We had no doubt that we'd suffer a similar fate if we were caught. I used the periscope to scan our surroundings. "All clear," I said. We turned off the interior lights and cracked the hatch, climbing out into the cold night air. It was a dark, moonless night, but Jack was wearing a nightsight Jamal had given us before he left.
Leaving the Stryker behind us, we let Jack take the lead. I didn't know what to make of this boy king. He was an uneasy mix of overconfidence and insecurity. He'd been reticent about his royalty, unwilling to explain how he ended up the ceremonial head of state, at least in the eyes of the British Army. Green told me he'd been eager to blend into the background, unwilling to draw undue attention. Yet here he was leading us into the heart of enemy territory on a mission to rescue two children he'd never met. When I asked him why he had insisted on accompanying us he just said it was his duty. I had no idea how he'd fare in combat, but his knowledge of the base, and the ordnance contained within it, was our ace in the hole.
We reached the edge of the trees, where the cover abruptly ended in a fifty metre stretch of clear grass. Beyond this stood a high chain-link fence. Crouching down, Jack scanned the buildings for movement. He saw a patrol and gestured for us to retreat back into cover. Hidden by the shadows, we watched the two guards walk past us and disappear past the barracks.
"That's the firing range." Jack pointed to a high brick wall just inside the fence. I reached behind me and pulled the wire cutters from my back pack.
"Stay here," I whispered.
I broke cover and scurried to the fence. Lying on the wet grass, I cut a small hole at the base, wincing at the noise each wire made as it snapped. I pulled back a flap of the fence to make an entrance and waved the other two forward. Once they had crawled inside, I followed and pulled the fence closed again. With any luck, the guards wouldn't notice the hole on their next circuit. Stashing the wire cutters back in my bag, I followed Jack as he led us round the wall at the far end of the firing range to a sandpit where cardboard cut out soldiers stood like silent sentries.
"Psst." It was Sue, standing at the corner of the wall, dressed in black, her face covered in boot polish just like ours. She didn't waste any time. "There are three perimeter patrols and they pass here about every twenty minutes. There are other random patrols wandering the base. They don't have a set pattern, so we have to move carefully.
"Where are they?" I asked.
"The boy is being held in the tunnels under the main building, which is where Blythe works and sleeps."
"How did they get into the tunnels?" asked Jack.
"They blew up the door by the main building," replied Sue.
"And the other door?"
"What other door?"
Jack turned to me and grinned.
"And the girl, Caroline?" I asked.
"They never found any girl," said Sue. "What's the plan?"
Tariq told her and she pursed her lips in surprise. "That's a bit extreme," she said. But she didn't raise any objections.
"This way," said Jack. He led us down the length of the firing range and across a road to a small outbuilding with a big metal door. He punched a code into the keypad beside the door and it clicked open. We hurried inside and pulled the door closed behind us, then crept down the concrete steps into the system of tunnels that lay beneath the base. The walls were concrete, with electric cables and pipes running along them. It smelt of damp. The lights were on.
"Knives only," whispered Tariq, drawing his blade and pushing his gun back over his shoulder. "A shot down here would be heard through the whole tunnel system."
Jack moved quickly and confidently, sure of the way. He led us past endless doors, all locked tight. "Some of these go down to other chambers, some are just offices. The two places we're interested in are at opposite ends of the complex."
"Okay," I said. "Two teams, as discussed. Sue, we're going to get Rowles. Tariq and Jack, rendezvous back at the door we came in by." They nodded. "And if you hear shooting, just run. Don't wait for us, or come to help. Just go."
Tariq took my hand and shook it firmly. "See you soon."
They vanished around a corner and I turned to the small, squat nurse. "Lead on."
She moved with remarkable grace for someone so solid, and we hardly made a sound as we moved deeper into the tunnels. Eventually she held up her hand.
"One more corridor and a left turn," she whispered. "There aren't guards outside the actual cell; they're up top at the door. So we shouldn't meet anyone." I stepped forward and took the lead, knife at the ready.
