London
“F*ck,” said Ellard.
Greere’s head snapped away from his screens, “What is it?”
“The f*cking tracer has just sent its random ping.”
“Still in the house?”
“Seems to be.”
~~~~~
Herat
Nagpal scuffed his feet in the dust. Nothing.
Then he turned his head upwards.
Above him.
In his bed.
Ebrahimi...
~~~~~
The rustling upstairs stopped.
Jack breathed a muted sigh of relief, rooted out his PDA, and clicked it to silent. Then he edged himself slowly toward the back door.
~~~~~
London
“Any minute now,” said Ellard.
~~~~~
Herat
Carrying the scanner like some divining rod in front of him, Nagpal climbed the stairs.
The red dot remained fixed where Ebrahimi lay sleeping.
Slowly he approached the young man’s prone and still snoring form.
~~~~~
My PDA starts buzzing in my pocket. On and off. One-second intervals.
I pull it out.
The signal is still in the house.
Where the hell is Jack?
I move out from my position, and cross to the planking front door.
~~~~~
Suddenly the box began to squawk again.
Again and again it squawked.
Nagpal stood there, staring at the screen flashing red in front of him, and suddenly his vision blurred red too. Pent up fury and frustration boiled through him. Pure, unbridled, anger. He slammed the lid shut on the machine.
Ebrahimi jerked up into a sitting position on his bedroll. “What is it?” he cried out in surprise.
Nagpal swung the flight case round in a circle, and smashed it violently into the young man’s face.
Sergei crashed backwards under the force of the sudden blow, but Nagpal fell to his knees next to him, and kept battering. Lifting the case up again, and again, and again. Smashing the brushed aluminium into the traitor’s head, until the young man’s body went limp.
Then, his rage vented, Nagpal calmly placed the bloodied case on one side, wiped his hands down his shirt and rose to his feet.
~~~~~
Feeling his PDA buzzing, Jack sprinted across the small courtyard to the back door of the terrorist’s safe house. Inside he could hear the sound of an angry bleeping alarm.
“In position,” he muttered into his microphone.
“Ditto,” came Nick’s response.
The bleeping sounds from inside the house suddenly stopped, only to be replaced by something which sounded like hammering. Wild, mad, angry, wet, hammering. Then it too stopped.
Little need for stealth now. Someone was alerted.
“On two,” he said calmly. “One. Two.”
~~~~~
Nagpal heard the sound of doors opening downstairs.
At least two then.
He moved silently to the gap in the floor.
~~~~~
The long silenced muzzle of my Browning precedes me into the dark gloom of the downstairs area. I can see Jack in profile, as he enters through the opposite door.
I sweep the space immediately around me.
Nothing.
I head right.
Looks like some sort of kitchen area.
I creep forward scanning the floor for anyone asleep.
Nothing.
~~~~~
Definitely two.
Nagpal withdrew into the shadows.
~~~~~
Jack quickly swept his area. Something was dripping from the ceiling near one corner. He moved over to it.
Blood...
He pulled out his PDA.
The tracer was still there.
Not moving.
Ebrahimi must be upstairs.
He signalled for Nick to stay quiet, and stood, and listened...
~~~~~
Nagpal readied his Makarov. There was no time to screw on the silencer. He very gently eased the well-oiled slider back, and gripped it tightly as the spring pushed forward, easing the first round almost silently into place under his fingers.
Safety off...
He had eight rounds.
He only needed two.
~~~~~
Silence.
Jack moved to the foot of the primitive staircase, signalled for Nick to wait, and crept upwards, one plank at a time, until he was just beneath the hole. Gun readied, he gently pushed himself up onto his tiptoes.
The dark line of the first floor’s planking slid slowly past his eye-line.
A hint of silvery moonlight beat almost uselessly against the building’s grimy windows, it was having little effect on the dark shadows. To one side, he could make out the outline of a supine human body. On the other side, a line of boxes were stacked against the far wall.
Empty...?
He eased himself up another step, shoulders and weapon thrusting into the upper chamber, and signalled for Nick to climb up behind him.
~~~~~
Nagpal waited.
~~~~~
I creep up, until I’m behind Jack and can also just see into the upper floor.
He nudges me with one hand, whilst keeping his gun trained toward what look like some old packing crates stacked on the side of the room. He gestures to the opposite side.
I look where he’s pointing and can see there’s a body lying there.
I nod.
He waves three fingers: on three.
One finger.
Two fingers...
