by Alex Scarrow
Presently they heard the heavy, lazy thud of boots approaching, the jangle of army webbing and loose keys, the mewling whimper of whomever had been beaten. And Scarface’s voice. ‘You! Quiet!’
The rattle of keys in the lock, then the door was kicked wide open. Scarface tossed the stripped-to-the-waist, bruised and bloody body on to the floor. He stepped in and tied the victim’s hands to the post, then headed for the door. As an afterthought he swung a final swift kick at the poor young man’s ribs before finally leaving.
Maddy leaned forward, trying to get a better look at their new fellow prisoner. In the glare of the sunlight streaming in through the open door, catching only a glimpse of his silhouette, she knew only that it was a slight, narrow-shouldered young man. But with a sinking heart, she thought she’d already recognized the voice crying out.
‘Liam? It’s not you … is it?’
Liam raised his head. His face was caked with wet blood, one eye swollen, a lip split and a gap at the back of his mouth where a tooth had been knocked out.
‘Ahh!’ He smiled. ‘There you are, Mads!’
‘Oh my God! You’re … all beaten up!’
‘Ah, I’m fine. Looks far worse than it is.’
‘What are you doing? Just walking into their camp like that? That was stupid!’
He cracked a bloody grin. ‘Thought it might be a good idea to come and rescue you.’
‘Oh, Liam.’ She leaned forward as far as her tethered hands would let her and dipped her forehead gently, affectionately against his. ‘You’re my brave hero.’ She sighed. ‘But you’re also an idiot. Why did you do that? Why did you just –’
‘It’s all part of me big plan, Maddy.’
Chapter 27
1994, the rebel camp, Nicaraguan jungle
From afar Bob watched the beating going on, struggling desperately to suppress his instinct to charge down the jungle slope, burst out of the undergrowth like an enraged bull and tear the rebel soldiers limb from limb. His frustration became a deep rumbling growl; a Rottweiler on a leash.
Billy reached out and grabbed his thick forearm to steady him. ‘Not yet. He said we must wait … see which place they take him to.’
And now they’d witnessed Liam being dragged towards a wooden shack, they knew.
‘We must proceed immediately,’ said Bob.
Billy tucked his pipe into a pocket. ‘I must move closer in.’ He patted the taped-up butt of his battered assault rifle. ‘My gun not very accurate, this far.’
Bob nodded. ‘I will proceed with the rescue when you commence shooting.’
He watched the guide carefully pick his way downhill through the undergrowth until he was lost from sight. The plan, Liam’s plan, was relatively straightforward. Once they’d identified where the rebels were holding Maddy and Adam, Billy would work his way around to the opposite end of the clearing, then, once in position, he would start firing. The hope being that the gunfire from the far side of the clearing would draw the rebels towards him, leaving fewer of them guarding their hostages. Bob would then race down, deal with any rebels in his way, rescue the others, and then they’d disappear back into the jungle and rendezvous a mile downriver.
Bob began to pick his way downhill, bringing him closer to the edge of the thick jungle, but still far enough back that he was hidden from view by the shadows and undergrowth.
He found a place to crouch down and wait. His internal clock ticking through seconds, then minutes, as he waited for Billy to get into position and start firing. He proceeded to catalogue and assess the hostiles in front of him. The priority target was a heavy machine-gun, support legs propped on top of an untidy ‘U’ of sandbags. It was twenty yards away from the shack where Liam and Maddy were being held. He decided the two men idly manning it, chatting and smoking, would be his first take-down. The heavy-calibre weapon was his biggest threat; that thing could deal out damage enough to bring him down. It also presented him with an opportunity.
He waited. His clock now indicated that four minutes, fifty-three seconds had elapsed since Billy had disappeared from sight. A possible scenario was that their guide might be down there, somewhere in the camp, and right now telling the rebels they were about to be ambushed. Telling them precisely where Bob was hiding.
He was about to evaluate the probability of that when the air of calm over the camp was shattered by the distant crack of several shots.
Like a termite mound roused with a hearty kick, the camp immediately stirred to life. Men stumbled out of their shacks and tents and scrambled for their weapons.
