Bonfire

by Mark Arundel

  Fatigue threatened to drown me as waves of exhaustion weakened my legs, caused my head to spin and forced my hands onto my knees. Sucking in deeply and filling my lungs with stale air, I stared at Cakes. His condition was bad. The knife fell from my weak hand and clattered on the stone. I had to find the strength necessary from somewhere. Either Cakes came with me or neither of us left. The only way to get him out was for me to carry him. I went to him. Gripping one wrist I pulled him up, balanced him against my shoulder and then, like a weightlifter, took the load on my thighs and powered the big man up. For a while, I staggered until I got the balance right and my legs accepted what my brain was making them do. Treading slowly and breathing hard my impersonation of a very bad firefighter got us inside the secret passage. I stared at it. The narrow tunnel was dark, long and without end. With the motivations of Brimstone missiles, Magda, Cakes and Al Bousefi all in my thoughts I forced one foot in front of the other and began what already felt like the longest journey.

  Rhythm and balance were the key. The tunnel was level and straight, and very dark. My speed was steady, but the weight of my friend and the weakness of my muscles made hard work of every step. Fearing that the tunnel really was endless and unable, in the darkness, to see my feet I stumbled and went down onto my knees, but just managed to keep Cakes on my shoulder. Whether my body could find the energy needed to get back up, make it to the end, and out of the tunnel was unknown. I believed it, but then I was probably close to a dangerous state of delirium. The voices came to me like haunted chants from beyond the grave of souls long dead. Coercing rational thought back into my disorientated mind brought reason to the sounds. The raised voices I heard were those of Magda and Al Bousefi, carried inside the confine, amplified and turned ghostly by the tunnel.

  The knowledge that they were not too far ahead and that Magda was struggling against her captor brought new resolve to my drained body and helped me find the strength to regain my stance. I rebalanced Cakes and trudged on.

  ‘Muntasser, can you hear me? Aksil, are you there?’ I said through the CDL for the second time, but silence was the answer. Whether the tunnel hampered the signal or whether something had happened to Muntasser and Aksil, I did not know. Getting help from the two Libyans was crucial.

  A light appeared ahead. The prospect of reaching the tunnel’s end spurred me forward. The echoing voices of Magda and Al Bousefi carried back to me along the passage. The Arabic words were loud and heated. The light went out and the voices stopped. Despite the return to darkness, I knew the finish line was close and the thought gave needed energy to my pace.

  Out of the gloom, the steps appeared like the welcoming embrace of a lover long missed. I stopped and assessed the climb. Each step looked like a mountain. At the top was a hatch and I could see by the seeping light it opened into the outdoors. With gravity making Cakes feel twice as heavy I made the ascent, lifted the hatch and peeked out. It was a hollow with rocks on two sides, a sloping mound and flat, open land to the west. A smoking ball of blood orange threatened to scorch the horizon and its hazy glow shaded golden-brown the barren land. The hollow was deserted and carried on the windless air was nothing except silence. I held back and tried Muntasser and Aksil again very much hoping for a response.

  ‘Yes, Hayes, we are here and we can hear you.’ Muntasser’s voice may not have been quite as welcoming as a lover’s embrace, but it was very near.

  ‘We’ve left the building through a secret underground passage,’ I said. ‘It runs westerly and surfaces about a half mile out. Can you come and get us without anyone seeing you?’

  ‘We will come now and keep out of sight,’ Muntasser said.

  ‘We followed Al Bousefi and he’s got Magda with him. I’m not sure what he intends to do.’

  ‘Does he have men with him?’

  ‘No, he’s on his own.’

  ‘Why have you not killed him?’ Muntasser asked.

  ‘Cakes and I have bad injuries,’ I said. ‘We both have bullet wounds.’

  ‘Hayes, give me your GPS numbers,’ Aksil said. I read him the coordinates from my phone. ‘Hayes, we are on our way.’

  Jerry pointed his finger at the big display screen, but before he could speak Claudia’s relieved voice filled the room.

  ‘There! Magda’s signal,’ she said. The glossy nail of her index finger jabbed out like a polished assegai and directed the Chief’s eyes.

  ‘Jerry, can you give us a picture?’

  For a few seconds, Jerry concentrated on his laptop. Claudia and the Chief never took their eyes from the screen. Then the aerial image filled the display.

