Bad Soldier: Danny Black Thriller 4 (35 page)

She lifted Rose out of her Moses basket and held her up against her shoulder, cooing and rocking her very gently. Rose gurgled happily for a moment, but it soon morphed into a cry again. She was hungry. She needed feeding. Clara carried her back into the front room and settled down on the sofa again, with the baby at her breast. She closed her eyes as Rose fed.

It was the sound of footsteps that roused her. Somebody was walking up to the front door. Clara frowned and glanced down at her phone. It was only just gone 6.30 a.m. Who could be calling this early?

The doorbell rang. Clara gently disengaged Rose from her breast and carried her to the front door, gently tapping the baby’s back as she went. She was about to open it, but something stopped her. The security chain was hanging loosely. Clara slotted it into position. Then she unlocked the door and opened it the couple of inches that the chain allowed.

There was a man on the doorstep. He wore a woolly hat with a bobble, and was clutching a cardboard box to his chest. In one hand, he had a hand-held electronic scanner. ‘Amazon delivery,’ he said. He had a distinctly foreign accent.

‘I’m not expecting one,’ Clara said.

The delivery guy shrugged. ‘Christmas present, maybe. Lots of them, this time of year. Need a signature, please.’

Clara nodded. Silently, she wondered if this was something from Danny. Then she told herself not to be stupid. Wherever he was in the world, he wouldn’t be sending Amazon parcels. ‘One minute, please,’ she said. She took Rose back into the front room and laid her on the hearthrug. Then she returned to the front door, closed it, undid the security chain, then opened the door again.

She knew, instantly, that she’d done the wrong thing.

The delivery guy wasn’t carrying the parcel or the scanner any more. They were stacked neatly to one side of the door. He was carrying a gun, and the gun was pointing directly at Clara’s forehead.

Clara’s immediate instinct was to slam the door shut, but the gunman already had one foot over the threshold, blocking it. She staggered back as he forced his way in and closed the door behind him with his foot. He pulled a knife – long, wickedly sharp.

‘If you scream,’ he said calmly, ‘I’ll take your baby’s eyes out. I have done it before. It takes a few seconds.’

Clara almost choked in horror. ‘What do you want?’ she whispered. ‘My purse is in the bedroom. It’s all the money I have. You can take it . . .’ Her voice faltered. It wasn’t just that the gunman was smiling, as if he found ridiculous the notion that all he wanted was her money. She had noticed something else now that he was no longer clutching the parcel. The man had an angry, ugly scar at his throat, which almost mirrored his smile. It was grotesque, and for a moment Clara couldn’t take her eyes off it.

‘Where is the child?’ the gunman demanded.

Clara shook her head. It was the one question she couldn’t bring herself to answer. She didn’t need to. Rose started to cry. It was obvious from her thin wail that she was in the front room to the left of the hallway. The gunman twitched his weapon in that direction. Clara understood the gesture. She entered the room. Rose had her angry face on. Her little lungs were bellowing.

‘Shut her up,’ the gunman said.

‘I – I can’t. When she starts crying like this she—’

‘Fine,’ the gunman said. He stepped up to the baby and pressed the tip of his knife against the soft skin under her eye. ‘Left one first,’ he said. A pinprick of blood appeared.

‘
No!
’ Clara breathed. She bent down and grabbed her daughter, holding her closely to her chest. ‘Quiet . . . quiet baby . . . 
please
 . . .’ She rocked her as gently as her frightened body would allow. To her relief, Rose calmed down, but it still looked as if she was weeping blood from her left eye.

‘The only reason you’re alive is to keep the baby quiet. If you fail to do that, I’ll shut her up myself.’ He put away his knife. ‘Then I’ll deal with you.’

‘Is this . . . is this to do with Danny?’ Clara said.

The gunman swiped her hard round the side of the face. She gasped in pain. ‘You don’t speak.’ He pointed to the window. ‘Do you see that van?’ he said.

Clara looked and saw a red Parcelforce van parked just outside. She hadn’t noticed it arrive. She nodded.

