The terrorist stepped into the bathtub, took another menacing glance at Bernard and quickly raised himself on his toes and looked out the bathroom window. He swore in the Latin language Bernard had heard spoken before — probably Portuguese. ‘Stay,’ he barked at Bernard, then turned and walked out, slamming the bathroom door behind him and turning the key in the lock.
Bernard leapt to his feet and got back into the bathtub. He opened the tiny window a few more centimetres and peered out. The darkness outside was lit by flames. Next to the dwelling he was in was a small separate circular cottage with white walls and a thatched roof which was rapidly being engulfed by fire. Bernard could feel the growing heat on his face. No one else was outside and he heard a door open somewhere else in the house. The masked terrorist, his rifle now slung over his back, ran outside to a tap hidden in a flowerbed of bougainvilleas, and uncoiled a garden hose.
Bernard scrambled out of the bath, nearly slipping in his haste, and pulled on his dirty boxer shorts. He put his eye to the keyhole and smiled for the first time since his abduction. He saw nothing — the key was still in the lock. He looked around him for something to stick in the keyhole. The flushing mechanism on the toilet had long since broken off the top of the cistern and a piece of wire now protruded through the hole in the top of the porcelain cover. He pulled the top off the cistern and unhooked the wire. Next, he tipped Robert’s hair from a sheet of newspaper and slid the paper under the door and poked the wire into the keyhole. ‘Come on, come on,’ he whispered as he jiggled. The key fell with a clatter and he held his breath. Hopefully it hadn’t bounced off the newspaper. He pulled the sheet to him. ‘Yes!’ he exclaimed as the key slid under the door. Picking it up in his cuffed hands he almost dropped it in his anxiety. He turned the key in the lock and the door opened.
Bernard quickly grabbed a towel and dried his feet, leaving a pink stain. He didn’t want to leave footprints on the polished floor of the house and make it easer for his captor to trace his movements, but his soles still oozed blood. So be it. He moved quickly down the hallway. ‘Robert?’ There was no answer from the first door. He moved past the room where he had been imprisoned and stopped by the next. ‘Robert, it’s Bernard. Are you in there?’ In answer came murmuring from the other side and the noise of metal rattling on metal.
Bernard tried the bathroom door key in the lock and, to his surprise, it worked. This was hardly state-of-the-art security, but the terrorists were also relying on their prisoners being bound and gagged most of the time. Robert lay on his back, dressed only in underpants, on the bare springs of an iron-framed bed, his wrists and ankles handcuffed to the frame. Bernard moved to him and untied the hessian hood, then peeled off the duct tape from the politician’s mouth. His head had been shaved close to bald, the skin of his scalp showing purest white against his tanned face.
‘Thank god,’ Robert Greeves said, working his jaw. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Fire outside. Looks like there’s only one man guarding us.’ Bernard tugged on Greeves’s handcuffs then ran his hand along the bed frame.
Greeves turned his head to follow Bernard’s hands. ‘It’s solid — same as the one I was on when they, when they…’
‘It’s all right. I’ll get you out of here somehow.’
‘How?’
Bernard’s panic was mounting. Greeves was right. He was cuffed to a solidly welded frame. Without a key, or bolt cutters to sever the handcuffs’ chain, Greeves was trapped. They couldn’t even remove the bed’s head and foot as these, too, had been welded to the spring base. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘Bernard, listen to me.’ Bernard ran a hand through his hair in frustration and looked down at Greeves. His eyes took in the man’s injuries. Blue-black bruising about his chest and abdomen, bloodied feet — like his — and dried blood all down his left leg from below the knee. It looked as though they had cut him there. Greeves’s eyes were bright, though. Defiant. ‘Bernard, get out. Now!’
‘No, Robert, I can’t leave you, I — ’
‘Listen to me. This is an order, Bernard. You know you can’t get me out of here and you probably only have a few minutes before the guard comes back. You must get away and find help. If he’s alone he won’t be able to move me until the others come back. Did you hear the vehicle leave earlier?’
Bernard nodded. ‘But, Robert — ’
‘Shut up, man. The quicker you go, the better chance I’ve got.’
‘I’ll overpower him, get his gun and shoot the chain off your cuffs.’ Bernard turned to move.
‘No! Stay here and listen to me, damn it. He’s got an assault rifle. If you botch it, then we’re both dead. The best chance you have is to get away and get help, Bernard. I’m more valuable to them alive than dead. Go now, before it’s too late. With luck you can organise a rescue while this chap’s still on his own.’
Bernard looked back at the door, expecting the guard to return any second. He smelled the smoke, which was stronger now, though he heard the spray of the hose. He took Greeves’s chained right hand in his and squeezed tight. ‘You’re right, damn it. God be with you, Robert.’
‘I’ve got you, haven’t I? That’s all I need.’ He forced a smile, then it vanished from his face. ‘If, well… just tell Janet and the kids I love them. And tell the PM these bastards can go fuck themselves.’ Bernard smiled down at him, feeling the first tears prick the corners of his eyes. ‘I’m sure Helen will massage that into something more palatable and patriotic for the media, but you get the general idea.’
‘I do.’
‘Then go. Hurry. Get help.’
Reluctantly, Bernard replaced the duct tape and hood, and closed and locked the door. If they didn’t know he had been in Robert’s room, perhaps they would go easier on the minister. He paused in the hallway near the covered window and unpicked some tape holding plastic sheeting over the glass. He peered outside and saw the terrorist had nearly extinguished the blazing thatch. He was continually glancing back towards the main building, no doubt worried about what Bernard was getting up to. If he could find a weapon, he thought again, he could kill the bastard, get his gun, and free Robert. The idea of abandoning him cut him to the core. Bernard heard the sound of a motor vehicle’s engine, and the courtyard and garden outside were suddenly bathed in white light from the headlamps.
‘Shit.’ The pick-up had returned. Bernard ran down the hall and tried the door at the far end. It was open. He looked in and saw what must have once been the villa’s lounge room, with a kitchen off to one side. Instead of furniture, though, was the equipment needed for making a video — a camera on a tripod, lights on a frame, a white sheet with green Arabic writing stuck to one wall as a backdrop. There was also a laptop computer on a desk and a satellite phone, with a separate antenna plugged into it.
Bastards. If nothing else, he’d slow down their propaganda effort and cut their communications. He looked around for something heavy and found a stout metal carry case. He put the laptop on the floor and pounded it with a corner of the heavy box. After doing so twice more, the thing looked wrecked. He unplugged the satellite phone and heard raised voices outside. He would have smashed the camera as well but he had to move. The men were arguing, accusations flying.
Clutching the phone, Bernard let himself out the kitchen door, into the warm, black tropical night, taking deep, greedy breaths of sea air as he ran down a sandy track.
There was no moon, which was good for him. Around him was only blackness — no other lights except the glare from the truck’s headlights and the sparks from the nearly extinguished fire being sucked high into the sky. He kept moving away from the house, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the night. He paused and sniffed again, his nose and the wind guiding him to the sea. He turned and ran for it, like a turtle scurrying across the sands to find refuge from its predators. His feet squeaked on fine sand that glowed white despite the absence of natural or artificial light. Bernard’s progress slowed as he climbed a tall dune, his aching feet slipping in the soft sand.