Authors: Chris Ryan
He was surprised at the echo of his own voice, the words rattling back at him as they bounced back through the cages. ‘Sarah, where the hell are you?’
‘She’s gone,’ said a voice.
Jed snapped to attention. It was coming from about twenty yards back.
‘If you’re looking for her, she’s gone already,’ the voice continued.
Jed started to run. His feet were hammering along the corridor. He reached the turning, and looked around wildly. All the cells were dark, and he could see nothing
except for a few frightened eyes staring back at him.
‘Who the hell is that?’ he snapped into the darkness. ‘Who spoke?’
‘Here,’ came back the voice.
Jed looked into a cell. The man was standing close up to him, his hands gripping on to the bars.
Wilmington.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ said Nick.
Jed turned round. Nick was standing right behind him, staring into the cell. His face was sweaty and tense, like a man who was nearing the end of a marathon run. He was looking straight at Wilmington, and the professor was staring right back at him.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Nick said again, his voice louder this time.
Wilmington’s eyes were narrow and tight, focusing intently on Nick: the expression of a man weighing his own chances of survival. ‘I might ask you the same question,’ he said eventually, pronouncing the words with deliberate slowness.
Nick took a step closer, so that he was leaning into the bars of the cage. ‘I’m looking for my bloody daughter,’ said Nick. ‘And I don’t want to hear any bollocks from you about how you don’t know where she is.’
The professor nodded. ‘Let me out,’ he said, speaking with quiet determination. ‘I can take you to her.’
Jed eyed him suspiciously. He had the set of keys in his pocket they had taken from the two guards. They could open the doors to any cell if they wanted to. But,
he thought, I’m not in the mood to negotiate.
If Sarah’s not here, we need to know where she is.
He held the keys in his hand, just a few inches away from Wilmington. ‘Don’t play games,’ he said. ‘Tell us where she is, or you can rot in here.’
‘Let me out,’ repeated Wilmington. His voice was calm and determined: he was speaking with the tone of a man who had made up his mind and was not about to change it.
Jed glanced at Nick. ‘We break his balls here, or we do it later.’
‘Later,’ said Nick. ‘Hang around here, the buggers are going to find us.’
After several attempts, Jed slipped the right key into the lock, and turned it. Wilmington flung the door open, grasping for his freedom the way a starving dog will grasp for food. Jed grabbed him by the arm, and started to hustle his way quickly back towards the entrance. So far as he could see, there was no other exit. Makes no difference, he thought grimly.
Usually, the only way out of here is in a coffin.
Two men were moaning desperately as he approached the doorway. He could hear gasps for help, and a rattling of chains. One man was beginning to scream. They were making enough noise now to wake some of the other prisoners, and the few whose spirit had not yet been completely broken were desperate to find any way to escape they could.
Jed closed his ears, shutting out the pleas echoing up from deep within the cells. You found your own way
in here, boys, he thought.
You can find your own way out as well.
The lights were brighter as they stepped back into the guards’ room. Nick had already rushed ahead of them, and was kneeling down on the floor, stripping the uniform off one of the two dead guards. He handed the olive-green trousers and tunic up to Wilmington. ‘Here,’ he snapped. ‘Get your kit off and get these on instead.’
Blood was still smeared across the uniform. ‘I’m not a soldier.’
Nick shot up to Wilmington, ripping the torn and stained T-shirt he was wearing off his chest. ‘You try and walk out of here, and a soldier is exactly what you want to look like. If they see a civilian, they’re going to bloody shoot him.’
‘It’s got blood on it,’ said Wilmington.
Nick leant closer into Wilmington face. ‘I’ve got one message for you,’ he said. ‘You do every single thing I say, and you do it immediately, and we’re going to rub along just fine. But you give me any aggro, pal, I’m going to take great pleasure in slicing your balls off and stuffing them down your throat.’
Jed noticed the professor turning visibly paler. You’re on our territory now, mate. You’re going to have to get used to our way of talking.
And our way of doing things.
‘Just do what he says,’ said Jed to Wilmington.
