodding towards the other side of the road, where two men had walked up and were simply standing and watching the café. 'I don't like the look of them.'
'Hex and Amber have got our backs if we get into trouble,' murmured Li, fingering the locket she wore around her neck, inside of which a tracker device was hidden. The boys had identical tracking devices, though they were hidden in their belts. The devices had been handy in many other situations and they had all come to rely on them very much. 'Yes, I know, but not everyone likes getting into fights,' Alex said, sending her a pointed look. Although Li was short and slight to the point of looking fragile, she was a professional in martial arts and free climbing, so her muscles were stronger than anyone else's in the team. She was also an adrenaline junkie, so she hardly ever seemed to run out of energy and jumped into situations without thinking first. She shrugged, but her eyes didn't leave the two men across the street, as if she were sizing them up, wondering which was the best way to take them down. Paulo, at her side, turned his head slightly so it looked like he was looking at Li, but was actually staring across the café at Ricky Chang. Ricky didn't notice him looking, and had pulled a mobile phone out of his pocket, keying in a number before lifting it to his ear.
'He's gotten out his phone,' whispered Li excitedly. Paulo was about to say he already knew – he was watching, but then realized she was looking at the two huge guys on the other side of the street instead of Ricky.
So they were definitely Ricky's men.
He turned so he could watch them. The biggest man had started speaking, his eyes focused on them. Alex tensed, and Li saw his hand hover near where his well-sharpened knife usually hung at his belt. Unfortunately, he had left it along with his survival tin back in the car with Amber and Hex.
Two minutes later the man seemed to finish the phone conversation and he turned to speak a few words to his companion. They both nodded and then started across the street towards the café. 'Sure you want to wait until after the drinks have come, amigo?' asked Paulo, casting his even gaze over to Alex. Alex didn't answer, simply watching as the two men stopped on the pavement hardly five metres away, then walked up to the café and took the table behind them. For a long moment none of them said anything, feeling the men's eyes burning on the backs of their necks. Then, the waiter arrived with their coffee, saving the day.
Paulo immediately sipped his, only wincing slightly as the burning liquid passed down his throat. Li and Alex waited for theirs to cool down, as they didn't have as high a tolerance for hot or spicy things like Paulo did.
Alex felt his phone begin to vibrate in his pocket and grimaced, hearing the creaks on the chairs behind them as the two men leaned in closer to see if he was going to answer or not. It was most likely Amber, calling on the forty five minute check. He froze, and could feel Li's and Paulo's eyes on him. He could either ignore it and save himself from giving away any decipherable information to the two men listening, but get Amber worried, or just answer and try to be as vague with details as possible. He closed his eyes for a long minute, and was about to reach his hand into his pocket to answer, but it had already stopped vibrating. He opened his eyes and almost flinched, startled at the sudden appearance of Ricky Chang by his shoulder. Both Li and Paulo were staring at him with wide eyes.
'Are you going to answer that?' asked Chang in slightly accented English. Alex swallowed and then broke into an easy smile. 'No, it's just a call from a friend – I told him I would speak to him tonight, but I suppose he doesn't understand the time difference.'
Ricky Chang stared at him for a long second and then smiled back politely. 'Of course. I've often had problems like that.' His smile didn't quite reach the dull black of his eyes. He held out a hand politely. 'Ricky Chang.'
Alex wasn't sure what to do for a long moment, then, of its own accord, his own hand reached out and took Ricky's. 'Alex,' he said, mentally scolding himself the moment after he spoke. He shouldn't have given the man his real name. Ricky turned to Li and Paulo and shook their hands as well, but unlike Alex, they didn't speak their names. 'Obviously, you are not from here. The staff are talking about you a lot,' said Ricky. 'Are you visiting on holiday?'
'Yes. We decided we wanted to experience more of the culture,' said Paulo, smiling with his usual dazzling Latino charm and leaning back in his chair in a relaxed manner. Ricky smiled back and looked down at his watch. 'Well, I've got to go. I've got a meeting to attend to. But it was nice meeting you all.' A flicker of an indecipherable emotion crossed his face, but it was gone by the time he looked up at them. 'I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday.'
'Thank you,' said Alex, smiling warmly in his best impression of a clueless tourist, ignoring the snake-like stealth in Chang's last sentence. He knew that as soon as Ricky had departed the men behind them would make their move. Ricky nodded at them, then turned and walked out of the café, briefcase in hand. Li stared after him, her face twisted with disgust and hate. 'We've got to go after him!' she hissed quietly so the two bodyguards wouldn't hear. 'He acts so calm! And I think we all know it's not a normal meeting he's attending.'
'Li, it's all right. We have time,' said Paulo, resting a hand on her arm reassuringly.
'They're not leaving,' Alex informed them.
'What? Who?' asked Paulo, looking bewildered.
'The two men behind us. They're still here,' replied Alex through clenched teeth.
'Well, I have finished my coffee,' he said after a long pause. 'Have you?' Alex looked down at his cup and lifted it to his mouth, draining the rich dark drink before setting his empty cup back on the table. 'Now I have, yes.'
'Li?'
Her voice was tight. 'Yes. Finished.'
'Then let's go,' said Paulo, standing up slowly in a relaxed manner, stretching his back. Alex tried to do the same, but his muscles felt stiff and achy. Li jumped to her feet energetically. 'Where to next?' she asked.
'I don't know. Let's just follow the road,' replied Alex. He could feel the men frowning behind him as they considered whether to buy their tourist act or not. He left a wad of Chinese Yuan on the table, and together they walked out of the café. As they started off down the road, he heard the two men scrape back their chairs as well and mutter their goodbyes as they left the café. Alex shared a look with Li and Paulo. The same thought was fluttering in each of their minds: They were in trouble.
