Those in Peril (Unlocked) (23 page)

‘From here we must stay close together. It is very easy to lose your way once you are inside,’ she whispered, and drew a heavy iron key of ancient design from under her gown. She fitted it into the lock and with an effort turned it. She put her shoulder to the door and it creaked open. She had to duck low to pass under the stone lintel. They followed her. She closed the door behind the last man.

‘Don’t lock it. We will be in a hurry when we return,’ Hector told her softly. The darkness was so complete that it seemed like a crushing weight on their shoulders. Hector switched on the fluorescent headlight of his helmet, and the others followed his example. Daliyah led them on into a warren of twisting passages and interlinking rooms. There were small sounds: women were talking and laughing in one of the rooms they passed, and in another a man snored loudly. At last Daliyah motioned them to stop.

‘Wait here,’ she whispered to Tariq. ‘Put out your lights and remain quietly. I will go to make sure it is safe.’ She slipped away down the narrow corridor. The men squatted to rest, but they kept their weapons in their hands. Before long Daliyah came back, moving silently and swiftly.

‘There are two men guarding the door to the girl’s chamber. This is unusual. Usually there are five or six of them. Tonight the others must have been ordered to the north gate. One of the remaining guards will have the key to the girl’s cell. Make no noise. Follow me.’ Hector and Tariq moved up close on each side of her. After a short distance she stopped again and pointed ahead. The passage opened out suddenly and turned at right angles. They could hear men’s voices coming from beyond the bend, and yellow lamplight was thrown against the angle of the side wall and the ceiling. Hector listened intently and realized that there were at least two men droning out a passage from the ‘
esha
prayers. Then he saw their shadows on the side wall as they knelt and sat upright again. Hector held up two fingers and Tariq nodded. Hector tapped his chest and showed one finger, and then tapped his own chest and held up another finger

‘One for each of us!’ Tariq nodded. They handed their rifles to the men behind them, and each of them unrolled the piano wire garotte he carried in his button-down pocket, and tested it between his hands. Hector crept up to the corner. Tariq followed him. They waited there until the two warders knelt with their foreheads pressed to the paving slabs. Then he and Tariq moved out behind them, and as they rose again into the sitting position Hector and Tariq dropped the wire nooses over their heads and whipped them up tightly under the chins. The Arabs struggled, kicking and flailing their legs and arms. But they uttered not a sound. Hector placed his knee between his victim’s shoulder blades and applied the power of both his hands. The man stiffened and kicked convulsively one last time as his bowels voided with a spluttering sound. Then he was still. Hector rolled him over quickly and patted down his robe. He felt the big iron key under the cloth and pulled it out. Daliyah was standing at the corner. Her eyes behind the veil were huge and bright with horror; perhaps she had not expected this killing.

‘Which door?’ Hector asked – there were three in the facing wall – but Daliyah was still too distressed to answer. Tariq sprang up and seized her shoulders. He shook her roughly.

‘Which door?’ She gathered her wits and pointed at the one in the centre.

‘Back me up,’ Hector told Tariq and went to the door. He unlocked it with the key he had taken from the warder and opened it slowly and stealthily. The cell was unlit, but he turned on his headlight. By its beam he saw how small the cell was. It was without any windows or ventilation. In the one corner stood a toilet bucket and a clay water pitcher. The bucket emitted a powerful odour. In the middle of the floor a small childlike figure was curled on a straw-filled pallet. She wore only a dirty shift that came down as far as her waist, so that there was no mistaking that she was female. He knelt over her and gently turned her so he could see the face. It was the face of the girl in the brutal video, the girl whose photograph Hazel had showed him. It was Cayla, but so pale and thin that her skin seemed transparent.

