Strike Back

by Chris Ryan

  ‘Want me to finish him?’ said Hassad, pointing towards the wounded man on the ground.

  ‘Let him die slowly,’ said Porter. ‘A quick death is too good for that bastard.’

  With Katie still in his arms, Porter ran across to the Polo. She needed rest, and the firefight had only made her worse: if he didn’t treat her gently she wasn’t going to make it through the next few hours. Waves of heat were rolling out of the house as the flames licked up inside it. Across the scrubland that separated it from the road, there were three dead bodies, all of them lying face down in the dirt, their bodies shot to pieces. It hadn’t been much of an attack, Porter reflected grimly. Whoever that bastard Collinson was using to do his dirty work for him, it wasn’t Regiment guys. These blokes had no proper training. First they’d tried to kill them with fragmentation grenades inside the house, and when that hadn’t worked, they’d created a diversion with some more grenades and had reckoned that would be enough to allow them to charge the wall. Idiots, thought Porter. The Regiment would have taught them that a well-dug-in target, with plenty of ammunition, had to be taken by surprise or ground down slowly and relentlessly. Otherwise you were just committing suicide.

  He flung open the door of the Polo, but it came away clean in his hand. The car had been caught in the crossfire as Porter and Hassad had opened fire with their AK-47s and been shot to pieces. The windscreen had been shattered and the petrol tank pierced, spilling its fuel out over the ground. It was a miracle the thing hadn’t gone up in flames.

  ‘Sod it,’ he muttered. ‘Now we’ve no transport.’

  ‘We can’t walk,’ snapped Hassad. ‘It’s still a hundred miles to the Israeli border.’

  Porter nodded to the petrol station a mile up the road. He waved his AK-47, then slipped it over his shoulder, making sure he slipped a fresh mag of ammo into place as he did so. ‘Then we’ll just have to borrow one,’ he said. ‘And I reckon one of these could be pretty persuasive.’

  He still didn’t have a watch on, but by now he reckoned it must be at least eleven on Saturday morning. The sun had risen in the sky, but it wasn’t especially hot: no more than a mild twenty degrees centigrade. He was still carrying Katie on his back, though. He was cut, bruised and exhausted. And he had no idea when, if ever, they were going to get home.

  They paused a hundred metres short of the filling station. It was a small place. Four pumps on a dusty forecourt, with a back office and a repair shop. Porter reckoned the best plan was to wait for a driver to pull up, then hit him just after he’d paid for his petrol. If you’re going to nick a car, you might as well take one with a full tank, he told himself with a half-smile.

  The mechanic glanced up at them suspiciously as he walked across the forecourt to the car he was working on. Maybe he’s seen the guns on our backs, thought Porter. Or maybe this is the kind of road where you don’t talk to strangers. He scanned the highway. A couple of trucks rolled by, then a van, but nobody was stopping for petrol. It was Saturday morning, and business was probably slow anyway.

  Porter put Katie down at the side of the road. Hassad was sitting next to her, gripping the side of his shoulder with his hand. ‘I need a doctor,’ he said. ‘I’m hurt.’

  Glancing towards him, Porter couldn’t see what the fuss was about. There was blood where the knife had cut into him, but it was only a field injury. ‘You’ll be OK,’ he snapped. ‘Once we get to the border, you can get yourself sorted.’

  ‘I need a doctor now,’ he said. ‘There a place nearby we can go. It’s safe.’

  Porter shrugged. What we really need is a drink. But I suppose it isn’t going to do us any harm to get ourselves fixed up before we try to travel much further. God knows how many more people are going to attack us before we manage to get across into Israel.

  He still wasn’t sure whether he trusted Hassad. But it wasn’t Hezbollah who had just attacked them. It was Collinson’s men. I can trust Hassad more than my own side.

  ‘I’ll take the mechanic,’ said Hassad.

