by Chris Ryan
There was a man on the doorstep. He wore a woolly hat with a bobble, and was clutching a cardboard box to his chest. In one hand, he had a hand-held electronic scanner. ‘Amazon delivery,’ he said. He had a distinctly foreign accent.
‘I’m not expecting one,’ Clara said.
The delivery guy shrugged. ‘Christmas present, maybe. Lots of them, this time of year. Need a signature, please.’
Clara nodded. Silently, she wondered if this was something from Danny. Then she told herself not to be stupid. Wherever he was in the world, he wouldn’t be sending Amazon parcels. ‘One minute, please,’ she said. She took Rose back into the front room and laid her on the hearthrug. Then she returned to the front door, closed it, undid the security chain, then opened the door again.
She knew, instantly, that she’d done the wrong thing.
The delivery guy wasn’t carrying the parcel or the scanner any more. They were stacked neatly to one side of the door. He was carrying a gun, and the gun was pointing directly at Clara’s forehead.
Clara’s immediate instinct was to slam the door shut, but the gunman already had one foot over the threshold, blocking it. She staggered back as he forced his way in and closed the door behind him with his foot. He pulled a knife – long, wickedly sharp.
‘If you scream,’ he said calmly, ‘I’ll take your baby’s eyes out. I have done it before. It takes a few seconds.’
Clara almost choked in horror. ‘What do you want?’ she whispered. ‘My purse is in the bedroom. It’s all the money I have. You can take it . . .’ Her voice faltered. It wasn’t just that the gunman was smiling, as if he found ridiculous the notion that all he wanted was her money. She had noticed something else now that he was no longer clutching the parcel. The man had an angry, ugly scar at his throat, which almost mirrored his smile. It was grotesque, and for a moment Clara couldn’t take her eyes off it.
‘Where is the child?’ the gunman demanded.
Clara shook her head. It was the one question she couldn’t bring herself to answer. She didn’t need to. Rose started to cry. It was obvious from her thin wail that she was in the front room to the left of the hallway. The gunman twitched his weapon in that direction. Clara understood the gesture. She entered the room. Rose had her angry face on. Her little lungs were bellowing.
‘Shut her up,’ the gunman said.
‘I – I can’t. When she starts crying like this she—’
‘Fine,’ the gunman said. He stepped up to the baby and pressed the tip of his knife against the soft skin under her eye. ‘Left one first,’ he said. A pinprick of blood appeared.
‘No!’ Clara breathed. She bent down and grabbed her daughter, holding her closely to her chest. ‘Quiet . . . quiet baby . . . please . . .’ She rocked her as gently as her frightened body would allow. To her relief, Rose calmed down, but it still looked as if she was weeping blood from her left eye.
‘The only reason you’re alive is to keep the baby quiet. If you fail to do that, I’ll shut her up myself.’ He put away his knife. ‘Then I’ll deal with you.’
‘Is this . . . is this to do with Danny?’ Clara said.
The gunman swiped her hard round the side of the face. She gasped in pain. ‘You don’t speak.’ He pointed to the window. ‘Do you see that van?’ he said.
Clara looked and saw a red Parcelforce van parked just outside. She hadn’t noticed it arrive. She nodded.
‘We’re going there now.’
Clara looked down at her clothes. Nightie. Dressing gown. Slippers. ‘I – I need to change,’ she said.
Another swipe round the face. She felt blood trickle from her nose. Rose grizzled.
‘I’m going first with the baby. Then you follow. If you make a noise, or try to run, I’ll kill the child. Do you understand?’
Clara stared at him, too afraid to speak.
‘Don’t make me ask a question twice.’
‘I – I understand.’
‘Good. Give me the child.’
