Authors: Chris Ryan
‘Watch your language, boy,’ Nick snapped.
He emerged from the thick clouds of smoke swirling around the tank. His face was black and sweaty, and there was a trickle of blood down the side of his chest where he had taken a flesh wound to the shoulder. ‘That was a fucking stupid idea,’ shouted Jed.
Nick shrugged. He knelt down and picked up the kitbag he had left next to Wilmington, and slung it across his back. ‘Maybe,’ he muttered sourly. ‘But if you’d taken the trouble to learn how to shoot straight before you signed up for the army, perhaps we wouldn’t be up to our bollocks in shit right now.’ He paused, hauling the shaking professor up off the ground. ‘In the meantime, I suggest you run like hell. The next shell is coming straight for us.’
Jed started running. It was late and dark, he reminded himself. That always gives a man a chance. His feet were pounding hard against the tarmac surface of the road, and with the kitbag on his back, his breath was short and angry. He skirted around the edge of the tank, towards the side road leading away from the building. It was impossible to see exactly where he was going, or what might be lying ahead of him. The lane twisted past a couple of warehouses, then ran through some empty scrubland, before taking you towards the centre of Tikrit. Just keep running, Jed told himself.
Stay on your feet and you still have a chance of staying alive until dawn.
A huge roar struck through the night air, followed by a flash of brilliant white light. The shell must have struck the ground twenty or thirty yards behind him, Jed reckoned. But still the force of the impact was deadly.
The ground started to quiver and shake, and in the next instant a huge pile of mud and smoke was thrown up into the air. The blast shattered your eardrums, and the air was filled with noxious fumes. Jed could feel himself being thrown forward by the wave of hot air radiating from where the shell had impacted. The flames spitting out from the crater ignited the diesel spilling from the T-55, and with a sudden deafening roar the tank exploded, sending a fireball rippling up into the sky. The explosion was followed by a wave of secondary blasts, like a series of bubbles popping, as the shells inside the tank were detonated one by one.
Jed threw himself to the ground. As the tank went up in smoke, shrapnel was spitting through the air: tiny shards of razor-sharp metal were flying everywhere, each one with the power to slice your arm off.
‘Fuck it,’ screamed Nick.
Jed looked round. Nick was lying on the ground, ten yards to his right, with Wilmington next to him. Blood was seeping from Nick’s left leg. He had rolled to his side, clutching his lower calf, his mouth locked in a grimace as he tried to control the pain. Jed was about to move, but he could already hear the roar of another shell exploding from the cannon of the advancing tank. Within a fraction of a second, it had struck the ground, digging up the mud, sending a cloud of dust and fire screaming up into the sky. Jed lay as close to the ground as he could as another hailstorm of metal and concrete swirled around him: he had learnt enough about surviving an attack by shelling to know that it was the
shrapnel that shredded you. He could feel a couple of pieces of broken concrete striking him in the back as he lay there. It was worse than being thumped by Mike Tyson, but he ignored the pain, holding himself perfectly still. Survive, he told himself through gritted teeth.
That’s the only thing that counts.
Within seconds, the hailstorm had subsided. Jed glanced anxiously at Nick. He was still lying on his side. Jed picked up his kitbag and started to run towards him. He could hear the rumble of the tanks approaching the main building, but for the moment he guessed the shelling had stopped. The tank commanders probably reckoned they were still inside the T-55 and weren’t going to waste any more valuable ammunition on a couple of corpses. They would just be moving in close to make certain they were dead.
‘Get me a rag,’ he shouted to Wilmington as he helped Nick to his feet.
Wilmington looked confused. ‘Where … ?’
‘From your sodding shirt,’ Jed shouted. He grabbed hold of Wilmington’s shoulder and, with one swift movement, ripped the arm straight off his shirt. Turning back to Nick, he squeezed tight just above the shrapnel wound. A shard of metal had cut its way into his calf, lodging itself deep in the flesh. Jed had seen a few wounds in his time, and this was a nasty one: if they couldn’t find a doctor to cut that shrapnel out, Nick was in trouble. When he was satisfied the bleeding was staunched, he wrapped the torn shirt tight into the leg, pulled hard, then slipped it into a knot. He could feel
Nick shuddering as the pain ripped through him, but his lips remained silent. Say what you like about the old guy, thought Jed, he knew how to roll with a punch.
