“It’s hard to tell. He’s not responding… maybe passed out.”
“What about the cut to his forehead?”
“The bleeding’s stopped, but he may have a concussion.”
“How about you?”
Ella hesitated then quickly assessed her body. Her head still ached from the blow she sustained when she struck her head in the darkness of the cave. But aside from some bruises and minor cuts, she had nothing else to report. She managed a nod. “Other than fighting off a rapist and almost drowning… I’m okay… I think. And you?”
Detecting a slight quaver in her voice, Corbett tried to keep it light. “Terrorists notwithstanding…? It’s just another balmy night in the Pyrenees…”
Ella suppressed a smile. Given all that had happened, the fact that either of them still had a sense of humor seemed somehow reassuring.
They lapsed into silence. It was several minutes before Ella finally spoke. “I just don’t understand,” she tried again. “Can you please just tell me what’s going on. Really… who are you?”
“Better not to know.”
“You mean you’re not going to tell me.”
Corbett again made no effort to elaborate.
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”
“There’s a beach down the coast near a fishing village called Elantxobe.”
“And…?”
“You asked where we’re headed. Now you know.”
“Michael, really…?” Her voice reflected a sense of anger and exasperation. “After all we’ve just been through, I think I deserve to know what’s going on.”
“Sorry. You’re going to have to trust me. The less you know the better. The best thing you can do right now is just close your eyes and try to get some sleep. I’ll wake you before we get there.”
Reluctantly, Ella decided to let it drop… at least for the moment. Carefully shifting her body so that Tariq’s head now rested on the seat alone, she leaned back and closed her eyes, attempting to drive the images of death from her mind. Her sheer exhaustion coupled with the motion of the car soon allowed her to slip into a troubled sleep.
*****
Although they had begun their pursuit in tandem, as the VW and the Ford pickup raced down the narrow, dark and winding road, it was the gray Jetta driven by the terrorist known as Umar that soon proved the faster of the two. As the distance between the two vehicles began to widen, Umar hunched forward in his seat, gripping the wheel with both hands and pressing the pedal to the floor. In the passenger seat beside him, Buttar clutched his American made AR-15 while anxiously drumming his foot against the floorboard.
Lagging a couple of hundred meters to the rear, the battered Ford pickup struggled to keep up. The driver was a Jihadi named of Furag whose eyes never left the road. Beside him sat Jarral, his clothes still damp from the river as he gripped his Uzi. Intensely burning with an inner fury, he stared at the seemingly endless kilometers of blacktop unspooling before them as the VW’s taillights momentarily disappeared around a bend. Riding in the back of the pickup leaning over the cab stood a pair of men, gripping the roof for support. The man named Mamood held a Soviet-built RPG and two fragmentation warheads while the one beside him, who went by the name of Zameer, nervously clutched a battle-scarred AK-47.
Silently reciting verses from the Qur’an beneath his breath as they raced through the darkness, Jarral tenaciously clung to the one truth that had always sustained him. The words as revealed through the Prophet: “Permission to fight is given to those on whom war is made / Because they are the oppressed / And surely Allah is able to bring them victory.” Somewhere ahead, he was certain Allah’s promise would be fulfilled. Blessed be the name of the Prophet.
As the Jetta’s taillights finally disappeared in the distance for the last time, Jarral cursed the darkness, striking Furag with his fist. “Faster. You are losing them.”
Nodding, Furag stepped harder on the accelerator. But having already forced it fully to the floor, there was little he could do. Consumed with rage, Jarral struck him again, harder this time, landing the blow just above his right ear. The pickup swerved wildly to the left, momentarily leaving the pavement and churning through the soft gravel of the shoulder as Furag fought for control. By the time he regained the surface of the roadway, he clutched the wheel in a death grip, not daring to look at the man beside him. Staring straight ahead, Jarral said nothing as the Ford labored on into the dark.
*****
Driving through the moonless night with both Tariq and Ella fitfully asleep in the back seat, Corbett found himself troubled by the memory of the base camp, of the needless slaughter. The image of Gorka lying dead in the darkness, his hand still gripping his carbine, abruptly cut through Corbett’s conscious need to suppress it. As he had learned following the horrors of 9/11, to take action demanded a compartmentalization of pain. When facing someone trying to kill you, empathy had no place. And so he had walled off his emotions like a surgeon, steeling himself against his own humanity. Yet sometimes in the aftermath, certain memories refused to be denied. In the short time he had known Gorka, he had become fond of the old man. And what of Sebastian or of Hector and the rest? Had any survived the murderous assault at the hands of terrorists? And what of his own culpability? Had he not placed the entire camp in jeopardy by agreeing to get Tariq out? With effort, he managed to push the thoughts from his mind. What was done, was done. Clearly the only thing now was to get word to the police on the chance some might still be alive. As soon as Tariq is safely gone, he promised himself, he would see
