“Nah—once they’ve got you, they’ve got you. They’ll kill you, threaten to kill your family, if you try to leave. When I got out, I wanted to do something, make a better life for myself, not this. I told them I wasn’t interested but then they started on Kass.”
“Kass?”
“My sister—they attacked her on the stairs—slapped her about—told her that they’d be sharing her around if I didn’t do as I was told. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Like a gang.” Jessie watches Khaled as he turns to walk back to the group. His face shines with excitement. He’s insane!
“Yeah, it’s just like a gang, only this lot claim it’s a holy war.”
“We can get away.”
The boy stares at her.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
The boy startles. “What the hell is that?”
The tapping sounds is followed by a muffled voice. “Jessie!” Tap! Tap! Tap. “Jessie!”
The boy twists in his seat and stares into the back. The tapping pushes at the back seat, a firm pressure on Jessie’s back.
He’s in the boot! “Jesus! Uri.”
“Uri?”
“He’s in the boot.”
“What?” The boy looks from the back seat, to Jessie, and then to the men outside. Sweat beads his hairline.
Jessie twists, shoving her wrists at him. “Quick, undo my wrists.”
“But-”
Jessie jabs her tied wrists towards him. Her arms ache with the strain. “Please! Quick. We haven’t got much time.”
“But if they catch me.”
“You know what they’re going to do to me, don’t you? Please, untie my hands. You can say I got free and knocked you out.”
“But-”
Remembering the sister, she tries a different tactic. “Khaled’s on the other side of the court—they’re all busy talking—making plans to destroy the town and everyone in it. Is that something you want on your conscience?”
“No, but-”
“One day it will be your sister they ... rape, if they’re not stopped. Please!”
“Turn around.”
Jessie turns and in the next seconds her wrists are unbound and she’s free. She bends to untie her legs then clambers into the driver’s seat as Uri continues to tap.
“You’re going to have to stay there, Uri.” She floors the clutch.
“What are you doing?”
She twists the key in the ignition. “Getting out of here. Do your seatbelt up.”
Khaled and his cronies are deep in conversation, the others are gathered in two groups whilst a few stragglers move between them. Jessie slips the gear into reverse then gently eases off the clutch and moves the car back in an arc. Heads turn. Jessie floors the accelerator and powers the car past the first group. Figures run towards the car. She swerves, knocking into them. The boy thuds against the door but makes no attempt to leave. A grunt sounds from the boot. Sorry, Uri! The car knocks into a figure sending it bowling backwards. Jessie swerves around the final pump and aims for the exit. Foot to the floor, the car hurtles, its engine vibrating with strain. Come on! Get me home! Steering onto the road back to town, she checks the rear-view mirror. Multiple car lights move onto the road behind. She crunches the gears into third and is blinded as lights flood the front of the car and a van is suddenly in her path, straddling both lanes. She twists the steering wheel to avoid it but its bonnet crashes against the car. Shunted onto the steering wheel, she screams as the boom of the crash fills her ears and the car flips. The car fills with thuds, bangs, and screams and then the shattering of glass. It lands with a crash and she’s thrown to the roof, then back to the seat as it rolls down the embankment before stopping with a heavy crash on the road below. She sits for a moment in stunned silence as pain wracks her body. The boy is silent, his head leant against the window.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Uri!
The stench of petrol is strong. Light fills the car as vehicles approach. She pushes at the car’s door. It moves but doesn’t open. She pushes again. Metal creaks as she forces it open. Unclipping her seatbelt, she falls from the car. The hum of engines grows with the brightening light. On her knees, she pushes up, leans against the car and makes her way to the boot and flips the lid.
“Jessie!”
“Get out. They’re coming.”
The cold, hard tip of a gun’s barrel presses against the back of her head. “They’re here.”
