Protestations followed. He couldn’t leave. The emergency services would want to talk to him. The man’s family would want to thank him. At least leave a contact number? Fawaz shouted a made-up number and said he was sorry but the last thing he wanted was to cause a fuss. He didn’t need thanks.
‘You saved his life – I saw the whole thing.’ The man was American.
Fawaz turned and jumped into the truck, which sped off, hopefully creating enough dust to mask the number plate.
Chapter 19
Hakim heard squabbling, and he listened intently to what the men were saying. He was to be moved. The door opened suddenly, and it wasn’t the old man who came in, but a much younger one and he carried an automatic weapon. Hakim tensed. He’d tried to prepare himself for this moment. His father had taught him how to use a gun from the age of thirteen, and he was familiar with most models. He eyed the deadly firearm and prayed the man knew how to handle it properly.
The man standing before him, insisting he hurry to put on his shoes and sweater, held a crude AK-47 – not a sophisticated model at all. It was a far cry from the weapons Hakim used. The man pointed it towards him, and Hakim cringed. He knew how sensitive they could be in the wrong hands, and he hoped the guy had some form of training, else he was dead. It wasn’t like in the movies where one bullet to the chest signalled the end. It was an agonising death, unless it was a head shot. The damage done to flesh by one single round could rip apart vital organs but keep the host intact, living long enough to contemplate what had brought them to this end. Then there was the blood.
Hakim nervously did as he was told, all the while watching the man’s trigger finger. He spoke now in French.
‘Hurry up. We’re leaving now.’ He was emphatic and nervous.
Hakim didn’t say a word; he wanted to cause as little fuss as possible when faced with a bullet. When he was ready, he walked in front of the man calmly, holding up his hands. Another waited in the next room. The old man was gone. He felt a twinge of sadness because the old man had been some kind of lifeline. Hakim had worked tirelessly on him, using all the techniques taught him, and he felt as though he was getting somewhere. The old man had smiled once or twice when Hakim said thank you for his water and lunch. He’d placed towels gently and lingered a little while, checking that Hakim was comfortable.
He took in the adjoining room, noticing as many details as he could and consigning them to memory. He did as he was told and walked quickly out of the scruffy apartment into the sunlight, down two flights of stairs, into a waiting battered Peugeot P4. The tarpaulin was up over the back and Hakim was told to climb under it, reserving the only two seats for his captors. He followed the instructions immediately and without question, loath to attract any unwanted attention from the piece of metal pointed at him. The weapon was held low, giving Hakim the perfect opportunity, should he wish to take it, to jump out of the vehicle and run. This time he wasn’t hooded. They were in a heavily populated area where a man wearing a hood, being escorted by two North African-looking men, sweaty with nerves, clumsily hiding weapons, would raise suspicion. Hakim took this as a positive: they were panicked.
He’d been kept alive for a purpose. To run now – even though hitting a moving target with an AK-47 was virtually impossible – he could jeopardise everything and end up dead. It was too risky. There would be other chances.
The men climbed in and the vehicle wobbled with the momentum. The engine started and Hakim had enough energy and humour left in him to smirk; the antiquated French army utility vehicle sounded like an underpowered Land Rover; a beast without guts. He hid his face and imagined himself telling his father of this moment and the image gave him strength.
They set off, jerking and stuttering through the streets. He kept his head down and again memorised every turn, every noise and smell from the outside world. From the few seconds he’d been free in the open air, he’d looked around briefly, trying to find a clue: a landmark or poster, or street sign that would help him work out where he was.
Then, in a microsecond, before he’d jumped into the vehicle and lay down, he’d spotted it: a street sign, covered in graffiti. It was white with an arrow pointing in the direction of something important, something that a tourist might look for. A landmark. It was a sign showing the way to the Notre-Dame de Fourvière, and he knew for sure that he was in Lyon.
The men were still jumpy and Hakim believed that only one thing would make them so hurried: their hideout was compromised. He’d read of captives being moved from location to location for lots of different reasons, such as to confuse the victims, but the body language and urgency of these men told Hakim that they were scared and in a hurry. That was a good sign. Whoever his father was paying to search for him had come close. The vehicle lurched and turned sharply around corners, and he lost orientation in the back seat, lying down, unable to calculate left and right.
After ten minutes of erratic driving, the vehicle stopped and Hakim heard a heated exchange between his two captors about how best to get him upstairs. He daren’t move. One of them turned to the back and spat a threat to him.
‘Run and you die,’ one said to him. Hakim nodded nervously. At close range, there was no way
