In the second wave, there were three more vehicles that had parked near the packages. Despite the late afternoon heat, the valley was a bustling scene of well-organized activity. Taking the binoculars from Ben, Amie surveyed the scene below and her heart sank. These fanatics looked a lot more disciplined and organized than the previous group. They were as different as chalk and cheese. There was no way they were going to rescue anyone from this crowd. She sighed as she handed the glasses back.
The only similarity was the way they laid out the tents in a rectangle, but it wasn’t until they were all set up that they opened the back doors of the last vehicle and removed a stretcher. It was difficult to tell but it looked as if the body on the stretcher was white, but Ben couldn’t be sure it was Jonathon under the blanket. He watched to see which tent they entered and made a note of its position. There was no second stretcher and no sign of another prisoner either. So where was Charles? Or was Jonathon missing?
For as long as the light held, they watched the activity, noting down as much as they could. They took it in turns to monitor the scene below, until the sun finally set behind the western hills. Soon, all they could see were the flickering flames of the camp fires within the compound.
“So, when do we go?” Shalima was keen to get moving.
“We must wait until they are asleep,” Ben said. “It is impossible to see how many guards they have, at least two I think and they keep walking around. We need to be careful.”
Amie wished she was just about anywhere but where she was right then. How had she got herself into this mess? What was she doing? She was no fanatical believer, not driven by a cause, sure in her beliefs, riding on a crest of certainty that what she was doing was right. She certainly didn’t agree with any one religion taking over the world and imposing their beliefs on anyone else. She thought it so wrong to kill people because they worshipped differently. And it was barbaric to destroy priceless historical sites because they were a symbol of another people’s past. All she wanted was to rescue her husband and take him to safety. Although, come to think of it, where would she go? Where would they all go supposing they got out of this alive? They’d never even discussed an escape route, so were any of them expecting to survive? She only knew one thing for certain; she didn’t want to die.
While they waited for the early hours of the morning, they took it in turns to doze to conserve their strength. At least it didn’t look as if any of the camp occupants were scouting beyond the boundaries. They must feel quite safe.
All too soon it was time to move. The girls had talked about wearing the burqas. On one hand, they were excellent camouflage but on the other, they were hot, clumsy to move in and would slow them down.
They finally decided to wear them as they could always discard them if necessary. Amie pulled her burqa off the car bonnet and put it on. She tucked the bulky material into the waistband of her trousers, so she wouldn’t trip over it as she slithered down the hillside. She slipped the gun Ben had given her into her pocket.
Once in the valley they’d have to move quickly and quietly, and hope they wouldn’t be seen. The only possible cover was behind the boxes, several of which were still scattered over the ground, and although they weren’t very high, it was better than nothing.
Amie shuffled in a crouch across the valley floor, as if making herself a little shorter was going to help. The moon gave them just enough light to silhouette the hills and their general direction, but it was difficult to make out the shapes of her friends as they moved closer and closer to the tents.
They’d agreed to approach the tent where they’d taken the stretcher, cut it open at the back as before, remove Jonathon and Charles, and retreat as silently as possible. They would hide up again in their camp and, if necessary, repel all comers. They hoped that Jonathon might not be missed until long after they made their escape.
To begin with, everything went smoothly. The sentries on duty could only be seen by the faint glow from their cigarettes on the far side of the camp. They weren’t patrolling each side, but huddled in one spot. So far, so good.
Ben drew the knife while they hunkered down at the back of the tent and in no time, he’d cut a wide slit and wriggled inside. The girls waited, ready to help if Jonathon couldn’t walk.
For several moments nothing happened. Amie couldn’t stand it any longer and she put her head through the gap. It was pitch dark inside and she couldn’t see a thing. She wriggled in a little further. Suddenly a bright light hit her eyes and someone whooped in triumph. She couldn’t understand a word he said, but as hard as she tried to break free, there were now several hands clutching her. There was no way she could escape. The AK47 was wrenched out of her hands and her wrists were fixed behind her back with plastic cable ties.