  He started walking towards the garage. Porter watched from a distance, noting a couple of shouts as Hassad knocked the man out, then tied him up. A Fiat van came up the road, turning into the garage. One driver, Porter noted. The van had pulled up next to a diesel pump, and the driver was filling his tank. After he finished, he walked towards the office to pay. Porter could see that Hassad was waiting for him, his AK-47 still strapped to his back. Within seconds, Hassad had pointed the gun at the man, taken his keys off him, then bound and gagged him. He ran back out onto the forecourt towards the van. The engine was still warm, and started with the first turn of the key. He gripped the wheel, slammed his foot on the accelerator, and turned the Fiat round, steering back towards the side of the road. ‘Get the hell in,’ he said, pulling up alongside Porter and Katie. ‘We haven’t got much time.’

  There were some chickens in the back of the van: live ones, trussed up three to a crate. Hassad put Katie alongside them, then climbed into the passenger seat. ‘Ten kilometres, straight ahead,’ he snapped. ‘Then we’ll see the doctor.’

  ‘Why not go straight to the bloody border?’ Porter growled.

  ‘I told you, I need the doctor,’ said Hassad.

  ‘And I need to get out of this craphole.’

  ‘Then you can do it by yourself.’

  Porter paused. It was a possibility. He had the van, and Katie was probably well enough to survive the journey. The plasma and fluids pumped into her at the safe house had perked her up already. But it was a hundred miles to the border, and it was heavily fortified. He had a hostage he’d snatched from Hezbollah with him. They controlled this territory, and they’d be looking for both of them. I need help. And in this hellhole, Hassad is likely to be the only person I can even begin to rely on.

  ‘We only stop for an hour maximum,’ said Porter.

  ‘One hour,’ said Hassad nodding. ‘Then we hit the border.’

  He put on the radio. There was some terrible local pop music, then the news bulletin. It was eleven in the morning. Outside, the sun was up now, but some clouds were starting to drift across the sky. The road was long and straight, a stretch of tarmac rolled out like a carpet across an arid and dry piece of scrubland. A few miles up ahead, Porter could see a turning off to the left, and a dusty, grey smudge on the landscape that looked like a village. In the back of the van, some of the chickens were starting to squawk as Porter slammed his foot hard on the accelerator, pushing the van up close to its top speed of ninety miles an hour. On the radio, the newsreader was talking in Arabic. The sound washed past Porter: he was too busy concentrating on the road.

  Then he heard the words ‘Katie Dartmouth’.

  Porter turned the volume up.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ he asked, glancing across at Hassad.

  Hassad raised a hand. He was listening intently to the broadcast. In the back of the van, Katie had woken up. Porter could see her lifting herself up. Her eyes looked clearer, and some of the vigour had returned to her skin. She still looks pretty terrible. But she’s a tough young woman. With the right treatment, she’s going to be OK again.

  ‘They’re talking about –’ she started.

  ‘Quiet,’ Porter hissed.

  They waited a few more seconds until the broadcast finished. When the terrible Arabic singing started up again, Porter leant across to switch off the sound. ‘What was he saying –’

  ‘Here,’ said Hassad, pointing to the turning. ‘The doctor is down this road.’

  Porter flicked the indicator, and started to pull the van across the corner. ‘What were they saying about Katie?’

  ‘They don’t know anything,’ said Hassad.

  ‘Nothing about the explosion?’

  Porter looked across at Hassad. His face was tight and taunt, as if the muscles in his skin were being stretched out on a rack.

  ‘They are just saying the execution is scheduled for eight o’clock this evening.’

  The road was rough, jus
t a dirt track, and there were a few goats grazing alongside it. The village up ahead looked to be no more than a single street nestling into the side of a hill, with a dozen houses, a shop and a couple of workshops. Up in the hills behind there were some cultivated fields, making a break from the scrubland all around them. ‘Why are Hezbollah saying nothing about an attack?’ he asked, looking back at Hassad.

  ‘Because they don’t want to admit it,’ said Hassad.

  ‘But Katie’s with us,’ said Porter. ‘They must know that.’

  ‘Then it looks like they’re planning on getting her back by eight tonight. This is their country, remember. So long as they find her, then the execution can still go ahead.’

