The Reluctant Hero (20 page)

There was no mistaking the nature of this place, even without light. It stank, not just like the sewer but worse. Mixed in with the mire there was fear, despair so strong they could smell it. There was little sound, apart from the soft pad of their footsteps, but the air was thick, uncompromising, the ceilings low, supported on walls of old stones that ran with moisture and slime, the passageways narrow and claustrophobic. And it was on one of these passageways, the one on their far right, and four doors along, that they found Zac.

At first, when Harry peered through the grille on the door, the cell seemed empty, but as he searched, his torchlight fell upon what seemed to be a pile of rags
thrown into a corner. A bare foot was peering out from beneath them.

‘Zac?’

Nothing.

‘Zac!’ Harry whispered, a little more loudly, but desperate not to disturb others.

The foot stirred. Then, from the darkness, two eyes slowly emerged that stirred some distant memory for Harry. Zac’s eyes had been one of his most attractive and prominent features; they had spoken of adventure, ambition, mischief, wit, defiance, lust – yes, lust even for Julia, too, Harry had always known that, and had wondered whether Zac had ever tried to claim what on other occasions he had called salvage rights. Yet these eyes were not like that. They were withdrawn, empty. But undeniably Zac’s.

Even here, at the heart of the Extreme Punishment Wing, the door security was unimaginative. There were two heavy-duty barrel bolts, top and bottom, but it was the work of a second to slip them back, and quietly. The lock offered a different challenge. It was large, to be sure, and solid, a deadlock, and the door itself was metal, cold, unyielding, like the stone walls that surrounded it but, with the usual Ta’argi eye for skimping, the frame was wood. A job for Mourat and his hydraulic spreader. The wood groaned and resisted as the jaws of the spreader got to work, but the frame couldn’t withstand the sorts of pressures that the gear exerted. The door jamb bent, was forced back into the
mortar. A rivet popped. A small avalanche of dust began to trickle to the floor. The timber began to splinter and groan, but still the lock wouldn’t slip its catch. The noise of their exertions began to echo along the corridor; beads of sweat tumbled from Mourat’s forehead, he was panting, his breath rasping.

Then it happened, with a nudge from Harry’s shoulder. The jamb twisted back far enough for the lock to be forced, and the door swung open. There was no crash of falling stonework, no scream of splintered timber, nothing but a low groan of complaint from the hinges and Mourat’s muffled curse.

Harry rushed inside the cell, his torch picking up only shades of darkness, even as he knelt beside the huddled form of his friend. A hand appeared, slowly, stiffly, filthy, to shield the eyes. With his sleeve Harry tried to wipe the grime from around the face.

‘Harry?’ Zac’s voice was weak, hesitant. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes, Zac.’

‘Been expecting you. He said you’d come for me.’

‘Who?’ said Harry, startled.

‘Amir Beg. Nasty bastard. You know him?’

It wasn’t the greeting Harry had expected. Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck bristled in alarm. His instinct kicked in. It told him he was in more trouble than he’d thought. Much more trouble.

Akmatov wasn’t a frequent visitor to the more distant or dubious parts of his prison. He preferred his office in
the administration block, where it was warmer, sheltered from any commotion and away from the crap that flowed incessantly through his facility. It also enabled him to look visitors like Martha in the eye and tell them that he knew of no abuses in his prison; he made a point of not witnessing them. Yet now Amir Beg was on the case and Akmatov wasn’t about to leave his future security, let alone his manhood, in anyone else’s hands. He was going to see for himself.

The sudden appearance of the governor, pounding his way down the steps to the Punishment Wing’s control centre, took the guards completely by surprise. They had no time to extinguish their cigarettes or hide the bottle that had been keeping them company, leaving it standing in a pool of light thrown by the duty captain’s torch. Akmatov swore with surprising passion for a man still in his pyjamas. The guards leapt to their feet; one of the chairs went clattering.

Then Akmatov cursed them some more. He abused them and their mothers, and recited a long list of charges they would face before being thrown into the deepest cell while he spent his afternoons fucking both their wives. They had, of course, done nothing that wasn’t normal practice within the Castle, but Akmatov needed a scapegoat, preferably two, just in case. Amir Beg had made him nervous.

‘You bastards have been here all night?’ the governor demanded.

‘Yes, sir!’ they cried as though on the parade ground.