~~~~~
A burst of rapid footsteps told Nagpal all he needed to know.
Standing up, he fired straight at the looming shadow scrambling out of the stairwell.
~~~~~
Go!
I drive forwards, heading for the body with my gun held straight out in both hands. If the body even twitches I’m going to fire, but the room suddenly flares with light, and there’s an ear splitting bang.
I turn my head to see Jack being picked up, as if by his shoulders, and flung backward into the wall above the hole.
“NO!” I roar, unable to stop myself.
My friend hits the masonry and collapses, seemingly lifeless, vanishing into the gaping black stairwell. The muzzle flash has affected my night vision, but in the corner of my eye I can see movement, and spin round to see that Jack’s assailant has risen unexpectedly from a narrow gap behind the boxes.
Nagpal...
He is turning toward me.
In the background I can hear sickening clattering noises, as my partner continues to tumble raggedly down the stairs to the ground floor...
~~~~~
One down.
The second man is heading toward Ebrahimi, but reacting to the gunshot.
Nagpal smoothly shifted position, and lined up on him.
~~~~~
Nagpal is turning toward me.
I heave my shoulders around and pull the trigger, but this is not my preferred weapon. This standard-issue Browning hasn’t been adapted. It’s got a much heavier trigger. Thirty minutes on the side of the road, in the wastelands of Helmand, haven’t been enough preparation for this. I feel the barrel rising in my hands, as I pull with all my strength on the stiff lever.
Come on!
Come on!
It must fire!
I throw myself into a dive, even as the round finally ignites in my barrel.
Flames erupt from both weapons, and there’s a roaring explosion from in front of my mortal adversary. A tiny black object hurtles through this moment of brightness, toward me, and slices across the fabric of my battledress. Dull pain flares from the top of my left bicep, but the bullet must only have nicked me. I hear it slam into a wall somewhere behind me as I watch my own projectile blast a hole of exploding concrete dust from the ceiling behind the dark shape of Nagpal’s rapidly approaching silhouette.
Missed.
I crash heavily onto the planking.
~~~~~
Nagpal was just pulling his trigger when the second man dived forwards, and he roared in frustration as his shot went wide. His enemy also loosed a round, but the shot flew wildly over his head, and into the ceiling behind him. He stormed forwards as the man hit the floorboards, and stamped down hard on the prostrated wrist so that the man let go of his gun.
He kicked it away to one side.
Six shots left.
Now he only needed one.
~~~~~
Nagpal stamps down hard on my wrist. My dulled senses don’t really register, but reflex makes my fingers let go of the Browning, and he kicks it to one side. I hear it clattering as it tumbles away into the far corner of the room.
I look up at him. The person responsible for my living nightmare. Wild, crazy eyes, bore down from his pathetically ordinary and unattractive face. Mismatched dirty teeth ring a leering wide smile which splits his unkempt beard.
I know he is unafraid, unperplexed, unconcerned. I am just another piece of meat lying helplessly in front of his gun. The weapon’s grim black maw is directed toward my eye. I can almost see the bullet that will, most likely, snatch me out of this hell.
Suddenly he reaches down, grabs my backpack and drags me violently up onto my knees. The move catches me by surprise and, as I start to react, he swings the pistol round catching me somewhere around my jaw line, and the room tilts, and spins, and a myriad of bright flashing sparks swirl across my vision...
He’s pulling the rucksack off my arms...
I can feel it...
We’ve come so far, me and Jack. I’ve come so far. But, in the end, I am only an amateur. How could I have expected to be able to do battle against such brutal evil, against so many years of hard training...
I’ve been a fool.
A fool who now kneels, swaying gently, stunned and impotent, in front of the man who has stolen everything from me. My murderer.
~~~~~
“Know this, infidel,” Nagpal growled in English, studying his adversary’s bloodied face for signs of understanding. “You are going to die, here.” The stunned eyes of his enemy turned upwards, struggling to focus on him. They were dark eyes, like two black coals – eyes with no soul – but at least the strange looking man, with a charcoal blackened face, appeared to understand what he was saying.
“Today I am going to teach you some hard truths about your lies and your meaningless life. I am going to show you the bitter truth behind your false beliefs. I am going to take your miserable life and you will disappear from existence forever. You will pay the ultimate penalty for your actions, and for martyring my true warriors.”
He leaned closer.
