Firefight (13 page)

'Are you armed?'

He nodded.

'OK.Well we advise that you see to your business and
get back to an area of safety as soon as possible.'

Will suppressed a sigh of relief. 'I intend to,' he said.

With a nod, the two soldiers walked away. Will saw his
colleagues' arms fall to their side as the tension of the
situation diffused, but he didn't make eye contact with
them. He just turned and continued on his way.

As he reached the north side of the square it became
clear to him where the meeting point was, just as Sami had
described it. The café had large glass windows at the front,
but these had been taped over with some kind of thick
gaffer tape to prevent them from shattering, then covered
with large sheets of metal mesh, which made it difficult to
see inside. The door was open, however, and the snow on
the ground around it had melted from the warmth emanating
from within. From several metres away Will could hear the
noise of voices and smell the thick, sweet tobacco that
pervaded the air.

He glanced at his watch. Five to eleven. Stepping up to
the doorway, he looked inside.

It was dimly lit and crowded. There were no women,
just men, all sitting at rickety wooden tables or congregated
around a bar area where a harassed-looking barman
provided coffee in tiny white cups. As Will stepped inside,
there were a few suspicious glances in his direction, but
before long everyone found themselves drawn back into
their animated conversations, allowing Will to sidle up to
the bar - the only place where there seemed to be any
room. He pointed at one of the small cups of coffee, then
handed over one of Sami's notes when he was presented
with his drink.

He stood there against the bar for five minutes, maybe
ten - long enough, certainly, for the coffee he didn't
really want to go cold. When he looked at his watch it
was five past eleven. It made him uneasy that nobody
had made contact yet. Perhaps he was being too surreptitious.
He turned round and faced out to the centre of
the room, so that his white skin would be on better
display. As soon as he did that, he heard a voice next to
him.

'Do you have the time?'

Do you have the time?
The first phrase of the double
password. Will turned his head slowly to see who was
speaking. The man was short and fat, his face clean-shaven.
Hadn't Sami said that Ismail was a devout Muslim?
Wouldn't he be wearing a beard? But that was the opening
line, so he responded, word for word, in the way he was
supposed to.

'My watch runs slow these days.'

The man nodded. 'My friend is a good watchmaker in
Kabul.'

Will stopped. He knew the correct response -
Kabul is
a long journey in the winter
- but the man's words had not
been correct. '
I know
a good watchmaker in Kabul.' That
was the wording, and this guy had got it wrong. Alarm bells
started to sound. If Ismail had been rumbled by the Taliban,
he might well have given them the wrong password; and
Will had been suspicious of this man the minute he set
eyes on him.

There was only one option. He had to walk away.
Immediately.

Will stepped from the bar and headed briskly to the door.
No one seemed to pay any attention to him leaving, but
he could tell that the man he had just spoken to was
following him. For the second time in ten minutes he felt
his hand moving towards the gun strapped around his waist.
He upped his pace and stepped out from the warm, smoky
interior of the café on to the chilly, snow-laden street.

The first thing he did was scan for Anderson and Kennedy.
He saw them immediately - Kennedy still in the square
but facing on to the café, Anderson about fifteen metres to
his left, standing in the street. In front of Will, parked just
outside the café,was a small car. Its engine was turning over
and, unusually given the weather, the window was wound
down. The man from the café brushed past Will and spoke
to the driver, a lanky, bearded individual with a white turban.
It was a quick conversation, conducted in Pashto, and from
the way the man kept looking at Will, he could tell that it
concerned him.

On the periphery of his vision, he could sense Anderson
and Kennedy closing in.

The man from the café stepped aside and the driver from
the car put his head out. 'Will Jackson?' he said hesitantly.
Will narrowed his eyes, but didn't answer.

'You must get in the car. Now.'

Will hesitated. Anderson and Kennedy were only metres
away now. He only had to say the word and both these
men would be looking down the barrel of a gun. But then
he looked at the driver: his face was nervous, his eyes wide,
but he didn't look as though he was trying to pull a fast
one. He just looked scared.

He looked up at his colleagues and briefly shook his
head. They stopped in their tracks. Will strode to the car,
opened the back door and climbed in. It was cramped inside,
and the heaters were blowing full blast. He pulled his Sig
from under his jumper and deftly put it to the man's head.
Immediately the driver started to shake.

'Drive,' Will told him. 'Now.'

With shaking hands, the driver tried to put the car in
gear, but he seemed too nervous and the engine crunched
loudly as he failed to manage it.

'
I said drive!
'Will barked. The driver tried again, this time
managing to knock the car into gear.

'Go round the square,' Will instructed, and the car moved
off at a stuttering pace.