In a moment, Wilmington had pulled the tunic over his chest and the army trousers up to his waist. They were a lousy fit: the professor was running to middleaged
lab, and his stomach was bulging out of the trousers of the young man they’d been taken from. It makes no difference, Jed thought. Most of the Iraqi Army seemed to be running around in uniforms that didn’t fit: one more wouldn’t make any difference.
‘Now move it,’ snapped Nick.
All three men started to run up the stairs. Nick led the way, while Jed brought up the rear, pushing Wilmington forward. He was in no shape for strenuous physical exercise, and from the looks of him, he probably hadn’t eaten for the last few days. Just keep going, Jed thought. We can patch you up when we get you to safety.
That’s if we haven’t killed you first.
At the top of the stairs, they pushed through the door that led back into the main corridors occupied by the staff officers and military planners. ‘Just keep completely quiet,’ Jed hissed into Wilmington’s ear. ‘Walk like you belong here, and we’ll be OK. One false move, and I’ll kill you so quickly, you won’t even have time to ask sodding Muhammad for forgiveness.’
Nick was already walking briskly along the corridor. The atmosphere had changed for the worse in the last hour, Jed decided. The air was crackling with tension. You could smell the anger of the commanders. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the blaring of air-raid sirens. It was a vicious, squawking sound, like a duck being strangled, that assaulted your ears and senses. Jed tried to shut it out of his mind, as he pushed on. The corridors were crowded with soldiers, all trying to figure out what was going on. From the looks of
confusion and anger on their faces, Jed figured they had no idea whether they were safe down here or not.
Just like us.
Nick had already pushed his way through the door that led to the main staircase, and Jed bundled Wilmington ahead of him, making sure he kept a tight grip on the professor’s arm. As he hurried up the staircase, he could see Nick pause. He’d turned round, and was holding up an arm. Stop. That’s what’s he’s telling me.
Something’s wrong.
They were one flight up, with six more to go before they hit ground level. Nick was standing on the turning of the bleak, dark staircase. During the missile strike, even more of the bulbs had popped: with no more than one in five lit, it was impossible to see anything more than a few yards ahead. Jed took five more steps, bringing him closer to where Nick was standing. He could see two corpses lying on the ground up ahead: the two men they had killed on their way down. They were lying in a bloody, messy heap. Above them, a Fedayeen officer was kneeling, examining the wounds that had felled them.
The officer barked something at Nick. What he was saying, Jed had no idea.
But it didn’t sound friendly …
Wilmington replied in Arabic, his voice grovelling. For a moment, the officer looked to be taken in. Maybe he’ll let us pass, thought Jed hopefully. Then he turned aggressive. He was pointing at Nick and Jed and shouting.
Nick nodded, then glanced at Jed. ‘Cover me,’ he hissed.
With a swift movement, Nick grabbed the AK-47 from his kitbag. It was a slow and cumbersome movement, getting the gun out of the bag, and fixing it into a position in your arms where you could start firing. Even the best-trained soldiers couldn’t do that in less than three seconds, Jed thought. And there was no way of knowing when Nick had last been trained. The guy could be as rusty as a vintage Jag.
The officer was already reaching down to his gun. It was tucked into a leather holster, concealed at the side of his baggy tunic. What make it was, Jed couldn’t tell at this distance. It makes no difference, he thought. At five yards, it would be accurate enough.
Saddam might be a dumb sod, but he knew enough to kit out his bodyguards with decent shooters.
Jed thrust Wilmington aside, flicked his knife out of his pocket, and let rip a massive roar of anger from his lungs as he lunged at the soldier. There was fifteen feet between them, and, as he well knew, there was little chance of closing that distance and stabbing the knife into the man’s chest before he was shot. Even as he threw himself forward, Jed was sweating, aware he might have just taken the risk that would end his life.
