Firefight (8 page)

'Yeah,' he replied. 'I understand.'

'And you're willing to do what it takes to get Latifa
Ahmed out of Afghanistan?'

He nodded his head.

'Good,' Pankhurst said. If he felt any sense of satisfaction
in Will's acceptance, he didn't show it. 'We can't hang around.
We're assuming Ahmed doesn't know Latifa is being tortured,
but as soon as he finds out he'll be straight there to extract
her. And that woman has a lot of nasty things to look
forward to - I don't want the Taliban torturing her to death
before we've had the chance to ask her a few questions.'

'Yeah, well my diary's pretty free.'

'I'm sure it is,' Pankhurst replied. 'I'll get in touch with
Credenhill now, tell them you'll be there in a couple of hours.
In the meantime, I need to give you further instructions . . .'

*

Three and a half thousand miles away, a woman lay on the
floor. She did not want to shiver. She did not want to show
any sign of weakness, but she could not help it. The snow
was thick outside - it had been falling for days now, the
flakes piling softly on top of each other, covering the warscarred
ground of her country in a false blanket of purity.
As a child, she had loved the coming of the snows. She and
her brother would rush out of their small house to play in
it the moment they were allowed, their parents watching
them fondly from the doorway as they made snowballs and
threw showers of powder at each other.

But it had been snowing, too, when the soldiers came;
and now, she could not think of the whiteness of the snow
without picturing the crimson of their parents' blood as it
seeped from their bodies, melting the white powder with
its warmth, before mingling into mush. Her childhood delight
in the coming of the first snows had ended that day.

The hut in which she was being kept had no floor - just
the earth, hardened with the cold, which seemed to leech
any of the remaining warmth out of her body as she sat there.
She pulled the thin cloth they had given her to wear tightly
around her, but it had been chosen more to cover her body
than to keep her warm and it did little good. She even found
that she was glad of the burka headdress they had insisted she
wear - in that enclosed environment around her head, the
heat of her breath at least staved off some of the chill.

She had not eaten for three days; even then the food had
been filthy, but she had devoured it simply because she was
famished. Every few hours of the day and night, one or
two of them would come in. She had learned long ago
with these people that it was better to let them do what
they had come to do, rather than try to resist. They used
thick wooden sticks, mostly, and beat her around the stomach
and the back of her legs; she did not dare look at her skin
for fear that it would revolt even her, and she had become
used to the constant pain and the bruises that grew worse
day by day.

One day, a particular man would come in. He was taller
than the others and more quietly spoken. His face was
scarred - a long scar, starting on his lower lip and finishing
somewhere on his left cheek. No hair grew over the scar,
which was red and angry, and it gave his face an ugly,
gnarled look.

When she had seen that scar, she had known that her
life was about to turn unpleasant, because she had been
there when it was first inflicted. It had been a while before
the Taliban had been overthrown and shortly after they had
discovered that her brother - her foolish, reckless, beloved
brother - was a double agent. He had come to warn her,
to tell her to flee, but the Taliban were close behind. They
had burst into her tiny house, knocking down the door -
six of them, armed and with wicked, almost hungry gleams
in their eyes.

The men were barking harshly in Pashto, shouting at each
other to grab Latifa; but they soon fell silent when they
saw Faisal Ahmed waiting for them. Her brother had pulled
his gun on them. He fired it twice, with a deadly pinpoint
accuracy: two Taliban members fell to the ground instantly,
their foreheads exploding in a grisly shower of blood and
brain; but the others, silent now though still with a terrifying
fervour in their eyes, had continued to close in on
him.

That was when he drew his knife.

It was a wicked-looking thing, its blade smooth and sharp
on one side, hooked and jagged on the other. When he
stabbed it into the belly of one of their attackers, the man's
entrails came out with it. Latifa had watched as Faisal swung
the knife, which still had human gore hanging from it, and
slashed another of them across the face. The blade instantly
ripped a gash across the man's lower lip and up into his
cheek; he had roared in pain and raised his hands to his
bloodsoaked face.

