A Dying Breed, page 36
‘Good.’
‘But if you do anything unexpected, then I will kill Patrick Reid. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Stand by.’
The phone went dead and Roydon allowed himself a smile. ‘Fucking amateur hour,’ he breathed.
Roydon was about to phone through to the second car when he saw a figure stagger from the rear of the SUV. The figure stopped abruptly, as though ordered to do so, two paces from the back of the vehicle, at exactly the place you’d want him if it became necessary for someone in the SUV to kill him quickly. Roydon reached for the binoculars. The man was hooded. He had on a travel jacket, white shirt and a pair of filthy trousers. He wore no shoes, just black socks. He was shaking. The figure was holding a black laptop out in front of him, like a shield. Roydon focused on the computer and enhanced the magnification. The boy’s tremble made it hard to focus. ‘Stand still, you pussy.’ There was a barcoded sticker on the front and the words PROPERTY OF THE BBC. Roydon picked up the phone and rang the second car.
Cahill jumped when the phone rang and nearly dropped it in his attempt to answer quickly. ‘Yes, boss?’ After receiving his brief instruction, he put the phone away and reached into his bag for something. He brought out what looked to William like a bunched-up tea towel, and inside that, a square of mirror, the size of a picture postcard, attached to a car aerial. Cahill moved quickly. He opened the rear door and jumped down, then gestured to William to follow suit. ‘Boss wants you to see something.’
Carver shuffled along the bench and stepped down on to the road, wincing as the blood rushed to his feet. The two men were enclosed on both sides by the doors of the Humvee and Cahill was obviously keen to keep it that way. He extended the car aerial and held the mirror out beyond the black car door, then took his time to find the right angle. He pulled William towards him by the shoulder and encouraged him to look at the image reflecting in the mirror. ‘Is that your man? Is that Patrick Reid?’
William squinted at the three-inch-high figure. Patrick was wearing the ridiculous khaki travel jacket that William had made fun of, the one with maybe a dozen pockets, and the white shirt and trousers he had on the day he was snatched. He was holding his laptop and shaking with fear. William nodded.
Cahill put the mirror to one side and retrieved the phone. ‘Boss? Carver says it’s him.’
Roydon could hear a call waiting tone underneath Cahill’s voice. He ended the call to his colleague and connected to an angry-sounding General.
‘What is taking so long? You can see Reid, can you not?’
‘I can, it’s okay, General, don’t worry. I’m going to bring your hostage round now, okay? I’m going to bring Carver. You and your boys just sit tight and leave Reid in clear sight. Yes?’
There was a long pause. ‘Move slowly, Captain.’
Roydon stuffed the phone deep into his trouser pocket and opened the car door slowly. He stepped out, hands in the air, and walked backwards down the side of his Humvee to the rear door. He knocked twice and then once again, and the right-hand door opened sharply. Crouching inside was a stocky man with pale skin and wiry red hair wearing desert camouflage. Resting under his right hand was a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Roydon looked at the weapon.
‘Armed and ready?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good boy, remember, they’ll see you soon as you step round the Hummer. Put it right down the middle and don’t fuck up, you’ll only get one shot.’
The redhead nodded. ‘Now?’
Roydon stepped aside. ‘Now.’
The man jumped down nimbly, turned and reached back into the back of the vehicle for the RPG. He lifted it easily on to his right shoulder, staying close to the car. The only other person who could see what was about to happen was the driver in the second Humvee. The South African whistled under his breath. With the weapon settled on his shoulder and his hands carefully positioned, the redhead took a deep, slow breath. On the exhale, he took two paces back and then three to his left. He took aim and fired. It was a perfect execution. The grenade entered the front window of the SUV a fraction of a second after it left the chamber, exploding with an almighty crack. Roydon counted to three and then put his head round the side of the Hummer door to see the car in flames and a plume of black smoke rising from it. Then he heard screaming.
The ginger-haired soldier was quickly back at his boss’s side. ‘You want me to put another one down?’
