Ride or Die

by Khurrum Rahman

  I rushed to the door and put my ear to it, only the muffled sound of the television came back at me. I reached for the knob. If the door opened, I’d put it down to an overreaction and when Jay did return, believe me, he was going to feel the force of my anger. If the door was locked, I’d know that Jay would never be returning.

  I held my breath as my fingers wrapped around the door knob. I twisted it one way. And then the other. Immediately fear set in.

  I spun around scanning the room for something to strike down and break the lock. Something that would double as a weapon. I pictured the contents of my holdall, quickly dismissing everything as useless. My eyes landed on the small basin in the corner of the room. It was far from ideal.

  I swiped away Jay’s toiletries, and kicked the pedestal holding up the basin dead centre. The contact was loud and I knew my action would not have gone unnoticed. The pedestal tilted at an angle, leaving a gap underneath the basin. A leak squirted at me as I squeezed my hand through the gap and disconnected the pipes, whilst glancing over my shoulder at the door.

  The basin was free from the pipes, only hanging on by the sealant. I gripped it with both hands and ripped it away from the wall as water rushed up the tail piece and hit my face.

  I moved to the door and lifted the basin to chest height ready to strike down on the door handle and snap the lock, praying that I wasn’t too late and cursing myself for closing my eyes and leaving Jay to his own devices.

  Keys jangled on the other side of the door. I sidestepped, my back against the wall. I balanced the small basin in one hand and with the other I reached over my shoulder and clicked the light switch off.

  The lock retracting echoed through me. I held my breath and held the basin tightly at chest height.

  Haqani was no fool. He waited.

  ‘Imran…’ His voice came clearly through the door. I didn’t reply so as not to risk giving away my position. ‘Javid is on his way to die. You want to join him?’

  A burst of fire erupted and reverberated loudly in the darkness. I slid down against the wall and made myself small, lifting the basin above my head as bullets ripped through the door.

  The shooting stopped as quickly as it had started. Rays of light beamed through the bullet holes in the door. From the gunfire I recognised that Haqani was in possession of my Browning handgun. Before I had handed it over, I’d inserted a full clip. Fifteen rounds plus one in the chamber. Seven had been spent. Haqani had more than enough remaining.

  The echo of the gunshots stopped ringing in my ear and was replaced by piercing screams. ‘Look what you have done.’ Haqani’s voice came through. ‘The children are awake.’

  I got to my feet and pushed back against the wall. The door handle turned and the door slowly opened. The light from the kitchen illuminating the room. Haqani led with the arm and I recognised my gun in his hand. I brought down the basin with force, and it met his wrist with a sickening crunch. Haqani screamed through gritted teeth as the gun fell from his grip and dropped softly onto the carpeted floor. I had to move fast before his arm retreated and locked me back in. I let the basin slip from my grip and grabbed at his broken wrist, dragging him sprawling inside.

  Haqani landed on his stomach. The gun closer to his reach than it was mine. I moved for it but his fingers were already looping around the trigger guard. He inched it towards him until it was in his grip, his body already twisting around to face me, his holding arm coming quickly around.

  I kicked the door shut, plunging the room back into darkness. He pulled off a round but I was already moving. My foot knocked against the discarded basin. I bent low and reclaimed my makeshift weapon just as another shot rang out, whistling close. The round shattered through the basin and shards of porcelain rained upon me.

  I struck down blindly with whatever was left of the basin and, unmistakeably, I felt it make contact with his face.

  Two faces, wide and teary-eyed, appeared at the top of the stairs, watching a stranger holding a gun to their Uncle Haqani.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Go back to your room and call the police.’ They scuttled away and I heard a door shut and lock. I moved Haqani into the living room. An action film that I’d never seen before was playing out on the television. I sat Haqani down on the armchair, the gun trained on his face with one hand and with the other I reached for the remote control and muted the sound. The ingredients from a half-eaten sandwich lay scattered on the sofa next to him. On the coffee table was a bowl of crisps and an empty mug with brown residue. I picked it up and brought it to my nose.