“Azat Sikand was a mighty man. He would never kneel like you do. He died gloriously and waits in paradise, watching over this brutal undertaking from the heavens. When I succeed, his name will be honoured across my nation for eternity whilst you... you will be forgotten. Lost to memory and rotted to dust, like the dirt you are...”
~~~~~
He is ranting in English in front of me. I’m struggling to focus. Several semi-opaque versions of him swim randomly in front of me.
I’m not really listening.
Inside I feel calm.
I am going to die, and I’ve been waiting for this for a long time...
For a split second I think about Jack. I feel sad for Jack. I wonder if he’s also on the other side. With you, maybe? I hope not. I hope he is still here. He deserves to live more life. To find himself happiness. To be what we could not.
I glance round. Where are you then? Where are my ghosts? Are you not coming to welcome me? And where is the deep cold breath of the reaper? Where is the icy touch of his eldritch sickle...?
Nagpal is laughing. Cackling like some deranged witch. Slowly the many trembling apparitions reconsolidate into one stable image. He looms there, eyes blazing with madness. There is spittle drizzled over his beard hairs.
“You stinking infidel,” he rages at me. “It is time for you to go and discover that your God is a lie. That your God is a fiction...”
He is raising the gun. Perhaps he’s finally going to get it over with. I am not going to be humiliated by him. It is over, this great adventure has run its course, and I will wait patiently for the end...
Come on then.
Come on then, you evil piece of shit.
Finish what you started.
I close my eyes and think of you, and think of Lizzie, and there is a flare of light beyond my eyelids, and I sigh as the roar of a gun swamps his endless bellowing, and his words stop but, for some strange reason, I am not dead...
~~~~~
Bin Imraan blinked awake. Someone was hammering at his door.
“Sayedy, Bin Imraan! Gunfire! There is gunfire at the squatters’ house!”
He leapt up and grabbed for his coat and Dupatta scarf.
“Check the goods!” he yelled at the still closed portal. “Warn the men! Protect the drugs!”
~~~~~
I open my eyes.
Nagpal is still standing in front of me. There is a blackened hole in the middle of his forehead and, through this hole, I can make out a faint silvery glow of moonlight from behind him. His eyes are wide open. Surprised wouldn’t even begin to describe the unimaginable horror that seems to be crossing them.
He blinks once, and then crumples to the floor.
Now I can see the triangle of bloody mush which extends behind him. It widens as it spreads across the floor and ends in a broad swathe of red, splashed against the breeze block wall. His brains I presume. There appear to be more of them than I thought there’d be.
I spin on my knees.
Ebrahimi is pulling himself upwards against the nearby window frame. In one limp arm he is holding a smoking handgun. Blood is still pouring from his head. His face is a mass of deep cuts and gashes. He slumps, legs barely supporting his weight, half standing, against the wall.
“Why?” I ask.
“Is Jeyhun dead?” he asks in a quiet voice, ignoring my question.
“I don’t know,” I answer carefully. I don’t know anyone called Jeyhun. “Possibly?”
Even given his current frail condition and his position, propped against the brickwork, I see the man’s shoulders sag slightly. He’s staring sightlessly out of the window across the dark suburbs. “I know he is dead,” he mutters. “He died in Berlin. Was it you? Do you know where he rests?”
I lean to one side, and warily reach out toward my pack which is lying just out of reach. One strap finds my fingers, and I ease it gradually across the floor. “I know nothing about Berlin,” I say carefully. “Who is Jeyhun?”
“My brother,” he answers.
I need to keep him talking. “So what now?” I ask.
He stands quiet for a moment, still staring out into the night, then shrugs to himself. “Our homeland waits. I must return there, must tell my family what has befallen us, and beg for their forgiveness... Then I will leave there, before they are harmed, never to return. There is another life. A quiet life. A peaceful life. I will go to it.”
I am ready. My preparations have been hurried but they will have to do. I don’t know what Ebrahimi will do. Or when. I gently pick myself off my knees and into a crouched position with the rucksack propped in front of me.
“What about the families in the UK?” I ask. “Will you go and beg for their forgiveness too?”
He turns from the window to look at me. He seems paralysed by my suggestion. Does he think that I would have forgotten?
“Neither I nor Jeyhun knew what these madmen were planning,” he implores. “We never suspected they would do such murder. I have finished it. He is dead.” Ebrahimi gesticulates with his pistol toward the body behind me.
One slight twitch of his finger and I sense I’ll be lying there alongside it.