Roydon shook his head and patted the man on the arm. ‘Nah. That’ll do for now. Nice work.’ He looked back into the rear of his Humvee at three uniformed men, all dark-haired but not Afghan. ‘You lot sit tight for the time being. Moshe, pass me an AK.’ The man nearest him handed over his own rifle.
The screaming had stopped. Roydon watched the scene from the relative safety of the side of his Humvee before deciding to move closer. Several things had still to be done and he had to remain focused. The SUV was burning furiously and he cursed the smoke and the yellow dust and willed it to clear quickly. As it did, he saw Patrick lying face down to the side of the burning vehicle, a widening pool of blood darkening the sand around where his stomach used to be. Looking around, Roydon saw that the black laptop was close by and apparently little damaged. He gave a grunt of satisfaction and turned his attention back to the burning vehicle. He was looking for a weapon, something belonging to the dead General or one of his men. He would kill Carver with this gun, toss it somewhere close to its owner, near the burnt-out SUV, and then call in the cavalry. After a goatfuck like this, it was almost impossible to unpick who had killed who, and the military police wouldn’t want to be out in the open long, anyway. Not way out here in the Talib badlands. They would take his word for what happened when and to whom. Drop the laptop into the fire and the job would be done.
The car was still giving off a considerable heat and it was hard to get close or see anything beyond the thick black smoke. Roydon smelt burning fuel, and even more noxious, a powerful smell of burning plastic or rubber. Burning tyres, he guessed, though looking at what he could see of the car, it seemed at least two of the wheels had been blown clean off. He circled the General’s car. He saw a single limb in a ditch a few feet away and moved closer. It was an arm. He stared at it. He was close to it now. It was pink but not the pink of scorched flesh. The arm had been separated from the shoulder completely cleanly, as though with a butcher’s cleaver. There was something not right about it. It almost looked like— Roydon felt his stomach turn. He span round and ran back towards the SUV, shading his face against the heat. He saw a burning form in the back seat. It was a man, hair ablaze, his forehead melted into a frown and the rest of the face into a clownlike grimace. Roydon realised he was looking at a clothes shop dummy. His mind turned. Now he’d recognised one mannequin, he realised there were several, all aflame and all melting slowly away in the front and back of the burning car. He started walking backwards, away from the vehicle. His heart was pumping quickly, too quickly. He had to gather himself, think straight. He turned to his right and ran over to Reid’s body, grabbing the laptop on his way. He had an idea what he might see when he removed the black hood. Not a mannequin, but not Patrick Reid either. He pulled the hood away and flipped the body on to its back with his foot. It was a young Afghan man, not even a man but rather a boy not yet out of his teenage years. His eyes were open and there was a little breath left in him but not much – there was a hole where his stomach should be and he’d lost a lot of blood.
‘Plar? Ubu plar.’
Roydon lifted his AK and fired a round straight into the boy’s heart. He left him and started jogging back towards his Hummer. The stocky redhead had ignored his order and was standing, rifle in hand, between the burning SUV and his own vehicle. As he drew closer, Roydon shouted loudly at the man. ‘Turn the fuck around. We gotta get out of here!’
The red-haired man nodded and was halfway to turning when a bullet hit him in the right temple, just below the hairline. He died where he stood. Roydon jumped at the sound of the shot and briefly stopped. He watched the soldier fold from the knees and fall, then he spun around quickly, surveying the threat. The bullet had come from an elevated position to his right – the cliff-top. He shielded the right side of his head with the laptop computer and tacked left for the Humvee. He could see the bewildered, staring face of his driver as he moved closer, and then heard a familiar sound – the muffled boom and rush of a grenade launcher.