"Stay here," I said. I walked down the corridor, feeling my nerves giving way to the calm that comes before the kill. I reached the corner and took a quick look. Nobody. I waved Sue forward. She went past me to a nondescript wooden door.
"I lifted this earlier," she said waving a key in the air and then using it to open the door. We entered a small, bare room. All the furniture had been removed, leaving it a cold concrete box. There was no light and the smell was awful. The light that seeped in from the corridor revealed a small figure curled up asleep in the corner, and a bucket in the opposite corner. It was just like the cell where I'd found Dad in Basra. Blythe's bag of tricks was small but effective.
I crouched down and shook the boy's shoulder. He was awake instantly. I don't know what I'd been expecting to find. The Rowles I knew was quiet and brooding, utterly self contained and unemotional. He was so ruthless, so terrifying, that I'd forgotten one simple fact: he was an eleven-year-old boy.
His right eye was horribly bruised, swollen shut. His front teeth were gone, as were his fingernails, and his bare arms were covered in tiny cigarette burns. His one good eye wasn't the cold orb I remembered; instead it was full of fear. Rowles scrambled away from me, trying to hide himself in the corner, burying his head in his arms and keening like a kicked dog.
"My God," breathed Sue.
"Rowles," I said firmly. "Rowles, it's me. It's Lee. We've come to get you out of here."
The ruined child couldn't hear me above his petrified whining. I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder, but he flinched away.
"Rowles," I said, louder this time. "Listen, it's Lee. From school. I've come to take you home."
Still no response. I cursed under my breath. We didn't have time for this. I reached forward and grabbed his head, holding his face up and forcing him to look at me.
"Rowles. Come on. We've got to go home."
His eye focused on me then and widened in surprise. "Home?" he whispered. "Home?"
"Yes, home. Can you stand?" His chin wobbled convulsively as he tried to nod. "Good lad. This is Sue, she's a nurse, she's going to help you."
"Hello sweetheart," said Sue. "You take my hands now." Rowles did so, his animal panic replaced by mute acquiescence. I went back to the door and scanned the corridor. Still quiet. I began to think that maybe we'd get away with this.
I turned back to see Rowles standing up. Sue had wrapped her arms around him and he was huddling into her for warmth, snuffling.
"Rowles, this is important. What happened to Caroline? Is she here?" I asked.
"Doctor," he muttered. "The doctor took her."
"So she's not on the base?" He shook his head.
"This can wait," Sue said sternly.
I nodded. "Okay, let's go."
I led the way back through the silent tunnels. We had to move more slowly, as Rowles was weak and disorientated, but we encountered nobody until we arrived back at the door where Jack and Tariq were waiting for us.
"Any joy?" I asked.
Jack shook his head. "I found and primed them but I couldn't find the remote units anywhere. Sorry."
"It was always a long shot," I said. "Let's not worry about it now. We've got what we came for. Let's get the fuck out of here."
And we did. We didn't meet any guards at all on our way back to the Stryker. I leaned against the cold metal hull of the vehicle and breathed a huge sigh of relief. We'd made it.
I cl
imbed on to the vehicle and opened the hatch, turned to the others, smiled and said "let's go home."
And that's when I noticed we were missing someone.
"I won't leave him," I insisted.
"Tariq chose to go back, Lee" said Jack. "He may be planning to detonate. We need to get out of here."
I shook my head. "No. He's gone to get Blythe, and he'll want to do it personally. If I go quickly, I might be able to catch him up. Get everyone inside and batten the hatch. Sue have you got your radio?" She handed it to me without a word. "I'll call if I can but if I'm not back in an hour, you go without me. Understand?" Sue nodded. I looked across at Rowles. He had stopped whining and was sitting on the bench holding a handgun, staring at it intently, almost caressing it. I fancied I could see a flash of the boy I knew.
"You get him back safe to Fairlawne," I said.
"Lee, it's suicide!" said Jack.
"Just give me the door code," I snapped back. Shaking his head, Jack used a biro to write it on my palm.