‘We’re going there now.’

Clara looked down at her clothes. Nightie. Dressing gown. Slippers. ‘I – I need to change,’ she said.

Another swipe round the face. She felt blood trickle from her nose. Rose grizzled.

‘I’m going first with the baby. Then you follow. If you make a noise, or try to run, I’ll kill the child. Do you understand?’

Clara stared at him, too afraid to speak.

‘Don’t make me ask a question twice.’

‘I – I understand.’

‘Good. Give me the child.’

She couldn’t do it. She shrank back from him, cuddling Rose as tightly as she ever had, smearing the trickle of blood on her tiny left cheek. The gunman gave an impatient hiss. He changed the position of his weapon so that he was holding the barrel. Then he stepped forward and struck the pistol handle hard across Clara’s rapidly swelling cheek. She gasped in pain, and her knees buckled. The gunman stepped up to her and yanked Rose out of her arms. Immediately, the baby started crying again. Clara lunged at him, and was rewarded with a solid blow to the pit of her stomach. As she collapsed, she was vaguely aware of a spatter of blood streaking across the mirror above the fireplace from the gun swipe. The gunman shoved a rough hand over the baby’s mouth and nose to muffle the sound of her crying. Then he bundled her under his coat, like she was an embarrassing package.

‘You follow in ten seconds. Otherwise you know what happens.’

He was about to leave the room, but then he saw the phone on the floor. He smashed it violently with his heel, then left. Clara got to her feet. She was dizzy and in pain. She saw the gunman through the window. He was approaching the Parcelforce van. He opened the side door and climbed in. She looked towards the row of terraced houses on the other side of the street, desperately hoping that there might be a neighbour at one of the windows. But all the curtains were shut and the street looked deserted.

Clara felt like she was being ripped apart. To follow this man was suicide. In the back of her mind, she thought about trying to escape. There was a back entrance to the flat. She could make a run for it. Maybe if she’d been alone, she would have done. But he had Rose. There was nothing else she could do. Her legs felt empty with dread at the thought of what this monster might do to her child if she disobeyed him. She left the flat, staggering, tearful, gasping. Icy air hit her as she left the apartment. She looked left and right along the deserted pavement, hoping there might be someone to see what was going on. But there was nobody. The only other person she could see was another man behind the wheel of the van, but she couldn’t make out his face. The gunman was sitting by the Transit’s door, the grotesque scar on his neck very vivid. She could tell he was still holding Rose under his coat, and felt an almost magnetic pull towards her baby.

Clara took a sharp intake of breath as she entered the Parcelforce van. There was an unpleasant, sickly sweet smell in here. Having worked in war zones and hospitals, she recognised it. Her eyes were drawn to a heap at the back of the van. She saw arms and legs splayed out. A face, etched into a horrific, rictus expression. And a throat, brutally cut, the blood congealing slightly. The dead man had black skin and short hair. He was wearing a red jacket, and Clara could just make out the insignia on the breast, which said: ‘Amazon.’

The man uncovered the baby and thrust her into Clara’s arms. For a moment, she forgot about the dead body. She forgot about everything except holding her child, whose punctured skin was still bleeding gently.

The gunman jumped out. The side door slid shut. It was pitch black in the back of the van. Clara collapsed in the front corner of the cab, as far away from the corpse as she could be.

She hugged her baby with one arm. Rose wailed. With her other fist Clara thumped against the side of the van. She screamed. ‘Let me out!
Let me out of here!
’

The van started to move.

‘
For God’s sake . . . Let me out of here 
. . .’

The vehicle accelerated.

‘Danny!’ she cried, her words barely audible through the sobs. ‘Where are you? Please Danny . . . help us . . . where
are
you?’

They entered Danny’s cell on the hour, every hour. Even in his weakened, pummelled state, he knew that.

