by Will Jordan
‘Bullshit!’ he snarled. ‘Tell me what I want to know or your son dies!’
In the observation room opposite, Frost was watching the scene unfold with growing dread. Dietrich was threatening to execute innocent civilians.
He hadn’t briefed her on what he was planning, saying only that he was going to play hardball with Khariri, and that they weren’t to interfere under any circumstances. Now she knew why.
They had their own laptop, allowing them to see the same video as the one in the interrogation room. She could barely bring herself to look at it.
‘Jesus Christ, this is going too far.’
‘He knows what he is doing,’ Rahul assured her.
That was what she was afraid of. ‘Fuck you! I didn’t sign up to watch women and children get executed!’
‘Are you seriously gonna let this happen, man?’ Keegan demanded.
‘Be patient,’ the Saudi officer urged. ‘He will break.’
‘Yeah? What if he doesn’t?’
He said nothing, just stared at the screen.
‘This is your last chance!’ Dietrich yelled right in Hussam’s face. ‘Tell me now. Don’t make me do this.’
The old man had tears in his eyes. ‘I told you, I know nothing!’
‘Fine.’ He’d had his chance. Dietrich reached for his radio and without hesitation, barked a single order. ‘Kill the boy.’
‘No!’ Hussam screamed, staring in horror at the screen. The camera was now focused in on his son Amir, his eyes wide with terror as one of the armed men kicked his chair over, drew a pistol with casual ease and fired three rounds into him.
In the observation room, all conversation abruptly stopped. Frost was staring at the image on the laptop, of the small form lying limp and unmoving on the ground. There were tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, Christ …’
She wanted to throw up.
He had done it. He had really done it.
And she had allowed it to happen.
Hussam’s head was down, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Dietrich leaned in close. ‘Your son is dead, Mr Khariri,’ he said quietly. ‘You can’t do anything about that now, but you can still save your wife and daughter. I will make you watch them both die. Believe that.’
The old man raised his head, eyes blazing with absolute hatred. ‘You killed my boy! You will die for this!’
Dietrich’s expression didn’t change. ‘But your wife and daughter will die first. Tell me where they went. Tell me now and put an end to this.’
Hussam said nothing.
‘You could save them, but you choose to let them die,’ Dietrich said, reaching for his radio again. ‘The girl next.’
‘All right!’ the old man cried. ‘All right! Make them stop!’
He lowered the radio, but kept it to hand. ‘Talk to me.’
Hussam was broken, defeated when he spoke again. ‘I don’t know their destination. That is the truth – I swear it! They told me only that they intended to cross the border into Iraq.’
‘Give me something useful,’ Dietrich implored him.
The old man looked down, tears still in his eyes. ‘They had a … satellite navigation unit with them. They must be using it to find their destination.’
Dietrich’s eyes lit up. ‘What kind was it?’
‘A Magellan.’
Wasting no time, he turned and strode away, hammering on the door to be let out of the room.
He was back in the observation room alongside Frost, Keegan and Rahul within moments.
‘They’re using a GPS to navigate,’ he said, reaching into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. His hand was trembling. ‘Chances are they bought it after they arrived here. Frost, go back over that security camera footage and find out if they went into any electrical stores.’
‘Fuck you,’ she replied. ‘You murdered an innocent kid, you fucking bastard. You really think I’m going to help you now? I’m done with this shit.’
Saying nothing in reply, Dietrich turned to Rahul. ‘Bring up the feeds from the holding area. The real ones this time.’
A few mouse clicks later, and the image on the screen changed to show all three members of Hussam’s family being untied from their chairs. They looked pale and shaken, and the daughter was sobbing uncontrollably, but they were alive.
Frost stared at Dietrich in disbelief, the realisation dawning on her at last. ‘You faked it.’
All it took was a gun loaded with blanks, and a freeze-frame shot of the boy after his chair had been tipped over, creating the impression that he was lying dead and unmoving. The rest had been accomplished through intimidation and fear.
