Nightingale

by Andrea Bramhall

  “Where would be the fun in that?”

  “Let me think.” She didn’t take her eyes off the taillights she was gaining on. “Survival.”

  “Well, the plan was to get a little closer to the checkpoint at the pass, blow the axle, swoop in, and save the girl. Now I’m thinking we need to blow this sooner rather than later. The only reason I can think of coming off here would be to head for a rendezvous up in those mountains.” She pointed to the mountain range looming ahead of them. “There’s probably a network of caves in there where there could be Taliban cells, or they’re going to a nomadic village. Here today, gone tomorrow, and never gonna be found again.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yup.” She keyed her radio. “Al, they’re off the main road heading straight for the mountains. How far out are you guys?”

  “About two minutes, but you have company.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve been tailed all the way out of the city. The driver killed the lights as soon as you left the main thoroughfare.”

  “Shit. You got an ID on the driver?”

  “No, but I know who I’m putting my money on.”

  “Yeah. How far behind us is he?”

  “Just turning off the Khyber road now. I’d say you’ve got a minute lead on him. Wait.”

  “What?”

  “He’s gaining fast.”

  “Shit. Al, put your foot down and get here. Now.” She pulled the black box out of her pocket. “At least eighty.”

  “I can’t see eighty fucking feet.”

  “Then stop. And when you hear the bang…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Drive toward the light.”

  *

  Hazaar felt nauseous and light-headed, but she wasn’t sure if it was the pain or the smell of diesel that was causing it. There were several canisters along one wall of the van, and one was clearly leaking. The pain in her soul had an entirely different source. She wrapped her arms around Afia as best she could and cuddled her crying daughter to her chest. She murmured nonsense words into her ear and promised her everything would be okay. She tried to keep her off the cold, rutted steel floor and comfortable enough to allow the motion of the vehicle to lull her to sleep.

  It was so unfair, so cruel. She couldn’t understand why they needed to punish Afia too. She was just a baby.

  “Why are you doing this? Why?” She spoke loudly from where she was lying on the floor, so he could hear her over the rattle of the ancient van.

  “You know why. You’ve shamed us all. You are an aberration of nature and you do not deserve to live. You sully our good name, our people, our religion. Your existence is an insult to Allah himself. What I do, I do to restore balance, order, righteousness to our people. To our family.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “You lie.” She heard him move in his seat. “You lie, you cheat, you came to your marriage carrying the impurity of a woman’s touch. And you dare to say you’ve done nothing wrong.” He whispered a prayer under his breath. “May the fire burn hot enough to cleanse the stain of you from our family, and the fires of hell scour your soul for all eternity.”

  “You’re mad. You know that, right?”

  “What I know is the will of Allah.”

  “No, the will of Allah was peace, not murder in his name. Not the slaughter of an innocent child.”

  “She is not innocent. She was fouled by you before she was even born.”

  “You’d kill a baby because of who her mother is?”

  “Spawn of the devil. She too must be purified. The honour of our family will be reclaimed. I will not allow some pitiful woman to destroy what generations of my family have built.”

  “What? A drug smuggling ring filled with crazy, extremist terrorists? Wow. You must be so proud. You can kill me. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve lived more in my short life than you’ll ever know. I’ve loved and was loved. I’ve known passion and felt the pure, sweet caress of a woman who truly loves me. I’ve been kissed by an angel and stared into forever when I touched her, watched her sleep, wiped her tears, and listened to her breathe. I’ve seen my soul reflected back in her eyes.” She moaned as they hit a pothole and every agony she felt revisited her. “I will love her forever, and for that, I will never apologize.”

  A thunderous bang tore through the night and echoed inside the van. Light exploded outside the windows. The floor fell away from her feet, and as she landed on the hard, furrowed steel beneath, for the first time since Tazim had held her legs over the flames, the agony tore through them. She couldn’t stop the scream that rose from her chest and spilled over her lips. Afia’s terrified cries joined hers as the small puddle of diesel on the floor of the van caught alight.