Faisal had almost overcome them, but not quite. No doubt
if he hadn't come to warn her, he would have been long
gone. But he
had
come to warn her and now he would
pay the price. They would
both
pay the price for the path
he had chosen to take.

That had been nine years ago. The man who held her
in captivity now had never made any reference to the day
her brother had scarred him so horribly. But they both
knew what this was all about. And while he did not hit her
or raise his voice to her, she was more scared of him than
anyone. He asked her questions. He told her she would die
if she did not comply. Despite her state, she had been fully
aware of the madness and the thuggery that lay beneath
those questions. To stand up to him was perhaps the most
difficult thing she had ever done in her difficult life.

There were no windows in the hut, so she had to judge
what time it was by the amount of light that peeped through
a crack in the wooden walls. It was mid-morning, she
guessed. About the time that he usually came. She huddled
into one corner, waiting for the sound she so dreaded: her
door being unlocked.

It came soon enough and when it did she started shaking
through fear as well as cold. She heard the harsh voices
first, then the scratchy sound of a key in the lock. Her eyes
winced as the door opened, letting in the light, which was
blindingly bright from being reflected off the snow. Two
men appeared in the doorway, both of them wearing robes,
turbans and long beards. One of them carried an AK-47
strapped around his neck - he stood guard outside the door.
The second man carried no weapon. He closed the door
behind him, then walked towards her. She remained
cowering in the corner.

'Get to your feet, woman,' he said softly in Pashto.

She pushed herself up from the ground. Her legs were
weak, and it was a strain to remain upright. She found she
was glad of the burka - it hid the fear on her face as he
looked at her.

'You
shall
tell us where your brother is,' the man insisted
quietly. 'Sooner or later, you
shall
tell us. It is the will of
Allah.'

She took a deep breath. How close she had been to
crumbling on more than one occasion. How close she
had come to persuading herself that her brother had
brought all this on himself. She did not approve of how
he was spending his life. She did not approve at all. But he
was her brother. He had looked after her. She loved him.
And whenever she found her resolve crumbling, she
thought of him as a little boy. So earnest. How could
she condemn him to the fate these Taliban monsters no
doubt had in store for him?

'I do not know where he is,' she whispered.

The man remained expressionless. 'You are lying, of
course,' he said. 'He has been in contact with you. This is
not something we suspect; it is something we know. Your
pain will not cease until you tell us where he is.'

She stared defiantly at him, though he could not see her
expression. They stood there for a moment, face to face in
that freezing hut, before he turned and walked out of the
room. 'Beat her,' he said to the guard as he left.

She felt her knees buckle at those words, but she did her
best to remain standing as the guard entered the hut. He
was a huge man - burly and big boned - with a thick-set
face and broad, heavy shoulders. He had a look of wild
fervour in his eyes as he removed the strap of his gun from
round his neck. A look that suggested he would take great
pleasure in what he was about to do. Pleasure in carrying
out Allah's will.

'Please,' she whispered, but her plea went unheard or at
least unnoticed.

The guard made sure that the safety catch of his weapon
was switched on. Then he put one hand on the barrel and
the other on the handle. He approached her, waving the
butt of the gun in her direction.

'Please,' she whispered again. 'Please, don't -'

The butt cracked down hard on the side of her head.
She gasped with pain and started to fall; but before she
could hit the ground she felt a heavy blow in her stomach
as the guard whacked the blunt metal against her skin. It
winded her so badly that she could not even make a noise;
she just staggered slightly, trying, through her pain, to catch
her breath.

And then it began in earnest.

Mostly the guard used the butt of the gun to beat her,
though occasionally he used his feet, booted heavily under
his dirty white robes. She huddled up into a little ball, like
a hedgehog protecting itself, although she had no spikes to
shield her from danger - only her damaged and brutalised
skin, pulled tight over the bones of her thin body.

'You must tell him what he wants to know,' he would
say occasionally. 'It is the only way to make this stop.'

