A split second before impact the five men all changed their body angles, looking up into the sky. “They know I’m coming,” thought Nielson. The woman didn’t react at all. Not that it made any difference.
The screens filled with light. Nielson slumped back in his chair. “Gentleman, take a cigar.”
*****
By the time the bomb landed Mahmud was well clear of his home. The shockwave of the explosion lifted him off the ground and, with time seeming to slow down, threw him against a roadside wall. After a moment’s confusion and with his mouth clogged with dust he started to move his limbs one by one. And when he looked above him at the wall he saw a jagged dent in the crisp sun-baked surface: his body, he thought, must have been harder than the mud. He propped himself up on an elbow and then lay down on the sandy earth. Relief made his flesh tingle.
“Allah,” he whispered, “I will pray more often.”
It was then he heard the repetitive whooping of the helicopters’ blades cutting through the air. Within seconds he was up and running again.
He knew where to go. There was a cave about a half-mile away, just below the ridge that led to the next valley. He had long believed that this day might come – although he had imagined it would be because of a local blood feud - and that is why, just like his father before him, he had left a Kalashnikov on a natural ledge near the cave’s roof. Jaz and he used to hide things there as boys: mainly round stones for their slings. The cave was their boyhood HQ from which they would command imaginary battles.
“And now it’s real,” Mahmud thought, breathing hard. His chest seemed hollow save for the surges of blood being pumped with a thumping, rapid rhythm. He ran past the mosque. For a brief second he thought about hiding there but remembered stories about the Americans smashing up mosques. He pressed on into the fields.
Sitting in their padded chairs in Nevada, Palmer had been distracted by the explosion. Nielson pulled back for a wide shot.
“Back to infra red,” he ordered.
And there on the edge of the village was a hot, white figure moving fast.
“I got one.”
Tate switched back to colour. Nielson zoomed in.
Mahmud tripped and stumbled, poppy heads scratching his face. And then on the ground, just in front of him, he saw the red dot again flicking over the plants. He gasped making a strangled groaning noise, and ran as fast as his taut muscles would allow. At one point the dot flashed across his outstretched arm.
“OK, Grims, we have a situation. We have customers for you in the courtyard and we’ve got a runner. I have eyes on him.” The Grims, still airborne, checking and rechecking their weapons, heard Nielson in their helmets above the drone of the Blackhawk’s engines.
Nielson was trying to follow Mahmud with his cross hairs. But experience had taught him that it wasn’t easy to hit a running man.
“Might be better for you guys to do this,” he suggested.
Enriquez’s voice, and the background din of the helicopter, filled the helmets in Nevada. “Can’t see him yet but we must be pretty close. Where’s he headed?”
Palmer had been thinking about that. “There’s a ridge just ahead of him above the trees. Looks like he’s going for the next valley.”
“I got it!” Enriquez confirmed and as he did so he threw the Blackhawk into a steep turn at an acute left angle whilst simultaneously starting to descend. Within seconds he was approaching the ground.
“Go! Go! Go!” he yelled.
Biagio, Scott and Stein leapt off the Blackhawk, hit the earth and rolled to lessen the impact.
“Which helmet?” asked Tate in Nevada.
“Take mine,” shouted Biagio into his mouth piece as he ran, “Alpha, three, two.”
Tate typed in the necessary instructions and Major Biagio’s view came up on American military screens all the way from Kandahar to Hawaii. When the action was this hot as many as 20 people in various US military bases all around the world could be watching. They called it Kill TV.
Mahmud scrambled up the dusty, dry slope slipping on small bits of sharp rock as he did so, his lungs screaming for more oxygen. With a desperate lunge, he threw himself into the cave.
“What the fuck?” exclaimed Nielson 7,500 miles away, “he just vaporised himself?”
As Nielson moved the cross hairs looking for his quarry Mahmud could see the red dot probing inches from his feet, just outside the cave.
Well fuck them. He wasn’t going quietly.
Palmer had seen something like this once before. “You got him guys. There must be an overhang on the ridge. Right ahead of you, Major, 12 o’clock”
Biagio waved at Scott and Stein, ordering them to fan out left and right as they climbed the slope. It was only then he wondered where the Marines were – probably still guarding the bombsite looking for us, he thought. He had been saying for months that the Marines should be able to hear their communications, but it still hadn’t happened.
“If I use a hellfire, you’re all going up in smoke,” Nielson said, “you gotta do this.”
And with that he switched off Nevada’s microphones. Let them concentrate, he thought. More talk, more confusion.
Just as he did so Palmer whooped: “Go get him, cowboy!”
“This is not a ball game,” Nielson hissed without turning his head from the screen.
Biagio saw a huge boulder ahead slightly to his right, ran towards it, took cover and looked up.
He could see a gun barrel edging out from the rocks above him.
“Scott, Stein,” he whispered into this mouthpiece, “just below the ridge. He’s armed.”
A short burst of fire rang out but with sound echoing down the mountainside Biagio couldn’t work out who it had come from.
“I got him,” said Stein.
And sure enough Mahmud, lurching on a bleeding leg came out of the cave. He turned and limped towards Scott, firing his Kalashnikov as he moved.