‘I wasn’t sure if he’d go for it,’ Dietrich admitted. ‘It was lucky he didn’t look too close.’ Lighting up, he took a long draw on the cigarette. ‘Now, I need that footage.’
The young woman stared back at him for several seconds, then turned and left the room, saying nothing.
‘Gutsy move, man,’ Keegan remarked, still shaken by what he’d seen.
‘A gamble,’ he said simply. ‘It paid off.’
Turning away, he closed his eyes and let out a ragged, shuddering breath. He wanted to be sick, but he couldn’t stand to see his reflection.
Hate yourself later. Just do your job.
Chapter 61
TURNING OFF THE main highway about 50 miles short of Hafar Al Batin, they took a smaller single-track road heading west across the desert, making for a town called Al Jumaymah just short of the border. The Hilux was more than capable of driving off-road, but negotiating a desert at night was a slow and wearying process.
Stopping to switch places, they carried on with Drake at the wheel. Their route took them through a procession of small towns and villages, some developed enough to have shops and basic infrastructure, but most little more than clusters of sandstone buildings surrounded by mud walls, all huddled together like life rafts in an endless sea of sand.
Chancing their luck, they stopped at an isolated gas station just outside a town called Limah. The Hilux had been full when they departed, but its 2-litre engine was thirsty on fuel, and they had covered a lot of miles.
However, by 3.00 in the morning, they were both exhausted and could go no further. The adrenalin rush of their earlier escape had long since faded, leaving them drained and weary.
They would attempt the border crossing just before dawn, giving them a few precious hours to rest up.
Pulling off the road about 20 miles south of Al Jumaymah, Drake drove several hundred yards across rough ground, manoeuvred the jeep down a rocky slope into a wadi and killed the engine.
It was an ideal hiding place. The wadi was deep enough to obscure them from passing vehicles, as well as shield them from the prevailing winds.
Snatching up his AK from the footwell and checking that a round was chambered, Drake pushed open his door and stepped out into the night. It was cool and crisp, the stars glimmering in an almost cloudless sky with only the barest sliver of moon visible in the east. A light breeze stirred up little wisps of sand around them.
The temperature had dropped to about 10 degrees above freezing, which was fine as far as he was concerned. He’d only been in the country for a day and was sick of the burning heat already.
The river that had carved this channel across the landscape had run dry long ago, but withered scrub and straggling bushes still eked out an existence in the old river bed. Gathering up this kindling, they soon had a small fire going.
Exhausted they might have been, but neither was ready to fall asleep.
Leaning against one of the jeep’s massive front tyres, Anya busied herself field stripping her AK-47, laying out the working parts on a mat in front of her. She’d known the weapon was in good order from her brief inspection earlier, but cleaning it was one of those little things that made her feel more secure. And it kept her occupied, giving her an excuse not to talk to Drake.
She was wearing just a white vest top, having rem
oved her shirt so she could work more easily. Her hands and arms were soon smeared with gun oil. A loose tendril of blonde hair escaped the tie at the nape of her neck, and she tossed her head back to get it out of the way.
‘You should get some sleep while you can,’ she suggested. ‘We will leave in a few hours.’
Drake didn’t reply. He sat hunched over the fire with his rifle cradled in his lap, staring into the flames without seeing anything.
He was still angry with her. She supposed he had a right to be. But she didn’t regret what she’d done.
She looked up, staring into the vast darkness of space and the thousands of tiny points of light. ‘I am sorry things have turned out as they have, Drake. I am sorry you find yourself stuck out here, with me. And I am sorry you have been forced to fight against your own friends. You do not deserve any of these things.’
Her gaze rested on him again. ‘But I am not sorry for what I did back there. I only did what I had to do to survive. I am not proud of it, but I am not ashamed either.’
He was avoiding her eyes, staring instead into the flames.
