Ben didn’t know what it was that made him regain consciousness: his aching body or the sound of strange chattering voices all around him. Whatever it was, he didn’t feel inclined to open his eyes, so he just lay there, trying to make some sense of the confused fog in his mind.
Where was he? he wondered. It was warm. Very warm. Was he on holiday? Or maybe he was lying in his garden at home and the chattering voices were those of his mum and dad. But if that was the case, why couldn’t he understand them? He gave an impatient sigh, then forced himself to open his heavy eyelids.
When he did, he got the shock of his life.
A face was looking down at him, close enough for Ben to feel breath on his cheek. It had dark, leathery skin so deeply lined that for a moment he wondered if it was actually human. He told himself not to be stupid. Of course it was a human face. It was a man. He had a long white beard and intense blue eyes that looked like they were seeing right through him. On his head was a kind of embroidered cap. The man was leaning over him, his face only an arm’s length from Ben’s, and he barely moved.
Ben grew frightened, and then all the events of the past couple of days crashed back into his head. He looked from left to right, trying to get his bearings; but still the man staring at him did not move.
‘Who are you?’ he tried to say. But his throat was so dry that he simply couldn’t speak. He wondered how long he had been out. Was it still the same day?
Like a stationary lizard suddenly moving, the man stood up. He said a single word, and as he opened his mouth, Ben saw that what teeth remained were yellow and crooked. Pushing himself up to a sitting position, he realized that he had been lying on a thin mattress in the shade of a tree. The tree itself grew in the middle of a compound and surrounding him, in a ring, were ten – maybe fifteen – people. The chattering sound came from the children, who became even more excited when he turned to them. The adults, however, looked on with a solemn lack of expression.
Suddenly he became aware of someone else standing next to him. He saw a girl – Aarya’s age, perhaps a bit younger – holding an earthenware cup. She handed it to Ben, then nodded encouragingly. Ben took the cup and looked inside.
Water.
He put it to his lips, closed his eyes and drank. The water tasted warm and stale, but that didn’t matter. It was still the best drink of his life.
When he had finished he handed the cup back to the girl. ‘Thank you,’ he said. The girl looked at him a little shyly, then disappeared.
Ben’s head was still throbbing. He looked down at himself and saw that his clothes were scorched and full of holes – a souvenir from the bomb blast, he supposed. The skin on his hands and arms was cut and sore; his muscles shrieked at him. The water had barely gone halfway to reviving him, but he suddenly felt alert again. Alert and full of purpose. ‘I need to speak to the British Army,’ he addressed the strange-looking man. ‘It’s urgent.’
The man’s expression didn’t change. He certainly gave no sign that he had understood what Ben was saying. Ben looked around at all the other people staring at him. ‘English,’ he said. ‘Do any of you speak English?’
The silence with which they replied spoke volumes.
Ben hauled himself up to his feet. A moment of dizziness: he steadied himself against the tree trunk and looked around again – blank expressions, all except the children, who seemed to have lost interest in the strange newcomer and were now tearing around the compound. Looking for the exit, he saw a rickety wooden door set into the wall. It looked as though it could easily have been a hundred years old. Ben staggered towards it, but immediately there was someone in his way – a younger man with a short, brown beard. He shook his head emphatically and then mimed the action of someone shooting a gun, before wagging his forefinger in Ben’s face.
‘I
have
to find someone,’ Ben said, his voice hoarse. He spoke slowly, as if that would help the Afghan man in front of him understand.
The man shook his head again, before pointing to himself, then to the door and making a walking motion with his two forefingers. He smiled again and nodded.
Ben gave him an uncertain look. The man appeared to be suggesting that he would go and find a soldier. But what was Ben going to do? Stay here? He didn’t much like the thought of that. His experience of compounds such as this hadn’t been all that great, after all. But then he looked back at the inhabitants. They had clearly picked up his unconscious body from the ditch, brought him here and laid him in the shade. They had given him water. These Afghan locals had shown him more kindness in the two minutes he had been awake than his terrifying captors had since they had been abducted. If he could trust anyone, he thought to himself, he could trust these people.
And besides, if he walked out of this compound now, where would he go? The locals looked strange to him: imagine how he must look to them. Imagine the attention he would draw, wandering aimlessly through the green zone in his ripped jeans and T-shirt, desperately seeking a British soldier but not knowing where to look. In a dangerous place like this, he’d be a magnet for trouble.
He turned back to the young man. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Please hurry.’
The Afghan man grinned, nodded and sprinted out of the compound.
Ben returned to his mattress, glad of the shade that the tree offered. When the girl reappeared with more water, he accepted gratefully, and as he drank it he looked over the brim of the cup. He was still being stared at and he tried to ignore those alien glares by closing his eyes and trying to get his head in order.
Amir still had the bomb. That much was clear. Did he have Aarya too? Ben decided that he must have, even though a nagging voice told him he was only thinking that because he couldn’t bear to imagine the alternative. And everything that had happened since their abduction suggested to Ben that he had plans to use the weapon, and soon. When their convoy through the desert had stopped for the daylight hours, the owners of the compounds where they stayed had been expecting them. Amir and his men had a plan. They knew where they were going and what they were doing. It was an operation of some kind. Ben shuddered to think what the consequences might be.
Time passed. In the corner of the compound a woman lit a fire. Ben watched as she took flour and water, then kneaded it expertly into big sheets of dough and cooked it over the fire. When it was ready, she tore some off and gave it to Ben. He thanked her profusely and wolfed it down, suddenly aware that he was hungrier than he could ever remember being. Two children, a boy and a girl no more than five years old, shyly approached him. The boy had a small toy car – metal, very old and dented. The paint had long since peeled away, but he presented it proudly to Ben as though it was the finest treasure in the land. Ben smiled at him, then handed the toy back. The two of them sat in the dirt beside him and played happily, etching roads in the dust and making engine sounds. They could have been any kids anywhere.