“Let go of me,” she cried. “Let go!”
Someone lit a gas lamp and Amie was able to see for the first time. The tent was crowded with men wearing battle fatigues. A rough hand uncovered her face and one of the men compared it to a photograph he held in his hand.
“It’s her all right,” said a voice behind Amie and she twisted round to see Shalima smiling. “Told you I’d get her and now you should have the pair o’ them. How’s that?”
Amie was stunned. What was happening? What was the girl saying? Why was Shalima …? The girl was triumphant. She watched in horror as Shalima flung her arms in the air, gun in one hand a grenade of some sort in the other.
Then it dawned on Amie. It was a trap. They were expected. They’d been waiting for them. No wonder it’d been so easy. She felt sick. She felt the earth sway around her and the world went black.
When Amie came to, she was in one of the tents. A gas lamp illuminated the walls and the mattresses on the ground. Shalima was sitting opposite her drinking a mug of tea. She tried to move her arms, but discovered they were tied behind her back. Her feet were also securely bound with cable ties. She looked at the teenager, who was grinning from ear to ear.
“You knew?” she gasped.
“Course I knew,” Shalima said smugly. “And you fell for it,” she giggled.
“But I thought …” if she was honest Amie didn’t know what to think, her brain couldn’t put all the pieces together. What? Where had it all gone wrong?
“You thought what? That I would abandon the cause? Not a chance. Never!”
“But you said …”
“Said what? Did I ever once say I had?”
Amie couldn’t remember. She’d assumed by running away from the camp Shalima had changed her allegiance. What a fool she’d been. She tried to replay everything that had happened since they fled across the river, but the events were all jumbled and confused.
“I don’t understand Shalima! If you wanted to capture me why did you go back to the camp and help Ben and Phumelo escape, and drive the Land Rover and meet up and … none of it makes any sense!”
“Yeah, well, you don’t know the ‘alf of it.” Shalima was so smug that Amie wanted to hit her. As she leaned back, she felt the pistol which was still in her trouser pocket, but she had no way of getting it out. With both her hands tied behind her, she wouldn’t be able to use it even if it fell out.
“Yer really wanna’ know what it’s all about?” the teenager was simply dying to enlighten Amie and boast about how clever she’d been.
Amie was tempted to tell her she really didn’t care, simply to take the girl’s moment of glory away, but there were too many unanswered questions and yes, she really did want to know the truth. She couldn’t believe she’d been so taken in by Shalima.
“Well, it’s like this,” the girl began. “It was all going fine until you had to come in and stick yer nose into what didn’t concern you.”
“But when I set all the women free you came with us!” Amie exclaimed.
“Yeah, wanted to find out who was helping you so I could call the guys back to do you in. When I saw it were you, I went back o’ course.”
“Back to the camp?”
; “Yeah, course I did. Told them you was coming back and they was gonna grab you.”
“But, but no one did. You even helped us to escape!” Amie couldn’t make sense of what Shalima was telling her. “They could so easily have captured me.”
“Ah, but a change in plan. Fahid had left and I weren’t gonna stay there without him.”
“Fahid! Who is Fahid?”
“My boyfriend, stupid. Who else? They’d sent him away on the convoy wiv yer husband. I had to get back wiv him. They told me to go find you and bring you back, like now they knew you was a famous celebrity an all. And that will go down well for the cause when they make a big thing about yer execution.” Shalima sniggered.
It was still making no sense to Amie. “But we went miles away from the camp. You helped every step of the way. Did you decide to give it all up and …?”
“Not an effing chance!” Shalima broke in. “Decided to see what info I could get while I was away. And I did too. That Edward, I could’ve fingered him for future capture. He was obviously important to the government, a good catch.”
“All the time we were in Atari with the Mathesons you were planning to …?”
“Course I was. I was waiting for the right time to spring the trap. I have friends everywhere.”
