by Chris Ryan
‘Walk,’ he told her. ‘You will go first, I will follow. My gun will be pointed at you all the time. You will go where I say. If you try to run, I will shoot you immediately. Do you understand what I am telling you?’
The girl nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said. Amir noted with satisfaction that her face was racked with terror. Fear, he knew, was a powerful incentive. It had served him well in the past, and it would do so again.
He pointed along the cliff. ‘That way,’ he said. ‘Move. Now!’
They made slow progress. More than once, the girl stumbled and fell, her foot catching in one of the narrow indentations that covered the top of this cliff. Each time she hit the ground, Amir would pull her up by the hair and tell her to keep walking. And as she walked, he took care to follow her footsteps precisely with his own.
In the distance, a noise. They stopped. Moments later, a fluorescent light exploded above the dam like a firework, lighting up the surrounding area.
‘Down!’ Amir instructed. He knew what the light was: a lume sent up by the British base at the top of the dam. He sneered at the thought. It pleased him that the invading soldiers would be destroyed along with the dam. He caught up with the girl, who had not obeyed his instruction, and pushed on her thin, frail shoulders: it took no effort to force her to collapse. They remained crouched on the ground as the light faded away; then Amir stood again, tugged the girl up to her feet and they continued their slow, careful, stumbling walk.
The gradient of the cliff led downwards. They were close to the dam, now – no more than a hundred metres – and in the distance Amir thought he could hear the crashing sound of water. Ahead of them was a thin, V-shaped ravine, a crack in the cliff about as deep as Amir was high, but getting deeper the further it went towards the river. It bore left, down towards the edge of the cliff – a treacherous, narrow path, but wide enough for two people to clamber down. Just. It would serve two purposes: get them close to the dam, and give them cover from any lookout posts at the hated British base.
The going was treacherous. The floor of this small ravine was strewn with boulders and loose earth that caused them to slip as they carried on down towards the edge of the cliff. For Amir, it was doubly difficult: the suitcase bomb on his back grew heavier with each passing step. He felt sweat dripping down his face and veins bulging in his neck as he followed the girl. She too moved with great difficulty. Each time she stumbled and fell, however, she quickly scrambled back up to her feet, clearly terrified of Amir’s reaction. That, at least, was good.
They had been hobbling down the ravine for several dark minutes when she fell and cried out. ‘My foot!’ she screamed. ‘My foot!’ Amir could tell it was a cry of real pain. He caught up with her. The girl’s face was anguished, and her foot was twisted out from her body at an angle.
‘Get up,’ he hissed.
She tried, her whole body shaking. But the moment she put pressure on that twisted foot, she cried out again and collapsed to the ground once more.
‘I . . . I think I have broken something.’ Tears spilled from her eyes.
Amir spat. If this idiot girl was telling the truth, she was now a hindrance and not a help. ‘Stay there,’ he told her. ‘If I hear a single noise, I will shoot you.’
She nodded vigorously. Amir did not mention that he intended to shoot her whether she made a noise or not.
Leaving the girl where she was, Amir continued down the ravine. He did not have to travel far – twenty metres, perhaps – before the river came into view once again. The path ahead of them stopped as it emerged onto the edge of the sheer side of the cliff face. He felt his stomach surge with the view of the sudden drop beneath him. He caught his breath, then looked out once more onto the sight of the moon shimmering on the water.
And to his right, the dam. It was close now. Very close.
He would plant the bomb here.
Amir eased the suitcase bomb from his back and laid it gently on the ground. It was a relief to remove the weight from his body and he allowed himself a moment to appreciate it; and it was as he was rubbing his back that he noticed something. Just to the right of where the ravine opened out onto the cliff face, there was a narrow ledge. The cliff above was overhanging slightly, so it would be impossible to stand on the ledge, and it was not wide enough for him to venture onto on all fours, but it gave him an idea. To leave the bomb here would be to risk it being found. But if he could get it out of reach . . .
Maybe, he thought to himself, the girl had not entirely outlived her usefulness after all.