More shots. Bob watched as the rebels looked in all directions at once, attempting to identify exactly where the shots were coming from. By sound alone it was impossible to pinpoint: the crack of Billy’s gunfire echoed around the clearing like a casino ball looping a roulette wheel.
One of the guide’s shots finally found a target. A rebel dropped to the ground clutching at his belly. One less to deal with; however, the rest of them now had a clear indication of which direction the gunfire was coming from. The rebels quickly spotted a faint tendril of blue-grey smoke wafting up from the undergrowth.
Once more, Bob checked on the two men manning the heavy machine-gun. They’d tossed their cigarettes aside and were now repositioning the weapon’s support struts to aim it across the camp and towards where Billy’s shots were coming from.
Bob rose to his feet and hurled himself forward, down the last few yards of slope, through thinning undergrowth, and emerged into the glare of sunlight: a bull-sized mass of sweat-glistening muscle, moving with the eager haste of a dog chasing a tennis ball.
He was halfway towards the sandbag emplacement before the two men there registered the approaching threat. The heavy, perforated gun barrel was swinging towards him just as he reached them. He vaulted over the sandbags and landed heavily on the rebel manning the gun. The other man dropped the chain of ammo he’d been getting ready to feed into the breech and attempted to flee.
But not quickly enough.
Bob – still sitting on the broken and crushed corpse of the other – managed to wrap his thick fingers round the man’s ankle. With an enraged grunt, he lifted the hapless man up into the air and swung him round in one lazy loop above his head, the crack and snap of ankle tendons and cartilage sounding like bubble wrap being twisted. The second loop ended abruptly as Bob brought him down again and smacked him head first into the sandbags.
Bob wasted no time getting to his feet and hefting the heavy machine-gun off its support legs. He adjusted the grip in his left hand, bracing the weapon firmly against his hip. With the other hand he pulled several yards’ worth of the ammo belt out of the magazine box and draped it round his bull neck, down his right arm where it dangled in a loop before snaking up into the weapon’s breech.
Bob strode across the clearing towards the shack where Maddy, Liam and Adam were being held. Halfway there, one of the rebel soldiers turned and spotted him. Voices barked across the clearing and, a moment later, guns from the far side of the camp began sputtering fire his way.
He stopped, turned to his right, and calmly pulled the trigger.
The machine-gun kicked against his hip like a jackhammer as he picked one target after the next in quick succession; short heavy-calibre bursts hurled rebel after rebel on to his back, leaving a crimson aerosol puff of blood hanging in the air where they’d stood a split second earlier.
Those rebels still standing dived for cover as Bob resumed crossing the clearing and approached the shack. Within seconds they began firing back. Rain-damp ground erupted geysers of dirt at his feet. His cotton shirt flickered and danced and sprouted crimson splotches as several shots found their target.
He reached the shack. Both hands busy firing and feeding the weapon, and there being no time to put the machine-gun down and deal with the padlock on the door, he decided dealing with it was a waste of precious seconds. With one booted foot he kicked at the side of the wooden-slat shack. The whole ramshackle st
ructure wobbled and creaked for a moment before collapsing in on itself with the sound of snapping timbers.
Another shot smacked heavily into his shoulder.
Bob focused his attention on dealing with the gunfire coming his way. Liam and the others could pick themselves out of the ruins of the shack. Right now he had hostiles to deal with – first priority: three men firing from behind a stack of milled lumber. Bob let loose a sustained staccato burst that sent an instant blizzard of splinters and shards, and a finer cloud of sawdust, spinning into the air.
He eased off the trigger to check the result. A solitary bloody hand flopped into view and down on to the ground from behind the now-shredded pile of wood.
[Threat neutralized]
He turned to his right. There were four more men firing at him, taking turns from behind a cluster of old rusting oil drums. Again he aimed and fired. Sparks danced like mayflies and flakes of rust spun into the air and showered to the ground. Then all of a sudden there was a percussive thump as one of the barrels exploded, launching debris into the air, carried aloft by a dirty rolling orange cloud of flame and black smoke that mushroomed into the sky.