‘You saved my life when you snatched that weapon away. He would have fired on us both. I saw the look in his eyes.’ She looked down at her hands, smeared with oil and grease. ‘I have not had reason to thank anyone in a long time, Drake, but I thank you now. Twice you have saved my life. Whatever else happens, I won’t forget it.’
She sighed and turned her attention back to the weapon. ‘That’s all I have to say.’
As she carried on working, Drake watched the dancing shadows cast by the fire, the occasional spark drifting upward into the darkness like fireflies.
It was mesmerising, hypnotic. Even as he sat there watching, he could feel the creeping sense of disorientation as his exhausted mind lost its grip on the world. Images of Anya, of Dietrich and Frost and Jessica and Munro whirled around in his head, blurred together and separated; a confusing kaleidoscope of thoughts and memories and emotions.
He was so tired, it was an effort just to keep his eyes open. If only he could rest just for a moment.
Just for a moment.
With blood painting the inside of the windshield, the ruined car slewed sideways off a road, trailing smoke and steam from its shattered engine. Coming to rest in a shallow ditch, it pitched forward, the passenger door swinging open on broken hinges.
Drake awoke with a start, heart pounding, primal fear surging through his veins, sweat coating his brow. Instinctively he gripped the AK and brought it to bear, frantically searching the darkness for a target.
‘Drake!’
He turned, bringing the weapon around. Anya was standing before him, but not as the woman who had returned to the room last night. She appeared as she had that night in Khatyrgan, dressed in filthy ragged clothes, her face and hair stained crimson with blood, her cold blue eyes focused on him, shimmering with that same inhuman lust for murder.
She was horrific, nightmarish. She was a demon made real, and she was coming for him.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
In a sudden blur of movement, he felt something close around his hand. An instant later the weapon was torn from his grip, gone before he could pull the trigger, and his head was jerked around by a hard slap across the face. White light exploded through his brain, blobs of colour like camera flashes imprinted on his eyes.
Hurling the weapon aside, Anya rushed at him, knocked him to the ground and pressed an elbow against his throat.
‘I warned you not to point a weapon at me unless you were ready to pull the trigger,’ she hissed, her face only inches from his. Do you think you have what it takes to kill me, Drake?’
His answer was to wedge his knee against her chest and drive it upward with all the power he could summon, dislodging her grip and throwing her off. She landed with graceful ease, rolled once to lessen her momentum and sprang back up, ready to finish what he had just started.
‘Stop,’ he said, holding up his bandaged hand.
His heartbeat was returning to normal, the adrenalin thinning in his blood as the nightmare receded. Like a deadly predator, it had withdrawn to the shadowy recesses of his mind. For now.
She relaxed a little and unclenched her fists, some of the tension leaving her muscles, though she remained on her feet. Her gaze held lingering suspicion, and something else. Sadness.
‘What is wrong with you, Drake?’
Wiping a hand across his sweat-soaked brow, he reached for his water bottle and gulped down several mouthfuls, splashing some on his face for good measure.
‘I asked you a question.’
He shot her an angry look. ‘It’s my problem, Anya. Not yours. I don’t need you.’
She stared at him intently, watching the tiny changes in expression, the movement of his eyes, the set of his jaw, the tension in his muscles. All of them told her one thing.
‘This isn’t going to work if we can’t rely on each other,’ she said at last. ‘Do you remember those words? You spoke them to me not so long ago.’ Letting out a breath, she lowered herself to her knees, still staring at him. ‘If I can’t rely on you, if I can’t trust you, then we can go no further together. It’s that simple.’
‘Trust,’ he repeated, as if the word were a cruel joke. ‘Would you trust me if you knew the things I’d done?’
‘Try me.’
He glanced up to the sky, as if seeking answers there. There were none. Only the distant glimmer of the stars, hard and cold and remote.
He swallowed hard and looked her in the eye, steeling himself for what was coming next. He had come down to it at last. There could be no more evasion, no more excuses or reprieves.
All he had left was the truth.