‘Cayla!’ he whispered in her ear and she stirred. ‘Wake up, Cayla.’ She opened her eyes but for a moment could not focus them. ‘Wake up, Cayla. I have come to take you home.’ Suddenly her eyes flew wide open. They seemed to fill her whole face. They were brimming with the shadows of terrible memories. She opened her mouth to scream but he whipped his hand across it, and whispered urgently,

‘Don’t be afraid. I am your friend. Your mother has sent me to take you home.’

She was deafened by her fear, not understanding the words, fighting him with all her meagre strength. ‘Your mother told me you have a Bugatti Veyron which you call Mister Tortoise. Your mother is Hazel Bannock. She loves you, Cayla. Do you remember the filly she gave you for your last birthday? You named her Milk Chocolate.’ She stopped struggling and stared at him with huge eyes. ‘I am going to take my hand off your mouth now. Promise not to scream.’ She nodded and he took his hand away.

‘Not Milk Chocolate,’ she whispered, ‘Chocolate, just plain Chocolate.’ She began to weep, silent sobs that racked her entire body. Hector picked her up in his arms. She was light as a bird, but burning up with fever.

‘Come on, Cayla. I’m taking you home. Your mother is waiting for you.’ Tariq was in the doorway covering him. Hector nodded towards the corpses of the two Arabs. ‘Lock them in the cell.’ They dragged them feet first with their heads bumping and rolling on the paving, and dumped them in the middle of the cell. Hector locked the door and pocketed the key. ‘Now! Tell your cousin to get us out of this stinking place, Tariq.’

Daliyah led them back the way they had come. At every turn Hector anticipated a challenge or a burst of gunfire. ‘This is too easy. It was never meant to be this easy. There is a shit-storm brewing. I can feel it in my guts,’ he told himself grimly. But at last he stepped out through the little door into the narrow defile and he tasted the night air from the desert. ‘Sweet as a virgin’s kiss,’ he murmured and filled his lungs with it. Cayla shivered in his arms. He carried her down to the opening of the defile where there was a clear escape route down the mountainside. He sat her down gently on the stony ground and knelt over her. Hazel had packed clean camouflage coveralls for her, a pair of canvas sneakers in her size and a pair of panties. Hector dug them out of the side pocket of his pack and, as though she were a baby, dressed her in them. He averted his eyes as he pulled up her knickers. He felt a strange paternal affection for her. But at first he had difficulty recognizing the emotion. He had never had kids of his own; he had never wanted any. His life was too full with other things. There was no space in it for kids. Now he thought this is what it must be like to have one. This was Hazel’s baby, therefore in a strange way she was also his. This sick little creature tugged at feelings deep inside him that he had never suspected existed. He found the plastic bottle in his pack, and forced her to swallow three broad-spectrum antibiotic tablets and wash them down with a swig of water from the bottle he held to her lips.

‘Can you walk?’ he asked her tenderly.

‘Yes, of course!’ She stood up, took two shaky steps and collapsed.

‘Good try,’ he said, ‘but you still need a little practice.’ He swept her up in his arms again and ran with her. Tariq and Daliyah were on point, and the rest of the stick backed him. On the rough track they skirted the walls until they joined the main pathway and turned directly down the hillside. The night was as quiet as though all of creation held its breath. They slowed as they entered the oasis, and moved through the palms towards where they had left Uthmann and his stick.

Too quiet
, Hector thought. Too bloody quiet. The whole place reeks with the stink of the Beast. Suddenly Tariq and Daliyah ahead of him went to ground. Tariq pulled her down with him and they dropped out of Hector’s sight as though through the trap of a scaffold. Hector went down in almost the same instant, cradling Cayla to protect her from the impact as they hit the earth.

She whimpered and he whispered, ‘Quiet, sweetheart, quiet!’ and stared ahead as he cautiously slipped the rifle sling from his shoulder. He stared through the night scope but could make out nothing that might have alarmed Tariq. Then he saw Tariq raise his head cautiously. After a full five minutes he gave the soft fluting recognition whistle. There was no response. He turned slowly and looked back at Hector, waiting for an order.