“And your friends in Atari provided you with all those supplies and the fuel?” Amie felt sick. Were there fundamentalists lying low in Ruanga as well?
“Yeah, well some of them,” Shalima grinned. She was so pleased with herself. “And then the biggest stroke of luck, an aeroplane ride, in the right direction. What could be nicer?”
“But they shot at us!” Amie exclaimed, “We could all have been killed.”
Shalima smirked. “Fortunes of war ain’t it?”
“And if we’d not crashed then what? You’d have asked Edward and the pilot nicely to drop us off somewhere convenient?” Amie couldn’t contain her sarcasm. She was so furious she was finding it almost impossible to sit still. She was prepared to fling herself bodily at the English girl if only to wipe that smile off her face, even though she knew it would be futile.
“Ah, but I was ready for a little cooperation,” came the reply as the girl waved her gun around.
Amie realised Edward and the pilot were both doomed the moment they climbed into that plane. If they hadn’t crashed, Shalima would have dispatched them anyway.
“I don’t believe you!” Amie spat. “How would you know the convoy would be at this exact spot without reading all those emails? That wasn’t another piece of amazing luck.”
The response she got was a pitying laugh. “Don’t be so stupid. I knew about this drop weeks ago, and I knew the convoy would come and that Fahid was wiv them. I made up all that nonsense about de-coding the emails. I pretended. ‘Course they were protected and all that, not a code I could really break. And I read them out to you word for word and you believed me. Big joke that was. I had to get yer here to meet up wiv yer hubby and we’d have both of you and I’d be back with Fahid. Everything worked perfectly, see. And…” she added, “… as a bonus, I brought them Ben as well. You have no idea how important he is, do you? So now, we’re all one big happy family.”
Something Shalima had mentioned earlier permeated through Amie’s brain. Execution? Her execution? And probably Jonathon’s as well. She knew they filmed these events and posted them on YouTube as a warning to their enemies and to show off at the same time. It didn’t sound as if they were going to be held as kidnap hostages, just blown away. There was worse to come.
“Of course,” Shalima continued, with a crafty look on her face, “they might decide to stone you to death.”
Amie gasped. She didn’t know a lot about Sharia Law, but surely that was reserved for adultery? “But, but why?” she cried. “Why are you doing this to us, what have we ever done to harm you?”
“What a stupid question,” Shalima was working herself up into a frenzy. “You don’t get it do you? This is for the cause, this is a holy war and we’re fightin’ for glory, for what we believe. I only got to tell them you and Ben were at it, and they’ll brand you a whore, with yer hair uncovered, showin’ yer legs to any man, flauntin’ it. Yer kind make me sick.”
Amie decided it was best to say nothing. She was aghast. Her brain refused to take it all in. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing and she wondered if she was dreaming, hallucinating, it was all just a terrible nightmare. She bit her bottom lip and squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn’t going to cry in front of Shalima. If she’d disliked her before, she hated her now. She pressed her back against the wall of the tent to stop herself shaking. She could feel waves of pure fear moving up through her body and even her teeth chattered. She prayed she wouldn’t lose control of her bodily functions. That would be too humiliating.
Shalima got up to walk out, tired of taunting her. “Oh by the way,” she said over her shoulder as a parting shot. “Yer precious husband is here, but Charles didn’t make it. Good food for the animals, right?” Her laughter was shrill as she lifted the tent flap and disappeared outside.
The hours dragged on. Outside, Amie could hear sounds of life as people carried on the day-to-day activities of cooking, practising with guns and general chatter that continued uninterrupted. She wondered where they’d put Ben, and if he was with Jonathon, and how ill Jonathon was; she guessed he was the body on the stretcher. There seemed to be no way out at all.
She tried to bring her hands round her front by wriggling them over her bottom and threading her legs through, but it was impossible. Her boots were too large and strain as much as she could, she only succeeded in wrenching her wrists and shoulders. She sighed and gave up the struggle.
