Ultimate Weapon (37 page)

The soldier was strong, and his eyes were burning with the hatred of a man who’s just been wounded.
Koos, koos, koos,
he was repeating, the words spitting from his lips, and the saliva spitting on to Jed’s face. He pulled back suddenly, so that the knife was ripped out of Jed’s hand, and was left sticking in the man’s ribcage. With a roar, he thrust himself forward, landing on top of Jed. Both men crashed hard on to the floor, the soldier lying on top of Jed. Blood was seeping from the wound, dripping down Jed’s side. With his fists, the man was pummelling him with blows, hitting the side of his head again and again and again. Jed could feel himself starting to grow dizzy. His vision was misting up, and his senses were groggy, like a boxer in the twelfth round of a hard fight. He was heaving upwards with his arms and legs, trying to push the man away, but the weight was too much for him. The blows were raining down hard, and Jed started scrambling for the knife still sticking in the ribcage. Twist that, he thought, and I can get the initiative again.

With his right hand, he gripped the man’s chest,
trying to hold him close to his body so that he couldn’t hit so hard. With his left hand he reached for the handle of the knife. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. With a sudden movement, he gripped the handle, then tugged it free. The man screamed as the knife cut through his bleeding flesh. In the same instant, he ripped free of Jed’s embrace, swinging his right arm out, and knocking the blade clean out of Jed’s hand. It smashed against the wall, and fell to the ground with a crash. ‘Bugger,’ muttered Jed.

The man was thrusting his knee down into Jed’s chest, pinning him down. With his hands crossed together, he started to press down savagely on Jed’s throat, slowly cutting off the air supply. Jed could feel himself starting to weaken. The blows were still pummelling against the side of his face. Sharp knuckles were digging into his skin, cutting into the veins, and he could feel blood streaming from a cut in his forehead.
Koos, koos, koos,
spat the soldier, the sweat pouring from his face and dripping down on to Jed’s skin.

Then he screamed. His mouth opened, and a howl erupted from deep within his gut. His back arched up, and his eyes were bulging from their sockets. Jed struggled to regain his focus. The soldier had already started to loosen his grip, and a trickle of blood was choking out of his lips. Jed could see now that Nick was standing behind him. He had just ripped the man backwards by the neck. He thrust him on to the floor, punching him savagely in the head and neck. ‘Sit on his chest,’ Nick snapped.

Jed pulled himself swiftly up from the floor. He rolled himself on top of the guard, pressing his knees down on his chest, while Nick folded the palms of his hands around his neck. He started to squeeze, while Jed’s pressing force on his chest emptied his lungs, making him easier to strangle. Nick might be getting on, Jed thought, but he still knows how to handle himself in a fight. The man’s eyes were already starting to close. He struggled to see what was happening to him, but it was already too late. The life was ebbing away from him. Within another few seconds he was dead.

Jed climbed off the corpse in disgust. Standing up, he was still dizzy and dripping with blood. That was close, he told himself.
Bloody close.

‘You looked like you were fucked to me,’ said Nick, a grim smile on his lips.

‘I’d have been fine,’ said Jed tersely.

‘Well, just thought I’d save time, mate –’

‘Drop it,’ snapped Jed.

He picked up a set of keys, which had fallen from the grip of one of the guards. There were a dozen of them, enough to throw open the dungeons. They were smeared with blood, and felt slimy to the touch. He thrust the largest key into the door set within the steel bars, and started to turn. The doors creaked. Somewhere inside, he could hear a man groaning quietly to himself: the low, agonised sound of a creature that has long since given up hope.

‘You go first, mate,’ said Nick standing at his side.

Jed walked steadily into the corridor. It was much wider than any of the other passages they had passed through, and there was only a light bulb every ten yards, making the light murky and dim. Immediately in front of him there was an array of equipment arranged neatly on the shelves of a steel-framed unit: tubes and wires, fuse boxes and tongs. On one shelf there was a set of surgical instruments, most of them stained with blood. On another, there were the thick straps of leather used to tie electrical circuits on to a man’s skin. On a third was a series of thumbscrews and presses designed to break the bones on a hand or a foot one by one to draw out the maximum levels of pain.

