"Pedro lost his temper then, and the beating began. It did not stop until long after Jade had lost consciousness and Pedro had run out of breath..."
Alone in the world, Johnny Roberts has to face his worst fears, and overcome his greatest obstacles...
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Cheryl Parker put the receiver down and frowned. She was a pretty brunette, thirty two years old, and very bright. Top of her class in fact – and she investigated UFOs.
She had pushed for this position, and she'd enjoyed it and found it to be very interesting at first, but then the novelty wore off when she realised that the probability of her ever seeing a UFO, yet alone chasing one down, was slim to none.
So while she sat in her office, waiting for the phone to ring; other people were seeing and reporting UFOs all the time. All she could really hope for were traces of evidence; some marks in the mud, maybe a scorched patch of grass, or some country hick's uneducated version of what he or she claimed to have seen.
Ninety percent of these cases turned out to be mistaken identity; weather balloons, secret experimental aircraft and wisps of cloud – that type of thing. The other ten percent that really were unexplained aerial phenomena, remained that – unexplained.
And one hundred percent of these cases came from 'Joe Public'; the man on the street – doctors, teachers, policemen, late-night truckers, fishermen, pilots, drunks and prostitutes.
But this one was different...
This call had come internally, right from the top, and they weren't interested in waiting. They met her as she left the lift, one on either side. Dark, non-descript suits, dark glasses; big, good-looking and serious.
'Doctor Parker?' one enquired.
'Yes, that's right.'
'Follow us please. Right this way.'
They led her down a brightly lit corridor, through two high-security checkpoints, and into a large office with many desks, computers and people wearing glasses. Not a uniform in sight.
'So this is where all the nerds from college ended up?' she joked, receiving a cold, unsmiling look for her efforts.
'Okay, so this is how it's going to be,' she muttered to herself. Putting her game face on, she followed her two escorts through to a smaller office at the back. A large man with a beard stood up from behind the desk, and extended his hand to her in welcome.
'Ah, Doctor Parker, nice of you to join us,' he said in a friendly manner, 'please, sit down.'
'Hello, Bill,' she replied. She had never been up here before, but she knew William Cummins well. Everybody did. He looked at her over a desk heavily laden with random pieces of paper and unread files.
'I'll get straight to business, Cheryl. I have just returned from a meeting with our South African counterparts and they have requested our assistance in a rather unusual matter,' he said. Looking down at the documents in front of him, he continued.
'Sometime yesterday, at about 15h00 GMT, a young boy of thirteen ran away from a trout farm in northern South Africa. He was on a fishing trip with his father, who apparently got drunk and abused the boy in some way. They had an altercation of sorts – the details are a little unclear – and afterwards, the young boy, Johnny Roberts, ran away.
