Part 10 (1/2)

'No!' She shook her head. 'In the east wall behind the kitchens there is another entrance. It is a very small opening through which only one man can pa.s.s at a time. It is almost never used and few people even know that it exists. That is the way I planned to guide you.'

'It is locked?'

'It is locked, but I have one of the keys. This morning I took it from the pocket of the head cook. He has not missed it.'

'Guards? Is this gate guarded?'

'I have never seen guards there. I came out that way tonight. The way was open and the place was deserted.'

'Tariq, it seems that your cousin is a brave and intelligent woman.' Hector peered at her but could make out nothing behind the veil.

'This I know,' Tariq said gravely.

'Is she married?'

'Not yet,' Tariq replied, 'but perhaps soon.' Daliyah hung her head modestly, but said nothing. 'She advises us to wait here for a while before we go up to the fortress. Give time for the disturbance in the fortress to settle.'

'How long does she think we should wait here?' Hector asked, and Tariq pointed out the moon that was rising beyond the palm grove. It was five days from full.

'We should wait until it is level with the tallest palm. By that time the guards will have relaxed and some of them might even be sleeping.'

'About an hour and a half,' Hector estimated and he checked his wrist.w.a.tch. He crawled across to where Uthmann lay, and in a few terse words he explained his intentions. Then he crawled back to the head of his own stick. They lay silent and unmoving while the luminous minute hand crawled around the dial of his wrist-watch. Suddenly the heavy silence was broken by the howling and squealing of a pair of jackals under the walls of the fortress. This was challenged immediately by the clamorous baying of a pack of hounds within the walls.

'My G.o.d, how many dogs is the Khan keeping in there, Daliyah?'

'He has many. He likes to hunt with them.'

'What does he hunt ... gazelle, oryx, jackals?'

'All those animals, yes,' Daliyah replied, 'but mostly he likes to hunt people.'

'People?' Even Hector was shocked. 'Do you mean, human beings?' She nodded and the starlight caught the sheen of tears in her eyes through the slit in her veil.

'Even so. Men or women who have angered him. Some of them my relations or good friends. His men take them out into the desert and release them. Then the Khan and his sons run them with the dogs. They glory in this sport and laugh as the hounds tear their victims to pieces. They allow the dogs to feed on the meat that they kill. The Khan believes it makes the dogs fiercer.'

'What a charming old chap he must be. I look forward to our first meeting,' Hector murmured. They waited while the baying of the pack died away into silence, and the moon came up from behind the palms. Only then did he stir again.

'Time to go, Tariq. Tell Daliyah to take the lead. We will keep well back behind her. If she meets anybody from the fortress she must try to divert them and give us a chance to deal with them before they kick up a fuss. You follow her and I will bring up the rear with the rest of the stick.' The girl moved off quickly and with confidence. They followed her out of the trees and onto the hillside. Now Hector had his first clear view of the fortress. It loomed above them, ma.s.sive and black. No lights showed and it seemed as lifeless as the moon that was rising behind it. The path climbed up towards it steeply. The girl did not slow her pace. Now the stone walls towered over them, as implacably malevolent as an antediluvian monster lying in ambush for its prey. Suddenly Daliyah turned off the main pathway and took a less clearly defined track which ran below the battlements. They skirted stinking piles of refuse that had been thrown down from the tops of the walls. Jackals were scavenging among the rubbish, and they fled at the approach of the men. At last Daliyah paused beside a ditch that emerged from a low arched opening in the stonework. The opening was barred with a lattice of rusting iron bars. Human waste trickled from the archway into the ditch, and the stench a.s.saulted the senses. Daliyah stepped over the ditch and turned abruptly into another narrow defile in the stonework, just wide enough to admit one man at a time. She disappeared and in single file they followed her into the opening. They climbed up a series of roughly hewn steps and Daliyah was waiting for them at the top, outside a low and st.u.r.dy wooden door that was studded and banded with iron.

'From here we must stay close together. It is very easy to lose your way once you are inside,' she whispered, and drew a heavy iron key of ancient design from under her gown. She fitted it into the lock and with an effort turned it. She put her shoulder to the door and it creaked open. She had to duck low to pa.s.s under the stone lintel. They followed her. She closed the door behind the last man.

'Don't lock it. We will be in a hurry when we return,' Hector told her softly. The darkness was so complete that it seemed like a crus.h.i.+ng weight on their shoulders. Hector switched on the fluorescent headlight of his helmet, and the others followed his example. Daliyah led them on into a warren of twisting pa.s.sages and interlinking rooms. There were small sounds: women were talking and laughing in one of the rooms they pa.s.sed, and in another a man snored loudly. At last Daliyah motioned them to stop.