'Please, do not shoot me!' the driver begged.

'Then do exactly what I tell you,' Will replied. 'What's
your name?'

'My name?' He sounded surprised. 'My name is Ismail.
You were meant to be meeting me, yes?'

'I'm asking the questions. What was that pantomime back
there in aid of?'

'What is pantomime, please?'

'
Just tell me what was going on
,'Will growled.

Ismail breathed deeply. 'It was to make sure you were the
right person. Passwords are not foolproof. If the Taliban
suspected me and learned what the passwords were, they
might pretend to go along with the mistake to get proof,
then abduct me. Only the right person would walk away
if they heard the wrong password.'

Will found that he, too, was breathing heavily, in anger;
but there was a curious logic to what the terrified Afghan
in the front seat had said. He lowered his gun. 'Stop the
car,' he ordered.

Ismail pulled over on the side of the street.

'Turn off the engine and hand me the keys. Then get
out.'

The trembling Afghan did as he was told. Will stepped
out of the car, too. He slipped the Sig back into its holster,
but kept his hand firmly around the handle under his
jumper. 'If I see anyone following us, I'll shoot you right
here,' he said, quietly, so that none of the passers-by would
hear.

'No one is following us,' Ismail assured him. 'I promise
you.'

'You'd better be right. 'Will looked around. Sure enough,
Ismail's parked car was the only one in the street. 'OK,
walk. And just in case you're thinking of running, you
might like to know that we're being covered by two men
who can shoot a bullet through a coin at fifty metres.
Understand?'

Ismail turned to look at him. Although his eyes were still
frightened, there was an open honesty in his face. 'You do
not perhaps understand how I have risked my life to do
this,' he said, quietly,'and the life of my family. Every second
I spend with you, I risk our lives even further. If I wanted
to run away, I would have done it long ago.'

Will stared at him and felt the stirrings of a grudging
respect. But respect or no respect, he had to cover himself
and his unit.

He nodded in the direction they needed to go.

'Walk,' he told Ismail, curtly. 'Now.'

Once they had RV'd back at the truck, Drew took the
wheel, Kennedy sitting beside him. Ismail was bundled
roughly into the back by Will and Anderson.

'You sure this is the right guy?' Anderson asked, once
they were all inside.

Ismail looked anxiously at Will, knowing that his safety
was hanging on the words of the man he had so clearly
just pissed off.

Will stared coldly back at him. 'Yeah,' he said, finally. 'I'm
sure.'

'Looks like a fucking Fundie Jundie to me,' Kennedy
muttered from the front.

'Shut up, Kennedy,' Will snapped. 'Ignore him,' he told
Ismail. 'For now, at least.'

Having perfectly memorised the route Sami had taken
into Kandahar, Drew retraced it as the others sat silently in
the back. Anderson and Kennedy eyed Ismail with distrust;
Ismail, in turn, looked as though he was wondering what
the hell he had got himself into, stuck in a vehicle with
these dangerous men.

Will was certainly angry with the frightened Afghan, but
he couldn't quite pinpoint why. The guy was only being
careful, after all. Maybe he just didn't like the fact that Ismail
had pulled the wool over his eyes. In situations like this,
you want to be control and for a few moments back there,
Will hadn't been. It had given him a bad feeling.

Once they reached the outskirts of the city, Will spoke.
'OK, Ismail,' he said. 'You'd better start talking. Where are
we going and how long will it take us to get there?'

Ismail's eyes flickered anxiously to each of the SAS men
in turn before he answered. 'The village where the woman
you are searching for is being held is a day's drive from
here. The main road south will take you most of the way,
but the snow will have blocked off the smaller road that
leads to the village itself. You will have to make your way
there on foot.'

'Lovely,' Kennedy murmured. 'A walk through the snow
in the dark. Maybe we can attack the Taliban with snowballs.'

'I'll fucking attack you if you don't shut it,' Anderson
growled, 'and not with snowballs.'

'I'd rather engage the Taliban under cover of night anyway,'
Will said. He wasn't worried by the sniping between them
- it often happened when adrenaline was running high. As
long as they could rely on each other in battle, that was
what counted.

He turned back to Ismail. 'Are you sure you'll be able
to lead us there?'

'Positive,' Ismail said, confidently. 'It is the village where
I was born. That is the reason I know what is going on
there.'

'What's the main road south like?' Anderson asked.

Ismail raised an eyebrow. 'Like all roads in Afghanistan,'
he said, simply. 'It is very dangerous. There will not be many
cars, not in this weather. But we may encounter roadblocks.
Some of them will be military, others will have been set
up by bandits who will want to take all the money we
have. And if we don't give it to them, they will try to take
it by force.'

