Wedge nodded. “Damn straight. Let’s get back to the others and figure this shit out.”
They made their way back to Chris and Marc, who were waiting with water and energy bars.
“What’s the score?” Chris asked.
“Found the vehicle,” Wedge said. “Land Cruiser parked outside a hut. Looks like we’ve rumbled a hideaway of some kind . . . blacked-out windows, reinforced doors. Up to three blokes inside, and maybe another.”
“Another?” Marc asked. “Did you get a look at any faces?”
“No, just saw some shadows through a vent. Did get a good shifty at their stores, though. Fuck me. There’s enough AKs in there to arm a damn battalion.”
“They’re holding someone in the back too. I heard at least one prisoner getting filled in. We need to pull back and launch a raid.”
Nat said the words clinically, and the others nodded and began readying to retreat. Chris got on the radio and transmitted their intention to retreat and await reinforcements, but Nat couldn’t make himself move.
Someone touched his arm. Marc. “Just a couple more hours, mate. We’ll get him.”
Nat looked away, a dozen scenarios running through his head. If it was Connor in there, there was a high chance he didn’t have a couple of hours, and if it wasn’t, they were wasting precious time. Every fibre of his being screamed at him to shove Marc aside and slot every fucker in the hut until Connor was safe in his arms, but he couldn’t do it. He loved Connor, of that he was certain, but if he stormed the hut, he wouldn’t be alone. His men would follow and he couldn’t risk their lives any more than he already had by leading them this far.
They set off on foot, tabbing back across the desert the way they’d come. The rain had faded away while they’d regrouped, and the renewed heat was fearsome, but Nat hardly felt it, distracted by plotting out the raid on the hut. To avoid detection as they approached, they’d have to work on foot, with no air support. And once in position, they needed to move hard and fast, to get to the prisoner before he became a human shield to aid his captor’s escape, or, worse, collateral damage.
Bobs jogged up beside Nat. “Anyone heard from the SBS boys?”
The SBS blokes had commandeered a search of the riverbanks, looking for more tunnels. Last Nat heard, they’d found at least two that led to other abandoned buildings in the city. “Still out there,” he said. “Looks like we’ve found the weapons route, though.”
Bobs grunted, echoing Nat’s sentiment that the discovery had come far too late. “Chin up, Nat,” he said. “It was your brainwave that led us to think of tunnels in the first place.”
“No it wasn’t. It was Connor’s,” Nat snapped. “And we should’ve thought of it from the start. They’ve been doing that shit in Gaza for years.”
John had told Nat that Connor had said the very same thing. Nat pictured it and trailed to a stop. Connor’s voice had always made him feel a little giddy—his wry grin and dirty laugh, the growl it took on when he was angry. Would Nat ever see Connor like that again? Animated? Alive? And so fucking beautiful it almost hurt to look at him?
Nat doubled over and threw up. The sudden violence of it surprised him as much as Bobs. Where the fuck had that come from?
Marc was there in an instant. He gripped his chin and scrutinised his face. “Jesus. Look at the bloody state of you. You’re dehydrated.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re knackered, Nat. We all are. We need to rally with the vehicles and get some rest.”
“Fuck off. I’m fine.”
“Nat—”
“No! We need to push on.”
Nat glared Marc down, but before he knew it, Wedge, Chris, and Bobs had surrounded him, each man wearing an expression of concern . . . concern, and exhaustion Nat couldn’t let himself feel.
Wedge moved into Nat’s space. “Come on, mate. You’re fucked, we all are. If we push on we’ll drop like flies before we make much headway. It’ll take hours to get a team in to replace us. We need to stop, just for a few hours. It’s the best chance we have of getting to Connor in time.”
Wedge wasn’t the greatest orator in the world, but put like that, Nat’s stubborn stupidity fell by the wayside. He chugged the electrolyte-laced water Marc passed him and looked around at his team. Barring a few snatched hours of sleep here and there, they’d been on the move for the best part of forty-eight hours, covering miles and miles of desert on foot, scoping rivers and caves, and every abandoned dwelling they came across. If they were to have any chance of successfully raiding the suspect building, they needed to take a break.
