by Chris Ryan
'Split up,' he breathed. 'You two search the buildings here; I'll take the north side. RV back here in fifteen minutes.'
Drew and Kennedy nodded and, cat-like, went about their work. Will felt much more comfortable now that he had the Diemaco in his fist and he ran silently up to the north side of the village, doing his best to conceal himself in the shadows that the moon cast on the frozen ground; where that was not possible, he just moved quickly.
Up ahead there was a large, low, concrete building, not unlike the one in which they had just been imprisoned. It seemed different to the small dwelling places that were dotted around and had a military truck parked outside - though a layer of snow over the vehicle suggested it hadn't been moved for at least a couple of days. After all, Will thought to himself, where would anyone drive to from here? The building had several metal doors evenly spaced around it, each firmly locked with heavy iron padlocks. At one end there was what looked like a wooden shack and beyond that the undulating snow stretched off into the darkness.
Will examined the locks. If he had the equipment, he could pick them in a trice, but God only knows where their Taliban captors had stashed their packs. For a brief moment he considered using the Diemaco to shoot the locks off; but even though the suppressed weapon would make little noise, the sound of the bullet against the metal would alert anyone nearby to his presence. No, he was going to have to think of another way in.
He skirted around the back of the building to see if there was any other entrance. Nothing. But as he was there, he heard a noise.
Quickly he turned, his back to the wall, pointing the Diemaco out into the dark, snowy countryside beyond.
Silence.
Perhaps it was an animal. The dog he had heard earlier.
Then again, perhaps not.
He held his breath and kept his eyes peeled.
That sound again. It was coming from somewhere to his left. Will pointed the Diemaco in that direction. He was holding his breath, his finger poised a hair's breadth from the trigger.
He listened carefully. Suddenly the noise came again.
Will blinked. He realised now what it was. It was the sound of someone sobbing. A woman. And it was coming from the wooden hut at the end of the building.
Carefully he edged his way along the concrete wall to the hut; as he did so, the sound of the sobbing grew fractionally louder. Checking there was no one around to see him, he put his ear against the hut's wooden wall. There was no mistaking it. Someone was crying inside. He edged around to the front - the door to the hut was padlocked like all the others. There was no way in.
He had to think quickly. The likelihood was that this was Latifa Ahmed, but he couldn't be sure. And he couldn't risk making a noise breaking into the hut and alerting anyone to his presence.
After a moment's thought he crept round to the back of the hut.
It was a reasonably well-constructed hut, but it was still little more than planks of timber nailed on to a wooden frame. Will ran his hand along the planks until he found one that seemed looser than the others. That would do. He pulled out Anderson's buckle knife, then levered it into the groove running along the edge of the plank, just where it was nailed into the frame. With a forceful yank, he levered it away.
The timber creaked and immediately the crying inside stopped. Will dug the knife in deeper and levered it once more. Now there was enough room for him to get both hands around the plank. He pulled hard. As he had hoped it would, the wood came away from the frame.
Once the first timber plank was loose it was simpler to pull away the second and the third, which gave him enough space to get inside the hut. He pulled the torch he had taken from the dead Taliban guard from the pocket of his snowsuit. Shining it along the barrel of his Diemaco, he looked inside.
What he saw sickened him.
A woman sat on the ground. The veil of her burka was beside her and she stared into the bright light of the torch with a look of the most abject fear and desperation. Her face, Will realised after staring at it for a moment, was blue and puffy with bruises - so much so that she seemed to be having difficulty opening her eyes. Her black hair was matted and dishevelled and her feet, which were bare below her thin robes, were swollen and seemed to glisten painfully in the light of the torch - sores, Will deduced, weeping from some unspeakable torture. Her whole body was shaking violently, though whether that was through cold or through fear he couldn't tell. A mixture of both, probably.
Will moved the light away from the woman and shined it around the rest of the hut. It was empty. The only thing the beam of the torch illuminated was a small pile of excrement in the corner.
He moved the gun and the torch back on to the woman's face and as he did so a curious cocktail of emotions overcame him. He was nauseated that anyone could do such things to a woman and filled with a burning need to bring some sort of retribution on her tormentors. But at the same time, he couldn't forget who she was: Faisal Ahmed's sister. The sister of the man who had killed his family. Will was glad that his face was hidden behind the bright light of the torch - it meant that she would be unable to see the harshness in his expression.
