by Andy McNab
90
Frost glazed the fields and road and sparkled under a clear sky.
The heater was on full blast, but wasn’t up to spec. It couldn’t even demist the windscreen, let alone keep us warm. The back windows, though, were fine. The sacks and diesel cans were probably snug as fuck.
Jerry’s breath billowed round his head as he leaned forward, teeth rattling, to wipe the glass with his sleeve.
I followed suit with my side of the screen. ‘That Kevin Carter photo? The way no one looked past the vulture and the girl to the real story? I reckon I’ve fucked up and not seen the real picture of Nuhanovic.’
‘The real Nuhanovic?’
‘What if Nasir wasn’t in Baghdad looking after Nuhanovic, but there doing business for him? What if he was doing exactly the same as that arsehole Goatee? The competition.’
‘Nuhanovic? Come on . . .’
‘Why not?’
‘Even if you’re right about Nasir, it doesn’t mean Nuhanovic is involved.’
‘Doesn’t it? Remember what Salkic said? They don’t work for him, they serve him. They do jack shit off their own back, they follow his orders. So just what the fuck was he doing in “Chetnik Mama”?’
‘Fuck.’ He slumped back in his seat.
‘You got it. So what was I really seeing at the cement factory? Was he saving the girls, or trading them?’
‘So . . . Zina . . .’
I nodded. ‘Got it again. Tell you what, if I’m right I’ll kill the fucker for you.’
The van lurched into a pot-hole; Jerry groaned and grabbed his abdomen. I didn’t feel too bad about it. The pain would soon disappear. The damage to his face would take a lot longer.
Jerry pulled the rag away from his nose. ‘Not seeing the whole picture . . .’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘That wasn’t my family you met in DC. I don’t know who the fuck the woman was.’
‘So that was all bullshit too?’
He nodded. ‘I am married to Renee. I have got a daughter. They just weren’t the ones you met.’
He leaned back, trying to ease the tension in his neck.
‘She knows nothing about this. She thinks I’m in Brazil covering the elections . . . What if I fuck up, man?’
‘Listen, the only chance of Chloë surviving is if you just do exactly what I tell you and George never finds out that I know. Once we’re back in DC, you stick to the story – whatever that’s going to be.’
I didn’t add that for the rest of his life he must never tell anyone, not even his wife. Whoever she was.
For myself, I felt strangely OK about George stitching me up. I’d always known he wasn’t one for loose ends. I’d become one the moment I wanted a bike instead of him. At least I knew where I stood.
What a set-up. I bet George had enjoyed rigging up the exhibition and the false family as much as any operation he’d ever prepared.
We carried on down the road and I couldn’t help smiling as he told me about his made-up family. ‘The woman didn’t know how to change a diaper. I had to show her. Even then she wouldn’t do it.’
Unless they knew George’s previous, most people would find it hard to imagine that a man representing a western democratic government could act this way. But Jerry had seen a bit of shot and shell in his time, as well as the bullshit that surrounded it. He knew better. But it wasn’t helping him. He just stared out at the frost glinting back at us, hands in his armpits, maybe trying to conjure up comforting images of his little girl. I looked across at him. ‘Listen, just do exactly what I say, OK? Nothing’s going to happen to anyone.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Would he really kill a child, Nick? How’s he get it done? He have some sick fuck on call or what?’
There was no way he was getting any of that kind of information from me. ‘You don’t need to know, because it won’t happen.’
‘Why? Why do it when I’ve fucked you over, man?’
I kept my eyes on the road. ‘I used to work for George. That’s why Kelly’s dead.’
I could feel his stare drilling into the side of my head. ‘George killed Kelly? Fuck.’
I turned. His eyes were glazed, as if he was elsewhere. I knew that look very well: I’d seen it in the mirror often enough.
‘She’d been snatched by some fuck-ups. George was holding me back, not telling me where she was because he didn’t want me going into the house and fucking things up for him. He knew they’d probably kill her, but the job, the fucking job came first. By the time I got there and found her, well . . .’
