Town of Fire Page 11

  The waft comes again. He shines his torch to the walkway. Nothing, but at the railings, marking the very edge of the bridge before the huge drop down to the water, a rope is tied, knotted at the top, hanging straight between the steel railings. He shines the torch along the railings and counts six knotted ropes. Without seeing where they terminate he knows what he will find. A smile breaks across his face. This was familiar. This was one of the hallmarks of the group – hanging the enemy from bridges, over the balcony of an apartment block – to let the enemy know they are to be feared. He vaults across the barrier between the road and the walkway, runs down the steep side to the tarmac below and shines the light on the bodies hanging at the end of the ropes. So many kafirs hanging. The people in the town would be terrified. He shines the torch at the closest body. Its head is dark, its clothing black. He frowns and shines the torch on the next body. Dark hair, brown skin, black clothing. His gut writhes and a sickness swirls in his belly as he recognises a friend. Daoud bin Mohammed. His tongue is black and swollen, his eyes bulge in their sockets. As he sweeps the torch along the line of men, he realises that each hanging body is one of their own.

  Feet clatter behind him. “Mohammed, what is it? It stinks here—what can you see?”

  “Martyrs.”

  Ali peers over. “Shine the torch. I can’t see.”

  Mohammed shines the torch onto the bodies. “Brother Abu Bakr.” A cold anger bristles through him. He shines the torch on the next body. “Brother Mohammed Ali.” He repeats the process until he has named each body, moving along the walkway. “They have been murdered. They will be avenged.”

  “Who did it?”

  He shines the torch towards the river bank. Its brightness doesn’t shed any light on the area but the moon’s light reveals the town sitting along its edge. “Them.” He twists on his toes and staggers back to the car. “These English think they are so clever, but they’re not as clever as us.” He slides back into the driver’s seat and switches the radio on. Static bristles back at him. He twists the knob until the signal clears then speaks into the handset.

  Chapter 19

  The day is still warm though the sun is setting as Khaled scrambles up the wall and launches himself over. He lands in a car park, narrowly missing the front end of a black BMW. Just a few cars sit neatly parked within the white lines of the parking bays and only one sits at an angle, an obvious casualty of the EMP, the engine shorting whilst the owner did a three-point turn. He scans the area for signs of movement, heart pumping violently in his chest. It was them, the kafirs, who were supposed to be filled with fear, running for their lives, cowing to the might of their jihad, not him scurrying among their cars. They would pay, Insha’allah. Once he got out of here he would bring an army back and raze the town to rubble. First though, getting a good distance from the Police Station and the men who would be hunting them down, was imperative. He could run and he could hide, make himself invisible to these people whilst laying in wait, but the brothers needed to regroup and to do that they had to get away from this town. He scans the cars. All are new models which meant none were operational because of the electric storm sent from the heavens to help them with their jihad, alhamdulillah.

  Parked at the far side of grounds is an older car. “Basim!” he hisses. “The red car in the corner. Could we get that running?”

  Basim turns, squints through the twilight. “No. It’s old, but not old enough.”

  A door slams and, startled, Khaled stumbles against Basim’s boot.

  “Idiot!”

  Khaled grabs Basim by the throat.

  “Call me an idiot again and I’ll cut your tongue out.” He pushes Basim away from him though the man shows no sign of remorse. “Threaten me again and I’ll gut you.”

  “You two stop,” Hamsa hisses. “We have to get away from those idiots.”

  “Let’s go,” Khaled stabs at the air with his fist then takes the lead to the corner of the building, hugging the shadows and keeping low. At the entrance, sat to the side, a kerbside sign reads ‘Hilderspin Café. Tea. Coffee. Cakes.” His stomach growls with queasy hunger and adrenaline. Finding food would also have to be a priority. At the corner he stops, raises a finger, checks that the road is clear, then stabs at the opposite side of the road. Leaving the safety of the brickwork, curtains twitch in an upstairs room of the house opposite and a young girl stares out from behind lace curtains. If he had a gun, he’d shoot. Instead he draws an imaginary knife against his throat then stabs his finger at the girl. She drops from view and the curtain brushes against the glass. The girl already forgotten, he squats beneath the downstairs window and scans the street ahead. An engine thrums. “Car!” He prods Basim’s shoulder. Basim grunts.