She couldn’t do it. She shrank back from him, cuddling Rose as tightly as she ever had, smearing the trickle of blood on her tiny left cheek. The gunman gave an impatient hiss. He changed the position of his weapon so that he was holding the barrel. Then he stepped forward and struck the pistol handle hard across Clara’s rapidly swelling cheek. She gasped in pain, and her knees buckled. The gunman stepped up to her and yanked Rose out of her arms. Immediately, the baby started crying again. Clara lunged at him, and was rewarded with a solid blow to the pit of her stomach. As she collapsed, she was vaguely aware of a spatter of blood streaking across the mirror above the fireplace from the gun swipe. The gunman shoved a rough hand over the baby’s mouth and nose to muffle the sound of her crying. Then he bundled her under his coat, like she was an embarrassing package.
‘You follow in ten seconds. Otherwise you know what happens.’
He was about to leave the room, but then he saw the phone on the floor. He smashed it violently with his heel, then left. Clara got to her feet. She was dizzy and in pain. She saw the gunman through the window. He was approaching the Parcelforce van. He opened the side door and climbed in. She looked towards the row of terraced houses on the other side of the street, desperately hoping that there might be a neighbour at one of the windows. But all the curtains were shut and the street looked deserted.
Clara felt like she was being ripped apart. To follow this man was suicide. In the back of her mind, she thought about trying to escape. There was a back entrance to the flat. She could make a run for it. Maybe if she’d been alone, she would have done. But he had Rose. There was nothing else she could do. Her legs felt empty with dread at the thought of what this monster might do to her child if she disobeyed him. She left the flat, staggering, tearful, gasping. Icy air hit her as she left the apartment. She looked left and right along the deserted pavement, hoping there might be someone to see what was going on. But there was nobody. The only other person she could see was another man behind the wheel of the van, but she couldn’t make out his face. The gunman was sitting by the Transit’s door, the grotesque scar on his neck very vivid. She could tell he was still holding Rose under his coat, and felt an almost magnetic pull towards her baby.
Clara took a sharp intake of breath as she entered the Parcelforce van. There was an unpleasant, sickly sweet smell in here. Having worked in war zones and hospitals, she recognised it. Her eyes were drawn to a heap at the back of the van. She saw arms and legs splayed out. A face, etched into a horrific, rictus expression. And a throat, brutally cut, the blood congealing slightly. The dead man had black skin and short hair. He was wearing a red jacket, and Clara could just make out the insignia on the breast, which said: ‘Amazon.’
The man uncovered the baby and thrust her into Clara’s arms. For a moment, she forgot about the dead body. She forgot about everything except holding her child, whose punctured skin was still bleeding gently.
The gunman jumped out. The side door slid shut. It was pitch black in the back of the van. Clara collapsed in the front corner of the cab, as far away from the corpse as she could be.
She hugged her baby with one arm. Rose wailed. With her other fist Clara thumped against the side of the van. She screamed. ‘Let me out! Let me out of here!’
The van started to move.
‘For God’s sake . . . Let me out of here . . .’
The vehicle accelerated.
‘Danny!’ she cried, her words barely audible through the sobs. ‘Where are you? Please Danny . . . help us . . . where are you?’
They entered Danny’s cell on the hour, every hour. Even in his weakened, pummelled state, he knew that.
When they entered for the first time after revealing that they knew his name, Danny had found the strength to go at them with every ounce of aggression he possessed. He’d slammed one guy against the wall, crushing his face into the brick. But then a figure in the doorway had discharged a round into the cell. It sparked against the stone floor just a few inches from Danny
’s feet. The two remaining guys had laid into him, kicking him hard in the groin and the ribs, and even stamping on his face this time. They weren’t good fighters, or even particularly strong. But Danny knew that with a shooter at the doorway, he had no way of overpowering them and escaping. Better to let them have their fun. Appear compliant. Wait for them to make a mistake. To think that they didn’t need the backup of a shooter. So he’d absorbed the blows. Sucked up the pain.
On the hour. Every hour.
His kidneys throbbed. His face too. He reckoned he’d managed to avoid a broken nose, but he knew that his skin was swollen, broken and bleeding. He could taste the blood. When the time for each beating approached, he curled himself up into a little ball, protecting his head and his vital organs. Focussing on his slow, steady breathing as the militants beasted him.