I felt a jolt in the centre of my chest. The image of her dead body I described to Jerry was as vivid as a photograph.
Jerry wasn’t looking good. ‘Oh, fuck . . .’
I rubbed my hair and cupped my hand over my nose. ‘I took her body back to the States, and Josh and I buried her alongside the rest of her family. It was standing room only in the church.’ I rubbed my hands on my soaked jeans, trying to get rid of the smell. I needed to get back into the real world. ‘I don’t know if she would have been proud or embarrassed.’
I wished I could have fished in my wallet and pulled out a photograph like any other proud parent, but the simple fact was that I didn’t have one. Not one she would have been proud of anyway. Just the one from her passport: her face had been covered in zits that day and I’d had to drag her to the photo booth. There were others from her house, of course, but they were in storage. One of these days I’d get round to sorting all that stuff out.
‘Fuck it, it’s all history now.’ I pushed the gearshift into third as we headed uphill. ‘I don’t want anyone else to have those nightmares. No one deserves them. Except George – but that’ll never happen.’
We both just stared at the road as it was hoovered up by the headlights.
‘Listen, I’m sorry for fucking up your face. I saw the location device, the phone number, the camera thing at the al-Hamra and my head just kind of exploded.’
He had bigger things to worry about. ‘I deserved it. You know, Renee told me once that Buddha said we all have two dogs inside us, one good, one bad, constantly fighting each other. Which one wins depends on which one’s fed.’
‘You don’t have to come, you know. Everybody gets scared when they’ve got things to lose. You’ve still got your family, all that gear – I’ve got fuck-all. I’ll take you back to the barn and go on my own.’
‘Nah . . .’ He gave me as much of a grin as he could manage. ‘It’s just like old times . . .’
I checked the dial. Another three and a bit Ks and we should be hitting our first landmark. The frost was setting in with a vengeance: what had been a light dusting on the tarmac was now more or less solid ice. I just kept it in third and hoped for the best.
I thought about Renee’s dogs, and I knew this was one whole can of chunky Pal I didn’t want to open again.
91
Salkic had said the forestry block was just over two Ks long, and the next marker to look out for was a firebreak.
I glanced at Jerry, who was so close to the heating vents he nearly blocked off the supply. ‘We’re going to hit it soon, a group of “bomb-blasted” trees on the right.’ I’d liked Salkic’s description.
I slowed down and he wiped his side window with his wet sleeve, but there wasn’t just a group of devastated trees, there were scores of them; some splintered trunks were five or six feet high, some no more than stumps. Salkic had been wrong – they hadn’t all been blown up: most looked as if they’d been flattened by tanks.
We both spotted the break at the same time. I stopped just short of it so we could use the headlights to check things out. There was a rush of even colder air as Jerry opened the door. He was so frozen he hobbled rather than walked over to the treeline, and I knew just how he felt.
He waved me on, jumping up and down to try to get some warmth into his aching limbs. I put the gearshift into first and chugged towards him. The narrow opening in the trees certainly wasn’t a firebreak; it was just wide enough f
or a vehicle.
Jerry got himself back into his seat and we edged forwards. It was like driving into a cave. The trees were just a couple of feet either side of us and the canopy above shut out the stars.
Jerry leaned over the dash and did his best to look through the windscreen.
After a hundred metres or so the track opened up a little, and the van juddered as I put it into second. There was no frost in here: it was too enclosed. The ground was soft, and I hoped it wasn’t going to turn muddy. The VW was a long way from being a member of the 4x4 club.
Jerry gave the screen another big wipe. ‘What’s this fucking guy live in? A tepee or a tree-house or something?’
I checked the instruments again. We’d driven about eighteen hundred metres from the road. Ahead of us, at about the two K mark, was a junction left. After bouncing through another couple of pot-holes, the headlights picked it out.
I turned and looked at Jerry’s silhouette. ‘Fuck knows what’s going to happen now. We’ve just got to play it by ear.’
‘Can’t wait.’
We started down the track.
