He heard rapid footsteps behind him and turned to see a small boy in a faded Liverpool shirt running full pelt with an apple in each hand. A bearded shopkeeper in a striped apron screamed something at him and shook his fist. Shepherd smiled. He hadn’t been averse to nicking the odd apple or orange when he was a kid – until he’d realised that stealing was wrong. The kid kept running and the shopkeeper went back inside.
Shepherd turned back to the engine. A fat man in a dark brown dishdasha walked past briskly, his head covered with a red and white checked shumag scarf. He was followed by an equally overweight woman in a black abayah that covered her from shoulders to feet. She was frowning, clearly unhappy about something – probably that she had to carry two cheap suitcases tied up with string, Shepherd thought. She was breathing heavily and her face was bathed in sweat. The man looked over his shoulder and barked something in Arabic. She nodded and walked faster. Suddenly Shepherd remembered Fariq’s wife and smiled to himself: she was from Baghdad but he couldn’t imagine her covering herself and walking behind her husband. It would probably have been the other way around.
His smile vanished when two men appeared at his right shoulder. Tall, thin men with spindly arms, wearing sweatshirts, cotton trousers and plastic sandals. One had a zigzag scar that ran from his left eye to his chin. His eyes darted from left to right and he was breathing heavily. The other man was calmer and stared at Shepherd with unblinking brown eyes. He had a straggly beard and metal-framed spectacles, and his hands were low, below the wing of the Land Cruiser.
Shepherd could feel hostility pouring from them. Under other circumstances he would have gone into full-attack mode. He’d have pulled his gun and shot them both at the slightest provocation. Even if he hadn’t been armed he was confident he could take them. Both were within reach: he could chop the bearded man across the throat, then step round the car and hit the second, probably a kick to the knee to disable him, then a punch to the nose. Shepherd’s adrenal glands were in overdrive and his legs were trembling, not from fear but because an animal instinct was screaming that it was time to move.
‘Hi,’ he said, playing his role. He was an idiot, lost in a city he didn’t understand, a stupid infidel who was out of his depth and didn’t know it. He forced himself to smile. ‘Engine trouble.’
‘American?’ said the man with glasses.
‘British,’ said Shepherd.
The man wearing glasses lifted his hand. He was holding a gun. Shepherd stared at it. The man’s finger was tight on the trigger. It was a Russian-made 9mm Makarov. The body armour Shepherd was wearing would almost certainly stop a 9mm slug, even at such close range. The man had made a big mistake in pointing it at his chest. If he’d been in attack mode, Shepherd would have been able to grab the gun and pull his own, confident that even if the man’s weapon fired he’d still be able to get in a killing shot. But Shepherd was in victim mode, which meant he had to stand where he was and stare at the gun as if it was the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen. ‘What do you want?’ he said. ‘You want money?’
He heard footsteps as the third man moved along the other side of the Land Cruiser. Soft, careful steps, as if he was walking on tiptoe. Shepherd fought the urge to turn, even though he knew that the man behind him was almost certainly going to hit him – hard. He continued to stare at the gun. If they wanted to kill him they would have done it already: they could have put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He heard the sound of a foot scuffing along the Tarmac. Close. Very close.
‘I’ll give you my wallet,’ said Shepherd. He slowly lifted his left hand. ‘And you can have my watch.’ The man said nothing. He raised the gun so that it was pointing at Shepherd’s face. Shepherd stared at it, trying to block out what was happening behind him. The Makarov looked like a larger version of the German Walther PP but internally there were many differences. Shepherd was familiar with the weapon and knew how to strip and clean it, but it wasn’t a gun he liked. He heard the man behind him take a breath and knew that the blow was coming. Time seemed to stretch into infinity as he anticipated it. He had no idea if he would be hit with a gun, a cosh or even a brick, but he was sure that it would hurt. He wanted to turn and face his attacker, meet force with force. Every fibre of him fought against standing still, but that was what he had to do so he stared at the gun and pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth so that he wouldn’t bite it when he was hit. He felt his shoulders tense against the blow he knew was coming, then something hard slammed into his head just behind his ear. He felt as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. His legs went weak, as if all the strength had been sucked out of them, then everything went red and, finally, black.
The Major’s mobile rang and he answered it immediately. ‘Yes, Richard,’ he said. Balad airbase was out of range of the transceivers they were using so they’d decided that mobile phones were the best way to keep in touch. The Major didn’t want to rely on the Iraqi system so he’d asked Muller to bring a satellite phone with him. It sat on the back seat of the Land Cruiser between Muller and O’Brien.
‘He’s been taken,’ said Yokely.
‘How did it happen?’
‘Three Mams cold-cocked him from behind, then dragged him to a taxi. They locked him in the boot. We’ve got a visual on it now and the transmitter’s working fine. They’re heading south.’
‘Mams?’
‘Local jargon. Military-aged males.’
‘Do you think he’s okay?’
‘They hit him once with something small, maybe a gun. He went down straight away. Unless he’s very unlucky he’ll just have a sore head.’
‘Can you get a licence plate?’
‘We’re working on it but they’re in built-up areas and the drone’s high up so we can’t get the angle. Tell John the Land Cruiser is being stripped as we speak. I’ll text you the address but I don’t think there’ll be much left by the time he gets there.’
‘We’ll start heading their way,’ said the Major.
‘No rush,’ said Yokely. ‘I doubt they’ll be going too far so we’ll have a location for you soon. My bet is that they’ll hold him for at least a day until they pass him on.’
The Major thanked Yokely and ended the call. He nodded at Pat Jordan who was in the driving seat, chewing gum. ‘Game on,’ said the Major.
Shepherd was aware of the vibration first, then the smell. He was being shaken from side to side and his head banged against the floor of the boot every time the taxi went over a bump. The smell of the exhaust was sickening and he felt more light-headed with every breath he took. Then he became aware of the noise, the roar of the tyres over Tarmac and the clunk-clunk-clunk of an engine with worn cylinders.
He was lying on his left arm. He rolled over to get his weight off it and tried to look at his watch, but his wrists were tied. He twisted round, trying to find fresher air, pushed his hooded face close to the boot lock and breathed through the gap. He hoped they didn’t plan to keep him there for much longer because the carbon monoxide in the exhaust would kill him as surely as a bullet to the brain. He felt a sharp pain at the back of his head where he’d been hit, and consciousness began to slip away again. He shook his head. He didn’t know if the blow to the head or the carbon monoxide was making him drowsy, but he knew that he had to stay awake. He bit down on his tongue, hard enough to taste blood, using the pain to keep himself focused.
The Major’s mobile rang. It was Yokely. ‘They’ve taken him inside a house,’ said the American.