Hell's Choir (NICHOLAS SHARP THRILLER SERIES Book 3)

by Mark Mannock

  “Jumaa,” I said, “this is pointless. You know we have nothing to tell you.”

  “Silence!” screamed Gataa as he lashed out with the back of his hand, his powerful blow catching me full on side of my head. With my hands tied, I could neither defend myself nor block my fall to the ground.

  Jumaa turned toward to the fire, reached down, and grabbed the wooden handle of one of the hot pokers. As he rose, he brought the implement forward, gripping it in front of his chest.

  He read my apprehension as he stared down at me in the dirt. “I have no choice, Nicholas.”

  I stared at our former friend, his face contorted in concentration. Sweat soaked his forehead, pouring through his eyes and down his cheeks. He raised the poker, holding it above me. I had nowhere to go.

  Jumaa swung the implement down toward my stomach. I prepared myself, muscles tensed in anticipation of the pain.

  “You bastard,” screamed Greatrex, struggling to break free.

  All three guards watched on; no doubt ready to act if something went awry.

  The poker was three inches from my gut, no need to remove my shirt, the hot metal would burn right through. I started to squeeze my eyes closed, but for a second I thought I saw…

  Abruptly, an enormous explosion echoed through the cavern. Loud, but not deafening. A bright light sparked in the sky outside. We all looked toward the cave entrance.

  “Go!” Jumaa instructed the guards. “Find out what is happening.”

  The three guards bolted for the opening.

  Jumaa refocused, raising the poker once more. He glanced up at the guards on the ledge as he spoke to them. “I will continue here. Go.”

  He then turned back to me.

  “Roll on to your front, Nicholas, now,” he ordered.

  I studied him, searching for some certainty.

  “Now, I said.” With that, he raised his left foot and kicked me in the side of my ribcage. It hurt, but also had the effect of rolling me over.

  The guards started to make their way down the ladder.

  “This is your last chance to tell me of your Christian colleagues here in Sudan,” he yelled.

  A second later, I felt the heat of the poker searing my skin. It stung like all hell. All my senses told me to scream, but the pain was fleeting. Then came the odor of burning flesh, only it wasn’t flesh. It was fiber… the rope.

  I knew it.

  My refound confidence diminished when I heard Jumaa scream in agony. I rolled over onto my back, the ropes still binding my hands to the chain. The poker that had been in his hand had been flung through the air as Gataa had leaped over me and tackled Jumaa. The scream came because the implement had landed across Jumaa’s chest. He jerked it off him as the guard pounded his face, punch after punch.

  “I told Al Fahad you couldn’t be trusted. You’ll die here and now.”

  Jumaa tried to avoid the blows, wrestling his head from side to side. He was having no success.

  Greatrex struggled frantically with his bindings. Another few seconds and Jumaa would have been able to burn through my ropes. We’d been so close.

  “Die like the coward you are,” shouted the terrorist, building himself into a rage.

  Our Sudanese friend was having the life thrashed out of him.

  I pulled and strained, trying to wrench my hands loose.

  The guard continued his verbal tirade. “Your wife and child will soon follow you to your Christian hell.”

  At the mention of his family, Jumaa seemed to summon a last burst of strength, wrestling his right hand free. Instead of using it to hit his attacker, he flailed around in the dirt, searching… for the poker. A moment later, he found it. But without the benefit of sight, he grabbed the wrong end. For the second time in five minutes, he screamed in agony. The poker dropped to the ground as he withdrew his burned palm. He changed approach, kicking at the poker with his feet, unable to make contact. At first, I didn’t understand his intent, but then…

  I stretched over as far as I could, pulling against my ropes. Not close enough.

  Jumaa had little fight left in him. He’d stopped trying to evade the heavy blows. Suddenly he gave one last kick. The poker shot forward, straight into my ribs. It felt like someone had shot me. Grimacing with pain, I rolled myself onto my side and edged back toward the tool. Two inches more. I smelled burning. The smell of rope fibers.

