Firefight (19 page)

'Your contact,' he hissed, 'was dirty. One of my men has
been beheaded in some shit-hole Afghan village, and I've
half a mind to do the same thing to you so that you know
what it feels like. The rest of my team are lucky to be alive
and if I don't get a medic immediately the whole mission
will go tits up anyway. Get your pampered arse in gear and
do what I tell you, otherwise I'll see to it that you're moved
somewhere that'll make you think Kandahar Airport is the
fucking Ritz. Got it?'

Rankin's face was red and flustered as Will threw him
against the wall. He looked at the SAS man with thinly
veiled loathing. 'Whatever you say,' Rankin agreed in a
strained voice. 'I'll have a medic there immediately.'

'Good.'

'But -' he said forcefully, his patrician accent making him
sound like an enraged public schoolboy '- make no mistake
about it, Jackson. I
will
be speaking to your superiors about
your behaviour.'

It was all Will could do to keep from laughing. 'My superiors?'
he snorted. 'I don't
have
any superiors.'

And with a sneer at the ridiculous man behind the desk,
he turned and left.

*

Barely ten minutes later what remained of the SAS team
were standing around Latifa Ahmed. An airbase medic had
brought a stretcher bed to the hangar and as they watched
he was inserting a needle into each of Latifa's arms. The
woman herself was asleep on the stretcher - through tiredness
or illness, Will couldn't tell which.

The medic wore the uniform of the US air force and
was characteristically no-nonsense. 'Intravenous antibiotic
drip,' he said to nobody in particular as he attached the
tube of a drip bag to the needle on her right arm. 'It's
strong stuff, but it could take twenty-four hours before you
begin to see any improvement.'

'That's too long,' Will said. 'We have to be on a transport
back to the UK today.'

The medic shrugged. 'You've got to do what you've got
to do,' he said. If he wanted to know why this SAS man
had to get home with a tortured Afghan woman in such a
hurry, he knew better than to ask. He started attaching a
second drip bag to her other arm. 'This should reduce her
fever, make it easier to travel.'

'Will it wake her, make her able to speak?'

'Could do. To be honest, pal, she's lucky to be with us.
Where the hell did you find her?'

'South of here,' Will replied, evasively.

The medic nodded. 'Fucking Afghans,' he said. 'I've
removed plenty of shrapnel that they've put in our boys
over the last couple of years, but you think they'd give each
other a break.' He bent down and pulled a pair of tongs
and a clean swab from his supplies case. 'Especially the
women,' he murmured. He stepped to the end of the bed
and started dabbing the swab on Latifa's feet. Gobbets of
sticky fluid came away from her flesh and within seconds
the swab was soaked. The medic disposed of it in a waste
sack, then armed himself with a fresh one.

It took twenty minutes of skilful doctoring before the
medic was satisfied that Latifa's feet were clean enough to
be bandaged. 'The bandages will need to be replaced daily,'
the medic said as he packed up. 'But if you're taking her
back to the UK, I guess that's going to be another guy's
job, not mine.' His eyes flickered back towards the patient
and for a moment his no-nonsense attitude seemed to disappear.
'I don't know how she got those wounds, but this
woman's been through hell. Make sure she's well looked
after.'

Will turned away. He knew what was awaiting Latifa
Ahmed back in England and he knew he couldn't make
that promise.

'Thanks for patching her up,' was the only reply he could
manage.

There was a plane leaving for Brize Norton that evening,
which gave them the whole day at the airbase. Drew and
Kennedy went to find some hot food for them all, coming
back with plates of stodgy, carb-heavy army rations - some
kind of stew that was bland, filling and more welcome than
almost anything Will had ever eaten. They wolfed it down,
then Drew and Kennedy curled up in a corner of the room
to get some desperately needed shut-eye.

Will himself, however, couldn't sleep, despite the fact that
exhaustion seemed to have seeped into his veins. Instead, he
hovered around the stretcher bed where Latifa lay. For some
reason, he didn't want her to leave his sight. This trembling
bag of bones whom they had rescued at such a high cost was
precious to him now. She held the key to something he realised
- now he was one step closer - that he wanted desperately.