A yelp of pain came though the headsets. “I’m hit. He fucking hit me!”
“He’s yours,” yelled Stein to Biagio. Mahmud was within 10 metres of Scott, still shooting, when Biagio took slow, deliberate aim and fired.
Mahmud slumped forward clasping the side of his body.
Biagio rushed up the hill as Scott, nursing his shoulder, looked on.
“You OK?” Biagio asked Scott. No reply. Just a whimper.
The major was beyond the point of taking prisoners. Old enough to shoot, old enough to be shot. Just to make sure, he pulled his trigger twice in rapid succession. Mahmud’s chest crumpled. Biagio took out the iris scanner.
“Peel ’em back!”
Stein, kneeling above Mahmud’s head put his fingers on the dead boy’s eyes and cheeks and stretched the skin until the eyeballs were exposed. It left just enough room for Biagio to roll the scanner across.
Biagio put the scanner back in a pouch in his jacket, pressed the Velcro seal and then, reaching down to his belt, removed the pliers. Searching among the tangle of Mahmud’s clothes he located a hand, pulled it up into the light, cut off a forefinger and dropped it into a clear plastic bag Stein was holding open.
“Now let’s move!” Biagio shouted looking towards Scott. The Sergeant who had been watching from the ground tried to stand up but couldn’t make it. He slumped back propping himself up on his elbows. Reaching him, Biagio tried to remember the countless first aid courses he’d been on. Starting at the ankles he squeezed Scott’s clothes and when he reached the stomach the clothes turned warm and sticky.
Scott whimpered.
“OK, we got one anyway.” He looked up for Stein and saw he was kneeling beside him. “Press on it!”
As Stein tried to stem the flow of blood, Biagio’s hands moved towards Scott’s chest feeling for a second wound. He saw some blood on Scott’s neck and with shaking hands unclipped Scott’s helmet and put it on the ground.
And as his fingers ran through Scott’s greasy hair he said: “You are one lucky fucker. He just cu
t your neck. Grazed it. You gonna have a purple heart and you gonna live to tell the tale.” And then: “Enriquez! We good to go – get yourself down here.”
Within a second the sound of the helicopter’s blades turning through the air deepened as the Blackhawk came towards them. Biagio looked at Stein: “Let’s skedaddle before that dead raghead’s friends pay us a visit.”
Scott put his arms around the other two’s shoulders and let them heave him down the hill until they reached a place flat enough for the Blackhawk to land. And once on board, as they raced away in the bright morning light, Biagio remembered he had one more thing to do. “Tell those Marines we are going home. I’ve had enough for today.”
*****
It was Saturday. Jaz’s best day and his worst. His best because he wasn’t working. His worst because he could go the whole day without meeting anyone. Without even speaking. He sometimes thought his yearning for company would consume his whole body from the inside.
But this Saturday was going to be different.
It was a passenger who made him do it: someone he’d driven to the five-a-side pitches near the Imperial War Museum. He’d said he was running it for the council.
“The problem with you boys is that you only want to play with your own kind. We’re trying to change that. That’s what this place is all about. It’s what London is all about. Or should be. So where you from?”
“Quentin House. You know, Webber Road.”
“No.” The man leant forward so his face was close to the back of Jaz’s headrest. “I mean where you from?”
“Pakistan.”
“Right. And do you do any sport? You look fit enough. You work out?”
“Yeah. In the gym.”
“What about football, basketball that kind of thing?”
“Not really. I just work out.”
“But team games is what you need to do. The thing is Pakistanis play only with Pakistanis. And the Somalis with Somalis and so on. And the Brits the same often enough.”
“I don’t do anything with Pakistanis. They’re Punjabis.”
“Right ...” The man said not understanding the point Jaz was making.
“I’m Baluch.”
“Where’s that then?”
“Pakistan, mate.” The man looked confused. “It’s a shame,” Jaz added trying, but failing, to help.
Jaz slowed down. He could see the grass pitches, overlooked by high-rise flats, stretching out in front of him. Some boys and girls were playing, their faces taut with concentration.
“Just here’s fine,” the man said. “Now you come with me.”
Jaz found himself walking round the back of the car to let the man out.
“So how do you fancy it?” he said. “Thursday nights? Mixed race team.”
“I work Thursdays. And football’s no good for me.”
“Anyone can play. What days don’t you work?”
“Well. Saturday.”
“OK then. 10 o’clock next Saturday. And don’t be late. Deal?”
And rather to his own surprise Jaz had found himself agreeing. As he drove away he wondered if he would have reacted differently if a white person had said all that to him.
So this Saturday was going to be different. Maybe.
As he walked out of his flat a flurry of leaves curled round his front door and blew into his hallway. He hunched his shoulders and pulled his coat tighter around his body. And just an hour later he was in goal, feeling what he fully realised was an absurd amount of joy. He hadn’t known much about it but a shot had just ricocheted off his shins.
“Nice one mate!” And pats on the back. It felt so good.
And it got better. At the end of the game, as he left the pitch, one of the girls came up to him. Jaz, in goal, hadn’t had to move around much but she was sweating. She was in a grey tracksuit with a band around her forehead. Jaz wondered if she was from Jordan or maybe Egypt.
