The Kill Zone

by Chris Ryan

  ‘Where’s the girl who had this?’ she demanded.

  ‘Siobhan,’ Yvonne said, ‘you should go through the proper—’

  ‘Where is she?’

  Yvonne sighed, and told her.

  ‘The boyfriend. What do we know about him?’

  ‘One of O’Callaghan’s crew. At least he used to be. Started dabbling with his own product. No good to anyone after that.’

  O’Callaghan. Everywhere she turned, his name cropped up.

  Thirty minutes later she was glancing through the window of the door leading into the ICU of the Royal, the dog-eared Polaroid in her hand.

  The place was silent – a row of beds, their occupants cabled up to complicated machines and life-support systems. There was one doctor on duty, who stood at the end of one of the beds with a clipboard in her hand. Siobhan steeled herself, and walked in.

  The doctor looked at her in shock. ‘Excuse me, this is the ICU. Members of the public—’

  Siobhan held out her police ID. ‘Detective Inspector Byrne. I need to speak to Alice Stevens, Dr . . .’

  ‘Dr Philips. And Miss Stevens is in no state to speak to anyone.’

  Siobhan gave her a hard glare. ‘We’ve got two options,’ she said. ‘Either you let me speak to the girl, or I arrest you now for obstructing a police investigation.’ She kept the glare up, hoping that this doctor wouldn’t realise how many regulations Siobhan was breaking.

  A silence. And then . . .

  ‘Five minutes, not a second more. Third bed along.’ And with an unfriendly look she walked to the other end of the unit.

  Siobhan approached the girl’s bed. She looked a mess. Desperately thin, her chest rose only fractionally. A clear oxygen mask covered her mouth and nose, a saline drip sprouted from her right hand and she looked like she was barely hanging on.

  But she was awake.

  Siobhan sat by her side. ‘Alice,’ she whispered. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  Alice’s head stayed still, but her eyes moved to the right. ‘Who are you?’ she breathed. Her voice was muffled because of the oxygen mask, which clouded over with water vapour as she spoke.

  Siobhan didn’t answer that question. She just held up the photograph. ‘I need to know where this girl is. I think you can help me.’

  The patient glanced at the photo, then her eyes fell shut. She didn’t say anything.

  ‘Alice? Alice?’ Siobhan put one hand on the patient’s arm and shook her gently. Her eyes opened. ‘Where is she, Alice? I have to know.’

  ‘You the filth?’ Alice asked. And when Siobhan didn’t answer: ‘You are the fucking filth. Piss off.’

  ‘I’m not the police, Alice,’ Siobhan lied.

  ‘Then why’re you so interested in Lily?’

  ‘She’s my daughter. If she’s in trouble, you’ve got to let me help her.’

  ‘She doesn’t want your help.’

  ‘Then let her tell me that to my face.’

  Alice looked like she was thinking about it. ‘I don’t believe you’re not the police,’ she said. ‘I’m not telling you anything.’

  Siobhan glanced over her shoulder. Dr Philips was at the other end of the ICU, clipboard in hand, recording the vital signs of another patient. The police officer turned back to Alice and began to examine the tubes emerging from her body. The saline drip would be no good. Remove that and it would take an hour or so for it to have any effect on the girl. But the oxygen mask was a different matter. It had two small ventilation holes on either side, and a clear pipe that snaked from the bottom of the mask, across her chest and towards a dull green oxygen canister on the opposite side of the bed. Without hesitation, Siobhan used two fingers on her left hand to cover up the ventilation holes on the mask; with her right hand she gently lifted the pipe and held it up so the girl could see what she was doing. Then she bent it, creating a kink in the pipe and stopping the patient’s precious oxygen flow.

  It took about five seconds for Alice to realise what was happening. She opened her mouth to cry out, but she was too weak and in any case the lack of oxygen had an immediate effect. She gasped and Siobhan felt the suction pulling the mask against her skin. The patient’s eyes widened and her feeble body shook. Siobhan gave it ten seconds, then released her grip on the oxygen tube and removed her fingers from the mask.

  Alice’s breath came in short gasps and it took a minute for her to breathe normally again. ‘Listen to me, Alice,’ Siobhan whispered. ‘I’m not messing around. Next time, they’ll be sending a hospital porter in to take you down to the morgue. Understand?’

