Crossfire (30 page)

The ear defenders and ski goggles were ripped
away once more. The first thing I heard, even
through the prison walls, was the sound of a
large aircraft landing. I kept my eyes closed and
stayed exactly where I was.

When I opened them again, Sundance and
Trainers were looking at me from the other side
of the cell. The speaker stood on a stool between
us, its red light on.

We waited.

Sundance bent closer to it, as if he thought that
was how you used these things. 'He's listening.'

He and Trainers stood back and each sucked at a
roll-up. They were wearing fleeces to combat the
cold. The room held their smoke at chest level.

The Yes Man got down to business. 'Do you
know what the American vice-president called
waterboarding?'

I couldn't be arsed to answer. It wasn't as if it
was going to make my situation any better.

'A "dunk in the water", he said. He doesn't
believe it's torture. Rather, a very important tool
in the fight against terrorism. Do you know what
I find incredible about that?'

Fuck him.

'It's that the Americans gaoled a Japanese
officer in 1947 for waterboarding a US civilian
during the war. They sentenced him to fifteen
years' hard labour.'

He didn't wait for an answer. 'The only difficulty
I have with the technique is that anyone
will confess eventually – even to things he or she
hasn't done. But where we want information, not
a confession, I consider it very effective.'

The speaker boomed. He must have leant very
close to his microphone. 'Where is the film?'

I stared at the floor. The bottoms of the chair
legs had probably once been rubber-tipped. The
steel had long since rusted from contact with
the wet.

'I keep telling you – I don't know. I don't know
what, when, who. I know fuck-all about what
Dom's got himself into . . .'

'Of course, the problem we face is that some
people get so desperate they begin telling you
what they think you want to hear. I hope
you won't waste our time by being one of those.'

'Look, I know fuck-all . . .'

'Stone, frankly, I've never liked you. You're
arrogant, disrespectful and, even worse,
you're disobedient. This is your last chance. My
two men wanted to beat the life out of you, even
before our Serbian friends began their work. But
I said no. I wanted you to have the opportunity
to save yourself.'

'Maybe I can find out from Dom. Put us
together, give us some time. He trusts me.'

There was no response.

First there was total silence. Then I could make
out his voice, but only faintly in the background,
like he'd turned to talk to somebody else in his
room, or take another call.

When he did speak again, there was an edge of
triumph in his voice he couldn't disguise.
'Gentlemen—'

Trainers leant forward. 'Aye?'

'I've got the boy. Everything's changed.
Repeat, I've got the boy. The Pole is now neutralized.
Go and tell him. He'll take you straight to
the film.'

'Stone?' Trainers was almost licking his lips.

'I have no further use for him. Kill him. Repeat,
kill him.'

The red light went out. The two of them looked
at each other.

I dropped my head.

Trainers laughed. 'You'll be more pissed off
than that in a minute, boy.'

He moved behind me. The kick to the back of
the chair was so hard I shot forward. My arse
came right off the edge of the seat and dropped
to the floor. The plasticuffs slid down
the chair legs.

Sundance savoured the moment. 'Get on your
knees and crawl to the board.'

I could hear them behind me, rocking the
tabletop, playing with the straps.

'We're going to take you for a ride on this baby.
But you should know, son, you're only getting a
one-way ticket . . .'

My wrists strained against the metal. I closed
my palms round the bottoms of the legs. I eased
first one wrist free and then the other. I struggled
to my knees.

'That's right, here, boy – walkies!'

I sprang to my feet and grabbed the seat of the
chair. Swinging round, I squared up to them lion-tamer
style, the chair positioned like a
four-barrelled machine-gun.

Sundance's face hardened. 'Don't fuck about,
son. You're only going to—'

It was his turn to be drowned out.

I yelled at the top of my voice and charged.

My shoulder sent Sundance flying. He lost his
footing and tumbled over the waterboard.

Trainers' eyes widened as I hurtled him back
against the wall. The tip of one of the legs dug
into his stomach. He bellowed with pain and
tried to grab it but I pushed as hard as I could.

His muscles couldn't resist any more. The skin
gave suddenly, and the rough, rusty tip jumped
forward six inches.

