‘No violence,’ Abu Famir whispered. ‘I will not…’
‘
He returned to the front of the cave. Finn was in the shadows, one knee on the ground and his weapon in the firing position. The goatherd was driving his beasts directly into Finn’s line of fire. He was only twenty metres away now, and from this distance Luke could make out that he was singing in accented English, and gradually the words became clearer. ‘
Luke loosened a knife in his ops waistcoat. ‘If he sees us,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ll jump him before he can shout out. If he runs, slot him.’
Finn kept his sights on the goatherd, while Luke took up position in the shadows on the other side of the cave’s mouth, one knee on the ground and weapon engaged.
The singing had stopped and now there was silence. After about a minute, however, another sound reached Luke’s ears: a gentle clanking of the bells round the goats’ necks. An occasional bleat. Then the musty, shitty stench of the animals as they wandered within ten metres of their position.
Luke felt his blood pumping in his veins. It was only a goatherd — no trouble for two fully equipped Regiment soldiers, but that wasn’t the point. If they killed him, he might be missed — they were no more than five miles from the village, and that would mean more people searching the area; but if he saw them, they couldn’t risk letting him go and warning other people of their presence.
The first goat — a scrawny thing with great, bulging eyes — came into view. It stopped just outside the cave and pawed at the dust while several other animals surrounded it.
The goatherd joined them.
Luke could see his face. He was in his early teens, the dark skin of his cheeks coated with bumfluff. He shouted something at the goats in a reedy voice, and made a clicking sound with his throat, but it seemed to have no effect. The goatherd shrugged, then removed a leather satchel from his shoulder and sat cross-legged on the ground. He rummaged in his satchel and pulled something out. Luke examined it through the sight of his assault rifle. It was an old cassette Walkman. The kid fitted the earphones to his head, pressed a button and continue to rummage in the satchel. This time he pulled out a rolled-up flatbread and started to eat.
The Regiment men stayed perfectly still. Luke kept the youth’s head firmly in his sights. Now and then a goat strayed into his line of fire, but that was OK, because he knew Finn had the kid covered too.
A groan from inside the cave. It was Amit, and the sound made Luke’s skin prickle. One of the goats looked up, but the goatherd was lost in the music. Five minutes passed while he finished his meal, unaware of the danger he was in. He licked the fingers of his right hand, removed the Walkman and stood up again. He clicked ineffectually at his goats once more. Then he turned round to peer inside the cave.
Luke prepared to fire.
The goatherd sniffed.
He turned his back on the cave and looked out towards the desert. It was as if he was checking for something. Maybe Luke should nail him now, before he saw them and cried out…
The goatherd looked left and right. Apparently satisfied that he was alone, he crouched down on the ground and raised the hem of his dishdash.
That’s right, buddy, Luke thought to himself. Have yourself a good shit and then fuck off out of here.
Luke was thankful for the stench of the animals, as it masked the waft of the kid’s turd. Neither man moved as the goatherd wiped his arse with his left hand, then stood up and allowed the dishdash to fall back down to his ankles. He shouted at the goats again, urging them away from the cave’s entrance, and started wandering off. The goats followed, but after only thirty seconds the goatherd turned and looked back towards the cave.
Had he seen them? Or was he just checking on the two goats that were straggling?
Two minutes later the kid was out of sight, the noise and stench of his beasts had disappeared and everything was silent.
Luke lowered his weapon and moved over to Finn. ‘Remind me not to shake Abdul by the hand if we bump into him again.’
Finn ignored the comment. ‘There could be more where he came from,’ he said.
Luke nodded, then looked back into the cave. Should he tell Finn his suspicions about Amit? He decided not. His mate was bordering on insubordination as it was, and feeling mutinous. Give him a whisper of an excuse and he’d plug Amit on the spot. Luke didn’t want that to happen until he knew exactly what he was dealing with.
He checked the time. 12.28. Five hours till sunset. When darkness came, they’d need to get on to the road and hope their luck held. And in the absence of luck, they’d have to use force.
He couldn’t really decide if he was looking forward to nightfall, or dreading it.
21.32 hrs.
They were ready to go. The cave was pitch-dark, and Luke and Finn operated by means of NV. Each set had an infrared torch which lit up the cave for them but was invisible to Amit and Abu Famir, both in the back of the Toyota. The Iraqi’s frightened eyes stared blindly in the darkness and glinted in the haze of the night vision, whereas Amit’s were covered by the burka headdress that he was wearing again. A fresh saline drip was hanging from the plastic handle above the passenger door, covered with a spare hanging dishdash by way of disguise.
Amit was shaking feverishly, his wound almost as bad as any Luke had ever seen. The flesh looked like liquidised liver, and the blood had started to congeal around it, crispy in places, thick and wobbly in others. As well as shaking, Amit was talking to himself. Through the burka it was difficult to make out what he was saying, and most of it was in a language Luke didn’t understand anyway. But he caught the name ‘Maya’ more than once, and occasionally a confused reference to Abu Famir; otherwise Amit’s words just sounded like slurred ramblings.
Luke recced outside. Since the goatherd had gone on his way, three choppers had flown over their position. Now the night sky was mercifully cloudy: no starlight, no moon. The temperature was already dropping and there was a slight wind, which once more brought with it the distant howling of the wild desert animals. If there were any patrol vehicles in the vicinity, Luke couldn’t see them. He returned to the cave, where Finn was standing five metres from the car.
‘Ready?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yeah.’
Luke paused. ‘Look, mate,’ he said. ‘I know you don’t agree with my decisions, but the one thing that’s going to screw this up is if we’re not singing from the same hymn sheet.’
Silence. And then Finn asked: ‘What’s the plan?’
‘We’ve got eighty miles of main road to cover before we can turn off. I reckon we’re looking at two hours. We only passed one static checkpoint on the way through, and that was about an hour in, so we should reach it about 11.00. Fifty-fifty they’ll just wave us through, but if not we’ll have to use force then floor it to the border. Maybe swap vehicles if we can hijack another one. You still have the crossing we used marked as a waypoint on the GPS?’
‘Of course.’ Finn paused. ‘We need a Plan B. If we have to get off the road and take Abu Famir across country by foot, we can’t leave his bum chum to tell anyone what we’re up to or where we’re headed. We’ll have to do him.’
‘All right then. Agreed. Keep your weapon at the ready. Let’s move.’
They climbed into the Toyota, where their carbines were stashed by the front seats, and Luke started the engine. It echoed around the cave as he carefully manoeuvred out into the desert night and back along the dirt track to the road.
They drove slowly by the light of their NV. They saw no one. After about twenty minutes on undulating ground, the main highway came into view again, vehicles passing at the rate of about one every thirty seconds. Luke pulled into the side of the road. They removed their NV and Luke double-checked his Sig, which now had a black silencer fitted to the barrel. As he manipulated the gun, he spoke to Abu Famir. ‘If anyone stops us, I’ll do the talking. Right?’
In his rear-view mirror he saw the Iraqi’s spectacles glint in the darkness. ‘No violence,’ he said.
‘No fucking talking,’ Luke retorted.
They pulled out into the main road. Like the previous night, it wasn’t very busy. About one vehicle in twenty was military, but there were sufficient civilian cars for the Toyota to be quite unremarkable.