‘No piss breaks, even? No screwing off? You sure?’

‘No, sir!’

‘Has anyone –
anyone
– come in or out of here?’

‘Not since we relieved the last shift, Governor. It’s all

been quiet.’

‘You arseholes had so better be right or you’ll be swinging along with the others,’ Akmatov spat, staring them in the eyes, so close that his spittle streaked their cheeks. ‘Open up!’

The control centre was merely one half of a room located at the top end of the cells and separated from them by a barrier of bars. As the guards rushed to the gate that gave access to the corridors and cells, one of them fumbled the keys and dropped them. He blanched in fright, expecting an avalanche of abuse, but the governor was done with screaming, the foul air was already getting to him. He tugged at the sleeve of his pyjamas, holding the cotton fabric to his face.

The captain stepped into his stead. ‘You imbecile!’ he screamed in encouragement as the guard scrabbled on the floor to retrieve the keys. Then, eventually, the gate swung open and Akmatov burst through.

There is always a point in a man’s life, and sometimes several, which marks it forever – sends it off in a new direction, perhaps scars it, maybe even begins the process that will bring that life to its end. Harry knew he faced that moment.

The commotion, of new arrivals, of shouts and
abuse, of urgent, jangling keys, from not very far away, told him that they were about to be discovered. It was over. None of them would be getting out of this place. Ever.

As he stared into Zac’s eyes, he was back on the side of the mountain. With Julia. Staring into her eyes. That last time. They were about to be swept away, and this time there would be no escape for any of them.

He wasn’t afraid of death, only of the frustrations that came with it. There was so much he still had to do. Harry had enjoyed a life that some would say had been filled not simply to the brim but to overflowing. Wealth, fame, acclaim, success, he’d known them all, they had become good friends, but from Harry’s point of view none of it had been enough. His life had barely started. Some ancient Chinese dreamer had once said that it wasn’t how far a man had travelled but how much he had seen on the journey that was the making of him, and although Harry had travelled further than most men ever would, he still felt he’d barely started on that most important journey of all, the one inside himself. In some ways it was the shortest journey a man could make, yet its challenge was greater than trekking to the ends of the world. To understand himself, to know truly who he was, was a challenge he felt he still had to undertake. A little like Martha, perhaps. The greatest contest is always with the enemy within, and that battleground can be the loneliest place on earth.

That was one of the many reasons why he missed Julia so much. She had been his guide, the one who saw deeper inside him than he did himself. Without her he had run so fast, away from the pain, and lost his way, stumbled into a life that he found all but pointless. And that’s what he was doing here, in this piss hole of a prison. Trying to find himself. He’d tried to pretend otherwise, but who was he kidding? Martha had seen it. This hadn’t been about saving Zac, it was about finding Harry.

There was still so much more for him to do; mountains to climb, seas to swim – yes, and slopes to ski. Time to find another Julia, if he could. But for all his wealth, this was the one commodity he could not buy, not a single extra second of it. His time was about to run out.

Bektour and Mourat were staring at him, eyes dancing with fear.

‘Mr Jones?’

That’s when Harry knew what he had to do. ‘Take Zac,’ he instructed, hauling him to his feet and handing him into Mourat’s strong arms. ‘Go!’

‘Mr Jones—’

‘You know the plan. Take him to Martha. Get them on that plane. Tell her to do everything as we discussed.’

‘But . . .’

‘You have to leave me here. Lock me in.’ Bektour was shaking his head in confusion.

‘Look, if they find the cell empty they’ll sound the alarm. None of us will make it. We won’t even get across the courtyard, let alone out of the prison. But if they find the cell locked with the prisoner inside . . .’ And already he was ripping his clothes, turning them to rags.

‘Mr Jones, you can’t—’

‘I have a better chance than Zac.’

‘There must be some other way.’ Bektour tried to interrupt; Harry rode straight through him.

‘There’s no time. Listen!’

And from far too close at hand they could hear the security gate creaking open and crashing into a wall.

‘You have less than a minute. For the sake of whichever God you believe in, get out of here!’ Harry hissed.

He was already half-covered in shit, now he was blackening up his face, his hair, the rest of him, with dirt scraped from the damp walls of the cell. As they watched, Harry was transformed. He became the prisoner.

