In Cold Blood (14 page)

Torres started to gasp, his eyes bulged and his lips began to turn blue. Joyce maintained the grip, maybe even tightened it.

Joe tried to get around McGuinnes. “You’re choking him!”

He jostled up against him and the Ulsterman responded by driving his fist into his gut. He dropped to his knees, winded.

Joyce kept squeezing.

Barry Miller rushed the other two men, but they repelled him with embarrassing ease.

Joyce released Torres and he dropped to the floor of the basement. He didn’t move.

Joe crawled forwards and pushed him onto his back. His eyes had rolled up, just the whites showing. He felt for a pulse. There was none.

“Shit,” he said, opening Torres’ mouth, pinching his nose and bending so that he could breathe into him.

One, Two, Three.

He leaned back, lacing his fingers and placing his hands over his heart. He pumped, regular, fifteen times.

“Come on,” he begged. “Come on.”

Joyce stood back and watched.

Joe repeated the routine two more times, but Torres did not respond.

“You killed him,” he said, gasping.

“If anyone says anything to them about who we are, you won’t have to worry about what might happen to you outside.
We’ll
kill you. All of you.” He turned his gaze onto Joe. “Do you understand, captain?”

THE TOWN of Barawe came into view as the highway continued to the north. They were a mile away. Bashir pulled over to the scrub at the side of the asphalt and Beatrix took out her field glasses. She scoped the town from north to south.

Bashir had given her a little history on the drive north. Barawe was an ancient settlement, and tradition said that the pioneer settlers built their town between “the red dunes” and “the white sands.” It was set around a crescent bay, shielded by a spit of land that was furnished with a sixteenth century Portuguese lighthouse. The town comprised a series of whitewashed coral buildings that extended back for a mile from the water’s edge. The streets were wider than those in the other settlements they had passed and the windows, so often narrow, were wide and inviting. She saw a number of bridges that extended across the street from the roof of one house to the roof of its neighbour. The sand on the beach was white and the sea was bright blue. The town made its meagre income through the trade of charcoal, and Beatrix could make out a series of jetties and the dirty boats that would transport the fuel to its destination. There were skiffs on the beach and plenty of men working around them.

Bashir had been quiet after what had happened earlier. He looked at her completely differently. Before, she could tell that he had considered her a foolish westerner who didn’t understand the risks that would be attendant upon her trip into the country. A closeted, pampered journalist who would come to realise that the story was not as important as she thought it was. Now, though, he had changed his mind. She had no idea what he must think of her now but, whatever it was, it had frightened him into silence. She had spent the rest of the drive north cleaning and then sharpening the blade of the kukri. Bashir very conspicuously kept his eyes on the road.

She took the photographs from the drone and spread them out on the dash, trying to identify the house in which the hostages were being held. She found it as the light finally died: a three storey house a couple of hundred feet from the beach, separated from the water by streets of smaller houses. If the SEALs were coming in from the sea, they were going to have to be stealthy or they would be fighting their way west through a reasonably built up area.

Beatrix didn’t like their chances.

“Is this close enough?”

“Wait until it’s properly dark, then take me another half a mile closer. Don’t worry. If anyone threatens us, I’ll take them out.”

“Yes,” he said, even though it was obvious that the only thing he wanted to do was to turn around and set off back to the border.

They waited at the side of the road for another thirty minutes, watching as a handful of lights flickered on in the windows of the buildings. There was no municipal lighting, and the streets remained gloomy, thick pockets of dark into which she would be able to slide unseen. That was good. It would be easier to infiltrate without detection.

She turned the glasses to the uninhabited lighthouse and then out to sea. She could see nothing to suggest that an attack was imminent. She guessed that the SEALs would arrive aboard a warship and then make land aboard faster boats. But, if that was right, there was no sign of anything. But that wasn’t surprising. The ship would drift in with its running lights off. It would be difficult to make anything out from shore.

It might not be tonight, either.

“Go on,” she said. “A little closer and then you can leave me.”

He started the engine and put the truck into first.

“How will you get out again?” he asked as they bumped onto the road.

“I’ll have to improvise that,” she said. “Don’t worry. This won’t be the first time.”

MIDNIGHT.

Beatrix stood at the side of the road and watched as the tail lights of Bashir’s truck winked out. She had paid him the money that they had agreed and that was that. He had turned around and set off immediately.

She opened her rucksack and took out the black jacket and trousers. She changed at the side of the road, stuffing the niqāb into the bag, and then pulled on her combat boots. She took out a tub of camo paint and daubed it across her face, tied her hair back into a ponytail and then put on her gloves. She wouldn’t be able to go about town in the daylight without the veil, but it would do her no good now. She would not be able to answer even the most basic question as to why she was on the street after midnight and so she decided she would rather be completely mobile and unencumbered. She pulled on her riggers belt and the assortment of pouches and checked, for the final time, that she had her grenades, throwing knives and all the spare ammunition that she might need. She checked the retention strap that held her Glock in its holster, ducked her head through the sling of the Heckler & Koch MP-5 and settled it over her shoulders.

She was on the northern edge of the town. She set off, following Wadada Marka iyo Afgooye until its junction with Barawa Road and approached the town from the northwest. The road swung crazily between the hills until it became the Jidka Baraawe and started to pass through the outskirts of the town. The scattered buildings amid the red sand became more frequent, and then began to be grouped in blocks with smaller roads leading off left and right. The streets were quiet, but not deserted. She occasionally saw people in the doorways of the buildings and skirted them to remain unseen. She saw a group of young men wearing
ma’awiis
, the sarong-style skirt that the bandits on the road had been wearing. They were chewing
khat
and listening to music and they didn’t notice her as she ghosted by to the west.