“Do you think that your ignorance and naïvety is a valid defence,” I hear myself ask, despite the risk of angering him. I can’t help myself. It’s only right that he should face the facts of what he’s done. “Will it bring back all of those stolen, shattered, and broken lives? Will it repair the broken hearts, console the orphaned children, bring peace to parents whose children will never know laughter or pain or sadness or joy...?”
His face is set grim. His battered pallor seems visibly grey as I stare up at him.
“So tell me,” I ask. “What is it you really fear?” I’ve spent a long time thinking about this.
He shrugs.
“Didn’t Nagpal promise you glory? Didn’t he promise you a heroic exit from this life? Didn’t he promise an afterlife of everlasting luxury?”
He nods.
“Do you think that Jeyhun might be there?”
He nods again.
“Is it true that you have wrought power over life and death?” I move my feet slightly, to get a better footing.
“I don’t know,” he mumbles.
“You have killed indirectly and now,” I nod to Nagpal, “directly, many people.”
“I suppose,” he says.
“That’s a lot of power,” I say. “Almost godlike.”
His mouth opens, but he says nothing.
“Yes,” I say. “God is the creator, however we name him. No matter what form we assume for him. No matter what creed we wrap around the concept. And only a God can choose what is to live...”
“And what is to die,” he finishes, and I can see a tear running down through the blood on his cheek.
“What do you call it?” I ask him, callously. Whatever happens, he must understand. Even if he kills me for it. “When a human claims to be God?”
He gasps in outright horror. “No...,” he insists, terrified eyes wide.
“Shirk,” I help his memory. “The unforgivable sin.”
“NO!” he screams and lifts his weapon but I’m already rising to my feet, and Vengeance is rising in front of me, and the mechanised broad-head is already notched, and in the glass pane behind the man two spectral faces appear, reflecting in toward me, and they’re smiling, and the arrow is loose, and it flies across the room and deploys its barbs...
And Sergei Ebrahimi is picked up by the face, and lifted, and smashed through your reflections which shatter to a million pieces as he passes through.
“Go to hell,” I say.
~~~~~
Gulyar bin Imraan hefted his trusty AK47 rifle in one hand, and strode out into the street where a small group of his men were gathering. A sudden smashing of glass, much farther along the road, drew his attention and he span round to see a ragged bundle dropping out of sight. A dull crump announced that the body had hit the ground.
“The squatters’ house!” shouted one of his men.
He turned back to them. “Are the other locations secure?” he asked.
They nodded variously. “All of them,” one reported.
“So it’s just our visitors then,” he concluded. “I wonder what is so ‘valuable’ about them?”
“Do you think they are fighting each other?” asked his bodyguard, looming close.
“Or perhaps someone has come for them?” Gulyar mused.
His guard took up a covering position near to him. “The child’s message?” he growled.
“Maybe we should find out?” Gulyar said calmly. “You four come with us. Be careful. Profit is one thing, but I don’t intend to get hurt for someone else’s pointless cause.”
~~~~~
I stand there for a second, completely still with my arm extended in front of me. It’s hard to believe that in such a few short moments it is over. I slowly lower Vengeance, and grab my pack with my free hand. The bow will fit in lengthways now my rucksack’s not full of battle dress.
I notice the bloodied metal case on the floor, and can see that it has a couple of quick release catches which I trigger before flicking it open. It’s full of various switches and a couple of screens. It’s obviously military and might be useful, so I grab the corner of Ebrahimi’s scattered sheets to wipe it over roughly, and then shove it into the pack, alongside the bow.
My Browning is still in the corner, I rush over and snatch it up – it looks okay. I snap out the magazine and slam in a fresh one from one of my pockets. I know there must be a shell case somewhere, but I’m not going to waste time looking for it – besides, there’s not much need for stealth, not with one of my mech-arrows currently sitting, impaled into the face of a dead body, in the street outside.
No, I can’t put it off any longer. As reluctant as I am to find out how bad it is, I must go and look. It’s time to find out what happened to Jack.
I drag the pack onto my shoulders and race to the top of the stairs. Through the hole, I can see him lying sprawled at the bottom of the staircase, bathed in silver moonlight which spills into the house through the open front door.
He’s not moving.
“Don’t be dead, Jack,” I murmur to myself as I head downwards. “Please don’t be dead as well.”
I crouch beside him. He’s lying, face down, laid out like he’s in an untidy version of the recovery position. I can’t see any major entry or exit wounds on his back, though he does seem to be bleeding slightly from the back of his head. A small amount of blood is trickling down from under his beanie. Must’ve been from when he hit the wall, or the tumble, or something.
