'You were foolish to come here.'
No one replied.
'Your friend is dead,' he continued. 'At first light, his body will be dragged to the outskirts of the village. The wild animals will be glad of it. The rest of you have until dawn to consider the grave insult you have inflicted on Islam in coming to this place. Then you will be executed and you will join your friend.'
Without another word, the man stepped backwards into the darkness and the door was firmly locked once more.
'Happy fucking Christmas to you, too,' Kennedy said, under his breath. But there was no mirth in his voice.
Their room was windowless and pitch black. In the darkness, Will edged towards the door. Standing with his back towards it, he gave it a rap with his bound hands. It sounded solid. There was no way they'd be able to break that door down, not in these conditions.
It was freezing cold, too, although their snowsuits offered them some protection. The cold wasn't their biggest worry, though. The chilling words of their Taliban captor rang in Will's head.
They were stuck in this place.
There was no way out — not even for men of their ability.
All they could do was wait until sunrise and the horrors that it would bring.
Her feet were ravaged by the branding she had received earlier. She would have had difficulty standing up, even if she had wanted to. Instead, she remained huddled on the cold, hard ground, foetus-like.
She was beyond hunger now. Her stomach, which for days had shrieked at her to satisfy it with food, had withdrawn into a dull ache that seemed always to be there. Her exhaustion caused her to exist in a semi-drowsy state, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, a half-coma from which she was only roused when they came in to question her or to inflict more brutality upon her person.
But suddenly, from outside, a noise caused her bruised eyelids to flicker open. A gunshot rang out through the air, the harsh bang sending a shock through her as if she herself had been shot.
And then there was a voice: 'Anderson!'
The woman blinked. The name meant nothing to her, but the voice that shouted it did.
It was English.
She had not heard any foreigners in this village. It was full of ordinary Afghans and the brutal Taliban insurgents. No British or American troops, as far as she could tell, had come this way. Not in this weather.
Until now.
A tiny flame of hope sparked up within her and like a small candle in a dark room it seemed to bring warmth and light.
But as quickly as she was filled with hope, it drained back out of her again as she heard the harsh voices of her captors.
'Bind his hands,' someone said in Pashto. 'And imprison them in the schoolroom. We will deal with them at first light.'
There was a scuffling, then the banging of a door. The woman felt sick. Then she felt numb. Then she closed her eyes once more and for the first time since she had arrived in this hellish place, she wept. And as the tears finally came, she felt for all the world as though they would never, ever stop.
When death comes, it is best that it comes quickly.
Ever since he had started in the Regiment, Will had been of this point of view. And when his family had died, he had comforted himself in some small way that at least they had known nothing about it. At least the end had come quickly.
The end had come quickly for Anderson, too. A bullet in the back of the head. If you were going to buy it on an op, that was the best way to go. No torture. No anticipation. It wouldn't be much consolation for Anderson's family, but it was true. In a weird kind of way Will wished he had been in Anderson's shoes. At least he wouldn't have to go through this. The waiting. Waiting for the inevitable.
In the darkness, it was impossible to tell how much time passed — three hours, Will guessed, maybe four — but once they had established that there was no way they could undo the ropes binding each other's wrists, the three SAS men were silent for a good deal of it. A deep, impenetrable silence, broken only by the occasional sound of the Taliban guards talking outside their building. Will wondered if the same things were going through the heads of Drew and Kennedy as were occupying him. The dog that they had heard on the other side of the village barked a couple of times, but then all was still. Midnight? One o'clock? Their captors had taken their watches and time meant nothing. None of them could tell whether it was passing quickly or slowly.
It was strange to think that Latifa Ahmed, the one person who could lead Will to his family's killer, might be no more than a stone's throw away. Strange and unspeakably frustrating. There were moments when it was all he could do to stop himself from roaring with anger; at other times he felt hopeless, helpless.
And then, as he closed his eyes in the darkness, in his mind's eye he saw the photograph of Faisal Ahmed that the Director General of MI5 had shown him only yesterday. Ahmed's calm eyes seemed to stare out at him. Will had never met this man and Ahmed probably didn't even know that Will existed; yet their lives were inextricably linked. Ahmed had taken everything from Will; and now, because of him, Will was going to lose his life, while Ahmed would be free to conduct his acts of terrorism on London. And yet, Will had come here to rescue the one person in the world Ahmed seemed to have feelings for.
His thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door. He looked in that direction, but all he saw were the silhouettes of their Taliban captors. Three of them, maybe four. It was difficult to make out in this light. Surely they hadn't come for them already; surely there were a few more hours of night-time yet. He got to his feet, just as the Taliban threw something into the room. It flew past Will's head and bounced against the back wall, hitting the ground with a dull thud. They threw something else in — heavier this time — and it fell just in front of the door, which they closed without saying a word. Will heard them lock it.
'What the fuck—?' Kennedy started to say.
Will had already turned and was on his knees in the darkness, trying to find the object they threw in. His hands felt blindly until they came across something. It was icy cold and damp in patches. It was only when he felt the short-cropped hair that he realised what it was.
'Jesus!' he spat. 'It's a fucking head!'
'Anderson,' Drew replied almost immediately. 'It's his body here.'
'The fuckers cut his head off, just to put the shits up us,' Kennedy raged. Will heard him stand up and kick the solid wall violently.
There was a silence as they absorbed what had happened. The Taliban were giving them a message: this is what you can look forward to.Will felt his jaw clenching. He was fucked if he was going to give them the chance. But they were without weapons and there was no way out of this room.
'I've got an idea,' Drew said in a soft voice.
'What?'
'Anderson. He carries a buckle knife. They might not have seen it.'
Will felt a surge of hope. Buckle knives, which slid inside the protective leather of your belt, were difficult to notice if you didn't know they were there. If Anderson had one on him, they might be in with a chance.
Instantly the three of them headed towards where the body lay. In the darkness, Will could already sense that Drew was on the ground with his back to Anderson's headless corpse, unzipping his bloodied snowsuit and feeling for his belt. 'Bingo,' he said after a minute.
'You got it?'
'Yeah, I've got it.'
Drew stood back to back with Kennedy first, so that their tied hands were next to each other. Slowly, he started slicing through his colleague's ropes. 'Mind my fucking wrists!' Kennedy complained more than once; but minutes later he was free and it was easy then for him to cut the ropes from Drew's wrists, then Will's. Once they were free, Will sensed a new determination in them. They had nothing to lose. Will was fucked if he was going to give in to these Taliban scum without a fight.