that said he had every intention of carrying out his last threat and would think no more of it than if he had just stepped on an ant. He leaned over and turned the player so than Bernard could see the small screen.
The screaming started as soon as the image appeared. Robert Greeves was lying naked on a steel bed, the same type that Bernard had been tied to when they had beaten the soles of his feet, except that the masked man was not beating Robert. The camera had been placed at an obscene angle, facing between Greeves’s legs, at about bed level. Greeves shrieked then raised his head. The man with the ski mask moved from between the politician’s legs and Bernard could see a hand-cranked generator on the floor, which the man knelt behind. Wires ran from the dynamo to clips which were attached to Robert’s testicles. The man started to crank and Bernard winced and screwed his eyes shut again at the terrible, piercing scream.
‘Never!’ Greeves screamed on the recording. Bernard realised it was a recording of the torture session he had heard earlier.
‘Why? You are asking yourself why we are doing that,’ the man said as he pressed stop. Bernard looked at him with pure loathing, fantasising at that moment about freeing himself and killing the man. ‘Do you think I want him to cower on camera, to plead with his leader, with the British people, to release the inmates from Guantanamo Bay, or pull out your mercenary troops from Iraq?’
Bernard had assumed the message would be something like that.
‘Well, between you and me, Bernard, I don’t want him to say anything. And no, in case you’re thinking my friends and I are mere criminals, no, this is not about obtaining a monetary ransom.’ He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.
Bernard was genuinely confused now.
‘I’ll explain then, if you won’t guess. If things go as I plan, I won’t be inflicting much more pain at all on your master. I want Robert Greeves to be brave when I film him and release the video to the Western world via a friendly television network. I don’t want him crying and betraying his ideals by begging for the detainees to be released or the troops pulled out of Iraq. I don’t want the people of Britain to think of him as weak, because then, secretly, many of them won’t care if he is beheaded on TV. However, someone has to deliver the message…’
Bernard felt the bile rising in his throat and swallowed hard.
‘Having a spare hostage — you, Bernard — allows me more air time, as simple as that. I can show a video to the world of my men standing behind Robert Greeves, the sword resting on his shoulder, and one of us can make our demands, in Arabic, and that will play for two or three days in a row. If, however, I release a second video, this time with someone pleading for Greeves’s life — saying, perhaps, that the men who are holding you hostage have threatened to cut off one of Greeves’s fingers and toes each day that the UK government delays making a decision, then the effect will be enhanced, don’t you agree?’
Bernard stared into those cold, calculating eyes and a tiny part of him marvelled at the fact that a human being could be so resolute, so cruel, so pitiless.
‘I’m not going to torture you, though, Bernard, to make you talk on camera for me. And, remember, I don’t need Robert to say a word in the video. So, here’s how we’ll do it.’ The man turned to face the door, the better to project his voice, and yelled a command in Arabic.
From the next room came the sound of screaming again, and Bernard knew it was Greeves.
‘Enough!’ Bernard said.
The man called another command, and had to yell very loudly this time to be heard over the shrieks of pain. ‘You know, if this works out well, you may be released, Bernard. If, in the unlikely event that the Prime Minister does pull your forces out of Iraq and some innocents are released from the American prison, I will keep my word and release you and Robert. If, however, you cause me any problems, or attempt to escape, then I can promise you an extremely painful death. Let me show you another small movie to make my point.’ He pushed play again.
Bernard looked down at the screen. There was a man stripped naked, tied to a chair. He writhed in agony, his whole body shaking, straining against the restraints, but he was gagged, so only guttural groans filled the soundtrack. Twin streaks of blood ran down his face, from where his eyes had been.
‘Amazing how hard it is to recognise someone without their eyes, don’t you think? Force yourself to take a closer look, though. This video, by the way, was shot somewhere in London, not here in Africa. Just a few days ago. That’s the only clue I’m giving you.
Despite the horror, Bernard blinked and refocused. The hair, the shape of the nose, even though it, too, was bloodied, the strong jaw. ‘Nick…’
‘Well done. One hundred per cent correct. Detective Sergeant Nick Roberts, as the police might say, was assisting us with our investigations into your itinerary and Robert Greeves’s security arrangements. We were planning on killing him quickly, but he tried to escape, so I removed his eyes, one at a time.’
The video continued and Bernard saw the black cylindrical barrel of a silenced pistol held to the side of Nick’s head. He heard the whimpering. The gun fired, its report just a tiny cough, but the effect was instantaneous. Bernard watched for an instant, long enough to see the eyeless head thrown sideways, the blood spattering the wall beside him.
Tears rolled down Bernard’s cheeks. ‘What do you want me to say?’
15
‘Chokwe’s just ahead,’ Sannie said, looking up from the map and rubbing her eyes. The sun was nearly touching the horizon.
It had been a long, tiring day, but rest was the last thing on Tom Furey’s mind. Chokwe was an important waypoint on their journey. If their theory that the terrorists were heading for the Indian Ocean was correct, then the little farming town was where the dirt road the criminals would have taken after crossing the border met the main sealed road to the coast. It would be the point where Tom and Sannie’s path would at last cross the abductors’.
From here on, their plan was to question the police at every roadblock and station they came across. Sannie was prepared to use her language skills, her charm and their stock of South African rand to get answers. Tom suspected the last weapon at her disposal would be the most persuasive. She had warned him already that while the police in Mozambique were generally polite and friendly, they always had their hand out, and worked off lists of petty rules and regulations all designed to convince unsuspecting tourists to pay a fine.
The road into Chokwe was flanked by market stalls, mostly housed in corrugated-tin sheds. The vendors, who were now in the process of shutting up shop, offered an eclectic mix of goods, including tyres, coffins, plastic buckets, television antennae, lettuces, bicycles and clothing. A minibus taxi in front of them put on its brakes, forcing Tom to stamp on his pedal and swear. As he indicated and passed the bus, which had stopped for a fare, he saw the words Talk to my lawyer painted on the back window. He smiled, despite his annoyance.
As with the smaller towns they had passed through, Chokwe was a mix of decaying colonial elegance and chaotic, noisy African life. Music boomed from ghetto-blasters, and impatient drivers leaned on their horns. The milling of people on foot, on bicycles on the road and its verges, had forced Tom to slow down, so he was surprised when a rotund policeman in blue trousers and a white shirt waddled out into the middle of the thoroughfare and flagged him down.
‘How fast were you going?’ Sannie asked.
Tom checked the speedometer. ‘No more than fifty-five.’
‘Speeding. Licence,’ said the policeman, who was leaning on Tom’s windowsill, catching his breath.
‘Rubbish,’ Tom said.
‘Calm and patient, remember?’ Sannie said under her breath. She smiled at the policeman and greeted him in Tsonga Shangaan, immediately disarming him.
‘What does he say?’ Tom interrupted their burgeoning conversation.
‘He says you were doing sixty-two.’
‘Tell him to go fuck himself.’
Sannie kept a straight face and whispered, ‘Careful, he might know that much English.’ Tom smiled again and nodded like an imbecile at the policeman. Sannie talked at length with the man, never raising her voice and, eventually, pulled her South African Police Service credentials from her handbag. Tom saw the look on the man’s