I reach forward, and gently turn him over, and gasp.
I can see his chest moving slightly.
He’s breathing...
“Jack?” I venture quietly. “Jack? Can you hear me?”
I slap gently at his face, whilst scanning his chest and front. I still can’t see any puncture wounds.
“Jack?” I slap him harder. Under other circumstances this might be good fun. “Jack! Come on!”
His eyes blink open, and he lurches up into a sitting position, and starts thrashing at me with his arms.
“Get off me, you mother-f*cker!” he shouts furiously.
He must be mistaking me for someone else, I hope, and I throw my arms around him and hold him tight. “Jack, it’s me Nick,” I say into his ear. “It’s me! They’re dead. Both of them.”
“Nick?” he mumbles.
I’m holding him tightly, and feel him relax under my grip, but I don’t let go of him. I don’t want to. Not yet.
“You’re squashing me,” he grumbles painfully. “I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry,” I say and reluctantly release my bear hug, and sit back into a crouch in front of him. “Where are you hurt?”
“Chest,” he winces and unbuttons his jacket to reveal the old linen bag, rolled up, and tucked inside. He fishes it out, gingerly, and unrolls it. It’s got a couple of metal ammunition clips inside. They’re badly bent in the middle. One has a mangled lead slug buried in it. “Hit my spare mags,” he explains, staring incredulously at the mangled objects. “It’s lucky I didn’t go off like some f*cking Chinese firecracker...”
I can’t help myself. It must be the stress. I guffaw and have to thrust my hand into my mouth to try to stifle my sudden desire to laugh until I cry.
“That’s f*cking nice,” he mutters. “Laugh at me, why don’t you?” He gingerly peels aside the top of the Kurta shirt he’s wearing underneath the battle dress jacket. The left side of his chest is an ugly mass of redness. “Ribs,” he grumbles. “Might have broken a couple.”
I don’t doubt it.
“Can you move?” I ask.
He offers me one arm, grabbing his Browning off the floor with the other. “Help me up,” he says and I ease him gradually upright. He’s struggling to put any weight on one of his legs. “Must’ve twisted my ankle too,” he moans quietly. “F*ck. I can hardly move.”
He’s right. He can’t stand on one leg, and winces on the other. Not good.
I can hear voices from the street outside the open door. Coming closer.
“Leave me,” he says. “Get out of here.”
I heave one arm around his shoulder, and look deeply into the bloodshot jade of his eyes. “Ain’t gonna happen,” I growl. “Come on.”
~~~~~
Bin Imraan, flanked by his men, crept forwards along the middle of the dusty street, aware of nervous faces peering cautiously from the doors and windows around him. The sight of him moving confidently toward the troubles, armed and dangerous, would only reinforce his already significant reputation amongst the local population.
There was no more gunfire, the house seemed silent.
They came alongside the broken body. It was the young man – Ebrahimi. He was lying on his back, legs and arms splayed around him unnaturally. A bright steel and black-carbon flighted shaft rose toward the star-filled heavens from the centre of a bone and blood crater where his face should have been. An arrow, but like none he’d ever seen before. Dark stains were creeping outward into the sand and dirt around the corpse.
His men looked round at him. Alarmed by what they were seeing. He didn’t blame them. If Nagpal and Ebrahimi had been fighting it wouldn’t explain the strange weaponry. Nagpal’s preferred means of execution was a bullet. From the front. So he could look straight into his victim’s eyes. Gulyar had seen it many times.
He looked toward the house. Perhaps Ebrahimi had been bugged? That would certainly have triggered one of Nagpal’s rages for sure. If so, that scanner was very useful, and would be in the house somewhere. Time to take back possession.
One of the local residents hurried nervously out towards them from a nearby doorway. “Sayedy, Bin Imraan?” the man spluttered respectfully. “Would you like me to alert the ANP?”
Gulyar looked at him, and the man cowered back slightly. “Not yet,” he instructed, smiling. He didn’t need the police around for a little while. Not until he found the scanner. “Stay ready. I will call for you.”
The man swelled with pride at the thought of being called upon, bowed gratefully, and backed quickly away to his home.
~~~~~
I make as if for the front door.
“Not that way,” Jack hisses.
We wheel around clumsily, and head through the back of the house.
“Pull the door to,” he whispers, through teeth clenched against the pain from his hobbling legs and battered chest.
I reach back and ease the door closed behind me.
