Those in Peril (Unlocked) (15 page)

‘If you know where to listen you may be able to pick up the echoes of its gloating.’

‘Do you know where to listen?’ she asked.

‘No, but Uthmann and Tariq do,’ he replied. ‘I’m sending them into deep cover. I’m putting them into the countries in which they were born and where their links to the local populace will be strongest. Tariq will go to Puntland and Uthmann to Iraq. They will sniff around until they pick up the scent. Even if they are holding Cayla somewhere else, these two will find out where she is.’

‘That will be terribly dangerous for them, won’t it? They’ll be on their own entirely and you won’t be able to protect them.’

‘You are greatly understating the case, Mrs Bannock. They will be at deadly risk. But they are hard to kill. They have survived so far against all odds.’ Hazel looked across at the two Arabs.

‘I can never thank you enough. You are risking your life for my daughter. You are very, very brave men.’

‘Not too much praise!’ Hector protested. ‘They already have highly inflated opinions of their own worth. Next thing they will be asking me for a raise, or something equally ridiculous.’ Everyone, except Hazel, laughed and it eased the tension a little.

‘Until they come up with a definite lead we will keep the ball in play here. At the same time we will make every possible preparation for the moment when we are certain where they are holding Cayla, and we can go in to bring her out.’

T
here was a daily flight on Zara Airlines’ Fokker F-27 Friendship twin turbojet passenger plane from the airstrip at Sidi el Razig to Ash-Alman, the capital of Abu Zara. The next morning Tariq and Uthmann quietly joined the crowd of oil rig workers and labourers in the small airline check-in area. Dressed in traditional garb, with their faces half-covered by their shumag, they blended into the crowd. Once they reached the capital they separated. Tariq boarded the aircraft to Mogadishu in Somalia and an hour later Uthmann took the flight to Baghdad. They had vanished amongst the faceless Arab multitudes.

T
he next morning Hector sought out Hazel and found her at breakfast in the tiny company mess. As he stood over her he glanced down at the bowl of cereal and the cup of black coffee on the table in front of her. No wonder she is in this kind of shape, he thought.

‘Good morning, Mrs Bannock. I hope you slept well.’

‘An attempt at a light witticism is it, Cross? Of course I did not sleep well.’

‘It’s going to be a long day. Nothing is likely to break just yet. I’m taking a few of my lads out for some parachute practice prior to the big show. Some of them have not jumped for over a year. They need polishing.’

‘Have you got a chute for me?’ she asked. He blinked. He had thought that she might want to watch them to distract herself from her own worries. He hadn’t contemplated that she would want to join in. He wondered what experience she had.

‘You have done some para before?’ he asked tactfully.

‘My husband loved it, and he used to drag me along. We did quite a bit of base jumping together in the Norwegian fjords at Trollstigen.’ Hector gaped at her for a moment before he found his voice again.

‘That’s the end of the road,’ he conceded. ‘They don’t come more extreme than jumping off a mountain into a two-thousand-foot abyss.’

‘Oh! Have you done the fjords?’ she asked with quick interest.

‘I am brave, but not crazy.’ He shook his head. ‘Mrs Bannock you have my admiration and I would be honoured to have you jump with us this morning.’

Hector had assembled fifteen of his best men, including Dave Imbiss and Paddy O’Quinn. They made three jumps from the helicopter. The first was from 10,000 feet and the third and last was low level from 400 feet; just enough air left for the parachute to flare before their feet hit the ground. This technique would give an enemy firing from below little chance of hitting them while they were dropping and vulnerable. After the third jump all the men were in obvious awe of Hazel. Even Paddy O’Quinn could barely conceal his admiration.

They ate their ham and cheese sandwiches and drank black coffee from a flask while sitting on the side of a sand dune. Afterwards Hector rolled an old truck tyre from the top of the dune, and as it bounced and bounded down the steep slope they took turns firing their Beretta SC 70/90 automatic assault rifles at the cardboard target that Hector had fixed inside the tyre. Hazel was the last to shoot. She borrowed Hector’s weapon and checked the loading and balance with a quick and competent air. Then she stepped up to the firing mark and took on the target in elegant style, swinging smoothly out ahead of the tyre like a 12-bore shooter lining up on a high-flying pheasant. Dave retrieved the tyre from the bottom of the dune, they all gathered around it and regarded the bullet holes punched through the cardboard target. Nobody said much.