At one point, everything went quiet and there was suddenly hardly anyone around. Ben felt a moment of panic, until he realized what was happening: the villagers were praying, and he remembered Aarya explaining that it should be done five times a day. Everyone soon re-emerged and continued to go about their business.
Gradually, Ben realized, he was becoming less of a curiosity. The inhabitants of the compound had stopped looking at him like he’d just walked off a spaceship and had started getting on with their lives: washing clothes, cooking food or just sitting and talking in low voices.
Ben became drowsy, but despite the welcome he had been given he didn’t feel at all comfortable falling asleep here, so he stood up and walked round the tree. He felt much better now that he had food and water inside him . . .
Suddenly there was a shout.
It came from the direction of the compound entrance. Ben spun round just in time to see the door being kicked open and two men in desert combats, big sunglasses and military helmets burst in, their rifles directed straight into the compound. One of them shouted a word Ben didn’t understand before a whole line of soldiers ran in. Some of them took up positions around the compound; others sprinted into the living quarters that ran along the walls, re-emerging only when they appeared confident they contained nobody who posed a threat. The children playing near Ben scurried to a far corner of the compound, clearly terrified; the grown-ups just looked on with that emotionless stare Ben had come to recognize – all of them except the young man who had gone to fetch help. He was out of breath, but his eyes shone. Ben gave him a curt nod of thanks.
And then a voice. Relief flooded over Ben as he realized it was speaking English.
‘Compound secure!’
One of the soldiers stepped towards Ben, removing his sunglasses and propping them up on his helmet.
Ben stepped forward to meet him. ‘Are you a sight for sore eyes!’ he said.
The soldier looked at him warily. ‘Major Simon Graves,’ he introduced himself.
‘Ben Tracey.’
‘I see.’ Major Graves sounded curiously like a schoolmaster. ‘Well, perhaps you’d care to tell me, Ben Tracey, what the hell you’re doing in the middle of Helmand Province . . .’
Chapter Sixteen
‘To be honest,’ Ben said, ‘it’s kind of complicated . . .’
‘Why am I not surprised?’ Major Graves muttered. ‘All right, son, hold your tongue for now. We’d better get you back to the base.’
‘But I’ve got information,’ Ben objected. ‘Important information. A terrorist strike, or something. I need to tell you now—’
‘Look, son,’ Graves interrupted him sharply. ‘You’re surrounded by British soldiers in the middle of the green zone. That’s a bit like being covered in jam in the middle of a wasps’ nest. We haven’t got time to sit around here chatting – you can tell me what you need to tell me back at base. Until then, you stick with me and you do what you’re told. Got it?’
‘But these people here are friendly. They helped me – and there isn’t
time
. It could happen any—’
‘
Got it?
’
Ben scowled. ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Got it. Just tell me, is it still Thursday?’
Graves widened his eyes. ‘Yes, son, it’s still Thursday.’ He turned to his men. ‘All right,’ he announced. ‘Fast extraction. Let’s not give the enemy any time to find out where we are. This village might be friendly, but it doesn’t mean we’re safe here.’
The soldiers didn’t hesitate. Two of them left the compound and covered the exit.
‘Ben, listen carefully. We’re going to perform a leapfrogging manoeuvre. Half of us advance, then we stop and wait for the other half to overtake us while we give them cover. Then they stop and let us advance. Do you understand?’
Ben nodded.
‘Stay close to me, but not too close. There’s an enemy sniper somewhere in the vicinity, and if we bunch up we’re more of a target for him. About five metres should do it, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘If we come under fire, hit the ground and do exactly what I say.’
‘Right,’ Ben said. ‘Er, how likely is that, do you think?’
Major Graves avoided the question. ‘Just do what you’re told, son, and you’ll be fine.’
Ben nodded, then followed him out of the compound.
They ran along the compound wall. After fifty metres they stopped. All the soldiers crouched down and Graves gestured at Ben to do the same. His companions raised their rifles and covered both ends of the narrow path while the remainder of the soldiers ran past them.
They continued this manoeuvre past compounds, through ditches, along fields and past the occasional local, who stared at them in that way Ben was getting accustomed to. The going was slow. Every time they were in the open, Ben had to suppress his natural urge to run. Any moment he expected the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing to be replaced by the noise of a sniper shot ringing through the air, but he tried to put that thought from his mind. He was well protected by heavily armed soldiers. Nothing was going to happen . . .
The green zone stopped suddenly and Ben found himself walking into the rubbled remains of a town. Great hunks of masonry were piled up where buildings used to be; shrapnel littered the ground. Ben had the sense of a once-bustling town completely destroyed, a place from which the inhabitants had long since fled.
And up ahead, at the end of a long road of devastation, he saw a high wall with barbed wire curled up over the top of it. As they approached, a huge pair of metal gates swung open to reveal a bustling military base: men in camouflage gear, heavy armoured vehicles, crates full of ammunition boxes. Under other circumstances it would be a most unwelcoming place, but Ben couldn’t wait to get through those gates.
‘S
hooter!
’ A voice from behind them. ‘
Shooter! Get down!
’
Ben didn’t even stop to think. He hurled himself to the earth and covered his head with his hands. Just in time. He felt the bullet pass inches above him. It hit a large piece of rubble several metres past where he was lying, then ricocheted back down onto the ground.