Then I grabbed the nightsight and climbed out of the Stryker, back into the darkness.
Why did I go back for Tariq? He'd made the choice to go after Blythe without consulting me. He almost certainly hadn't told me because he didn't want me risking my life too. So we'd not managed to wipe out the Yanks, like we'd hoped, but we'd accomplished our primary mission – rescuing Rowles – and escaped. Going back in was foolhardy and, yes, suicidal. So why did I go after him? I've thought about it a lot and the only answer that I can give is that I wouldn't have been able to face my dad if I hadn't.
I snaked under the fence and ran for cover. My best chance of making it to the main building alive was to use the tunnels again. Jack's door code let me in, and I descended once more into the cool, silent passageways. I retraced my earlier steps to the cell where Rowles had been kept and beyond. Eventually I reached a staircase. This was it, the door by the main building. I looked up and saw that the door had been blown clean off. Now there was just a waist-high wooden barrier. I couldn't see or hear anything at the top, but I knew there would be at least one guard. I drew my knife and steadied my breathing. Time to fight.
I crept up the stairs as softly as I could, ready to throw the knife into the chest of anyone who stepped on to the doorway. But nobody did. When I reached the top I risked a furtive glance outside, left and right. The two guards were already dead, lying in pools of blood by the sides of the doorway. Tariq had been here.
I looked to my left and saw a large brick building with imposing steps at the front leading to double doors. This must be the HQ. My nightsights picked out a tiny movement and I realised the front door was just closing. I should have checked the area, but I didn't want to wait. I took a deep breath and sprinted for the door, expecting a hue and cry at any second. None came, and I vaulted up the steps and through the door as fast as I could, wondering how long my luck could possibly hold.
Not, as it turned out, that long.
A long, carpeted corridor stretched out ahead of me. In the middle of it, Tariq was struggling with an American soldier, trying to get him in a neck lock as the man writhed and tried to shout for aid. Tariq had his forearm jammed into the man's mouth, and was trying not to scream as the soldier bit down. I hurried to his aid, and slid my knife in between the American's ribs, up into his heart. He stiffened and then relaxed into Tariq's arms. We dragged the corpse into a broom cupboard and stashed it.
"We have to go. Now," I whispered urgently, grabbing Tariq's bitten arm.
Tariq shook me off and kept going. "You heard what Sue said, Blythe sleeps in this building. I'm not leaving him alive, Lee."
He began climbing the stairs and I ran after him, grabbing him again.
"Tariq, this is madness. You've seen what he's like. If we go now, we might just make it."
The Iraqi shook his head. "No more running. This ends now. You shouldn't have come after me." He put his hand on my shoulder. "Go, Lee. This is my fight."
This was a different Tariq to the man I'd come to know. The light-hearted geek was gone, replaced by cold fury and suicidal vengeance. Suddenly he made sense. This was a man who would lead a resistance movement, who'd stand his ground no matter what, who'd stage mock executions to terrify enemy combatants into talking. I realised that I hardly knew Tariq at all. The celebrity blogger was the person he had been; this ruthless warrior, the side of himself that he kept carefully hidden, was the person the Cull had fashioned him into.
He turned away and kept climbing the stairs. I stood there for a moment, torn between my loyalty to the man who'd saved my life in Iraq and my duty to Rowles, Jane and Dad. But there was really no choice. I went after him.
The first floor corridor stretched to my left and right. Tariq had turned left, and was standing halfway down, outside the only door that had a chink of light showing around the frame. He drew his gun and opened the door in one swift movement, stepping inside, weapon raised. I padded along to the room, drawing my own gun as I ran. When I entered, I saw Tariq standing with his back to me. I stepped to one side to see who he was aiming his gun at. Sure enough, sat on a large double bed with a book resting on his lap, was General Jonas Blythe.
He was smiling.
"Tariq," I said.
"I know," he replied.
"You're thinking this was far too easy, ain't you, kid?" said the general, still smiling.
"Shoot him and let's go," I urged.