“Through there,” he nods across the narrow enclosure, to where another doorway stands open on the other side.
Lurching forwards I lead him into the neighbouring house, my gun extended ready in front of me.
There’s a noise from above us, and we both jerk our weapons toward it.
A dark face with bright white eyes stares down in fright from the hole at the top of the loft ladder. It yells something unintelligible. A challenge, I guess. So I brandish my weapon aggressively, then press it to my lips, indicating that silence would be a good option right now, and the face shuts its mouth.
I nod once.
Stay quiet.
I swing my head gently toward the front. We’re leaving.
The face remains silent.
Time to move.
I edge us forward and through the front doorway. I can feel Jack twisting under my arm as he keeps the resident covered.
“Come on,” I grunt quietly, and we stumble off down the backstreet.
Behind us we can hear that the face has started screaming again.
~~~~~
His men swept into the house and fanned out across the ground floor.
“Clear,” one reported.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
He stepped forward to the doorway. “Up there,” he ordered prodding his rifle toward the staircase, and watched as they stormed upwards.
“Nagpal is here,” a voice shouted down. “Dead.”
He strode upwards and scoured around him, ignoring the bloody carnage sprayed over floors and walls.
No sign of the scanner.
“Look for a case. A metal case. Silver coloured. Find it!” he shouted.
His men spread out again, and he returned to the ground floor.
His bodyguard loomed out from the shadows of the kitchen, shaking his head. “It’s not here, Sayedy Bin Imraan.”
Someone started yelling from somewhere out back.
“This way,” he yelled. The murderous thieves were escaping and they had taken his prize...
~~~~~
We hobble down the alleyways. Jack is guiding us.
“Left,” he says.
The shouting, from behind us, is getting closer.
Catching us up.
I need to slow them down somehow.
We come to a narrow T-junction, flanked by low rubble walls. Good cover.
“Right,” says Jack.
I heave him in that direction, then stop a few stumbles further forward, and prop him against the wall. “Don’t run off without me,” I say, and move back to the junction.
“Don’t shoot at them,” he hisses angrily. “It’ll only make things wor...”
The Browning coughs, and spits its red-orange flames, and a blood curdling scream rises, followed immediately by a rage of automatic gunfire. Sparks glitter from the walls around me as bullets swarm down the street biting angry, dusty chunks out of the rudimentary brickwork.
“Come on,” I growl, hefting him up onto my shoulder again.
~~~~~
The unexpected shot blew a large hole into his man’s calf, sending him spinning around, screaming in agony.
Gulyar and the others dived for cover and returned fire.
“Kill them!” he screamed, as his AK47 bucked violently in his arms. “KILL THEM!”
~~~~~
“Not far now,” I say as we reach the edge of the conurbation.
There’s a short stretch of open ground between here and where the car’s hidden and we start out across it. Suddenly a man leaps out of the shadows brandishing a rifle. He’s yelling something at us but I just flick myself side-on and kick out at him. I have no time for messing around; he’s stupidly rushed in too close and I use the style of destruction kick I’d normally reserve for large lumps of timber. My foot buries itself violently into the soft, untoned, muscleless, flesh of his stomach.
The blow lifts the man off his feet, folding him momentarily over at the waist, and it flings him backwards, with his arms flailing, and his rifle muzzle blazing bullets wildly into the sky like champagne from an overexcited bottle.
“Nice,” Jack acknowledges, impressed, and shoots the stricken man in the thigh for good measure.
~~~~~
The clattering of distant automatic fire drew Bin Imraan’s attention away from the bullet-peppered end of the alleyway. “STOP FIRING!” he roared. “STOP! THIS WAY!”
He jumped upright and sprinted off toward the main street.
“Come on!” he yelled. Their quarry were getting away. “Get the cars!”
~~~~~
London
Greere watched as Ellard zoomed in on the tracer.
“It’s moved into the street outside,” said the shock of white hair in front of him. He watched it shake from side to side. “Not moving now though,” it concluded.
Greere weighed up his options. He needed to make sure he took all the credit for this. Assuming the targets were down, all the praise and glory needed to flow his way. It was the perfect time to wind up this experiment, but a couple of stranded assets like Tin and Mercury were only likely to create complications – especially when they added to the risk of the full history, and checkered success, of the earlier efforts in Paris, Berlin and Budapest coming to light. He didn’t need that kind of trouble. It would be best for them both to vanish. All he needed was confirmation that the mission was complete.
