Ultimate Weapon (44 page)

‘Want some morphine?’ said Jed.

There was a single vial in the medical bag: most soldiers carried one with them, if only to ease the pain of dying if the wounds they had taken were fatal. If he needed it, Jed could jab it into him.

‘It’ll just slow me down,’ said Nick. ‘A man with morphine in him needs time to rest, and that’s what I don’t have.’

‘So does a man with a wound,’ said Jed.

Nick glanced towards Wilmington. ‘Just give me something to bite on.’

Wilmington unhooked his belt and handed it across to Nick. He folded the strip of leather into his fists, and pulled it down tight between his teeth. The belt tasted of sweat, and he could smell the blood on it. Doesn’t matter, he told himself grimly. It will stop me from screaming. That’s all that counts.

He nodded at Jed.

‘Hold his shoulders,’ said Jed to Wilmington.

The professor grabbed hold of Nick’s shoulders. He gripped him tight, pulling him down on to the ground. His back was arched, and the tension was buzzing through him, but he remained still. Jed looked down at
the wound, a fleshy, bloody mess, then with one swift movement, stabbed the knife down into the calf. Nick grunted as the pain ripped up into his spine, but said nothing. Jed twisted the knife around, looking for the remains of the shrapnel. The knife hit something. A bone? No, not deep enough for that. He flicked it upwards, cutting through the flesh with savage intensity. Again, Nick bucked upwards, and for a moment the knife vibrated in Jed’s hands, cutting through yet more flesh. Some blood squirted out. Found something, thought Jed, as the knife struck the shrapnel. He pulled up again, bringing a tiny shard of jagged, lethal metal that looked as if it had once been part of a tank to the surface. Nick was starting to whimper, and there were tears streaming down his face. Above him, Wilmington was leaning down harder, using all his strength to keep him pinned to the ground.

‘Almost there, mate,’ muttered Jed.

Jed twisted the knife into the raw flesh, then turned it again, The shard of metal fell out and, using the tip of the blade, Jed swiped it on to the ground. Picking up the bottle of alcohol, Jed pressed hard on the leg, then splashed the cold liquid on to the open wound. Suddenly, Nick’s back arched upwards, and a howl of pain erupted from his mouth. Jed held on to the leg, poured more alcohol into the wound, then reached for the rag they had used as a bandage. He wrapped it around the calf and pulled tight, using all his strength to staunch the bleeding. Nick had fallen silent again now, but he was still shaking. ‘Done,’ he said, looking at Nick.

‘Jesus, I could use a fucking drink,’ Nick spat, taking the belt out of his mouth. Tears were oozing from his eyes, as he tried to master the pain stinging up from his leg.

‘You should try and rest it,’ said Jed, putting a hand on his shoulder.

‘I should probably have a couple of dolly-bird nurses mopping my brow as well, and a nice stack of DVDs to watch at the bottom of my bed,’ said Nick roughly. ‘But those are the breaks, so let’s get a sodding move on.’

Slowly, he stood up. He was keeping as much weight as possible off the wounded leg, and was using Jed’s shoulder to help him walk. Every step he took on it was doing terrible damage to the blood vessels and nerves in the leg, Jed noted.

Jed helped him struggle towards the main street. He was hobbling, but there was a look of fierce determination in his eyes. The sun was starting to rise, with the first pale rays of the dawn shimmering through the clouds. Somewhere in the distance, Jed could hear a bird singing: the first cheerful sound he’d heard since he landed in this hellish country, he thought. ‘I don’t care what they say,’ said Jed, helping Nick out on to the street. ‘You’ve got guts.’

‘We’ll see about that in the next twenty-four hours,’ said Nick gruffly. ‘A father who can’t save his own daughter doesn’t have any guts worth having.’

Jed and Nick were positioned behind a low wall of rocks, just outside the dusty Kurdish town of Bashiqa, about thirty miles east of Mosul. It was part of the noman’s-land between Iraq and the autonomous Kurdish region that had been formed a decade ago after the British and Americans started the no-fly zone that effectively kept Saddam’s forces out of the area. They had been on the go for the last twenty-four hours, and the sweat and blood was starting to cake to the skins of all three of them. In Tikrit, they had forced Wilmington to buy them a car from a local: a beaten-up Honda Civic that cost six ounces of gold, but which seemed reliable. From there, they had driven along the back roads that led up towards Mosul: a distance of no more than couple of hundred kilometres on the map, but which took a good part of a day when you were trying to steer clear of both soldiers and bandits.