Revenge.

And if he didn't get revenge, it would destroy him.

It was mid-afternoon and Will was still sitting by Latifa's
bedside listening to her heavy breathing when he became
aware of Drew standing behind him. Kennedy was still asleep.

Will couldn't work Drew out. During the whole mission,
the guy had hardly spoken - not like Kennedy who never
missed a chance to spout some sarky comment or other.
Drew was solid, dependable. You got the impression that he
was always watching. Always listening. Kennedy was a good
soldier, but Drew understood things more deeply.

'You not going to get some kip?' he asked Will.

Will shook his head. 'On the plane, maybe.'

Drew shrugged, as if to say,
It's your decision
. 'So, do you
think us humble foot soldiers will ever find out exactly
what it is the powers that be want with this woman?' he
asked, looking meaningfully at Will. 'Or are you going to
keep that under your hat?'

Will looked away. 'She might have some information,' he
said, hoping that would bring an end to the conversation.
But it didn't. Drew's eyes seemed to burn into him.

'It's personal, isn't it?' Drew asked, quietly.

Will shifted uneasily in his seat. 'What do you mean?'

Drew sniffed. 'Don't get me wrong,' he said. 'You're a
good soldier. But there's a lot of good soldiers in the
Regiment. Why bring you in if you're not involved in some
other way? And I've seen the way you are with her - you
don't know whether to pity the woman or hate her. There's
more going on here than any of us know. Kennedy and I
weren't happy about it at first. It was Anderson who talked
us round.'

Drew's words seemed to pierce Will like bullets. It was
horrible, losing someone on a mission; but he hadn't really
known Anderson. Imagine what the other two must be
feeling. 'I'm sorry about your friend,' he said, humbly.

'Don't be,' said Drew. 'He knew the risks. We all did. It
could have been any of us - it just happened to be him.
And if it wasn't for you, we'd never have got out of that
fucking prison and this woman would be dead by now.' He
paused. 'Whoever she is.'

Will fell silent.

'I know you probably can't tell us everything,' Drew
continued. 'But that's OK.You know the code, though. You
can
trust us - me and Kennedy, I mean - despite what
happened back there. You
have
to trust us. Just like Anderson
trusted you. Just like we
all
trusted you.'

As he spoke, a voice spoke in Will's mind. It was Pankhurst,
the man who had sent him out here in the first place.
'I
know you've been trained to trust everyone at Hereford, Will, but
that's one part of your training that you need to forget. We can't
afford to trust anyone.'

Will blinked. He didn't know what to say to the earnest
SAS man standing in front of him. Instead he looked over
at Kennedy. 'You'd better wake him,' he said. 'We'll be
leaving soon.'

Drew paused for a moment, then nodded, He walked
over to where Kennedy was lying and gave him a gentle
kick in the ribs.

'Not now, sweetheart,' the drowsy SAS man mumbled.
'I've got a headache.'

*

It was dark when they wheeled Latifa's stretcher bed out of
the hangar towards the runway. The return journey wasn't
to be in the Galaxy, but in a British C-17 Globemaster, and
as they wheeled the woman across the busy tarmac, they
could see empty pallets being loaded into the back, along
with a few military vehicles that were being transported, for
whatever reason, back to Brize Norton. There were quite a
few strange looks from the loaders as they wheeled Latifa
up a ramp and into the belly of the rumbling transport
aircraft.

As on the way out, there were no other troops being ferried
on this journey - it was solely for equipment - and the
Globemaster had a smaller crew than the Galaxy. Just three,
all told, plus the SAS team and Latifa. Will was relieved. Fewer
people meant fewer questions and he wasn't in the mood for
shooting the shit with curious squaddies wanting to pick his
brains about the Regiment. He just wanted to get home.

Latifa's fever was beginning to subside, just like the medic
had said it would. As she was wheeled into place in the
Globemaster she even opened her eyes, looked around in
brief confusion, then closed them again.

The stretcher was strapped in place against one of the
walls of the plane before the three SAS men took their
seats. Minutes later they felt the rush of G-force as the
aircraft took to the sky.