There was the sound of doors being flung open and boots stomping down the corridor. Then a cacophony of voices were yelling at us to lay down our weapons, put our hands above our heads and get on our knees. I don't know why they bothered, since they didn't give us time to comply. I felt a rifle butt smash into the backs of my legs and I pitched forward on to the floor.
I'm unsure whether the next sharp crack was Tariq trying to shoot Blythe, or the big heavy thing that cracked my skull and sent me spinning into unconsciousness.
The first thing I heard was screaming.
I shook my head to clear it, trying to ignore the crippling pain. I was tied into a chair by my wrists and ankles, but I wasn't in a cell or warehouse; I was in an office. Quite a nice one, with lots of wood, and paintings of old battles on the walls. I looked to my left and saw Tariq, also tied up. Blythe was standing in front of him, puffing hard on his cigar, making the tip glow bright orange. Then he stubbed it out on Tariq's naked belly and the Iraqi gritted his teeth, staring at the general in furious defiance, all the muscles in his body straining with the effort of not screaming again.
We were both facing the window, so I could see that it was still dark outside. I scanned the room quickly for a clock and found one on the mantelpiece. Four-fifteen. The others should have driven away by now. That was something at least.
I knew that our chances of survival were nil. I'd overplayed my hand and walked into danger one too many times. There was no cunning plan to rescue us, no force capable of fighting their way in here and overwhelming the entire American Army. The only allies we had for miles were a traumatised child, a boy who would be king, and a nurse. And by now they were driving as fast as they could in the opposite direction. The only thing left was to give them as much time as I could.
"Hey Tariq," I croaked. "I think you were right. I think maybe I do have a death wish." I began to laugh.
The general stepped sideways and punched me full in the face. His enormous fist was like a brick and I felt my nose crack. The momentum knocked the chair over and I toppled to the floor. I lay there and laughed as I spat out the blood.
The general nodded to someone behind me and my chair was uprighted. The general stepped back and sat on the edge of his desk, puffing on his cigar.
"Did you really think our security was that bad?" he asked.
"We hoped," groaned Tariq.
"I'm curious to know how you got into the tunnels. You didn't blow your way in like we did, so you must have had the code. Hook up with some soldiers who escaped?"
"Nah," I said. "Did
n't you know? We're spooks! We know everything, don't we Tariq?"
"That's right, 007," said Tariq, following my lead.
"Yeah, top special agents, that's us. I heard you met our shadowy boss, The Matron. Let her slip through your fingers though, didn't you. Loser!"
The general smiled. God, I hated it when he did that.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "I'll have complete control of this whole country within the year."
"Right," I laughed. "Wherever will she hide in this huge and almost entirely empty country, which you intend to rule with a few hundred soldiers? You're right, she hasn't got a chance."
"Yeah," added Tariq. "It's not like me and a bunch of friends managed to evade capture in a city for over a year is it?"
Blythe stood up and walked over to Tariq, leaning forward so that he almost touched noses. "And look at what happened to all of you," whispered the soldier.
"Do you really, seriously, think we're spies?" I said. "I mean, come on. You must have worked it out by now, clever bloke like you."
Blythe turned to me, his face full of barely controlled fury. "I know that you managed to turn my son against me. That's all I need to know."
And there it was, the chink in his armour. In spite of all the coldness and detachment he'd displayed at the time, the murder of David was preying on his conscience.
Tariq noticed it too, and this time he took the lead. "We didn't turn your son, General," he said quietly. "He came to us of his own free will."
"Never," spat Blythe. "My son was a good soldier."
"Your son was a traitor," I said. "And he hated you."
"He approached us," said Tariq. "Said he wanted our help to bring you down."
"Couldn't wait to lock you up and throw away the key."
"Said you were a madman."
"Sadist."
"Psychopath."
"A traitor to everything you'd ever believed in."
"He hated you, General."
"Hated you."
The general roared as he grabbed a pistol from the desk and shot Tariq in the gut and me in the leg.
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