  “We need one.”

  “First we get away from them.” Basim jabs a finger towards the end of the road and four armed men, all wearing protective leathers and motorcycle helmets. They scan the area, cross the road then disappear as the car passes the end of the road.

  “Go!” Without waiting, Khaled crouches then runs alongside the row of parked cars to the end of the road, determined to see where the car is going. From the noise of its engine, he can tell it has slowed and, as he reaches the top of the road, the engine idles then stops. He stops behind the last car, squats, then scans the road. To the left, a crowd is listening to a man shouting out instructions in front of the Police Station. To the right, the driver is talking to the armed men. He shakes his head and the men continue at a run up the hill. The driver locks the car, slips the key into his pocket, and makes his way across the pavement before disappearing into a building.

  “Go! Go!”

  Khaled sprints to the car, takes a sharp right into the building, and follows the man down a dark passageway. An arched walkway leads to a fenced area with gates leading to adjacent properties. His hand on the latch of a wooden gate, the man turns to the stampede of echoing feet in the narrow walkway. Before he has a chance to push the gate open, Khaled pounces. He springs from the broken tarmac and digs steel fingers into the man’s fleshy shoulders. The target buckles under Khaled’s weight and staggers forward, toppling through the now open gateway. The others follow, blocking the lowering sun and thickening the shadows.

  As Khaled attempts to flip the man onto his back, a thick arm swings out. The full force of the man’s arm thwacks against Khaled’s head and his cheek knocks against a concrete post. Bone smashes against the jagged surface and Khaled gasps at the pain. Rage builds and he throws himself against the man, grasping his throat as Basim joins the fight and forces him to the ground. The man grunts through his narrowing windpipe. Sensing victory, Khaled squeezes until the man’s eyes bulge and he scrapes at the air for breath.

  “Pockets!” Khaled shouts. “Get the keys from his pockets.” He sits astride the man’s torso, pressing his full weight against the soft abdomen, his fingers making a tight ring around his neck. The man bucks though Khaled can feel his life ebbing.

  Metal jangles as Basim pulls the car keys from his trouser pocket. The man quiets. Khaled releases his grip and pushes away from the body. With a sudden life-saving gasp, the man raises his arm and slams his fist against Khaled’s jaw. Blood seeps onto his tongue, the distinctive metallic taste sour against his teeth. Khaled jumps back and in the next second boots the man, delivering a hard kick to his thigh and then his ribs. The man groans and twists away from the boot.

  “You stay down!” Khaled threatens. “You stay here.” The man glares back in defiance. Dare to scowl at me, pig! Khaled swings his foot back.

  Thud!

  Something hits the path near his feet and bounces off the wall as Khaled lands a kick into the man’s face. Die, kafir! Blood seeps from the gritty boot print of the idiot’s cheek. Khaled pulls his leg back again. This time he will break the pig’s nose.

  “Khaled! Leave him.”

  No. He will kill the man. Kill him for his impudence. One less kafir to pollute the world.

  He raises his boot. “Fo
r allah!”

  Pain rips through Khaled’s head, an explosion of agony that blinds him. The force of the blow smashes his head against the wall and he staggers, leaning against the bricks for support.

  “Paul! Shift it.” A woman’s voice shouts from beyond the pain.

  Thud! Pain, like a hammer blow, rocks deep in Khaled’s thigh. He drops to his knees as his leg gives way.

  “Leave him alone you murdering bastard!”

  Crash!

  Something heavy smashes into the wall beside Khaled’s face. Shards of brick kick back into his cheeks and eyes as the object bounces onto his thigh, stabbing at the muscle, then hitting his shin. It lands with a thud at his feet. The pain in his head blurs his comprehension as he tries to make sense of the attack. He staggers against the wall. A man and a woman are behind him. Pain, sharp and intense, knives his legs, back and head. Basim and Jay are running down the passageway towards the car. An electric iron sits at his feet, the cable twisted around his ankle.