  Ten seconds later, my hands broke free. I lunged toward the terrorist’s back. He grunted but didn’t stop his attack. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled backward with all my strength. It wasn’t enough. I started punching, left, right, repeat. Each blow would have a devastating effect on most men. Although slowed, Gataa kept pummeling at Jumaa.

  I released my hold and leaped backward. In two seconds I had the handle of the poker in my palm. Advancing forward, I once again wrapped my right arm around Gataa’s neck as I plunged the hot poker into his side. I kept it there, pushing harder, deeper into him.

  The terrorist’s scream defined the soundtrack of human agony. The more he struggled, the harder I pushed. A minute later the strength seeped out of him as he collapsed into unconsciousness, splayed across Jumaa’s almost lifeless body.

  After untying Greatrex, we both bent over Jumaa. Breathing heavily, he lay there barely conscious and badly bruised. I found a pot of cold water at the rear of the cave, obviously used to douse the flames when required. I poured some into Jumaa’s mouth and spilled the rest over his burns. He yelped in pain, but the water would cool the wounds.

  Finally, his breathing became less labored. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was attempting to smile.

  “Perhaps I should explain,” he said.

  Chapter 14

  “I suspected from the start there it might turn out like this. I had hoped otherwise, but it is what it is,” he began.

  “Let’s backtrack, Jumaa,” I suggested. “How much of what you told us was true?”

  “It was all true, Nicholas, every word. It’s what I left out that turned me into a liar.”

  “You mean your wife and child?” asked Greatrex.

  “That is correct, Jack. When they released me, Atha Riek said he’d give me three chances to make my freedom permanent, as I explained to you. What he didn’t tell me was that by the time I got home, my wife, Salima, and my son, Ibrahim, would be missing. Al Fahad’s men took them while I remained in their custody. They were his insurance.”

  “So, from that point on, the terrorist group virtually owned you,” I said.

  “Yes. I believed that they would never let me repay my debt. I’d heard reports about the Shararaa kidnapping the families of Sudanese men in order to get the men to act for them. The trouble being, I’d heard no stories about the families being safely returned. No one ever came back.”

  Jumaa stared at the ground, his lip trembling. “After what I’ve just done, that situation may well remain unchallenged. If there was any chance of their release before, it is now gone I have all but killed them myself.”

  Tears began to run down his cheek.

  “I didn’t tell you anything of my plans because I thought you would give yourselves away,” he continued. “You didn’t seem like actors to me.”

  “It begrudges me to say it, but you did the right thing, Jumaa. Atha Riek is a vicious bastard, but he is no fool. He’d see through any charade,” I responded.

  “Back to the story, Jumaa,” added Greatrex. “When you realized Riek had your family, what did you do?”

  “I’d do nothing to put innocent people in harm’s way, so as I told you, I stalled and promised as much as I dared. I figured that something would come up.”

  “And it did, didn’t it?” replied Greatrex. “We came up.”

  “That’s right, Jack. As I mentioned, I’d spent a great deal of time learning everything I could about Riek and the Shararaa, including how they worked, where their allegiances lay, their contacts and supporters in the government. I was thorough. The lives of
my family were at stake. I also built trust. It took time, but after a while, the Shararaa showed some confidence in me. It almost killed me to build relationships with the very people who held my loved ones captive.”

  “As Jack said, then we came along,” I said.

  “Yes. I knew nothing of their plans regarding the coup, the murder of the American agents or Vice President Blake’s kidnapping. However, when I witnessed the two of you in action at the airport, I recognized an opportunity to strike back against the Shararaa.”

  “But you didn’t tell us?” said Greatrex.

  “Jack, I couldn’t. It was too big a risk. On the way here my uncle told me there was little chance we’d find Riek unless he wanted to be found. I knew with certainty I would need to change strategy. My uncle is well connected in this region, so I asked to send a message to Riek, to tell him the prize I carried.”

