The Protector (37 page)

‘I think all we can do is wait it out and surrender when the Marines arrive.’

‘Can we survive until then - in here?’

‘We won’t live any longer out there.’

‘Where’s Abdul?’

Mallory suddenly realised that the young Arab had not followed him into the room. He went to the back door, moved down the short hallway and entered the garage. ‘Abdul?’ he called out. There was no sign of him. Mallory hurried to the back of the car and lifted up the trunk lid. The bag seemed to be as he’d left it and he opened it up to find the money untouched. He went to the garage door to look out through the hole. There was no sign of life. Then a nearby explosion splattered the house with shrapnel, forcing him back inside. He went to the car, lifted the bag out of the trunk and made his way back into the living room where Stanza was still standing by the sink.

Mallory put the bag down and went into the hallway to the front door.

He peered outside into the street that was a mess of debris; chunks of bricks and mortar, splintered wood, trailing wires and lots of smoke. A few feet in front of him lay a buckled lifeless body. The jacket looked familiar and Mallory edged out of the doorway to get a closer view of the face. It was disfigured, one of the eyes hanging from its socket and the lower jaw torn away, but he was just about recognisable. Mallory was certain it was Abdul’s cousin.

Large pieces of ash floated by on the warm air like grubby snowflakes.The ground shook as a shell landed close by and showers of powdered masonry fell on Mallory. A man in a tattered
dishdash
who was carrying an assault rifle ran quickly down the street, past Mallory and out of sight.

Mallory decided that Abdul had legged it. The man was shell-shocked and couldn’t be blamed. He’d taken a hammering at the cemetery and was lucky to be alive. They both were. Mallory could only wish him luck and hope that the Marines wouldn’t shoot him before he had a chance to surrender. He thought of Tasneen and wondered what he would tell her. But then, he’d have to get back himself to do that and at present the prospects of that were in the balance.

Mallory went back into the living room to find that Stanza had not moved.

‘This house’ll collapse if this keeps up,’ Stanza said.

‘What do you want
me
to fucking well do?’ Mallory shouted, the stress and Stanza’s bleating finally getting the better of him. ‘Why don’t you just accept that if we get out of here in one piece we’re going to be lucky, OK?’

Stanza blinked at him innocently as if he, Stanza, was being victimised. Another heavy boom shook the house and Stanza gripped the sink behind him as his stare darted to the ceiling where a crack had suddenly widened. ‘Perhaps there’s a basement,’ he said.

‘Why don’t you go and look for one, then?’ Mallory said, wondering if there was indeed a safe place to wait for the Americans to arrive. The garage, perhaps. Better still, inside the car. Short of a direct hit, being inside a metal box would be safer than being out in the open. A fire would, of course, be a problem if they got trapped. But then maybe they could drive out, at least. Mallory’s mind was racing. He looked at Stanza who had not moved but was wearing a most odd expression, a combination of shock and fear. He realised that Stanza was looking behind him and he turned around to see the demonic insurgent they’d encountered earlier standing in the doorway. His
dishdash
was soiled, his machine-gun dusty in his grimy hands. A couple of bandoliers of linked ammunition spanned his chest and a short sword in a scabbard hung from a leather belt around his waist. Mallory took a step back as the Arab’s crazed stare bored into him. Then the human devil moved out of the doorway and his leader walked in, dressed in a similar fashion as if ready for battle.A series of new explosions shook the building but no one reacted, not even Stanza.

The leader asked something in a calm, authoritative voice. Mallory did not understand a word and simply looked at him.The leader beckoned to someone behind him and Abdul walked into the room, looking calmer than the last time Mallory had seen him.

Abdul held Mallory’s gaze with difficulty. His failure to kill him in the graveyard had left him confused. The Englishman had been saved from Abdul’s blow by the very hand of Allah. It had all seemed so clear to him up until that point, what his purpose was and how he was to achieve it. He had seen himself as a tool of Allah but that clearly was not the case, not entirely at least. Somewhere along the road he had misread the signs.

But Abdul had come to his senses and seen the way to complete his mission. Mallory had indeed played a part in it but Abdul had not realised what that was until almost too late. Now he knew what he had to do. ‘He asks where the money is,’ he said.

