by Conrad Jones
“Hello, can you hear me?” Karl ducked beneath a thick branch and peered into the blackness. The infant’s cries were very close, but the female had fallen silent. He wondered what they were doing in the copse in the first place. “Hello, I’m here to help, can you hear me?”
The infant cried again, but this time it seemed that it was behind him. Karl turned and listened intently. The cries were no more than a few yards away.
“Hello, can you hear me?” The crying was coming from below him, down to the left. There was a tree trunk barely visible in the blackness, and Karl kneeled down and edged closer to the base of the tree. “Hello, where are you?” he spoke gently, so as not to frighten the infant. The cries suddenly became louder and the female shouted for help too. Karl could not make any sense of it. They sounded as if they were right in front of him, but he couldn’t see anything. He fumbled in the darkness and his hand touched something hard. His fingers felt blindly around the rectangular object, and he nearly dropped it in fright when the infant’s cries screamed louder still from the box. It vibrated slightly as the cries reverberated through the trees. Karl realised what it was and he gazed open mouthed at the wireless speaker. The female’s voice cried out again. The sound drifted through the trees and across the still waters of the lake, and it was all the more eerie now that he knew it was a hoax.
“Why would anyone play a stupid, good for nothing trick like that,” Karl whispered to himself in the darkness. It was a warm still evening but a cold shiver ran down his spine, and he was suddenly very, very, frightened.
Chapter Six
The Souk
Tank watched the sentry in the doorway of the souk as the helicopter approached their airspace. Curiosity got the better of him and the Somali reluctantly stepped from the shelter of the doorway into the blazing sunshine, he scoured the cloudless sky for a sight of the enemy aircraft. He was wearing khaki ill-fitting clothes, mirrored sunglasses and a baseball cap, which appeared to be standard issue for the many militias in Mogadishu. Tank figured him to be around sixteen or seventeen, if he was a day. Raised voices could be heard from inside the souk as the helicopter flew nearby, and a burst of machinegun fire came from within the walls somewhere. The sentry peered skyward and turned around through three hundred and sixty degrees. Tank pointed two fingers toward the sentry and one of his men responded by firing two, soft nosed nine millimetre bullets, from a suppressed Glock seventeen. The fat shells punched holes the size of walnuts through the back of the sentry’s skull. His face was virtually ripped clean off as the flattened ammunition exited through his forehead. The sentry hit the dust with a dull thud and a pool of blood began to leak into the sand. Tank waved a hand and the unit moved silently toward the doorway.
The walls of the souk were made from handcrafted bricks, which were the colour and texture of sand. The doorway was low and narrow, and it was fitted with a thick wooden door. The door was grey in colour and the wood was warped and cracked with age. There was a rusted keyhole next to the frame on the left of the door, but no handle was fitted to the outside. It was obviously designed to open from the inside only. A burst of gunfire erupted from the near distance, and half a dozen other weapons soon joined it. The taskforce men couldn’t see who was firing skyward but it was obvious that they were in the vicinity of the souk. Tank stepped into the doorway, knelt down, and placed his eye to the keyhole. There was nothing to be seen except a spider’s web. He stepped back and nodded to his number four. Number four moved swiftly and within seconds, he had fitted a small plastic explosive charge to the keyhole. The unit split, two men each side of the doorway, and they ducked low against the sandy brick wall. Number four counted down with a gloved hand, four, three, two, one, and then the crack of a small controlled explosion joined the cacophony of machinegun fire. It appeared that the small explosion had gone unnoticed by the militiamen inside the old market place, as the gunfire didn’t falter.
The wooden door cracked into three triangular pieces. Tank ducked under the low doorframe and broke through the broken door. He moved inside and to the left, into what looked like a dusty storeroom. His colleagues broke right and took up defensive shooting positions. The room was empty except for a small wooden desk in the centre. It was the type of desk a child would have used at primary school in the sixties. The lid was sloped toward the fixed seat, and an inkwell was drilled into the lip of the pencil ledge. Cobwebs hung from the low ceilings like grey curtains. At the far end of the storeroom was a metal door, which had been fitted to prevent thieves from gaining entry to it. The unit approached it and quickly assessed how to breech it. Number four pointed to the hinges, which would be the weakest point of a metal door, and the ideal place to fix an explosive charge. Tank held up his hand, and signalled him to wait a second. He reached for the rusty handle and twisted it downwards. The handle screeched and groaned before it gave way, and the door creaked open slowly. Tank smiled as the door opened and his colleagues chuckled at the irony of the situation, why blow the hinges off a metal door when it isn’t locked? The corridor beyond was unlit and empty, and the unit slipped through the door in cover formation. There was a shaft of sunlight shining through a small rectangular window, and dust swirled around in it. At the end of the corridor was a stone staircase. The steps were wide and worn shiny by hundreds of years of use.