  Chapter Forty

  Pakistan, today

  “Hit the gas, now.”

  Charlie didn’t need to be told. She was already accelerating hard toward the flickering flames on the underside of the stricken van. Kenzie had her gun out of the holster, cocked and ready. She hoped to God they wouldn’t have to use it, but if she had to choose, there was no way she was going to let him kill a child, Hazaar’s child. The embassy would understand that. Right?

  Kenzie was out of the Jeep before she even stopped. She used one round on the back door as she passed, but she didn’t pause. She circled round to the front of the van, arms raised to shoulder height, her head cocked to follow the sight of her gun, then she disappeared from Charlie’s sight.

  Charlie climbed out of the Jeep and ran to the back of the van. She could smell smoke and burning as she approached, but Kenzie had assured her that the blast wouldn’t hit the fuel tank, that it was a safe explosion. The phrase sounded like an oxymoron to her, but what she knew about explosives would fit on the back of a postage stamp. They blew shit up. And something was sure as hell on fire.

  “Show me your hands.” Kenzie’s voice sounded so loud in the darkness, but she couldn’t see her. She assumed she was talking to Tazim and his driver. “Now get out of the vehicle, slowly. Keep your hands where I can see ’em.”

  Charlie reached for the handle on the hanging rear door. She could hear crying inside. A child sobbed, and there was a pained sound of suffering. She wrapped her fingers around the twisted steel that Kenzie’s bullet had mangled.

  The sharp tinny click of metal at her back caught her attention.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Miss Porter.” She whirled around to see Yasar’s cruel smile glowing under the pale moonlight. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to let it go.”

  “So you followed me to make sure I didn’t stop your father.”

  “Stop him or not, at this point it doesn’t matter. I have what I want.”

  “Your father out of the way.”

  “Yes. Either he’ll be killed by your friend over there, or he’ll live and go to prison.” He shrugged. “And we all know how easy it is to have accidents in prison, don’t we?” He laughed. “So yes, with him out of the way, I will have full control of the business. I won’t be held back by some religious zealot beholden to a group of terrorists.”

  “You don’t believe in Islam?”

  “I couldn’t give a shit about a book written millennia ago. Do you know what religion is, Charlie?”

  “Why don’t you tell me, Yasar?”

  He growled at the use of his first name. “It’s a means of controlling a mass population. A set of guidelines in story form that men in their infinite wisdom have twisted and corrupted to mean anything they want it to. They use it to gain and maintain power through fear. Fear for one’s immortal soul.”

  “And you don’t fear for your soul, Yasar?” The smell of burning behind her was getting stronger. Kenzie must have been wrong; the fuel tank must have caught on fire. The cries and coughing inside the van were getting louder, increasingly fearful, and Charlie knew she had to get them out of there. Now.

  “No. I fear nothing.”

  “What about the d
eath of an innocent?” She nodded her head in the direction of the van.

  “She’s no innocent. She tried to leave with my beautiful little girl, to steal what is mine.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Hazaar. Her daughter is in there with her.” She could feel the heat coming off the vehicle behind her. She turned and saw that the underside of the van was burning as well, and on one side the paint was bubbling as though it was getting hot from the inside.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We saw your father carry your little girl out to the back of the van too.”

  “You lie.”

  “No, I don’t. Have I lied to you about anything? This van is going to blow up. We need to get them out, now.”

  “You’re an expert in these things?”

  “No, but I know it’s on fire, and I know that diesel burns and blows up. If I’m wrong, and your little girl isn’t in there, what are you going to lose by letting me open the door?” He hesitated and she knew she had him questioning, that the love of his child was the only thing that was going to get him to capitulate. “And if I’m right, then you can make sure your little girl is safe.”

  “If you’re lying to me, I will kill you.”

  “I’d expect nothing else.”

  In the dim moonlight, she saw him nod. “Open the door.”

