In front of us a tall man calmly stepped out of the car. He shielded his face by looking over his right shoulder, and walked away out of sight, leaving the car door open and the engine running.
Chapter 55
Jay
Man, I never thought I’d be so happy to see a Honda!
It took me a second or two to work out that whilst I was tending to my hungry stomach, Imy had been tending to business. As Jameelah hand-fed me parantha and Amritsari paneer bhurji, Imy had sorted us out a getaway. We were metres from escaping from the auto-rickshaw-assassin.
Imy had moved past me. He was quick, quicker than me. My Jordans were weighing me the fuck down; maybe there’s something to be said about Crocs after all. The gap between us grew bigger and it crossed my mind: Once Imy reached the idling Honda, would he wait for me or leave me behind? He’d already made it clear I was the weakest link, maybe he’d sussed he’d be better off without me. Fuck, this wasn’t the time to be having doubts. I pumped my arms harder, closing the gap a little, the chainsaw growl of the rickshaw felt like it was down my fucking throat.
Imy slowed down a touch and slipped through the open car door and into the driver’s seat. The way the hatchback was parked, there wasn’t physically any room for me to go around. So, without breaking stride, I lived out a childhood fantasy by sliding across the warm bonnet and landing flush on the other side. Fucking rush! Imy had already reached across and opened my door, and I felt stupid for having thought that he might abandon me. I leaped in head-first.
Imy glanced over his shoulder; I glanced over his shoulder. The fucking kamikaze rickshaw was showing no signs of slowing down. ‘Go!’ I screamed.
Imy dropped the car into gear, but the rickshaw was on us. We had barely moved when we felt the impact, the rickshaw smashing into the side of the car. Our little hatchback rocked and wavered and stalled. Imy turned the key, and despite appearances the Honda roared back to life before shooting forward.
Imy ripped a right, expecting to floor it and leave the town behind us, instead he was forced to slam his foot heavily on the brakes.
‘Shit!’
I’d never before heard Imy swear; it sounded strange coming from his mouth, but something stranger was happening outside my window.
The crowd had gathered directly in front of us, and they moved in a pack towards us, around us, until they swallowed the car whole.
With the press of a button, Imy central-locked the car. He searched the rear-view mirror for the auto-rickshaw driver, but there was no way he was going to catch sight of him through the sheer mass of bodies.
The car started to rock, gently. Hands pressed against the glass, faces peering in. I moved from face to face to face to face. Nervous smiles and looks of bewilderment and disbelief stared back at me, as though committing me to memory. I acknowledged them with a small smile and watched their smiles grow. It was all too fucking much. My hand reached for the window control.
‘Don’t do it, Jay,’ Imy warned.
I pressed the button.
‘Jay!’
Too late. The window was sliding down; the noise entered the car like a fucking force field, drowning out Imy’s protests.
I took a breath and reached out. My hand was touched, held, squeezed and kissed. It was a love that I’d never before experienced and it led me to desperately cry out, ‘My father? Do you know where he is? Anyone? Bin Jabbar! Al-Mudarris! Do you know where I can find him? I have to find my father. Can you help me find him?’
What came back to me was a growing chorus of ‘Al-Mudarris Zindabad! Al-Mudarris Zindabad!’ – translation along the lines of, long live Al-Mudarris, long live the revolution. They chanted it over and over again, increasing in volume, turning my stomach inside fucking out as they chanted my father’s name.
Imy slid my window back up, the glass edge knocking my arm and forcing me to pull my hand back in. He slipped the car into first gear and kept his hand on the horn as he edged slowly forward. The crowd started to part leaving us a long stretch of road in front of us.
I turned in my seat, and looked through the back window. They held their arms aloft, pumping their fists, their chants still reaching and ringing in my head. I kept watching and watching until I couldn’t see them anymore, couldn’t hear them anymore.
I felt warm, as though a giant blanket had been wrapped tightly around me. Imy hadn’t spoken in a while. I hadn’t. I don’t know what was going through his mind and, honestly, I didn’t care.
