Not many people would have the strength to survive five days in this hell.
Hassad muttered something in Arabic. In response, Asad walked across to the camcorder. He trained it straight on Katie, and then switched on a powerful light that illuminated her face. You could see her much more clearly now: every cut, bruise and scab on her skin was bathed in white light. Her eyes flinched from the lamp, and she tried to look away, but there wasn’t even enough strength in her eyeballs to turn away. A tear rolled down the side of her cheek. Then a gasp of pain escaped from her lips.
Christ, I can hardly bear to look, thought Porter. What the hell are the bastards doing now?
‘I need you to make a statement,’ said Hassad firmly, standing two feet in front of Katie, looking straight into her face.
‘Wha … wha …’
She was trying to speak, but the words died on her lips.
Hassad took half a step forwards. Porter could see Katie flinching. Like an abused child, she now expected to be hit whenever anyone approached her.
‘We will hold up some words on a card in front of you,’ he said. ‘We want you to look at the camera and read them out. We will send them through to the TV station you work for, and post them onto the Internet. When they wake up in the morning, the British people will be able to hear you making one last desperate appeal for your life.’
‘For Christ’s sake, man,’ growled Porter. ‘The woman is in no fit state to talk.’
‘Shut up,’ shouted Hassad.
‘You’re killing her tomorrow, isn’t that enough?’ said Porter.
‘I’ve already told you to keep out of this,’ said Hassad. There was a flash of anger across his face as he turned to Porter. ‘She will do exactly what she’s told to do.’ He turned back to face Katie again. ‘Now read,’ he snapped coldly.
Asad was standing behind the camera. Above his head, he was holding a strip of white card with letters neatly stencilled in black ink. Porter glanced at it. ‘My name is Katie Dartmouth,’ it said. ‘I am scared. Very scared. I don’t want to die. These are not bad men, and their cause is a just one. They just want British soldiers off their land. So I appeal to the British people, go out of your homes, demand that your government brings your soldiers home. Please. Because if you don’t, I will die, and my blood will be on all of your hands.’
Christ, thought Porter. They can’t make her read that. Can they?
‘Read it,’ repeated Hassad.
Katie rolled her eyes towards the card. She was struggling to focus. Porter watched as her bruised and swollen eyeballs screwed up, trying to get a fix on the words. Slowly, from the expression on her face, he guessed that she was starting to make sense of the rows of black stencilling.
‘Fu …’ she stuttered.
The words still wouldn’t come.
Hassad took a step sideways. He grabbed the jug in the corner, filled a tin cup, and took two steps towards Katie. She flinched. Grabbing hold of her chin with his left hand, he pushed the water to her lips with his right. She drank quickly, drawing down the liquid in two fierce gulps. ‘Now speak,’ said Hassad.
‘Fuck you,’ spat Katie.
Although his face remained as impassive as lump of rock, Porter was smiling inside. That’s the spirit, girl, he told himself. Show the bastards what you’re made of.
Hassad took a moment to compose himself.
‘Fuck you,’ spat Katie again. ‘You can kill me if you want to, but I’m not reading that shit for you.’
Hassad looked at Nasri. ‘Deal with her,’ he said curtly.
Nasri vanished from the room, but within an instant he’d returned. In his right hand he was holding a long stretch of hosepipe. ‘You want to read?’ said Hassad, turning menacingly back towards Katie.
‘Fuck you.’
Nasri took two steps forward then paused. He raised his right hand high in the air, and flicked the hose so that it was hanging over the side of his back. For a moment he just held the pose, giving Katie a moment to look straight at him. The dread was already evident in her eyes: she knew the pain that was about to be inflicted on her, and she was scared witless. Her lips were shaking, and it looked as if a trickle of urine was dribbling down her leg. Nasri tensed his muscles. He was a thin but strong man, and his biceps were like cannonballs: round and as hard as steel. An unimaginable strength was about to be transferred into the lash. ‘No,’ muttered Katie, the words so weak they were barely audible. ‘Please no …’
Nasri started to raise his arm. In the still, dank silence of the room, you could hear the plastic start to cut through the fetid air. Porter lunged forwards. He moved with an agility that surprised even him. Crashing through the five metres of space that separated them, he collided hard into Nasri’s ribs, knocking him off balance. The hose was already travelling through the air, but its flight had changed. It cracked viciously, but was hitting only thin air. Porter pummelled one fist, then another, into Nasri’s ribcage. The man had the strength of an armoured vehicle: putting your fist into his muscles was like slamming your hand into the skin of a tank. He rolled with the first punch, but the second hit a nerve, sending him crashing to the floor, a cry of pain escaping from his lips. Porter fell on top of him, bringing his knee up sharply as he did so, so that it crashed hard into Nasri’s chin, sending his neck snapping back. Porter could feel a surge of adrenalin running through his bloodstream as the blows hit home: I’ve built up so much anger towards these bastards since I’ve been here, he reflected, that it is good to finally get some of it out of my system.
There’s plenty more where it came from as well.
He could feel a set of hands on his shoulders. They were tugging at his sweatshirt, pulling him back. He roared with anger, and tried to shake them away, but it was too late. Another set of hands was grabbing him around the chest. Both Hassad and Jabr had caught hold of him and were tugging him away. He lashed out a fist, aiming for Nasri’s face, but missed, hitting only air. Jabr had a lock on his chest, and with one swift movement, heaved Porter upwards, and threw him up against the wall. Porter could feel his back slamming into the stone, bruising the skin.
Hassad slammed a fist straight into the centre of his stomach. The blow landed hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Porter started coughing violently. As he looked sideways, he could see Nasri getting to his feet. He had taken a couple of bruises where Porter’s kneecap has smashed into his chin, but otherwise he wasn’t badly hurt. Leaning over, he picked the hose up from the floor, reeled it back into the air like a fishing road, then lashed it through the air. The tip of the hose slashed across Porter’s chest. Its impact was softened slightly by his sweatshirt, but it still stung viciously. Porter cried out as the pain ripped through him. In front of him, he could see a cruel smile cross Hassad’s face. ‘Next time, we kill you,’ he said.
Nasri had already turned round. The hose was high in the air. It flicked back, then lashed into Katie’s side. The sound of plastic ripping into skin filled the small room, then there was a brief moment of silence. Porter already knew what was happening from painful experience. It took a moment for the brain to figure out what the body had just experienced. The pain didn’t register instantly. But when it did, it was like having a hundred sharp blades cutting into your skin in the same moment.
‘No,’ screamed Katie. ‘No, no, no …’
Nasri had already drawn the hose back again. His muscles were tense and bulging. In that moment, Porter realised he had only made things worse. The man’s blood was up now. There was real anger in each blow. The hose was moving through the air with the venom of a snake. It curled through the air, then kicked into Katie’s skin, cutting through the cloth that was covering her, and drawing a line of blood that ran across her belly and up into her breast. ‘Please no, please no, please no,’ she whimpered.