  ‘Who’s that with her?’ Claudia said. Her question went unanswered. ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘He might be Al Bousefi,’ Jerry said pensively.

  ‘Look! There are Hayes and Kipling,’ Claudia said. ‘He’s injured.’

  ‘I think it is Al Bousefi,’ Jerry said.

  ‘Oh no, look—’ Claudia pointed at the signal. Then helplessly she watched Al Bousefi step forward. ‘No, please, no—’

  All four wheels of the Range Rover dug traction into the dirt and the heavy vehicle accelerated like a charging rhino over the rough but level terrain.

  ‘We do not have the time to be careful,’ Muntasser said as he steered around an unstructured rock pile and then accelerated hard.

  ‘No, but we must come from the west,’ Aksil said. ‘The ground is flat and the falling sun will hide us and, at the same time, give us ability to see.’

  ‘Yes, agreed,’ Muntasser said and changed direction like a racing driver. ‘What is the distance?’

  ‘Less than a mile,’ Aksil said. He lifted the Schmidt and Bender scope to his eye and viewed the horizon like a hunter.

  ‘When can I turn east?’

  ‘…at the end of this rock plateau,’ Aksil said.

  Like a giant rose petal, the western sky blushed crimson, its fading power lengthened the shadows, and the air carried nothing except a softened hush. Muntasser swung the wheel and pointed the square-jawed Range Rover east. Ahead, with the falling sun behind, the tan landscape sharpened, and Aksil and Muntasser viewed a monochrome contrast of light and dark. Aksil held the scope to his eye and searched.

  ‘From the crest of this rise we should have a view of where they are,’ Aksil said. Muntasser accelerated.

  The Range Rover sped over the crest with the same determination as a downhill ski racer and Aksil bounced in the passenger seat. He realigned the scope against his eye and then focused.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Quickly, you must stop.’ The respect and trust that Muntasser had for the Berber were unquestioning. Without hesitation, his foot stamped the brake and his hands gripped tightly as he brought the big 4x4 to a dramatic standstill. The passenger door was already open. Aksil leapt from his seat, pushed the door forward, leant through the open window, hurried the stock to his shoulder and placed his eye to the scope.

  Not wanting to go back down into the tunnel and with Cakes’ body weight increasing by the second I peered out through the trapdoor into the greying hollow and listened. For a moment, I thought I heard the distant murmur of the Range Rover’s engine, but my delirious, weakened state was making me hallucinate because, actually, the sound was the call from a bird flying overhead.

  Knowing that my legs would give out any second I pushed open the trapdoor, staggered up the final steps, took a pace or two forward and then dropped to my knees. Cakes slipped from my shoulder and I laid him beside me on the ground.

  The blackness of debilitating fatigue threatened all conscious thought and nearly robbed me of my eyesight. Only the sound that came from my left stopped me from passing out. It was the voice of a man. Struggling to remain upright on my knees, I turned my head and fought against the blackness. The man was Al Bousefi. He spoke again, but his Arabic words meant nothing to me. At the end of two straight arms, he carried a pistol and he aimed it at my head. He stepped slowly closer. He had waited for me. He had hidden silentl
y and waited. Behind him in the shadows, I saw Magda. She was gagged and hogtied. Her black, crestfallen eyes held my face, desperate and sorry.

  Despite my impossible position, I still wondered where he had gotten the pistol and the rope. He must have had a nearby cache or hidden vehicle. After all, we were at the end of a secret escape tunnel. None of this reflection consoled me very much.

  Al Bousefi stopped far enough away for safety, but near enough to ensure his shot hit its target. His expression contorted into a murderous rage, which on a face such as his was a slight improvement. For some reason, I thought of Belfast and my boyhood. Dying in my hometown would have been my choice, but it was not to be. If an afterlife did exist then perhaps, one day, I would see the city again. The look I saw I had seen in the eyes of men before. Al Bousefi was about to kill me. When the shot came, it confused me. My muddled brain took a few seconds to understand what had happened. Blankly I stared at the man lying on the ground in front of me with a hole in his head the size of an orange and, finally, understood that someone had shot and killed Al Bousefi. The realisation that this had happened at the same moment he was about to kill me did not escape me. The final thought I had before I blacked out was a person. That person was Aksil.

  Muntasser stood over the dead body of Suleiman Al Bousefi and kicked it contemptuously with the sole of his boot.