‘You OK?’ he said.
Nick glanced back towards where the tanks were advancing on the shattered, broken T-55. They were within twenty yards of it now. It would take them a few minutes to inspect the carnage, and to realise there weren’t any corpses inside. ‘Let’s move,’ he snapped. ‘We haven’t much time.’
‘You run on that leg, you bloody lose it, mate,’ said Jed.
Nick looked at him, a glint of steel shimmering in his eye. ‘There isn’t any kind of punishment I can’t take if I need to,’ he growled. ‘Now, let’s get the hell out of here.’
The track led towards the heart of the city: they had to get as far away from the lab as possible, then they needed to check in with the Firm, then find a vehicle. The road wound through the scrubland, then dipped into a built-up maze of small shops, apartment buildings and workshops. Jed kept running, keeping his eyes tight on the road for police or soldiers. Nothing. It was almost four in the morning now, and the streets were empty. His breath was short, and his back was still stinging from where the shrapnel had hit him, but he was starting to feel confident they had outrun the tanks. Maybe the commanders assumed they were already dead. Maybe they didn’t care: they just wanted to get back for a kip at their barracks.
Either way, they’re not giving chase.
He paused, bending over to try and regain his breath. Wilmington and Nick were following him close behind. To his left, there was a square filled with cafés and shops, all of them closed at this time of night. To his right, a small alleyway that twisted between two factory buildings. Somewhere in the distance, Jed could hear the sound of trucks. Dawn was approaching. Soon it would be light.
They had to find somewhere to hide before then.
‘Here,’ he hissed.
Together the three of them started to walk down the alley. There were some bins overflowing with rubbish, and an open sewer from one of the factories taking industrial waste out towards the river. The alley reeked of garbage and chemicals, and Jed could suddenly feel the exhaustion washing over him. He tossed his kitbag on the ground, and sat down. At his side Nick and Wilmington did the same. For a minute, none of them spoke. They were just trying to get their strength back. Sweat was dripping down their faces. From Nick’s bandage, some blood was starting to seep out of the edges. ‘What the fuck do we do now?’ said Jed eventually.
‘Phone home,’ said Nick, his tone firm and decisive. ‘They got us into this shit, they can get us out of it as well. They must have a line on where we can find Sarah.’
Jed paused for a moment. He looked up towards the sky. Some heavy black clouds were rolling overhead, obscuring the moon and stars. There was a light breeze in the air, and he could feel the cold biting into his skin: in the winter, Iraq had a harsh climate, with temperatures
dropping below zero every night. He’d taken some light burns to the skin on his arms as the tank exploded, and it tingled as the air touched it. Like sunburn, he thought grimly, except a hundred times worse. Like everything in this hellhole of a country.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s check in, and tell them everything’s fucked.’
Nick fished the satphone from Jed’s kitbag, and tossed it across to him. Checking first that it had located a signal, Jed punched in the number. There was delay of almost a minute, as the phone connected with the satellite, then searched for the right connection. ‘Laura, is that you?’ he said as soon as the phone was answered.
‘Christ, Jed, where are you?’ said Laura.
He could feel the tension in her voice, even at a distance of three thousand miles. ‘Margate,’ he said. ‘Thought we’d catch some sea air.’ He paused, waiting to see if she would react, but she remained rock silent. ‘We’re in sodding Iraq,’ he continued. ‘Where do you think we are?’
‘You’ve found Sarah?’
Even though he knew she couldn’t see him, Jed found himself shaking his head. ‘She’s vanished,’ he said bitterly. ‘We’ve just blown up the research lab in Tikrit. We found some video footage of her working there, but they took her away yesterday.’
‘Who’s “they”?’
‘A guy called Salek.’
‘He’s on our files,’ said Laura. ‘He’s one of the main go-betweens for Saddam’s attempts to buy WMD
around the world. Missile launchers, plutonium, nerve gases, the works. If there’s a market for it, and it’s nasty enough, then Salek has been trying to buy it for his bosses.’
