'Screw you, Dad.'
'And who the fuck are you?' I asked the guard with the book.
'David Blythe,' he said. 'I'm the one…'
'I know who you are. I thought you couldn't get a message to my dad, so what are you doing here guarding him?'
'He's been moved. My dad's taking one last pop at him.'
'Where?'
'It wouldn't do any good. Too many of them. You'd just get yourself killed.'
'I thought that was the whole idea,' I said drily.
'How the heck did you get down here?'
'Scratch two of your dad's goons.'
'Holy… well, at least that should have sealed the deal. If you let me take you in, I reckon Dad'll give you the choice.'
'Why should I trust you?'
'Tariq trusts me.'
'I'm still not entirely sure I trust Tariq.'
'Look, I've spent three days setting this up, at great risk,' he told me. 'Sooner or later someone's going to notice that I've been rewiring things. We get one shot at this. And Dad's been talking about new orders, hinting that we're moving out soon. If we wait too long, he may be too busy to waste time with games; he might just shoot you both in the head. We have to do this now.'
'I do not like this plan.'
'Complain about it if you survive. Now give me the gun. Thank you.'
The crisp chatter of automatic weapons fire drifted across the darkened compound as Tariq and the others fought their way in. All they had to do was create a diversion for a few minutes and allow Dad, David and myself time to escape.
'Ser'nt Keegan, untie him,' yelled David.
Dad was already working at the straps that bound me, but it was slow going with only one useable hand.
'What is going on, son?' Blythe sounded calm and reasonable, even indulgent, as if this was all just some little misunderstanding that could be sorted out with milk, cookies and a moral homily from Papa.
'You're not my father. Not any more.'
'I assure you, I am.'
'My dad's a soldier, not a butcher. The man who raised me doesn't massacre civilians, impale people for fun, strap kids into electric chairs. My father was a man of honour and principle, proud to serve his country. You're just a madman.'
My head and chest were free.
'David, I'm just following orders,' said the general. 'Same as I've ever done.'
'Bullcrap. What orders? Who the heck is there left to give you orders? And even if there were, these orders are illegal.'
The general shook his head. 'That's not my judgement to make.' Was that regret I could detect in his voice?
'You told me once that a soldier's greatest duty is to protect the people from their rulers,' shouted his son. 'Refusing to obey an illegal order is a soldier's highest duty. That's what you told me. Remember that, Dad?'
My right hand came free and I started loosening the strap on my left.
'I surely do,' said the general. 'But the world has changed, son. New laws, new rules.'
'I don't accept that.'
'That would make you a fool, and I didn't raise a fool.'
With both hands free I got to work on my feet.
'Weapons,' I said, and Dad nodded, moving away to salvage guns and knives from the corpses of the guards.
There was a huge explosion somewhere nearby. The room shook and my eyes were dazzled by a flash of pure white light. When my vision returned, the general had gone.
'Shit, where'd he go?' I yelled.
David just stood there, gun still raised, dazed by the enormity of his betrayal.
'He just vanished,' shouted the young man, surprised. But I'd seen how fast his father could move. I was amazed he'd chosen to run rather than fight.
We urgently needed to be anywhere else.
As the last strap came free I leapt out of that awful chair. I held out my hands for a gun, but Dad dropped the weapons to the floor and grabbed me, holding me in a tight, choking embrace and kissing my head.
He muttered over and over: 'thank God, thank God.'
I squirmed free, embarrassed and annoyed by his show of emotion; we didn't have time for this. I held his good hand in both of mine.
'We have to go,' I said.
'So you're giving the orders now, huh?' he said, shaking his head in wonder.
I wanted to say 'can we bond later, yeah? When there's less chance of sudden, bloody death? That okay with you?' But I decided to go with the more laconic 'looks that way.'
I bent down and picked up an M16, cocking it as I stood. I handed a sidearm to Dad.
'You still able…'
'Oh yes.'
'Then let's get the fuck out of here.'
At that moment Tariq came haring through the door, bullets churning the ground behind him, and yelled: 'RUN!'
He ran right through us and kept going, so we turned and followed him, scattering the chunks of plaster that had been knocked free from the ceiling and walls by the earth shattering explosions. At the rear of the entrance hall was a sweeping marble staircase and Tariq made to climb it. David shouted at him not to, and he took the lead, dodging right and taking us to ornate double doors behind the stairs. These led into a kind of sitting room, empty except for one painting of Saddam on to which someone had felt-tipped a noose, and a large cock and balls squirting into the dead dictator's face.
David held one door open as we all ran through it, and then raked the hall behind us with fire to discourage pursuit.
'Where?' shouted Dad.
'This way,' replied David breathlessly, and ran to the corner of the room. In the half light I would never have noticed the door ring, but David had planned this well, and he went straight to the hidden door, pulled it open and ushered us through into a dark passage.
I was last through, and as I passed the threshold I heard a metallic clatter from behind me which, although new to me, I instantly realized was the sound of grenades bouncing across marble. I grabbed the door and pulled it closed just in time. A deafening roar, amplified by the cold stone acoustics of the enormous, empty room, filled my senses and flung me backwards.
The door held.
David reached across me and slid a bolt home, locking it behind us. Then he leant down, helped me to my feet, and dragged me away into the depths of the unlit passageway.
'Lee!' hissed Dad urgently.
'I'm all right,' I replied.
'Ahead thirty metres, then turn left and up the stairs,' said David loudly. I dimly heard Tariq give a grunt of acknowledgement somewhere ahead of us.
We made our way forward in the pitch darkness as quickly as we could.
'Thank you,' I said. 'You saved my life.'
David said nothing. I wondered which he was regretting most – betraying his father, or not shooting him when he had the chance.