‘Go!’ he snapped.

Zac reached out for him, grasped his hand with surprising strength for a man who couldn’t properly stand, and clung to it. His eyes were glazed with confusion, and fear. Harry froze. The fear was infectious. Then the others dragged Zac away. As their hands parted, Harry found that Zac had pressed something into his palm. It was a chess piece. A black horse.

They stumbled from the cell, Zac’s feet dragging behind. The door, with its loose lock and a little encouragement from Mourat’s shoulder, clicked back into place. The bolts were slid quietly home. And they were gone.

The duty captain made it to the cell door first, shining his light through the grille. ‘He’s here!’ he called out. There was no mistaking his relief.

Akmatov shoved him roughly aside. The beam of his own torch lashed across Harry, who stirred, and blinked bewildered into the light, his hair stuck to his scalp by filth, his shirt hanging from one shoulder.

‘Shall I open the door, Governor?’ one of the guards enquired, his voice rattling with unease.

But Akmatov drew back, his pyjama sleeve clamped to his face. The reek of the Punishment Wing was bad enough but it was rose water compared to the stench issuing from the cell. He’d done enough, covered his arse, kept Amir Beg off his back, there was nothing more to do and no need that he could see for getting his shoes covered in any more crap than they already were. ‘No,’ he instructed. ‘No need.’

He turned and hurried back down the passage, leaving Harry a prisoner, locked away, alone in the darkness.

Their margin of survival was terrifyingly small. They only just made it out of the Punishment Wing in time. Zac kept stumbling, his feet dragging, as though he had to relearn every step, but they had Mourat’s strength to carry them, and their fear. They could hear the posse behind them, drawing closer, the governor’s heavy feet pounding along the stone floor, the guards scurrying in pursuit, jangling their keys. They dragged Zac behind the door of the execution chamber in the nick of time, as the guards’ torches hunted them.

For a short while they sat slumped, panting in fear, afraid their rasping lungs would give them away, listening for the sounds of pursuit, but none came. Slowly they began to recover their wits, but it was only a fleeting respite, for ahead of them stood the gallows with its beckoning eye. The sight drove them on, across the chamber, past this awful contraption of death, and through the door on the far side. By the time they were back in the passage, sweating despite the cold, they were glad of the gurney. They placed Zac on top and wheeled him all the way to the end. Their wedges were
still in place under the door; they eased it open. Ahead of them lay the courtyard.

They would never have made it across if the lights had been on, not carrying Zac. His early flickers of response had faded as they had sat gasping for breath in the chamber, the sight of the noose seeming to drive him into a still darker world, so that he became dead weight. As they entered the courtyard, Mourat carried him over his shoulder, through the moonlight that seemed to glow more brightly with every step, knowing they would be dinner for every dog in Ashkek if but one of the guards happened to glance in their direction.

But somehow they made it, into the kitchens and then down into that awful sewer. Zac’s weight became ever more of a problem in the confined space. It was while they were easing him through the barrier of bars that suddenly he cried out – screamed. His eyes had opened to discover a world even worse than the one he had been taken from, a small hole deep underground and immersed in so much squalor that even the rats refused to stay. He screamed again, started to struggle. Mourat slapped him in the face; suddenly Zac’s eyes were more alert, he stopped screaming, even taking one or two faltering steps for himself.

They couldn’t know it as they were struggling in the sewer, but that was when the power kicked back in and the lights came on. On the other side of the prison walls, Aibeck was still glancing nervously at his watch.

Harry and the others should have been out at 2.20 a.m., but the deadline had long since passed. He continued to lean over the truck’s engine, listening for the first signs of alarm from within, ready to flee, but all appeared calm, so he stayed, and sipped the tea the guard had brought. He replaced all the spark plugs but switched two of the leads from the distributor, so that when he turned the engine to offer the guards some sign of progress the cylinders fired out of sequence. It sounded as if someone had dropped a match into a box of firecrackers. He quickly let the engine die once more. At 2.40 a.m. he repeated the process, then returned the empty mug of tea to the guardhouse. At 2.42 a.m., when the lights flashed back into life, Aibeck began to shake all over again. Not until 2.53 a.m. did he hear the scraping of the sewer lid from the far side of the truck. It took him two seconds to switch the leads back to where they should have been. By 2.55 a.m., they were gone.