Bob eased his finger off the trigger.
[Threat neutralized]
He swung the barrel round; there was a third cluster of viable targets. He was about to take aim at the rebels who’d been firing from behind the stripped-down chassis of a rusting jeep, but they were already on their feet, weapons tossed aside and running for the edge of the jungle. He gave a moment’s consideration as to whether they might be a future threat to deal with, and decided they just might. He aimed a short burst at the upper back of each fleeing man and seconds later they were nothing more than burger meat in tattered khakis lying in the long grass, waiting to be picked over later that night by the jungle’s nocturnal scavengers.
[Threat neutralized]
Another oil drum exploded with a thump that rocked Bob on his feet. Ignited diesel fuel rained down on the thatched roof of a nearby shack, quickly setting it on fire, and soon a column of white smoke from burning wood and reeds joined the twin pillars of black oil smoke twisting upwards out of the jungle.
At Bob’s feet, the shattered timbers and slats of the lean-to he’d levelled with one swift kick began to stir. Maddy’s head emerged first, the glasses on her nose askew, her face ghost-white with dust. Then Adam’s and Liam’s heads surfaced, just as a third oil drum erupted.
‘Whoa!’ Adam muttered.
Maddy nodded approvingly as she gazed at the boiling plume of orange flame darkening to a soot-black mushroom cloud. ‘Good job.’
Liam looked around at the devastation. ‘Supposed to be a subtle hit-and-run, so it was.’
The flames from the burning diesel had quickly caught several other shacks nearby on fire. From inside one they heard the crack and pop of what sounded like sporadic gunshots being fired. Liam, Maddy and Adam ducked back down into the mess of timber they’d emerged from.
‘That is ammunition igniting from the heat. Not gunfire,’ said Bob.
Their heads emerged once more and silently they watched as a lean-to nearby collapsed in on itself amid a shower of sparks and embers.
‘Did you say hit-and-run?’ said Maddy. ‘I think he’s managed to trash the entire camp.’
‘Where’s Billy?’ asked Liam.
His question was answered by a high-pitched voice coming from the far side of the camp. ‘Mr Bob! Do not fire! Is Billy!’
Smoke, black and acrid and stinking of burning rubber, drifted diagonally across the clearing and, a few moments later, Billy’s squat outline emerged through it, his AK slung over his shoulder, the blade of a hunting knife in one of his hands. His face was spattered with blood; he was grinning from ear to ear. ‘Very, very good fighting!’
He picked his way past smouldering debris on the ground and finally joined them. His eyes on Bob, in awe of him. ‘You are, as Liam say … an army of one!’ He noted the dark blooms of crimson on his shirt. ‘This your blood? You are shot?’
Bob nodded casually. ‘I have sustained six gunshot wounds. None will be fatal.’
‘But there is very much!’ Billy looked to Liam. ‘Look! He is bleeding! We must –’
‘He doesn’t do bleeding,’ said Maddy. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.’ She pulled herself to her feet and shook off the jagged shards of wood still clinging to her. She turned her back to Billy and showed him her still-bound hands.
‘Now, Billy … you going to cut us free or what?’
Chapter 28
1994, ruins of the rebel camp, Nicaraguan jungle
‘I count seventeen of them dead,’ said Liam.
‘Incorrect. Nineteen.’ Bob nodded towards the camp’s cookhouse. ‘I located two more wounded hostiles over there.’
‘Jesus!’ said Adam. He looked accusingly at the support unit. ‘You didn’t just go over there and …?’
‘Finish them off?’ Liam dabbed at the caked blood on his face.
Adam nodded.
Liam shrugged. ‘That’s, uhh … that’s the kind of thing he does.’
Adam paled. ‘My God.’
‘Don’t let’s get all dewy-eyed over them,’ said Maddy coolly. ‘They weren’t exactly saints.’
‘But …’
‘You said yourself, Adam, these are mercenaries. Ruthless killers.’
‘I know, but … in cold blood? Just like that?’