As they drove, they could see the signs everywhere of a country where civilisation was fast starting to unravel. The roads were thronged with people desperate to get away from the front lines of the war, as well as bandits and robbers and deserting soldiers. Twice their
car was stopped by hijackers, but a quick burst of gunfire from the AK-47s soon settled the argument: there were more than enough defenceless victims for the robbers to want to get into a fight with anyone who looked as if they knew how to use a machine gun. As they made their way across the border into the Kurdish district, they had called into London with their position, and had been given the coordinates of the drop-off point. Laura would meet them at 1 a.m. precisely, they had been told. They should make their own way to the rendezvous point, and lay up there.

They were two miles from the village, on a stretch of empty, barren countryside: the nearest farmhouse was at least a mile away, so, Jed reckoned, it was unlikely anyone had heard them.

Laura stepped away from the jeep, and scanned the horizon. The headlamps were beaming out of the vehicle: it was just after one and, with heavy cloud cover, the valley was cloaked in darkness. She had just arrived at the RVP overland, after flying into Turkey a few hours earlier. She had four burly-looking men with her, protection for her journey, and some extra help for lifting Sarah out of whatever hiding place Salek had taken her away to. The wind was swirling through the valley, pushing her hair up across her face. ‘This is no place for a bloke,’ said Nick. ‘And it’s certainly no place for a bird.’

‘You haven’t met her,’ said Jed.

‘I haven’t?’ said Nick. ‘That’s the bitch that sent me into this hellhole.’

Laura was striding towards them, dressed in black
jeans, a sweatshirt and a black leather jacket, with a small kitbag slung over her back. She stopped a few feet from where Nick, Jed and Wilmington had stationed themselves. ‘Have you managed to get a car?’ she said to Jed. ‘I don’t think we should waste any time.’

Jed walked her over to the Civic. They had parked it a hundred yards away, in a dip in the ground, about twenty yards off the dirt road that led up to the RVP. ‘You smell like crap,’ she said, dropping her kitbag on to the back seat of the car. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

‘It’s been a rough few days,’ said Jed.

Laura nodded. ‘Well, you’ve done well to get this far.’

Suddenly Jed grabbed her by the arm. ‘Why didn’t you tell me Sarah was in that lab in Baghdad?’ he snapped. ‘I’d never have sent that missile strike in there if I’d known it was aimed at killing her.’

Laura shook her arm free. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you.’

‘Sod it,’ said Jed, the anger pulsing through him. ‘I’d have gone in there myself if I’d known Sarah was there.’

‘And got yourself bloody killed,’ said Laura. ‘That wouldn’t have done anyone any good.’ She climbed into the back seat of the Civic. ‘Let’s move. We haven’t got much time. The jeep has got some extra men in it, and it’s going to lead the way. Just follow.’

They took turns to drive. There was no main road that led up to Qaladiza. The map showed it was in the far north of the country, near the Turkish border. Kurdistan straddled three countries: Turkey, Iraq and
Syria, but the most lawless chunk of the nation was the Iraqi section. There were few proper roads, and not many towns; the people were either farmers or drug dealers. Qaladiza nestled in a valley close to the Zagros Mountains that ran along the Turkish border, and then down into Iran: wild, rugged bandit country which even Saddam’s violent henchmen hadn’t managed to subdue. On the map, it was about 150 miles away. In the dark of the night, and with no decent roads, it could easily be dawn before they got there.

They drove mostly in silence. Jed took the wheel first, and with four of them plus kitbags in the Civic, it was a tight squeeze. Nick sat next to him, with Laura and Wilmington in the back. The roads were a mixture of dirt tracks and the occasional few miles of tarmac, but the Civic was in good enough shape to make it through. There were plenty of bumps, and a couple of times Jed felt certain they were about to break the suspension, but by keeping the speed down to thirty miles an hour, he managed to avoid too much damage to the vehicle. He’d have liked to have gone faster, but push the car too hard and the bumps and potholes would crack it apart. Then we’d bloody well have to walk the last fifty miles.
And I’m not sure we’d make it
.