Mallory’s mouth started to drop open in utter disbelief. ‘You little arsehole,’ he muttered.

‘It is payment for Lamont,’Abdul said, as if explaining to Mallory what the money had been intended for all along.

Explosions close by followed by a rattle of gunfire lit a fire under the proceedings and the leader raised his voice.

‘He does not have time to waste,’ Abdul said. ‘Don’t try his patience,’ he added as a warning of his own.

Mallory exhaled in frustration. It was clearly not an issue for debate and he walked over to the bag, picked it up and dropped it on the floor in front of the leader. The leader nodded to his fighter who crouched to open and inspect the contents. He pulled out several bundles of money, did a quick count, looked up at his boss and nodded.

Abdul suddenly remembered the bundle Mallory had given him, took it out of his jacket pocket and held it towards the leader.

The fighter took it, shoved it in the bag and fastened it back up as the leader eyed Abdul.

Stanza looked from the bag of money to the others in blank confusion.

The leader barked a command and left the room.

‘He wants you to follow,’ Abdul said, stepping aside.

‘Me?’ Stanza asked. Everyone seemed to know what was going on except him.

‘Both of you,’ Abdul said.

‘Where are we going?’ Stanza asked.

An explosion rocked the building and the dark-eyed fighter shouted at them as he hoisted the bag of money onto his shoulder.

‘Now,’ Abdul insisted. ‘He’s taking you to see Lamont.’

Stanza opened his mouth to say something. But the fighter interrupted with an outburst that was clearly threatening and Stanza hurried out the door.

Mallory stared at Abdul, feeling a mixture of loss and humility. The money had driven his every move for almost a year, nearly cost him his life and was now gone. But he could not begin to chastise Abdul for what the man had done. Abdul could have run off with the money himself but instead had continued to risk his life to exchange it all for a complete stranger, and an American to boot.That was altruism above and beyond any level Mallory had contemplated. Tasneen had been right about her brother all along. She had said he was good and honourable and would not let him down. In a way, Mallory felt it was he who had let Abdul down.

Mallory walked out of the room and Abdul followed, the demonic fighter close behind.

Several more fighters were waiting in the hallway and in the doorways at either side of the house and they followed as the leader headed down the street. Devastation was everywhere: fires burning in roofless buildings, pieces of furniture and rubble strewn all over the road, the air thick with ash and smoke. Homes had collapsed, telegraph poles were snapped or bent, water was pouring from severed pipes, mangled human remains lay scattered around. Mallory covered his mouth to stop from choking on the smoke-filled air and as he followed a fighter directly in front of him he had to lengthen his stride to avoid stepping on a severed arm and then on a face that had been stripped from its skull.

An explosion sent a chunk of metal whistling overhead and the leader and those close to him ducked as it smashed into the building above. The staccato of heavy machine-gun fire joined the cacophony and was answered, or so it seemed, by a dozen less powerful weapons. A heavy engine roared angrily beyond the row of buildings in the next street, followed by the clunking of metal tracks crunching through masonry. It sounded like a tank to Mallory and as the leader broke into a trot the others responded likewise. The thunder of battle grew in intensity, a chorus of explosions, flying bullets, crackling fires and grinding machinery. Two Apache helicopter gunships roared overhead, nearly clipping the rooftops as they unleashed a torrent of heavy gunfire at some target a few streets away. Mallory prayed that the dense smoke was masking their group enough. As they ran on Mallory had the feeling that they were heading towards the outskirts of the city - which meant towards the front line of the fight and not away from it. He could only hope that the hostage was in a bunker somewhere and that the four of them would be left to fend for themselves.

The leader turned the corner at the end of the street, followed by his men. Mallory saw Stanza make the corner and when it was his turn he saw to his surprise that the line was filing in through the front door of a house. Mallory followed into the living room that was mostly taken up by a huge hole in the centre, its sides shored up by heavy pieces of timber as in the entrance to a mine. Fighters were climbing down into the hole that was lit from below - Mallory assumed this was the bunker he had been expecting.