It was after maybe thirty minutes or so of hitting the road at speed, that he finally broke his silence.
‘We have to be more careful,’ he said, evenly and eventually.
All that time stewing and that’s the best he could come up with.
‘I know,’ I replied, just as unimpressively.
‘There’s a lot of love for you here, because…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Because of who you are. But you have to understand, it’s blind love.’
‘That supposed to mean?’ I said, with a little unintended bite. I didn’t like where this conversation was headed, but I knew it was one we had to have.
‘They want to believe in you,’ Imy continued. ‘They need to believe in you. Here you’re not Jay, here you’re Javid Qasim, the son of the man they worship. They cannot see past that.’
‘But not everyone feels that way.’ I stated the obvious and what was obviously on his mind. ‘That’s what you’re saying, yeah, Imy? You don’t think I fucking know this, you don’t think I’ve noticed that the last two times I’ve sat down to eat, someone has tried to fucking kill me?’
‘We have to be careful,’ Imy said, again.
Ahead a motorbike cruised at a steady speed towards us. The rider wasn’t wearing a helmet, but he was wearing a leather jacket and reflective shades. His swept-back, thick black hair didn’t budge in the wind. A woman sat pillion and held him tightly, her fingers spread over his chest, her head resting on his broad shoulders. Normally, I’d think: good on you, mate, you go be a fucking freshy hero, and not give it another thought. But normal hadn’t been in my life for a long fucking time.
I tensed; I could feel Imy next to me tense.
The bike growled past us without as much as a glance. I checked the side mirror, Imy eyed the rear. Both expecting something but getting nothing. They disappeared into the distance and it was becoming increasingly obvious that every minute of our stay here would be dripping in paranoia.
‘Are you hungry?’ Imy asked.
‘Nah,’ I said, ‘kinda lost my appetite.’
‘Maybe some sleep then?’
‘Yeah,’ I nodded. ‘I wouldn’t mind some shut-eye.’
‘Sleep. We’re not stopping for a while.’
‘Destination?’
‘Far from here.’
I kicked off my Jordans, pulled the seat right the way back and reclined. ‘We’ll swap shifts,’ I yawned. ‘Wake me up in about thirty and then you can get some sleep and I’ll drive.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Imy said.
‘Nah, half-hour, it’s all I need. I’ll set a mental alarm.’
Imy nodded. ‘Okay. You sleep now.’
And I did. It came easy. The gentle glide of the Honda spiralling down a windy sloped road, wrapped around a cold grey mountain, easing me into a comfortable slumber. One without dreams. One without nightmares. Just black! My mind as tired as my body, too tired to form any pictures.
Chapter 56
Imy
The Honda hatchback was as much as I had expected. Sturdy enough, reliable enough, and a tank full of gas. It had always been in our vicinity, never more than five kilometres away, and always at my disposal. The driver was the MI5 asset who had taxied me on my mission in Berlin, and provided me with the cyanide to assassinate the high value target of Al-Muhaymin. I hadn’t yet checked what package was provided to me this time; my immediate objective was to put some miles between us and those who wished Jay harm.
My long-term objective was
to put Jay right in the middle of it.
I looked across at him, curled up in a ball, his back to me and his faced pressed up again the inside of the car door. So much for his thirty-minute mental alarm. I had been behind the wheel for two hours, and with the destination that I had in mind, there were at least another four to drive.
Jay showed no signs of waking up, his back rising and falling gently, and I knew that it would take intervention for him to wake. I let him be. For now. Part of me was glad that I didn’t have to put up with any more inane chatter, whilst another part wanted to nudge him awake and let him fill the air, as that very same nonsense chatter would help pass the time.
A destination fixed in my mind, I headed east, cutting through the outskirts from town to town until the population and the roads became light. Each car, each face, posed a potential threat, and I kept moving until I found somewhere relatively safe to stop for a break.
I was curious as to what package had been left for me.
I saw faded street signs for Jinnah Medical College, a place that, if you looked very carefully, was mentioned in the news about two years ago. I turned into the grounds. As expected, the car park was empty. As expected, the wide six-storey structure was abandoned. Another victim of war in a place where the next generation were trying to make the world a better place.
