The Child Taker & Slow Burn (5 page)

“I want to go thank you, give me the keys please, Karl,” Hayley replied curtly without looking at her sister-in-law. Louise pulled a face and stuck her tongue out childishly. Her husband nudged her gently to make her stop teasing.

“I’ll come with you,” Karl said. He pulled the keys to their BMW estate car from his pocket.

“I’ll be fine Karl, just give me the keys please.” Hayley needed five minutes away from them all to calm down. Her sister-in-law’s antics had annoyed her immensely.

“I really don’t mind going, Hayley,” Steve chirped. He squeezed Louise’s bottom and she giggled like a schoolgirl. She pouted at Karl and thought it had gone unnoticed, but Hayley caught it.

“I’m going to drive to the village, on my own, before I’m sick. Now can I have the fucking car keys please?” Hayley held out her hand and Karl handed her the key fob in silence. “Thank you,” she said curtly. Hayley turned and walked towards the estate car.

“I don’t think there was any need for that,” Karl hissed as he followed her a few steps behind. “That was just plain rude.”

“Oh well I wouldn’t want to upset Louise now would I, babe?” She replied sarcastically. “The Ice Queen is spoiling the night and having a go at everyone again, am I?” Her tone was acidic. Karl stopped in his tracks. Hayley turned to face him, and he could see the anger in her eyes. Her demeanour warned him that debate was futile until she’d calmed down.

“What’s the matter, babe? Did you think that I hadn’t heard her?” Hayley imitated Louise’s girly voice.

“I don’t know what your problem is. Why do you want to cause a scene?” Karl reached out to hold her hands. Hayley pulled away and turned towards the car again.

“Leave me alone, Karl, I do not need that bitch talking about me behind my back, especially not to my husband.” She pressed the alarm button on the fob and the lights flashed to indicate that the vehicle was unlocked. Hayley pulled the door open and climbed into the dark blue BMW. Karl grabbed hold of the door to stop her closing it.

“Look, Hayley, she’s a drama queen, just ignore her. We’re supposed to be on holiday.” Karl tried to calm his wife. “She’s had a lot of wine.”

“I don’t care, Karl, leave me alone.” She grabbed the handle and slammed the door. Karl stood back from the car as she started the engine. The muffled sound of Dire Straits, playing ‘Sultans of Swing’, came from the stereo. Hayley glanced at her husband briefly as she drove away. He looked at Louise and shrugged his shoulders, and in that instant Hayley knew that they were sleeping together. She didn’t know how, or why, but she knew. Karl watched the estate crossing the campsite. Halfway across the site the headlights flicked on. The sun was fading fast and the shadows were lengthening. The indicator light flashed as the car reached the entrance gate, and then he heard the engine gunning as Hayley pulled the vehicle onto the main road. His heart felt heavy with guilt, but there was something else eating at him too. Hayley seemed to sense that there was something between him and his sister-in-law and that frightened him. He had tried to be as careful as possible to hide it from his wife and his brother, but Louise’s antics were not helping one bit.

Karl heard the sound of the infant crying again, but this time it was much more urgent, almost a scream. He looked towards the woods and the spaces between the trees had become inky darkness. The trees were dark silhouettes against a darkening sky. The first stars were visible in the north above the lake. It was such a beautiful setting that the view calmed him for a moment, and then the child cried out again. This time it was accompanied by a female voice. He couldn’t make out the words but it sounded like the woman was calling for help. Karl looked at the handful of tents and caravans that were on the site, but they were all in darkness, their occupants out walking or fishing, or eating an evening meal in one of the country pubs that were dotted around the lake. The site was completely empty apart from him. Steve and Louise had disappeared into their tent. The coals on the barbecue smouldered and the smoke drifted vertically upward towards the darkening sky. The night was deadly still; not even a breeze moved across the waters of the lake.

The child cried out again and the female’s cries for help became much clearer. Karl walked towards the copse of trees as darkness descended, and the sound of Louise gasping forced him to glance towards his brother’s tent. Her lovemaking was always loud and frantic, and that was one of the reasons why he couldn’t leave her alone. Karl knew that their affair was wrong in so many ways that he couldn’t believe it some days. Screwing your brother’s wife while your partner cares for your twins is about as low as a man can get. He didn’t love Louise, and most days he didn’t even like her as a person, but he did love screwing her, so much that he couldn’t leave her alone. So far, his brother and Hayley had no idea what had been going on, but Louise’s behaviour was becoming increasingly more obnoxious. Steve seemed blissfully unaware but Hayley was becoming suspicious, and Karl knew that he could be forced to stop the affair before Louise did, or said something stupid, that would lead them to be discovered.

