Crossfire

by Andy McNab

  I kept my eyes closed. My chest heaved as I fought to fill my lungs with oxygen.

  Water poured from the soaking hessian as Mr Sheen lifted it from the bucket. I managed one last big breath before it was pulled over my head. The wet sacking clung to my nose and mouth.

  I fought it. I couldn't help myself. I blew hard from my mouth to try to get the stuff away from me.

  The tabletop tilted and my head went down. A bucket of cold water was tipped over the sacking.

  I couldn't breathe.

  I told myself to keep calm. You're not drowning! You're not drowning!

  But water poured into my nose and mouth and my body told me otherwise.

  Take it easy! You'll be able to breathe again soon!

  The seconds ticked by. I needed so badly to take a big breath. My reflexes took over.

  I gagged.

  Another bucket . . .

  My body went ballistic. I tried to kick and buck. My hands scrabbled frantically at the plasticuffs. I was tearing holes in my own skin.

  Another bucket . . .

  Neither body nor brain could help me now. I gave in. I tried to breathe, and the more I tried to breathe, the more water I took in. I knew I could swallow it but I didn't; I kept trying to expel it, and then I ran out of air. My body jerked like I was being tasered again.

  The tabletop see-sawed the other way and my head swung up. They pulled off the sack. I vomited water and bile and struggled to fill my lungs with air. Water poured out of my nose and mouth and snot streamed down my face. I'd never felt such relief.

  They know what they're doing. They won't fuck up. They won't let you die. Everything's a reflex. Control t!

  I screamed at them: 'I don't know anything!'

  Nobody was listening. One punched my face and the sack went back on.

  The table tilted again. And so did the bucket.

  I was going to die. I wanted to blow out but I couldn't. I had nothing in my lungs to blow out with.

  My strength drained like someone had thrown a switch. I had nothing left to fight with. I knew that death was just seconds away.

  The table tilted but the sack didn't come off this time. I coughed and spluttered, puking up water and more bile.

  Then, a miracle . . .

  The straps were released. I slid off the table on to the floor. More freezing water was thrown over me, but I didn't care. The two of them kicked me against the wall. They didn't talk; they didn't need to. When it came to this kind of performance, the Serbs were best-in-breed.

  I curled up with my face to the wall, hands still locked behind me. More water cascaded over me. I screamed into the sack: 'I don't know anything!' I started shivering.

  I heard voices. One of them laughed. 'More soon, asshole.'

  I was treated to a few more kicks in the back and the sack was whipped away. The goggles and ear defenders went straight back on.

  I was off, I was moving.

  I kept my eyes closed and every muscle clenched. I'd happily take a beating, if only they didn't put me back on that fucking thing.

  They lifted me to my feet and half dragged, half carried me out of the room. We turned right, back along the corridor. My toes scraped and tore along the rutted concrete.

  I was pushed to the floor, and the skin on my knees opened up again. Even that pain was bearable now.

  I tried to sit back, and immediately got a kick in the ribs. I had to keep my thighs absolutely vertical and my back ramrod straight. My hands were throbbing again.

  I didn't know who else was in there. I didn't know if or when I'd be back in the interrogation room. Another bucket of water was tipped over my head. I shivered uncontrollably. My thighs started to shake. My whole body trembled. My back was hurting after the kicking and with the effort of trying to keep it straight. Something had to give. I bent forward a little from the waist to relieve the pain.

  Hands grabbed my shoulders and wrenched me back into the stress position. A couple of seconds later, I was deluged with another bucket of water and the shivers took hold.

  83

  The concrete ridges dug into my raw knees. I had to relieve the pain. I leant forward, but that just changed the angle of attack. I pretended to collapse.

  Kicks rained in and I got hauled back into position.

  I must have been there for another ten or fifteen minutes. My hands felt the size of watermelons, and pumped so full of blood they were within seconds of bursting.

  I was grabbed under each armpit. A knife blade worked its way between the plasticuffs and my skin.

  I was moved immediately. I was relieved to be out of the stress position, but dreading what might come next. The worst fear is the fear of the unknown. The stress positions, the cold water, the cold rooms, the holding area with the gravel, I knew all this technical stuff was designed to disorient me, get me worried, fuck me up. I knew it all and understood it, but it was still breaking me.