‘Stay here and don’t move!’ Hector told the girl.

‘I’m afraid. Please don’t leave me.’

‘I’ll be back. I promise you.’ Then he was on his feet and running. He dropped beside Tariq, and rolled twice to throw off the aim of an enemy. The silence was heavy and fraught.

‘Where?’ he asked.

‘Beyond that palm. There is a man lying there, but he does not move.’ Hector picked up the dark shape, and watched it for minute. The shape remained still.

‘Cover me.’ He darted forward again. Even his flak jacket would not stop a rifle bullet at this range. He reached the dark human shape and dropped beside him. His face was turned towards Hector, and he saw it was Khaleel, one of his really good men.

‘Khaleel!’ he breathed but there was no response. He reached across to check his carotid artery. Khaleel’s skin was warm but there was no pulse. Then Hector felt the wetness on his fingertips. He knew what it was; in his life he had probably seen as much blood as any surgeon. With his fingertips he searched for the wound. He found it exactly where he had expected it to be, at the back of the jawbone just under the earhole. A tiny puncture; a thin very sharp blade, through the earhole and into the brain. Hector felt sick to the guts. He did not want this to be true. There was only one man he knew who could kill with such precision. He called Tariq to his side with a hand signal. He darted forward to join Hector. At a glance he spotted the blood on Hector’s fingers. Then he turned to Khaleel’s corpse and touched the wound behind his ear. He said nothing.

‘Find the others,’ Hector ordered. Three corpses were lying in a defensive circle looking outwards. They must have trusted their killer to let him come in so close. Each of them would have died instantly. All of them had an almost identical wound.

‘Where is Uthmann?’ The question was redundant, but Hector had to ask it.

‘He is not here. He has gone to where his heart belongs.’ Tariq looked up at the dark massif of the fortress.

‘You knew, Tariq. Why did you not warn me about him?’

‘I knew with my heart, but I did not know with my head. Would you have believed me?’ Tariq asked. Hector grimaced.

‘Uthmann was my brother. How could I believe you?’ Hector said, but Tariq looked away.

‘And now we must leave this place, before your beloved brother returns,’ Tariq said. ‘With his other brothers, the ones he truly loves but who do not love you, Hector Cross.’

U
thmann watched Hector and Tariq move away through the palms with the woman, Daliyah, and the rest of his stick. He was angry and frustrated. Hector Cross had thrown all his carefully laid plans into turmoil. Now he had to re-evaluate his position very quickly. Sheikh Tippoo Tip and his grandson Adam were waiting for him with most of their men at the North Gate. Uthmann had promised Adam that he would deliver Hector Cross to him there. Firstly and most importantly he had to get a message to Adam, to let him know that Hector would not be walking into the trap, as they had planned, but that he had entered through another gate. They would have to close all the gates, and scour the fortress for him. Find him before he could wriggle his way out and escape into the open desert. There was only one way he could get a warning to Adam. He must take it himself. But first he must deal with the four men of his stick. He checked the dagger in its sheath strapped to his left forearm. He had made the blade from the steel of the front spring of a GM truck. It had taken many hours of filing and sanding, of heating and forging and annealing and shaping to achieve this perfection. The handle was bound with a strip of oryx hide to fit his hand. Its balance was exquisite. Its edge was sharp enough to cut down to bone with the lightest stroke, and its point could slip through living flesh under its own weight. He gave Hector’s group ten minutes to get well clear, then he crawled to the nearest of his men.

‘Khaleel, is all quiet here?’ he asked. ‘No, don’t look at me. Keep looking ahead.’ Khaleel turned his head obediently. The lobe of his right ear showed beneath the rim of his helmet. Uthmann ran the point of his blade into his ear canal and through to his brain. Khaleel sighed softly and dropped his head onto the butt of his rifle. Uthmann meticulously wiped the blade on Khaleel’s sleeve, before he crawled on to the next of his men in the circle.