‘Well, now he’s got Sarah.’ Jed paused. ‘So where the hell would
he
take her?’
He listened intently to the line, but for a moment he could just hear the crackle and fizz of the satellite signal fading in and out. The Firm must have some leads on where he might take her, he told himself.
They must …
‘We don’t know, Jed,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You must bloody know,’ said Jed, he tone turning harsh.
‘We don’t.’
‘I thought this country was crawling with your agents.’
A dry laugh could be heard down the line. ‘If only
…’ Then she snapped to attention. ‘You’ll just have to keep looking.’
‘I know that,’ said Jed, his tone exasperated. ‘But where?’
‘You’re soldiers, use force if you have to,’ Laura snapped. ‘She has to be found. If Sarah delivers the secret of cold fusion, there’s still a chance Saddam could use it to negotiate a ceasefire, to buy his own passage out of Iraq. We can’t allow that to happen.’
‘And I’m telling you, we need some help,’ Jed snapped back.
Another pause.
‘Well, if you think you and Nick can’t handle it …’ said Laura coldly.
‘Qaladiza,’ said Wilmington.
Jed turned round, looking first at Nick, then at the professor. ‘What did you say?’
‘He’s taken her to Qaladiza,’ Wilmington repeated.
‘Where the hell’s that?’
‘It’s in Kurdistan,’ said Wilmington. ‘Salek comes from Kurdistan. It’s his home town. I’m ashamed to say it, but he is one of my own people.’
Nick was looking closely at Wilmington. ‘Are you sure?’
Wilmington nodded. ‘The Iraqi told me. Salek said it was too dangerous in Iraq, he was taking her to Qaladiza. It’s the last place in this country he reckons he can hide her safely. And if Saddam does fall in the next few days, then Salek will take her across the border into Iran, and sell the cold-fusion technology to them.’
Jed put the receiver back to his ear. ‘She’s in Kurdistan,’ he said flatly.
‘Then we’re coming to get her,’ said Laura. ‘I’ll meet you on the border.’
For a second, Jed was too surprised to say anything. ‘You’ll do what?’
‘I’ll meet you on the border. In twenty-four hours. I can be there by then.’
‘We’re the soldiers, we can take care of it.’
‘Kurdistan is friendly territory,’ said Laura. ‘The Firm needs to be there to pick her up. This is our operation, remember.’
‘It’s too sodding dangerous.’
‘It’s also an order,’ said Laura archly. ‘We’ll rendezvous tomorrow night. Just make sure you’re there. We need to get Sarah, and as soon as possible. We can’t leave anything to chance any more.’
The phone call was over. Jed looked across to Nick and Wilmington. ‘We’re meeting her in twenty-four hours,’ he said. ‘Up by the border.’
Nick started to stand. ‘Then we’d better get moving,’ he said.
Jed packed the satphone back into his kitbag, then he put his hand on Nick’s shoulder, and pushed him back down to the ground. ‘First we deal with that leg,’ he said.
‘It’s fine,’ Nick growled.
‘I tell you, you walk any more on it, you’re going to lose it,’ said Jed. ‘We’ve got to get the shrapnel out.’
‘We haven’t got time.’
Nick was trying to stand again, but Jed held him down, looking straight into his eyes. They were bloodshot and worn: the eyes of a man who was ignoring the terrible battering his body had taken in the past few hours. ‘Are you scared?’
‘I’m only scared of one thing,’ Nick snapped. ‘And that’s losing my daughter.’
He lay down on the ground, and ripped aside the rough bandage Jed had made earlier. The calf where the shrapnel had gone in was now caked with dried blood. The bleeding had been staunched, but the flesh was still open where the shard of metal had ripped into it. From
his bag, Jed took out a knife, the same one he had used to kill the Iraqi soldiers the day before. In the medical kit, there was a bottle of alcohol, and Jed rubbed some into the knife to disinfect it. He’d never operated on a wounded man before, but he’d seen the videos and he knew what to do. In theory anyway, he thought grimly.
But I wouldn’t want to be the bloke I was practising on.