'Wait here,' she whispered to Tariq. 'Put out your lights and remain quietly. I will go to make sure it is safe.' She slipped away down the narrow corridor. The men squatted to rest, but they kept their weapons in their hands. Before long Daliyah came back, moving silently and swiftly.

'There are two men guarding the door to the girl's chamber. This is unusual. Usually there are five or six of them. Tonight the others must have been ordered to the north gate. One of the remaining guards will have the key to the girl's cell. Make no noise. Follow me.' Hector and Tariq moved up close on each side of her. After a short distance she stopped again and pointed ahead. The pa.s.sage opened out suddenly and turned at right angles. They could hear men's voices coming from beyond the bend, and yellow lamplight was thrown against the angle of the side wall and the ceiling. Hector listened intently and realized that there were at least two men droning out a pa.s.sage from the 'esha prayers. Then he saw their shadows on the side wall as they knelt and sat upright again. Hector held up two fingers and Tariq nodded. Hector tapped his chest and showed one finger, and then tapped his own chest and held up another finger prayers. Then he saw their shadows on the side wall as they knelt and sat upright again. Hector held up two fingers and Tariq nodded. Hector tapped his chest and showed one finger, and then tapped his own chest and held up another finger 'One for each of us!' Tariq nodded. They handed their rifles to the men behind them, and each of them unrolled the piano wire garotte he carried in his b.u.t.ton-down pocket, and tested it between his hands. Hector crept up to the corner. Tariq followed him. They waited there until the two warders knelt with their foreheads pressed to the paving slabs. Then he and Tariq moved out behind them, and as they rose again into the sitting position Hector and Tariq dropped the wire nooses over their heads and whipped them up tightly under the chins. The Arabs struggled, kicking and flailing their legs and arms. But they uttered not a sound. Hector placed his knee between his victim's shoulder blades and applied the power of both his hands. The man stiffened and kicked convulsively one last time as his bowels voided with a spluttering sound. Then he was still. Hector rolled him over quickly and patted down his robe. He felt the big iron key under the cloth and pulled it out. Daliyah was standing at the corner. Her eyes behind the veil were huge and bright with horror; perhaps she had not expected this killing.

'Which door?' Hector asked - there were three in the facing wall - but Daliyah was still too distressed to answer. Tariq sprang up and seized her shoulders. He shook her roughly.

'Which door?' She gathered her wits and pointed at the one in the centre.

'Back me up,' Hector told Tariq and went to the door. He unlocked it with the key he had taken from the warder and opened it slowly and stealthily. The cell was unlit, but he turned on his headlight. By its beam he saw how small the cell was. It was without any windows or ventilation. In the one corner stood a toilet bucket and a clay water pitcher. The bucket emitted a powerful odour. In the middle of the floor a small childlike figure was curled on a straw-filled pallet. She wore only a dirty s.h.i.+ft that came down as far as her waist, so that there was no mistaking that she was female. He knelt over her and gently turned her so he could see the face. It was the face of the girl in the brutal video, the girl whose photograph Hazel had showed him. It was Cayla, but so pale and thin that her skin seemed transparent.

'Cayla!' he whispered in her ear and she stirred. 'Wake up, Cayla.' She opened her eyes but for a moment could not focus them. 'Wake up, Cayla. I have come to take you home.' Suddenly her eyes flew wide open. They seemed to fill her whole face. They were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the shadows of terrible memories. She opened her mouth to scream but he whipped his hand across it, and whispered urgently, 'Don't be afraid. I am your friend. Your mother has sent me to take you home.'

She was deafened by her fear, not understanding the words, fighting him with all her meagre strength. 'Your mother told me you have a Bugatti Veyron which you call Mister Tortoise. Your mother is Hazel Bannock. She loves you, Cayla. Do you remember the filly she gave you for your last birthday? You named her Milk Chocolate.' She stopped struggling and stared at him with huge eyes. 'I am going to take my hand off your mouth now. Promise not to scream.' She nodded and he took his hand away.

'Not Milk Chocolate,' she whispered, 'Chocolate, just plain Chocolate.' She began to weep, silent sobs that racked her entire body. Hector picked her up in his arms. She was light as a bird, but burning up with fever.

'Come on, Cayla. I'm taking you home. Your mother is waiting for you.' Tariq was in the doorway covering him. Hector nodded towards the corpses of the two Arabs. 'Lock them in the cell.' They dragged them feet first with their heads b.u.mping and rolling on the paving, and dumped them in the middle of the cell. Hector locked the door and pocketed the key. 'Now! Tell your cousin to get us out of this stinking place, Tariq.'