Thirty miles into the journey, there was a sudden and terrifying explosion. The Civic juddered to a halt. A hundred yards ahead of them, the jeep had turned into a raging fireball. Flames and shards of burnt metal were flying everywhere. Nick and Jed immediately took cover, whipping their AK-47s out of their kitbags, readying
themselves for a fight. Gradually the fireball subsided. On inspection, it turned out the jeep had run over a landmine, killing the four men inside instantly. The country is littered with them, Wilmington explained. It’s just the way things are in Kurdistan. Neverthess, they had to press on with their journey. They told Wilmington to keep as close as he could to the mud tracks on the rough road. So long as they only drove where they knew other vehicles had travelled they had more chance of avoiding the landmines.

The country changed shape as you approached the Zagros Mountains. The roads started to twist steeply uphill, and it became much more lush and green. There were some wild flowers dotting the hillsides, blooming at the first approach of spring, and a faint smell of honey filled the air. Over in the distance, they could see snow covering some of the mountain tops, but along the valley paths they were driving through, the thaw had already started. There were villages along the way, but the streets were all empty at this time of night. Compared with Baghdad and Tikrit, it was peaceful up here. The fighting was a long way away. And this was the one part of Iraq that welcomed the British and Americans into the country. They would bring them their freedom.

As dawn broke, Jed, back in the driving seat, slowed down the car. Laura had a fresh supply of biscuits and chocolate bars in her kitbag which she handed round. Jed munched on the biscuits gratefully, and wolfed down the chocolate. He could feel the burst of sugar hitting his bloodstream, and reviving him. It had been at least
twenty-four hours now since he’d slept, and days since he’d had a proper kip. The dirt, exhaustion and tension were eating into him: another day, maybe two, that was all Jed reckoned he was good for before he collapsed from exhaustion. You can only push your body so far, he warned himself. Cross the line, and it’s damaged for ever. And nobody is going to give you a new one.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve brought anything we can brew up,’ he said, finishing off the chocolate, and turning round to look at Laura.

‘Keep your eyes peeled for a Starbucks,’ she said. ‘If we see one, the lattes are on me.’

‘How much further?’ he said to Nick.

Nick finished his own chocolate and studied the map. ‘Another ten miles,’ he said. ‘Not far.’

‘And the road is OK,’ said Wilmington.

‘You know it?’ asked Jed.

‘Some of my family comes from near here,’ said Wilmington. ‘This is my country.’

‘And you can sodding keep it,’ said Nick.

Jed pushed his foot down on the accelerator, and steered the Civic along the road. There was one more steep mountain to twist through before they dropped down into the final valley. At times the road squeezed down to no more than a track that looked as if it was designed for a donkey rather than a car. Even a small vehicle like the Civic was struggling to squeeze through, and at one point Jed could feel the tyres struggling to keep their grip on the gravel as they turned through yet another sharp corner. Down below, there was a drop
of at least a thousand feet, and Jed could feel his pulse racing as he tried to keep the car on the road. The first rays of the morning sun were shooting through the clouds as he turned the final corner, and took the Civic up into third gear for the final, straight road that led down towards the village. The valley was bathed in a dusty orange light, catching on the petals of the wild flowers and the water of the streams that were gushing down from the snow melting in the mountains.

Maybe this morning we’ll actually find Sarah, he thought.
There has to be at least one dawn that isn’t false
.

By the time Jed pulled the car to a stop in the centre of the village, it was already seven thirty. Qaladiza was little more than a single street of houses, built along the banks of a river. Maybe fifty houses in all, Jed reckoned, most of them looking as if they belonged to farmers who spread out through the valley to cultivate their land. There was a small mosque, and what looked like a schoolroom next to it, and that was about it. Jed climbed out of the car, looking around him as Nick and Wilmington did the same. Some men were herding their goats out towards the pasture, and they looked suspiciously at the car and its occupants. After a minute or so, they stopped the animals and started to talk among themselves. In the next instant, the village sprung to life. Men were emerging from the houses. Jed had his kitbag on his back, and he knew precisely where his AK-47 was, where his stun grenades were and what he would do if this turned into a fight. He could see twenty to thirty men, ranging in age from twenty to fifty, lining
the sides of the street. They were rough-looking characters, with dark brown eyes and thick black hair, and skin that was as beaten and craggy as the landscape they were living in. ‘I thought you said the Kurds were on our side,’ said Jed, glancing towards Wilmington. ‘Bloody say something to them.’