Maybe, he thought to himself, the girl had not entirely outlived her usefulness after all.
Leaving the bomb where it was, he returned up the ravine. The girl was still there, of course, whimpering with pain. He didn’t speak to her; instead, he just pulled her up and carried her back towards the cliff face. Her body was shaking, but of course he ignored that.
‘Stand,’ he instructed.
He lowered the girl from his arms and she propped herself up against the side of the ravine, holding her bad foot up from the ground. ‘Please…’ she whimpered. ‘My foot… the pain…’
Amir ignored her and turned to the bomb. It looked so innocent — just a khaki-coloured package that nobody would look at twice. He bent down and undid one of the straps that bound it together. It revealed a flap, which he raised. He smiled. Beneath the flap was a digital panel; and below it two very ordinary-looking batteries. Each battery was attached to a wire. Amir connected the free ends of each wire to two terminals just below the digital panel. The screen flickered into life: three red numbers.
00.00.00
Amir nodded with satisfaction. He turned a dial and watched the numbers rapidly increase.
0.20.00
Twenty minutes. Enough time for him to get away and do what he needed to; too little time for the bomb to be found. He pressed the dial inwards. It clicked, and immediately the digital display changed.
00.19.59
The countdown had begun. He replaced the flap and tightened the strap over it. Then he looked up at the girl. ‘Turn,’ he told her.
With difficulty, she did so.
Amir picked up the bomb and approached the girl. As he slung the suitcase over her back, she buckled under the weight. He lifted her up again and continued to fix the bomb to her body. Once he had finished, she was almost bent double.
‘What is happening?’ she gasped.
Amir didn’t reply. He just guided her towards the ledge — gently, not because he felt sympathy for her, but because she carried a precious load.
‘Crawl,’ he told her.
She started to gasp even more heavily. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘My foot…’
‘Crawl!’
The girl whimpered again, but this time she did what she was told.
The first two metres of the ledge were narrowest, less than half a metre in depth. She moved slowly, shuffling along the ledge like a caterpillar on a leaf. Her bad foot dangled over the side, but Amir knew there was nothing she could do about that. Only when she stopped did he call out to her again.
‘Further!’
No movement.
‘Further, or I shoot you now!’
The girl continued. When she came to a halt again, she was nearly ten metres away from the ravine. Amir’s eyes shone with triumph. With her broken foot, the weight of the bomb and the thinness of the ledge, there was no way she could turn round. The bomb was well hidden, out of reach. All he had to do now was make sure she couldn’t crawl backwards.
He raised his gun. For a moment he considered shooting her, but he didn’t dare: the force of the bullet could send her over the cliff, and he had no idea what effect the water down below would have on the bomb. Instead, he aimed it at the overhanging cliff.
He fired. Two clear shots rang through the air high above the river — each of them making the girl’s body jump as though it had received an electric shot — and a hailstorm of rubble fell from the cliff. The girl screamed as a piece of debris struck her good leg; several other hunks of rock fell on the ledge behind her, blocking the way back.
Amir considered saying something to her. Letting her know that her death was very near. But in the end, he decided not to waste his breath. Leaving the whimpering, trembling girl on the ledge — immobile with the ticking bomb pressed down on her — he turned and started to make his way up the ravine.
Only minutes to go, he thought to himself. The very thought of it gave him extra energy as he hurried away from the very place where the blast was going to happen. The bike, he told himself. Get to the bike now and you might even be able to live. To watch it happen from a distance before making sure his group claimed responsibility for the explosion and the world knew what they had done — the hammer blow against the invaders. The very thought brought a smile to his face as he scrambled up the ravine, leaving the girl and the bomb far below.
Chapter Twenty-three
The British base at Kajaki.
‘How many men can you spare?’
Ricki, Matt and Ben stood at the big metal gates to the base. They had left the truck a good distance away and continued on foot with their arms in the air in order to stop the British soldiers at the lookout posts from opening fire on them. Now, though, the two SAS men had their weapons firmly in their fists and Ricki was talking to the ranking officer at the base.
‘Two platoons,’ the OC replied. ‘Maximum. Any more than that and the base is vulnerable to attack. But listen, the whole of this area is littered with mines. You can’t just send men out there to scour the area — we need minesweeping units, the works—’
Ricki shook his head. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, interrupting, ‘and listen good. There’s a nuclear suitcase bomb somewhere in this vicinity. If we don’t find it, and soon, mine strikes are going to be the least of your worries. The whole dam’s going to go up and everybody at the base with it. How long is it going to take to get your platoons ready?’
The OC — whose face had gone a distinct shade of white — stuttered, ‘Er… twenty minutes, by the time we’ve sorted out the radios…’
‘Get it done. What level of enemy activity can we expect?’
‘Hard to tell,’ the OC replied. ‘We’ve had two patrols out each day this week and no contact. That suggests to me that the enemy are dispersed for the moment. Don’t take my word for it, though…’
Ricki nodded. He turned round and indicated Ben. ‘This is Ben. Take him into the camp and look after him. We’re going out to try and find this guy.’ He started to pull down his night-vision goggles.
‘No!’ Ben said.
Ricki, who had already started to turn away from the base, blinked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I’m not staying here. I got Aarya into this mess in the first place, and I’m going to help get her out of it.’ The SAS man started to shake his head, but Ben wasn’t having it. ‘You just said you need more people, Ricki. You’ve got no one for twenty minutes. You can’t afford not to take me, and I don’t want to hang around in the base waiting for the whole place to go up. I mean it, Ricki. I’ve come this far. I want to see it through. I’m coming with you.’
Silence from the SAS men.
‘When Amir saw me,’ Ben persisted, ‘he was angry. If he sees me again, he’ll be furious. It might force him into making a mistake. And anyway, Aarya knows me, trusts me. I could be useful…’
Ricki and Matt exchanged a glance. ‘All right, Ben,’ Ricki said. He sounded impatient. ‘Stay close to me, don’t get creative and keep your eyes peeled, OK?’
He and Matt covered their faces with the NV goggles.
Ben nodded and the three of them set off from the camp. ‘Where do we start looking?’ Ben shouted as they ran over the brow of a low hill and saw the Helmand River come into view, far below. To his right was the dam; even though it was only lit up by the silvery light of the moon, he could tell how massive it was, and how devastating its destruction would be.
A shudder passed down his back.
The three of them came to a halt. ‘We’ll split up,’ Ricki said. ‘Matt, you search this area. Ben and I’ll head south along the top of the cliff.’