Part 10 (2/2)

We waited for the slow, deliberate footsteps to bring whoever it was into view.

Someone came round a jut of rock. I heard breath rasp in someone's chest.

I felt my fists clench, remembered how it had felt to ram my paintbrush into a human eye.

The footsteps stopped.

A voice whispered, 'Pretty view, Benny.' I almost yelped with relief.

It was Dilaver.

He fell to the ground as I ran towards him.

I sc.r.a.ped some moisture from a hollow in a nearby rock and wiped the boy's face. Wisely, he refused to drink.

He was exhausted, bleeding from sc.r.a.pes to his face and hands. The Paul Weller portrait on his jacket - twin to the one on his crash helmet - had almost rubbed away. He jerked when I touched him; peeling back his jacket I saw bruises spreading across his chest and upper arms. I couldn't tell, but thought one of his ribs might be broken.

'b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' Someone had worked him over. Who did this to you?'

'Soldiers. Iraqis.'

The questions came thick and fast then. Even Schofield joined in nervously.

What were they doing? Are you sure they were Iraqis and not Iranians?

How did you escape? How long have you been walking? Are they following you?

I flapped a hand to shut them up. 'He needs to rest.' Schofield said sharply, 'If we let him rest and he's being followed we could all be killed.'

I scowled. Much as I wanted to kick the historian for his insensitivity, I had to agree with him. In my book it was brains, not brawn, which won the war.

We needed intelligence; Dilaver could provide it. , But there was something we needed more than that. 'We need to find cover. A cave. Somewhere to hide. In about two minutes this mountainside is going to be crawling with soldiers burying their parachutes. We'll look like right charlies if one of them lands on top of us and sounds the alarm.'

Even Schofield didn't argue with that. We started to look for somewhere to hide.

We found it nearby in the shape of a tiny box canyon, more of an open-roofed cave really, whose entrance had been partially concealed by a slide of rocks in the not too distant past.

We carried Dilaver there, made him as comfortable as we could on a blanket of coats and listened as, in a painful whisper, he told us what had happened back at the camp.

His story did not differ substantially from Jason's. When Dot and Reefer and I had been shot, Dilaver had hidden himself in the rocks nearby.

Realizing his best hope for escape was to move while the soldier was still examining the bodies, he had crept silently away. Thus he had failed to see me kill the soldier.

He crept back to the main camp site to get help - only to discover the camp was under armed guard. He didn't know if anyone had been killed - he didn't think so - but then he couldn't see anyone alive either. Well, anyone that wasn't a soldier. The soldiers had taken over the camp, gathered together all the computers, pads, anything that a note or a memo could be scrawled on. And others were quartering the surrounding ground thoroughly with hand-held devices I recognized from his description to be Geiger counters.

He had lain low until dark, then circled the camp to where several tents had been erected, planning to find out if anyone was left alive. But he was spotted by a sentry. He had turned and run, followed by soldiers with guns.

They hadn't shot him; he was only a kid. They thought he would be easy to recapture. But when he had caught one soldier in the eye with a thrown rock the others had decided he needed to be taught a lesson.

The men were brutal; their commanding officer was worse. From his description, he was a colonel. His name was Samran.

The lesson quickly got out of hand.

The soldiers beat Dilaver senseless and, at Samran's orders, left him to die.

But the kid was tougher than they thought. He lay unconscious for several hours. When he awoke he knew he had to get off the mountain. He had followed a search party sent out to look for the soldier I had killed - and that's when he had realized I was still alive. So he had come to find me.

Bless his heart; he knew neither of us would survive alone. Well, he knew I wouldn't. Even injured as he was, he could have got off the mountain and escaped - but he came after me instead.

Dilaver finished his story and there was silence. I didn't know what to say. I thought about giving him a big hug and then remembered all those bruises covering his chest.

'Dilaver, my lad, you're an absolute star and I owe you one. Big time,' I whispered.

He managed a grin. 'Beg pardon?'

I couldn't help laughing quietly. Dilaver joined in, though I could see how much it hurt. I was about to try to find out exactly how much information he had about the soldiers' equipment and movements, when I was interrupted by the sound of footsteps crunching outside the box canyon.

We fell silent and listened.

The footsteps crunched softly over the ground. Rocks slipped and clacked.

There was a rustling noise, as of folding cloth. Then a sc.r.a.ping sound, as if someone were brus.h.i.+ng dirt and small stones together. You didn't need to be a genius to figure out what was going on. One of the soldiers was burying his parachute.

Then the noises stopped. Suddenly. As if - I suddenly went cold. I grabbed Jason and pulled him close. 'Where's my paintbrush?' I hissed.

His silence was answer enough.

He'd left it outside. He might as well have painted a b.l.o.o.d.y sign: ENEMY AGENTS THIS WAY. PLEASE COME AND SHOOT US.

The silence continued.

I had to find out what was happening. What the soldier was doing. Holding my bag as forlorn protection should the worst come to the worst, I crept to the entrance to the canyon and peered out. I found out what the soldier was doing almost immediately: he was following our footprints.

I tried to duck back but it was too late. He looked up and our eyes met. He was about three yards away. He covered his surprise by trying to kill me.

The knife he threw thudded into my bag with enough force to knock me over.

I gripped the knife hilt as I fell over and played dead.

I sucked in a couple of breaths, wriggled a bit, under cover of which I wrenched the knife free of the bag, then I slumped flat against the ground and tried to look as much like a corpse as I could.

I waited. Nothing. Come on. Come and check me out.

I gripped the knife hilt, held it against my body. I tensed myself to shove it upwards at the slightest touch.

Come on. I'm just a dead body. And a woman at that. Nothing happened.

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