A vehicle rolled over the mud towards us and pulled up. The engine stopped and doors opened.
Two more bodies joined us. Mr Sheen and Top Lip stopped for a moment and glared at me, then picked up Dom and my Bergen. Dom tried to put up a struggle rewarded by Mr Sheen with a blow to his face.
Magreb cowered, forehead down, knees up, arms wrapped round his legs.
Trainers covered as Sundance took a few steps towards me, a hand in his jeans. 'What's the matter with you, son? Do you really think you're so fucking clever you can do what the fuck you want?'
He threw something at me. The Yes Man's mobile glanced off my arm and fell to the ground. 'You thought you'd do your own thing, did you, and fuck everyone else?'
There was no point talking to these two but I couldn't resist it. 'If this is the courtesy car, what time's the flight?'
'Shut up, smartarse,' he snarled. 'Don't fuck me about or we'll drop you here and now. Then we'll do that fucking Pole.'
I kept my hands up and started moving. I wanted to get out of the building as quickly as possible. They might forget about Magreb curled up in the corner.
Sundance retrieved the mobile and came up behind me while Trainers moved towards Magreb. 'What about this fucking arse?'
Sundance didn't even draw breath. 'Drop the cunt.'
I swung round. 'He's just a fixer. You saw on Predator, he's no part of this.'
Magreb's head came up, eyes pleading. Trainers jammed the short against his forehead.
It was the last I saw of him.
Sundance bustled me outside to where a white GMC Suburban gleamed in the starlight.
A single shot rang out behind us.
Moments later, Trainers closed the door tidily behind him. He swapped a glance with Sundance and they burst out laughing.
The double doors at the back of the GMC were open and the passenger lights were on.
Sundance gave me a prod. 'They got big plans for you, son. No quick exit like Sunny Jim back there.'
I hesitated at the back doors. Dom was already inside the vehicle, curled up behind the rear seats.
'Get in.'
Mr Sheen was at the wheel. Top Lip rode shotgun. A thermal-imaging monitor from the Predator glowed in the footwell.
Both Serbs turned and stared at me in silence. It was the kind of silence that told me we were in a bottomless pit of shit.
I lay down next to Dom. Sundance pulled a taser from his coat, pushed it into my stomach and gave me a 100,000-volt helping of good news.
I shuddered for two or three seconds, then blacked out.
79
I lay half on Dom, my cheek against his stomach, and half on the floor of the wagon. A blur of light flashed through the window as we raced past a line of shops. My head spun. My insides still shuddered. Fuck knew what lay in store. But the first chance I got to escape, I'd grab it. Then I'd come back to kill these fuckers for what they'd done to Magreb. And not just maybe.
The GMC smelt as if it had been brought straight from the showroom. My face bounced off Dom and on to the carpet as Mr Sheen threw us into a series of sharp turns.
I moved my hand slowly towards Dom's. He gripped it tight. I hoped it felt as good for him as it did for me.
He tried pulling my head towards his, but he wasn't strong enough. He wanted to tell me something. I pushed down slowly on the carpet with my feet so I could get closer to him.
'I'm sorry, Nick,' he breathed. 'I thought you were with them — the Irish guys. They're the ones that killed Pete.'
'Sure?'
'They dragged us out of the camp…' He shook his head and I felt his tears sprinkle across my neck. 'They took us out… and they shot him… right in front of me…'
A voice yelled, 'Shut the fuck up,' and a fist appeared over the back seat and punched us apart.
Occasional bursts of street-light strobed across the vehicle. There seemed to be no other traffic. The automatic gearbox stayed in fourth. We were moving with speed and purpose, and the road was long and straight.
We slowed after fifteen minutes or so and the GMC hung a right and stopped. A gate creaked open. We rolled forward maybe a hundred across rough ground and stopped again. Mr Sheen's window powered down and there was a muted conversation with someone outside. Agate opened with a metallic creak. We rolled another few metres and stopped. Then Sundance and Trainers threw open the passenger doors and jumped out. A gust of freezing air took their place.
The heat had been a security blanket, even for that short space of time. Cold meant shit was about to happen.
Top Lip opened the back. It was pitch dark, but he pulled a pair of blacked-out ski goggles over my eyes for good measure. I felt my feet being gripped and then I was on the move. My hand slipped away from Dom's and I fell on to a pile of rubble.
Sundance said goodbye with his boot.
Two sets of hands grabbed me under the armpits, frogmarched me across a stretch of gravel, then bounced me up a couple of steps. There was no talking but plenty of grunts as they struggled to get through a doorway without letting me go.
I knew we were inside, because the screams and pleading echoed off the walls. I was being dragged along a corridor. I listened for Dom's voice, but he wasn't doing the begging. Unless someone already had his balls in a vice and he'd suddenly become fluent in Arabic.
I could smell cigarettes and kerosene. We halted, and a set of ear defenders was pulled over my head. That meant only one thing. Everything I'd heard so far, they'd wanted me to.
I could feel rough concrete under my boots now. They'd taken me into another part of the building. It was much colder here.
Hands pushed me to the ground, rolled me on to my back and tore off my boots and outer clothes. Something cold and hard bit into my shoulder muscles as a heel pressed against my chest and my boxers were pulled off.
I had no idea of the size of the room I was in, but I was naked and had no control, so the space around me suddenly felt large and I felt very small.
I was hauled back to my feet and swung round. My head slammed against a wall. But fighting back would get me nowhere. I'd only get filled in, and I needed to keep as fit as I could to get us the fuck out of here.
They repositioned me and kicked my legs apart. Then they made me lean forward until my outstretched hands touched the brick.
I breathed long and deeply to slow everything down. I tried to listen, but all I could hear was the sound of the blood pulsing through my head.
My hands went numb, then pins and needles kicked in.
I clung to the only positive thought that came within reach. At least there was a system. I wasn't being kicked to shit — not yet, anyway. I must be in a holding area. I'd probably stay there for most of the time now, between interrogations.
I found the sensory deprivation strangely comforting. Stripped of perception, all I could do was think, and I needed to do that big-time.
One thing was for sure. I'd been totally wrong about Sundance and Trainers. They did travel beyond the M25.
80
I was shivering, and not just from the cold. My muscles trembled from the effort of maintaining the stress position. I dared not move. I didn't want to find out what the punishment was. My sutured arm was aching severely. There wasn't enough blood working its way up there and I wanted to scratch it to death. The pain in my hands had passed the pins-and-needles stage. I knew they'd ballooned. There was going to be permanent damage unless I could relieve the pressure. I moved my left arm a fraction of an inch.
But even that was too much. A massive kick swept my legs from under me. I dropped, knees first, on to the harshly ridged concrete. Pain shot through me. I could feel my skin being forced open by the sharp edges. Unseen hands hauled me up again and slammed my hands back against the wall. I gritted my teeth, tensed my body, waiting for kicks that didn't come. I could feel the blood leaking down my legs.