The strip of cloth was dry now. He placed it in the small patch of light thrown by the window, then grabbed the disc from the compass and held it into the beam of light. It took a few moments for him to find the right position to concentrate the light through the lens on to a point at the edge of the material, but once he had, it took about five minutes for the cotton to start crisping and turning brown. Two or three minutes later a thin tendril of smoke began to rise from his tinder.
Jack picked up the tinder, then let it flame for a moment before dropping it into the bucket.
He held his breath while he waited for the kindling to catch.
It took a few seconds, that was all. The poppy stalks were bone dry, and soon the bucket was filled with fire. Smoke billowed out, and with it a thick, pungent smell.
Jack needed to keep the fire burning, so he carefully placed more kindling into the bucket. Gradually, his prison became cloudy – so much so that he had to put the remains of his T-shirt over his nose in order to breathe. When he was satisfied there was enough smoke to hide his captors’ vision, he grabbed yet another fistful of poppy stalks and carefully set fire to one end of them. Gently, so as not to extinguish the flames, he tucked them into the small gap underneath the door. He lit a second fistful of stalks, shoved them into the gap too, then worked the flexible saw loose from his waist and stood by the door.
It took about a minute for someone on the other side to notice the flames. There was a good deal of shouting, and then the sound of multiple footsteps running up to Jack’s prison.
A key in the lock, and someone pushed the door open. It hit the wedge and got stuck. If anyone wanted to come in, it would have to be in single file.
The first guard had a gun, of course, and there was a second man behind him. But Jack had the element of surprise. He wrapped his arms round the leader’s throat. One swipe, and the saw blade cut deeply into him. The guy didn’t even have a chance to scream. He lifted both his hands to his pumping throat and dropped his AK-47.
Jack still had the man by the throat and now he pushed him hard through the gap in the door so that he knocked the second guard backwards. Jack quickly bent down and grabbed the fallen AK. With one swift movement he switched the safety to semi-auto and fired a single shot into the head of the second guard who collapsed dead under the weight of his companion. The moment he fired, however, there were shouts.
It took a split second to assess the threat. He was in a compound, no different to any of the hundreds that made up the villages and towns of Helmand. It was big – probably thirty metres by thirty – with walls twice as high as a man and a corrugated iron entrance gate in the far wall directly opposite him. That was his most obvious escape route, but it was closed, with two armed guards at either side. Covering the length of the wall to his right there was a long, low building; and on the high walls of the compound he could see four Taliban snipers, two looking in, two looking out. On the ground, in the middle of the sandy yard, was a well. Between Jack and the well, fifteen metres away, were two low mulberry trees with thick, gnarled trunks and blood-red fruit. The noise of his gun and his sudden appearance had caused screams from the far left corner of the compound. Two women in burkas were disappearing into a door that they slammed shut behind them. Goats started to scurry around in the dust, gathering in a frightened huddle by the left-hand wall. The snipers on the roof turned inwards and started to shout; five seconds later the air was full of the cracking of guns.
The dust on the compound floor exploded in little bursts as the rounds hit it. A couple of bullets slammed into the wall behind Jack, who threw himself to the ground, then crawled as fast as he could towards the scant cover of the mulberry trunks. He saw one of the guards from the gate running at him.
One shot from the AK-47, and the fucker was down.
More shouting. More gunfire. From nowhere, three more guards had appeared at the front gate, and the wall-top snipers were firing at random in Jack’s general direction. He knew that if he stayed where he was, he’d be dead in seconds.
There were only two other places he could get cover: the room he’d just left, and the long building fifteen metres to his right that extended the whole length of the compound. There was no advantage to going backwards, so he pushed himself to his feet and ran to the door of the building, firing above him and around him in short, random bursts, then charging into the wooden door of the building at full speed.
The door splintered open and Jack rolled to the ground, coming to a halt with his gun facing the entrance.
Silence from outside, but he wasn’t fooled by that. Everyone in the area would have heard the gunfire. Any militants would be grabbing their weapons and rushing to help nail him. The Taliban knew he was armed. They knew what would happen to the first man who walked through the door. But that didn’t alter the fact that Jack had manoeuvred himself into a corner. He felt a sickness twist inside him. He’d had his chance to get out of here, and he’d fucked it up.
Or had he?
It had been bright outside, and now that he was in the building it seemed very dark. It took about twenty tense seconds for his vision to rectify itself, and he saw that he was in one long room. The walls were lined with lengths of rickety wooden shelving; and on these shelves, neatly arranged, was the biggest weapons cache Jack had ever seen. AKs precisely lined up, stacks and stacks of dark brown wooden ammo boxes with rope handles and Chinese writing on the side, mortar rounds, fragmentation grenades, RPGs, landmines – even what looked like a couple of heavy DShK machine guns stashed in one corner. Anything the Taliban used to battle against the Coalition forces was here. If his bosses back at Bastion knew what he’d found, they’d be cock-a-fucking-hoop, but Jack wasn’t thinking about them; he was thinking about how he was going to get the hell out of here.
He pushed himself up to his feet, then fired several rounds out of the door, just so his captors knew he was up and running and fully prepared to slaughter anyone who ventured inside. Then he ran up to the cache and started cramming fragmentation grenades into his ops waistcoat. When he had as many as he could carry, he returned to the door, pulled the pin on a couple and hurled them just outside. They exploded and someone screamed.
Jack quickly returned to the shelves. It was only then that he noticed them. Three long, green boxes, about a metre and a half each. Coalition serial numbers and ID codes printed in white military lettering on the side. Jack recognised them immediately, of course. He didn’t need to open the carrying cases to know what was inside.
‘
Fucking Stingers
. . .’ he breathed.