Leaving the bomb where it was, he returned up the ravine. The girl was still there, of course, whimpering with pain. He didn’t speak to her; instead, he just pulled her up and carried her back towards the cliff face. Her body was shaking, but of course he ignored that.
‘Stand,’ he instructed.
He lowered the girl from his arms and she propped herself up against the side of the ravine, holding her bad foot up from the ground. ‘Please . . .’ she whimpered. ‘My foot . . . the pain . . .’
Amir ignored her and turned to the bomb. It looked so innocent – just a khaki-coloured package that nobody would look at twice. He bent down and undid one of the straps that bound it together. It revealed a flap, which he raised. He smiled. Beneath the flap was a digital panel; and below it two very ordinary-looking batteries. Each battery was attached to a wire. Amir connected the free ends of each wire to two terminals just below the digital panel. The screen flickered into life: three red numbers.
00.00.00
Amir nodded with satisfaction. He turned a dial and watched the numbers rapidly increase.
0.20.00
Twenty minutes. Enough time for him to get away and do what he needed to; too little time for the bomb to be found. He pressed the dial inwards. It clicked, and immediately the digital display changed.
00.19.59
The countdown had begun. He replaced the flap and tightened the strap over it. Then he looked up at the girl. ‘Turn,’ he told her.
With difficulty, she did so.
Amir picked up the bomb and approached the girl. As he slung the suitcase over her back, she buckled under the weight. He lifted her up again and continued to fix the bomb to her body. Once he had finished, she was almost bent double.
‘What is happening?’ she gasped.
Amir didn’t reply. He just guided her towards the ledge – gently, not because he felt sympathy for her, but because she carried a precious load.
‘Crawl,’ he told her.
She started to gasp even more heavily. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘My foot . . .’
‘Crawl!’
The girl whimpered again, but this time she did what she was told.
The first two metres of the ledge were narrowest, less than half a metre in depth. She moved slowly, shuffling along the ledge like a caterpillar on a leaf. Her bad foot dangled over the side, but Amir knew there was nothing she could do about that. Only when she stopped did he call out to her again.
‘Further!’
No movement.
‘Further, or I shoot you now!’
The girl continued. When she came to a halt again, she was nearly ten metres away from the ravine. Amir’s eyes shone with triumph. With her broken foot, the weight of the bomb and the thinness of the ledge, there was no way she could turn round. The bomb was well hidden, out of reach. All he had to do now was make sure she couldn’t crawl backwards.
He raised his gun. For a moment he considered shooting her, but he didn’t dare: the force of the bullet could send her over the cliff, and he had no idea what effect the water down below would have on the bomb. Instead, he aimed it at the overhanging cliff.
He fired. Two clear shots rang through the air high above the river – each of them making the girl’s body jump as though it had received an electric shot – and a hailstorm of rubble fell from the cliff. The girl screamed as a piece of debris struck her good leg; several other hunks of rock fell on the ledge behind h
er, blocking the way back.
Amir considered saying something to her. Letting her know that her death was very near. But in the end, he decided not to waste his breath. Leaving the whimpering, trembling girl on the ledge – immobile with the ticking bomb pressed down on her – he turned and started to make his way up the ravine.
Only minutes to go, he thought to himself. The very thought of it gave him extra energy as he hurried away from the very place where the blast was going to happen. The bike, he told himself. Get to the bike now and you might even be able to live. To watch it happen from a distance before making sure his group claimed responsibility for the explosion and the world knew what they had done – the hammer blow against the invaders. The very thought brought a smile to his face as he scrambled up the ravine, leaving the girl and the bomb far below.
Chapter Twenty-three
The British base at Kajaki.
‘How many men can you spare?’
Ricki, Matt and Ben stood at the big metal gates to the base. They had left the truck a good distance away and continued on foot with their arms in the air in order to stop the British soldiers at the lookout posts from opening fire on them. Now, though, the two SAS men had their weapons firmly in their fists and Ricki was talking to the ranking officer at the base.