‘They are no longer a threat to you,’ said Bob.
‘Exactly.’ Maddy surveyed the smoking remains of the camp. ‘What about the others?’
‘They go away,’ said Billy. ‘Leader is dead, see?’ He pointed with his hunting knife at the body of Alvarez lying nearby. ‘No leader … they go away. Not come back.’
‘Well, good riddance then,’ she said dismissively. She decided to clear her head and direct her thoughts to other matters. She turned to look above the surrounding canopy of tree tops. ‘Over there? See that rocky ridge?’
Liam followed her finger. ‘Aye.’
‘According to Adam … that’s it. This is where he and his field-trip buddies made camp a couple of years back. And that’s the cliff-face where his cave is. Right?’
Adam was still looking at Alvarez’s twisted corpse.
‘Adam?’
He turned back to her. ‘Sorry. Yes.’ He nodded. ‘That’s definitely it.’
‘How far away is it?’
‘Two or three hours on foot.’
‘It’s not too late to start over there then?’
Billy shook his head. ‘Night is not so good. Is better we wait for morning.’ He turned away and walked across the clearing to see what supplies could be scavenged.
‘Aye.’ Liam was keen to agree with that. ‘He’s right. Anyway, might be a good idea to let them other rebel fellas get as far away as they can. Not sure I fancy stumbling across them in the dark.’
‘Fine.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Then I guess we might as well flag-up our current location to Rashim and Sal.’
Liam nodded subtly towards Billy, who was now picking through the smouldering remains of one of the shacks. ‘What about him? Are we going to let him see a portal open?’
She sighed. ‘I’m far too tired and hungry to care who knows about who we are or what we can do any more. Anyway –’ She pulled her glasses off her face and fiddled with one of the bent arms. The damned things didn’t seem to want to sit straight across the bridge of her nose any more. ‘Billy speaks Zambu, some other local languages … and he knows the jungle. He’ll still be useful. We still need him. I say we let him in on things.’
They’d managed to retrieve their things from Alvarez’s shack: her backpack and Adam’s. She reached into hers now and pulled out the small walnut-sized metal case containing one of Rashim’s beacons. ‘Let’s call it in, shall we?’
‘What’s the plan, Mads? Are we going back home, or are Sal and Rashim coming out here to join us?’
She’d stopped fiddling with the arm of
her glasses. It had come completely off. ‘Just great.’
‘Mads?’
She looked up at Liam. ‘I guess they might as well come out here. Since out here is where the answers are going to be, not back in London.’
‘If there are any answers,’ added Liam.
She let that go. ‘Bob?’
‘Yes, Maddy.’
‘We should do something with the bodies. I don’t want Sal seeing them.’
‘Why should Sal not see them, Maddy?’
The poor girl seemed troubled enough. Maddy was beginning to wonder if Sal had been through more than she could handle; to wonder if she was damaged goods. She looked around at the twisted bodies – not too closely. Some of them were a horrible mess.
‘Just do it, Bob. Toss them in the river and let the current take them away.’
The support unit nodded obediently. ‘Of course.’
Chapter 29
1889, London
Sal bit into the crust of the malt cake. It was utterly delicious. Tangy and sweet and spiced up with hints of cinnamon.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Bertie.
She nodded, crumbs tumbled from her lips on to the doorstep. A terrier passing by on the street and off its rope leash hurried over and snuffled hungrily around her feet, on the step then the pavement below.
‘Oy, Chocco! Get back over ’ere, you miserable little wretch!’ shouted his owner. The dog turned tail and scuttled away.
‘Mr Warburton, the baker down the street where I live, makes these for the cook girls who come in buying them for their guv’nors and ladies. Cost a pretty penny, these cakes do.’ Bertie smiled. ‘But I thought you might like to try one.’
The young man, the landlord’s assistant, Bertie, reminded Sal just a little of what Liam used to be like when they first were getting to know each other back in Brooklyn: all old-world manners and gentlemanly consideration. Up until now they’d only ever passed each other, exchanged hurried pleasantries and stolen glimpses, sometimes even accompanied by a chaste smile.