‘Now you,’ said Hassad, pointing Porter towards the chair.
‘I’m fine,’ Porter growled.
‘She needs to check you out.’
‘I said I’m fine,’ snapped Porter. ‘A few cuts and bruises, that’s all. Nothing I can’t handle. Now let’s get the hell out of here before the rest of your mates show up and start trying to chop people’s bloody heads off again.’
The small room was dark and gloomy, but even in the dismal light it was possible to see that Hassad’s face was reddening with anger.
‘She needs to look at your teeth.’
Porter laughed. ‘I’ll get a check-up when I get home, thanks,’ he said with a rough grin. ‘I’ll even make sure I floss regularly.’
‘Your teeth, now,’ Hassad snapped.
He was standing just two feet from Porter, with the old woman another three feet behind him. Porter was looking hard into his eyes, still questioning whether he could trust the man. ‘Let’s just get on —’
‘If you won’t let me do this, there’s no point in trying to get to the border.’
‘This is ridiculous.’
Hassad moved closer, so that he was standing just a foot in front of Porter. ‘They sent a missile straight into the mine,’ he said, his voice calm and controlled but with a thread of anger running through it. ‘We were tracked to the safe house. They know exactly where we are.’
‘You mean …’ said Katie.
She hobbled towards John and Hassad, using the desk for support. She was looking from one man to another, her face confused.
‘You mean the missile was a British one?’
Hassad nodded curtly. ‘British or Israeli. A bunker-busting missile is a sophisticated piece of kit.’
Porter paused. He already knew that was true. If it was a bunker-busting bomb that attacked the mine, then it was almost certainly a GBU-28, a piece of kit manufactured by Lockheed in America, but sold to both the British and Israeli air forces. It was made up of 80 per cent TNT, and 20 per cent aluminium powder which powered up the conventional explosive. On tests, the GBU-28 had blasted its way through twenty feet of concrete, and cut through as many as fifteen different layers of bunker. It had probably been delivered by two fighter jets: one to mark the target, and a second to deliver two bombs. It was the only weapon capable of causing the kind of damage seen in the mine. And not many people had them.
‘And the soldiers who attacked us just now, they were British as well?’
Hassad glanced at Porter. ‘You tell her.’
‘They worked for a firm called Connaught Security,’ said Porter. ‘It’s a private military corporation operating throughout the Middle East. It’s run by Perry Collinson.’
Katie slumped back. Suddenly, Porter noticed, the blood seemed to have drained from her face. ‘If they knew where we are, why didn’t they come in and rescue us?’
‘Because they want us dead,’ says Hassad, jabbing a finger at her. ‘So long as you die in an explosion, that suits them fine. They just don’t want to be seen to be giving in to any of our demands.’
Katie shook her head. ‘They’d get me out if they could.’
‘Collinson wants me dead,’ said Porter.
‘But he’s …’
‘Your boyfriend?’ said Porter. ‘I know. The trouble is, he’s also a coward and a fraud. He’s terrified that I’ll find out from Hassad here the truth about what happened on a mission seventeen years ago, and unfortunately for him I already have. He’d rather we both died than let us come back alive.’
‘He told me …’ The words trailed off on Katie’s lips. But the shock on her face was evident.
‘He loved you?’ said Porter. ‘Maybe the bastard did, but he was lying about that along with everything else. Take it up with the agony aunt when you get home.’ Porter grinned. ‘“My boyfriend fired a bunker-busting missile at me. Do you think that means he isn’t committed to a long-term relationship?”’
Porter looked back at Hassad. ‘I reckon you’re right,’ he said. ‘Collinson’s got control of the whole op, and he fired that missile into the mine to try and kill us. It’s a result for them if we get killed that way and the execution doesn’t get shown on live TV. They can just say it was an accident. Then he realised we’d escaped, so he sent his boys from Connaught in to quietly finish us off.’
‘This issue is,’ said Hassad, ‘how do they always know where you are?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They knew you were in the mine, and they knew you were in the safe house. How did they know that? How did they even know you’d escaped from the mine?’
Porter shrugged. He wondered that himself. The trouble was, he had no idea of the answer.
‘They must have a tracking device,’ said Hassad.
‘I’m not a bloody idiot,’ Porter snapped. ‘I checked myself, and you checked. There’s nothing. Maybe there’s something planted on you?’
Hassad shook his head. ‘It’s you they’re following.’
‘Then maybe a satellite?’
‘There’s no satellite that can look into a mine,’ said Hassad. ‘Before they sent you out here, did they do any dental work on you?’
Porter paused. ‘They fixed up my teeth,’ he admitted.
‘A crown? Implants?’
Porter nodded.
‘Then get in the chair.’
Porter sat down.
Hassad muttered something to the woman in Arabic. She leant forward, switching on a torch so she could have a better look at Porter’s mouth.
‘Open wide,’ said Hassad, tapping his shoulder.
Porter felt certain he could detect a hint of pleasure in the man’s voice.
‘Is she a dentist?’ he asked, glancing back at Hassad.
‘In a tiny village like this, you have to be a bit of everything, ’ Hassad replied. ‘Don’t worry, yours aren’t the first teeth she’s examined.’
He could feel a spatula pressing down his tongue, the cold steel pressing into his flesh, and then winced slightly as she started tapping on his teeth. Her breath was warm on his skin as she worked: a mixture of goat’s milk and stewed fruits filled the air around him. Next, she started prodding them with a scalpel, nicking his gums in the process.
She paused, looking up at Hassad, talking quickly in Arabic.
‘Two of the crowns feel odd to her,’ said Hassad quietly.
‘Meaning?’
‘There may be some kind of tracking device inside them.’
‘In a tooth?’
Hassad nodded. ‘I’ve heard of it before, but I’ve never seen it done.’ He shook his head, in sorrow as much as anger. ‘Usually you can’t put a tracker inside a tooth because the tooth blocks out the signal, but if you use a mostly hollow crown then it’s possible, although the signal is never great.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Pull it out and take a look, of course.’
Porter looked at the old woman suspiciously. ‘Can she do that?’
‘If there’s a tracker, the guys from Connaught are going to find us anytime soon, and they’ll almost certainly finish us off before we get to the border.’
He said something to the old woman, then looked back at Porter. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’
His deformed lips twisted up into a mocking smile.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of an anaesthetic is there?’
Hassad rolled his eyes.
‘How about a shot of vodka then?’
‘Just do it,’ said Hassad to the old woman. ‘Open your mouth and shut up. Every minute we waste you may be transmitting signals back that tell Collinson exactly where we are. For all we know, they are preparing their assault right now.’
‘Then get on with it.’
Porter gripped the sides of the chair. He closed his eyes, and opened his mouth. He could smell the stewed fruit washing over him as the old woman leant into his face. She said something to Hassad, and he replied, but Porter couldn’t make out a single word. She tapped one tooth then another with a scalpeclass="underline" two of the teeth that had been replaced for him back at the Firm’s headquarters. Porter could feel a clamp being placed inside his mouth to hold it open, then a wrench being screwed on to one of his teeth. Hassad knelt down, pressing a strip of leather into Porter’s hand. ‘Here, pull on this,’ he said quietly.