‘Two platoons,’ the OC replied. ‘Maximum. Any more than that and the base is vulnerable to attack. But listen, the whole of this area is littered with mines. You can’t just send men out there to scour the area – we need minesweeping units, the works—’
Ricki shook his head. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, interrupting, ‘and listen good. There’s a nuclear suitcase bomb somewhere in this vicinity. If we don’t find it, and soon, mine strikes are going to be the least of your worries. The whole dam’s going to go up and everybody at the base with it. How long is it going to take to get your platoons ready?’
The OC – whose face had gone a distinct shade of white – stuttered, ‘Er . . . twenty minutes, by the time we’ve sorted out the radios . . .’
‘Get it done. What level of enemy activity can we expect?’
‘Hard to tell,’ the OC replied. ‘We’ve had two patrols out each day this week and no contact. That suggests to me that the enemy are dispersed for the moment. Don’t take my word for it, though . . .’
Ricki nodded. He turned round and indicated Ben. ‘This is Ben. Take him into the camp and look after him. We’re going out to try and find this guy.’ He started to pull down his night-vision goggles.
‘No!’ Ben said.
Ricki, who had already started to turn away from the base, blinked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I’m not staying here. I got Aarya into this mess in the first place, and I’m going to help get her out of it.’ The SAS man started to shake his head, but Ben wasn’t having it. ‘You just said you need more people, Ricki. You’ve got no one for twenty minutes. You can’t afford not to take me, and I don’t want to hang around in the base waiting for the whole place to go up. I mean it, Ricki. I’ve come this far. I want to see it through. I’m coming with you.’
Silence from the SAS men.
‘When Amir saw me,’ Ben persisted, ‘he was angry. If he sees me again, he’ll be furious. It might force him into making a mistake. And anyway, Aarya knows me, trusts me. I could be useful . . .’
Ricki and Matt exchanged a glance. ‘All right, Ben,’ Ricki said. He sounded impatient. ‘Stay close to me, don’t get creative and keep your eyes peeled, OK?’
He and Matt covered their faces with the NV goggles.
Ben nodded and the three of them set off from the camp. ‘Where do we start looking?’ Ben shouted as they ran over the brow of a low hill and saw the Helmand River come into view, far below. To his right was the dam; even though it was only lit up by the silvery light of the moon, he could tell how massive it was, and how devastating its destruction would be.
A shudder passed down his back.
The three of them came to a halt. ‘We’ll split up,’ Ricki said. ‘Matt, you search this area. Ben and I’ll head south along the top of the cliff.’
‘Roger that,’ Matt replied, and without a second glance he disappeared into the darkness.
‘Walk behind me, Ben,’ Ricki instructed. ‘You know why.’
Ben nodded.
Ricki moved swiftly, his head moving from left to right as he scanned the surrounding area through his night-vision goggles. Occasionally he would stop, holding up one hand to indicate that Ben should do the same. Ben would watch, holding his breath, as the SAS man raised his weapon. He always lowered it again, though, and kept moving.
Ben tried not to think about the threat of landmines; he tried to put from his mind the image of Toby and Jack’s burning truck and instead concentrate on walking in the footsteps of his special forces chaperone. Behind them, he heard shouts in the distance: the two platoons of British army soldiers, he assumed, and he wondered if they would be picking their way through this minefield as bravely as Ricki was. Probably not, he decided, and he wouldn’t blame them.
Suddenly, a noise.
‘What’s that?’ Ben hissed.
Ricki had already heard it. He came to a halt and fell to one knee in the firing position. Ben peered into the darkness, squinting to try and see what it was. There was nothing, so he had to rely on his ears to identify the sound. An engine. A low hum. It sounded like a . . .
‘Motorbike,’ Ricki said, his voice taut. He raised his NV goggles up onto his helmet and pressed one eye into the hologram sighting system of his weapon.
And then he fired. Once. Twice.
Up ahead there was a noise. A small explosion. Ricki pushed himself to his feet and ran in the direction of the sound. Ben followed close behind.