I parked facing the building and let the car idle for a moment and stared at the college. The lower storey was perfectly intact and still standing proud despite the collapsed upper left wing. The casualty count was just a number.
Beyond the structure were overgrown, unkempt green fields which once boasted sports facilities including a hockey pitch and a running track. Over the other side of the field was a road crossing which led to a bus station. Behind the bus station was a small operational Ghurfat-al-Mudarris compound.
That had been the target. The target had been met.
The bus station, the medical college, the innocent lives, were all chalked up as collateral damage.
I turned off the ignition and stepped out of the car, glass and debris crunching under my shoes. I took a breath and stretched. Bending forward and touching my toes, feeling my spine stretch, then crack. I straightened and twisted my torso from side to side, counting a full minute in my head before walking around to the rear of the car and flipping open the trunk.
The interior light lazily came on. Neatly to one side there was a mid-size plastic Tupperware container. I pried open the lid. It was filled with mixed nuts and dried fruit. I took a handful before placing the container on the roof of the car. From the trunk I unzipped a red and black square cooler bag. Inside were six 500ml chilled bottles of water. I took one out and took a long overdue sip. I took another bottle for Jay and placed both on the roof beside the nuts. In the side compartment there was a first aid kit, a torch and a digital compass.
I lifted the inlay. There was no spare tyre, in its place was a large Go-Bag, camouflaged in the universal army pattern. Two flat zipped pouches at the front and two at the rear. I pulled the long zip in the main compartment. Secured neatly inside was a high-powered semi-automatic Browning handgun. Taking up the main was a tactical mat, a bean bag, a brown camouflage rifle cover, and a pair of radio receivers, all neatly piled on top of a Remington MSR sniper rifle.
I browsed through the front pouches. Matches, a tourniquet, lighter fuel, supplies that may be of use.
I pulled the zip across the Go-Bag and let the inlay drop over it. I closed the door of the trunk carefully, so as not to wake up Jay, and made an overdue phone call.
It was answered quickly.
‘Jinnah Medical College.’ As expected, Teddy Lawrence was tracking our movement. ‘Any significance?’
‘Apart from the two military drones that destroyed the school?’ I said. ‘No. No significance. It’s just somewhere quiet to stop.’
‘The school wasn’t the bloody target and it wasn’t us. It was the Americans,’ Lawrence mumbled. ‘Do you really want to get into this now, Imran?’
I looked across at the devastated structure and tried to picture how it once stood. ‘No,’ I said.
‘Progress?’
‘Twice there’s been an attempt on Jay’s life. Twice, we’ve managed to escape. Just.’
‘Christ, you’ve been there for just over twenty-four hours!’
‘His presence has been noticed. But it’s… strange.’
‘What? What’s strange, Imran?’ Lawrence prompted impatiently, and I wasn’t sure exactly how to explain.
‘The reaction,’ I said. ‘The people here, the majority, they have an affection for him. Actually… it’s more than that: they have faith. They look upon him as though he’s the second coming.’
‘Two attempts on his life tells me something altogether different, Imran.’
‘They were isolated incidents. As soon as Jay set foot in this country, word reached far and wide. Orders were rushed, the attempts on his life were reckless. Characteristic in the way Al-Muhaymin operate. But if we are careful, here in the North, he is relatively safe.’
I didn’t go further. I had planted the seed. The instruction had to come from Lawrence.
‘You’re going to have to cross the border,’ Lawrence said. ‘You have to be in the place where people don’t feel that way.’
It’s what I expected. I had second-guessed him to the point where I was already en-route to the Angoor-Ada border. Once that line was crossed there would be no turning back. We would be deep in Ghurfat-al-Mudarris territory, where the splinter cell Al-Muhaymin had taken control. If they were able to place eyes at Islamabad Airport to flag the arrival of Javid Qasim, then, no question, they would have eyes at the border. Al-Muhaymin would not be as appeasing as the people of North Pakistan.