The SAS men maintained a grim silence. Will knew
exactly what they were thinking.

11.35. They had been driving for perhaps half an hour
and the last remnants of the urban sprawl of Kandahar had
finally dissolved into nothing, when Will instructed Drew
to pull over. 'What is wrong?' Ismail asked.

'Nothing's wrong,' Will told him. 'We need to get our
weapons ready. If we come across trouble, we don't want
to be scrabbling around looking for guns.'

'But I thought you had your gun,' he said. 'You pointed
it at me.' He sounded so concerned about this, that the
others could not resist a smile.

'We've brought some back-up,' Will told him, opening
the compartment in the floor of the truck to reveal the
weapons cache. Ismail's eyes widened slightly as the Diemacos
came out and he fell silent - though from that moment
on, Will kept noticing that Ismail would glance anxiously
at the guns from time to time. Each time he did so, Anderson
looked at him with a certain distaste.

'You do not like me, I think,' Ismail said.

Anderson looked away.

'You do not trust me, perhaps.'

'You're an informant,' Anderson growled. 'You're doublecrossing
someone. I just hope it isn't us.'

Ismail smiled a patient smile. 'I think perhaps you do not
know how life is in Afghanistan.'

'Bollocks to that,' Anderson replied, vigorously. 'I spent
six months this year in the Stan and three months the year
before that. I've had every Taliban fucker in this godforsaken
country throw everything they've got at me and I've
lost count of the number of mates who've had their brains
blown out of the back of their heads. So don't tell me I
don't know anything about Afghanistan, my friend.'

An uncomfortable silence followed Anderson's outburst
- a silence only broken when Ismail spoke. His voice was
measured, reasonable.

'I did not mean,' he said, calmly, 'that you know nothing
of Afghanistan as a theatre of war. Your ability in that field
is beyond question and I thank you for the sacrifices you
have made on my country's behalf. I meant that perhaps
you do not know what life is like for we ordinary citizens.
I despise the Taliban as much as you - they killed my
parents, after all. But I would not be running the risk I run
simply out of revenge. We are a poor country and many
people struggle even to buy food. I do what I do so that
I am able to feed my young son - your British government
pays me enough for the information to make it
worthwhile. Tell me, my friend, do you have children?'

Anderson nodded, curtly.

'And is there anything you would not do to put food in
their mouths?'

Ismail's direct question was not met with an answer.
Instead, Anderson redirected his gaze out of the window.
The young Afghan did not press the issue, but it was clear
to all of them that he had given Anderson something to
think about.

The snow started to fall more thickly, dancing in the
beams of the headlights and flying towards the car like a
million tiny bullets. Drew was forced to reduce his speed
to little more than a crawl as he peered through the windscreen,
his face screwed up in concentration as he negotiated
his way through the blizzard. The area south of Kandahar
was not mountainous, like other parts of Afghanistan; but
there was a steady upwards incline as they drove up out of
the geographical bowl in which the city was situated. It
was difficult to see clearly through the blizzard, but when
Will did manage to get a view of the landscape, he saw it
was a gently undulating terrain. There were a few trees, but
they were sparse. More striking were the remnants of
Afghanistan's past battles that lay abandoned by the side of
the road. He counted the hulking shells of Russian T-55
tanks, anything of any use already stripped out of them.
There were burned out armoured cars, discarded oil drums
- the debris of a country that had been at war for as long
as it could remember.

Every now and then they felt the wheels spin ineffectually
on the icy road and towards mid-afternoon, despite
Drew's skill behind the wheel, they felt themselves skidding
towards the side of the road. They jolted around inside the
truck as Drew calmly drove into the skid and brought the
vehicle to a halt. It was clear that the going was getting
tough, so they attached the snow chains that Sami had
provided. They drove off again and the chains crunched
noisily under them, but the truck held the road much better.
As the afternoon wore on, the snow stopped falling and
they were able to see around them a bit more clearly. When
they stopped to replenish the truck with diesel from one
of the tanks that Sami had supplied, the others stood guard
around the vehicle, pointing their guns up into the hills,
which they all knew from experience of this treacherous
country could be hiding unknown dangers.

Everywhere was covered in a blanket of fresh snow and
Will felt as if they were the only people for miles around
in that spectacular winter landscape. As if to shatter the illusion,
Ismail spoke.

'The Taliban are very strong in this region,' he said, quietly.
'It feels like there is nobody around, but there are many
villages around here, cut off by the snow. When the Taliban
were thrown from power, they took refuge in places like
this. They are not afraid to kill the villagers to get what
they want, so now they run these places with the same
reign of terror as they ran all of Afghanistan only a few
years ago. I myself have seen them hang the body of a
father in front of his children. I pray my own son does not
have to witness such a thing.'

