'Please,' she whispered again. 'Please, don't — '
The butt cracked down hard on the side of her head. She gasped with pain and started to fall; but before she could hit the ground she felt a heavy blow in her stomach as the guard whacked the blunt metal against her skin. It winded her so badly that she could not even make a noise; she just staggered slightly, trying, through her pain, to catch her breath.
And then it began in earnest.
Mostly the guard used the butt of the gun to beat her, though occasionally he used his feet, booted heavily under his dirty white robes. She huddled up into a little ball, like a hedgehog protecting itself, although she had no spikes to shield her from danger — only her damaged and brutalised skin, pulled tight over the bones of her thin body.
'You must tell him what he wants to know,' he would say occasionally. 'It is the only way to make this stop.'
But she said nothing. She even found herself wishing he would use the other end of his gun, to put an end to this. But she knew they would not allow her to die. Not yet. Not while they still had a use for her.
The beating seemed to last for an age — at one point she coughed up what she could only assume was blood into the veil of her burka — and it only finished when the guard himself seemed exhausted. He spat on her prostrate body, then left the hut without a word, locking the door behind him.
The woman did not move. She could not move. Freezing though she was, her body was too sore for her even to contemplate huddling up to try and keep warm, so she just lay there, her head spinning, her body pressed against the frozen earth.
She wondered which direction she was facing. Towards Mecca perhaps? Most likely not. She prayed nevertheless. With what strength she had, she whispered the takbir: 'Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.'
Surely God would not be angry with her for facing in the wrong direction.
Surely He did not condone the actions of these men, even if they did it in His name.
Surely He would not condemn her for refusing to say what she knew about her brother, her own flesh and blood, no matter what wicked things he may have done.
Surely He would not leave her to die in this place.
He would send someone to help her. Surely He would.
But who in the world would ever find her here?
Will Jackson felt as if he were living in a dream, but he couldn't tell if it was a good dream or a nightmare. Everything just seemed so unreal — Five's sudden appearance in his life; the night he had spent with Kate; Faisal Ahmed. As he gazed out of the window of the chauffeur-driven car Pankhurst had arranged to take him back out of London, he decided that he wouldn't be at all surprised to wake up and find that he had imagined it all.
He didn't want to wake up, though. He didn't want it to be a dream. For the first time in ages, he felt as if he had a purpose. It was nerve-racking, certainly. Gut-wrenching, even. But somehow it felt right.
Will felt weird as he saw RAF Credenhill, 22 SAS Regiment's Hereford headquarters, approach. He hadn't seen the high fences with huge rolls of wicked-looking barbed wire perched on top of them for two years; he hadn't walked into one of the cavernous hangars that housed each of the Regiment's squadrons; but before that this unfriendlyseeming place had been a home from home. Will had felt comfortable among its training grounds and mess rooms, just like other people feel comfortable in their own gardens. He liked it. Now, though, he didn't relish the idea of walking down its corridors again; he didn't relish the idea of the looks the boys would give him. No doubt rumours had circulated about him since he left the Regiment and tongues would wag even more enthusiastically about his return.
The car pulled up at the main gates. Four soldiers stood guard, each carrying a machine gun and an unsmiling expression. The driver, who had not spoken a word to Will all the way from London, wound down his window. 'Will Jackson for Lieutenant Colonel Elliott,' he told the MOD policeman who came to the car to enquire their business.
The MOD policeman looked to the back of the car and his eyes widened slightly when he saw Will. Will recognised him vaguely — a face from the past that he couldn't put a name to. 'Do you have some identification?' the MOD policeman asked.
Will handed over the MOD pass that Pankhurst had supplied him with. The MOD policeman took it, stepped back from the car, spoke into a radio handset and within seconds the gates were open and the car was driving through.
Will had been relieved to hear that Half Colonel Steve Elliott was still CO at Credenhill. They went back a long time — indeed it was Elliott who had first selected Will for the ranks of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment when he was a bright-eyed young squaddie. Back then, Will had thought Elliott was little more than a psychopath; but then that was what most potential recruits thought of their commanding officers when they were undergoing SAS training. When Will had been the first to complete the endurance stage of the final phase of his training — a forty-mile hike across the Brecon Beacons with full pack and rifle — he had expected a few words of congratulation. But that wasn't Elliott's style. 'Don't make the mistake of assuming the worst is over, Jackson,' he had informed the exhausted recruit in front of his new colleagues. 'A gentle walk in the hills isn't what you can expect on covert ops.'
'No, sir,' Will had replied immediately.
As time went on, though, Jackson had proved himself to Elliott. More than proved himself, in fact. He had risen through the ranks, and had come to respect and appreciate Elliott's blunt, no-nonsense style of talking. There was no room for bullshit when people's lives depended on you. And after Will's family died, Steve Elliott had been the man who stood by him. 'Don't leave the Regiment, Will,' he had said. 'You'll regret it. Take time out — as much as you like. But don't leave. Don't let the fight go out of you.'
Will had ignored his advice. Now and then in the few months that had followed, Elliott's words had come back to haunt him. But as time passed and a return to the military became less and less feasible, so Will had stopped worrying that his respected commander had been right. About a year ago, Elliott had dropped him a line, inviting him to get in touch. The invitation had gone unanswered.
The car trundled to a halt in a small car park just in front of the main HQ building.
'Thanks for the lift.'
'Yes, sir,' the chauffeur replied. He stepped out of the car, opened Will's door and stood politely by as he climbed out. Will took a deep breath, nodded to the driver, then strode towards the main building.
A uniformed officer whom Will didn't recognise was at the desk.
'I'm here to see Lieutenant Colonel Elliott,' he said. 'My name's Will Jackson.'
That look again. The soldier clearly recognised his name. Will knew what Regiment gossip was like — he'd lay money on every soldier in the base knowing within the hour that he had arrived.
'I'll tell him you're here,' the soldier replied.
Steve Elliott was a big man — big even compared to the well-built SAS soldiers who surrounded him every day. He wore camouflage trousers and shirt, and Will had to think hard to remember if he had ever seen the man wear anything else. Elliott's nose had been broken in a couple of places and there was an ugly red scar peeping above the top of his shirt and up his neck. No one knew where he had received it, but it was fairly widely known that Elliott had been taken captive and tortured in western Iraq in 1991.Will had never heard him speak of his experience, but then few men ever did talk about things like that. His hair was a steely grey now and his forehead showed the creases of a lifetime's frowning. But Elliott's eyes were smiling as he approached Will and shook his hand.
'How are you, Will?' he asked, warmly.
Will shrugged, his eyes flickering over to the soldier at the desk, who was watching them with obvious curiosity. 'Is there somewhere we can talk, boss?'