'And amen to that,' Kennedy said, as they felt the plane
turn sharply in the air to get them on course for England.
'Hope I don't have to pay a return visit to the Stan for a
long time to come.'

They might have been sleeping all day, but it was a long,
boring flight home and Drew and Kennedy obviously felt
they still had some recuperating to do, so they each swallowed
a sleeping tablet and within half an hour they were
flat out. Will, though, had other plans. Once his companions
were asleep, he unbuckled himself and walked over to
Latifa's stretcher bed. Her eyes were open now and her head
was turned so that she could gaze out of one of the little
windows into the inky night sky. It was a moment before
she realised Will had approached.

'I have never left Afghanistan before,' she croaked, weakly.
But if she was scared she didn't show it.

'Do you feel any better?' he asked.

She shrugged. 'I feel as if I am not going to die anytime
soon. So I suppose I feel better, yes.'

'You speak good English,' Will observed.

Latifa turned her head to look out of the window again.
'There was a time in my country, before the Taliban, when
women were allowed to educate themselves.'

'They say things are getting better.'

She snorted, weakly. 'Look at me,' she said. 'You think
this is progress?'

There wasn't much Will could say to that.

'We'll be in England in a few hours.'

'I see,' Latifa replied. 'And then what?'

'And then we need to ask you a few questions.'

'Ah,' she said, softly. 'More questions. The Taliban asked
me many questions.' She looked piercingly at Will. 'This is
about Faisal, is it not?'

Will took a deep intake of breath. 'It's about Faisal Ahmed,
yes.'

'You do not like it when I speak his name,' Fatima noticed
with an intuition that rather unnerved him.

He shrugged and Latifa closed her eyes. 'What is it that
my brother has done?'

'What makes you think he's done anything?'

'Because I know him almost better than I know myself.
He is a man of action. And because I know that no government
would risk the lives of their soldiers to come and
rescue me from the hands of the Taliban if it were not for
the fact that he is in some kind of trouble.' She opened her
eyes again. 'You saved my life, yet I do not even know your
name.'

'Will,' he told her. 'Will Jackson.'

'Well, Will Jackson,' Latifa continued,'let me tell you this.
I do not approve of the path my brother has taken. Even
when we were children I used to beg him to pick up his
schoolbooks instead of his guns. At first I used to pray that
it was just a boyish phase, but it was not. Even when he
was small, he never had any doubt of the difference between
right and wrong. But what he did not understand - what
he still does not understand, I think - is that what is right
for one person is wrong for another.'

Latifa spoke carefully. Slowly. As though each word was
an effort. Somehow it gave the effect of making her
speech sound even more meaningful. And as she spoke,
Will felt a surge of hope. This woman loved her brother,
but she didn't necessarily like what he did. If she knew
what was going on, maybe she would be inclined to help
them.

'You need to listen to me carefully, Latifa,' he said. 'Your
brother is planning something. An act of terrorism. We don't
know what and we don't know when. We just know it's
going to be big. You're our only chance of finding him. We
know he keeps in touch with you. We know that if anyone
can lead us to him, it's you.'

Latifa smiled a little sadly. 'You want me to lead you to
my brother when he does not want to be found?'

'That's right.'

She fell silent for a moment. 'It is exactly what the Taliban
wanted,' she said, finally. 'At least, it is exactly what the men
holding me wanted. One of them, I think, had a personal
argument with him. They too believed that my brother had
been in contact with me. That is why they were torturing
me - so that I would give him up. But I never did.'

Will narrowed his eyes. 'Thousands of people, Latifa,' he
said, somewhat impatiently. 'Thousands of people could die
if your brother goes through with his terrorist strike.'

'So you tell me,' Latifa replied. 'But I do not believe it.
My brother is many things, but he is not a terrorist.'

'We have proof, Latifa.'

'You may show me all the proof you wish, Will Jackson.
I will still not believe it.'

Will took a deep breath in an effort to control a sudden
wave of anger. 'It seems to me,' he said, curtly, 'that perhaps
you don't know your brother as well as you think. Faisal
Ahmed
is
a terrorist. I have better reason to know than
most.'