Dead Centre ns-14

by Andy McNab

  I skirted the body in the sand. The harbour wall was soon behind me. I faced the road that ran uphill. The light in the square sat like a glowing bubble in the inky black sky. Shadows danced in the dust. Bodies milled around. The faithful had finished their prayers.

  I picked up my pace, the weapon back under the burqa, firmly by my side.

  My iPhone vibrated in my pocket.

  Fucking Awaale. He could really pick his moment.

  I ducked into a doorway and pulled it from my pocket.

  My eyes stared through the mesh towards the bodies at the top of the road. They were no more than a hundred metres away.

  I muttered into the mouthpiece, ‘Just get on with it, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Nick? It’s me, Jules.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’ve found them. I—’

  ‘No, no. It’s not that, Nick. It’s Anna. She’s been shot.’

  3

  I leant heavily against the planks that made up the door. For a split second I felt nothing. Then a wave of dread surged through me.

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘Not sure yet. She’s on a casualty boat out of Misrata. They’re taking her to Benghazi. To the hospital at Al-Jaraa.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The French. Benghazi is as far as it’s safe for her to be moved.’

  ‘I can’t do anything, mate. Can—’

  ‘Nick — stop. I’ll take care of it. She just wanted you to know.’

  ‘She called you?’

  ‘She didn’t want to worry you while you’re on the ground. Where are you now?’

  ‘Merca.’

  I cut off. I couldn’t do anything about her at the moment. All I could do was try to speed things up this end. Get it done, and get north.

  I headed towards the square. The arc lamps were blinding. Centre stage, above the holes, more spotlights strung along the fence made sure the punters wouldn’t miss any part of the drama.

  The gates were open. I couldn’t see anyone in the compound. All I could see were four old wooden wheelbarrows beside the holes. They were full of rocks the size of cricket balls, all ready to go. It didn’t matter where my three were. They’d be coming out here any minute to face their punishment.

  Crowds of people kept spilling out of the mosques. There were a lot of women dressed like me. There was no cheering; no raised voices. It was all very sombre. Only the madrasah kids, a hundred or so of the little fuckers, were getting sparked up. The mullahs were busy herding them towards the ringside. Even the two old guys we’d stepped aside for this morning had dragged their kids along for the show. Everyone else seemed almost scared.

  I eased my way through the heaving mass, careful not to clip anyone I passed with the AK. I needed to be up close and personal, just like the blind kids. Bodies steamed around me. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around the lights.

  I got as near to the gate as I could. My eyes drilled into the compound. AKs slung over their chests, AS hard men herded us with thin, whippy sticks. We moved like a shoal of fish as the square continued to fill.

  The door opened into the compound. A gasp rippled through the crowd.

  Two AS brought out one of the three Somali men I’d seen hiding from the sun this morning. Behind him, another two AS, one of them the Pakistani, hefted a wooden table.

  A guy in a white skull-cap and ginger beard appeared. A murmur spread through the crowd. This guy was feared. He followed the procession towards the gate.

  The Somali wasn’t happy. He kept shaking his head, his hands joined in supplication. If he was expecting sympathy from Skullcap, he was about to be seriously disappointed. The AS turned him back, shoving him on with bunched fists. They halted him just short of the holes. The table was put in front of him.

  Skull-cap was dressed in a brown dish-dash and cotton trouser combo, with a pair of rubber flip-flops. His ginger beard rested on the black-and-white check shemagh wrapped around his neck. A machete dangled from his waist. He was young, no more than early thirties. Smooth-skinned. Really hard eyes that glinted in the harsh light. Pupils dilated. He shouted at the crowd, pointing at the trembling wreck who’d been selected as the warm-up act.

  There was no ceremony. The Pakistani forced the Somali’s exposed arm onto the tabletop. Skull-cap drew his machete, raised it high and brought it down. The blade took off the Somali’s hand and half his forearm. The Pakistani released his prisoner and he fell to the ground, at first numb with shock, then screaming with pain. The arm rolled off the other side of the table and fell onto the sand.