Sundance was struggling to his knees.

I let go of the chair. Trainers slid down the wall
with the leg still embedded. His gaze was fixed
on the entry wound. He looked puzzled.

I leant down and grabbed the wooden stool
by one of its legs. The starship flew into the air
as I swung the stool down hard on to the
top of Sundance's skull. He dropped like I'd
tasered him.

I clubbed him again, this time between the
shoulders. The third blow smashed into the back
of his neck.

His body convulsed like he was having a fit.
Blood poured from his head. I brought it down
again, crushing his temple. His hands jerked up
momentarily, then dropped. He lay very still.

'Bastard! Bastard!' Trainers' cry was half
scream, half groan.

He was slumped against the bottom of the wall
like a drunk in a pool of piss. His legs were
splayed and he'd kicked one of the buckets over.
The chair leg still skewered him.

His eyes glazed as he gripped the leg but made
no attempt to pull it out. Perhaps the rusty tip
was acting like a barb.

I ran the three or four steps across to him and
kicked into the seat where he'd had my bollocks
just a few minutes before.

The leg jerked back into his stomach and
wedged against something hard; his spine,
maybe, or the wall. Fuck him. This one was for
Magreb. Dark red, almost brown, deoxygenated
blood oozed from his guts. I kicked again and
again.

I stood over him for a second, my chest
heaving. I knew I had to get moving, had to keep
the initiative. But I also needed to stop, catch my
breath and think. What was the plan? What the
fuck was I going to do?

Get Dom, and get out.

Sundance stirred. He was coming round. I
went back to him and brought the stool down
once more on his head, then again to make sure
he was going to be able to keep Trainers
company.

I flipped him over and pulled off his fleece. I
didn't feel the cold any more – adrenaline and
fear had taken over – but I knew I'd need it soon.
I pulled off his desert boots, unbuckled his belt
and took off his jeans.

Trainers panted in the corner like a rabid dog.
He was trying to suck air but his body didn't
know how to any more. He'd lost too much
blood. His eyes were empty.

I kicked the chair sideways and he slid slowly
to the floor.

The hinges were on the right. The handle poked
out of a hole drilled into a steel plate that covered
the whole door. I put my ear to the metal but
couldn't hear anybody on the other side.

I glanced back at the two bodies, then eased it
open. Bright light poured in from the corridor.
It was a couple of metres wide and fluorescent
strip-lights dangled from nails and hooks on
each wall. All the doors seemed to be steel-plated.
Each had a spyhole, a foot-long bolt, and
a puddle of water beneath it. There wasn't a
sound.

To the right, about thirty metres away, the
corridor led to what I assumed was the holding
area.

I closed my door behind me and turned left.
Sundance's laces dragged in the puddles. I made
a mental note of which cell doors didn't have the
bolts thrown. If Mr Sheen or one of his mates
appeared, I'd need somewhere to hide.

After about ten metres I came to a pair of steel
doors that were clearly newer than the building.
I threw the bolts and pulled one open a couple of
inches. The first thing I heard was a helicopter in
a low hover.

I eased the door open some more, and stuck
my head out. Sunlight blinded me. Two white
GMC Suburbans were parked about fifteen
metres away on the far side of a small compound.
Beyond them was a pair of large, rickety
gates set into a crumbling block wall.

Birds sang. I looked above me. There weren't
any windows. It was a low-level industrial building.
The paint was peeling and some of the
concrete had crumbled away to reveal the rusty
skeleton beneath.

I heard the beat of rotor blades and swung my
head to the right. A Puma came into view about
two hundred yards away, then disappeared
behind the wall. As the engines wound down, I
could see the top of a pole and a fluttering flag.
I couldn't make out the country, but I'd already
seen enough.

We were in ISAFland. Which meant we were
comprehensively fucked.

I rebolted the door and moved back along
the corridor, checking the spyholes left and
right.

The first cell held an Arab in an orange jumpsuit.
He'd only been given a blanket and a plastic
bucket to piss in. A fluorescent light burned
brightly in the ceiling. He sat cross-legged, reading
the Koran.