  “Us,” I said.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. We would never have found the terrorist camp. I suppose I expected it all along really, so I made plans.”

  “The explosion?”

  “Yes, Nicholas. I placed a timed charge under the Nissan. I suspected Al Fahad’s people would search me, but I hoped they wouldn’t search the car.”

  “What about the timing of the blast? You couldn’t have anticipated that when we were at the bottom of the mountain.”

  “No,” he replied. “That was why you had to be captured, but not me. Prior to coming up to this cave, the terrorists gave me enough freedom of movement to get to my vehicle and set the timer. They even made it easier for me to do this undetected when they covered the car with the camouflage netting.”

  “That’s why you hesitated, right before you attacked me with the poker,” I suggested.

  “Yes, imperfect timing.”

  Greatrex and I considered what we had just learned. There was a ring of truth to it all. Jumaa’s recent action had added massive credibility to his tale.

  “I knew you hadn’t turned,” said the big fella.

  I shook my head.

  “All right, back to work,” I announced. “We’ve found the terrorists’ base and we’ve claimed a freedom—of sorts.”

  “Apart from being stuck in a cave with forty terrorists baying for our blood outside,” added Greatrex, ever the optimist.

  “Point taken. The blast will have sent them running all over the place, but only briefly. We’ve wasted too much time already. We need to get out of here, find the vice president and escape across the Egyptian border.” Nicholas Sharp: strategist.

  “One thing,” said Jumaa. “I’ll have only one chance to find my beloved Salima and our son. If they are in this camp, I will find them and set them free… or die with them in the attempt.”

  The magnitude of our friend’s words was not lost on us.

  “Of course,” I responded, “but only if they are here, Jumaa—you must understand the chances of that are slim.”

  “Slim is the only chance I’ve lived with for many months.”

  Chapter 15

  Our plan was simple and potentially effective. Jumaa stepped out onto the ledge in front of the cave to check what was going on outside. As he cast his eyes across the darkened landscape, his relaxed posture and lack of haste gave the appearance of someone seeking some fresh air. A minute later, he returned.

  After informing us that the rope ladder remained well lit, and six armed guards still hovered around it, we realized there would be no chance of escaping that way undetected.

  I scouted the rear of the cave in search of another exit. It took thirty minutes, but eventually I found a tiny crevice between two large rocks leading upward to a gap in the outer rock face. I tried it out. There wasn’t much room, but the egress led to a ledge a good twenty yards away from the original entrance and the spotlight. This would be our way out.

  We needed to sort out a plan. The plan became a short but perilous list: search for and extract Jefferson Blake, try to locate Jumaa’s family, and get ourselves out of the area safely under the watch of at least forty armed terrorists. No big ask.

  “If we can, I’d like to have a look at that compound we saw earlier,” I said.

  “Too many guards,” replied Greatrex. “We’d be advertising our escape and we don’t even know what’s there.”

  I saw his point.

  “I have a fair idea where Vice President Blake is being held,” offered Jumaa. “I noticed a man taking a single tray of food to a cave opposite the compound. It appeared heavily guarded.”

  “How many guards?” asked Greatrex.

  “At least four, one either side of the entrance and another two forming a perimeter twenty yards out.”

  These people knew their business.

  “We need an order of events here,” I said. “A timeline we can follow.”

  Both men nodded.

  “Let’s find Blake first. We’re armed now thanks to him,” I pointed at Gataa’s body laying at our feet. “Once we have the VP, we’ll do a slow search north to south for Jumaa’s family.”

  “Our two biggest issues, apart from being outnumbered, are remaining undetected while we move around the camp and figuring out how to escape without forty killers at our heels,” added Greatrex.

  “Actually, I may have a plan for that,” I announced.

  Fifteen minutes later, we eased our way out of the small hole that exited the cave and dropped to the ground. While several of the terrorists combed the area where the Nissan had exploded, several others appeared to be traipsing through the darkness back to the mess and sleeping tents. At the base of the rock face, Greatrex headed west. I’d given him another job to do. Jumaa and I weaved our path north, using any available shadow or obstacle to shield ourselves from view.