Luckily, the rally point wasn’t far off. They met a convoy from the palace a mile or so later—a convoy that was significantly smaller than Nat was expecting.
Rogers got out of the lead vehicle and approached with the face of a man carrying bad news.
“What is it?” Nat growled.
“Major drama in the city. We’ve got all hands on deck trying to contain it, so we’re not gonna have the manpower to hit that hamlet for a while yet, possibly not until the morning.”
“Are you taking the piss? We called the raid in an hour ago.”
Rogers winced. “I know, mate. I’m sorry. It didn’t filter through until we’d already sent every available man into the city. We can’t pull them out now. It’s bloody chaos down there.”
“Christ’s sake!” Nat threw his water can against the nearest vehicle. It ricocheted off the bonnet, leaving a dent behind. “What’s the point in calling in support if it’s not fucking there?”
“We’re here,” Rogers said. “Got orders to bring you in to regroup, then head out when we have enough boots on the ground.”
Boots on the ground. If Nat never heard that damn fucking phrase again, it would be too soon but he had little option but to climb into a vehicle and let himself be driven away from the only place Connor was likely to be.
Back at the palace, he ate and drank everything Marc put in front of him, then fell asleep in the alcove, trying not to notice the empty spaces where Dick’s and Tom’s belongings had been cleared away.
He woke just an hour later, his heart thudding in his ears like a death march. The others were still asleep, but he sensed eyes on him. John.
Nat sat up. “All right?”
“Nope. You?”
“Nope.” Nat’s gaze fell on Connor’s laptop. He couldn’t bring himself to actually open it. “Dick and Tom get off okay?”
“Aye. Took all I had not to see them right the way to Wootton Bassett.”
Nat understood that. It had always felt wrong to load the bodies of fallen friends onto transporter planes, and then return to work like nothing had happened. Like there wasn’t a massive void where a comrade you’d once called brother should’ve been. “I’m sorry.”
“Aye,” John said again. “Me too. I took my eye off the ball, Nat. Never fucking occurred to me the jundis would still be lurking about. Maybe if I’d been underground, I could’ve . . .”
John shook his head, but he didn’t have to explain. Christ, it had been Nat’s satellite call that had pulled him away from his men—and Connor—in the first place. Where did the blame stop?
“Anyway,” John said. “A couple of crews came in a few hours ago. They’re all a’kip now, so shouldn’t be long before we can hit that raid. Sit tight. I’ll keep you posted.”
John clapped Nat’s shoulder and wandered off. Nat sat back and stared at the ceiling, his chest still burning with painful tension. He’d wake the others soon and make ready to brief whatever force they managed to assemble, but, perversely, though the need to get moving was more desperate than ever, he found himself taking advantage of this quiet moment.
He closed his eyes and tried to regain some composure. He’d passed out with a mind filled with dark, brutal images of Connor’s possible fate, and he didn’t feel much different now. He imagined kicking down the door of the dilapidated hut to find Connor’s broken body on the floor and fought the hysteri
a brewing deep in his bones.
Get a grip. You’ve got a raid to lead.
Nat sat up again, impulsively grabbing Connor’s laptop. He booted it up and tapped in the password. Connor’s latest article filled the screen. Nat scanned through it, absorbing how Connor and Echo-4 had filled their time in Charlie-3’s absence. Connor’s frustration with the lack of progress in Basra was clear to see, and Nat wished he’d taken more time to educate him on the futility of modern-day warfare.
He wished he’d taken more time to do a lot of things.
Nat closed the document. He wasn’t looking for the articles Connor wrote for public consumption. He was looking for the rest of it.
A folder entitled “Notes” caught his eye. He opened a few documents. Most were astute observations that couldn’t be printed, but there was nothing particularly classified.
