The man looked back at him. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen, but although there was fear in his expression, there was defiance as well.
‘Piss off,’ he spat.
Even through a couple of broken teeth, and a mouthful of blood, Porter recognised the accent. A Scouser.
‘What the fuck are you doing out here?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to nick. Now tell me who sent you —’
‘Fuck off.’
Porter glanced towards Hassad. ‘Cut him,’ he snapped. ‘Work on the gunshot wound.’
Hassad leant into the man’s chest. He ripped open his shirt, and sliced open a wide, deep cut in his shoulder. Blood bubbled up out of the open wound, spilling down into the ground.
Porter knelt down, leaning into the man’s ear. He picked up a handful of dust and dirt and chucked it into the open wound. ‘The Arabs are fucking savages, and so am I,’ he said. ‘Now just tell us, and then you can go out and sleep in the scrub with your mates.’
There were tears of pain streaming down the man’s cheeks.
Porter punched him hard in the stomach. He coughed violently, and a fresh river of blood tipped out of the gaping wound in his stomach.
‘Just tell me,’ Porter growled, ‘and I’ll let you fuck off to the great Scouser-nicking shop in the sky.’
‘We work for Connaught Security,’ he shouted. ‘Perry Collinson is ultimately in charge of it. He sent us out here to kill you.’
Porter slammed another foot into the man’s stomach. ‘Fucking mercenaries,’ he spat. ‘There’s a lot of competition for who’s the lowest scum in this hellhole. But I reckon you blokes are right at the bottom.’
I’m bloody through with bastards trying to kill me, he told himself. I’m going to take it out on someone.
‘Why?’
Another half-pint of blood spilt onto the dusty ground.
‘Why?’ shouted Porter, louder this time.
But the man’s eyes had already closed.
I already know why, Porter thought. And the only man I have left to speak to is Collinson himself.
TWENTY-FIVE
Katie felt heavy in Porter’s arms. He lifted her clean from the ground, and ran quickly towards the car. The safe house might be isolated, and there wasn’t much in the way of law and order in this part of Lebanon, but the explosions in the house would attract attention. We don’t want to be around when the police or the Hezbollah militia show up, Porter thought.
‘Want me to finish him?’ said Hassad, pointing towards the wounded man on the ground.
‘Let him die slowly,’ said Porter. ‘A quick death is too good for that bastard.’
With Katie still in his arms, Porter ran across to the Polo. She needed rest, and the firefight had only made her worse: if he didn’t treat her gently she wasn’t going to make it through the next few hours. Waves of heat were rolling out of the house as the flames licked up inside it. Across the scrubland that separated it from the road, there were three dead bodies, all of them lying face down in the dirt, their bodies shot to pieces. It hadn’t been much of an attack, Porter reflected grimly. Whoever that bastard Collinson was using to do his dirty work for him, it wasn’t Regiment guys. These blokes had no proper training. First they’d tried to kill them with fragmentation grenades inside the house, and when that hadn’t worked, they’d created a diversion with some more grenades and had reckoned that would be enough to allow them to charge the wall. Idiots, thought Porter. The Regiment would have taught them that a well-dug-in target, with plenty of ammunition, had to be taken by surprise or ground down slowly and relentlessly. Otherwise you were just committing suicide.
He flung open the door of the Polo, but it came away clean in his hand. The car had been caught in the crossfire as Porter and Hassad had opened fire with their AK-47s and been shot to pieces. The windscreen had been shattered and the petrol tank pierced, spilling its fuel out over the ground. It was a miracle the thing hadn’t gone up in flames.
‘Sod it,’ he muttered. ‘Now we’ve no transport.’
‘We can’t walk,’ snapped Hassad. ‘It’s still a hundred miles to the Israeli border.’
Porter nodded to the petrol station a mile up the road. He waved his AK-47, then slipped it over his shoulder, making sure he slipped a fresh mag of ammo into place as he did so. ‘Then we’ll just have to borrow one,’ he said. ‘And I reckon one of these could be pretty persuasive.’
He still didn’t have a watch on, but by now he reckoned it must be at least eleven on Saturday morning. The sun had risen in the sky, but it wasn’t especially hot: no more than a mild twenty degrees centigrade. He was still carrying Katie on his back, though. He was cut, bruised and exhausted. And he had no idea when, if ever, they were going to get home.
They paused a hundred metres short of the filling station. It was a small place. Four pumps on a dusty forecourt, with a back office and a repair shop. Porter reckoned the best plan was to wait for a driver to pull up, then hit him just after he’d paid for his petrol. If you’re going to nick a car, you might as well take one with a full tank, he told himself with a half-smile.
The mechanic glanced up at them suspiciously as he walked across the forecourt to the car he was working on. Maybe he’s seen the guns on our backs, thought Porter. Or maybe this is the kind of road where you don’t talk to strangers. He scanned the highway. A couple of trucks rolled by, then a van, but nobody was stopping for petrol. It was Saturday morning, and business was probably slow anyway.
Porter put Katie down at the side of the road. Hassad was sitting next to her, gripping the side of his shoulder with his hand. ‘I need a doctor,’ he said. ‘I’m hurt.’
Glancing towards him, Porter couldn’t see what the fuss was about. There was blood where the knife had cut into him, but it was only a field injury. ‘You’ll be OK,’ he snapped. ‘Once we get to the border, you can get yourself sorted.’
‘I need a doctor now,’ he said. ‘There a place nearby we can go. It’s safe.’
Porter shrugged. What we really need is a drink. But I suppose it isn’t going to do us any harm to get ourselves fixed up before we try to travel much further. God knows how many more people are going to attack us before we manage to get across into Israel.
He still wasn’t sure whether he trusted Hassad. But it wasn’t Hezbollah who had just attacked them. It was Collinson’s men. I can trust Hassad more than my own side.
‘I’ll take the mechanic,’ said Hassad.
He started walking towards the garage. Porter watched from a distance, noting a couple of shouts as Hassad knocked the man out, then tied him up. A Fiat van came up the road, turning into the garage. One driver, Porter noted. The van had pulled up next to a diesel pump, and the driver was filling his tank. After he finished, he walked towards the office to pay. Porter could see that Hassad was waiting for him, his AK-47 still strapped to his back. Within seconds, Hassad had pointed the gun at the man, taken his keys off him, then bound and gagged him. He ran back out onto the forecourt towards the van. The engine was still warm, and started with the first turn of the key. He gripped the wheel, slammed his foot on the accelerator, and turned the Fiat round, steering back towards the side of the road. ‘Get the hell in,’ he said, pulling up alongside Porter and Katie. ‘We haven’t got much time.’
There were some chickens in the back of the van: live ones, trussed up three to a crate. Hassad put Katie alongside them, then climbed into the passenger seat. ‘Ten kilometres, straight ahead,’ he snapped. ‘Then we’ll see the doctor.’
‘Why not go straight to the bloody border?’ Porter growled.
‘I told you, I need the doctor,’ said Hassad.
‘And I need to get out of this craphole.’