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked.

  Haqani smiled through his bloody broken nose, as he examined his limp broken wrist. I launched the mug over his shoulder and it smashed against the wall. He didn’t so much as blink, but it wiped the smile off his face.

  He glanced casually at his watch. ‘If he’s not dead, he will be soon.’

  I released the clip from the Browning and checked the rounds. Seven of the fifteen remained. I slid the clip back in, retracted the slide, thumbed the safety off and held the gun in his face.

  Haqani tilted his head past it, brimming confidence with the knowledge that I didn’t have.

  ‘You are not our problem, Imran. You walk, no problem, I can drive you to airport or I can call you taxi,’ Haqani said. I dug the gun into his left thigh and pulled the trigger. His scream was muted as he gripped my shirt. I shrugged him away.

  ‘Take me to him.’

  Haqani divulged the information and it wasn’t out of fear. He believed that whatever I was walking into would be more of a problem for me than for them.

  The Honda was parked in the same place. Haqani hobbled with his arm around me as I helped him to the car. I unlocked the car door and helped him into the driver’s seat. I walked around to the trunk and looked over the roof. The gardeners were trying their best to avoid what clearly wasn’t their business. I whistled to get their attention. A boy in service uniform, who couldn’t be more than sixteen, looked up. I gestured him over.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Tashfeen.’

  ‘Okay, Tashfeen, I want you to listen to me very carefully.’ I pointed to the Latif’s house. ‘Two children are alone in there.’

  ‘Miss Malaila and Master Misbah.’

  ‘Right. The front door is open, I want you to go inside and wait in the living room. The police have been called and should be arriving soon. Do you understand?’

  He stared at me blankly. I took out a thousand Afghan Afghani which amounted to ten pounds and placed it in his hands.

  ‘Yes, malik.’ He nodded his head vigorously. I watched him all the way until he disappeared inside. Latif’s children were about to lose everything, just like I had once.

  I rounded the car and lifted the trunk, relieved to see that the Go-Bag was still in place. I sifted through it, ensuring that the sniper rifle and ammunition was present, before taking out some much needed supplies. If this was going to work I needed Haqani not to bleed out in the five-hour journey ahead of us. I wrapped the tourniquet tightly around his left leg and gave him a handful of painkillers and a bottle of water. I slid into the back seat directly behind him and placed a length of rope next to me.

  ‘Better?’ I asked. Haqani removed his Pashtun hat, his forehead was slick with sweat. He ran an arm over his face and nodded. ‘Okay,’ I said, as I held the gun through the gap in between the headrest and the seat so he could feel the cold barrel on the back of his neck. ‘Now drive.’

  Chapter 68

  Jay

  One of the chair legs was shorter than its counterparts, which in itself was annoying enough without the rest of it. My arms were pulled so tight behind me it felt as though my shoulders were about to pop, and the rope around my wrists was secure enough to break skin. Some boy scout had done a fucking number with the knot. I couldn’t move.

  My head was covered with a hessian hood. I knew this to be the case because it wasn’t the first time that my head had been co
vered with a fucking hessian hood. The cloth was coarse and it scratched against my skin like little ants that needed their toenails clipping were marching along my face. My breathing was somewhat limited, so I kept it in check by taking shallow breaths when all I wanted to do was scream away the suffocation.

  I tried to tune in to my surroundings, my eyes and ears straining within the confines. If I squinted and didn’t fidget, I could just about see through the smallest of gaps in the woven fabric, a row of green hills in the distance.

  Intuitively I knew it was the only thing of beauty around me.

  A figure stepped in front of me and whatever little I could see was replaced with black. I flinched. The chair tilted to its right and I expected it to topple over. It corrected itself and a rough hand roughly ripped away my hood, almost pulling out a clump of my hair in the process.

  The sun hit the side of my face. I blinked several times before squinting at the man in front of me. I couldn’t see past him as he was pretty much standing over me, so I started with him. He was decked out in a black boiler suit zipped up to his throat and tucked into heavy boots. Somewhere in the middle he held a shiny sharp machete and his grey eyes peered at me from underneath a balaclava.

