Yokely watched the car on the infrared monitor. It had been driving for almost forty minutes and had now left the city, heading south towards Yusufiyah, a farming area between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. On the monitor it moved along a road that cut through fields filled with orange and date groves. Yokely looked at the GPS screen. Yusufiyah was a Sunni stronghold, and had been ever since the coalition forces had invaded Iraq. It wasn’t exactly a no-go area for the military but when they went in they went in hard and tended to stay in their vehicles.
The car made a left turn, slowed, stopped at an intersection, then made a right turn. It pulled up in front of a large L-shaped building that was surrounded by a wall. Several vans were parked outside. Two figures came out, opened a gate and the car drove in.
‘Simon, see if you can ID that building,’ said Yokely.
‘I’m on it,’ said Nichols.
‘You think that’s where they’re holding the other guy?’ asked Slater.
‘Difficult to say,’ said Yokely. ‘We watch and wait. Softly, softly, catchy monkey.’
‘See, now, I’ve never understood that expression,’ said Howell, as he put the Predator into a slow left bank. ‘Monkeys are smart and you can’t creep up on one, no matter how slow you take it. You wanna take out a monkey, you shoot it with a tranquilliser gun.’
‘You always were a stickler for detail, Phillip.’
‘Pilots have to be,’ said Howell. ‘Otherwise they forget things like putting their landing gear down.’
The men got out of the car and gathered around the boot. One opened it.
‘He’s not moving,’ said Slater.
‘I see that,’ said Yokely, quietly.
Two ghostly white figures on the screen pulled Shepherd out and carried him into the building. Another closed the gate and followed the others. Yokely divided his attention between the two screens. The GPS monitor continued to blink. They knew where Shepherd was, but not whether he was alive or dead.
The Major’s phone rang. He put it to his ear. ‘Yes, Richard?’
‘It’s good news, and bad news, I’m afraid,’ said the American. ‘We know where he is but he’s not moving.’
‘Shit,’ said the Major.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked O’Brien, from the back seat.
‘He walked out of the building and they hit him before they put him in the trunk,’ said Yokely. ‘Could be he’s just concussed.’
‘But we’ve no way of knowing,’ said the Major.
‘We watch and wait,’ said Yokely. ‘He’s in Yusufiyah, about thirty miles south of Baghdad. Problem is, it’s not as built up as Baghdad and Westerners tend to stick out.’
‘My inclination is to go in now,’ said the Major.
‘I understand that,’ said Yokely, ‘but we’ve got them under surveillance. They can’t go anywhere without us knowing so let’s give it a few more hours.’
‘Okay,’ said the Major, reluctantly, and put away the phone. He explained to Muller, O’Brien and Jordan what had happened.
O’Brien cursed. ‘If he’s dead, we go in and we go in hard, right?’
‘He’s not dead,’ said the Major. He turned to Muller. ‘What can you tell me about Yusufiyah?’
‘It’s full of al-Qaeda militants. They call it the Triangle of Death and it’s a haven for insurgents. Is that where they’ve taken Spider?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said the Major.
‘If anything goes wrong, if he doesn’t get out of this, every one of those bastards gets it,’ said Muller. ‘Every single one.’
Shepherd coughed and pain lanced his skull. He groaned. He could taste blood in his mouth. He was lying on his side on rough matting, which smelled of mould. He coughed again.
‘Do you want water?’ said a heavily accented voice behind him.
Shepherd heard footsteps, then someone pulled at his shoulder and helped him to sit up. His hands were still tied behind him. The hood was lifted and the neck of a plastic bottle was forced between his lips. Shepherd drank for several seconds, then the bottle was taken away. The hood fell back into place. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘You should rest,’ said the man. He helped Shepherd lie down again.
‘My wrists hurt,’ said Shepherd. ‘Can you loosen them?’
‘No,’ said the man.
‘I can’t feel my hands,’ said Shepherd.
‘Shut up,’ said a second voice, harsher than the first. Shepherd heard a rustle of clothing then a foot slammed into his kidney. The blow took him by surprise and he screamed at the pain.
‘There’s movement,’ said Nichols. ‘A guy’s just left the house and gone to the car.’ He was studying the output from the Predator’s infrared sensor. It was eleven o’clock in the evening and the regular video output had shown nothing but darkness since eight.
Yokely got up off the camp-bed and walked over to stand behind him. Two more figures left the house and got into the car. Another went to the gate, pulled it back and the car eased into the street. ‘They’re taking a risk moving him at night,’ said Yokely. ‘It’s well into curfew and if they come across an army patrol, they’ll be shot to pieces.’
Yokely stared at the screen that showed the position of the transmitter hidden in Shepherd’s boot. The cursor was still on the building, which suggested that Shepherd was inside it. It looked as if his kidnappers were returning home, which meant they had handed him over to the next link in the chain.
The figure closed the gate and went back into the building.
‘What do we do?’ asked Howell. ‘Stick with the house or follow the car?’
‘Stay put,’ said Yokely. ‘They’ve sold him to whoever’s in there. The question is, is it Wafeeq or not?’
‘With respect, the question is whether or not your man is still alive,’ said Howell, who was keeping the drone in a gentle left-hand turn some twenty thousand feet above the building.
‘Do try to be a bit more optimistic, Phillip,’ said Yokely.
‘They’ve hit him on the head twice, hard,’ said the pilot.
‘They’re thick-skulled, the Brits,’ said Yokely. ‘How are we doing for fuel?’
‘Thirteen hours or so,’ said Howell.
‘What’s the plan now?’ asked Slater.
‘We see if they move Shepherd on or keep him there.’
‘You’re thinking of going in?’
‘I want all my bases covered,’ said Yokely.
‘Richard, we’ve got a problem,’ said Nichols. He pointed at the GPS monitor. ‘Do you see that?’
‘Yeah, I see it,’ said Yokely. The flashing cursor that showed the position of the transmitter had moved. It was now almost a mile from the house.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ asked Howell. ‘Is one of those guys your man? And if it is, why did he get into the car willingly?’
The Major’s mobile rang. It was Yokely. ‘We’ve got a problem,’ said the American. ‘According to the GSM, Shepherd’s on the move, back to the first place he was being held.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said the Major. ‘They were passing him up the chain and there’s no reason for him to go back.’ He cursed quietly. ‘The boots?’
‘I guess so. I think the original kidnappers have gone home with their ill-gotten gains, leaving Shepherd in the house without the transmitter.’
‘How’s the visual?’ asked the Major.
‘All we have is the infrared so we’ve no way of knowing what’s going on inside. We don’t know if that’s the place where Geordie Mitchell’s being held or if it’s another half-way house and they’re planning to move Shepherd on again. The infrared doesn’t work in buildings and if we’ve lost the transmitter we’ll have to rely on the visual to see if they take him out.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ asked the Major.
‘We need to know what’s going on inside the building,’ said Yokely. ‘If that’s where they’ve got Geordie, we can get ready to move in. But if it isn’t and it’s just another link in the chain, we have to wait and see.’