Beatrix relied on her memory of the drone photographs, following the main road towards the sea. The house was fifty feet to the northwest of the mosque and, as the smell of salt grew stronger and stronger in her nostrils, she saw the minaret rise above the buildings.

Beatrix kept to the shadows and paused as she saw a man in the doorway of a building fifty feet ahead of her. He stopped, wrapped a turban around his head and neck and then set off in the direction of the mosque. She turned off the main road into an alley, running low and fast, jumping over a trash can and then avoiding the stray goat who had tipped it over.

She stopped at the exit of the alley and checked the main street as it cut across it from north to south.

She navigated against the minaret of the mosque until she was confident she was in line with the back of the house. The alley was hemmed in by eight-foot concrete walls on both sides and there was an industrial bin half blocking the way ahead. She planted her hands on the top and pushed off, vaulting onto the lid and then reached for the lip of the wall.

She scrambled up and looked over at the compound beyond.

The building was bigger than its neighbours and was surrounded by the concrete wall on all four sides with a gate in the front. The wall was crumbling in places. There were no lights anywhere in the compound and it was perfectly dark. As she watched, a
mujahideen
armed with an AK-47 made a lazy stroll around the perimeter of the building, the glowing red tip of his cigarette giving his location away. Beatrix held her breath, although she knew that there was no way that he would be able to see her. He loitered around the back, finishing his cigarette, and then tossed the dog end into the yard, flashing sparks as it landed in the sand and gravel, and then knocked two times on a side door that Beatrix hadn’t noticed. The door opened, a long finger of illumination from the light inside reaching out into the compound, the fighter went inside, the door closed and it was dark again.

Beatrix turned. Behind her, and facing the compound, was a building of similar size to the one across the way. She had noticed it when she was scouting the town earlier and had noted it as promising. Now she could see that it more than met her expectations. This building was derelict. There were no doors, the glass in the window frames was broken and slogans in Arabic had been daubed across the whitewashed coral walls.

She clambered over the fence, crossed a short yard treacherous with faeces from dogs, goats and other animals, went inside and climbed the staircase to the third floor. The wide double aspect windows offered a good view of the compound, the beach, and the buildings in between.

She settled in to wait.

THE SEALS did not come that night. Beatrix waited for them until four and saw and heard nothing. She knew that they would only assault the town during darkness and it was too close to dawn by then. She had taken a couple of morphine tablets to dull the ache in her bones, but now she had run out of them. She would have to white knuckle it the rest of the way until she could find more.

She lay down and grabbed a few hours of sleep.

The sun was streaming through the broken windows when she awoke. She still had the
sabmuusas
and so there was no need for food, not that she would have left the security of the hideout in such an active area for something so banal as hunger. But she wanted to scout in the daylight and so she decided to venture into the town. She put the MP-5 into the rucksack and hid it under loose floorboards. She put on her veil and cloak, unclipping the retention strap for the holstered Glock.

She made her way carefully outside.

She walked east, away from the coast, and into the heart of the town. She passed huts and houses, an abattoir that smelled of blood, a smoking house that reeked of the fish that were being cured. There was a market in the centre of the town. It was not as big as the one in Jilib, but there were still two dozen stalls. A stand offered different t-shirts for sale and, next to it, another was laden down with shoes and sandals. Other stalls offered silver and gold, random pieces of clothing and household items. Beatrix stopped to watch as a man bartered for a pair of fake Ray-bans and a belt. The trader settled for six thousand shillings, just less than a dollar. There were money exchangers with bundles of shillings wrapped in cling film that they would swap for dollars. Bags of local charcoal were stacked up in tall towers. A herd of camels was marched along the road that bounded the market to the abattoir. Mongooses darted between the tables and a sea heron perched on a wall, looking down at the hectic scene below.

Every now and again she would see a young man with an AK-47, fighters from al Shabaab who had come up from their houses by the beach.

She found a stall offering food. It was owned by a man with an orange beard and orange hair beneath his hat. The Quran forbade the use of black hair dye and so many used brown henna which turned to orange in the sun. He had a large bowl of stew warming over an open charcoal fire and pancake-like bread called
canjeero
that was dipped into it. Beatrix bought a portion in a foil container and took it down to the beach. There was a quiet area one hundred yards from the house where the hostages were kept and she sat on the sand, unclipping the fold of the veil that covered her mouth so that she could eat. It was early, but the temperature was already hot and getting hotter. The food tasted good. She finished it quickly, mopping up the residue with the
canjeero,
regretting that she had only bought one portion.

She stood and walked slowly in the direction of the house. She reached the area of the beach that was full of skiffs, the peaceful hushing of the tide interrupted by the scream of an angle grinder as an engine was repaired. She kept away from the men and they paid her no heed.

She turned away from the sea and climbed towards the house. There were more fighters now and she didn’t want to push her luck. She got within fifty feet of the gate, memorising as much of the new detail as she could, and then turned away into a side alley and returned to the derelict property that way. She waited until she was sure that she was not observed and then hurried inside.

SHE STAYED in the house for the rest of the day. She spent the time disassembling and then reassembling her Glock and then, when that was done, she switched her attention to the MP-5. She would not normally have disabled her weapons in a war-zone, even for a brief time, but they had been exposed to a lot of dust and grit and she did not want there to be even the smallest chance that she would suffer a misfire. She removed the magazine, inspected the chamber and the receiver, lifted off the bolt cover and took it to pieces. It took her an hour to clean it. The routine was reassuring, almost meditative, and she allowed her thoughts to drift.

She was counting on the SEALs. They would attack fast and stealthily and, when it started, it would be difficult to imagine a more effective distraction. They would come from the sea and make a frontal assault on the house, at least to start. She would move quickly, attack to the side, infiltrate, do what she had come to do, and exfiltrate. She would slip in and out again like a ghost and leave before the SEALs even knew she was there.