Karl’s thoughts were interrupted by a desperate scream. It sounded like an adult woman’s voice. The infant’s cries joined the female’s call and Karl broke into a jog as he approached the trees. He slowed down to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness between the trees, but the urgency of the infant’s cries was reaching fever pitch. Karl picked a gap between two trees and ducked beneath the lower branches. A sharp pain stabbed in the soft flesh above the hip. Another stabbing pain emanated from below his left knee.

“Shit!” He said, as he realised that he had careered into a barbed wire fence. A trickle of blood ran down his shin. The woman’s voice screamed for help again but she didn’t sound far away any more.

“Hello, can you hear me?” Karl cupped his hands together and shouted into the darkness. His question was answered by the infant crying. “Hello, can you hear me?” He shouted again. Reluctantly he climbed between the barbed wire strands, and was engulfed in the darkness of the woods. Karl stared into the darkness and tried to make sense of the shadows before him. Slowly but surely he picked his way through the branches and undergrowth towards the sound of the infant crying. A tree root protruded up from the soil and he stubbed his toes against it. He fell forward and scratched his face and hands on the low network of branches. Thick tendrils of brambles wrapped around his legs and the thorns pierced his flesh. His shorts offered him no protection whatsoever. He tried to stand but only succeeded in pulling the bramble tighter against his flesh.

“Hello, can you hear me?” He called as he pulled the thorny plants away from his legs and ankles. The thorns scratched his hands and he swore aloud. “Bloody hell! Can you hear me?” He called again. Blood ran down his shins and clotted in his socks. “Hello!” He shouted louder and the infant cried out again. He stumbled on for another twenty yards or so and the female called out for help again. She sounded very close this time.

“Hello, can you hear me?” Karl ducked beneath a thick branch and peered into the blackness. The infant’s cries were very close but the female had fallen silent. He wondered what they were doing in the copse in the first place. “Hello, I’m here to help, can you hear me?”

The infant cried again, but this time it seemed that it was behind him. Karl turned and listened intently. The cries were no more than a few yards away. “Hello, can you hear me?” The crying was coming from below him, down to the left. There was a tree trunk barely visible in the blackness and Karl kneeled down and edged closer to the base of the tree. “Hello, where are you?” He spoke gently, so as not to frighten the infant. The cries suddenly became louder and the female shouted for help too. Karl could not make any sense of it. They sounded as if they were right in front of him but he couldn’t see anything. He fumbled in the darkness and his hand touched something hard. His fingers felt blindly around the rectangular object and he nearly dropped it in fright when the infant’s cries screamed louder still from the box. It vibrated slightly as the cries reverberated through the trees. Karl realised what it was and he gazed open-mouthed at the wireless speaker. The female’s voice cried out again. The sound drifted through the trees and across the still waters of the lake, and it was all the more eerie now that he knew it was a hoax.

“Why would anyone play a stupid, good for nothing trick like that,” Karl whispered to himself in the darkness. It was a warm, still evening but a cold shiver ran down his spine and he was suddenly very, very, frightened indeed.

Chapter Six

The Souk

Tank watched the sentry in the doorway of the souk as the helicopter approached their airspace. Curiosity got the better of him and the Somali reluctantly stepped from the shelter of the doorway into the blazing sunshine; he scoured the cloudless sky for any sight of the enemy aircraft. He was wearing ill-fitting khaki clothes, mirrored sunglasses and a baseball cap, which appeared to be standard issue for the many militias in Mogadishu. Tank guessed him to be around sixteen or seventeen, if he was a day. Raised voices could be heard from inside the souk as the helicopter flew nearby, and a burst of machinegun fire came from within the walls somewhere. The sentry peered skywards and turned around through three hundred and sixty degrees. Tank pointed two fingers at the sentry and one of his men responded by firing two, soft nosed nine millimetre bullets from a suppressed Glock. The fat shells punched holes the size of walnuts through the back of the sentry’s skull. His face was virtually ripped clean off as the flattened ammunition exited through his forehead. The sentry hit the dust with a dull thud and a pool of blood began to leak into the sand. Tank waved a hand and the unit moved silently towards the doorway.

The walls of the souk were made from handcrafted bricks the colour and texture of sand. The doorway was low and narrow and it was fitted with a thick wooden door. The door was grey in colour and the wood was warped and cracked with age. There was a rusted keyhole next to the frame on the left of the door but no handle was fitted to the outside. It was obviously designed to open from the inside only. A burst of gunfire erupted nearby, and half a dozen other weapons soon joined it. The task force men couldn’t see who was firing skywards but it was obvious that they were in the vicinity of the souk. Tank stepped into the doorway, knelt down, and placed his eye to the keyhole. There was nothing to be seen except a spider’s web. He stepped back and nodded to his number four. Number four moved swiftly and within seconds had fitted a small plastic explosive charge to the keyhole. The unit split, two men each side of the doorway, and they ducked low against the sandy brick wall. Number four counted down with a gloved hand, four, three, two, one, and then the crack of a small controlled explosion joined the cacophony of machinegun fire. It appeared that the small explosion had gone unnoticed by the militiamen inside the old market place as the gunfire didn’t falter.