KILLING THE BITCH WOULD be the last thing he’d do to her. Before that, he’d show her just what they did those who attacked the brethren. It was something he’d got a taste for in Rawwa and then Raqqa and the brothers had chosen him to ‘punish’ the women given his previous training as a butcher. The only difference was that the animals he slaughtered back home had their throats cut first. “On your knees, bitch.” Khaled swings the rifle across the back of the woman’s head and kicks at her buttocks before turning his attention to the blond giant.
MICHAEL TAKES A TENTATIVE step then leans up against the door frame. His legs feel tight, the muscles stiff.
“You should be lying down with your feet raised.” Clare takes rapid steps down the stairs.
“I had to use the toilet.”
“I put a bottle beside the sofa.”
Michael groans. “I couldn’t stand another second on that sofa. Its hot and stuffy in the room—there’s no air.”
“Come on back and sit down. We need to keep listening.”
He grunts but allows her to take hold of his elbow and walk with him back to the sofa which had become his bed. On the coffee table the radio crackles.
Clare picks up the pad and pencil as Michael tunes the radio. White noise crackles.
Viktoria waits at the door. “Any news?” She wrinkles her nose then walks to the window and opens it. “Hope you don’t mind. It is hot in here.”
“Nothing yet, Vicky. I’m sorry.”
“Uri will be back soon. He always comes back. I wait for him so many times.”
A voice, guttural and harsh, crackles from the receiver. Alert, Clare sits forward and begins to scribble. Another voice, a man’s, crackles over the radio waves. Clare makes notes. The room is silent as they listen to the voices bounce back and forth. Finally, the radio falls silent and Clare leans into the writing pad on her knee, intent on translating the words.
“Well?”
“Was it them?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I think they’re planning to attack the town.”
“Again?”
“Yes, but this time they talked about an army. And listen, they talked about attacking the blockades.”
“When?”
“One said: ‘It gets light at four’. The other replied: ‘Then we strike at three.’
Michael, reaches for the handset and tunes the dial. “Firestorm. This is Bramwell. Do you copy?”
“Bramwell this is Firestorm. We copy.”
THE HANDSET CRACKLES and Bill crouches low, holding it beneath his jacket. Sam’s voice is muffled but clear. “Bramwell have intercepted a communication. The Barbarians are planning to attack at three am. Repeat: Barbarians to attack at three am.”
“Reinforce the blockades and get Haydock. Tell him to go ahead. Over.”
“Haydock? Go ahead? What the hell!”
“Talk to him, Sam.”
Bill slips the radio back into his jacket pocket and stares across the petrol forecourt.
It was an oversight that they’d left it as a functional station, a place the enemy could use to regroup and refuel. He could understand why Jessie had offered herself in exchange, but ... he runs fingers through his hair.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The last body is carried to the verge. Four bodies lay in a neat row. Sam stands on the top of Haydock’s Mercedes Benz and throws the rope over the thick bough that hangs ten feet above the blockade. It extends across the verge and across the road. The bodies will hang in a perfect, if not
horrific, display.
Sam throws the first rope. It hooks over the tree and he catches the other end. Though thin, the rope is long and tough. He’s quite sure it will hold the weight of the men’s bodies. “Tie the end round its neck,” he calls down to Chugger.
Chugger grunts as he steps forward, his belly spilling over the top of his jeans as he leans forward. He kneels next to the first body and slips a long length of the nylon rope beneath the neck then proceeds to wrap it around twice and tie it off. Sam pulls. The rope burns in his hand and the body barely moves. “Give me a hand!”
With Chugger’s help the body is hoisted from the dew-laden grass, slapped against the side of the van, then hoisted until it clears the car’s roof by a couple of feet. Chugger knocks the body as he jumps to the road, making it swing like a pendulum and catching at Sam’s side. He pushes down his revulsion. The bodies weren’t fresh.
The clatter of footsteps. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Colin bloody Haydock!
Sam grits his teeth. “Thanks for coming, Councillor.”
“Bill’s spoken to you then?”
Sam shifts and the roof buckles.
“Get off my f- ... Get your goddamned boots off my car!