Tank and his men reached the bottom of the staircase and he peered through the glassless window into the souk. Inside the old market square was a courtyard made of compacted sand, once packed with stalls and traders selling spices and wares. Now the hustle and bustle of the souk had been replaced with two Technicals and a thick whipping post, which had a poor unfortunate soul shackled to it. The man was limp and hanging by the wrists, and by the look of his injuries he’d been subjected to sustained beatings over a prolonged period of time. Machinegun fire roared skyward again, but this time Tank could see where it was coming from.
Around the market square were high stone walls, which could be accessed by rotten wooden steps, similar to a medieval castle. Four men were shouting and firing Kalashnikovs into a cloudless blue sky. Two more men were standing in the back of one of the Technicals, firing a fifty millimetre into the air. There were doorways fitted into the inner walls of the souk every ten yards or so, which meant that there were at least two dozen rooms off the central courtyard. It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Tank mulled over the options for a second. They could take out the militiamen and then clear each room one at a time by the numbers, hoping that they would stumble across the pirate warlord. Alternatively, they could bug out of the area and then call in an airstrike on the souk, while they lay low until a Heli-vac could be arranged. He was leaning toward the latter course of action when a door to the left of the window opened, and a man wearing new camouflage combats and a red beret stepped into the square. He shouted a series of instructions to the militiamen and they stopped firing their weapons straight away. One of the men on the Technical barked something back at him, while pointing to the empty sky. Tank could tell by the sound of the helicopter engines that it had picked up its human cargo and was well on its way back to the carrier in the Indian Ocean. He could also tell that this man was a high-ranking officer at least, and possibly their leader, Said Adid. The officer turned his head toward the Technical and Tank caught his full profile. He had a black patch over his left eye, appropriate for a pirate, Tank mused.
“Pilgrim one, we have a possible sighting of the target,” Tank whispered into the coms. He watched as the officer picked up a stone and hurled it at the man in the Technical. The stone bounced off his arm and then rattled off the roof of the pickup. The militiamen fell silent, and the officer began to rant and rave again. He was gesticulating wildly with his arms as he hurled a tirade of abuse at the rag tag militiamen.
“Roger that, act accordingly,” came the reply from control.
Tank signalled to his number three, by waving straightened fingers across his throat. He moved from the window and al
lowed the unit sniper to take up his firing position. The Somali officer stormed across the courtyard to the whipping post, and he began to kick the shackled captive in the guts. The man twisted his body to try to avoid the vicious blows but there was no escaping it. The taskforce sniper lined up his target and squeezed the trigger three times, tap, tap, and tap. Two bullets smashed into the officer’s chest and the third blew the top of his cranium off. It landed on the floor still inside the red beret. Said Adid tumbled onto the compacted sand at the feet of his shackled captive, his brains spilled out of his skull. A fourth bullet hit the captive in the centre of his chest and released him from the pain of further torture. By the time the militia men had reached their leader and realised that he had been assassinated, Tank and his unit were already a quarter of a mile away.
Chapter Seven
The Child Taker
The Child Taker could not have planned it better. He approached the back of the tent where the beautiful twins were sleeping, and he smiled a crooked smile as the sound of Louise reaching her orgasm reached him from the tent next door. She was noisy, that was for sure. It reminded him of his first night in the guardianship of a catholic priest, known to the children as, Father Paul. When he was first taken to the boys’ home, and the social workers had left, Father Paul had taken him to his office where he’d been forced to strip naked while the priest watched him. Then Father Paul had bent him over the desk and beaten him with a leather-soled slipper.
“You’ve been sent here so that I can save your wicked soul,” the priest had ranted as he spanked him with the slipper. “Say I’m a wicked boy, Father Paul,” he instructed him.
“Please don’t hit me, Father Paul,” he had sobbed between the blows. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“Shut up you wicked boy, now repeat after me; I’m a wicked boy, Father Paul.” Each word brought a fresh blow to his reddening buttocks. Each blow brought stinging tears to his eyes. He was supposed to be safe here; safe from his stepfather’s beatings, but now he was being beaten by the man who was meant to protect him.
“Ow! I’m a wicked boy, Father Paul,” he’d cried. Unfortunately, the beating had continued, and was merely the prelude to severe sexual abuse that was repeated every night for as long as he could remember. Eventually Father Paul had identified a younger boy to receive his particular brand of salvation, and the abuse became less frequent, although it never stopped. The worse thing was the shame of returning to the dormitory. All the other boys knew what Father Paul did to you in his office, and each of them suffered his abuse at some stage in their miserable lives. The priest made the boys say things while he buggered them, the noisier the better. Louise cried out from the next-door tent and his thoughts returned to the task at hand.
He licked his crooked teeth as he knelt next to the tent wall. The twin’s father was climbing into the woods opposite, and the mother had driven off somewhere in the car. The situation was perfect.
