'Shut the fuck up!' a voice said, as the doors slammed shut and the vehicle jolted into movement.
The urine-soaked patch of his jeans was cold and clammy now; but his head was hot as he took deep breaths in an attempt both to calm himself down and swallow big gulps of precious oxygen. In his mind he saw the guns of his abductors, and could still feel that patch on his head where the barrel of the rifle had been pressed. He closed his eyes in the darkness of his hood and started to mutter the prayers that he had recited in the mosque only a short time ago.
'Allahu Akbar min kulli shay. Allahu Akbar min kulli shay.' But in the middle of his private chant, he spluttered as a heavily booted foot kicked him hard in the stomach.
'Quiet!' a voice barked and Abdul-Qahhar did as he was told. Perhaps soon, he thought to himself, he would wake up; perhaps soon he would find himself on his bed, having nodded off over the Koran; perhaps soon the nightmare would end.
In the darkness, time had no meaning. Abdul-Qahhar could not have said how long it was before the vehicle came to a halt and he was manhandled out of the rear doors. Outside the rain had stopped, but it seemed to be incredibly windy and there was a loud mechanical noise that he could not quite place.
'Take his hood off!' a voice shouted. The material was untied and the hood pulled roughly from his head. Abdul- Qahhar scrunched his eyes up painfully as a bright light shone directly in his face. As he gradually opened his eyes, however, he saw what was making the noise and the wind: an enormous helicopter, preparing for take-off.
One of the balaclava'd men approached him with his gun. 'We can do this one of two ways,' he screamed above the noise of the helicopter. 'You come quietly and get on the chopper without a struggle; or we do it the painful way.'
Abdul-Qahhar felt his body start to shake. 'Please,' he begged,'I have a great fear of flying. Please, there is a terrible mistake. I don't know who you are, or what you think I've done, but there really has been the most terrible mis — .'
He was cut short as the butt of a rifle struck him hard in the pit of his stomach. He bent double in pain, but as he did so he was dragged towards the helicopter. The rotating blades sounded louder, an enormous, ear-filling whine, and the force of the wind almost threatened to blow him over.
As a renewed surge of panic overcame him, he started to struggle. 'Please!' he yelled. 'There has been a mistake!' And almost as though he had lost control of his own actions, he made to run away from the group of armed figures who were escorting him to the chopper.
He didn't get far. One of his captors grabbed him hard by the throat; another forced the hood over his head again.
'No!' Abdul-Qahhar shouted. 'Not that! Please, I will come with you!' But even as he spoke, the hood was tied around his neck once more and he felt himself being dragged closer to the helicopter.
He was on a ramp now and the noise of the rotors seemed to fill all his senses. It was too much: his fear of flying seemed to pulse through every vein, and with a great and terrified roar he made one last, desperate attempt to break free from his captors.
It was a vain move. Instantly he felt the sickening crunch of hard metal against his head. A moment of dizziness, of nausea, before he fell hard to the ground, mercifully unconscious, at least for a little while.
When he awoke, the hood had been removed from his head. His skull was pounding and he felt sick. He had no way of knowing how long he had been out cold, but he could tell that they were airborne and he found himself unable to move through terror. He tried to speak, but the words would not come out of his mouth, which was sandpaper-dry. As he looked up, he saw the five men still there with him, only now they had taken off their balaclavas. Through the gloom and his fear, however, he found it impossible to tell one face from the other.
After a while, the popping in his ears and a slight lurch in his stomach told him that they were losing altitude. 'What is happening?' he croaked.
But nobody answered — they just kept their weapons trained on him.
Minutes later they landed. 'Welcome to Poland,' a gruff voice said.
'Poland?' he gasped. 'What do you mean? I promise you, this is a mistake.'
Nobody answered. Instead, Abdul-Qahhar was manhandled to his feet and roughly escorted off the chopper. There was snow outside. The cold air hit his lungs like an electric shock, and the rotors of the chopper whipped up the powdery snow into a blizzard that chapped his face harshly and blinded him. His captors seemed to know where they were going, however. They pulled him away from the chopper and towards a large mound of earth, covered in thick snow, but with a concrete opening in the side. There was a door, which was open and out of which came a flood of yellow light. Abdul-Qahhar was pushed through that opening, down a flight of steps and along a long, dimly lit underground corridor.
The room to which he was taken was icy cold and contained nothing other than a hard metal chair firmly bolted to the ground and a large tinted window in one of the grey concrete walls. Abdul-Qahhar's handcuffs were removed, then he was thrown into the chair; a new set of sturdier cuffs strapped his arms down, before his legs were also fastened to his chair. Without a word, his captors left the room; he heard them lock the door behind him.
'Let me go!' he shouted. 'Please! Let me go! I'm just a student. You've got the wrong person.' He felt a tear ooze down his face as his voice echoed off the concrete walls.
No one answered his call.
It was freezing, and soon his teeth were chattering and his limbs shaking.
'Help me!' he shouted. And then, more feebly, in a voice that no one would have heard, even if they were listening: 'Help me. I'm so cold. Please, help me.'
Time passed. Minutes, hours, he didn't know. Abdul-Qahhar had never realised he could be so cold; all he could do was try to master it, to persuade himself that everything was going to be all right. 'You have done nothing wrong,'
he repeated to himself. 'Believe you have done nothing wrong and they will believe it too. It is a mistake.
'I have done nothing wrong.
'It is a mistake.'
He felt himself falling asleep, as though his body were shutting down.
'I have done nothing wrong.
'It is a mistake.'
The door burst open and two men entered. Abdul-Qahhar was relieved to see they were not carrying guns, but his relief was short-lived as one of them approached him, lifted his head by the chin and struck him hard across the face.
'You have information we need,' the man said. He had a thick mop of blonde hair and his accent was English.
'You are going to tell us everything.'
'I promise you,' Abdul-Qahhar begged, 'I do not know what you mean.'
The Englishman sneered at him and stepped aside to allow the second man to approach. He had a shiny, shaved head and a thin, aquiline nose and when he spoke it was with an American accent. 'You realise,' he said, in little more than a whisper, 'that you are not on US or British soil. The usual laws guaranteeing the safety of interrogated prisoners do not apply here.'
'Please — ,' Abdul-Qahhar breathed.
The American stepped back and turned around so that he was facing away from the prisoner. 'I'm going to tell you one thing before we start,' he announced, a bit louder now. 'Not a threat, just a statement of fact.' He turned back to look at him. His face was serious and one eyebrow was raised. 'If you don't tell me what I want to know, I promise you, you're gonna think Guantánamo is a fucking vacation camp.'