Jesus, thought Jed. That’s the kit they use to torture the poor bastards who get thrown in here. This is where Nick was taken.
No wonder he’s such a miserable old bastard.

‘You OK?’ he said, looking round.

‘Just fine,’ Nick muttered.

‘Coming back in here, I mean –’

‘We’re here to find Sarah, and we haven’t much time before they discover we just cut up a couple of their boys.’

Jed looked back along the corridor. The smell was terrible. He’d grown used to trench-in-the-ground latrines for a thousand men or more when he’d been serving in the Balkans, and as a boy he’d visited an abattoir a couple of times. But this was a hundred times worse: a vile mixture of excrement and blood, mixed in with fear, sweat and rotten food. As he took a breath of the air, Jed could feel himself gagging. Such food as was left in his stomach was swirling around inside him, and for a minute he thought he might throw up. Not that it would make any difference to the cleanliness of this place, he thought grimly.
It might even improve it.

He started walking. The light was just good enough to see by. The corridor stretched for about a hundred yards, driven deep into the ground. Every ten yards, it broke off, with a small passageway leading to a group of six cells. ‘You take the left, I’ll take the right,’ hissed Jed.

Moving into the block of cells, he adjusted his eyes to the pale light. Checking his watch, he could see that it was well past midnight now. The prisoners might be awake, they might be asleep. It wouldn’t make much difference anyway, he thought.
The poor bastards probably don’t even know what planet they are on after a couple of weeks in this place.

The first two cells were empty. Glancing inside, Jed could see some straw littered across the back of the cell, and a bucket that was used as a latrine. The walls were made from rough stone, and you could see scratches in the mortar where one of the inmates had been trying
to claw his way out. No point, mate, thought Jed.
There isn’t anywhere to go.

He moved quickly on. The third cell in the block had a man in it. He was lying on the straw at the back of his cell, but it was impossible to tell anything more about him. There was a terrible smell of pus and vomit rolling out of the tiny space, and he looked to have one leg missing. In the next, two men, sleeping on either sides of the cell, with just a yard or two of space between them. Both had long, matted black hair, and beards that grew for several inches from the face. Neither looked at him. It was hard to tell if they were even still alive.

‘See anything?’ Jed hissed as he hooked up with Nick again in the main corridor.

Nick shook his head. ‘Just a few Iraqi buggers.’

‘Keep looking,’ said Jed.

He checked the next block of cells. Two of them were empty, but the other four had men in them: in one, six guys were cramped together in a space so tiny they hardly even had room to lie down. One man was sitting up, his battered frame wedged up close to the iron bars. He looked up briefly at Jed, with scared and lonely eyes, like a stray dog foraging for some food. ‘
Min fadlik
,’ he was muttering. ‘
Min fadlik
.’

Please, Jed realised. That’s what he’s saying.

Sorry, mate … nothing can help you now.

As he walked on, a few more men tried to speak to him. Some begged, some swore at him, and a couple just rattled on the iron bars that kept them caged in. Jed couldn’t think that he had ever seen men in a worse
state. They looked ridden with disease, and many had missing limbs. Some were wasting away, reduced to little more than skeletons. You could see the ribs, some of them broken, sticking out of the chests. They were dressed in nothing more than rags: what had once been trousers and T-shirts that might not have been changed for years, all of them caked in dried blood and sweat. A couple of men were completely naked, their bodies covered in scabs, boils and scars.

‘How can anyone live in this hellhole?’ said Jed, back in the corridor again.

‘I survived here for three months,’ said Nick, his voice touched with sorrow. ‘A man can bear anything, so long as he has the will to cling on to life.’

Jed took another turning. The same dismal row of cells, each one with a fresh collection of victims. One man was moaning horribly, and clutching his stomach. Another was begging for water. Jed just walked past, his heart stiffening all the time. No time to help the poor buggers. I’ve just got to find Sarah and get out of here.