Looking right, towards the mountains, he saw the missile complete the last fifty yards of flight. It came from up high and hit his Humvee expertly, just above the petrol tank. He saw the vehicle lift and his driver thrown sideways by the blast, his head smashing against the passenger side window with enough force to crack the glass, before slumping out of sight. The Hummer blossomed into flame. Roydon stopped running again and dropped into a low crouch. He watched one of his men jump from the rear of the burning vehicle, AK-47 in hand and head down, but a sniper’s bullet found him almost as soon as his foot hit the ground. This bullet, like everything else, came from high on the right. Then came Moshe. Clever not to be the first, Roydon thought. The dark-haired mercenary was out and round to the left-hand side of the burning car when the bullet pinged into the metal doors. He held his rifle at the ready and made eye contact with Roydon. He gave him a signal suggesting he might provide covering fire so his boss could move from his exposed position. Roydon nodded. Moshe started to work his way round to the front of the Humvee so he could fire up towards the bluff. He was nearly there when a volley of bullets hit him in the back and he was thrown forward against the front of the Hummer. This round had clearly come from the other side, the dried-up marshland, but when he looked, Roydon could see nothing. He could only wonder, with a calm that surprised him, why he was still alive.
His vehicle was ablaze now. The last member of his group must’ve been killed when the grenade launcher hit. His only hope was the second Hummer. He shuffled in its direction, moving on his belly with the AK slung over his shoulder and the laptop left behind. In the second Humvee, Cahill was staring at the scene through the small slide door that separated him and the South African driver. The driver put his hand to the ignition key.
‘It’s a fucking turkey shoot out there, let’s move, yah?’
Cahill put his hand through the window and grabbed the driver by the neck. ‘No fucking way. Boss said wait, so we wait. You turn that key and I’ll shoot you myself.’
The driver mumbled some Afrikaans abuse under his breath but put his hand back on the wheel. ‘Okay baas. I guess you’re the man now, so what’s your plan?’
Cahill took a breath. The anti-psychotics were helping keep the fear at bay but he was still having trouble thinking straight. ‘We drive to him. Pick him up, then get the fuck out of here. Let’s go.’
‘And get an RPG up the arse?’
‘If they’ve got another one, why haven’t they used it already? Maybe they only had the one.’
The driver swore again and started the car. He had only just moved it into gear when Cahill heard the deafening sound of bullets and breaking glass. He jumped backwards, away from the hatch, and fell down heavily on the ammunition boxes. The car was still moving slowly and when Cahill tried to stand there was another jolt as the second Humvee drove straight into the one in front and he was thrown down at William’s feet. William reached out and Cahill took his hand and rose. He stood and put his head gingerly through the hatch. The South African was dead. His clothes were cut to pieces by the sheer number of bullets fired. His head, almost unrecognisable, was slumped over the steering wheel. There was already a shallow pool of blood in the footwell. Cahill sat down next to Carver and ran his hand over his face.
‘Last fucking job.’
‘What now?’ William rasped, his throat tight with fear.
‘Not a lot of choice, mate.’ Cahill looked at the three Afghans opposite. ‘We’ve gotta go get the boss. The main man. You understand? Can you translate that for me, Midge?’ The Afghan on the end of the line, the one with the wedding ring, nodded and spoke briefly to his countrymen.
‘They understand.’
Cahill nodded and looked at William. ‘You sit tight, mate. I reckon they’re out of rockets; I hope they are, anyway. Move over a bit closer to the door, yeah? If they hit the car with something big, jump out and run like fuck. But until then, you’re safer in here.’ He turned his attention to the Afghan soldiers. ‘Okay, so they’re mostly over there—’ he motioned to his right ‘—so keep left. That side, yes? And stay low and whatever you do, keep fucking firing, the more lead, the better.’ Midge translated and then nodded at Cahill, who looked in turn at William. ‘Watch this. Bet your life the moment they’re out the van it’ll be hands in the air and guns to the ground. Any bloody money.’ Cahill smiled and jumped out, followed immediately by the three Afghans who didn’t run or surrender but stayed close to him and started shooting, left and right.
The Australian took the first bullet. It hit him before he’d made it past the side of the vehicle, entering at one side of his neck and exiting the other. He fell back into a sitting position and dropped his gun. Lifting his arm, he tried to cup the blood in his right hand and press it back up against his neck, as though pushing it back in. It was pointless; the flow quickened. When William moved to help Cahill, the man raised his bloodied hand and signalled him to stay where he was. His eyes were wet with tears but he smiled before falling backwards in the dirt.
Outside, the gunfire continued for several minutes before everything fell silent again. Roydon saw two of the three Afghan soldiers die but made no attempt to move from the position of precarious cover that he’d found. There was silence for a time, and then an unexpected sound. It took Roydon a while to realise that it was his phone ringing. He found it buried deep in his pocket.