‘If it gets really fucked up and we have to split, we’ll meet up where we turned into the forest. For fuck’s sake, don’t go too far into the treeline – it could be mined. I’ll do the same, see if we can link up. If that doesn’t happen in six hours, we’re on our own.’
Jerry nodded slowly. ‘In the cave, I never thought I’d get this far, man. I’m still shitting myself.’
I delved into what was left of my PVC coat pocket. ‘You still got the pistol mags?’
He nodded as I passed him the Daewoo. ‘Seeing as your old mate Osama has obviously shown you how to use the fucking thing.’
Salkic’s directions were spot on. Six hundred metres later, the track was blocked by two giant wooden hedgehogs. ‘Heads up, here we go.’
As we got closer, Jerry spread both his hands on the dashboard. Good move. We wanted them in full view of any nervous people with weapons.
I followed Salkic’s instructions to the letter; stopped, left the lights on, engine running.
The two hedgehogs had been laid out to create a chicane that would just about take the van between them. I couldn’t see a thing ahead of it, just the track continuing a short way, then disappearing into the darkness.
Jerry stared into the void. ‘What now?’
‘Just as he said. We wait.’
I began to wind down my window. Before I even got half-way, there was movement in the treeline to my left. A powerful torch beam hit the side of my face. I kept my hands on the wheel and my eyes straight ahead.
‘Ramzi?’
‘No Ramzi. Nick Stone.’
The voice from the trees was immediately joined by others, muttering a whole lot of stuff I didn’t understand. I could feel the engine chugging away through the steering-wheel, and made sure my hands didn’t move off it.
A group of men stepped out of the forest. They were dressed in a ragbag of uniforms: American BDUs, German parkas, tall leather boots, a variety of furry hats. Every one of them carried an automatic weapon.
Both doors were pulled open. We were hauled out of our seats and round the front of the vehicle, where they could have a good look at us in the headlights. But it didn’t feel like we were prisoners: we were controlled rather than dragged.
I kept my arms straight out in a crucifix position, and started shaking with the cold as they removed my bumbag and ran their hands over me. I saw my AK lifted out of the VW. A voice kept talking to me in Serbo-Croat, but the only word I understood was ‘Ramzi’.
I tried my best to explain. ‘Hospital. Boom! Bang! Doctor.’ I didn’t know what the fuck they thought I was talking about, but I didn’t want to risk any sudden movements to help make things clearer.
Jerry’s pistol and mags were taken off him, along with his bumbag. My hands were pulled down by my sides and the guy who’d done it seemed to be telling me to relax. They were now containing, not controlling.
There were four of them. They were all much older than Salkic, more Nasir’s vintage. They were old enough to have been through the war, and it showed. A couple had scars on their faces, and the sort of look in their eyes that said they’d seen and done things they didn’t need to talk about. I wondered if any had fingers missing.
Their weapons were clearly well oiled and maintained; some AKs and a number of Heckler & Koch G3s, a 7.62mm assault rifle with a twenty-round mag.
One of them – who seemed to be calling the shots – had big curly hair that fell way past his shoulders from under his Russian fur hat. A Motorola crackled somewhere in his thick sheepskin glove. There was some quick-time gobbing off, with ‘Ramzi’ and ‘Nick Stone’ making regular appearances. Eventually he passed it over to me, and pointed at the pressle.
‘Hello? Are you Nick Stone?’ The voice was male, educated, authoritative.
I hit the pressle. ‘Yes. I’ve got someone else with me, Jeral al-Hadi. The photographer.’ I thought it sounded a bit better having a Muslim in tow.
‘Where is Ramzi?’
Didn’t they know what had happened?
‘He’s alive. So is Benzil. They’re back in the city.’
I rattled through what had happened at the cave.
‘Wait one minute, please wait.’
I hoped it wouldn’t be much more than that. I was freezing.