~~~~~
Herat
I haul the back door of the Toyota open, bundle Jack inside as gently as I can, slam it again, rush round to the driver’s door, jump in, and throw my pack into the footwell beside me. Only then do I remember the case. What if it’s another bomb? I lean over and fish it out quickly, flick the catches open, and offer it over the seat to Jack. “What’s this?”
“A scanner,” he says, as he eases himself uncomfortably onto the bench-seat. “That must be how Nagpal found Ebrahimi’s tracker.”
“Where was it?” I ask. “The tracer?”
“In his arse,” says Jack.
I scowl at him, and he shakes his head in disbelief.
“It’s not what you think,” he says. “Now let’s get out of here.”
~~~~~
“There!” yelled his bodyguard from the driver’s seat beside him.
In the distance, the tail lights of a car squirmed sideways out from behind the walls of the temple, slid wildly across the gravelly road, and then sprinted away.
“After them!” Bin Imraan shouted, and heard his 4x4’s engine roar like a lion. Its chunky off-road tyres churned vigorously at the loose gravel as they fought valiantly to gain traction.
The others, in a Mitsubishi flatbed truck alongside them, shot forwards sprinting into the lead.
“Ten thousand Afghani to the captor!” yelled Gulyar excitedly. He loved a good hunt.
~~~~~
We bounce violently across the rutted dirt track, so much so that my pack is flying around in the footwell next to me. I glance in the rearview mirror but can see very little through the swirling dust clouds which blossom behind us.
Jack moans from the back seats.
“Hold on,” I shout helpfully, as the car leaps up over the edge of a rough-painted strip of tarmac, and crashes back down again.
“Owwwww...,” he wails.
“Tarmac now,” I yell.
“Thank f*ck!” he cries.
The dust cloud behind us is subsiding, but from within it I can make out headlights peering through the dirty smog. They’re dancing around in the mirror like some approaching alien spacecraft preparing to land. “We’ve got company!” I call out.
“Head south!” he instructs, and I see the reflection of the top of his head pop up in the rearview mirror as he peers out the back.
The car sprints forward, its road-tyres getting more traction on the tarmac, and I haul the wheel to the right, rubber screaming in frustration, as we reach the next junction.
“Ow, ow, ow,” Jack commentates.
I glance back at him. He’s heaving himself round and trying to get to the kit stored under the seat.
“Keep going,” he yells, and hauls out the EMT.
The headlights burst out from the junction behind us. One pair. Two pairs. A fiery strobe light blinks above the headlights of the first vehicle. “Incoming!” I yell, as a line of bullets tear a swathe of holes out of the nearby walls and smash into the windows of the houses on one side of the street.
Well wide.
“Keep going!” he repeats. “Head for the bridge! There’s one ahead of us.”
The road leads, in a straight line, ahead of us. Another burst of gunfire starts biting holes out of the houses on the other side of us. Bits of brickwork and glass shower down, tinkling and banging against the bodywork and windscreen.
Closer this time but still wide.
I jink left and keep the accelerator pressed hard into the floorboards. If anyone steps out in front of us this time, they’re going to end up as mincemeat.
“At the end of this straight section the road will curve to the left. Take the immediate right and get us over the bridge but, after we’re over, don’t follow the main road round to the right,” Jack yells, reading from the EMT. “Keep going straight. We’ll go into a hamlet where the road forks, take the middle one.”
“What about them?” I yell, nodding my head backward toward our pursuers.
“I’ll deal with them in a minute,” he shouts. “I’ve only got one pair of hands!”
More flickering lights from behind. Something hits the back of the car and I jerk further left mounting the pavement momentarily. There’s an explosion of glass and something whistles past my right ear and punches a big hole into the dashboard. I don’t think that the car radio is going to work again. It’s a good job I didn’t swerve to the right, or neither would I.
“Jesus,” mutters my passenger.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
“Sending a F*ckING MESSAGE!” he howls from behind me, but lifts his Browning and fires blindly over the back seat through what’s left of the rear windscreen.
That seems to help. I can see the headlights of our pursuers swerving around as they slow rapidly behind me.
Then they accelerate again.
“We need some more of that,” I call out.
“Stop nagging!” he yells.
That’s annoying. “I’m NOT nagging!” I protest angrily. “I’m trying to keep your sorry miserable backside alive, you ungrateful bastard!”