On the hour. Every hour.
Sometimes they had a dog. Snarling. Straining on the leash. It would strain even more when they screamed at him in Arabic. Danny didn’t know what they were saying. He recognised their shouts for what they were: a psychological exercise, designed to break him down. It was beginning to work. He kept getting flashbacks to the Malinois that had attacked Caitlin. At some point the interrogation proper would start. Then his body – and his mind – would really know about it.
During the sixth beating, while the door was open and the gunman stood in the door frame, he thought he heard Spud roar in agony. Maybe he was supposed to hear that. Mind games.
Now nine hours had passed. Nine beatings. Danny reckoned it must be about midday on the twenty-third. He expected the next beating in about five minutes. He crouched down in the far corner of the room, putting the pain in his abdomen out of his mind, and waited.
They arrived just when he expected them to. On the dot. The door slammed open. Danny counted three men entering. He recognised their swagger – it was the same guys who’d been laying into him each time. The same brutal guards who had laughed harshly at him when he offered up no resistance. One of them had even spat a little English at him. ‘Big strong soldier, hey? Big strong Danny Black?’
Danny looked past them. The door was still open. There was nobody standing in the door frame. No dog.
Mistake.
Two of the men grabbed him under his armpits and yanked him to his feet. The third stood half a metre in front of him, a lairy shadow whose hot, bad breath Danny could feel on his face. He spat at Danny. As the spittle hit Danny’s face, the Regiment man attacked.
He was still being clutched by the two guards on either side. When they felt Danny move, they clutched even harder. It meant that the force of Danny’s heel as it connected with the pit of the third man’s stomach was even stronger than it might have been.
It was a proper kick. The kind of kick that would have knocked a football out of the stadium. The kind of kick a man like Danny had trained for, and practised, for moments like this. And it had its effect. There was a solid, dull groan as the guard exhaled sharply and, winded, staggered back towards the open door.
The two remaining guards were on either side of Danny, facing him side on. Danny yanked his head to the left, smashing the side of his skull squarely into the face of the first guard. There was a crack as his nose bust. Danny yanked his head to the right. The second guard found his face being sandwiched between Danny’s head and the brick wall. Another crack, and the guard slumped, suddenly limp, down to the floor.
Danny quickly turned and grabbed the head of the first guard, who was staggering, dazed, to his left. He thrust his thumbs into the guard’s eye sockets, which gave way in a mess of blood and jelly. With a sharp, yanking movement he twisted the man’s head. There was a silent twitch as his spine cracked and he slumped to the ground like his buddy.
Which left one more guard. He was still bent over, staggering, winded, gasping for breath. Danny strode up to him, grabbed a clump of his hair and, almost nonchalantly, slammed him against the wall, face first. The guy slumped, but Danny kept hold of him and slammed him against the wall for a second time, then a third. He told himself that he was ensuring his target was dead. In truth, the pent-up anger of the last few hours was boiling out of him. The dead guard had got the brunt of it.
Danny let him fall to the ground. He examined the three bodies to see if any of them were carrying weapons. They weren’t. Unarmed, he headed to the door, stopping just short of it to listen carefully for any sounds in the adjoining room. All he could see of it was a concrete floor and breeze-block wall ten metres away.
Silence.
But not for long.
He heard someone burst into the adjoining room. Footsteps. They were moving quickly. Danny hid to one side of the open cell door, hoping that this newcomer would enter the cell quickly and that Danny could attack him as he did so. But the bastard was cuter than that. He stood opposite the door but at a distance from it – Danny could tell from the shadow he cast into the cell. He could also tell from the shape of the shadow that he was armed.
Danny suppressed another surge of anger. His escape attempt was fucked. The newcomer was shouting something. Danny didn’t understand what he was saying, but he sensed that the guy was calling to his mates. And when they didn’t reply, the shouting got more aggressive, like he was speaking to Danny. He sensibly didn’t get any closer – Danny estimated that he was six or seven metres from the cell. Far enough away to take a shot if Danny went for him.