  A scant time later we lay flat on the ground thirty yards out from the cave where we suspected the vice president was being held. The guards were still there. That meant that Blake was probably still there too.

  Armed, not only with the Kalashnikov we had taken from the Gataa but also two of the knives that were in the fire in the ‘large cave’, we crept forward. If circumstances forced us to fire a shot, an unwinnable firefight would ensue. Knives killed in silence.

  “Jumaa,” I whispered, “you wait here. I’ll take the perimeter guard on this side first and then sweep around to the other one.”

  Jumaa just looked at me, eyebrows raised, as though he couldn’t understand. “Not going to happen, Nicholas. I’ll take the guard on this side, you swing around and take the other.”

  I stared at him. It was time to stop doubting this man’s skill and resourcefulness. He intended to fight.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Crawling forward on my stomach, I made it to within five yards of the far perimeter guard. The rough ground required slow going, but it was the only way. The guard stood with his back to me, looking toward the cave. That was a mistake. He should have been scanning outward for intruders. I guessed, because of the late hour, he’d grown tired and inattentive. I crawled closer. My field training kicked in as though it was yesterday. Head down, gradual movement, don’t brush any flora that would send a tell. I intended to try for another yard when the terrorist suddenly swung his head around. As he turned, suspicions raised, I leaped through the bush and shoved my shoulder into his chest, sending him careering backward. Before he fell, I flipped him around, covered his mouth with my left hand and plunged my knife deep into his heart.

  He exited the world in silent submission.

  I assumed Jumaa had performed a similar operation with the other perimeter guard. If he hadn’t, I was about to step into a kill zone. Time remained an issue. At any moment, someone could investigate our cave and the ruse would be over.

  Back on the ground, I slithered along the rock face until I lay ten yards from the cave entrance. I saw no way of taking the inner sentry without the other noticing. I slid further toward the closest man while searching for any clue that Jumaa was doing the same. Three minutes transpired with no
sign of the Sudanese. I started doubting my decision to send Greatrex on a separate task. In fieldwork, Jack and I operated best together.

  Then I saw it, a flash of white teeth in the shadows: Jumaa. We had planned for me to attack first, and Jumaa to follow. It didn’t pan out that way. For some unknown reason, as I lunged at my man, the other guard swiveled back toward Jumaa. The sentry gaped at the figure silhouetted against the moonlight and raised his gun. Jumaa stepped forward saying, “It is only me, Jumaa Al Fadil, do not shoot.”

  The moment’s distraction allowed me time to slip my arm around the terrorist in front of me and draw my knife across his throat. That same moment gave Jumaa an opportunity to close the gap between him and his victim. A moment wasn’t long enough. He didn’t make the distance. Jumaa’s guard sensed something was wrong and tensed up, clearly preparing to squeeze his trigger. As he spoke in a calm, reassuring tone, Jumaa withdrew his knife from his shirt and in one fluid movement flung it into the terrorist’s chest. A second later, he leaped on his victim like a wild cat on a kill. He wrenched the blade out of the man’s ribcage before ending his life with a brutal thrust into his neck.

  I would never underestimate Jumaa Al Fadil again.

  The cave and the perimeter appeared silent apart from the distant noise deeper in the encampment. I put my finger to my lips. We needed a moment to listen harder. Two minutes later, it remained deathly quiet. I motioned that we should move forward… carefully.

  Fortunately, we found no additional guards inside the cave. An oil lamp burning a low light lit the figure of Jefferson Blake curled up under a blanket next to the wall. I moved over to him, about to shake his shoulder when the man rolled over and landed a clubbed fist hard on my nose. I fell over backward, and he clambered on top of me. Just as he raised his arm for a second blow, he hesitated.

  “Sharp?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Shit, sorry about that.”