He took a razor sharp blade from his pocket and sliced a cross through the canvas with two deft cuts. In seconds, he was inside the tent and next to the beautiful children. His heart quickened and he had to take a deep breath to calm his breathing down. He could hear their gentle snoring in the darkness. They were sleeping face to face which was ideal for what he had in mind. The Child Taker removed a plastic sandwich bag from his pocket. Inside it was a tissue soaked with chloroform; he took it from the bag and placed it beneath the noses of the twins. Within seconds, their breathing had slowed further still as they slipped into unconsciousness. He grabbed the edges of the sleeping bag and gathered them up into his arms. The groaning in the tent next door was reaching fever pitch as he carried the children out of the tent and into the woods.
Chapter Eight
Realisation
Hayley indicated and turned the estate car into the campsite. The headlights swept across the open ground between the two clumps of trees that bordered the site. Flying insects of every description hurtled toward the light and splattered across the windscreen. Karl was half way between the trees and the tent, he carrying a square object in his hand. He was two hundred yards away, but it looked to Hayley as if he was holding a stereo speaker. A chill ran down her spine. What was he doing?
Hayley rounded a small hump and their tents came into full view, illuminated by the headlights. There was no sign of Louise or Steve, and the barbeque was nothing but a dull glow. Karl waved at her as she approached the camp.
“Where have you been?” Hayley opened the door and climbed out of the BMW.
“You would not believe me if I told you,” Karl moaned. Hayley noticed blood running from a small cut on his leg, and scratches around his shins and ankles. “Someone is well out of order, their idea of a sick joke.” He held up the speaker.
“What are you talking about, Karl?”
“The baby crying before you left, well it got worse, and there was a woman screaming too.” He held the speaker up again. “I went to help and found this in the woods.”
Hayley could only think of one reason why anyone would do that, and the blood drained from her face. Her fists clenched tight around the car keys and her knuckles went white. She had read about a serial rapist in America who used recordings of babies crying to lure women out of their homes. Hayley stared past her husband at their tent.
“What’s the matter, Hayley?” Karl was alarmed by the look on her face.
“The twins,” she murmured. She couldn’t speak properly, and her legs were frozen with fear. She literally couldn’t move as her body was filled with dread.
“What do you mean?”
“The twins,” she repeated, still frozen.
The tent next door wobbled and the flysheet unzipped loudly. Steve and Louise stumbled out half-dressed.
“What’s the matter you two?” Steve asked. Louise yawned and looked disinterested.
Hayley managed to gain control of herself as she walked toward the tent nervously. Karl followed suit and realised her concern.
“They’re sleeping darling, don’t worry,” he reassured himself more than anyone else.
Hayley reached down and pulled the zip upward, she lifted the entrance flap up. The interior was inky black and she couldn’t see anything at first. She reached for the battery lantern and pulled her hand away quickly when she felt bugs crawling all over it.
“Shit!” she hissed.
“What?” Karl asked.
“Put the light on. Put the fucking light on!”
Karl reached for the lamp, found the button and flicked it on.
Hayley gasped and drew a deep breath. Karl’s voice stuck in his throat as he took in the scene, he stared at the speaker in his hand as realisation hit home. His knees wobbled and he folded onto the floor. Louise and Steve leaned into the tent.
“Oh my god!” Steve whispered under his breath. The back of the tent hung in tattered flaps, a cold breeze moved the material gently. The tent was empty. Their twins were gone of that, there was no doubt; someone had cut their way into the tent to kidnap them. Karl’s life flashed before his eyes as he thought about the type of people that could stage a kidnap such as this, about what they took children for, and his stomach retched. Thick yellow bile sprayed the floor as he vomited, and the strong acidic taste made him vomit again. Hayley screamed from the pit of her soul, and it was the worst sound a cheating husband could ever hear.
Chapter Nine
Major Stanley Timms
Major Timms and his taskforce watched live pictures, which were being taken by an unmanned Predator drone. It had launched a Hellfire missile strike against the souk when Tank and his unit were a safe distance away. The old market place had been ripped to pieces by the initial explosion, and was then rocked by a series of huge explosions, which indicated that a large cache of weapons and munitions had been stored in the ancient building. The consensus was that it was indeed the headquarters of the pirate warlord, Said Adid, and that he’d been terminated.
“Another job well d
one,” the Major turned the pictures off. “We’ll be transported by Chinook at 0800 tomorrow to a friendly airbase in Ethiopia, and then back to the UK, from there. You’ll be back in your own beds by Tuesday.”
“Roger that,” Tank said. He slapped a colleague on the back with his huge hand, a little too hard. “Sounds like beer time to me.”
“Absolutely, ladies and gentlemen, please make your way to the mess where you’ll find that our American hosts have laid on a selection of their finest fare, and a few cases of Budweiser for your enjoyment,” the Major opened the debriefing room door and the unit filtered out into the corridor. Everyone was buzzing with the adrenalin of completing a successful operation, everyone except the unit’s number three. He was leaning against the carrier’s bulkhead with one knee raised behind him, and his arms folded. Tank caught his eye and his number three met his gaze and held it. The Major spotted the silent standoff and stepped into the fray.
“Is there a problem here, Adams?” the Major took his number three by the elbow and guided him away from the others. The debriefing room was emptying fast, and Tank waited until the others had gone before closing the door and turning to face his accuser.