Amir stood in the doorway. ‘Get up,’ he said.
Aarya had no option. She pushed herself to her feet and walked timidly towards him. Amir stepped away from the door frame and allowed her to walk into the adjoining room. The others were still there, eyeing her darkly and without speaking. Propped up against the wall was the suitcase bomb.
She watched as Amir slowly walked round the room, embracing each of the five men in turn. She didn’t dare speak. Amir was just walking towards the bomb when there was a noise. A ringing sound.
A phone.
One of the men pulled a chunky mobile from inside his robes and put it to his ear. He listened carefully, without speaking, then grunted once and hung up. He looked at Amir. ‘You must leave,’ he said. ‘Now.’
Amir’s brow furrowed. ‘Why?’
‘That was a tip-off. Local police. There are foreigners in town. They have been asking about you. They know where you are.’
Amir’s lip curled. ‘How do they know?’ he demanded. ‘Who told them?’
The man shrugged. ‘Probably the policeman himself. You know what these dogs are like. They take with one hand and give with the other.’
But Aarya’s captor didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Get out onto the streets,’ he said. ‘You must defend the house, with your lives if necessary.’ If this instruction worried the five men, they didn’t show it.
The man who had taken the call started giving orders. ‘You get back up on the balcony,’ he told one of his colleagues. ‘You,’ he told another, ‘go outside. If you see anybody suspicious approach, shoot them. The rest of us will take positions inside the house, ready for them if they should be so foolish as to enter.’ He turned to Amir. ‘You will take the secret exit? You will carry on alone?’
Amir nodded. ‘To the death. Get to your positions,’ he said. ‘Now.’
The men moved with a sudden sense of purpose; moments later, Aarya was alone with Amir. He strapped the suitcase bomb to his back, grabbed his rifle and pointed it in her direction. ‘Out,’ he said shortly.
Still trembling, Aarya walked out of the room with Amir following right behind. At the end of the corridor in which they found themselves, she saw the last of the five men disappearing and started to follow them; but then Amir tapped her shoulder with the gun. ‘Not that way,’ he said. ‘Left. Through the door.’
There was indeed a door on the left-hand side. Aarya opened it. She was met by a staircase that led downwards. The gloom was so deep that she couldn’t see to the bottom of the steps.
‘Down,’ Amir instructed, and to emphasize his point he poked her in the back with his gun.
Aarya stumbled forward. Amir followed, closing the door behind him so that they were in total blackness. For some reason, she didn’t know why, she counted the steps. Fifteen of them, and then they were at the bottom, where the smell was musty and foul. She heard Amir moving around in that pitch-black basement and somewhere at the back of her mind she considered running back up those steps and trying to flee; but she knew it would be hopeless. And so she waited.
A clicking sound. Amir had found a door and opened it. It led into another basement room which had a small candle burning on a wooden table and yet another door beyond it. A short instruction from Amir, and Aarya walked through this door and into a further room. Amir brought the candle with him, then opened a final door which led to the foot of a flight of steps. They climbed up them, and Aarya found herself in an entirely different house. Deserted, or so it seemed.
They crept through the house, guided only by the light from Amir’s candle, until they reached the front door. Here they stopped. Amir put the candle on the floor, shuffled the suitcase bomb on his back to a more comfortable position, then pressed his ear to the door.
For a moment, silence. And then, from nowhere, voices. Shouting.
Amir’s face grew steely. Aarya held her breath.
And it was then that the air started to ring with the sound of gunshots…
Chapter Twenty
The instructions that the Afghan policeman had given led them to the top of a wide side street. They peered out from round the corner, not wanting to be seen. There were houses on each side, but they were very poor places, some of them looking as if they were on the point of collapse. About fifty metres away there was a single building that was two storeys high, with a balcony on the top floor.
‘That’s it,’ Ricki said. ‘That’s the building he said.’
The rest of the unit grunted their agreement. Matt pulled a small cylindrical device from his ops waistcoat and put it to his eye. ‘One man on the balcony,’ he reported. ‘Armed. Another guy covering the front entrance, about ten metres from the door. Also armed.’
‘Anything else?’ Ricki demanded.
Matt replaced the scope. ‘Negative,’ he said. ‘Just the two of them, but there’ll be more inside. I don’t suppose they’ll be offering us a nice cup of tea when we come knocking.’
Ricki turned to Ben. ‘Listen carefully,’ he said. ‘You need to do exactly what I say.’ Ben nodded. His stomach was twisted with nerves. ‘We need to gain entrance into that house. There’s going to be shooting and you need to keep out of the way of the bullets. But you also need to be close to us.’
‘Good idea,’ Ben murmured.
‘You see those two trucks?’
Ben looked down the street. The vehicles were parked on the opposite side to the house, about thirty metres from where they were now standing. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I see them.’
‘You need to use those for cover. You’re going to go first, so you can be protected when the fire-fighting starts. Whatever you do, whatever you hear, don’t come out from behind the protection of those vehicles unless one of us tells you to.’
‘What if someone else finds me? What if they get out of the house and—’
‘Nobody’s leaving that house,’ Ricki interrupted him, quietly but firmly. He turned to the rest of the unit. ‘Toby, Matt, find a back way to the other end of the street. When you’re in position, we’ll cover Ben as he gets to the trucks. Then we’ll go in.’
The men didn’t need telling twice. Toby and Matt disappeared immediately, leaving Ben alone with Ricki and Jack, now both silent and concentrating. Ben looked around. Nobody else about — this was a quiet part of town. He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse. He thought about Aarya. What kind of state would she be in, if she was still in Amir’s clutches? And then he thought about his mum, and his stomach knotted even tighter.
‘Ricki?’ he breathed.
‘Yeah?’
‘My mum. They’ll get her out, won’t they?’
Ricki gave him a serious look. ‘I know this isn’t easy, Ben, but you need to keep your mind on the job in hand. Amir’s the only thing that matters right now. We’ll deal with him first, then we’ll deal with your mum.’
Ben nodded mutely. It was easier said than done.
Ricki looked at his watch, then peered round the corner of the street. ‘They’re in position,’ he said. ‘Ben, go.’ He pulled out his M16 from under his robes and took up position at the street corner. ‘Walk slowly and keep your head down. If you run, you’ll attract attention to yourself; if they see your face, they’ll realize you’re not a local.’
‘Right,’ Ben said, stopping himself from adding: ‘Thanks a lot.’ He took a deep breath, nodded at the two SAS men, turned the corner, and walked.
He knew Ricki was covering him; he knew that the slightest sign of trouble would bring a burst of fire from the SAS man’s weapon. That didn’t make things any easier. The trucks were only thirty metres away, but each step felt like it took an hour. He looked at the ground as he went, scratching his head to obscure his face further. With every second that passed, he expected to hear the thunder of gunfire; with every step he took, the desire to break into a run increased.