  Skull-cap bent down and picked up the severed limb by the thumb. He held it up to the crowd as the clothes-stealer was led away towards the school. The kids parted like the Red Sea for Moses. They stared open-mouthed at the mess that was left of his stump and the blood it dripped into the dust.

  The oldest of the mullahs, stern and grey, slapped the miserable offender across the head with his shoe. He then beat the sole across his back as he was dragged towards the school. This lad was going to be taught the error of his ways, Wahhabi style, before he received any medical treatment — if he ever did.

  The other mullahs sorted out the kids and herded them back into the pack for the main event.

  4

  Skull-cap screamed and shouted as the Pakistani led his AS team back inside. He wasn’t shouting to them, but to the crowd. He pointed at us, then jabbed his finger skywards. His words were rapid and aggressive.

  A different kind of murmur swept through the crowd as the two Somali couples were led out. This time it was disapproval. Some hissed.

  All four moved very slowly. They didn’t have to be pushed. Their heads were down. They’d given up hope. The women had their heads covered but their faces showing. As they made their way through the compound they displayed no emotion, not even fear. They were led to where Skull-cap waited by the bloodstained table.

  I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t at least try to run. They stood in front of their allotted holes, heads down, eyes half closed against the light.

  Still screaming at the crowd at the top of his voice, Skull-cap thrust his hand under the chin of each prisoner, lifting the head for all to see.

  As he passed each victim and moved on to the next, the Pakistani pushed them into the holes. They had to kneel, with only their head and the tops of their shoulders showing above ground.

  A group of young guys arrived from nowhere at the front of the crowd. They wore the same kind of headgear as the boss, and black-and-white shemaghs. Their eyes burnt with zeal. They shovelled sand into the holes to hold the bodies firm. The two women cracked. Both burst into tears. The men rocked back and forth in prayer. The youths shovelled faster to pack them in.

  The four AS big dogs headed back inside the building.

  My chest heaved. I couldn’t help it. My breath quickened. I tried to control it. My skin broke into a sweat. My whole body felt like it was going to burst.

  Anna filled my head. I was going to lose the only two women I cared for in the space of the same night.

  Where the fuck was Awaale?

  The Pakistani led Tracy out. She carried Stefan in her arms. His head was on her shoulder, his legs wrapped around her, her arms wrapped around him. She was struggling to carry him. Both of them shielded their eyes from the bright lights, as they started the long walk.

  It took all three of the other al-Shabab to bring BB out.

  Skull-cap shrieked, pointing at these evil people coming towards us like they were Satan come to Merca.

  BB’s eyes darted around. He was trying to suss out what was going on. It dawned on me. They didn’t know what the fuck was happening. Otherwise he would have tried something by now. The three of them were dead men walking. What had they got to lose?

  They reached the gates. The old school mullah walked up to Tracy and grabbed Stefan. The boy was his now. But Tracy had other ideas.

  She pulled back her child and uttered a long, heart-wrenching cry that silenced the crowd. The women around m
e moaned quietly. Hands went up to mouths as Stefan hollered out for his mother. His arms clung tightly around her neck as Tracy tried to break the old mullah’s grip.

  Skull-cap brandished his blood-covered machete at her and yelled to the crowd.

  BB didn’t move a muscle to help her. He did exactly what he should have done. He looked around, taking everything in, wondering what the fuck he was going to do with the information.

  BB then saw the four getting buried, and the two empty holes, and knew precisely what was about to happen.

  I moved forward from the crowd, pushing up the burqa so I could get the weapon into my shoulder.

  5

  The Pakistani swung to face the crowd. He would have seen straight away why they were screaming and who they were running from.

  As I got the weapon into the shoulder I pushed the selector all the way down to single shot. The Pakistani fixed his eyes on me. I had both eyes open, focused on the foresight. The Pakistani pushed BB out of the way to get his own weapon up but he was too slow. My weapon kicked and he went down. I’d got him with one round into the chest.

  The noise around me faded the further the crowd dispersed. Then I heard gunfire. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from or where it was going. Tracy was just metres away now. Stefan had disappeared.