Two options. Stay where he was and hope the gunman would advance. Or show himself, and hope another opportunity to attack arose. After a few seconds he could tell the guy wasn’t going to advance, so he chose the latter option.
Danny stepped into the doorway of his cell with his hands up.
He was looking at a windowless room. To his left were two more cells. They weren’t enclosed, like Danny’s, but had bars at the front, and bars dividing them. Set in the back wall of each cell were two metal rings, about eight feet high. Whatever torture they were intended for, it looked medieval.
To his right, there was a door. It was open, and it led outside.
Straight ahead was the gunman. He looked half scared, half angry. His Kalashnikov was pointing straight at Danny.
Danny took a step forward. A ferocious bark from the man opposite stopped him in his tracks. The gunman made a gesture that Danny understood to mean he should lie down on the ground. Danny gave him a ‘be reasonable’ look, but that just invited more shouting.
Keep shouting, asshole, Danny thought. The more you keep shouting, the less you’re concentrating. He dropped to his knees, then looked stubbornly – arrogantly – at his adversary. The gunman continued shouting at him. His voice was getting hoarse and he took a step closer.
Danny lay on the floor, front down, his head to one side, watching the guard. The guard wasn’t shouting quite so much now. But he was still talking. His words – still incomprehensible to Danny – were a constant flow of spitting, bile-ridden invective. He had lowered his gun so that it was still pointing at Danny.
And he was taking another step forward.
Distance, four metres.
Danny knew that the span of one arm was approximately seventy-five centimetres. Another three metres, just over, and he would be within reach.
He was still talking. Danny could see that he was sweating. Did he know his mates were dead? Was he planning to send Danny the same way? He was certainly gesturing forcibly with his weapon.
But he was also getting closer.
Three metres.
Two.
Just a little further, buddy.
Danny kept his arm very still. He didn’t want to give the guard any premonition of what he had in mind. But he kept his gaze fixed on the guy’s ankles. As soon as he was close, he’d stretch out, hook his arm round whichever ankle was closest, and then . . .
A metre.
He was almost in reach.
His right foot was moving.
Someone entered the room. A female voice spoke harshly. The guard froze.
Danny felt himself burning up with frustration. He remained very still, but his eyes flickered towards the new arrival. It was the woman who had betrayed them. She stood over Danny at a safe distance of three metres. ‘I’ve told this idiot,’ she said, ‘that if you move a single muscle without being told, he must shoot you. And please don’t imagine he’s going to be stupid enough to get that close to you again.’
Danny didn’t reply. But there were alarm bells in his mind. Whoever this woman was, she had outfoxed him twice. She showed a load more tactical awareness than Danny would have expected of her. Who the hell was she?
She didn’t wait for a reply, but stepped into the cell Danny had just vacated. Ten seconds later, she emerged again. ‘I see you’ve been busy, Danny Black.’
‘That’s not my name,’ Danny said.
‘If you insist,’ she said. ‘Now stand up, very slowly, and put your hands on your head. Dhul Faqar wants to see you. And he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
Eighteen
It took three gunmen to usher Danny into the elaborately furnished room that he had identified as Dhul Faqar’s living quarters. As he stepped out of the cell complex, he realised immediately that he was on the northern edge of the compound. The reservoir was to his right. The two dead guards in the observation tower had been removed and replaced with two of the remaining armed personnel. As Danny passed, they climbed down from their towers and started concerning themselves with a large bundle on the ground – he couldn’t see what. The rain had stopped, but it was still cloudy. Danny identified the bright patch in the clouds that indicated where the sun was. His timing had been slightly out of sync. The position of the sun told him that it was mid-afternoon.
It might as well have been midnight in Dhul Faqar’s living quarters. The candles still burned and the open fire still smouldered. There was no natural light apart from what came through the open door. The smell of incense was sweeter and thicker than before.
