Ben untangled the harnesses. He rested one on top of the bomb, using it like a table; the other he slid up Aarya’s legs. She shouted in pain when he moved her broken foot, but Ben didn’t have time to be gentle. It was difficult attaching Aarya’s harness while keeping himself pressed against the wall. Awkward. His fingers felt clumsy as he tightened the straps between the bomb and her body, but eventually he felt confident that it was on properly. Only then did he turn his attention to his own harness.
He held his breath as he wriggled to get it on. There was barely any room to move; when he did, it was with great care. Pulling the harness up his legs, he tightened it as firmly round his own waist as he had round Aarya’s. Then he turned to Ricki, who was still suspended in mid-air, watching them.
‘What now?’ he called.
‘There’s a rope leading from each harness,’ Ricki shouted, ‘with a metal link at the end. Throw them to me, one at a time.’
Ben located the ropes — the sturdy links had levers on one side that only moved inwards — and did as he was told. The SAS man caught them with ease. Sweat pouring down his face, Ben saw that at the end of the winch rope there were two loops, each with similar metal links. Ricki attached Ben’s rope to one loop and Aarya’s to another. Then he turned his attention back to the two of them.
‘Is she awake?’ he shouted.
‘Kind of,’ Ben replied. ‘But not really aware.’
‘All right, Ben. Listen carefully. You’re both firmly attached. You need to roll her off the ledge, and yourself at the same time. Can you do that?’
Ben felt himself going white, but he knew he didn’t really have a choice. ‘I’ll try,’ he said.
‘Don’t think about it too much,’ Ricki advised. ‘Just do it.’
Ben clenched his teeth together. He put his arms around Aarya and the suitcase bomb, holding them firmly. He drew a deep breath, counted to three.
And then he rolled.
In his mind, the fall happened in slow motion. They fell towards the earth as the rope remained slack; when it tightened it was like a jolt going through Ben’s whole body, followed by a sinking, spongy feeling as the extra weight pulled the chopper downwards slightly. But then he felt them being lifted up, and he saw Ricki grabbing Aarya and the suitcase bomb, making sure it didn’t slip from her back.
They rose higher, above the level of the cliff and then over firm ground. The rope was winched up — slowly, it seemed to Ben — until finally they were just a metre away from the side door of the chopper.
‘Ben!’ It was Matt’s voice. ‘Give me your hand!’
Ben stretched his arm up and a firm grip seized him. He felt himself being pulled up into the chopper. There were other men here as well as Matt, and a good deal of confusion as Aarya and Ricki were also pulled up into the body of the aircraft, and to safety.
Numb with exhaustion, it was all Ben could do to sit up. Aarya was lying on the floor of the chopper while Matt and Ricki removed the bomb from her back. Her eyes were open, but her face was racked with pain.
‘Her foot,’ Ben shouted over the noise of the aircraft. ‘I think she’s broken it. Be careful.’
Ricki nodded to show that he had heard as he stowed the suitcase bomb at the back of the chopper.
‘We should get her to a doctor,’ Ben insisted.
‘Roger that,’ Ricki replied. ‘We’re going to take her back to the base at Kajaki — there’s a medic on stand-by and we can offload the bomb. And then I think we’ve got something else to attend to, haven’t we?’
And with that, Ben felt the chopper perform a sharp turn and speed back over the dam, accompanied by a group of grim-faced but determined soldiers…
Chapter Twenty-six
It had been the longest night of Dr Bel Kelland’s life. No question.
The noise of the attack on the base — the brutal sounds of war — had been bad enough. But she was beginning to think the silence was even worse. The quiet was only occasionally shattered by the noise of a round from the weapons of one of the soldiers who still stood in a protective semicircle around her. All night they had continued firing towards the blown-open gates of the base, single shots that made it clear to the enemy that they were still armed and protected, even if it was only just.
Bel was optimistic by nature. She tried to look for the positives in everything, even in a dreadful situation like this. She was glad of the cover of darkness. It meant she couldn’t see the dead bodies that she knew littered the floor of the base; and Private Mears had told her that if the enemy were going to attack again, they were more likely to wait until dawn.
Dawn, however, had never been so fast coming. It was just round the corner now and still they were here. Dug in. Surrounded by enemy. Half expecting an attacking surge and desperate for someone to get them out of this mess. But no one came. The red glow of the burning Apache outside the walls of the base had long since faded away. Now the air was still. Empty.
‘How long till dawn?’ Bel asked. It was the only thing she’d said for ages.
Private Mears’s lips were thin and nervous. ‘It gets light early,’ he said. ‘Less than an hour, I’d say.’
‘How much ammo do we have?’ Bel couldn’t believe the way she’d slipped into military slang.
Mears avoided her question. ‘We’ll be all right.’ He sounded like he was trying to persuade himself as well as her.
Silence again.
It was cold. Very cold. A different place to the one that only hours ago had been so burning hot. She shivered as a round whizzed through the air.
Voices outside the base. Shouting.
Alarmed, Bel’s eyes searched for Private Mears. He’d heard them too — they all had. ‘What was that?’ she breathed.
More shouting. Bel couldn’t tell what they were saying, but she knew this: they weren’t speaking English. And as that thought hit her, there was a loud bang. A whizzing sound over the walls of the compound, and then an explosion.
‘RPG!’ someone yelled, and everyone hit the ground as a burst of shrapnel kicked up.
‘Don’t stop your fire!’ It was Mears shouting. He scrambled to his feet and pointed his rifle at the entrance to the compound. ‘If we stop covering the gates, they’ll be in here like flies!’
He fired, but as he did so a second RPG flew over the compound walls out of the darkness.
‘They’re attacking!’ Bel screamed. She just couldn’t control herself any more. ‘They’re attacking!’
But the soldiers knew that. Once the shrapnel threat of the second RPG had disappeared, they got to their feet again. To a man, they were white-faced and their eyes bulged with a strange mixture of fear and numbness. They took up their firing positions once more while Bel retreated hard against the protection of the back wall.
As she looked at the young men protecting her, she couldn’t help thinking that they had the aura of a group of soldiers preparing themselves to fight to the very end…
There were only five of them in the chopper now: Ben, Ricki, Matt and the two pilots. Ricki and Matt were talking to the pilots in shouted military jargon Ben could barely understand; which left Ben, almost deafened by the noise of the chopper, his brain racing. Aarya had been safely off-loaded and was even now being treated by an army medic; the suitcase bomb had been carefully carried off the helicopter and taken to the safety of the British base. ‘You need to stay with her, Ben,’ Ricki had said, but Ben had refused to get out of the chopper.
‘They’ll take care of her,’ he’d shouted. ‘I’m coming with you.’