  One of the other AS big dogs was bringing his AK up but BB had grabbed the Pakistani’s weapon and gave him a three-round burst. He helped himself to a chest harness full of mags.

  ‘Tracy! Tracy! Here — with me! It’s Nick! It’s Nick!’

  BB was still firing. He took on the other AS to my right.

  ‘It’s Nick!’

  Tracy couldn’t compute.

  ‘It’s Nick!’

  BB looked round. He got it.

  I grabbed hold of Tracy and pulled off my burqa at the same time. I wanted to get her into the shelter of the wall. Rounds rained in from the right of the compound.

  She was rooted to the spot; confused; scared.

  ‘Nick …?’

  ‘Come on.’

  I grabbed hold of her and began dragging her into cover. BB was changing mags. I got eye-to-eye with him and he started closing in. I pulled her down on her knees, so that her head was below the parapet. The crowd was still scattering in all directions. They didn’t know which way to run. The fire was coming from the court-house. They could get a lead on us pretty much anywhere they liked if we tried to make a break for it across the open ground.

  BB took up position alongside us and knelt with the AK.

  Tracy tried to pull away from me. ‘Stefan! I must get Stefan!’

  She pointed frantically at the madrasah. ‘Stefan!’ She tried to crawl past me.

  Everything was total confusion but her screams were louder than the crowd’s.

  I looked over the wall. Skull-cap was on the veranda of the main building with the others, weapon up. They were shouting, more in anger than in fright. They’d been done out of a good day’s stoning.

  To our right, the Somali women scrabbled to get out of the dirt. The lads accused of shagging them were well and truly gone.

  The skull-caps on the veranda popped in and out of the doors like Swiss cuckoos, firing indiscriminately at anything that moved. A burqa’d figure took a hit at the edge of the square and tumbled into the dust.

  A burst stitched along the wall the other side of us. 7.62 is a big-calibre round. The sound of at least a dozen of them thumping into the block-work nine inches from our heads was deafening. I felt the tremors.

  I pushed Tracy down flat and crouched over her as BB got his AK over the wall and gave it bursts towards the court-house.

  I jumped up, my legs astride Tracy’s back, and put some rounds down towards the veranda.

  Still no sign of Awaale.

  I yelled across at BB, ‘They’re going to be all over us. Take her down to the beach, turn left, get out of the town. We’ll RV somehow. I’ve got a skiff there waiting. Just get out of the town. You’ll see me moving along the beach. I’m going to go and get Stefan.’

  More rounds slammed into the far side of the wall. Tracy sobbed into the dust. ‘My baby … my baby …’

  We jumped back down.

  ‘Fuck, Nick — did you come on your own? Whatever. Thank fuck …’ He slapped a hand on my shoulder.

  I shook my head. ‘I thought I’d brought backup, mate. But the fuckers seem to have left us to it.’

  I grabbed another look over the wall. A cloud of grey smoke erupted from a corner of the compound and the back blast kicked up a storm of sand. The sustainer motor kicked in and the round screamed towards us.

  ‘RPG!’

  We ducked. But it wasn’t coming for us. Chunks of breezeblock and rendering blasted in all directions from the court-house. Debris rained down on us like hailstones.

  Screams, shouts and the rattle of automatic fire came from the far side of the madrasah.

  6

  ‘BB, listen in! That’s my backup. We’re RVing with them down at the harbour. They’ve got boats. Make sure they take you down the road, right of the court-house. You’ve got to stay on the road.’

  Rounds zinged in all directions as chaotic and drugged-up shouts and screams echoed around the square. Tracer bounced off the ground and whizzed into the sky. A machine-gun opened up somewhere the other side of the obelisk. More shouts and screams; then a couple of lines of a rap song and taunts from the crew aimed at the court-house. Above it all I heard, ‘Mr Nick! Mr Nick!’

  Awaale and his crew charged up the alley between the court-house and the compound like the Seventh Cavalry. Muzzle flashes flickered at the windows of another building maybe 150 metres away. BB loosed off a couple of short bursts in return.

  ‘Over here, mate! On me! On me! Awaale!’

