Hung (32 page)

T
he engines
on the bikes begin barking into life, and the countdown begins.

I
've got only seconds
before they speed off into the darkness, prizes secured. They start climbing on, one by one. Katie's forced onto the dirt bike in the middle first, and the other girl – I don't know her name – seems to be in so much terror that she can barely even climb aboard, no matter the threat to her life. All the bikes are purring now, and I slap Jake on the thigh. He speeds out of the darkness, and I can't even imagine how terrifying the prospect would be if you weren't expecting it.

T
hese guys certainly aren't
. He barrels into the nearest of the Taliban, forcing him off his bike. The most terrifying thing is he's not growling, not barking, he's just deadly silent – and in the darkness, the enemy can't risk firing at him for fear of hitting their own man. Lucky.

I
step out
, firing at the next closest militant before he's figured out what's happening. He drops to the ground.

F
ourteen bullets left
.

"
K
atie
, run!" I shout, firing twice at the furthest of the terrorists, but missing both times. I'm suffering the same problem; I can't shoot at the two men nearest the girls, in case I hit the civilians.

T
welve bullets left
.

"
M
ike
?" Katie replies, confusion and terror reigning in her voice. "Help me, Mike!"

I
shoot
the Taliban soldier trying to force Katie's companion onto his bike. He's fumbling with his rifle at the same time as trying to concentrate on her, and he can't do both at once. He drops like a stone, and so does the girl, but I'm pretty sure she's not hurt.

I
t costs me four bullets
, though.

E
ight left
.

I
move with grim efficiency
, trying to get into a better firing position. "Jake, back," I shout, knowing that he'll risk too much if he tries to go in for another one. The element of surprise is gone. He's out of the game now; it's up to me.

"
L
et her go
!" I shout, indicating at Katie. The Taliban soldier standing behind her snarls, and his companion, one of only two militants left standing, lowers his rifle and points it at me.

I
t's a stand-off
. The terrorist next Katie pulls out a handgun and points it at her temple. She's trembling, visibly shaking with fear, and my heart goes out for her. Watching it is almost more than I can bear, but the fear quickly turns to anger as I begin to consider what kind of a coward he must be to threaten a woman like that.
A defenseless mother.

T
he terrorist racks his gun
, and his meaning is completely clear. If I shoot, if I do so much as move, then she dies. And with her, my dreams of a family.

F
uck
! Eight bullets, and I can't do anything with any of them. He forces Katie onto the dirt bike, and then climbs on himself, all the while maintaining his grip on her and his gun. If it wasn't the situation, I'd be impressed by his professionalism. As it is, I'm sickened by what he's doing with it.

"
M
ike
! Don't let him take me!" Katie cries out, plaintively. But the terrorist guns his engine, and start screaming off into the distance. Fuck!

I
put
a bullet through both of the last remaining terrorist’s kneecaps, and he falls to the ground, howling in pain. In seconds, ignoring the screaming pain coming from my own leg, I'm upon him, pressing my handgun into his temple.

S
ix bullets left
.

"
Y
ou speak English
?" I shout, not caring how hard I'm pressing the barrel of the gun into the soft part of his head. The sense of loss is almost earthshattering; I feel like the world is falling apart around me. I just found her, and now she's gone.

P
erhaps sensing
the inchoate rage emanating from me, the young terrorist underneath me nods, his eyes full of fear and pain.

"
T
ell
me where you’re taking her, mother fucker. I need to get my kid back."

C
hapter Sixteen - Katie

I
f I jump
, I die.

B
ut if I
keep holding on, they'll kill me anyway.

O
r worse
, torture me.

N
ot much of a choice
, when you put it like that. But still, as I watch the rocky earth spinning up off the toothy black rubber tire on either side of me, covering me in specks of fine dirt, I can't bring myself to do it.

F
or the first
few miles of my journey – our journey – I was in shock, shivering violently and eyes firmly shut, and I had only one thought in my mind, which was to keep holding on. Keep holding on, even if that meant that I was clutching the body of the man who kidnapped me like I'm drowning and he's the good Samaritan who's diving in and saving my life.

I
know
that I'll never forget the feeling of anger tempered by helplessness that I felt in those long moments. I wanted to beat my hands against his back, dig my my sharp fingernails into the soft, defenseless tissue of his eyeballs, and reach my arm around his neck and throttle him for having the arrogance and deranged confidence to kidnap me. I wanted to do all of that, but my body failed me – the ultimate betrayal.

A
s a nurse
, I know it's an evolutionary response designed to protect me and my child – or at least the physical vessel that carries my womb. Evolution hasn't exactly caught up with the fact that humans can be mentally damaged without showing any physical signs of mistreatment. I know all that, but it doesn't help.

N
ow
, though, the shock has more or less worn off, and I feel as though I'm returning to normality – as though my personality is reasserting itself, pushing itself to the fore. I can feel the wind whipping through my hair, and I can appreciate the beauty of the full moon hanging low in the sky along with the thousands of stars alongside it, each depositing tiny pinpricks of light into the awe-inspiring night sky. But still, none of that helps the major problem I'm facing – the fact that I'm on the back of a dirt bike racing through a rocky ravine cutting through the mountains – and that a terrorist's driving it.