A fighter came running in from outside, barging past Abdul who was a couple of fighters behind Mallory, shouting some kind of warning. The leader barked words of motivation that were repeated by his lieutenants. Mallory looked at the faces of the fighters packed around him, expecting to see signs of fear or panic. But there were neither. He looked at the demonic fighter carrying the money and watched as he pulled the bag off his shoulder and handed it to a young fighter, at the same time giving him what appeared to be instructions. Mallory watched as the bag was carried out of the house, thus bringing to an end his relationship with it. It was never meant to be, he mused.

The murderous-looking fighter was then handed a heavy cloth bundle which he thrust at Stanza who looked at it quizzically. The fighter displayed little patience with Stanza’s lack of understanding and shouted a command as he shoved the bundle brutally against Stanza’s chest.The journalist had no choice but to take hold of it, almost dropping it since it was heavier than it looked. Then he was unceremoniously pushed over to the hole and ordered to go down into it.

Mallory and Abdul had just been shoved into the line of fighters waiting to descend into the hole when a massive explosion outside brought down the front of the house, exposing the living room to the street. Several fighters fell under the cascading rubble and were either killed or seriously injured. The sound of falling masonry gave way to human screams and when the initial cloud of dust dissipated Mallory saw a fighter with a spear of window frame sticking through his chest.

The building across the road suddenly collapsed with a roar but this time it was not due to any explosion. A thundering Abrams tank punched through the walls as if it were a sandcastle, its gun barrel like a battering ram, and bore down on the house.

There followed an immediate scramble for the hole as the tank’s tracks screeched painfully as it turned. When it stopped the business end of its gun barrel seemed to explode as a shell burst from it.

The shell was aimed along the street but the shock wave from the end of the barrel almost brought down the rest of the house. Everything went dark as dust completely filled the air, making it almost impossible to see or breathe. All Mallory was aware of after that was being shunted forward until the man in front of him dropped. He followed him into the hole, grasping for anything to hang on to.

The walls quickly closed in as the tunnel became narrower and Mallory had to release his handholds as quickly as he found them to avoid his fingers being stepped on by others descending from above. When he hit the bottom it was so abrupt that his knees collapsed under him and as he recovered the man above landed on him. As Mallory pushed himself to his feet, hands grabbed him and he was yanked in another direction. His face slammed into a dirt wall, breaking his nose, but the lower half of his body continued forward into a space and he dropped into a crouch as he entered a low tunnel.

He was given no time to recover as the man behind pushed him on with his boot and Mallory scurried on his hands and knees in the darkness until he bumped into the man in front of him. The dust was intolerable although it had improved a little from the hole entrance when he’d thought he was going to suffocate. The ground was rocky and quickly became unbearably painful, tearing the skin off his knees. Mallory squatted to put his weight on his feet, which meant shuffling along like a chimpanzee. His hands kept contact with the back of the man in front as he fought to keep going, his head occasionally hitting a jagged lump in the roof.

The shouting was constant, the man behind repeatedly pushing Mallory into the one in front who at one point stumbled, causing Mallory to fall onto him. A pile-up threatened and every effort was made to move on. When the man in front finally got going Mallory stepped on something lumpy that gave way in places and it was not until he reached the head that he realised he had been walking on a dead body.

The air suddenly became even thicker and almost too heavy to draw into his lungs. Mallory’s mouth and throat were filled with so much dust that his saliva glands had given up and he wondered if he would ever reach the end of the bunker - wherever that was. He had never experienced anything like this before. The nearest thing to it had been the tunnels on the Royal Marine Commando endurance course on Woodbury Common but at Woodbury there was always light visible at either end and the air was at least breathable.

A loud thud above sent a shock wave through the earth that threatened a cave-in and for a moment Mallory’s fear rocketed as it appeared that this was how it was going to end for him. He had never experienced claustrophobia before but he could sense the panic beginning to build and he concentrated on putting himself into a kind of trance as he moved on in order to deal with it, searching for a rhythm in the way he was advancing. As he fought to control his increasing anxiety the man in front came to an abrupt stop and Mallory was pressed into him by the combined weight of those behind. When the man moved again Mallory shuffled after him and saw that there was a distinct change in the light. Mallory’s hopes rose that the tunnel was coming to an end.