I gave the radio back to the glove and just stood there, the cold biting into every inch of me. It was like being back in the sheep hollow. I stamped my feet together and so did Jerry. Whoever was on the end of the Motorola gobbed off at one of the crew, who disappeared as the long-haired one offered us both a cigarette. I’d never smoked in my life, but I was almost tempted, just so I could cup my hands round a match.
Two green German parkas were produced and neither of us needed to be told twice to get them on, hoods up. These boys knew what it was like to be wet, cold and hungry, and only wanted that for their enemies. They’d be taking them back before first light, then.
We stood there for another ten minutes or so before the Motorola sparked up again, then we were herded into the back of the VW, alongside the spare diesel. I’d been right, it was much warmer. The long-haired one got behind the wheel and manoeuvred us through the chicane.
The track went straight for a while, then bent to the right and led towards a dirty white wall, about three metres high. Set into it was an archway, blocked by a pair of heavy wooden coach doors that were opening inwards as we approached.
92
The van bounced to a halt. The long-haired one jumped out and slid open the side door. Light flickered on the other side of the archway and a small man in a long black coat, fur hat and sheepskin boots appeared, an oil lamp clutched in his hand. It was Nuhanovic. Although his face was mostly obscured by his collar and hat, I could see he’d binned the beard. It didn’t seem to make much difference: he still came across like somebody’s favourite uncle.
‘Please come in.’
His eyes were bright and piercingly intelligent. The corners of his mouth were lifted in a half-smile, but I wasn’t sure whether it was aimed at me and Jerry or his long-haired mate, who shepherded us in, then turned the VW back down towards the checkpoint.
We followed Nuhanovic through into a cobbled courtyard. He only came up to my chin, but there was no doubt who was in charge here.
‘I have dry clothes for you, and hot water. Once you are comfortable, we will eat and talk.’ He spoke slowly, in heavily accented but perfect English, and chose each word with a lot of care.
Directly in front of us was a long, one-storey building with a veranda that ran its whole length. The place was in darkness.
He led us to the left, along the line of the wall, to where another, taller building joined it, forming an enclosed courtyard. We followed him and his oil lamp up a very old and creaky external wooden staircase on to the first-floor veranda. Warm light glowed behind the blue-glass panels in a door to our left.
&n
bsp; He opened it and ushered us through. We hesitated, starting to take off our boots before crossing the threshold.
‘Please, no need, just enter.’ Nuhanovic took a closer look at Jerry’s face. ‘That wound needs to be cleaned.’
The room, maybe four metres by five, was heated by a blazing fire. Logs were stacked against the wall, and the air was heavy with perfume and woodsmoke.
Our shadows flickered on the walls. An oil lamp in the corner provided the only other light, and lavender oil simmered in a little brass tray above the flame. The happiest sight was the steaming brews that stood on two brass trays by the grate. I headed straight for them.
Jerry joined me, trying to kickstart his circulation in front of the fire. Above it, hot water bubbled in a clay tank decorated with inlaid pieces of coloured glass.
Nuhanovic stayed by the door. ‘The water should be hot enough for you to shower. Please, change, be comfortable and then we can talk.’ He turned to leave.
‘I’m Nick.’ I motioned with my hand. ‘This is Jerry.’
That half-smile returned. ‘And I am Hasan.’
He closed the door behind him.
Jerry didn’t need any second invitation. He turned the small brass tap at the bottom of the tank and hot water streamed into a large clay jug beneath it. I poured out the brews. I was pleased to see it was tea rather than that Arabic coffee shite, although I would have gone for anything even half-way warm. I threw in a handful of lumps of crystallized brown sugar. The glass burned my fingers and lips as I started sipping.
Jerry filled the jug, and started to get undressed in front of the fire. I kicked off my boots, refilled my glass and took a look around. Two sides of the room were dominated by long seating areas littered with cushions. Some basic clothing had been laid out for us. There was no decoration on the dirty white plastered walls.
A slatted wooden door opposite the fire led to a toilet, a simple box with a hole in, with a washing bowl and hand towel alongside. There were no electric sockets or fittings that I could see. It was as if we’d been transported back two hundred years.