‘And Imran,’ Lawrence said, ‘the world believes Bin Jabbar is dead. I’d like to keep it that way.’
Three vehicles bristled in front of us. Our small hatchback was noticeable, crammed tightly between freight trucks and lorries. We had no right or business to be there, and none of the required documentation. Not for the first time, I scoped the surroundings. Two men, dark, hot and agitated, stood patrol under the blue banner that read, Goodbye Pakistan. Have a safe journey.
The open-bed truck in front, carrying fresh fish in netted crates, moved. I slipped the car into gear and moved one step closer.
To the right, set back, six armed US troops stood evenly spaced out by the barbed fencing. A provision to aid against the possible spill of terrorism from the uprising Al-Muhaymin. The angry blare of a horn from behind indicated that the truck in front of me had moved again. It caught the attention of the armed troops. Attention that I didn’t need.
I moved forward.
The truck in front reached the checkpoint, documents and passports switched hands followed by a search of the bed of the truck. My mind wandered to the contents of our car.
The truck moved past the blue banner and crossed the border.
I loosened my grip on the steering wheel and moved to the checkpoint and slid down the window.
‘Passport!’ A pin-thin man wearing aviators barked at me. I handed it to him and he took a moment to consider the UK passport. He flicked to the back and compared face to photo before handing it back to me. He looked past me, at Jay, who was still curled up with his back to me. ‘Passport!’ he barked again, and I knew if he wanted to he could back it up with a bite. I handed him Jay’s passport. ‘Face!’
I nodded and pulled Jay by his shoulder flopping him across onto his back so his face was in view. He stirred, squirmed and let out a frustrated mmm sound, but he didn’t wake. If the guard requested papers detailing our business, then we were stuck there. If the guard decided to inspect the trunk, then we were stuck there.
The car was in gear and alive, my foot on the brake. I could wait for a decision but if it was the wrong one then we’d remain on the wrong side of the border. That wasn’t an option. All I had to do was lift my foot off the brake and place it hard on the a
ccelerator and cross without consent and to hell with the consequences. I looked past the guard’s shoulder, at the US troops, and quickly realised that the consequences would catch up with me all too easily.
The guard flicked to the back of Jay’s passport and spent longer scrutinising it than he had mine, his eyebrows knotted and deep lines appearing in his forehead.
I willed myself to breathe calmly through my nose as I focused on my distorted reflection in his aviators. His eyes flitted from Jay to passport and then back to Jay. A drop of sweat rolled down his forehead and disappeared under his sunglasses.
Jay sprung back onto his side, facing away from us again.
The guard nodded to himself and handed back the passport.
Decision made. He tapped the roof of the car.
I lifted my foot off the brake and crossed over the Angoor-Ada border and into Afghanistan.
Chapter 57
Jay
I opened my eyes and blinked several times until the blurred vision came into focus. I was in beige hell. I stayed put for a minute, as the rest of my body caught up with me being awake. From the back of my throat I made loud inappropriate waking-up noises, as I stretched an arm above my head and peeled my forehead away from the cheap beige plastic door interior.
I lifted my head just enough to peer through the window and squinted as daylight hit me. All I could see were browns and greens and greys. The cluster of tall mountains in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been replaced by a cluster of untended pine trees standing on unkempt overgrowth.
‘Where are we?’ I said, through a yawn which bounced back off the glass and attacked me.
Imy said nothing.
‘Imy?’ I unfolded my legs, my feet finding the floor. I shifted in my seat to face him. Again, Imy said nothing because Imy wasn’t fucking there!
‘Shit!’ I shot up in my seat, fully awake and alert. I patted the pockets of my shorts and pulled out my phone. I checked the phone signal: no bars presented themselves. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ Something, not very nice, entered the pit of my stomach and lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. The fuck has he gone? The fuck has he left me in the middle of nowhere? I had to stay put, no way was I wandering through the forest. There could be grizzly bears or killer snakes out there. I hit the central locking button and the locks hammered down, sending an echo through the car.
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