‘Why? Why do it when I’ve fucked you over, man?’
I kept my eyes on the road. ‘I used to work for George. That’s why Kelly’s dead.’
I could feel his stare drilling into the side of my head. ‘George killed Kelly? Fuck.’
I turned. His eyes were glazed, as if he was elsewhere. I knew that look very welclass="underline" I’d seen it in the mirror often enough.
‘She’d been snatched by some fuck-ups. George was holding me back, not telling me where she was because he didn’t want me going into the house and fucking things up for him. He knew they’d probably kill her, but the job, the fucking job came first. By the time I got there and found her, well . . .’
I felt a jolt in the centre of my chest. The image of her dead body I described to Jerry was as vivid as a photograph.
Jerry wasn’t looking good. ‘Oh, fuck . . .’
I rubbed my hair and cupped my hand over my nose. ‘I took her body back to the States, and Josh and I buried her alongside the rest of her family. It was standing room only in the church.’ I rubbed my hands on my soaked jeans, trying to get rid of the smell. I needed to get back into the real world. ‘I don’t know if she would have been proud or embarrassed.’
I wished I could have fished in my wallet and pulled out a photograph like any other proud parent, but the simple fact was that I didn’t have one. Not one she would have been proud of anyway. Just the one from her passport: her face had been covered in zits that day and I’d had to drag her to the photo booth. There were others from her house, of course, but they were in storage. One of these days I’d get round to sorting all that stuff out.
‘Fuck it, it’s all history now.’ I pushed the gearshift into third as we headed uphill. ‘I don’t want anyone else to have those nightmares. No one deserves them. Except George – but that’ll never happen.’
We both just stared at the road as it was hoovered up by the headlights.
‘Listen, I’m sorry for fucking up your face. I saw the location device, the phone number, the camera thing at the al-Hamra and my head just kind of exploded.’
He had bigger things to worry about. ‘I deserved it. You know, Renee told me once that Buddha said we all have two dogs inside us, one good, one bad, constantly fighting each other. Which one wins depends on which one’s fed.’
‘You don’t have to come, you know. Everybody gets scared when they’ve got things to lose. You’ve still got your family, all that gear – I’ve got fuck-all. I’ll take you back to the barn and go on my own.’
‘Nah . . .’ He gave me as much of a grin as he could manage. ‘It’s just like old times . . .’
I checked the dial. Another three and a bit Ks and we should be hitting our first landmark. The frost was setting in with a vengeance: what had been a light dusting on the tarmac was now more or less solid ice. I just kept it in third and hoped for the best.
I thought about Renee’s dogs, and I knew this was one whole can of chunky Pal I didn’t want to open again.
91
Salkic had said the forestry block was just over two Ks long, and the next marker to look out for was a firebreak.
I glanced at Jerry, who was so close to the heating vents he nearly blocked off the supply. ‘We’re going to hit it soon, a group of “bomb-blasted” trees on the right.’ I’d liked Salkic’s description.
I slowed down and he wiped his side window with his wet sleeve, but there wasn’t just a group of devastated trees, there were scores of them; some splintered trunks were five or six feet high, some no more than stumps. Salkic had been wrong – they hadn’t all been blown up: most looked as if they’d been flattened by tanks.
We both spotted the break at the same time. I stopped just short of it so we could use the headlights to check things out. There was a rush of even colder air as Jerry opened the door. He was so frozen he hobbled rather than walked over to the treeline, and I knew just how he felt.
He waved me on, jumping up and down to try to get some warmth into his aching limbs. I put the gearshift into first and chugged towards him. The narrow opening in the trees certainly wasn’t a firebreak; it was just wide enough for a vehicle.
Jerry got himself back into his seat and we edged forwards. It was like driving into a cave. The trees were just a couple of feet either side of us and the canopy above shut out the stars.
Jerry leaned over the dash and did his best to look through the windscreen.
After a hundred metres or so the track opened up a little, and the van juddered as I put it into second. There was no frost in here: it was too enclosed. The ground was soft, and I hoped it wasn’t going to turn muddy. The VW was a long way from being a member of the 4x4 club.
Jerry gave the screen another big wipe. ‘What’s this fucking guy live in? A tepee or a tree-house or something?’
I checked the instruments again. We’d driven about eighteen hundred metres from the road. Ahead of us, at about the two K mark, was a junction left. After bouncing through another couple of pot-holes, the headlights picked it out.
I turned and looked at Jerry’s silhouette. ‘Fuck knows what’s going to happen now. We’ve just got to play it by ear.’
‘Can’t wait.’
We started down the track.
‘If it gets really fucked up and we have to split, we’ll meet up where we turned into the forest. For fuck’s sake, don’t go too far into the treeline – it could be mined. I’ll do the same, see if we can link up. If that doesn’t happen in six hours, we’re on our own.’
Jerry nodded slowly. ‘In the cave, I never thought I’d get this far, man. I’m still shitting myself.’
I delved into what was left of my PVC coat pocket. ‘You still got the pistol mags?’
He nodded as I passed him the Daewoo. ‘Seeing as your old mate Osama has obviously shown you how to use the fucking thing.’
Salkic’s directions were spot on. Six hundred metres later, the track was blocked by two giant wooden hedgehogs. ‘Heads up, here we go.’
As we got closer, Jerry spread both his hands on the dashboard. Good move. We wanted them in full view of any nervous people with weapons.
I followed Salkic’s instructions to the letter; stopped, left the lights on, engine running.
The two hedgehogs had been laid out to create a chicane that would just about take the van between them. I couldn’t see a thing ahead of it, just the track continuing a short way, then disappearing into the darkness.
Jerry stared into the void. ‘What now?’
‘Just as he said. We wait.’
I began to wind down my window. Before I even got half-way, there was movement in the treeline to my left. A powerful torch beam hit the side of my face. I kept my hands on the wheel and my eyes straight ahead.
‘Ramzi?’
‘No Ramzi. Nick Stone.’
The voice from the trees was immediately joined by others, muttering a whole lot of stuff I didn’t understand. I could feel the engine chugging away through the steering-wheel, and made sure my hands didn’t move off it.
A group of men stepped out of the forest. They were dressed in a ragbag of uniforms: American BDUs, German parkas, tall leather boots, a variety of furry hats. Every one of them carried an automatic weapon.
Both doors were pulled open. We were hauled out of our seats and round the front of the vehicle, where they could have a good look at us in the headlights. But it didn’t feel like we were prisoners: we were controlled rather than dragged.
I kept my arms straight out in a crucifix position, and started shaking with the cold as they removed my bumbag and ran their hands over me. I saw my AK lifted out of the VW. A voice kept talking to me in Serbo-Croat, but the only word I understood was ‘Ramzi’.