Waking Caliban

by Mike Cartlidge

  It was all over in seconds. I had the rifle set to automatic fire and, when he pulled the trigger, a stream of bullets took the three terrorists. They slammed backwards and their blood spurted against the tatty walls.

  He stopped firing as abruptly as he’d started and looked at me, the rage suddenly under control and a stupefied expression on his face. My ears rang with the roar of the gunfire but I pushed myself up and was standing by the time I heard the sound of running footsteps. As the door began to open, I stepped forward and blocked it. I looked out into the faces of Geordie Thorpe and the men behind him and ordered them all to stand down and guard the outside of the house. Everything here was under control, I told them. Thorpe stared at me but then he backed away and I slammed the door closed.

  Browning hadn’t moved other than to turn his head towards the door. His eyes flickered back towards the bodies sprawled on the floor by the table.

  “I had to do it, Hastings,” he whispered.

  “No, you didn’t, Browning. Give me the gun.” I held my hand out towards him and saw the madness reappear in his eyes.

  “Think we can cover this up?”

  I shook my head. “Too many people knew these people were our prisoners.”

  “We can say they were trying to escape. Order our chaps to…”

  I said nothing. We both knew good officers didn’t order their men to tell lies. He looked down at the shackles on the prisoners’ bodies. I took a step towards him, my hand still outstretched.

  “The annual performance report was a fucking waste of time,” he spat.

  “What?” I couldn’t believe I’d heard him right.

  “The fucking performance report from the CO.” His voice came from some place a million miles away. “They’re never going to promote me. They don’t think I’m ‘sound’.”

  “I don’t think-”

  “Remember that day in the desert,” he interrupted, “when we were young officers?”

  “You saved my skin.”

  “We talked about the soldier who falls on the grenade.”

  “I remember.”

  “And you made me a promise always to protect my name. Try and keep it, there’s a good chap.”

  Before I could stop him, he turned the rifle so that its muzzle was below his chin and blew his brains out.

  Chapter 34

  The moon had moved some way across the sky. It felt like we’d been lying in the copse for ever. I ducked my head under the groundsheet and checked the time again. It was 2.15 A.M. As I pushed my head slowly back into the night air, I heard Ablett’s low hiss and immediately started another sweep with my night scope.

  I saw movement by the gate. Five figures. Two of the newcomers were climbing over the gate into the field and I saw them drop back-packs before lugging up assault rifles and beginning to move forward. From the way they spread out, edging slowly along the hedgerows, they weren’t taking the solitude of the place too much for granted. It made sense that they’d be cautious. The way I saw it, they’d have expected Damage to make contact once he’d killed me and, in the absence of any news from him or the driver of the Mercedes, they’d assume that something had gone wrong.

  As I watched, though, the other three men clambered over the gate and advanced across the field and I guessed Salim’s greed was getting the better of his sense of caution. The man nearest me was slightly built and I picked him for al-Ahmad. Next to him, I guessed, was Salim himself and the massive shape to his right could only be Havoc. Miranda’s absence from the scene worried me but there was nothing I could do about it right now and I forced myself to put my concern to one side.

  The bodyguards were still moving and it would only be a minute or so before the nearest of them reached the spot where Ablett and I were hiding. I prayed that Bakst would keep quiet and not pick this particular time to sneeze or start making unfavorable comparisons between field rations and chateaubriand. Slowly, I switched the scope back towards the little huddle of men who were now nearing the middle of the field. Havoc and al-Ahmad were carrying backpacks and, slung across their shoulders, devices that looked like metal detectors. Wriggling the packs off their backs, they placed the equipment on the ground and went into a huddle with Salim. When one of them moved, I could see the glow of a laptop computer’s screen and, strewn around on the grass, various other items of equipment. I guessed the gear included ultrasound and infrared imaging devices that they’d use to help locate the ancient well and its contents. I saw Havoc pick up one of the metal detectors and, for a moment, saw the gleam of another LCD display between his hands before he turned away from me.