  I tried to gauge how far we were moving along what I presumed was a corridor. Was I being taken back to the waterboarding room? If I wasn't, would that be good or bad? Anew room might be worse. Anew room might mean Phase Two.

  The hands on my left let go of me, and the ones on my right pulled me through a doorway. My face banged against the frame.

  The floor the other side was slick with water. I was turned and shoved down on a hard plastic chair. My hands were plasticuffed to its front legs.

  I stayed hunched for a moment, teeth gritted, every muscle clenched. Then I eased myself forward to try to relieve the pressure on my plasticuffed hands. I'd lost all feeling in them.

  My world was dark and silent. I tried to kid myself I felt safer that way. That instead of fearing the unknown, it was better just not to know.

  Whatever was in the room with me, I couldn't hear it and I couldn't see it.

  I could no longer smell lemon, but I could smell the sulphur of a struck match, then burning tobacco, and that was very bad news. These two knuckle-draggers didn't have the skill to cause pain and keep people alive at the same time.

  84

  The ear defenders and ski goggles were ripped away once more. The first thing I heard, even through the prison walls, was the sound of a large aircraft landing. I kept my eyes closed and stayed exactly where I was.

  When I opened them again, Sundance and Trainers were looking at me from the other side of the cell. The speaker stood on a stool between us, its red light on.

  We waited.

  Sundance bent closer to it, as if he thought that was how you used these things. 'He's listening.'

  He and Trainers stood back and each sucked at a roll-up. They were wearing fleeces to combat the cold. The room held their smoke at chest level.

  The Yes Man got down to business. 'Do you know what the American vice-president called waterboarding?'

  I couldn't be arsed to answer. It wasn't as if it was going to make my situation any better.

  'A "dunk in the water", he said. He doesn't believe it's torture. Rather, a very important tool in the fight against terrorism. Do you know what I find incredible about that?'

  Fuck him.

  'It's that the Americans gaoled a Japanese officer in 1947 for waterboarding a US civilian during the war. They sentenced him to fifteen years' hard labour.'

  He didn't wait for an answer. 'The only difficulty I have with the technique is that anyone will confess eventually – even to things he or she hasn't done. But where we want information, not a confession, I consider it very effective.'

  The speaker boomed. He must have leant very close to his microphone. 'Where is the film?'

  I stared at the floor. The bottoms of the chair legs had probably once been rubber-tipped. The steel had long since rusted from contact with the wet.

  'I keep telling you – I don't know. I don't know what, when, who. I know fuck-all about what Dom's got himself into . . .'

  'Of course, the problem we face is that some people get so desperate they begin telling you what they think you want
to hear. I hope you won't waste our time by being one of those.'

  'Look, I know fuck-all . . .'

  'Stone, frankly, I've never liked you. You're arrogant, disrespectful and, even worse, you're disobedient. This is your last chance. My two men wanted to beat the life out of you, even before our Serbian friends began their work. But I said no. I wanted you to have the opportunity to save yourself.'

  'Maybe I can find out from Dom. Put us together, give us some time. He trusts me.'

  There was no response.

  First there was total silence. Then I could make out his voice, but only faintly in the background, like he'd turned to talk to somebody else in his room, or take another call.

  When he did speak again, there was an edge of triumph in his voice he couldn't disguise. 'Gentlemen—'

  Trainers leant forward. 'Aye?'

  'I've got the boy. Everything's changed. Repeat, I've got the boy. The Pole is now neutralized. Go and tell him. He'll take you straight to the film.'

  'Stone?' Trainers was almost licking his lips.

  'I have no further use for him. Kill him. Repeat, kill him.'

  The red light went out. The two of them looked at each other.

  I dropped my head.

  Trainers laughed. 'You'll be more pissed off than that in a minute, boy.'

  He moved behind me. The kick to the back of the chair was so hard I shot forward. My arse came right off the edge of the seat and dropped to the floor. The plasticuffs slid down the chair legs.

  Sundance savoured the moment. 'Get on your knees and crawl to the board.'

  I could hear them behind me, rocking the tabletop, playing with the straps.

  'We're going to take you for a ride on this baby. But you should know, son, you're only getting a one-way ticket . . .'

  My wrists strained against the metal. I closed my palms round the bottoms of the legs. I eased first one wrist free and then the other. I struggled to my knees.

  'That's right, here, boy – walkies!'

  I sprang to my feet and grabbed the seat of the chair. Swinging round, I squared up to them lion-tamer style, the chair positioned like a four-barrelled machine-gun.