When they entered for the first time after revealing that they knew his name, Danny had found the strength to go at them with every ounce of aggression he possessed. He’d slammed one guy against the wall, crushing his face into the brick. But then a figure in the doorway had discharged a round into the cell. It sparked against the stone floor just a few inches from Danny’s feet. The two remaining guys had laid into him, kicking him hard in the groin and the ribs, and even stamping on his face this time. They weren’t good fighters, or even particularly strong. But Danny knew that with a shooter at the doorway, he had no way of overpowering them and escaping. Better to let them have their fun. Appear compliant. Wait for them to make a mistake. To think that they didn’t need the backup of a shooter. So he’d absorbed the blows. Sucked up the pain.

On the hour. Every hour.

His kidneys throbbed. His face too. He reckoned he’d managed to avoid a broken nose, but he knew that his skin was swollen, broken and bleeding. He could taste the blood. When the time for each beating approached, he curled himself up into a little ball, protecting his head and his vital organs. Focussing on his slow, steady breathing as the militants beasted him.

On the hour. Every hour.

Sometimes they had a dog. Snarling. Straining on the leash. It would strain even more when they screamed at him in Arabic. Danny didn’t know what they were saying. He recognised their shouts for what they were: a psychological exercise, designed to break him down. It was beginning to work. He kept getting flashbacks to the Malinois that had attacked Caitlin. At some point the interrogation proper would start. Then his body – and his mind – would
really
know about it.

During the sixth beating, while the door was open and the gunman stood in the door frame, he thought he heard Spud roar in agony. Maybe he was supposed to hear that. Mind games.

Now nine hours had passed. Nine beatings. Danny reckoned it must be about midday on the twenty-third. He expected the next beating in about five minutes. He crouched down in the far corner of the room, putting the pain in his abdomen out of his mind, and waited.

They arrived just when he expected them to. On the dot. The door slammed open. Danny counted three men entering. He recognised their swagger – it was the same guys who’d been laying into him each time. The same brutal guards who had laughed harshly at him when he offered up no resistance. One of them had even spat a little English at him. ‘Big strong soldier, hey? Big strong Danny Black?’

Danny looked past them. The door was still open. There was nobody standing in the door frame. No dog.

Mistake.

Two of the men grabbed him under his armpits and yanked him to his feet. The third stood half a metre in front of him, a lairy shadow whose hot, bad breath Danny could feel on his face. He spat at Danny. As the spittle hit Danny’s face, the Regiment man attacked.

He was still being clutched by the two guards on either side. When they felt Danny move, they clutched even harder. It meant that the force of Danny’s heel as it connected with the pit of the third man’s stomach was even stronger than it might have been.

It was a proper kick. The kind of kick that would have knocked a football out of the stadium. The kind of kick a man like Danny had trained for, and practised, for moments like this. And it had its effect. There was a solid, dull groan as the guard exhaled sharply and, winded, staggered back towards the open door.

The two remaining guards were on either side of Danny, facing him side on. Danny yanked his head to the left, smashing the side of his skull squarely into the face of the first guard. There was a crack as his nose bust. Danny yanked his head to the right. The second guard found his face being sandwiched between Danny’s head and the brick wall. Another crack, and the guard slumped, suddenly limp, down to the floor.

Danny quickly turned and grabbed the head of the first guard, who was staggering, dazed, to his left. He thrust his thumbs into the guard’s eye sockets, which gave way in a mess of blood and jelly. With a sharp, yanking movement he twisted the man’s head. There was a silent twitch as his spine cracked and he slumped to the ground like his buddy.

Which left one more guard. He was still bent over, staggering, winded, gasping for breath. Danny strode up to him, grabbed a clump of his hair and, almost nonchalantly, slammed him against the wall, face first. The guy slumped, but Danny kept hold of him and slammed him against the wall for a second time, then a third. He told himself that he was ensuring his target was dead. In truth, the pent-up anger of the last few hours was boiling out of him. The dead guard had got the brunt of it.

Danny let him fall to the ground. He examined the three bodies to see if any of them were carrying weapons. They weren’t. Unarmed, he headed to the door, stopping just short of it to listen carefully for any sounds in the adjoining room. All he could see of it was a concrete floor and breeze-block wall ten metres away.