The soldier’s eyes flickered towards Jed, then back to Nick. Mistake, pal, thought Jed. You can’t make up your mind who to shoot first. His hand was shaking slightly, as he flipped from target to target. Then a shot loosened off from the pistol, crashing into the wall between them. In the same instant, Nick had brought the AK-47 tight into his chest. His finger had slammed into its
trigger. The neat, methodical chatter of the machine gun suddenly filled the staircase. You could see the bullets screeching into the man’s body, perforating his chest. He staggered back, clutching his side. Nick was maintaining a steady rate of fire, laying a stream of lead into the body reeling away from him. With an ugly crash, he tumbled to the ground, blood spurting out of him.
‘You killed him,’ muttered Wilmington, his voice choking with fear.
‘What do you think we are?’ growled Jed. ‘The Women’s Institute? Of course we killed the fucker.’
‘You started this whole bloody thing, mate,’ snapped Nick. ‘Now bloody move.’
His voice was raw and angry. It didn’t matter how experienced a soldier you were, thought Jed. In the seconds after killing a man, your head was a weird mixture of elation and regret. The danger and adrenalin left you wired, and tense, struggling to think straight. Nick had been within a microsecond of dying. It could take him hours to calm down from that.
Some men never did.
Jed knew that the sound of the fight could have alerted more guards to their escape. There was no time to lose. He shoved Wilmington from the back, pushing him up the next flight of stairs. As they got closer to the surface, they could hear the wail of sirens, and the sound of anti-aircraft guns. Maybe machine guns as well. It was impossible to tell from this distance. There is no way of knowing what kind of hell we’ll be running into when we break out on to the surface, thought Jed. There
could be more air strikes. There could be a parachute raid.
Hell, they might have decided to nuke the place and get this war over and done with in a couple of days.
Wilmington was starting to freeze up. The fear was starting to take hold of him. Bloody civilians, thought Jed, as he gave the man another sharp push to get him up the stairs. As soon as the fireworks start up, their blood turns cold, they’re paralysed, they can hardly move. They’re worse than useless, they’re a liability.
‘Move your sodding arse, mate,’ he hissed into Wilmington’s ear. ‘Otherwise, we’ll just leave you here, and you can find out how they treat guys who break out of their jails.’
Nick was already standing by the door that led back into the hallway of the Republican Palace. There was sweat streaming down his face, and his eyes looked bloodshot and worn. His breath was short. Behind the flimsy door, the sound of explosions and screams could be clearly heard. ‘Ready?’ said Nick.
Jed nodded. ‘Make a run for it,’ he said.
‘It’s bloody chaos out there already, I reckon,’ said Nick. ‘Three blokes should be able to get through.’
‘Go, then,’ snapped Jed, gripping Wilmington tightly by the arm.
Nick pushed the door open, and bundled himself through. Jed followed swiftly in his wake. A blast of hot air hit him straight in the face as he stepped into the ornately decorated hallway of the palace. He glanced sideways. A fire was raging close to the staircase: giant flames were spitting and leaping into the air, crackling
with sparks and sending out huge plumes of noxious black smoke. A missile strike, thought Jed. One of the bombs must have struck right here, taking down a chunk of the palace. The noise rippled out from the explosion with a series of murderous claps, shaking the dust loose from every wall of the building.
‘This craphole palace is all made of plastic and foam,’ shouted Nick. ‘The fumes will kill you if you let them.’
Jed pushed his way along the hallway. Teams of men were rushing towards the flames with buckets and hoses, but the heat was driving them back. There were great waves of hot air swirling through the building: drapes and items of furniture were spontaneously combusting as the searing temperatures consumed them. Jed kept moving, ignoring the sweat trickling out of every pore of his skin. Eventually, they made it to the stairway that led down into the central courtyard. As they did so, Jed paused, taking a lungful of air, drawing it down deeply. It tasted putrid, vile, filled with soot and charred plastic. Looking out, Jed could see at least three huge fires burning in different parts of the compound. The missiles had struck at least three locations, leaving chunks blown out of buildings, and scattering the ground with great piles of burning, smoking fuel. There were dozens of corpses strewn like crushed confetti across the courtyard, and everywhere your ears were assaulted by the screams and moans of wounded men.