He needed to be sure it was her and that meant frightening her even more than she was already. But it was necessary - a mistake here would be catastrophic. He edged into the hut and approached. Shining the torch down on her, he rested the gun barrel on her head.
'What's your name?' he whispered. The woman he wanted, Pankhurst had told him, spoke some English, so if it was the right person, she would understand the question.
Her body started trembling even more violently and she looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes.
'What's your name?'Will hissed, insistently.
Again, silence.
'Tell me now,' he told her, 'otherwise I'll kill you.'
The woman took a deep breath and finally she spoke. Her voice was desperately frail, a thin, cracked, weak sound.
'My name,' she said, 'is Latifa Ahmed. And if you kill me now, you would be doing me a great service.'
TEN
'Get to your feet.'
Latifa's frightened eyes looked up at him. 'I cannot,' she said.
'What do you mean, you can't?' Will demanded. But even as he spoke, he directed his torch back towards the woman's feet. The bright white light illuminated the weeping sores.
'They burned my skin,' Latifa said in pitiful explanation. 'They brought fire and burned my skin.'
'Jesus,' Will whispered. The woman was a mess. But there was no time for sympathy. He strode towards her, letting the Diemaco hang from its strap.
'Did Faisal send you?'
The question wrongfooted Will for a moment, and he hesitated. 'Yes,' he lied, finally, knowing that this was one way to get her on side. He despised himself for doing it. 'Your brother sent me.' He put his hands under her armpits and roughly pulled her up.
Latifa's body was impossibly bony and she was as light as a child. The moment her feet touched the ground, however, she opened her mouth to scream. The sound never left her throat - Will's hand was there before she could make a noise and he held it firmly over her lips while her body adjusted to what was clearly an agonising pain. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts and tears came to her eyes.
'Listen to me,' Will hissed. 'I'm going to get you out of here, but you have to do as I say. If you don't do what I say, they'll kill all of us. Do you understand?'
Latifa, her eyes wide with fright and hate, nodded.
'Good. I know you're in pain, but you're going to have to deal with it. Can you do that?'
Latifa moved a hand up to his and pulled it firmly from her mouth. 'Yes,' she said, a hint of steel entering her frail voice. 'I can do that.'
Will nodded. He couldn't help feeling a twinge of respect for this woman; it was an uncomfortable sensation, given how much he wanted to loathe her for what her brother had done. As if to conquer his confused emotions, he tugged her arm forcefully. 'Come on,' he whispered.
; They squeezed through the back of the hut and out into the snow. Latifa walked barefoot and painfully and the expression on her face spoke of the agony she was experiencing. Will kept his Diemaco raised, the torch switched off to avoid anyone spotting them from a distance. It seemed to take an age to get back to the RV point, but Latifa was treading gingerly and Will knew that short of carrying her, there was no way he could speed her up.
By the time they reached the RV point, Latifa's whole body was shaking with cold, pain and fear. Drew and Kennedy were waiting for them, hiding in the shadows with their guns pointing outwards. 'Fuck me,' Kennedy breathed when Will and Latifa joined them. 'Is that her?'
'Yeah,' Will stated, flatly. 'That's her.'
'Christ,' he whispered. For once Kennedy was lost for words.
Latifa's shivering was getting worse. 'She's not going to make it at this rate,' Will muttered. 'She's going to freeze.' He lowered his weapon and started removing his snowsuit. As soon as it was off, he felt his body temperature drop, but it was more important that Latifa had some warmth - Will was in much better shape to withstand the cold than she was.
'Put this on,' he told her.
The woman stared back at him uncomprehendingly.
'Put it on!' he repeated, before abruptly forcing her limbs into the snowsuit. Only when she was more suitably dressed did Drew speak.
'She's not in any kind of state to make it back to the truck,' he observed, quietly.
He was right. Creeping around the village was one thing, but it was a couple of hours' hard walk through the snow back to where they had left the vehicle. Even if they managed to raise her body temperature, she wasn't going to make it.
'You'll have to carry her,' Will told them. 'Between the two of you. One person carry her, the other provide cover from the rear.'
'What about you?' Kennedy asked.
Will glanced around him, remembering Anderson's body in the schoolroom.
'I'm going to deal with Ismail,' he said, calmly.
'Don't be a fucking idiot,' Kennedy snapped. 'Look, Anderson was a friend and I'm sorry he's dead. But we're lucky we're not all in two pieces like him and we haven't got the time for revenge killings. We all leave together. Now.'