‘Yes? General?’
‘Did that go as you had hoped?’
Roydon stayed silent.
‘If you want a chance to leave here alive, Captain Roydon, you do this: you drop the gun and you go and get William Carver and you bring him out into the open. That’s assuming you have him. If you do not have him, we will kill you now.’
‘I have him, I still have him,’ Roydon blurted. He stood up slowly and dropped the AK on the ground, walked unsteadily to the rear of the second Humvee and stared into the back. William was sitting pressed into the corner of the vehicle. When he recognised Roydon’s face, he made a reach for one of the rifles that was clipped beneath the seat opposite, but Roydon was too quick. He jumped up and punched Carver hard on the side of the head. Then he grabbed his collar and dragged him head first out of the Humvee. He pulled his captive out into clear ground about twenty feet from the concertinaed cars and stood William upright. He took his mobile phone in one hand and pulled a Sig Sauer handgun from the back of his belt, its grip polished to a shine from years of use.
When the phone rang he answered it immediately and didn’t wait for the General to speak. ‘Okay. Here he is. Now you get your boys to back off or I’ll shoot him in the fucking head.’
‘Captain, be calm …’
It was difficult for Roydon to keep a firm grip on Carver’s sweaty collar with one hand while holding his phone and gun in the other. He wheeled around, scanning the high ground on one side and the marshland on the other, trying to work out where the phone voice was coming from.
‘I want William Carver. What is it that you want?’
‘A car and a driver. A car and driver to take me back to Kabul. Once I’m back there, I’ll let Carver and your driver go. You have my word.’
Roydon heard a grunt of laughter.
‘Your word? Your word hasn’t been worth much so far. Has it?’
Roydon looked around at the many dead bodies and the three burnt-out vehicles. A growing feeling of panic was rising up inside him. ‘You get me back to Kabul and we can do business. The Aftel deal isn’t done yet. I can help. I can get the negotiations reopened, I know—’
The General interrupted. ‘You know nothing. My interest in Fazil Jabar has nothing to do with Aftel or contracts or money. You cannot bribe your way out of this, Captain Roydon. Fazil was my wife’s youngest brother. I promised to look after him and you killed him. This is a personal matter, Captain, not a business matter. I am tired of this. Let Carver go, drop your gun, or I will kill you now.’
Roydon scanned the cliff-top. For the first time he saw a glimpse of something, a glint or a reflection.
‘Wait, wait. Come down from the cliffs, General, and we can talk this over, like men.’
‘You are not a man.’
‘Hold on. Just hold on—’ Roydon was sweating heavily by now and he had to blink the sweat from his eyes. His grip on Carver felt vulnerable, but William was making no effort to break free. ‘It’s pointless, General. Killing me would be pointless, it achieves nothing.’
Roydon heard a sigh.
‘You are probably right.’
The Englishman heard a glimmer of hope in this response. ‘It is true. I am right.’
‘But I will do it anyway.’
William heard a shot. He was blinded momentarily, and when he opened his eyes everything was a rosy pink. A mist of blood from Roydon’s exploded head covered his glasses. Roydon’s dead hand released its grip and William slumped forward, like a puppet that had had its strings cut. He fell to his knees in the yellow dust, waiting for the next shot.
On the cliff-top, General Doushki lifted a hand. One of his men helped him to his feet and took the rifle. His knees and shoulders were stiff from lying flat to the ground for so long and his dark beard was dusted white in places. He looked around for Mirgun, and seeing him, barked an order. His man made an alternative suggestion and the General frowned. ‘You would kill a man to save yourself a few hours’ drive? No, there has been enough dying today. Take him back.’
Doushki looked down at the carnage he’d helped create. Smoke rose from the vehicles. He counted half a dozen dead. Only one man was standing – or rather kneeling, as it appeared William Carver had still made no attempt to move. ‘I will deal with Mr Carver and collect our brother Abdul’s body. I will tell his family he died bravely. A martyr’s death. Now let us go.’