‘I shot a kid,’ he said at last. ‘A little girl. She was twelve years old.’
Anya said nothing. Watching him in the flickering light of the fire, she waited for him to go on. She knew as well as he did that it had to come out.
‘It was my first tour in Afghanistan. We’d been in the country a couple of months, running patrols along the highway west of Kandahar. They were worried about the Taliban regrouping in the area to try for an assault on the city, so we were sent in to help secure the western approaches.’
He inhaled deeply, taking a moment to collect himself before he went on. ‘We’d bedded down one night in a forward operating base, and we were just passing through the main checkpoint to start our next patrol. Then suddenly we spotted a car coming the opposite way. An old beaten-up thing that looked as old as I was, going full speed straight for the main gate. We tried to wave it down, get the driver to stop so we could inspect it, but he ignored us. He was just staring straight ahead, oblivious. Then I saw his passenger.
‘It was a girl. Young, skinny, terrified. I can still see her so clearly. She was wearing a blue dress, her hair was braided. The bastard was using her as a human shield, gambling we wouldn’t fire on them. I could see the look in her eyes. She knew she was going to die.’
He trailed off, having to fight just to keep his composure. Anya could see the battle raging within him; the guilt and self-hatred and anger all striving to break through whatever barriers of self-control remained.
She knew what was coming, but she also knew he had to say it for himself. ‘Go on,’ she said gently.
‘The … others, the men on my patrol were yelling at me for orders. They knew what was about to happen as well as I did, but they needed me to make the decision. It had to come from me.’
He sniffed and raised his chin. A condemned man facing up to his crime. ‘So I gave the order.’
He closed his eyes, seeing for a moment a windshield shattering under a volley of automatic fire, little blossoms of red painting it from the inside. He saw a car slew sideways off a road, trailing smoke and steam from its shattered engine. He saw a door swing open on broken hinges. And like a knife driven into his stomach, he saw a blue dress, tattered and stained crimson. When he opened his eyes again, they were w
et with tears.
‘I did it. I killed her,’ he said quietly. ‘Whatever she was, whatever she could have been … I took it all away in an instant.’ A smile touched his lips then, bitter and filled with disgust. ‘And you know the best part? I was rewarded for it. I was given a commendation for stopping a suicide bomber. That was how they dealt with it – give them a medal and send them on their way.’
The horrible irony was that the entire incident had earned him a reputation for making difficult decisions under pressure, and brought him to the attention of other, more secretive military units where men with such abilities were in high demand.
Eager to escape the constant reminders of what had happened, he had leapt at the chance, and barely six months later was back in Afghanistan as part of a covert UK–US task force – 14th Special Operations Group. But any hopes of making a fresh start had been utterly dashed by events later that year.
That, however, was a whole other chapter of history. Another series of mistakes and missed opportunities in a life filled with them.
He turned his eyes back towards the fire. ‘So you wanted to know the truth about me, Anya. There it is.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I’m a killer – a murderer.’
He didn’t look at her again. He didn’t want to see the look in her eyes. The disgust, the embarrassment, the hatred for what he had done. He felt all of those things towards himself, and more.
He heard movement, the slight rustle of footsteps in the sand, and felt the woman sit down beside him. He felt her hand on his arm. He didn’t take his eyes off the fire.
‘Drake.’ Her voice was gentle, but with an undertone of strength and authority that he’d never heard before. ‘Drake, look at me.’
His eyes rose to meet hers. She was sitting close. He could smell the faint scent of her, could see the pain and sadness in her eyes.
‘Twenty years ago, I killed a man,’ she said. ‘My first. He was a Russian sentry, not much more than a boy himself, but he was an enemy with a weapon who could have compromised us. So I took him out like I was trained to do, severed his windpipe with my knife. He didn’t even fight back as I cut him, just stared at me like a frightened animal, as if he expected me to stop.’ Her throat rose and fell as she swallowed. ‘I will never forget the look in his eyes.’