  ‘Alright,’ I said. He didn’t reply in kind, so I decided to establish how much trouble I was in. ‘The balaclava? Is that to intimidate me? Because I gotta tell you, the machete is intimidating enough.’

  I gritted my teeth and braced myself. The handle of the machete came crashing into the side of my head, catching and splitting my eyebrow. This time the chair did topple and fall onto its side. I landed heavily on my shoulder, my head bouncing off the ground, twice. I tried to blink away the white sparkly stars in my eyes just as a heavy boot ground my face into the dirt.

  ‘Get him up,’ an annoyed voice said.

  The boot obediently left my face. My head rushed as the chair was lifted back into place. I could feel the moist earth stuck to the side of my face and a little had entered my mouth. I noisily spat out the dirt and used my shoulder to brush the crap off my face.

  I looked at Latif. He looked tiny standing next to the giant who’d knocked me down.

  ‘I don’t know why he’s being so sensitive,’ I said. ‘I was only giving him some fashion advice.’

  ‘You must learn, Javid, when to keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘I’ll work on it,’ I said, as I finally had the opportunity to take in the scene, and just as I suspected, it was fucking terrifying.

  Five metres or so in front of me there was a tripod with a mounted video camera pointing at me. I know what that fucking meant! A home movie starring me soon to burn through the internet as a moral fable. I snatched my eyes away and looked past the camera. To my right, was a set of green corrugated iron huts. Beside it was parked Latif’s Q7, where I had spent hours curled up in the fucking boot!

  Set back to my left, six men stood stock still, a few feet apart. Black boots, black boiler suit, black Ghutrah scarves bound tightly around faces. I wondered if they all went shopping together; stopping to eat, bitching about their Jihadi brides and you know, just making a day of it.

  I tried to balance out the pros and cons of my impending death; would I prefer a clean swoop of the machete or would I prefer to be riddled with bullets by the firing squad? Or was there a plan C that I wasn’t seeing?

  I exhaled loudly, the beginnings of a migraine stirring; it was the last thing I fucking needed. Past the six men and into the distance there was the row of beautiful green rolling hills that I had seen earlier through my hood. I imagined cute little lambs scattered across the hills, eagerly ready to congregate when the show started.

  I stretched my neck back, and stared at the tall tree directly above me. Past its thick branches I searched the heavens, hoping to spot a Chinook ready to swoop down to the rescue, but the bright blue skies were clear. Only the sun smiling down on me, even if nobody else was.

  My fingers moved quickly as I fiddled with the restraints around my wrists. When Balaclava had knocked me to the ground, the knot had seemed less tight. Not much, but something to work with. If I could manage to get my hands free, then all I had to worry about was getting past the seven bloodthirsty men armed with rifles and knives.

  ‘Do you know who we are?’ Latif asked, knocking me out of my delusion of grandeur.

  ‘Shot in the dark? I’d say you were Al-Muhaymin.’

  He nodded softly, his face colouring, as though a hint of embarrassment. ‘It wasn’t how it should have been. But it’s how it is.’

  I couldn’t have cared less about anything he had to say, but I needed to buy a little time. Delaying the inevitable was all I had.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Ghurfat-al-Mudarris has always been misunderstood. At times it’s misunderstood by its own people. There’s a belief, an incorrect one. The Cause was never been about hardline Wahabbism or spreading Sharia Law. It wasn’t about being a pure Muslim or even fighting a religious war. In its barest form, it was about protecting our own. An eye for an eye.’

  ‘For an eye, for an eye, for an eye,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I know that.’

  ‘We were in the midst of a storm and our leader was a hunted man. In accordance with the teachings of Bin Jabbar, we expected to retaliate, to lash out like a cornered tiger.’ Latif shook his head sadly. ‘But no… It’s not what happened. Our esteemed leader, he had a weakness.’

  I looked at him blankly. Latif didn’t go so far as say it was me that was the so-called weakness, but it was clear that the name Qasim did not hold any gold here.