The wooden door split into three triangular pieces. Tank ducked under the low frame and broke through the splintered pieces. He moved inside to the left, into what looked like a dusty storeroom. His colleagues broke right and took up defensive shooting positions. The room was empty except for a small wooden desk in the centre. It was the type of desk a child would use at school in the sixties. The lid was sloped towards the fixed seat and an inkwell was drilled into the lip of the pencil ledge. Cobwebs hung from the low ceilings like grey curtains. At the far end of the storeroom was a metal door, which had been fitted to prevent thieves from gaining entry to it. The unit approached it and quickly assessed how to breach it. Number four pointed to the hinges, which would be the weakest point of a metal door and the ideal place to fix an explosive charge. Tank held up his hand and signalled him to wait a second. He reached for the rusty handle and twisted it downwards. The handle screeched and groaned before it gave way and the door creaked open slowly. Tank smiled as the door opened and his colleagues chuckled at the irony of the situation. Why blow the hinges off a metal door when it isn’t locked? The corridor beyond was unlit and empty and the unit slipped through the door in cover formation. There was a shaft of sunlight shining through a small rectangular window and dust swirled around in it. At the end of the corridor was a stone staircase. The steps were wide and worn shiny by hundreds of years of use.

Tank and his men reached the bottom of the staircase and he peered through the glassless window into the souk. Inside the old market square was a courtyard made of compacted sand, once packed with stalls and traders selling spices and wares. Now the hustle and bustle of the souk had been replaced with two technicals and a thick whipping post, which had a poor unfortunate Somali shackled to it. The man was limp and hanging by the wrists and by the look of his injuries they had subjected him to sustained beatings over a prolonged period. Machinegun fire roared skyward again but this time Tank could see where it was coming from.

Around the market square were high stone walls, which could be accessed by rotten wooden steps, similar to a medieval castle. Four men were shouting and firing Kalashnikovs into a cloudless blue sky. Two more men were standing in the back of one of the technicals, firing a fifty millimetre into the air. There were doorways fitted into the inner walls of the souk every ten yards or so, which meant that there were at least two dozen rooms off the central courtyard. It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Tank mulled over the options for a second. They could take out the militiamen and then clear each room one at a time by the numbers, hoping that they would stumble across the pirate warlord. Alternatively, they could bug out of the area and then call in an airstrike on the souk, while they lay low until a Heli-vac could be arranged. He was leaning towards the latter course of action when a door to the left of the window opened and a man wearing new camouflage combats and a red beret stepped into the square. He shouted a series of instructions to the militiamen and they stopped firing their weapons straight away. One of the men on the Technical barked something back at him while pointing to the empty sky. Tank could tell by the sound of the helicopter engines that it had picked up its human cargo and was well on its way back to the carrier in the Indian Ocean. He could also tell that this man was a high-ranking officer at least, and possibly their leader, Said Adid. The officer turned his head towards the technical and Tank caught his full profile. He had a black patch over his left eye: appropriate for a pirate, Tank mused.

“Pilgrim one, we have a possible sighting of the target,” Tank whispered into the coms. He watched as the officer picked up a stone and hurled it at the man in the Technical. The stone bounced off his arm and then rattled off the roof of the pick-up. The militiamen fell silent and the officer began to rant and rave again. He was gesticulating wildly with his arms as he hurled a tirade of abuse at the ragtag militiamen.

“Roger that, act accordingly,” came the reply from control.

Tank signalled to his number three by waving straightened fingers across his throat. He moved from the window and allowed the unit sniper to take up his firing position. The Somali officer stormed across the courtyard to the whipping post and began to kick the shackled captive in the guts. The man twisted his body to try to avoid the vicious blows but there was no escaping it. The task force sniper lined up his target and squeezed the trigger three times, tap, tap, and tap.

Two bullets smashed into the officer’s chest and the third blew the top of his cranium off. It landed on the floor still inside the red beret. Said Adid tumbled onto the compacted sand at the feet of his shackled captive, his brains spilling out of his skull. A fourth bullet hit the captive in the centre of his chest and released him from the pain of further torture. By the time the militia men had reached their leader and realised that he had been assassinated, Tank and his unit were already a quarter of a mile away.