  Sundance's face hardened. 'Don't fuck about, son. You're only going to—'

  It was his turn to be drowned out.

  I yelled at the top of my voice and charged.

  85

  My shoulder sent Sundance flying. He lost his footing and tumbled over the waterboard.

  Trainers' eyes widened as I hurtled him back against the wall. The tip of one of the legs dug into his stomach. He bellowed with pain and tried to grab it but I pushed as hard as I could.

  His muscles couldn't resist any more. The skin gave suddenly, and the rough, rusty tip jumped forward six inches.

  Sundance was struggling to his knees.

  I let go of the chair. Trainers slid down the wall with the leg still embedded. His gaze was fixed on the entry wound. He looked puzzled.

  I leant down and grabbed the wooden stool by one of its legs. The starship flew into the air as I swung the stool down hard on to the top of Sundance's skull. He dropped like I'd tasered him.

  I clubbed him again, this time between the shoulders. The third blow smashed into the back of his neck.

  His body convulsed like he was having a fit. Blood poured from his head. I brought it down again, crushing his temple. His hands jerked up momentarily, then dropped. He lay very still.

  'Bastard! Bastard!' Trainers' cry was half scream, half groan.

  He was slumped against the bottom of the wall like a drunk in a pool of piss. His legs were splayed and he'd kicked one of the buckets over. The chair leg still skewered him.

  His eyes glazed as he gripped the leg but made no attempt to pull it out. Perhaps the rusty tip was acting like a barb.

  I ran the three or four steps across to him and kicked into the seat where he'd had my bollocks just a few minutes before.

  The leg jerked back into his stomach and wedged against something hard; his spine, maybe, or the wall. Fuck him. This one was for Magreb. Dark red, almost brown, deoxygenated blood oozed from his guts. I kicked again and again.

  I stood over him for a second, my chest heaving. I knew I had to get moving, had to keep the initiative. But I also needed to stop, catch my breath and think. What was the plan? What the fuck was I going to do?

  Get Dom, and get out.

  Sundance stirred. He was coming round. I went back to him and brought the stool down once more on his head, then again to make sure he was going to be able to keep Trainers company.

  I flipped him over and pulled off his fleece. I didn't feel the cold any more – adrenaline and fear had taken over – but I knew I'd need it soon. I pulled off his desert boots, unbuckled his belt and took off his jeans.

  Trainers panted in the corner like a rabid dog. He was trying to suck air but his body didn't know how to any more. He'd lost too much blood. His eyes were empty.

  I kicked the chair sideways and he slid slowly to the floor.

  86

  The hinges were on the right. The handle poked out of a hole drilled into a steel plate that covered the whole door. I put my ear to the metal but couldn't hear anybody on the other side.

  I glanced back at the two bodies, then eased it open. Bright light poured in from the corridor. It was a couple of metres wide and fluorescent strip-lights dangled from nails and hooks on each wall. All the doors seemed to be steel-plated. Each had a spyhole, a foot-long bolt, and a puddle of water beneath it. There wasn't a sound.

  To the right, about thirty metres away, the corridor led to what I assumed was the holding area.

  I closed my door behind me and turned left. Sundance's laces dragged in the puddles. I made a mental note of which cell doors didn't have the bolts thrown. If Mr Sheen or one of his mates appeared, I'd need somewhere to hide.

  After about ten metres I came to a pair of steel doors that were clearly newer than the building. I threw the bolts and pulled one open a couple of inches. The first thing I heard was a helicopter in a low hover.

  I eased the door open some more, and stuck my head out. Sunlight blinded me. Two white GMC Suburbans were parked about fifteen metres away on the far side of a small compound. Beyond them was a pair of large, rickety gates set into a crumbling block wall.

  Birds sang. I looked above me. There weren't any windows. It was a low-level industrial building. The paint was peeling and some of the concrete had crumbled away to reveal the rusty skeleton beneath.

  I heard the beat of rotor blades and swung my head to the right. A Puma came into view about two hundred yards away, then disappeared behind the wall. As the engines wound down, I could see the top of a pole and a fluttering flag. I couldn't make out the country, but I'd already seen enough.

  We were in ISAFland. Which meant we were comprehensively fucked.

  87

  I rebolted the door and moved back along the corridor, checking the spyholes left and right.