Daliyah led them back the way they had come. At every turn Hector antic.i.p.ated a challenge or a burst of gunfire. 'This is too easy. It was never meant to be this easy. There is a s.h.i.+t-storm brewing. I can feel it in my guts,' he told himself grimly. But at last he stepped out through the little door into the narrow defile and he tasted the night air from the desert. 'Sweet as a virgin's kiss,' he murmured and filled his lungs with it. Cayla s.h.i.+vered in his arms. He carried her down to the opening of the defile where there was a clear escape route down the mountainside. He sat her down gently on the stony ground and knelt over her. Hazel had packed clean camouflage coveralls for her, a pair of canvas sneakers in her size and a pair of panties. Hector dug them out of the side pocket of his pack and, as though she were a baby, dressed her in them. He averted his eyes as he pulled up her knickers. He felt a strange paternal affection for her. But at first he had difficulty recognizing the emotion. He had never had kids of his own; he had never wanted any. His life was too full with other things. There was no s.p.a.ce in it for kids. Now he thought this is what it must be like to have one. This was Hazel's baby, therefore in a strange way she was also his. This sick little creature tugged at feelings deep inside him that he had never suspected existed. He found the plastic bottle in his pack, and forced her to swallow three broad-spectrum antibiotic tablets and wash them down with a swig of water from the bottle he held to her lips.

'Can you walk?' he asked her tenderly.

'Yes, of course!' She stood up, took two shaky steps and collapsed.

'Good try,' he said, 'but you still need a little practice.' He swept her up in his arms again and ran with her. Tariq and Daliyah were on point, and the rest of the stick backed him. On the rough track they skirted the walls until they joined the main pathway and turned directly down the hillside. The night was as quiet as though all of creation held its breath. They slowed as they entered the oasis, and moved through the palms towards where they had left Uthmann and his stick.

Too quiet, Hector thought. Too b.l.o.o.d.y quiet. The whole place reeks with the stink of the Beast. Suddenly Tariq and Daliyah ahead of him went to ground. Tariq pulled her down with him and they dropped out of Hector's sight as though through the trap of a scaffold. Hector went down in almost the same instant, cradling Cayla to protect her from the impact as they hit the earth.

She whimpered and he whispered, 'Quiet, sweetheart, quiet!' and stared ahead as he cautiously slipped the rifle sling from his shoulder. He stared through the night scope but could make out nothing that might have alarmed Tariq. Then he saw Tariq raise his head cautiously. After a full five minutes he gave the soft fluting recognition whistle. There was no response. He turned slowly and looked back at Hector, waiting for an order.

'Stay here and don't move!' Hector told the girl.

'I'm afraid. Please don't leave me.'

'I'll be back. I promise you.' Then he was on his feet and running. He dropped beside Tariq, and rolled twice to throw off the aim of an enemy. The silence was heavy and fraught.

'Where?' he asked.

'Beyond that palm. There is a man lying there, but he does not move.' Hector picked up the dark shape, and watched it for minute. The shape remained still.

'Cover me.' He darted forward again. Even his flak jacket would not stop a rifle bullet at this range. He reached the dark human shape and dropped beside him. His face was turned towards Hector, and he saw it was Khaleel, one of his really good men.

'Khaleel!' he breathed but there was no response. He reached across to check his carotid artery. Khaleel's skin was warm but there was no pulse. Then Hector felt the wetness on his fingertips. He knew what it was; in his life he had probably seen as much blood as any surgeon. With his fingertips he searched for the wound. He found it exactly where he had expected it to be, at the back of the jawbone just under the earhole. A tiny puncture; a thin very sharp blade, through the earhole and into the brain. Hector felt sick to the guts. He did not want this to be true. There was only one man he knew who could kill with such precision. He called Tariq to his side with a hand signal. He darted forward to join Hector. At a glance he spotted the blood on Hector's fingers. Then he turned to Khaleel's corpse and touched the wound behind his ear. He said nothing.

'Find the others,' Hector ordered. Three corpses were lying in a defensive circle looking outwards. They must have trusted their killer to let him come in so close. Each of them would have died instantly. All of them had an almost identical wound.

'Where is Uthmann?' The question was redundant, but Hector had to ask it.

'He is not here. He has gone to where his heart belongs.' Tariq looked up at the dark ma.s.sif of the fortress.

'You knew, Tariq. Why did you not warn me about him?'

'I knew with my heart, but I did not know with my head. Would you have believed me?' Tariq asked. Hector grimaced.

'Uthmann was my brother. How could I believe you?' Hector said, but Tariq looked away.