  ‘Men,’ he continued, ‘good men who laid down their lives for The Cause quickly became disillusioned… They came to me… They begged at my feet. I had no choice but to give the people what they wanted.’

  ‘You’ve finally got yourself your very own terrorist cell. Congratulations! How’s that working out for you?’

  Latif didn’t reply with words, his eyes firing at me as his calm demeanour took a hit. I’d pissed him off, which should have told me to stop, but seriously, how much more trouble could I get in?

  ‘Let me tell you how I think it’s working out for you,’ I continued, getting a grasp on it. ‘As soon as I set foot in Islamabad, I’m guessing your eyes must have just lit up. You made some phone calls, sent some emails, passed a note to a man on a donkey, something like that? Either way, you put the word out, far and fucking wide, but you quickly learnt that apart from a couple of losers, no one gave a shit, no one dared to go against Bin Jabbar.’ I ventured a smile. ‘Gutted!’

  Balaclava took a heavy step towards me. At the very least I was expecting a slap. Latif put a small hand across his barrel chest and stopped him in his tracks. If he’d allowed Balaclava to strike me, it was as good as admitting that I had got to him. Latif was too clever for that.

  ‘I underestimated his followers,’ Latif said quietly to himself, the calm, calculated demeanour returned to his face. ‘But I didn’t underestimate you, Javid. You came crawling to me in desperation. You trusted me.’ A smile appeared on his face just as it was wiped off mine. ‘How did that work out for you?’

  Bastard stole my line!

  ‘Javid,’ Latif said, with something close to glee in his voice.

  ‘What?’ I spat with the practised attitude I’d picked up thousands of miles away in Hounslow, when really I just wanted to cry and beg for my life.

  ‘I’m afraid, this… All this,’ he gestured expansively with his hands, ‘it’s your own doing.’

  ‘I’m pretty fucking sure it’s not,’ I said, my hands working double-time behind my back, knowing that my time was coming to an end.

  ‘When will you learn that every action has a reaction?’

  ‘Yeah, and what action is that?’ I said, just as my thumb had squeezed its way into the restraint. I stretched it as far back as I could until the tight rope opened into a small loop.

  ‘Your treachery!’ Latif replied.

  I peered p
ast him, past the camera, at the men lined up waiting to tear me in half.

  ‘Not gonna lie to you, Latif. This is the worst leaving do ever.’

  Latif smiled sadly at my attempt at mistimed humour. I shrugged, it was all I had, my last line of defence.

  ‘You must learn, Javid? Action… Reaction.’

  ‘Sounds like something a father teaches his son.’ I smiled tightly at him. ‘Must have missed that lesson.’

  Latif leaned in, his face close to mine. His aftershave was strong and confusing, like the fragrance section in John Lewis. I had the urge to wrap my teeth around his nose and rip it clean off.

  ‘Your father. It’s become something of an obsession with you.’ Latif smiled. ‘You see, Javid, Abdul Bin Jabbar was more of a father to me than he ever was to you.’

  His words stung.

  I dropped my head so he wouldn’t see the hurt, and focused on my Jordans and focused on my breathing and focused on getting my fucking hands free. Balaclava wrapped his fist around my hair and wrenched my head back up. Latif seemed pleased to see my teeth gritted, my nostrils flared in anger and my eyes red from holding back tears.

  ‘And I,’ Latif continued, ‘was more of a son than you will ever be.’

  A hand slipped free from the restraints and I leaped to my feet screaming and spitting, my fist coming around from behind my back and taking flight towards Latif’s smug fucking face.

  I connected to the side of his head and it was perfect.

  His glasses flew off his face and landed close to where he did. Latif scrambled on his hands and knees searching for them. The leader of Al-Muhaymin seemed so small and insignificant in front of his men. I fucking did that! My action may have accelerated my death sentence, but, fuck, it was worth it.

  I accepted the fist that drove into my lower back, sending me heavily to my knees. I accepted my fate as I waited for the machete to swoop down and split me in two.