  Porter pulled the van up on the side of the road. A farmer was heading up towards the hills with a tractor and donkey. He turned round, looking at the van suspiciously, then when he saw Hassad climb out, quickly turned back and started driving faster. Porter killed the engine, and got down from the driver’s seat. As he did so, he unhooked the AK-47 from his back and tucked it under his arm. He could feel the smooth wood of the weapon next to his skin, and checked the mag. Plenty of ammo, he noted, feeling reassured by that. It doesn’t matter what the PR department at Hezbollah is telling or not telling people, he reminded himself. There’s no execution tonight. We’ll fight our way out of here by ourselves if we have to.

  A cat was snarling at them as Porter helped Katie down onto the track. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  She nodded. Her legs were wobbling, and she clung on to Porter for support, but there was enough strength in her knees for her to stand. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  The street smelt of dried olives and raisins. It was around midday now, and there were no people on the street of the tiny village. There were some fruit and vegetables on sale at the single shop, but Hassad had already walked through an open doorway ahead of them. Porter took Katie’s arm, guiding her forward. She was walking unsteadily, like a toddler. ‘Ever broken a leg?’ Porter asked.

  Katie shook her head.

  ‘You’ve been strapped to a stake for a week by these bastards,’ said Porter. ‘The nerves in your legs have packed up, same as when you have a plaster cast on. It takes a week or two to learn how to walk properly again. You’ll need some physio. You can get used to anything.’

  ‘Like your fingers?’ she said, looking down at the hand that she was holding on to.

  ‘Yeah, that took a lot of getting used to.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘That bastard’s lot right up there,’ said Porter, nodding towards Hassad.

  ‘How …’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ interrupted Porter. ‘I’ll tell you about it over a long cool beer when we’re tucked up on a couple of first-class seats on the British Airways flight home.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ she said, attempting a smile.

  As her lips creased up, Porter could see that the cuts and bruises covering her were making her wince with pain. They were following Hassad into a small building two doors down from the shop. It was basically one room, measuring twenty feet by fifteen. There was a kitchen at one end, and a curtain sealing off a bedroom area at the other. The only light was coming through a couple of skylights built into the roof. Close to the door, there was desk and a chair, and a collection of elderly pieces of medical equipment: some scales, a blood-pressure pump, a stethoscope and a few reusable syringes.

  Out of the shadows, there emerged a woman. She was dressed entirely in black, with a face like a pickled walnut. Her eyes were piercing, but her skin was dried up as if she had been left out in the sun for too long, and she walked with a slight stoop. From the way she looked up at Hassad, it was clear that she knew him, but there was no smile, nor any kind of a greeting. She merely pointed at the chair, and waited for him to sit down.

  Hassad took off his sweatshirt. The woman examined the shoulder silently. The knife had dug into the skin, then been twisted, creating a nasty corkscrew wound. Porter had seen those kinds of injuries before, indeed he’d taken a few himself over the years, and although they hurt like hell, he knew they weren’t serious. Taking a swab of cotton wool, the woman drenched it with raw alcohol and pushed it hard into the raw skin. Porter winced. He knew how painful that was: he admired the way Hassad sat there impassively, taking the pain, with nothing more than the clenching of a fist to suggest what he was going through.

  When she’d finished, she bound up the wound with gauze. Next, the woman looked at Katie. She worked quickly and swiftly, checking where Porter had patched up her cuts and wounds, redressing them, and then giving her another dose of antibiotics. She muttered a few words to Hassad in Arabic.

  ‘She’s going to be fine,’ Hassad said to Porter. ‘She needs a few days in hospital, with maybe a drip to get some fluids and calories back into her, but apart from that she’ll be OK.’

  Porter could see the look of relief on Katie’s face. She was getting stronger by the minute, and you could see it in her face and eyes. Just knowing she had a chance of escaping had brought her back to life again.

  ‘Now you,’ said Hassad, pointing Porter towards the chair.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Porter growled.

  ‘She needs to check you out.’

  ‘I said I’m fine,’ snapped Porter. ‘A few cuts and bruises, that’s all. Nothing I can’t handle. Now let’s get the hell out of here before the rest of your mates show up and start trying to chop people’s bloody heads off again.’