Will's face stiffened. Kennedy was right, of course. With Anderson down, all they had to think about was the mission: their priority was to get Latifa the hell out of here and that was what they should be doing. But somehow Will couldn't quite see it that way; and besides, there was another reason for putting a bullet in Ismail's skull.
'They'll find out that we've gone before long,' he said. 'When they do, they'll want to follow us. Ismail knows where we're headed. I need to stop him from telling them.'
Kennedy looked unconvinced. 'He's probably told them already. We need to expect a surprise party when we get to the truck.'
'But if he hasn't,' Will replied, 'we don't want them following us. I need to deal with it.'
Kennedy shrugged his shoulders. 'It's your fucking skin,' he said, before turning to Latifa. 'Can you get on my back?' he asked.
Latifa just stared at him.
'Fuck it,' Kennedy murmured, picking her up in his arms. 'Don't think I'm carrying her all the way.'
A flicker of a smile passed across Drew's face. ''Course not,' he murmured. 'Listen, we entered the village from the west, so I don't think we should leave that way. Let's head north, then skirt round to the west.' He looked out into the barren snowscape beyond the village. 'That way,' he pointed.
Kennedy grunted in agreement.
'How long do you need here?' Drew asked Will.
Will shrugged. 'Twenty minutes max,' he said.
'Right. We'll wait at the truck for half an hour. If you haven't shown by then, we're leaving.'
'Roger that,' Will nodded, then watched as the two SAS men and the shivering woman disappeared into the darkness.
The hut into which Will had seen Ismail disappear was at the opposite corner of the main square, but he couldn't risk heading straight there - he would be too exposed, easily picked off by anyone with a weapon. So he crept around the edge, keeping to the shadows and treading as softly as he could. He felt strangely naked without his snowsuit. Light. Already the chill had started to penetrate to his skin, but he did his best to put that from his mind. Keep moving, he told himself. Keep moving and you'll be OK.
His footsteps crunched in the snowy ground, but other than that there was no sound as he approached the hut he had seen Ismail enter. It was built on top of a concrete foundation block perhaps half a metre high and it had posts at regular intervals around it, which held the flat roof up. There was a wooden door on one side, but a quick recce around the building told him that there were no windows or any other mode of entry. He stood by the door for a moment, holding his breath as he strained his ears to hear any sound from within.
Nothing.
Will stepped to one side of the door, put his back against the wall, then used the barrel of his Diemaco to rap on the wood. Tap-tap-tap. Quietly, but loud enough for anyone inside to hear.
Still nothing.
He tapped again. This time there was a shuffling inside, then silence.
Will waited. He couldn't risk barging in - it would make too much noise and he would be an instant target in the doorway. No, he'd have to wait for anyone inside to come to him and if that didn't happen, he'd have to abort.
His breath steamed in the cold air as he continued to press himself against the wall.
More shuffling. Someone was approaching the door. He could sense they were just on the other side now and he thought he could hear a faint click - the sound of a weapon being readied.
The door opened.
It all happened in a couple of seconds. As the door edged open, Will saw a handgun appear in the crack. Instantaneously he brought the barrel of his own gun down fiercely on to the hand; there was a whimper of pain and the gun fell to the ground. Will barged in, pushing the figure roughly to the floor, and kicking the door shut behind him.
What little light there was inside the hut came from a small, smoky lamp with a flickering yellow flame. It sat on a wooden table; elsewhere there were a couple of stools and a yellowing mattress rolled out in one corner. And on the floor, staring up at Will with a look of such abject fear as the SAS man had never seen in his life, was Ismail.
Will raised the Diemaco and aimed it directly at the head of the terrified Afghan.
'The man those bastards killed had a family,' he whispered. 'Thanks to you, someone's father won't be coming home.'
Ismail shuffled on his back away from him, but Will kept the gun aimed steadily at his head.
'I had no choice,' Ismail whispered. 'I promise you, I had no choice!'
'Don't give me that shit. Of course you had a choice. Them or us. It's very simple.'
Ismail closed his eyes, clearly preparing himself for the end to come. 'They found out two days ago that I was informing against them,' he stuttered. 'They abducted my wife and my little boy. They said they would kill them if I did not do as they said.' He opened his eyes again. 'They were serious,' he said with a sudden and simple conviction.
Will felt his lip curling. 'I don't believe you,' he growled, though in his heart he knew that Ismail's words had the desperate ring of truth.
Ismail was shaking now and his skin was sweating despite the cold. 'How did you break out?' he asked.