'I'll settle for blowing you up, though. And your army.'
'And your friends, and yourself,' said the general.
'If I have to.'
'Here's what we want, General.' It was Jack again. 'We are going to drive to the main gate. You are going to bring Lee and Tariq to us and let us drive away.'
'What's to stop the boy blowing us up once you've gone?' asked Blythe. 'If he is as suicidal as Keegan says he is.'
'Nothing except my word,' said Rowles. 'All you need to know for certain is that if you don't do as I ask, I'll definitely blow us all to hell.'
'It's a good offer, General,' I said. 'I'm done with fighting. Once I leave here, you'll never see me or any of my friends again. We'll just vanish, and you can get on with doing whatever it is your boss wants done. We won't oppose you, we just want to leave. Probably France, maybe Spain, I dunno. But away. Let us go, you live, everyone's happy.'
Through the window behind Blythe I could see a thin line of light appear on the horizon. Dawn was coming.
The door behind me opened and someone began giving a report.
'There is someone in the nuclear warehouse, General,' said the soldier I couldn't see. 'We've drilled through from the corridor and inserted a mini-cam. The boy is sitting next to one of the warheads, and the cover is off.'
'So he could be telling the truth?' asked Blythe.
'Yes, Sir.'
'Could a sniper take him out?'
'If we can get someone into the ventilation system we believe we could get sight on the target.'
'Do it. I want to be informed the second the shooter's in position. Meanwhile, we play along. Get some men in here to clean these two up.'
'Understood, Sir.' The soldier stomped away.
The general leant down and picked up Tariq's black shirt, ripping it into strips and using it to gag me. Then he picked up the radio again.
'You don't leave me much choice,' he said. 'Bring your vehicle to the gates now, we'll have the prisoners.'
'We'll be there in a moment,' replied Jack, sounding surprised.
A stream of soldiers scurried into the room and I was untied and allowed to stand. I'd lost so much blood from my leg that I momentarily blacked out as I stood up. I was caught and sat back down. A doctor patched my leg up as best he could and helped me into a new pair of trousers. I could hear more frantic activity from where Tariq had been sitting. When I managed to look across all I could see was a wall of soldiers, some kneeling down.
'Just patch them up,' growled the general. 'No need to do too much. They've only got to make it to the main gate, after that they're not our concern.'
Eventually a soldier indicated that they were ready, and they lifted Tariq up on a stretcher. He was pale and unconscious, and his breathing was shallow, but at least he was still alive.
Surrounded by soldiers, their rifles raised, we were marched out of the building and on to the main road that ran to the gate. I was unable to walk properly and had to wrap my arms around the shoulders of two soldiers who helped me. The base looked very different in the early twilight, with soldiers running all over the place; some were streaming down into the tunnels, others were lining up beside trucks ready to ship out.
As we moved towards the main gate I saw the Stryker pull up outside. Its gun turret rotated, pointing straight down the road at us. I smiled at the threat. Nice to have some firepower on our side. Then I heard a deep rumbling sound and a tank rolled into view ahead of us. Its gun turret – so much bigger than the Stryker's – rotated until it was pointing straight at the armoured vehicle, which suddenly seemed kind of puny. The general fell into step beside me and made eye contact, holding my gaze steadily, his deep black eyes, so pitiless and cold.
'I want you to know, son, that I'll be coming for you,' he said. 'I don't care where you try to hide, here or abroad, I'll find you and your daddy one day. And when I do, I'll fry you both alive, so help me God.'
I didn't reply, just kept trying to put one foot in front of the other, gritting my teeth against the pain in my leg and focusing on the means of my escape. I had no idea how this was going to pan out, or what plan Jack and Rowles had concocted. Our original plan – for Tariq and Jack to use a remote detonator to set off the nukes after we'd left – had failed when they couldn't find the remote detonators anywhere. So how was Rowles planning to escape?
We approached the gate and the Stryker's hatch clanged open. Jack's head appeared in the opening and he shouted: 'bring them forward.'
The general nodded, the gate was opened, and Tariq and I were carried through. This was the most dangerous moment. If they decided to take this opportunity, they could kill us all with ease. It was only their fear of Rowles' that stopped them. If their sniper killed Rowles before we closed the hatch and drove away, we were dead.
The soldiers helped me up and through the hatch, lowering me down so that Jack and Sue could take hold of me and drop me on to one of the benches. Tariq was a dead weight when he was lowered in, but somehow they managed to get him stashed away. When the soldiers had gone, Jack closed the hatch.
'What the hell are you doing?' I yelled. 'You were supposed to be miles away by now!'
'Not my idea,' said Jack as he applied pressure to Tariq's wound and Sue took the wheel. 'It was that bloody kid.'
'Rowles?'
'He is a scary ass motherfucker, you know that, right?'
I shook my head, confused. 'What did he do?'
'Held me to gunpoint, made me tell him about the nukes and the codes, and then threatened to shoot me if I followed him.'
'So what's the plan?' I asked. 'I mean, does he have a plan?'
'Not that he told me. I've just been doing as he says.'
'Great king you are, letting yourself get bullied by an eleven-year-old.'
'He had a gun to my head and knife to my balls,' he protested. 'And his eyes… that kid is not right in the head.'
'He was bad enough before the months of torture,' I said, shaking my head. 'Let me on the radio.'
I shimmied along the bench and Sue handed me the radio handset. 'He's on setting three,' she said. I adjusted the frequency so I could talk without the Yanks overhearing us.
'Rowles, you there?'
'Hey, Sir. You safe?'
'For now, but what about you?'
'Don't worry about me, Sir. Just drive.'
'Don't be fucking ridiculous, Rowles. We came here to rescue you, we're hardly going to bugger off now.'
'You'd better, Sir, because I plan on detonating as soon as you're clear.'
I bit my lip, thinking furiously. How the hell was I going to get him out of this?
'Listen, they've got a sniper coming for you, through the ventilation system. I don't know how long you've got.'
I clicked off the radio. 'Can you rig up a remote detonator from scratch?' I asked Jack. 'Did anyone teach you that while you were here?'
He shook his head.
'Shit.' I pressed the transmit button again. 'Okay, Rowles, we're going to have to bluff it out. I want you to find some piece of kit there that you can pretend is a remote detonator. If we can convince them you can set off the bomb from a distance, they'll let you walk away.'
There was no reply. 'Rowles, you there?'
'Yes, Sir. Sorry, I can hear them coming through the ventilation. I don't think I've got much time. I'm not leaving. If we run, they'll just come after us. I know what they do to people, and I'm not letting anyone else suffer