  By this time, the bodyguard on our side of the field had moved out of my field of vision. I figured he’d be past the corner of the field and coming our way. I slipped the night scope under my body and slowly pulled up the groundsheet so that it was covering my head. The Sterling was hidden under camouflage netting and leaves by my side. I left it where it was and gripped my pistol. In the still of the night, I couldn’t take the chance of working the slide or the safety catch: if that turned out to be necessary, we were in trouble anyway. Better to trust to our powers of concealment and the fact that the bodyguards weren’t risking their night vision by using torches. I figured Ablett would still be thinking the same way as me and wouldn’t do anything stupid. I realized I was holding my breath and forced myself to exhale slowly and silently. My heart rate stepped up a notch.

  I heard stealthy movement. The sound was no more than the brush of material against hedgerow weeds but it was enough to tell me where he was. An instant later, I saw him as he came forward. He was turning and traversing what looked like an Galil assault rifle – an Israeli equivalent of the more common Kalashnikov – until he stopped by the wire fence, no more than six feet from me. I wondered if he’d heard something. He turned again, still in slow motion, and I saw the muzzle of the assault rifle come round until it was pointing straight at my body. I tried to work out whether I’d be able to clear the Colt from the groundsheet, work the action and shoot before he could hit me with the Galil. The chances were thin. Five seconds passed, then another five. Fuck it, I thought, I’ve got to go for it. Try to hit the bodyguard and then pray Ablett was up with the game and we could spring cover and take the others by surprise.

  Just as I tensed my muscles to move, I heard a low beep. The bodyguard turned away from us and reached an R/T device from his belt. I heard him speak and, after a few moments, he turned and waved towards the men in the middle of the field. Then he replaced the radio on his belt and continued working his way along the fence. As soon as he was out of sight, I took a deep breath and used the scope to see what else was going on.

  In the middle of the field, Havoc was walking backwards and forward over a small patch of ground as al-Ahmad crouched over the ultrasound and imaging devices, gazing at the laptop screen and adjusting controls. Salim was tracking along behind Havoc, using a hooded torch to examine a sheet of paper held in his left hand. He looked agitated. I guessed impatience was getting the better of him and that that explained the ‘hurry it along’ call to the man with the Galil. I adjusted the night scope and looked up. The other bodyguard, on the far side of the field, had reached the second corner and was working his way back in our general direction. I glanced at Ablett, saw him turn and look in my direction before returning his attention to the field below him.

  As I went back to watching the men in front of me, I saw Havoc come to a sudden halt, his head bent over the screen on his metal detector. Salim ran to his side and there was no mistaking the excitement in the gesture he made to al-Ahmad. He brought the R/T up to his mouth and the bodyguard on the far side of the field stopped with his head cocked to one side. After a few seconds, he broke off his search and trotted back towards the gate, holding his rifle one-handed at his side. Then I saw the other man, the one who’d stopped close to our hide, as he also loped across the field.

  Once the two bodyguards had reached the gate, they picked up the backpacks th
ey’d dropped when they first appeared and carried them towards the other men. Laying the Galils down on a tarpaulin, they pulled picks and shovels from the packs before stripping off their jackets and starting to attack the loamy Warwickshire soil. I looked across at Ablett, who was wriggling from under his groundsheet. He shook his head at me and pointed back into the copse, where we’d left Bakst. He crawled away, moving slowly and silently, and I raised the night scope and went back to watching the show.

  It was another five minutes before Ablett returned. This time, Bakst was with him, looking distinctly unimpressed about having to crawl through piles of leaves and squirrel droppings. Ablett ignored his sour impression and, after making him lie down between the two of us, handed him a night scope. By this time, the bodyguards had dug a decent-sized hole. As we watched, one of them climbed out and Havoc took his spade, jumped into the hole and started digging furiously.

  Bakst licked his lips and, for a moment, I thought he might forget the plan we’d put together earlier in the evening. As if he realized what I was thinking, he shook his head and went back to his watching.