Sam looks down to his size eleven boots and the roof of Haydock’s year-old Mercedes Benz. “Sorry.” He’d expected to be chewed out by Haydock for hanging the bodies. It is a radical act, inhumane, disrespectful, grotesque. All of those words fit what he is doing, but it was typical of Haydock’s self-interest to be outraged more by a pair of boots putting a dent in his car’s roof than to take issue with a man hanging dead terrorists from a branch as if he were hanging the lights on the town’s Christmas tree. Sam snorts at the comparison. Perhaps he should have them lit up.
“What’s so funny, Monroe?”
“Nothing,” Sam replies and throws the second rope up. An engine starts in the distance. He pulls at the rope. “Do your bit, Chugger.”
Chugger wraps the rope around the second man’s neck and together they hoist it into position. As they finish, the air is thrumming with the noise of engines. Unhindered by the noise of traffic, it carries high on the wind and vibrates along the wall of the blockade. “One more,” Sam says as he catches his breath. The second terrorist had been a short and scrawny bastard, but even if he didn’t weigh more than twelve stones, that was still a hefty weight to pull up. “Sod this!” Sam jumps down and kneels beside the third body. He pulls its arms and sits it upright then pushes his shoulder into the man’s abdomen. A belch of gas escapes from its belly as Sam flings it over his shoulder and he cringes.
“Sweet Jesus!” Chuggers voice is laced with real fright. “What in God’s name was that?”
“His last words.” Sam chuckles at his own joke.
“Smells like he ate a bag of shit before he died.”
The stench rises around Sam, it would be a stink that would cling to his hair and his clothes, one that only a hot bath and soap would rid him of. He determines then to throw the clothes away as he feels a cold patch spread across his lower back. He clambers up the ladder then throws the body onto the roof of the van, the feet of the hanging terrorists dangle above his slime-covered face. With quick movements, Sam ties the rope around his neck then gestures for Chugger to help. Together they hoist the man to join his companions in a final display of brotherhood.
“Now that you’ve finished your bit of fun, we need to get down to the serious business of saving this town.”
Sam’s smile drops as he turns to face Haydock. “Go on then. Tell me what you’ve got.”
“In my past life I was a medievalist.”
“And?” Sam frowns. This was getting surreal. “What the bloody hell use is that?”
“Well, I’m a military historian and I have some ideas that you may find useful.” Confidence oozes from the man. “Shall we talk?”
IT HAD BEEN A MASSIVE mistake not to put this place out of action, but as she thinks back to the previous few days there just hadn’t been any opportunity to come back. Everything had moved so rapidly that the plane crash seemed to have become a distant memory, something that happened a lifetime ago. Guilt washes over her. She’s barely thought about Sarge since they’d left the city. His loss waves over her, tiredness eats at her resilience, and hopelessness tugs at her.
The terrorists have regrouped and the petrol pumps are surrounded by vehicles in a protective circle patrolled by the men who are now gathering to peer at her. Uri lies on the verge, his face bloodied. He doesn’t move.
Her captor laughs, squeezes her breast as he jabbers at the audience. They laugh in return.
“Mine when you finish,” another shouts, the English for her benefit no doubt.
Jessie doesn’t flinch at the touch to her breast or the crude taunts from the men.
‘Stand tall, Jessie.’ The voice, drops into her mind like a pebble. ‘Show no fear. They’re bullies and you know what we do to bullies.’ Yes, sarge.
A younger man sidles close and reaches out to touch her breast, his hand tentative. For a second their eyes meet. Through his contempt she can see his greed, and his fear. She doubts he’s ever touched a woman before. In that second, as their eyes lock, Jessie offers him a smile. In the seconds that follow, his confusion at her response turns to pain. As his fingers brush her nipple, she swivels. Her captors caught off guard, the grip on her arms slips and she twists. Shooting a powerful kick, she catches the man’s jaw with her heavy boot. Teeth snap as the force smashes bottom jaw to top. He staggers back then falls to the tarmac. His head catches against the kerb where he twitches once then lies still. The butt of a rifle slams into her chest. The gun is raised and a shadow falls across her face as it swings towards her. An arm punches out and breaks its swing.