  She wrapped her hand around the metal and felt the searing sting of her burning flesh as the hot steel branded her. She used every ounce of willpower she possessed to keep hold of it as she tore open the door and let it swing on its hinges. The sudden rush of oxygen into the vehicle increased the burn power, and the flames grew along the draught, kissing the air and eating up anything in its path. Charlie ducked under the back draught and plume of smoke. Driven by instinct alone, blinded by the smoke and heat, she kept as low as she could while she reached into the inferno and grabbed hold of what she thought was a foot.

  She knew Hazaar was injured, but there was no time to be cautious. She pulled, praying that Hazaar and the child would be clinging together. The foul stench of burnt hair and flesh filled the air, far more prevalent than the odour of burning fuel, metal, and rubber. She gagged and fought the urge to throw up as she saw that the foot she was holding was charred, the sole blackened and cracked. Oh God, I’m too late. It took too long.

  She hauled the dead weight as far as she could before she tore her thin shirt from her body and twisted it around her hand to try to beat out the flames that licked at the fabric covering Hazaar’s body. The little girl lay on top of Hazaar’s body, her small hands clinging to the material across Hazaar’s chest and her hair caught in those tiny hands. Hazaar’s arms enveloped her and the broken, twisted fingers were covered in soot and blood. They were terribly, horribly still.

  I was too late. She beat the last of the flames out. The burns to Hazaar’s sides, shoulders, and head weren’t as bad as she’d thought they were going to be. But in the dim light, it was difficult to tell as they lay still on the rocky ground, neither appearing to breathe. I’m too late.

  Charlie stared at Hazaar’s body. She looked almost peaceful, like she was just holding her baby and sleeping. Wicked hands disturbed the tableau, though. They pulled at Hazaar’s arms and tried to rip the child from her embrace. Charlie pushed them away, but everything seemed to be going so slowly. Her arms wouldn’t cooperate, and they felt clumsy, like they didn’t belong to her as she tried to stop Yasar from separating mother and child.

  “Haven’t you done enough? Leave them alone.”

  “This wasn’t my doing. Afia wasn’t supposed to be here.”

  “No, but you forgot to account for the religious zealots and how thorough they like to be.” She shoved him so hard he fell back in the dirt, her rage giving her strength. “Did you really think your father was going to leave Hazaar’s child alone? Were you really so stupid?”

  “I told him she was my child. That she was under my protection, and that I would raise her properly!”

  Charlie laughed, still unable to tear her gaze from Hazaar and Afia as they lay on the dusty, rocky ground at the side of the Khyber Pass. “I guess you really are that stupid, then.”

  She heard Yasar roar his indignation as he launched himself from the ground. She prepared herself for the hit, stiffening her back and tensing her muscles, certain he was going to attack her. But he swept past her and kept going. The sickening crunch of bone against bone could be heard even above the creaking of burning metal and the popping of smouldering rubber as the fire raged on. She turned in time to see Tazim hit the ground. He landed on his back and Yasar connected with punch after punch to his father’s face. She wondered briefly why Tazim didn’t raise his hands to protect himself, then realized she really didn’t care. She hoped Yasar beat him to death. She hoped she’d get the chance to tell this all in court and watch as Yasar was led away to prison, poetic justice for the man who thought to make himself king.

  Kenzie was standing over them, gun held loosely in one hand, the other wrapped around the arm of a second man. Charlie assumed he was the driver and noted how his arms were fixed with his hands behind his back. She smiled as she realized why Tazim hadn’t protected himself under Yasar’s onslaught—his hands were cuffed behind him.

  Charlie knelt next to Hazaar and Afia. Do something. Her first aid training began to kick in, and she started her initial assessment before she even realized what she was doing. She stroked her hand over the baby’s head, her hair so soft, like strands of silk between her finger, and she moved under Charlie’s hand. A tiny reflexive movement that Charlie didn’t even register for a moment. She let her hand drift down the child’s back and stared at Hazaar’s deformed hands, the same hands that had created the sweetest music Charlie had ever heard, that had drawn from her body unparalleled pleasure. They were bent at odd angles beneath the burnt remnants of tape and gauze. They were warped and misshapen as they trembled in the shadows of the flames.