  The rounds were hurtling in from everywhere and everyone. Tracer zapped into and out of the court-house and from the buildings surrounding the square. We lay in the dust. I kept Tracy covered. Partly to protect her, partly because she kept trying to get up and run.

  Awaale arrived alongside us with half a dozen of his crew. Their teeth glistened with khat juice. They were totally off their tits. They squatted and bounced, fired a couple of bursts, squatted and bounced, fired a couple more, not really caring who they hit.

  Awaale gobbed off into his radio, probably creating even more chaos.

  I put my mouth to Tracy’s ear. ‘It’s OK. I’ll get him.’ I kept my voice level. ‘You go with BB. These lads will look after you, OK? I’ll get him, I promise.’

  She twisted her head. I could see the fear in her red, tear-filled eyes.

  BB cut in: ‘Yep, no problem. I’ll take care of her. I’ll keep her with me.’

  She didn’t want to leave her son. ‘Nick — no!’

  ‘Stefan will be OK. I’m going to go and get him. Awaale!’

  The fucker was only about three metres away but he still wasn’t answering me. He was too busy shouting at everyone else on his radio.

  ‘Awaale!’

  Screams and howls came from the crews both sides of the court-house as they revved up. An RPG kicked off to our right and flew straight down the middle of the square. It shaved the obelisk and slammed into a building fifty metres further on. There was a bright orange flash and lumps of concrete flew into the air.

  ‘Awaale!’

  ‘Yes, Mr Nick!’

  ‘Let’s take them down to the harbour. Remember, only on the road, dead centre. Let’s go!’

  I grabbed BB. ‘Take her now, with these lads. I’ll get Stefan and we’ll RV at the boats. Awaale!’

  The fucker had evaporated again.

  Two technicals came screaming towards us from the direction we’d taken this morning. The guns’ heavy reports reverberated above the rest of the shit around us. Tracer zoomed over our heads. Some hit the obelisk.

  ‘Awaale!’

  ‘Yes, OK, I am here, Mr Nick!’

  He stepped out of the gloom. He was soaked with sweat. His hands glinte
d with jewellery. Any passing Black Hawk wouldn’t have stood a chance while he was in this mood.

  ‘Get some fire down on those fucking technicals!’

  ‘It’s no problem, Mr Nick. It’s my crew. They landed in the wrong place so they took the AS technicals. This is very good, Mr Nick. This is a great victory.’

  ‘No, it fucking ain’t great! You’ve got to control them, mate.’

  On cue, their tracer kicked into the compound building. Some of it scudded into the shallow graves the girls had finally pulled themselves out of. If they hadn’t, they would have been history.

  ‘You got fucking rounds going all over the place. Control them! Get the fucking technicals here, get this lot on board, and let’s get them down to the boats. I’m going to go and get the boy. He’s in the madrasah.’

  Awaale waffled into his radio. His crew ran about laughing manically, firing, shouting.

  I got up. ‘BB, take Tracy. Now. Get her on the technicals as soon as they come over.’

  Tracy struggled to her knees. ‘No, Nick — no …’

  ‘Tracy, it’s OK. Stefan will be just fine.’ I pointed to Awaale. ‘You’re going to get the other two white lads out of there as well, remember. Erasto wants to kill them.’

  ‘No problems, Mr Nick. We’ll take care of them.’

  The technicals came bouncing across the square, all guns blazing. If they’d heard Awaale tell them to stop firing, they weren’t taking any notice. As they bounced, tracer arced over the court-house. It was probably landing in the sea or zapping our own boats. Some of it scudded off the dirt and ricocheted into random buildings.

  I pushed Tracy down once more. ‘Awaale!’

  He was busy shouting orders. An RPG kicked off from fuck knew where.

  We couldn’t move.

  7

  As the wagons came closer I caught sight of the gunner’s star-shaped, white-framed sun-gigs. The sun had gone down hours ago, but that didn’t bother him. And the driver, for fuck’s sake, was on his mobile. He looked like he was larging it with a blow-by-blow account for the benefit of the girls back home.