The Source sat tight, looking as confused as I felt.
Glen was starting to get agitated. He stuck his head back into the room.
'How much longer?'
She said, 'What's with you people? Wait.'
Sarah seemed gripped by the information she had before her. I walked toward her, trying to be the good guy.
'Sarah, we've got to go. If not, we're in a world of shit.' I grabbed her arm, but she pulled away and glared at me. I said, 'I don't understand the problem. We have the Source, so let's grab him and go.'
We were inches apart, so close I could feel her breath on my face as she spoke.
'There is more to do, Nick,' she said, slowly and quietly.
'You don't know the full brief.'
I felt ridiculous. Very near the bottom of the food chain as usual, I'd obviously been shown only one piece of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle.
They'd justify it in terms of 'need to know' or 'op sec,' but the real reason was that people like me and Glen simply weren't trusted.
Just as I took a step back the silence was broken by shouting, then the distinctive signature ofAKs on auto, their heavy calibre 7.62 short rounds flying around outside the building.
'Shit.. . don't move!' Glen shouted into the room. We had gone noisy:
not good. He left us and ran down the corridor. I closed the door.
I could hear the lighter sound of Car 15s returning fire, and lots of shouting, from our guys as well as the Syrians. It didn't matter that the Syrians could hear us shouting in English--there was now so much gunfire and confusion that it was irrelevant--much more important was to get the communications right.
I tried to sound calm.
'Sarah, time to go.'
She turned her back on me and carried on working. Our new friend on the sofa was getting more worried by the minute. I knew just how he felt. There was another exchange of fire outside.
'Fuck this, Sarah, we've got to go. Now!'
She spun around, her face tight with anger.
'Not yet.' She almost spat the words. She jabbed her finger toward the direction of the contact as more rounds were fired.
'That's what they're paid for. Let them get on with it. Your job is to stay with me, so do it.'
Glen was at the end of the corridor, screaming to me at the top of his voice.
'Get them out! Get them out now!'
I moved across the room toward the Source. He was curled into a ball, like a terrified child. I grabbed his arm and started to drag him off the sofa. I hadn't even put on the plasticuffs.
'Let's go, Sarah, we're .. .
going ... now!'
She turned, and as she did I realized that she was drawing down on me, her pistol aimed at my center mass. She stepped back so there was too much distance for me to react to it.
My new friend didn't want anything to do with this. He just stood next to me, his arm still half elevated by my hand, gently and calmly praying in a low Arabic moan as he waited to die.
Sarah had had enough.
'Sit him down.' She said something in Arabic that must have been to the effect of 'Shut the fuck up!' because he jumped back on the sofa. She levelled her eyes on me again.
'I'm staying here, what we are doing here is important. Do you understand?'
It doesn't matter who it is, if somebody's pointing a gun at you, you get to understand very quickly. Whatever her agenda was, it must be important.
She turned calmly, bolstered her weapon and went back to work on the keys.
I had one last try.
'Can't we just take him, plus the computers, and fuck off?'
She didn't even bother looking at me.
'No. It has to be done this way.'
I couldn't do both take her and the Source. I was still working out what to do when I heard Arabic voices inside the building. The best way to do my job and protect her was to go forward, to get out of the room and stop the threat before it came screaming in to get us.
'I'm going outside,' I said in an urgent whisper.
'Don't move until somebody comes to get you. Do you understand me?' I checked my mag was on tight as she looked up from the computer and sort of acknowledged.
I put the Car 15 into my shoulder, and holding the pistol grip to keep the weapon up, opened the door with my left hand.
The lights were still on in the corridor and the sounds of contacts were louder to my right, but my immediate concern was the noises to my left in the corridor. I decided to move down to the next junction and hold it there;
that way there would be a weapon at each end with Sarah in the middle.
I closed the door behind me and started to run. After seven or eight strides I was moving past an external door when it burst inward. The thud as it hit me full-on was as hard and sudden as if I'd walked into the path of a moving car. I was hurled against the opposite wall, stunned and winded. Worse, my weapon had been forced out of my hands. I had lost control of it.
There was yelling on both sides; me from the pain, once I got my breath back, and the Syrian from the surprise. He jumped on top of me on the floor and we grappled like a couple of schoolkids. I tried to get to the pistol on my right thigh, but he had me in a solid bear hug around my armpits. I was pinioned with my arms out like the Michelin Man.
I tried to kick and buck out of position, then to head-butt him. He was doing exactly the same. Both of us were screaming.
The bloke stank. He had a week's bristle on him and it was rough against my face and neck as he squeezed and squeezed, his eyes closed, snorting through his nose as he cried for help. He was a big old boy, packing over two hundred pounds of solid weight.
I needed help, too, and screamed for Sarah. There was no way she couldn't have heard me, but she didn't respond. I wasn't entirely sure what this boy was trying to do, whether he wanted to kill me, or if he was just fighting to protect himself.
I yelled again.
'Sarah! Sarah!'
He responded by lifting his head slightly to scream out even louder. It gave me a momentary window. I head-butted him, trying to make contact wherever I could. He did the same. Then something happened that moved the situation on. You don't normally feel pain during a fight, but I felt a stinging in my left ear. His teeth were sinking in. I could actually hear the skin break and then the sound of him straining to bite harder. The fucker had a gristly bit of my ear lobe in his mouth and was starting to pull his head back.
I felt the capillary bleeding at once, warm and wet, splashing the side of my cheek as his heavy breathing spat it out. He was in a frenzy, growling at me through clenched teeth, snot and saliva. I was still trying to get my hands down toward my leg so I could reach my pistol, which wasn't helping keep my ear intact.
I managed to get my legs around his gut. I tried to squeeze, but could only just about get my feet together. I felt the snorting from his nose move away from my face slightly, which wasn't good news for my ear. Then his head jerked back, taking part of the lobe with him. The pain felt like a blowtorch on the side of my head, but now that he'd moved back a bit I could start to get my hands around his head. I could see the blood on his face and snot running down from his nose as he fought to breathe through his still-gritted teeth. My fingers reached his eyes and he squeezed me up even more, shaking his head and screaming as I began to get a good hold on his face and dig deeper with my thumbs. He tried to bite my fingers.
I moved my right hand so I had a flat palm underneath his chin, then switched my left to just below the crown of his head and grabbed a fistful of his hair.