If there’s any chance of her surviving in this place …

‘Shit,’ muttered Nick.

Jed walked swiftly to where he was standing on the other side of the corridor.

‘Steve, mate, is that you?’ said Nick.

He was looking into the cage, his hands gripping hold of its bars. Jed glanced inside. There was just one man inside, a guy who could have been in his sixties. His hair was grey and matted, long down the sides, but balding on top. He had about six inches of greying,
messy beard hanging off his face. He was slumped at the back of the cell, his head bowed down. At his side, there were a few scraps of stale food, and a spilt bucket of slops.

‘Steve, mate,’ hissed Nick.

Slowly the man looked up. His eyes were tired and bloodshot, devoid of any expression except for a quiet despair. And blue. Jed looked closer. It took a moment before it struck him. The man had blue eyes. He wasn’t an Arab.
He was … he might even be an Englishman.

‘You know this guy?’ said Jed.

‘Steve Hatstone, that’s him, I’m sure of it,’ said Nick, speaking hurriedly.

‘Who the hell’s he?’

‘He was behind the lines in the last dust-up in this craphole. We were together in these bloody cells, but his mission was so sensitive, the British always denied his part in it. Because of that, the Iraqis wouldn’t negotiate his release in the prisoner exchange after the war.’

Jed glanced across at the pitiful creature. He’d heard of Hatstone, because he was one of the handful of Regiment men who’d vanished during the last Iraq War. He was presumed killed in action. Yet now he was looking right at him.
Or what was left of the poor sod.

‘I can’t believe the bugger is still alive,’ Nick said.

The man was looking up at the two people peering into his cells, but there was nothing in his eyes: no interest, no hope, no sign of life; just a blank, resigned indifference. ‘You English, mate?’ said Jed. ‘Because if you are, maybe we can help you.’

The blue eyes stared up at him. His lips started to move, and he mumbled something in Arabic. Jed leant forward, but it was impossible to hear anything he was saying. Even if you could catch the words, the language meant nothing to him. Christ, thought Jed. The guy has been here so long, he’s forgotten who he is.
He’s even forgotten how to speak English.

‘Steve,’ hissed Nick, his tone louder this time. ‘Steve, mate, it’s me, Nick.’

The man looked at him, his expression bored. Then he turned away.

Jed reached out and grabbed hold of Nick’s arm. ‘Leave it,’ he said tersely. ‘There’s nothing we can do for the poor sod.’

‘He’s my mate,’ snapped Nick.

‘
Was
your mate. We’re here to find Sarah, remember.’

‘Then where the hell is she?’

Nick put his pistol down on the ground. He was fumbling with the keys, trying to find one that would open the cage and let Hatstone free. We might not be able to do anything for him, he reflected grimly, but we can’t leave him caged up here like an animal. He was one of us once. I knew his wife and kids.

Suddenly, Hatstone darted forward, flicking his hand through the bars. The speed and agility of the man caught both Nick and Jed by surprise: he moved with the swiftness and stealth of a snake. Nick’s pistol was already in his hand, his finger poised on the trigger. Jed pulled out his own gun, pointing it straight at him.

Hatstone looked at him and smiled, revealing a mouth
with only one stubby tooth left in it. Then he turned the gun around, putting it against his own head. He squeezed the trigger. The bullet blew through his brain, and in the next instant he fell sideways, crashing against the floor.

‘Christ,’ said Nick, burying his face in his hand.

Jed picked up the gun, and put it back in Nick’s pocket. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll see worse things before this war is over, I reckon.’

Jed looked around. They were almost at the end of the cell block and he reckoned they didn’t have much time left. It was twenty minutes since they had killed the two guards, and you had to reckon they had some system of changing the guards. At any moment, fresh soldiers were going to arrive, and then they were done for. He walked swiftly through the remaining rooms, glancing into the cells, but all he could see were men, broken and battered, most of whom looked as if they had been here for years. ‘Sarah,’ he said.