She attempted to doze, but the images floating in front of her eyes were horrendous. Death by firing squad was scary enough, but being stoned to death would be so much worse. She imagined the rocks landing on her head and body. How many times were you hit before you died? Would it be dozens or even hundreds? She trembled with fear and hoped they might be merciful. She never thought she would pray to be taken in front of a firing squad.
Several hours later a young girl brought her some food. Amie suspected she was originally from the Middle East but she didn’t speak English. She crept into the tent and held out a bowl containing some kind of stew. When Amie didn’t take it from her, she put it on the floor along with a metal mug of water.
Amie tried to show her that her hands were tied behind her back and she’d be unable to feed herself. The girl nodded, but Amie didn’t think she understood. To her dismay, the girl slipped out of the tent leaving the food way out of reach. Was it better to starve to death or be stoned she considered in a moment of black humour?
A few minutes later, the girl reappeared and sat on the floor in front of Amie. She had a spoon in her hand and she ladled the stew into Amie’s mouth. Even though she hadn’t eaten for some time, the food was tasteless and Amie heaved several times trying to keep it down. She had no idea what sort of meat it was, obviously not pork, but its ancestry had been obliterated during the hours it had been boiled. It would have been more suitable for shoe leather. If Amie hadn’t been so determined to keep her strength and spirits up, she would’ve spat it out after the first mouthful.
She refused the next offered spoonful and tried to talk to the young girl, but she shook her head. It was impossible to make out which country she was from as, besides wearing a full burqa, she kept her eyes down and didn’t look at the captive at all. It was obvious she wasn’t going to be any help and certainly not a source of information.
Amie was desperate to know how Jonathon was. What had killed Charles? Was it disease, an accident or did the men execute him and film it to send a warning to the world? She had so many unanswered questions. What was going to happen to her?
As soon as the bowl was almost empty, the young girl got to her feet and leaning over Amie, she offered her the mug of water. Even though she had no idea what toilet facilities were available and how, or even
if, she’d be allowed to use them, Amie drank all of it, only pausing to take breath. As soon as it was empty the girl tip-toed out of the tent leaving Amie on her own.
She thought she’d probably dozed off for when she opened her eyes again, Shalima was standing in front of her.
21 UNDER GUARD
“Big boss wants to see you,” she said abruptly, hauling Amie to her feet. Once upright she swayed fighting to keep her balance.
“I’m sure there’s nothing I can tell him he hasn’t already heard from you,” Amie said faintly. “What am I supposed to know?”
“See what he asks you,” the young English fanatic replied while she cut the cable ties from around Amie’s ankles. She held her firmly by one arm, covered Amie in her burqa and led her briskly out of the tent.
Amie squinted in the bright sunlight after being kept in semi-darkness for hours. She registered the lines of tents forming a rectangle and a few men dressed in fatigues strolling to and fro or lounging around cradling their guns. It was impossible to guess where Jonathon was, and even if she knew, she didn’t have the courage to call out. Instinct told her the more submissive she appeared, the easier it might be, women with strong personalities and ideas of their own were not appreciated. She imagined how the freedom that women had fought for over the centuries, would be lost if these religious zealots succeeded in their aims. Didn’t Shalima realize that? They’d never discussed it. She halted bringing the teenager to a stop as well.
“Shalima, have you thought about your future? If you take over countries and ban other religions and destroy ancient monuments, do you really think you’ll have any personal freedom? You’ll be forced inside the house never allowed out ...” She got no further.
“You still don’t understand you pillock. I’ll already be in heaven. I’ll be rewarded for bringing everyone to the proper way to live. I’m prepared to blow meself up if that’s what it takes.” She thrust her face right up against Amie’s. “Now d’you understand? It’s for the glory and the reward in the afterlife. Not for some brief passing glory and material possessions in this one.”
Amie in Africa Box Set 1 Page 63