Ten seconds passed.
Twenty.
And then, in front of them, they saw it.
The motorbike was mangled. The rounds from Ricki’s gun had burst one of the tyres and twisted the rest of the vehicle into a contorted hunk of metal. It was lost on neither of them, Ben realized, that the one thing they couldn’t see was the driver.
‘Wait there,’ Ricki instructed. He moved his NV goggles down again and, weapon at the ready, prowled into the darkness.
Silence. Just the crunch of Ricki’s footsteps on the unwelcoming earth. Ben held his breath. They were close. They had to be. Aarya was nearby. And the bomb . . .
‘If you say a word, I will kill you.’
The voice hissed in his ear just as Ben felt a strong arm wrap its way around his throat and the butt of a gun press into the side of his ribcage.
‘Amir,’ he breathed. Ricki’s footsteps grew quieter.
‘You are foolish to come here.’ Amir’s mouth was only a few centimetres from Ben’s ear: he could feel the warmth of his breath and smell the sweat on his skin. ‘More foolish, even, than the girl. Now you will die together. We will all die together.’
Ben’s throat hurt: Amir was almost strangling him. But he managed to speak. ‘Just tell me where the bomb is, Amir. You can’t just kill all these people.’
Amir snorted. ‘They would kill me if they had the chance – which they won’t.’
‘But if the dam blows, the whole river will flood. Think about it, Amir. Think what will happen. You won’t be killing British soldiers – you’ll be killing innocent people.’
‘Silence!’ Amir whispered. ‘We are going to move away from here. Walk. Now!’
He pushed Ben away from the wreck of the motorbike. The gun dug deeper into his ribs. Ben didn’t even stop to think. He knew the risk; he knew that he was just the squeeze of a trigger away from death.
But if the bomb exploded, they’d all be dead anyway.
‘Ricki!’ he shouted. ‘Help!’
The noise that came from Amir’s throat was like a snake – a long, sibilant hiss of anger. He clenched Ben’s throat harder – so hard that he found it difficult to breathe. But he didn’t shoot, and within seconds the SAS man emerged from the d
arkness. He still had his NV goggles on and the extendable butt of his M16 was firmly pressed into his shoulder, ready to fire.
Ricki stopped ten metres from where Ben was held captive. ‘Let him go or I shoot,’ he barked.
Ben sensed that Amir had lowered his head so that it was directly behind Ben’s. ‘Then shoot,’ he said, ‘if you want to kill the boy as well as me. Or if you don’t, turn round and start walking.’
Ricki didn’t move. He was like a statue. His gun was perfectly still and to Ben’s eyes it looked as if it was trained directly at him.
Silence.
Stand-off.
An image flashed through Ben’s mind, from just a couple of hours before – the town of Angoor. Two men lay dead in the street, killed by single shots from Ricki’s gun. The SAS man wouldn’t hesitate to shoot if he thought he could get a direct hit. The fact that he hadn’t fired meant the target wasn’t properly in his sights.
It was up to Ben to change that.
He drew a deep breath. It was difficult because his throat was constricted by Amir’s arm. He would only get one chance at this, he knew. It had to go right.
He gathered his strength.
When he moved, it was with a swift, sudden jerk. Amir was taller and stronger, but Ben had the element of surprise. With all his force, he spun round in a semicircle, taking Amir with him. Now they were both facing away from Ricki, but Amir had his back to him.
The SAS man didn’t hesitate. A single shot was all it required for Amir’s vice-like grip to be released. Ben staggered forward, then turned round, fully expecting to see his captor on the floor. But Amir was still standing. Blood flowed from a massive wound that seemed to have taken away half his shoulder; his face was contorted with pain; but he was still on his feet. His milky eye glowing in the moonlight, he staggered away from both Ricki and Ben, towards the edge of the cliff.
Ricki kept his gun trained on the terrorist. ‘Where’s the bomb?’ he demanded. ‘Tell me now or I’ll finish you off.’