* * *
Q vented his annoyance at the shortage of Minimi ammunition by punching a hole in the wall, damage that was later fixed by P in a manner that reminded me of an overstretched single parent, a theme that seemed set to continue as the strains of this deployment took hold.
* * *
Fucking hell. Nat closed the folder with a wry smile. Yup. That was Marc all right. Mother hen to them all.
Nat’s gaze fell on the “Private and Personal” folder he’d stumbled across before, and he hovered over it again. He had no business snooping in Connor’s personal files, but if the worst happened and Connor wasn’t recovered alive, his belongings would go straight to command, before being sent to his family, taking with them Nat’s last chance to get to know the first and only man he’d ever loved.
Nat clicked on the folder. The first document was titled “Why?” Nat opened it. Read the first paragraph. Blinked. And read it again . . .
* * *
On the 15th of February 2003, my sister and I joined a million people on the streets of London and put our names to the biggest antiwar protest the world had ever seen. Eight months later, our elder brother, Sergeant James Napper, was shot dead on a British Army base just south of Mosul . . .
* * *
Jesus fucking Christ. He stared at the grubby screen as his heart’s low, discordant tattoo got louder. James Napper. Damn. Nat hadn’t seen the name in print for as long as he could remember. The first time rushed to mind, back in ’97, during winter selection for the Regiment. Snow, mud, and rain, those Welsh mountains seemed a whole world away from the balmy morning in Mosul six years later when James Napper became the first man to die under Nat’s command.
For a long time, he’d believed there could be nothing worse than the crippling grief that had slain him when his second-in-command had been murdered in his bed, but now he knew different.
Because there was nothing more devastating than knowing Sergeant James Napper—Pogo—Nat’s comrade and best friend, was Connor Regan’s fucking brother.
Nineteen
Drip, drip . . . The maddening sound had been Connor’s only company for hours. Alone and blindfolded, with his hands and feet shackled, he was almost starting to miss Behrouz and his handy rifle butt.
Almost.
Connor fought the desperate urge to grapple with his hand restraints. He’d learned a few hours ago that it was an unwise move. Instead, he played dead and took stock of his physical condition. His head had hurt since he’d come to on this dirty floor, but there were new injuries now as well. Cuts and scrapes on his back, a bleeding lip and swollen wrists, and ribs that hurt so much he could hardly breathe. His nose felt blocked too. He wondered if it was broken. Tried to care. Failed.
No. Don’t give up.
Fragments of the military books he’d read floated back to him. Not much made sense, but he recalled a section of an autobiography he’d read on the plane to Turkey all those weeks ago. Anyone can break you physically. Mentally, it’s up to you. You are as strong as you let yourself be.
Ha. Connor didn’t feel very strong, but he was oddly unafraid. The pain had seen to that, too consuming to leave room for much else.
Except Nat, of course. Connor’s thoughts drifted to the last time he’d seen Nat smile, a real smile, not one of his hollow, rueful grins. Nat came alive when he smiled. His eyes lit up and warmed Connor’s soul, heady and addictive.
Warmth. A strange thing to crave in the relentless desert heat.
Connor tracked a bead of sweat as it trickled between his shoulder blades, and then down his spine. An urge to giggle swept over him. Delirium maybe? It was possible. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a drink. Not that it mattered. Behrouz is going to kill me anyway.
The idea didn’t hurt as much as his head, perhaps because it was a reality he’d come to terms with the moment his captor had revealed himself. Connor had done his homework on the abductions linked to Behrouz. None had lived to tell the tale, and they’d all died a horrible, public death. Nat filled Connor’s mind again.
I don’t want him to see me die.
Sometime later, the scrape of a door opening startled Connor awake. Footsteps approached. He shrank away from them, despite his best efforts to play possum.
Strong hands yanked him upright. The blindfold was ripped from his eyes.
Connor blinked in the dim light, seeing only blurred shapes, until his vision cleared enough to make out Behrouz and another man he hadn’t seen before.