  Alice just looked at her like she was looking at a monster.

  ‘Where’s Lily?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.

  ‘Is she a friend of yours?’

  Alice nodded. ‘She was. I haven’t seen her for months.’

  ‘How many months?’

  ‘I don’t fucking know. I’ve been high. So has she, knowing Lily.’ Alice said this aggressively.

  Siobhan felt her body chill, but she didn’t let it show. ‘You’d better give me something else to go on, Alice.’ She held up the oxygen pipe again.

  ‘There was a guy,’ Alice said quickly. ‘Lots of guys. They kept us in this house . . .’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Who cares?’ Alice whispered. ‘They all want the same fucking thing, don’t they? Lily gave them anything they wanted, long as they gave her enough gear to chase the fucking dragon every night. There was one guy, though. Important guy. Paki or something, like the rest of them. Took a shine to her. She was well fucking gone by then. Doing anything. Anal, you name it, just to get a hit.’

  Alice’s eyes started to fill with tears at the thought of it, and Siobhan stared in shock at this messed-up girl who was weeping for her daughter.

  ‘Who was this guy, Alice?’ Her voice was a bit more gentle now.

  ‘I don’t know his name. He took her away and I managed to get the hell out of the house. I haven’t seen either of them since she left.’ Alice closed her eyes. ‘You’ll never find her,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s rumours. About what happens to girls when they disappear like that, when the guys have finished with them.’

  ‘What kind of rumours?’ She glanced over her shoulder to see the doctor looking at them. ‘What kind of rumours?’

  ‘They ship them out. Africa, they say. Places where white girls fetch a price . . .’

  Siobhan closed her eyes and looked away. ‘Jesus . . .’ she whispered. She felt sick. She took a few deep breaths to get a hold of herself, to steel herself to ask more questions.

  But the questions would have to wait.

  All of a sudden, Alice’s eyes were rolling, her body twitching. One of the machines by Alice’s bedside started to beep. Dr Philips was there instantly. ‘Officer, you have to go.’

  ‘I just need to—’

  But the doctor wasn’t even listening to her. ‘Get out!’ she hissed. ‘She needs treatment, now.’

  One look showed that the doctor was right. Siobhan nodded, then hurriedly left the ICU just as a team of three doctors rushed in. From her vantage point at the other side of the door she watched them get to work on the patient. One of them performed CPR; another slid an injection into her right arm; they worked on her for three minutes, maybe four.

  But whatever they did, it wasn’t enough. Siobhan could easily read the body language: the way the four doctors stepped back away from the bed; the way Dr Philips hung her head; the way Alice’s arm hung limply from her side. Siobhan turned. She didn’t need to watch them pulling the bedclothes over the girl’s head to realise that she was dead.

  Back in the car, Siobhan stared through the windscreen for a full ten minutes. She felt numb. Cold. Then she put her head against the steering wheel and wept. Her whole body shook and it felt as though the tears came from deep in her veins. She didn’t even know why she was crying. Was it horror at what she’d heard? Panic? Revulsi
on? Or was it relief that her daughter might – might – be alive? Great, racking sobs coursed through her as the guilt that she lived with every day became more raw. Guilt that she’d not been able to do anything to stop Lily going off the rails back then, and she seemed just as impotent now. Guilt at her inability to be a good mother. God knows it hadn’t been easy, bringing Lily up by herself while she tried to hold down a job that wasn’t exactly family friendly; but she blamed herself for Lily’s situation, even though she knew she was hardly cut out to be a cookies-and-milk kind of mum.

  Sitting in the darkness outside the hospital she cried all the tears she had in her.

  When she could cry no more, she took deep breaths. Tried to get control of her body and her mind.

  She looked at the Polaroid and Lily stared back at her, as though begging her for help.

  She was going to find her daughter.

  She didn’t know how and she didn’t know where, but come hell or high water, she was going to find her. She’d let Lily down once before and she wasn’t going to do it again.

  There was something else she had to do. Someone she had to tell. Lily’s father deserved to know what was happening. He hadn’t exactly been the best dad in the world; they might not have even spoken for, what was it? A year? But although he’d been an intermittent figure in their lives, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t tell him the horrific news about their daughter.