  “Get it, Paul!”

  The man lurches forward, grabs the cable. The iron slams against Khaled’s ankle as it twists around his leg and then disappears. The man grunts and Khaled, his head still reeling, lurches after the others. A whipping noise fills the air. He staggers against the wall. Pain shoots through his shoulder as the man whips the iron at his back. Khaled grunts, relieved that the iron caught only his shoulder. The car’s engine revs as Khaled reaches halfway along the passage. Glass smashes at his feet.

  “Want more?” More glass smashes against the wall, shards hit his back. “We’ve got more.”

  Khaled doesn’t wait to find out what her ‘more’ is and staggers to the kerb. Another bottle smashes behind him. His head feels wet and his mouth is filled with the metallic sourness of blood. Bitch! English pig-bitch. He’d come back and slice a mouth across her belly.

  The car door opens. A hand grabs his shoulder and forces him into the car. The engine thrums and lurches as gears crunch. With a squeal of tyres, the car leaves the kerb and careers up the road.

  “Idiot! How will we get away if you make that much noise?”

  Basim grunts. “Drive if you can do better.”

  “I can.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I know,” he says biting at his words and leans back in the seat. “But I can still drive better than you.” Rage pulses through him as the agony subsides and his thoughts clear. Blood trickles to his eyebrow and diverts to his temple, a consistent flow. He wipes at it with the back of his hand then wipes the mess off on his trousers. “Get us out of here.”

  Tyres squeal as Basim takes a hard left. Ahead is a crossing. Buildings smoulder in the near distance.

  “The brothers destroyed the petrol station. And look, the houses burned down too.”

  “Shut up and drive.”

  “We can’t go up that way.”

  “Why?”

  “The road’s barricaded. Remember? When we followed that red car—the road had been closed with cars.”

  “So now what?”

  “Take the right; it leads out of town.”

  Chapter 20

  Bill stares after the car as it heads up the road, tyres squealing. Jumping down from the wall where he stands with Sam, he pushes through crowd, grabs Uri’s arm and calls to Jess and Alex. A man staggers from an open passageway. Even from this distance, Bill can see that his face is bloody with damage. The man stabs a fist in the direction of the car as a woman joins him.

  “Terrorists!” Her voice bellows. “Terrorists!”

  “They have car,” Uri states.

  “So do we. Jess, Alex. Get the car.”

  Without question the two turn and force their way through the crowd.

  “Catch the bastards, Bill,” Sam urges.

  “I will.”

  Uri ahead of him, Bill strides to the car, a rifle slung across his shoulder. As their car leaves the kerbside another pulls in behind and the doctor steps out and disappears into the crowd.

  The scene that had greeted Bill when he’d run back into the Station had enraged him: Martha leant over the motionless child, a swelling already darkening along the side of her face, crying that she daren’t move him. He was breathing but injured. In that second, he’d determined that the terrorists wouldn’t see another dawn.

  Uri shifts gear and the car makes a smooth transition from second to third. It powers up the hill to the top of the road and then to the mini-roundabout at the intersection of the main road into town.

  Alex is silent on the backseat as he checks over his rifle. An old Remington shotgun that the local farmer had loaned to Sam’s Protectors, Alex had taken it as though it may fall apart in his hands. The rifle came with a cardboard packet of ammunition which was already two-thirds empty.

  “When you shoot,” Bill had said, “make it count.”

  “It’ll hit home,” Alex had assured him. “Don’t worry about that.”

  As they reach the junction Uri slows then stops. The sun is setting quickly now and the road ahead is hazy with twilight.

  “Which way?”

  “Right,” Bill replies with certainty. “The road ahead is blocked. To the left is back into town. Right is the only option.”

  “It leads to the edge of town,” Jessie explains. “The road narrows to a single track but they could get out of town that way.”