In the cell opposite was a Pakistani lad. He was
naked. Burn marks on his back had turned to
weeping sores. His beard was long and ragged.
He sobbed as he crouched on his haunches in a
pool of his own shit.

The next few cells told much the same story.
Some prisoners were naked, some clothed. Some
had blankets, some lay shivering. One was
chained to the wall by his ankles. Most were cut,
swollen and scarred. Different strokes for
different folks. The Serbs knew exactly what they
were doing.

I didn't feel anything for any of the prisoners.
They might have been caught planning to bomb
the shit out of London, or have killed and
maimed young squaddies out here or in Iraq. If
some were innocent, that was tough. I couldn't
save the world. I wasn't doing that well trying
to save one man.

I carried on past the waterboarding room to
where the corridor went off to the right. There
were five or six doorways each side. I could hear
voices coming from the second cell on the left.
The door was ajar. A power lead ran through it
from a socket in the corridor. A phone cable
headed the other way towards another starship
lying outside the last door on the right.

I moved very slowly, my shoulder skimming
the wall. I'd come to the right place. As I got
closer, the smell of lemon became more powerful.
I lowered myself to my knees, then flat on my
stomach. I inched my head towards the gap
between door and frame.

It looked like the crew room. Two empty
sleeping-bags lay on US Army cots. A TV and
DVD combo sat on a chair in the corner. The
voices came from badly dubbed porn. Beside it,
against the wall, was a trestle table upon which
two pistols lay in leather holsters, the kind you
clipped under the waistband of your trousers.
They were Sigs; I could tell by the grips. There
was a pile of spare mags. Two mobile phones
were plugged into rechargers connected to the
extension lead. Brew kit and US Army MREs
(meals ready to eat) sat next to a kettle and a half-empty
bottle of Jack Daniel's.

I ran in, grabbed one of the Sigs and stuffed
two spare mags into Sundance's jeans. I pulled
back the top slide to see a brass casing already in
the chamber. I pressed the mag-release catch. It
dropped into my hand. The mag was full.

I tucked the bottom of the fleece into my waistband,
threw the other weapon, spare mags and
the two phones down the front of it, then moved
back into the corridor.

I stepped over the starship and looked through
the spyhole.

Dom was plasticuffed naked to a chair, just like
I'd been. His face was drenched with blood. I
couldn't hear what he was saying, but I knew it
wasn't making Mr Sheen at all happy. He raised
an arm and gave him a hard, open-handed slap
across the face. Flecks of blood flew like sweat
from a boxer's face.

It looked like word hadn't reached them yet
that the game was over. Or maybe they couldn't
resist dishing out a little bit more punishment.

Behind me, in the crew room, the porn had
progressed to the heavy-breathing stage. The air
was filled with 'Yeah, baby, yeah' as Mr Sheen
gave Dom some more. The force of his next
punch tipped the chair on to its side. Top
Lip leant down to haul Dom up. Mr Sheen's
back was turned momentarily to the door.

I checked the mag was on tight, took a deep
breath, and barged straight through.

Mr Sheen spun round. The Sig's foresight was
focused on the centre mass of his blurred body. I
lowered it and kicked off three rounds.

Top Lip launched himself across the two-metre
gap between us. He cannoned into me and
smashed me back against the wall. We dropped
to the floor together and I kept firing.

The room fell quiet. Dom turned his head. His
eyes struggled to focus.

'We're getting out. Can you walk yet?'

'I'll crawl, if that's what it takes.'

I tipped him on to his side and pulled the chair
legs away from his plasticuffs. He pushed his
aching body into a semi-stoop.

'Come on, let's go!'

I grabbed his hand and dragged him towards
the door.

As we passed Mr Sheen, Dom raised a blood-encrusted
foot to kick him in the face.

I stopped him short. A plan was taking shape
in my head. 'No, mate. We need to keep him
looking his best.'

I bent down and hoisted the body into a fireman's
lift. I staggered for a moment under its
weight.

When we got to the crew room the screen was
a blur of writhing flesh.

'Grab the whisky off the table!' I leant against
the wall. 'And a sleeping-bag.'

Dom wobbled out of the crew room with the
bag round his shoulders. I grabbed his spare
hand and hustled him towards the exit.