“Stand up,” Behrouz said. “I have a last assignment for you before you meet your maker. You are a journalist, no? I’d imagine you’ve done this before.”
Connor spotted the cheap video camera rigged up by the blacked-out window. His heart skipped a beat. They were going to use him to send a message to anyone who’d listen; Al Jazeera first, no doubt, but it probably wouldn’t be long before it hit the British media.
Oh God, Jenna. He hadn’t thought of her much since he’d been overseas, too caught up with Nat and the job at hand, but he did now. Would the MOD get to her before she saw him chained and bloody on the ten o’clock news? Shamefully, he had no idea.
The new man in the room removed the shackles from around Connor’s wrists. Blood rushed into his hands and the relief was instant. He flexed his fingers. It was better than sex . . . the sex he’d had before he’d met Nat.
“Get up,” Behrouz said.
Connor tried. His legs failed him, stiff and aching from being bound on the floor for so long, though he took heart in the fact they didn’t seem to be broken.
Behrouz seized his arms and hauled him up. “Come on now, Connor. I do not have time for laziness. Stand against the wall.”
With Behrouz’s help, Connor shuffled his chained feet across the small room to stand against the dirty, blood-stained wall. It was the first time he’d noticed the blood. It looked fresh. He wondered if it was his own.
“I have prepared something for you,” Behrouz said. “Would you like some water before I give it to you?”
“Please,” Connor croaked.
A cup of murky water appeared. It looked like it had been skimmed from a muddy puddle, but Connor didn’t care. It was wet, and he drank it down in one long gulp. “Thank you.”
“That’s quite all right. Now, I have done something helpful for you, Connor, so I would like you to do something for me. Will you do that?”
Depends what it is seemed an unwise answer. Connor nodded instead. Behrouz handed him a sheet of paper, covered in scribbled Arabic.
“It says on your internet profile that you are fluent in Arabic. I trust that extends to the written word?”
“Yes. I can read it.”
“Good,” Behrouz said. “I would like you to read what I have prepared for you, a statement, to the Western dogs who are probably turning Basra upside down for their precious white man.”
“Are we still in Basra?”
Behrouz cuffed Connor upside the head. Connor stumbled. The blow lacked the force he’d come to expect, but he was hurting already and badly dehydrated, and the combination fucked his remaining equilibrium.
�
��Don’t ask me questions, Connor, but I will answer this one for you. No, we are no longer in the city, but do not rejoice. Even though you discovered our tunnel, there are many more, and you will have long left this existence by the time your would-be rescuers follow our tracks.”
A bell rang, faint and distant, in Connor’s mind. He had little memory of being snatched from the tunnel beneath the mosque, but did recall a vague sensation of sinking deeper and deeper underground. “They might not even look for me.”
Behrouz sneered. “Oh they will, especially when we show your face to the world. Remember, the fate of a single white man is worth a thousand Muslims. I have explained this to you before, Connor.”
Ah, yes. So he had. “When are you going to release my message?”
“After we leave this place. It would not do to give away our location just yet. I have not finished preparing the welcome your rescuers deserve.”
What did that mean? Did Behrouz intend to kill him and leave his body behind? Or was he to be killed elsewhere, and this location left as a booby-trapped red herring?
“Now,” Behrouz said. “Are you ready to tell the Western world why they should never have come here? Explain to them the futile folly in their tanks and bombs?”
Connor refrained from explaining that he hadn’t been long on the ground in Basra before doing just that, literally. A wave of irony hit him, and the pesky urge to giggle came again, and it was all he could do to nod.
Behrouz clasped his hands and stood back, signalling to his accomplice who turned the camera on. “Good. Look at the camera, Connor. You will tell them now.”
Connor eyed the piece of paper and swallowed thickly. It crossed his mind to refuse to comply, but there seemed little point. At any rate, he’d tell the world to blow itself up if it meant just a moment longer without those damn shackles.
He closed his eyes briefly, took a deep breath, and began to read. “My name is Connor Benjamin Regan. I’m a British journalist for the Guardian . . .”
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