“Keep her awake. Khaled wants her conscious.”
BILL PULLS ALEX BACK to duck beneath the hedge. “Keep it together!” His voice is stern. He can’t let Alex’s emotions take control of his reasoning. “We’ll get her back.”
“They’re touching her! I’m going to chop their fu-”
“Calm it!” Bill grips Alex’s shoulder, forcing his down, keeping his eyes on the scene ahead.
Uri had lain motionless until a minute ago. He lies in perfect stillness, checking his surroundings. Jessie squats against the wall of the shop guarded by two men, a younger man sits by her side, his face swollen, left eye closing. The forecourt is alive with movement as men, dressed in their regulation black terror uniforms, fill the cars and trucks with petrol. Bill turns the cigarette lighter over and over in his pocket. A jacket doused with petrol from the crashed car sits crumpled at his side. The crowded forecourt thins out as the men get into the vehicles and then the air hums with the roar of engines. The first van rolls off the forecourt as cars reverse and make their way to the exit. A figure that Bill recognises from the cells hobbles towards Jessie. She’s yanked to her feet and the van reverses. The cars leave in convoy.
“They’re taking her!”
Bill eyes the forecourt. Ten metres lie between him and the opening of the petrol tanks that sit beneath the pumps. He waits for the exact moment. Jessie walks over the metal hatch as she’s dragged to the back of the van. All the terrorists, apart from the young boy with swollen eyes, have their backs to him.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
Bill lights the jacket, stands and jumps over the low hedge. Alex leaps across the hedge and heads straight for Jessie. Bill races past Uri, slams open the petrol tanks’ lid and pushes the jacket down into the hole. As he turns, the stench of petrol fills his nostrils. In his peripheral vision, Alex punches first one and then the other guard in the back of the head and grabs Jessie from their loosened grip. Together, Alex and Jessie sprint towards the hedge. Bill races to Uri. Already on his knees, he staggers with Bill to the hedge.
The blast is enormous. The white van is catapulted into the air as Bill, Jessie, Uri, and Alex are thrown over the hedge.
Bill lands wi
th a thud and rolls down the embankment. His ears ring and every muscle in his body aches. A deep scratch runs down his arm but as the flames rise and another blast rocks the night, he’s relieved to see that Uri, Alex, and Jessie have fallen with him and are unhurt.
THE DOOR VIBRATES BENEATH Sam’s knuckles as he taps. Light glows and a curtain twitches at the downstairs window. Someone shouts from deeper inside the house and then the door opens.
Mad Dog scowls at him with bleary eyes. Shirtless, his broad shoulders give way to a well-defined torso, skin glints in Sam’s torchlight illuminating the red, orange, and black ink of his intricately tattooed biceps. He peers down at Sam, scowls, then pushes the door closed.
Sam steps into the frame. The hard edge of the door bangs against his boot.
“Get your bloody foot out!”
“Jack-”
Mad Dog peers over Sam’s shoulders to the group of men behind.
“If you’ve come to arrest me, you can piss off.” He pushes at the door again squashing at Sam’s foot. He keeps it in place.
“No. Jack—we need your help.”
“I’ve helped enough. Now fu-”
“They’re coming back. An army of them to wipe out the town.”
The door opens. “Talk. I’m listening.”
DR. PRIYA KOHLI STRAIGHTENS, pulling the stethoscope from the boy’s chest. “His breathing and temperature are normal, Mr Fairweather. Despite the incident, I think all he needs is a good sleep. Keep him warm with plenty of fluids and Calpol if he complains of any pain. His muscles are likely wrenched and no doubt he has a headache.” The doctor pushes the boy’s hair gently from his eye and Martha turns away as Heath flinches. “Just moving your hair from your eyes,” the doctor soothes. “Nothing to worry about.” She stands then places the stethoscope back in her bag. She pushes against the desk, weariness riding over her.
“You look like you need some sleep yourself doctor.” Sidney cradles the boy in his arms.
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