“Hallo,” she said. She seemed unsure what to say. “Your first time?”
“Yeah. You?”
“I’m a regular. Well a few months now. I like it. Gives me energy somehow.”
“Do many girls play?”
“Oh Yeah. We’re quite good you know.” She was running in front of him now feinting left and right as she pretended to dribble a ball. They reached the changing room and he expected her to peel off with the other women.
She stayed still. His heart skipped a beat. It felt like a short sharp electric shock. He wondered if his mouth was too dry to speak.
“You living round here?”
“Not far,” she said, “Lambeth.”
“Me too.”
“Where?”
“Quentin House. It’s some flats. In Webber Road.”
“Near the Old Vic?”
“What’s that?”
“The theatre. The Old Vic.”
She kicked a ball against a wall it and came back towards Jaz. Before he could kick it she darted in front of him bumping into his arm before scooping up the ball and throwing it in the air to head it.
“What’s your name then?”
“Aysha.”
“Lovely that is.” What else was he meant to say?
“Yours?”
“Jaz.”
“Jaz,” she said doing a twirl. “Well Jaz are you going to ask me out for a drink?”
“Would you like a drink?”
“Well thank you Jaz.”
After they had showered, met up again and found a pub Jaz found himself moving towards the bar. He was unsure what to order. He’d bought cans of lager before and drank them in his flat but he wasn’t sure if pubs sold cans. He’d looked at the tall handles on the bar and wondered exactly what they did. To stall for time he asked Aysha what she wanted and ordered her a glass of white wine. As he did so he watched another of the barmaids pulling a pint. He pointed towards her and asked for the same. It was the pub’s premium beer – the strongest - and after he’d drunk a pint, he talked like a man making up for lost time. And she listened well.
“So what brings you to London Jaz?”
“It was my dad at first. But then my uncle told me to stay. He said forget Pakistan.” He noticed that his accent was more London than hers and worried she wouldn’t like it.
“But what about your dad?”
“Well he had a heart attack. Something like that.”
“Oh!”
“Yeah he had another wife here.” Jaz nodded to himself. “My Mum died a long way back. Yeah that was it really.”
“So what about the other wife. Was she Pakistani too?”
“Yeah.”
“Was he married to both at the same time?”
“Dunno really.”
“I hate that. No one’s going to do that to me.” Reaching out, Aysha put her hand on his, stroking it softly. “Anyway, you are all alone.”
“Well there’s Mahmud, my brother. I am going to get him over here soon. I’m looking forward to it to be honest. My uncle says he can go to the same English college I did.”
“What about your dad’s wife here. Do you ever see her?”
“She has another bloke. Anyway what about you?”
The bar was filling up. Pretending to make room for another couple who were standing nearby with drinks in their hands, Jaz moved closer to Aysha so that their knees touched.
“Nothing really. I’m Palestinian. Which means we can never get visas to come here. But my dad managed it somehow – he’s a businessmen. He said the same thing. That I should stay here.”
“Will you?”
Aysha smiled. “Dunno. There’s no place like home. Even Gaza!” She laughed.
“I tried to get a job here. As a teaching assistant, you know” Jaz said.
“Did you? Don’t you need to do exams for that?”
He stared at her, impassive.
“I did them. Teacher’s pet I was. I even did maths at evening school because the people at college said it should help get a job.”
; “Maths!” Aysha smiled and groaned.
“Waste of time though.”
“How d’ya mean?”
“I got the job. Easy they said. But then there were government cuts and never even started.”
“Bastards. So what are you doing?”
“Minicabbing. That’s the one thing my dad did do for me. Before he died. Got me through my driving test.”
“Another one?” Without waiting for his reply Aysha was heading towards the bar feeling in her pocket for some money. Jaz watched her body swaying as she moved through the drinkers, his eyes drawn to her tight jeans.
There was a group of six men, pints in hand, standing in a circle speaking with raised voices to make themselves heard and exposing their white teeth when they laughed. They wore pin stripe suits with wide lapels and bright ties and had the flushed cheeks of the young British rich. Bastards, thought Jaz.
Unable to move around them, Aysha dipped her head and made her way through the middle of the circle. It was then Jaz saw one of them put his hand on the back of her thigh and moved it up towards her buttocks.
Reacting even quicker than she did, Jaz was on his feet and moving towards them. Aysha turned, caught Jaz’s eye, shook her head and signalled that he should go back. She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m fine,” she mouthed.
Jaz ignored her and moved into the middle of the men.
“That ain’t right was it,” he said.
Silence. The six men edged back and looked down at their drinks trying to avoid direct eye contact. Aysha grabbed Jaz’s arm. “Come on. If the police come you know whose side they’ll take.”
Uncertain what to do Jaz hesitated, breathed out and with Aysha following in his wake made for the door. It was cold outside and Aysha took his arm and put her body close to his as they walked.
“Thank you,” she said. “Do you want to go somewhere else?” And then she laughed and putting her arm around his waist said: “They look frightened Jaz! Pissing themselves!”
TARGET BRITAIN: a political thriller Page 3