But she said nothing. She even found herself wishing he
would use the other end of his gun, to put an end to this.
But she knew they would not allow her to die. Not yet.
Not while they still had a use for her.

The beating seemed to last for an age - at one point she
coughed up what she could only assume was blood into the
veil of her burka - and it only finished when the guard himself
seemed exhausted. He spat on her prostrate body, then left
the hut without a word, locking the door behind him.

The woman did not move. She
could
not move. Freezing
though she was, her body was too sore for her even to contemplate
huddling up to try and keep warm, so she just lay there,
her head spinning, her body pressed against the frozen earth.

She wondered which direction she was facing. Towards
Mecca perhaps? Most likely not. She prayed nevertheless.
With what strength she had, she whispered the
takbir: 'Allahu
Akbar, Allahu Akbar.'

Surely God would not be angry with her for facing in
the wrong direction.

Surely He did not condone the actions of these men,
even if they did it in His name.

Surely He would not condemn her for refusing to say
what she knew about her brother, her own flesh and blood,
no matter what wicked things he may have done.

Surely He would not leave her to die in this place.

He would send someone to help her. Surely He would.

But who in the world would ever find her here?

*

Will Jackson felt as if he were living in a dream, but he
couldn't tell if it was a good dream or a nightmare. Everything
just seemed so unreal - Five's sudden appearance in his life;
the night he had spent with Kate; Faisal Ahmed. As he gazed
out of the window of the chauffeur-driven car Pankhurst
had arranged to take him back out of London, he decided
that he wouldn't be at all surprised to wake up and find
that he had imagined it all.

He didn't want to wake up, though. He didn't want it to
be a dream. For the first time in ages, he felt as if he had
a purpose. It was nerve-racking, certainly. Gut-wrenching,
even. But somehow it felt right.

Will felt weird as he saw RAF Credenhill, 22 SAS
Regiment's Hereford headquarters, approach. He hadn't seen
the high fences with huge rolls of wicked-looking barbed
wire perched on top of them for two years; he hadn't walked
into one of the cavernous hangars that housed each of the
Regiment's squadrons; but before that this unfriendlyseeming
place had been a home from home. Will had felt
comfortable among its training grounds and mess rooms,
just like other people feel comfortable in their own gardens.
He liked it. Now, though, he didn't relish the idea of walking
down its corridors again; he didn't relish the idea of the
looks the boys would give him. No doubt rumours had
circulated about him since he left the Regiment and tongues
would wag even more enthusiastically about his return.

The car pulled up at the main gates. Four soldiers stood
guard, each carrying a machine gun and an unsmiling expression.
The driver, who had not spoken a word to Will all
the way from London, wound down his window. 'Will
Jackson for Lieutenant Colonel Elliott,' he told the MOD
policeman who came to the car to enquire their business.

The MOD policeman looked to the back of the car and
his eyes widened slightly when he saw Will. Will recognised
him vaguely - a face from the past that he couldn't put a
name to. 'Do you have some identification?' the MOD
policeman asked.

Will handed over the MOD pass that Pankhurst had
supplied him with. The MOD policeman took it, stepped
back from the car, spoke into a radio handset and within
seconds the gates were open and the car was driving through.

Will had been relieved to hear that Half Colonel Steve
Elliott was still CO at Credenhill. They went back a long
time - indeed it was Elliott who had first selected Will for
the ranks of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment when he was a
bright-eyed young squaddie. Back then, Will had thought
Elliott was little more than a psychopath; but then that was
what most potential recruits thought of their commanding
officers when they were undergoing SAS training. When
Will had been the first to complete the endurance stage of
the final phase of his training - a forty-mile hike across the
Brecon Beacons with full pack and rifle - he had expected
a few words of congratulation. But that wasn't Elliott's style.
'Don't make the mistake of assuming the worst is over,
Jackson,' he had informed the exhausted recruit in front of
his new colleagues. 'A gentle walk in the hills isn't what
you can expect on covert ops.'