He looked around to see three launchers propped almost carelessly in one corner, their serial numbers and ID codes printed on the side in white.
Shouting outside. The enemy were regrouping.
He had to move fast. Choose his weapon carefully but quickly.
More shouting. Urgent. Angry. Nearer.
Jack turned away from the Stingers and helped himself to an RPG launcher. The Taliban’s favourite weapon: it felt good that he was about to use it against them. He grabbed a warhead, loaded the weapon, then turned to face the far end of the room. From where he was standing, it was about thirty metres.
Close enough, he thought to himself. But not too close.
Voices outside the door. Barked instructions. He couldn’t hesitate. He pointed the RPG towards the end of the room and checked behind him. Three metres. Not a lot, but just enough for the back blast. He steeled himself, closed his eyes, then fired. Jack felt the weapon flaring behind him, and a burning sensation as the heat scorched his clothes. He threw himself into the corner and covered his head with his arms.
And then, a split second later, impact.
In that confined space, when the explosion came it was immense. A huge blast, then a hailstorm of rubble and shrapnel that only just fell short of where Jack was crouching.
The room filled with smoke, but through it all Jack could just see a glimmer of daylight at the other end. He ran towards it, turning sideways as he passed the door and spraying AK-47 rounds out into the main compound.
The RPG had totally demolished the end wall; part of the ceiling had collapsed too. Jack’s eyes were smarting from the thick clouds of dust, the back of his throat burning, but he knew he couldn’t let that slow him down. At the opening he stopped and threw two grenades, one to each side, then waited for them to explode. They did so just in time – there were voices behind him, and he needed to get out quickly. He climbed over the rubble and out of the compound.
He was in a kind of alleyway, about three metres wide. Directly in front of him was the high wall of another compound. He looked to his left. At the end of the alley, about twenty metres away, were two kids in shabby robes. They pointed to him and started shouting.
Jack sprinted off in the opposite direction.
The compound wall on his left stopped after fifteen metres. He turned left, ran, then took a right. He made a choking sound as he tried to clear the dust from his throat, then saw a villager – an old man, his face gnarled and lined, gazing at him with intense eyes. He quickly turned and took another route before the old guy could shout and give away his position, and before long he was lost in a maze of alleyways.
He ran blindly, then stopped.
The end of the alleyway he was in was half obscured by an old truck that had parked in front of the opening. It led on to a main street, full of activity. Opposite him, on the other side, was a fruit and vegetable stall, its colourful wares neatly laid out; next to that was some kind of motorcycle shop, with nine or ten greasy-looking bikes on display. Scraggly hens pecked around in the dust; one stall had a ragged awning and beneath it, upturned and hanging from a hook, a beheaded and eviscerated sheep with flies buzzing all around.
And there were people. Villagers. Hundreds of them, in their traditional dishdashas and headdresses. Some were armed, others weren’t; but Jack knew that if he stepped out into that dusty, busy street in his army gear, he’d stick out like a turd in a punchbowl.
He pressed his back against the alley wall, sweating and out of breath. He needed to blend in, and he needed to do it fast. But as his brain ticked over, he heard shouting. In the main street, a swathe of armed militia in military camo and keffiyehs had appeared. They were barking instructions, and although Jack couldn’t understand them the villagers clearly could. They began to scatter, making themselves scarce, muttering to themselves and casting worried glances all around. Stallholders started packing up their wares and more armed men arrived.
Jack cursed under his breath. They were closing down the fucking town. He looked back over his shoulder. There was no one there, but that wouldn’t last for long. He retreated from the main street and returned to the maze of alleyways created by the compounds.
He moved more slowly now. With greater care, checking before he turned that he wasn’t heading into trouble. He could hear shouting, but couldn’t tell where the voices were coming from; although he still had his AK, he didn’t want to fire any rounds because that would give away his position. He continued like this for five minutes, keeping a lookout for places to hide, but the alleyways outside the compounds were barren.
He turned a corner and the terrain changed. He had reached the outskirts of the inhabited part of the village and could see the wadi up ahead and to the left, with a line of trees running along it. In front of him there was a cornfield – two metres high and the size of a football pitch. The wadi was his route out. Once the stars were out he could use it to get his bearings, but he needed the cover of the cornfield until then. To get there, Jack needed to cross twenty metres of open ground. He checked the surroundings and couldn’t see anyone. Perhaps the Taliban chasing everyone indoors was working to his advantage.
He sprinted, covering the open ground in only a few seconds before plunging into the cornfield. He ran about ten metres in, then hit the ground and lay still, gasping for breath, sweat pouring from his body. He just prayed nobody had seen him take cover here. If they had, he was history. If they hadn’t, all he could do was mark time and wait for nightfall.
He felt dizzy through lack of water. His mouth was like sand, he was knackered, his muscles burned with exhaustion and his skin was still raw from the proximity of the burning Black Hawk. He was a fucking mess.
But as he lay there in the cover of the cornfield, Jack knew he had to forget all that if he had any chance of survival.
It seemed to take an age for the light to fail and for darkness to come. Every few minutes he heard voices and felt his muscles tensing up. The voices always disappeared, but the tension didn’t.
He had to fight the urge to move as soon as it was dark. They’d be expecting that. Better to wait a couple of hours before he crawled out of the cornfield. Jack estimated that it was about 22.00 hrs when he decided to move. He crawled slowly, stopping every three or four metres to listen.
No sound.
It took him five painfully long minutes to reach the edge of the cornfield. He lay there, preparing himself to make a run for the wadi, which was thirty metres away over open ground, just beyond a line of trees. Sounds reached him over the night air – the howling of a dog, the purr of a distant motorbike. But no voices, so he prepped his weapon, pushed himself up and ran.