  ‘Are they dead?’ he asked looking over at Aksil who knelt beside the two men whose lifeless bodies laid side-by-side.

  ‘Hayes is still breathing, but I think Cakes may be dead,’ Aksil replied.

  ‘Put them both inside the vehicle, quickly,’ Muntasser said. ‘We must not stay here long.’ Although he knew Magda was there only now did Muntasser walk over to her. He bent down and removed her gag. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.

  ‘My name is Magda Jbara,’ she said. Muntasser acknowledged the answer with a nod. From his belt, he pulled a large knife and cut Magda free.

  ‘You will come with us,’ he said. ‘Get in the vehicle.’

  Sixty seconds later Aksil drove them away north. Sitting in the passenger seat Muntasser interrogated the phone he had taken from Hayes’ pocket. He did this one-handed. With the other, he found his unsmoked cigar and stuck it between his lips. ‘Get back to the road quickly but leave the lights off for as long as you can,’ he said to Aksil. The phone was easier to use than he had expected. A man answered the call immediately. ‘My name is Wahbi Muntasser. I am the Tripoli police chief. Who are you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Wahbi Muntasser. We know who you are. My name is Jerry.’

  ‘Do you know why I am calling?’ Muntasser asked.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Jerry said.

  ‘Good. What do you want to do?’

  ‘We are sending a helicopter to meet you. I will send the landing coordinates to this phone and that will provide you with the location,’ Jerry explained.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ Muntasser said. ‘We will meet the helicopter. Make sure it has a doctor and blood for Hayes. He may still live.’

  ‘Yes, of course, we have arranged for all that,’ Jerry said. ‘I have a question.’

  ‘What is your question?’

  ‘Can you confirm the death of Suleiman Al Bousefi?’ Jerry asked.

  ‘Yes, he is dead,’ Muntasser said.

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘He was shot in the head.’

  ‘Who shot him?’

  ‘It was a long-range shot by one of my men,’ Muntasser said.

  ‘Is that man’s name Aksil?’ Jerry asked. Muntasser was not surprised he knew.

  ‘Yes, Aksil killed Al Bousefi.’

  ‘Tell Aksil thank-you from British Intelligence,’ Jerry said.

  ‘I will tell him.’

  ‘And thank-you, too,’ Jerry said.

  The British were so very polite, Muntasser thought. ‘You are welcome,’ he said.

  When I came round my mind questioned whether my body was alive or dead. The inside of my mouth gave me the answer. It felt like two-week old flypaper. I was alive.

  Once my blurred vision cleared, I saw the relieved face of Magda staring down at me. Her smile combined gladness with reticence.

  ‘We are aboard a Royal Navy ship,’ she said. ‘I will tell the doctor you are awake.’

  I grabbed her wrist. ‘Is Cakes alive?’ I asked. Magda’s eyes shaded and she shook her head. It felt like a punch to the stomach before you have time to tighten your muscles. I released her wrist and she left.

  The navy doctor combined formality with light-heartedness. ‘The bullet went straight through,’ he said. ‘It missed everything, everything important, that is. It entered above the pelvis and came out through your lower back after passing just below your kidney. You were wearing a bulletproof vest, of course, which accounts for the extensive bruising to your upper body. I would say at least three other bullets hit you. The biggest concern was your loss of blood, but once we turned on the tap and filled you up again the outlook soon improved.’

  Captain Harding reminded me of the Chief but without the ruthless sense of purpose. His straightforward manner made the situation easier.

  ‘London has suggested we give John Kipling and Michael Duggan burials at sea,’ he said. ‘Do you have any objection?’ I shook my head. ‘Did either of them hold any strong religious beliefs?’ Again, I shook my head. ‘All right, I’ll make the arrangements. He passed me my phone. ‘London wants you to call,’ he said.

  Once Harding had left, Magda returned. Her smile was more positive. ‘My father and brother have asked me to tell you of the gratitude and respect they have for what you have done. They are in your debt. My father wanted you to know he has buried your friend and that he is sorry for the pain he knows you must feel.’

  After Magda left, I called Claudia.

  ‘How do you feel?’ she asked.

  ‘My three friends are dead,’ I replied.

  Claudia breathed deeply.

  ‘Had you not done what you did the Chief would have fired those missiles. You and your friends saved the lives of many people, among them Magda and Moha.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, ‘but my friends are still dead.’

  Coming soon

  Hayes returns in Spitfire

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