M
y eyes return
to surveying the landscape and looking for a spot that would be suitable for some form of escape. The same mantra keeps running through my head.

I
f I jump
, I die.

I
’m well
aware of what the consequences will be for my health. I'll be ripped apart by the rocky earth beneath me – falling down the side of even this gentle, sloping ravine at forty miles an hour will more than likely rip the flesh off my bones and leave me battered, bleeding and dead at the bottom of the valley.

B
ut what's the alternative
? I look forward, studying the only thing that's available to me – the back of my kidnapper's head. He must have lost his stolen army helmet at some point in the fight, because it looks like the back of anyone's head – just black, curly hair being blown in all directions by the wind. It doesn't look like the head of someone who's more than willing to kill me, but then – what would that look like?

N
o clues
.

N
ot that I
was expecting any, not really. But I think your brain tries to look for patterns, even where there aren't any. Below me, a few hundred yards down into the valley, a small burbling stream flows into the distance, and I stare with absent-minded interest at the life that's springing forth all around it in the otherwise dry, barren desert landscape. Even judging by the moonlight, it looks to be a bucolic, idyllic kind of place, and I'm somewhat surprised that there aren't any signs of life – it seems like the kind of place in which some enterprising villager might make himself a home.

P
erhaps it’s too
close to the base. Too close to the Americans for comfort. To
us
Americans, I remind myself.

S
till
, it's a beautiful place, and the charm of the valley seems so at odds with my current predicament that it's all I can do to stifle a chuckle. Apparently I'm not completely successful.

"
W
hat
?" my captor barks in broken, accented English. "No noise, quiet."

I
decide
that trying to engage him in conversation is probably not the wisest course of action. Beneath me, the engine coughs loudly, and I wrinkle my forehead. My driver swears loudly in his native tongue – at least, I assume he's swearing, judging by the vitriol in his voice. Still, my brain whirrs into action, noticing a couple of interesting nuggets of information.

H
e speaks English
. That's interesting, I wonder if I'll be able to use that my advantage?

I
begin
to wonder if maybe the bike sustained some kind of damage in the running gunfight Mike had engaged my kidnappers in as they tried to make their escape.

M
ike
. That had been him trying to save me, hadn't it?

M
y heart swells
as I realize that I've been so wrapped up in my own problems – not that they are anything to sniff at, that I haven't even spent a moment to think about Mike, the man who rescued me from the depths of my depression and tried to save my life. Then again, I'm sure he'll forgive me. If I make it out of this, that is.

I
was right
about the damage, though. The bike's noticeably slowing, if the scenery whipping past us is anything to go by, because I'm finding it easier to focus on objects in the distance, and there's a weird growl coming from the engine that I haven't noticed before. It doesn't sound healthy – it's like a hacking cough, and before long I detect the faintest smell of an oily, burning scent.

I
turn
my head and confirm my suspicions. The engine's spewing black smoke behind us, and I keep my eyes locked onto the sight, noticing that, if anything, it's growing in intensity. In front of me, my captor screams something unintelligible into the darkness, lifts one hand off the handlebars and beats the dirt bike with an open palm. I smile – there's something wrong. Good.

T
he rocky path
underneath us is descending into the bowels of the valley now, and I get the sense that if it wasn't for the fact that we're heading downhill, the bike would have already given up. As it is, we aren't moving much faster than a slow jogging pace, and my face lights up, safe in the knowledge that my kidnapper's eyes are fixed straight ahead, navigating the precarious, thin strip of dirt underneath us in the inky blackness of night.

T
he engine coughs once
, twice, and then thrice – and then, in one loud bark, it kicks out completely. The last vestiges of speed it had been conferring, minor as they had been, fade away completely and we're left creeping down the path with only gravity driving us forward.

M
y kidnapper screams
into the night, a hair-raising, haunting yell in some unknown language, and beats the dirt bike once more.

M
y heart races
, and suddenly my senses light up with newfound awareness of the night. I've always been a home girl – this stint in a war zone excepted – and I like my creature comforts. I went camping once as a kid, but it was in the suburbs, so I don't think it really counts.

T
his place is
different – it's wild and untamed. Now the sound of the engine has died away, I can hear a thousand crickets chirping into the inky blackness, the burbling and gurgling of the stream below us, which seems to be getting closer to us, judging by how clearly I can hear the water crashing against the banks. I can't see it. An undulating outcrop of land must be between us.

M
y kidnapper finally falls silent
, his rage sufficiently vented. An eerie stillness grows between us, and my head fills with a thousand terrifying scenarios – will he just kill me, now that his plan's so comprehensively falling apart? In my fearful, paranoid state it seems more than possible – indeed, it seems likely. The chirping of the local insect life and the bubbling of the nearby stream is only punctuated by the squeaking sound of the dirt bike's axle continuing to turn, unpowered, as we rolled down the remainder of the path into the bottom of the valley.

I
know
that I can't take the fear much longer and finally decide to break the silence, after all – what's the worst that can happen? "What are you going to do with me?" I ask plaintively, my voice cracking and betraying my tightly strung nerves.