  And it didn’t mean she shouldn’t ask him for help.

  Siobhan’s mind was a mess but one thing was perfectly clear to her: if she was going to find Lily, he was one of the few people she’d trust to be on board.

  She took another deep breath, then pulled her phone from her leather jacket. She scrolled through the address book and a name appeared on the screen.

  Harker, Jack.

  She imagined the phone ringing in the little flat in Hereford. An answer machine, naturally. No name, of course. No indication of where he was. Just an electronic voice asking her to leave a message. And so she did.

  ‘Jack,’ she said, unable to stop her voice wavering. ‘It’s Siobhan. I don’t know where you are but . . . I just have to speak to you, all right? Just call me . . .’

  Siobhan hung up. She knew she should really have called the Regiment offices, gone through the official channels. But that wasn’t her way, and it wasn’t Jack’s either. He’d call her when he was ready.

  But God only knew where he was now . . .

  28 JUNE

  8

  Camp Bastion Field Hospital.

  12.00 hrs.

  ‘Jesus, doctor. Not my legs . . . Don’t take my fucking legs . . .’

  The voice was slurred but frightened. Its owner screamed. Then sobbed. It was this noise that woke Jack.

  He opened his eyes and tried to look around, but his movement was obstructed by the oxygen mask on his face. He ripped it off and sat up, then winced as every muscle in his body seemed to shriek at him.

  He was in a hospital bed, one of many, all of them filled with casualties. The screaming faded away as the injured man was hurriedly wheeled into surgery.

  It was a big ward – perhaps twenty beds – with bright strip lighting shining overhead and all the paraphernalia of an up-to-date field hospital. A drip stand with a saline bag stood next to Jack’s bed, and a machine monitoring his pulse and blood pressure. He flopped back down on the bed and tried to remember how he’d got there.

  There were just flashes in his memory. Trekking across the desert towards the FOB and pressing himself into the sand every time a lume lit up the sky. Forcing himself to move on, despite his body shouting out for water and rest. The constant worry of IEDs. And on arrival at the FOB, which he’d approached with arms in the air shouting, ‘British soldier! British soldier!’, being casevaced back to Bastion by Chinook. That was the last thing he remembered, and he didn’t know how long ago it was. Could have been an hour, could have been a day, could have been a week . . .

  And then he remembered the helicopter crash.

  Pixie, Al and Red. Jesus, Red.

  Jack could hardly believe he was alive.

  ‘What’s happened to your oxygen mask?’ A nurse was standing over him, a frown on her plain face.

  ‘How long have I been here?’ Jack demanded.

  ‘Not nearly long enough. You’ve been out cold for more than twenty-four hours and you need your oxygen mask on. Your blood count—’

  ‘Look, love,’ Jack interrupted her. ‘Do me a favour and treat the guys without legs.’ He pushed himself up on to his elbows again and tried to ignore the wave of dizzy nausea that crashed over him. ‘I need to see my OC. Will you get a message to him?’

  The nurse’s lips thinned, but she nodded. Then she looked over to the other side of the ward. ‘Looks like you’ve got a visitor,’ she said.

  Jack followed her gaze. Walking across the ward towards him was a woman. For a moment, he failed to recognise her: auburn hair, blue-grey eyes and the kind of pale skin that suggested she hadn’t been in the Stan for long. Only when she was a couple of metres from the bed did he realise who it was.

  ‘Morning, Professor.’ He looked around. ‘Or maybe it’s afternoon.’

  ‘About midday,’ Caroline Stenton said, her face expressionless. ‘It’s good to see you, Captain Harker. They told me you were dead.’

  ‘They exaggerated.’

  A silence.

  ‘I’m sorry about your friends,’ Caroline said.

  Jack looked away. Images of the burning helicopter branded themselves on his mind yet again. He only looked back when he realised that the woman had laid one hand on his arm. Her lips were glossy and slightly parted, and in the back of his mind he wondered what the hell kind of a person brought lipstick out to Camp Bastion.

  ‘I feel responsible, Jack,’ she said, and there was a catch in her voice. ‘Can I call you Jack?’