  Wait. Charlie stared harder at Hazaar’s hands. Are they? Is that my imagination? Please, please, please, don’t be an illusion. It can’t be…

  She stroked Afia’s hair again and watched as the movement became more noticeable, more definite, and a tiny cough formed in those little lungs. Hazaar’s trembling hands were instinctively trying to soothe her child, even though she wasn’t conscious. Smoke. You fucking idiot, they were passed out from the fucking smoke.

  She ran to the Jeep and grabbed the first aid kit, ignoring the pounding she could still hear going on from the fight behind her. Where the hell is it? She pulled up the rear seat and searched the cavity for the small green case. When she saw it, she latched her fingers around the plastic handle and pulled it out. Her fingers shook as she tried to put the oxygen mask together to slip over Afia’s head. She was coughing in earnest now, trying to rid her lungs of the black smoke, but Hazaar was barely moving. The breath in and out of her chest rattled, and Charlie wished she had two masks, because having to share the one she had between them was going to be of little effect.

  She covered Afia’s face and turned on the flow of gas. She coughed and cried and struggled to be rid of the irritating mask, but her breathing grew easier. Charlie smiled gently and began to slip the elastic off her head.

  “No, leave it. I’ve got this one for Mum.” Luke knelt on the other side of Hazaar and slipped a matching mask over Hazaar’s head and turned the tap on the oxygen bottle beside him.

  “Didn’t hear you arrive.”

  “Just pulled up now. Al’s with Kenzie. You okay?” Luke looked at her as he pressed his fingers to Hazaar’s neck. “Looks like you’ll need to get your hair cut. Any other burns I should look at?”

  Charlie frowned and put her hands on her head. She could feel that one side was considerably shorter than the other and there was a bald patch on the top too. “I didn’t feel it.”

  “Adrenaline. Any other burns?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. We’ll get you taken care of. Ha
nds are usually one of the first places to get burns, so hold ’em out for me.”

  She did as he asked and was amazed to see how badly burned her right hand was. The palm and fingertips were blistering, and she swore she could make out the impression of a keyhole near her thumb.

  “Ouch, that looks nasty.” He put a wet gel pad over the seared flesh. “This should help a little till we get to the hospital.”

  “Don’t worry about me. It’s Hazaar and Afia we need to take care of.”

  “And we are. Luke has it all under control.” Al squatted next to her, touching her back gently. “Kenzie has Yasar and the driver cuffed. Tazim died under Yasar’s assault before we could convince him to stop.”

  “Shame,” Luke said, applying more gel packs to Hazaar and Afia.

  “Yeah, I know,” Al said. “But we have to decide now what you want to do about that.” He looked at Charlie.

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere, and given the state of the van, we could easily arrange for the bodies to be put in there and for them to have had an accident. Kenzie still has plenty of explosives left to take care of it, and the driver explained that they were carrying forty gallons of diesel in the back of that thing. That’s what caught fire.”

  “Kill them?”

  Al shrugged. “It’s one option.”

  “One they deserve,” Luke said.

  “No.” Charlie was shocked that they had even suggested it. “We didn’t come here to kill anyone. We came here to stop the killing.”

  “Then we have two other options.”

  “We could just leave them here to fend for themselves. Maybe they get lucky and find a village or a car that can get them back to Peshawar.”

  “No. It’s more likely that they’ll die trying to find their way out. I said no killing.”

  “Technically, that’s not killing them.”

  “And that’s just fucking semantics, Al.”

  “Then the third option is to hand them and Tazim’s body over to the police. It’s going to mean having to explain to the authorities why we were out here and what happened. It’s going to mean us explaining why there are explosives under the van when they examine it, why we didn’t take our suspicions to them in the first place, and will probably mean us being prosecuted, losing our jobs, causing a diplomatic incident, and going to a Pakistani prison.”