  From time to time, I slipped my head under the groundsheet and checked the time. A half-hour passed and, judging by the growing pile of earth beside it, the hole in the center of the field was getting deeper. After a while, I saw the second bodyguard get out and hand his spade over to his mate. Shortly afterwards, Havoc stood up. The hole was now deep enough to hide most of his body and I could only just make out his head and shoulders. Salim and al-Ahmad pressed closer to the edge of the excavation and I saw Havoc hand something to them. The object was small and square and nothing like the lead container I’d been half-expecting. I guessed it was a brick. Salim placed it next to the pile of dirt and, over the next few minutes, it was joined by others.

  I thought back to what Marr, the museum curator, had told me as he lay dying. Wells built in Elizabethan times would be lined with bricks and their walls sometimes contained hiding places for religious artifacts and the like. Marr had believed that this old well contained such a niche. As I watched, more bricks came up and still more of the diggers’ bodies disappeared into the pit. They must have dug hand- and foot-holes as they went down but, even so, Havoc climbed out with some difficulty when it was his turn to be replaced by the man who’d been resting.

  I was checking my watch again – it was well past 3 o’clock – when I heard an excited shout. Salim pushed Havoc and al-Ahmad to one side and dropped to the ground, so that he was lying with his head and forearms over the hole. One of the diggers handed him an object of some sort and he strained to pull it up. Havoc knelt beside him and I saw him tug a dark, metallic-looking cylinder above the lip of the hole.

  In their excitement, Salim and the others seemed to forget caution. al-Ahmad turned on a torch and Salim grasped the cylinder, pushing its weight under one of his arms and using his hands to try to unscrew its lid. Evidently, he found it too tough and he handed it to Havoc, who took the heavy container in his enormous hands and strained, trying to twist one end against the other. Finally, he got movement. As one end of the cylinder came away, Salim turned the neck of the container back towards himself and peered into it. Then he wiped his hands on his trousers and, slowly and carefully, began to extract what looked like a roll of papers. In the torchlight, I saw al-Ahmad’s head bob up and down and his small body shake with excitement.

  The bodyguards were continuing to dig. One of them shouted again and Havoc reached down and pulled up another cylinder. I turned to Bakst. His hands were clenched into fists and his breathing was coming in fast, short bursts. Ablett, meanwhile, was leaning on his elbows, looking studiously bored.

  I leant towards Bakst. “Do we move now?”

  He shook his head. “After all the effort our friends here have put in, the least we can do is let them experience a few moments of excitement.”

  “And that looks like pretty hard work down there, doesn’t it?”

  He gave me the hard-eyed stare before returning his attention to the field. Havoc was now lying on the ground next to the hole, pulling up one after another of the cylinders. I guessed Marr had been right about the hiding place in the wall and that all the cylinders had been stored together. I counted eight of the black containers stacked on the grass. Salim restored the contents of the first, pushing the papers back into the heavy cylinder and pressing down the lid. Then he slid forward to join Havoc on the edge of the hole and told the diggers to climb out.

  I sensed Ablett starting to move and raised myself into a kneeling position, flexing my cramped muscles. I picked up the Colt and pushed it into the shoulder holster, buttoning the holster’s flap to make sure the gun wouldn’t fall out as I moved forward. Then I folded the groundsheet I’d been using – I don’t believe in leaving anything that might contain incriminating specks of DNA – and tucked it into a backpack which I slung over my shoulders. Lastly, I took the silenced Sterling and, without thinking consciously about what I was doing, ran my hands over its mechanism, checking it as well as I could without actually making a sound.

  Ablett, clutching the other Sterling, moved forward. We had the minor complication of the barbed wire fence to overcome but Ablett was prepared. As I stood back, he doubled and redoubled his groundsheet and then laid it over the top of the fence. Carefully, he pressed the top wire down with his free hand and stepped over it. I followed him, casting glances towards the men in the middle of the field. They were too distracted with their finds to notice us. Even the bodyguards, confirming my impression of them from the airport, were clustered around the others instead of taking up position and keeping a proper watch. Not that I was complaining: once we were into the field, Ablett signaled to me and then went forward and wide, to his right. I moved forward and to my left, so that, if needed, we had an arc of fire. Hopefully, given the copse and the rising ground behind us, we wouldn’t be easy to see. We moved silently on the lush summer grass until we were within twenty feet of the men.