  Bill won’t let them escape. “Right it is then.”

  Turning right, the road ahead is a slalom of parked cars although under Uri’s expert handling the car flows through the obstacles and makes easy progress. The road is one of the more prestigious in town; either side, large detached houses are set to well-kept lawns and pristine driveways. Victorian villas sit beside Georgian townhouses and even the row of terraces are substantial buildings with carefully maintained, original facades or tastefully renovated in-keeping with the period. A woman walking a sleek greyhound stops to watch them pass, pulling at the dog’s lead as she notices the rifle sitting across Bill’s chest.

  Brake lights shine out of the purpling light. “There!” Jessie leans between the front seats. “Brake lights at twelve o’clock.”

  “Step on it,” Bill urges as Uri swerves with expert precision between a parked Audi and a stalled Nissan Duke.

  “Da.” His reply is unhurried though he grips the wheel a little tighter and rolls his shoulders. “We get them.”

  Red brake lights flash again as the terrorist’s car slows to weave between a white van and the back of a too-closely parked estate car. The gap is narrow but not one that Uri would have found trouble with.

  “They’re not great drivers.” Jessie echoes Bill’s thoughts as the brake lights flash red again. “Not a patch on Uri.”

  “Hold on.” Uri swerves, rocking Jessie across to Alex on the back seat. “I may take that back.”

  Uri gains on the terrorists.

  “Pull alongside. I want to see how many are in that car.”

  Uri accelerates and draws alongside the weaving vehicle. Bill counts. Uri pulls back, narrowly avoiding more parked cars.

  “I count five.” He recognises the front passenger from the bridge, and the hatred in the snarling faces of the others was more than familiar. Doctor Barzanji’s voice rises in his memory. ‘Show them no mercy, Bill. They will show you none.’ I won’t Farhad. Not this time. “Take them out, Uri.”

  “Sure. Hold on.”

  Bill grabs the seat belt as Uri drops into third gear then floors the accelerator. The car powers forward and smashes against the boot of the terrorist’s car. Jessie and Alex grunt with the force and Bill strains against his seatbelt as it tightens across his torso. Ahead, the road narrows to a single lane. It passes the final house at the edge of the town then winds into the countryside.

  Uri rams the terrorists’ car, crunching the boot and crumpling the bonnet of the Ford. Smoke rises from the engine and it sputters.

  “Damn!”

  “They’re going to get away.”

&n
bsp; “No way.” Uri steers the car over to the verge. A short distance ahead, the road widens for a passing place. Uri accelerates, swerves onto the verge, then overtakes the terrorists. The car rocks and jumps over the uneven ground. Bill tightens his grip on the seatbelt. Uri reaches the passing place. The terrorists draw level. With a tight pull to the right, Uri smashes into their side. Foot to the accelerator, hands gripping the steering wheel, he maintains the car’s direction, and shunts the terrorists towards the hedgerow. A tree looms from the gathering twilight. Bill raises his arm across his face as the trunk becomes massive. At the last second, Uri pulls away. Metal screeches as it scrapes along the bark. As they move beyond the tree, the terrorist’s car swerves right, it’s left headlight clips the tree and it mounts the trunk, flipping over before disappearing through the hedgerow and into the field.

  Bill crashes forward as Uri slams on the brakes. “We got them.”

  Jessie’s torch shines across the field. A deep gouge is slashed through the yellow wheat where the car’s violent landing has torn up the dark earth. A hawthorn lies broken, its splintered trunk sticking out from the shattered windscreen. The wheat rustles. Jessie arcs the light across the fields as a voice moans from within the wreck.

  “Shine the light into the car, Jessie.”

  “But-”

  “There’s someone injured in there.”

  The torch swings to the car and she lights the interior. The driver is strapped in behind the wheel and the front passenger is slumped against the car door, his head resting in the depression of shattered safety glass. Blood colours the glass red.

  “Backseat’s empty.”

  “How many were there?”

  “I counted five before.”

  “Damn.”