Suddenly the car is full of ear-shattering clattering noises, and I reflexively shrink down in my seat. The deafening racket is coming from Jack, who I can see in the mirror, pointing one of the rifles out through the shattered hole of the back window. In the darkness, flames spout dramatically out of its cartridge ejector port. The magazine empties. “Nag, nag nag!” he yells into the sudden silence, as he rips out the double mag, flips it over, and slams it back in.
The closest of the two pursuing vehicles has been swerving violently from side to side to avoid Jack’s bullets. I can just make out it’s a pickup truck. Someone is standing in the load space and being swung around as he, or she, clings grimly to some sort of tripod. This figure wheels towards us and the flickering light starts again.
“Tripod mounted machine gun!” Jack yells helpfully as more rounds slam into the boot lid on my side.
I jink right, then hard left, guessing that the gunman will struggle to track rapid changes of direction. A renewed cacophony of explosions announces that Jack is returning fire.
“They’re backing off!” he yells triumphantly.
I settle the car back into the middle of the road, and try to push my foot through the floorboard.
“Oh, shit,” says my passenger.
“What?”
“F*ck.”
“WHAT?”
“RPG!” yells Jack.
“WHAT?”
“RPG!” yells Jack.
“WHAT THE F*ck IS A...”
“MOVE!” he screams.
I pull violently on the steering wheel, and a strange object appears next to my window, snaking slowly past us, trailing a gently curving smoky trail in its wake...
“GO RIGHT!” yells Jack desperately.
I haul the car to the right, and off the side of the road. Thankfully we’re outside the city now, and the car bounds wildly, sliding as it fishtails, on the empty dirt verge. To the left hand side, in front of us, there’s a ferocious flash of light, and a car shaking boom, and I feel the Toyota being pushed up onto two wheels.
“SHIT!” I yell.
“SHIT!” agrees Jack.
I’m up in the air, and leaning hard left. Come on car! Come on!
I haven’t lifted my foot off the gas yet.
Come on...
The car drops violently down, and I see my passenger bounce past the rear view. Serves him right for having a go at me. “What the f*ck was that?” I yell.
“An RPG,” he shouts from the footwell. “Like I was trying to tell you. A f*cking rocket propelled grenade!” He’s up to something back there. “Get back to the road!” he instructs. “We’ve got to lose these guys!”
I heave on the steering and point the squirming Toyota vaguely toward the line of the road. There’s a newly formed, smoking crater of a pothole where the RPG went off a moment ago. God knows what would have become of us if we’d been any closer. Or, if it had hit the car itself...
“Get on the tarmac, and get us straight,” he calls forward.
I look back between the seats. He’s busy winding a wire round something.
He notices my glance. “Making them a present,” he explains. “Concentrate on the driving.”
In the mirror first one, then two, sets of headlights burst through the swirling cloud of RPG smoke.
“They’re still there!” I shout.
“Keep going,” he instructs. “And slow down a bit.”
“Slow DOWN?” Is he mad?
“Slow down,” he asserts.
I ease off the gas slightly. The headlights start closing on us.
“Easy,” says Jack calmly. “Easy now.”
I can just see his head in the mirror, looking back over the seats.
“How far are we from the left turn?” he shouts to me.
I can see it in the distance. “About five hundred metres,” I yell.
“Get ready to floor it again,” he coaches. “Not yet... Not yet...”
The headlights are getting closer and closer.
“Not yet...”
“What about another RPG?” I shout at the windscreen. “What if they have another?”
“Not at this range,” he says. “Get ready...”
Our pursuers are barely a hundred metres back from us. The machine gun, on its own, won’t miss at this range.
“Two hundred metres!” I yell.
“NOW!” he roars, tossing something large out of the back window. “GO, GO, GO!”
I drop the Toyota one gear and floor it. The car’s engine howls angrily, and I feel the seat pressing into my back. Then there’s an almighty flash which momentarily lights up both the car’s interior and a huge expanse of the flat desert around us. I can even make out the bridge in the distance. The explosive bang is loud enough to make my already throbbing ears ring with pain and something slams into the boot, driving the car forwards, and making the gears whine in protest at the strain of sudden speed.
“C4,” he yells happily.
In the rearview mirror the pickup truck is cartwheeling along behind us. For a few moments it’s still keeping pace: initially nose first, then there’s a smash of sparks and a scream of metal, and then the flatbed’s rising vertically, then it’s tail first upside down, and then there’s another smash of sparks and painful screams, then...
“WATCH THE F*ckING ROAD!” yells my backseat driver...
SHIT...! TURN...! I heave the steering wheel to the left...
~~~~~