They heard a cry of some sort from the camp. It had a rhythm to it, like a chant. He recognised it. The Muslim call to prayer just before dawn.
‘Do everything I say. If I go to ground, if I stop, you do the same and without a noise or a word,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I will.’
He gripped the rifle and, keeping as low to the ground as he could, stepped over the crest and down the other side. The girl moved as he moved, her eyes either on him or the camp.
Stratton stepped slowly and quietly towards a jumble of rocks halfway down the incline and a stone’s throw from the first line of trees that formed the outer perimeter of the camp.
They crouched against the rocks and waited, listening. The voices became louder but he could not understand a word.
‘I don’t like this position,’ he said quietly, looking around them. ‘It will be exposed when the sun comes up.’ He spotted a rocky outcrop further along the plateau with more of an overlook to the camp.
He set off, keeping low, careful not to disturb the loose ground. If he could hear them, they would be able to hear him. The girl followed a short distance behind.
A loud voice suddenly cut through the encampment and Stratton and the girl dropped to the ground. Stratton’s first thought was that they had been seen. They waited but they heard only the distant voice rising and falling. He guessed it was the cleric exhorting his congregation. They crept to the rock formation using their hands to climb. Once there, Stratton felt satisfied with the cover. The boulders pretty much provided all-round protection from view if they kept well down. They waited again, on edge. If anyone had seen them, the action would soon follow. The minutes creaked by. Stratton felt happy enough that they hadn’t been seen.
As the wind shifted a strange whirring sound became apparent. It was faint but constant. After checking around, he decided it was coming from a dip further along the slope. As he looked he thought he could just about see a rhythmic movement beyond the ridge-line, like something spinning. To get a proper look at it, he’d have to expose himself in the open so he decided not to, focusing instead on the camp.
He could see several long, low wooden huts, a single mud one with a sloping roof and dozens of makeshift shelters scattered through the trees, the ground littered with trash. Further inside he saw half a dozen Toyota pick-ups and a couple of large flatbed trucks.
As the first rays of sunlight broke over the horizon the insistent beats of the spinning, whirring object seemed to get louder. He still couldn’t make it out and he decided to risk stretching his head a little above the rocks. As soon as he did so he knew what it was and ducked back down. The camp had a portable radar system, dispelling any possibility of it being inhabited by a bunch of nomads.
These people were not small players to be operating that kind of hardware. And they obviously had reason to fear an air attack. And if they were prepared to be alerted to an air attack, there was every chance that they had some level of air defence system beyond rifles and pistols.
As he examined the camp, several men carrying rifles and supplies of some kind emerged from the wood and began to walk up the incline towards the radar installation. Stratton studied them as they came on. By the time they were halfway to the radar, he had identified that two of them were carrying rocket launchers across their backs.
Stratton looked to the girl to see if she had recognised the hardware.
She was watching them intently. ‘Those could be ours,’ she said.
Stratton followed the men up the slope to a high point among the rocks.
As the sun fully exposed itself, he checked their position once again, in particular the route out. They had two broad escape options: uphill or downhill. If they headed up the plateau into the parched, treeless hills, they had little chance of finding cover. The ideal route out was back the way they had come and down to the river. The thick scrub along the bank would provide cover. At least the Toyotas wouldn’t be able to navigate the riverbank.
The main problem with the location was its exposure to the sun. He didn’t want to spend all day there, especially without water. So once he had formulated a plan, he decided to risk the move back to the first ridge and then down to the river.
The scope of the task to rescue Hopper looked daunting. The camp was large and probably held anywhere between a hundred and three hundred men. Which made any attempt to get closer during the day out of the question. To get inside at night would require a diversion of some kind. Ideally, something that forced the jihadists to evacuate the camp. Like a fire. The fuel storage. A serious explosion such as the weapons arsenal going up would be better. The rockets would make a big enough bang and solve a large part of the problem at the same time. But just how he was going to achieve any of that he did not know.
Stratton glanced at the girl to see how she was doing. She was holding her head in her hands and looking exhausted. He decided to wait a couple more hours and gain more information if possible before making an attempt to get to the river. When darkness fell he would return alone and do what he could to get Hopper.
As he sat thinking about the problem, it occurred to him once again he shouldn’t even be attempting it. The operations room back in Poole would be dead against it. He would be laughed at for even considering it. And if he died trying, he would be labelled a fool. His final epitaph. Someone back home would find out one day. The truth always surfaced eventually. The pair of them should get out of there right there and then, head for the coast and concentrate on getting themselves on to that cargo ship. It was the smart option to be sure.
Stratton reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder. She snapped out of her daze and looked at him. He could see her better in the new light. Her face was bruised, her eyes and lips swollen. Scabs had formed at the sides of her mouth. Welts striped her neck and shoulders. He could only imagine the wounds on the rest of her body.
‘Let’s head to the river,’ he said. ‘Get some rest.’
Her relief at the news was evident. She nodded.
As they began to move a cry went up from within the wooded encampment. A roar of men’s voices answered it.
The cleric shouted again. The faithful responded as one.
The shouting became unstructured, punctuated by angry voices raised as if in demonstration. It sounded like the congregation was moving through the camp. Stratton could make out figures among the parched, stunted bushes and tall spindly pine trees. He saw a large gathering of men, pressed together and moving as a single mass right towards them. The mob emerged from the wood into a level area at the foot of the hillside directly below Stratton and the girl.
There must have been a couple of hundred of them, all bearded, many with headdresses, most with AK-47 assault rifles slung over their shoulders.
Stratton and the girl instinctively pressed themselves further into the ground while watching the gathering through the gaps in the rocks around them.
The mob was close, little more than fifty metres from them. Stratton gripped his rifle in readiness. The girl tensed, her breathing short as fear enveloped her. The edge of the mob mounted the slope but stopped not far up it. The men’s attention wasn’t focused on the plateau, it was focused on the clearing. They kept shouting and formed a broad circle around the space.
Some men came striding through the wood hauling two figures between them and the mob parted to let them into the clearing. They threw the figures on the ground.
It was Hopper and the Chinese girl’s partner.
They had their hands tied behind their backs and rag blindfolds over their eyes. They stayed where they landed in the dirt.