  The small room was dark and gloomy, but even in the dismal light it was possible to see that Hassad’s face was reddening with anger.

  ‘She needs to look at your teeth.’

  Porter laughed. ‘I’ll get a check-up when I get home, thanks,’ he said with a rough grin. ‘I’ll even make sure I floss regularly.’

  ‘Your teeth, now,’ Hassad snapped.

  He was standing just two feet from Porter, with the old woman another three feet behind him. Porter was looking hard into his eyes, still questioning whether he could trust the man. ‘Let’s just get on –’

  ‘If you won’t let me do this, there’s no point in trying to get to the border.’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’

  Hassad moved closer, so that he was standing just a foot in front of Porter. ‘They sent a missile straight into the mine,’ he said, his voice calm and controlled but with a thread of anger running through it. ‘We were tracked to the safe house. They know exactly where we are.’

  ‘You mean …’ said Katie.

  She hobbled towards John and Hassad, using the desk for support. She was looking from one man to another, her face confused.

  ‘You mean the missile was a British one?’

  Hassad nodded curtly. ‘British or Israeli. A bunker-busting missile is a sophisticated piece of kit.’

  Porter paused. He already knew that was true. If it was a bunker-busting bomb that attacked the mine, then it was almost certainly a GBU-28, a piece of kit manufactured by Lockheed in America, but sold to both the British and Israeli air forces. It was made up of 80 per cent TNT, and 20 per cent aluminium powder which powered up the conventional explosive. On tests, the GBU-28 had blasted its way through twenty feet of concrete, and cut through as many as fifteen different layers of bunker. It had probably been delivered by two fighter jets: one to mark the target, and a second to deliver two bombs. It was the only weapon capable of causing the kind of damage seen in the mine. And not many people had them.

  ‘And the soldiers who attacked us just now, they were British as well?’

  Hassad glanced at Porter. ‘You tell her.’

  ‘They worked for a firm called Connaught Security,’ said Porter. ‘It’s a private military corporation operating throughout the Middle East. It’s run by Perry Collinson.’

  Katie slumped back. Suddenly, Porter noticed, the blood seemed to have drained from her face. ‘If they knew where we are, why didn’t they come in and rescue us?’

&nbs
p; ‘Because they want us dead,’ says Hassad, jabbing a finger at her. ‘So long as you die in an explosion, that suits them fine. They just don’t want to be seen to be giving in to any of our demands.’

  Katie shook her head. ‘They’d get me out if they could.’

  ‘Collinson wants me dead,’ said Porter.

  ‘But he’s …’

  ‘Your boyfriend?’ said Porter. ‘I know. The trouble is, he’s also a coward and a fraud. He’s terrified that I’ll find out from Hassad here the truth about what happened on a mission seventeen years ago, and unfortunately for him I already have. He’d rather we both died than let us come back alive.’

  ‘He told me …’ The words trailed off on Katie’s lips. But the shock on her face was evident.

  ‘He loved you?’ said Porter. ‘Maybe the bastard did, but he was lying about that along with everything else. Take it up with the agony aunt when you get home.’ Porter grinned. ‘“My boyfriend fired a bunker-busting missile at me. Do you think that means he isn’t committed to a long-term relationship?”’

  Porter looked back at Hassad. ‘I reckon you’re right,’ he said. ‘Collinson’s got control of the whole op, and he fired that missile into the mine to try and kill us. It’s a result for them if we get killed that way and the execution doesn’t get shown on live TV. They can just say it was an accident. Then he realised we’d escaped, so he sent his boys from Connaught in to quietly finish us off.’

  ‘This issue is,’ said Hassad, ‘how do they always know where you are?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They knew you were in the mine, and they knew you were in the safe house. How did they know that? How did they even know you’d escaped from the mine?’

  Porter shrugged. He wondered that himself. The trouble was, he had no idea of the answer.

  ‘They must have a tracking device,’ said Hassad.

  ‘I’m not a bloody idiot,’ Porter snapped. ‘I checked myself, and you checked. There’s nothing. Maybe there’s something planted on you?’