He stared out of the window into the landscape beyond,
leaving the unit to imagine that grizzly scene. Will found
it turned his stomach, but something deep inside him refused
to be entirely horrified by what Ismail had described. At
least parents were
supposed
to die before their children. He
looked over at Anderson, who was staring thoughtfully at
the floor. Was he thinking about his own kids? Will
wondered. Was he wondering if he would be eating
Christmas lunch with them in just over a week's time?
Despite the snow all around, Christmas seemed a million
miles away in this benighted country.

And with the thought of Christmas, the image of Laura
and Anna, his family, lying dead on the floor of that department
store so many thousands of miles away, flashed into
his head. In a brief surge that lasted only a few seconds, he
relived all the pain that had been with him ever since.
Somewhere, he thought to himself, out in the bleak,
uninviting landscape around him, was the key to his revenge.
He found himself gritting his teeth, almost looking forward
to the business ahead.

'Road block.' Drew said the words calmly, but Will
instantly shook off his reverie as the truck came to a halt.
On either side of them was a hilly mound with low bushes
covered in snow. He leaned over and looked through the
windscreen. Sure enough, a couple of hundred metres down
the road, they saw a large vehicle parked to one side. Two
men were standing in the middle of the road just next to
it. From this distance it was impossible to see if they were
armed, but Will felt sure they would be.

'ISAF?' he asked, tersely.

'I think it is unlikely,' Ismail replied. 'There are too few
of them and I am not aware of any NATO bases in this
region.'

'It's an ambush,' Anderson said, quietly. 'Look. Footprints.'

He pointed up into the hillock along one side of the
road, a scant fifteen metres away. Just as Anderson had said,
there was a trail of prints in the snow leading up to a little
line of bushes, small enough to go unnoticed, but large
enough to hide a man. Will looked to see if he could find
anyone there. At first, he saw nothing; but as he squinted
his eyes, something moved. It was only a tiny movement,
but enough to shake a little shower of snow from one of
the bushes on to the ground beneath. He looked more carefully.
Sure enough, he could make out the outline of a man's
head. He even thought he could see the black metal of a
gun barrel pointing out through the bush.

'There's someone there,' he announced.

'Both sides,' Kennedy said. 'I've clocked one on our right
too. Looks like someone's preparing for a surprise party -
and I bet they've forgotten to bring any cake.'

They needed to move quickly and decisively. 'Drive up,'
Will said, calmly. 'When they come to the window, nail
them.' He looked at Anderson. 'We'll de-bus as soon as that
happens. Fragmentation grenades at the ambushers, then
take them out.'

Ismail started breathing heavily. 'You're going to kill them?'

'Not if they kill us first,' Will stated, flatly.

'But what if -?'

'Shut up, Ismail,' he ordered. 'They haven't set up this
ambush for fun. They have the advantage and if we don't
take the fight to them, we'll be corpses on the side of the
road within a minute.'

Ismail fell silent.

'Their main target's going to be our vehicle, so we need
to get the hell out of here. When I say the word, me and
Anderson are going to jump out the back and hit the
ambushers with grenades. When we do that, jump out and
take cover at the side of the road. We'll take it from there.

Can you do that, Ismail?'

The frightened Afghan nodded mutely.

In the front, Drew and Kennedy had taken the Sigs from
their holsters and laid them on their laps. Will readied his
weapon, while Anderson fished two fragmentation grenades
from his rucksack and handed one over.

'Let's try and finish this with the same number of holes
in our bodies as when we started,' Kennedy drawled.

No one laughed.

'Go!'Will told Drew.

The truck moved slowly forwards. Ismail's heavy breathing
became more panicked as they approached the roadblock,
but Will tried to put that sound from his mind as he concentrated
on the matter in hand. His awareness had become
crystalline and precise; a strange sense of calm had descended
over him. The calm before the storm.

The roadblock was ten metres away now and the truck
slowed down while the two men approached the front
windows, one on either side. Will shifted to the back of the
truck, ready to jump out as soon as he heard the crack of
the weapons, but he managed to steal a glance at the two
of them. There was no way these men were soldiers: they
were walking with a louche, arrogant gait and one of them
had his weapon - an AK-47 - resting over his right shoulder.
They wore warm, heavy Afghan clothing, and their bearded
faces were locked in an unpleasant sneer. One of them, as
he approached, seemed to look over to where the ambushers
were hidden; he nodded, imperceptibly.

The man who had approached the driver's window tapped
on the glass, indicating to Drew that he should wind it
down.

This was it. In a matter of seconds it would be over.