  At last, Havoc turned and looked straight at me. I cocked the sub-machine gun and raised it towards him, yelling for him to freeze. To my right, Ablett skipped sideways and forward with his Sterling, its folding butt fully extended, held at shoulder height. In the dim moonlight, I could see the shock on Salim’s face as he turned towards us. He recovered quickly, screaming an order at the two bodyguards who came forward past him, grabbing at the Galils lying on the tarpaulin. At the same time, Salim dived to the ground, leaving al-Ahmad standing stupidly, his arms spread out before him, and Havoc to one side with his hands raised.

  There’s no time to think in a situation like this. I stepped to my left and let go a short burst at the man closest to me. Ablett fired at the same time, so that our bullets took both men as they tried to scoop up their weapons. The bodyguards pitched helplessly on their faces. The one nearest me rolled once and was then still. The man nearest Ablett didn’t even roll. Without any communication between us, I moved again, still circling left, so that Ablett could come in and kick the Galils away from the prone figures. I saw him feel for pulses at each man’s wrist and then shake his head before moving back into his crouching position and switching the Sterling to his hip. Apart from Salim’s shout, there had been no sound through any of this except for the murmur of the silenced weapons.

  For a few moments we stood still, Ablett and I covering the three men, Salim climbing back to his feet and standing next to al-Ahmad. In the moonlight, I could see a faint wisp of smoke coming from my gun barrel. The silence was broken by the sound of Bakst struggling to get over the fence behind us and cursing as he snagged some part of his anatomy on the barbed wire. Breathing heavily, he disentangled himself and started to make his way towards us, still holding the night scope in his hands as if it was some sort of weapon.

  Havoc looked at me. “I take it your appearance here doesn’t bode well for the survival chances of my esteemed colleague Mr. Damage.”

  “Sorry. Close, were you?”

  He shrugged, his fac
e expressionless.

  “So tell me,” I asked him, “who killed Geordie Thorpe?”

  “Thorpe?”

  “The man whose funeral you and Damage went to, remember?”

  Salim hissed for him to remain silent but, even in the dimness of the partial moon, I could see the curl of Havoc’s strangely effeminate lips. “I have to admit to some involvement in that incident. Am I to understand that he was an old comrade of yours, this Thorpe gentleman?”

  “He was.” My hand tightened on the grip of my gun.

  “I cannot recall whether I or my colleague delivered the coup de grace but I have tell you he did not expire immediately.” His eyes gleamed and, abruptly, the pseudo-erudite act dropped away, revealing the crude psychopath below. “He lay on the concrete path and whimpered like a puppy. Some crap about his kiddies, I think it was.”

  I clenched my teeth, refusing to let him rile me into losing control. By this time, Bakst had almost reached our position and I was up against the dilemma I’d tried – and failed – to work through ever since Thorpe’s death. It was one thing to kill a man in action, although I can’t pretend for a moment that that came easily to me. I was only too conscious of the hunched form of the dead bodyguard to the right of where I was standing. He’d been foolhardy and brave and, I told myself, it had been him or me. But killing a man in action was one thing. To execute someone in cold blood… In the last few days I’d wondered and wondered whether, if I had Thorpe’s killer in my gun-sites, I’d be able to shoot. Now I had him under my barrel, I knew I couldn’t.

  Bakst rested his hand on my shoulder, puffing heavily and bending at the waist as he tried to catch his breath. I moved away from him and he stared at me and then at Salim and al-Ahmad before pointing at the cylinder they’d opened. “Ah, Ghassan Salim. My nearest and dearest enemy. You appear to have been most energetic in your labors. To what end, I wonder?”