  He nodded.

  ‘They told me it would be dangerous,’ she continued, ‘but I never thought . . .’

  Her curly auburn hair was pinned up at the back to reveal the nape of her neck, but now a tendril fell over her face and she brushed it gently away with her free hand. She brushed the other hand gently up his arm.

  Jack felt something stirring inside, but he ignored it. Nothing like that was going to happen out here.

  ‘You want to make it up to me,’ he replied in a gruff voice, ‘how about telling me what the hell was in that suitcase I nearly died trying to recover.’

  For a moment she didn’t reply. She just stared at him, as though sizing him up. Eventually she lifted her hand from his arm. ‘I can’t tell you that, Jack. I’m sorry.’ She looked across the room. ‘Looks like you’re a popular man. I don’t want to monopolise you. I fly back to London today.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Lucky me.’ She pulled a card from her pocket and laid it gently at Jack’s bedside. ‘Any time you need a shoulder to cry on . . .’ She allowed her eyes to linger on his bare chest.

  And with that, she walked away from the bed and out of the ward. Jack watched her hips as she went.

  Her place was taken by Harry Palgrave. The squadron OC was a stern man at the best of times, but he wore a particularly serious expression now. ‘Hope I didn’t interrupt,’ he said in a voice that made it plain he didn’t give a shit.

  Jack watched Caroline disappear with a hint of regret. Then he turned back to Palgrave. ‘No, boss,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck me, Jack,’ the OC continued quietly. ‘We were all ready to carve your name on the memorial along with the others.’

  ‘What can I say, boss? I lucked out.’

  Palgrave shrugged. ‘There’s two kinds of luck, Jack – the luck you get, and the luck you make yourself. You don’t survive an attack like that without a bit of the second kind. How you feeling?’

  ‘Like shit.’

  ‘You look like it too. We’re going to let them patch you up a bit in here, then we need to do a solid debrief. You good with that?’
>
  Jack looked around. The ward stank of disinfectant and illness; injured soldiers lay perfectly still in every bed. Not his kind of place at all. In a sudden movement he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then carefully extracted the drip needle from his arm. He felt momentarily dizzy, but mastered it.

  ‘Boss,’ he said, ‘I know where the Stingers are.’

  Palgrave narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s a weapons arsenal where they held me.’

  The two men looked at each other. ‘I need to get you talking,’ Palgrave said, his face grim. ‘You up to it?’

  Jack nodded. ‘How does now suit you?’ he asked.

  ‘Ops centre in fifteen?’

  ‘Make it ten,’ Jack said, and he started to get dressed.

  There were three of them in the ops centre: Jack, Palgrave and ops officer Matt Cooper. Palgrave smelt of ciggies, Cooper smelt of chewing gum. They both looked like they’d had a hell of time of it back at base. The air conditioning was on, but it just brought the heat down from fifty degrees to forty-five. They were sweating like pigs as they settled down to talk.

  The door opened, and a figure walked in. Jack recognised him at once – the MoD goon who had briefed them before the op, and whose instruction it had been to stay behind and lase the cave. His short, tightly curled hair was greased straight back, and he had a moustache that looked like someone had shat on his lip. He saw Jack and smiled. ‘Captain Harker!’ he announced, his voice all Eton and Cambridge. ‘Nigel Willoughby. You’ll remember me, of course. It’s good to see you alive, sir!’

  Jack was already on his feet. His chair fell to the floor behind him as he strode over to the goon, grabbed him by the neck and pressed him up against the wall. ‘Yeah,’ he growled, ‘I remember you. You’re the asshole who kept me and my men on the ground long after we should have extracted.’

  A sharp voice from behind. Palgrave. ‘Put him down, Jack!’

  ‘With pleasure.’ He flung the goon to the ground like he was a rag doll. Willoughby scrambled to his feet, shot Jack a poisonous look, then quickly dusted himself down and picked up a folder full of documents that had tumbled to the floor with him. He straightened his hair, then spoke like a thin-lipped schoolmaster. ‘I shall put your behaviour, Captain Harker, down to the stress of the last forty-eight hours and not report it to the appropriate authorities. But let me assure you, if there is any repeat—’