‘Why are we all so surprised?’ Hector mused. ‘She is a world-class athlete. Of course she is as competitive as hell, and has the hand-to-eye coordination of a leopard.’ Then he said ingenuously, ‘Let me guess, Mrs Bannock. Your husband liked to shoot and he dragged you along with him. That’s it, isn’t it?’ The laughter was spontaneous and infectious, and after a few moments Hazel was forced to join in. It was the first time she had laughed since she had lost Cayla. It was cathartic. She felt some of the debilitating grief being purged from her soul.

Before the laughter ceased Hector clapped his hands and called out, ‘Righty-oh, boys and girls! It’s just under seven miles back to the terminal. Last one home buys the drinks.’

The sandy soil made heavy going. When they streamed in through the gate in the barbed-wire perimeter fencing of the terminal Hector was a few paces behind Hazel. She was running strongly and smoothly but the back of her shirt was dark with sweat. Hector grinned.

I doubt that Madam will have too much trouble getting to sleep tonight
, he thought.

U
thmann heard the explosion and saw the pillar of black smoke rising above the roofs of the buildings ahead of him. He knew at once that it was a car bomb and he burst into a swift run to his brother’s house, which was somewhere close to the explosion. He turned the corner and looked down the narrow winding street. Even for a hardened veteran like Uthmann the carnage was horrific. One man was running towards him with a child’s blood-soaked body clutched to his chest. His blank staring eyes did not even focus on Uthmann as he ran on past. The front had been blown off three buildings. The rooms inside were opened up like a doll’s house. Furniture and personal possessions hung out of the open rooms or cascaded down into the street. In the middle of the roadway stood the blackened and twisted wreckage of the car that had carried the bomb.

‘You are no martyr,’ Uthmann shouted at the smoking wreckage and vaporized remains of the driver as he ran past it. ‘You are a Shi’ite murderer!’ Then he saw that his brother Ali’s house was further down the street and that it was intact. Ali’s wife met him at the door. She was weeping and cradling two of the children. ‘Where is Ali?’ he yelled at her.

‘He has gone to work at the hotel,’ she sobbed.

‘Are all the children with you?’ She nodded through her tears.

‘May the name of Allah be praised!’ Uthmann cried and led her back into the house.

Uthmann’s own wife and three children had not been as fortunate as his brother’s family. Three years before Lailah had been in the market place with the boys when a bomb had blown up within thirty paces of them. Now Uthmann picked the little boy out of the arms of his sister-in-law and rocked him until he stopped blubbering. He remembered the feel of his son’s warm little body and tears welled up in his eyes. He turned away so she could not see them.

His brother Ali came back from work an hour later. Because of the bomb the general manager of the hotel had given him permission to leave early. His relief when he saw all his family safe was heartrending for Uthmann to watch. It was only the following day that Uthmann was able to hold a serious discussion with him. To begin with Uthmann broached the subject of the taking of the American yacht and the capture of the young heiress to the Bannock Oil fortune.

‘This is the most exciting news that we have had for years,’ Ali responded at once. ‘All the Muslim world is agog with it since the day the comrades announced it on Al Jazeera. What dedicated planning and duty it took to bring such an operation to its flowering. It is one of our greatest victories since the attacks on New York City. The Americans are reeling. Their prestige has taken another deadly assault.’ Ali was jubilant. In everyday existence he was a floor manager at the Airport Hotel, but in reality his main occupation was as a coordinator for the Sunni Fighters who were pursuing the jihad against the Great Satan. It was clear to both brothers that Ali had been the main target of the Shi’ite bomb that had caused such devastation in the street outside the house in which they sat.

‘I am sure our leaders will demand an enormous ransom for the captured American princess,’ Ali said seriously. ‘Enough to finance the jihad against America for another ten years or more.’

‘So which of our groups were responsible for this achievement?’ Uthmann asked. ‘I have never heard of these “Flowers of Islam” until the name was used on Al Jazeera.’

‘Brother, you know better than to ask me that. Even though you have proved your loyalty a hundred times over I could never answer that question even if I knew the answer, which I do not.’ Ali hesitated, and then went on, ‘But I can tell you that soon you may be one of those with a need to know.’

‘My connection with Bannock Oil?’ Uthmann smiled at him, but Ali waved his hands in denial.

‘Enough, I can say no more.’

‘Then I will leave tomorrow, and return to Abu Zara—’

‘No!’ Ali cut him off. ‘It is the hand of Allah that brought you here today. Stay with me another month at least.
Inshallah!
I may have something to tell you then.’

Uthmann nodded. ‘
Mashallah!
I shall stay, brother.’

‘And you are welcome at my board, brother.’