Читать книгу Last Light - Alex Scarrow - Страница 24

11 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

Andy ducked back inside the pink building as Sergeant Bolton bellowed a warning. A moment later the mortar shell they had heard launched from nearby dropped into the compound with a dull thump, but no explosion - another dud.

He heaved a sigh of relief. The armed insurgents amongst the gathering crowd outside had launched half-a-dozen mortars at the compound, only two had landed on target, and neither had exploded.

The sporadic gunfire was beginning to die down again.

Throughout the morning, the pattern had been consistent; sustained and intense periods of gunfire coming from nearly every rooftop along the boulevard and outside along the street itself, punctuated by interludes of peace and quiet.

The crowd outside had grown in size, presumably as word had spread across the town that a small patrol of coalition forces had been run to ground.

Andy was surprised at how bold they were. Surely the people out there had to be aware that a relief force would be combing the area looking for Carter’s patrol? The battalion HQ was only thirty minutes away, they’d be sending someone, surely?

Or perhaps they know something we don’t?

The comms system installed in Lieutenant Carter’s Rover had taken several hits from gunfire as the vehicle had swerved across the road towards the pink building. And now they had no reliable means of getting in touch with the battalion.

The only other way they had of contacting the battalion HQ was, believe it or not, via mobile phone. Out in the wilderness, it was down to luck. But in a place like Al-Bayji, the coverage was pretty thorough.

In the last hour, once it became apparent that there was no imminent threat of being overrun, and that for now, they could hold the compound, Lieutenant Carter had set about trying to get a call through to somebody, anybody, at battalion HQ. Eventually he managed to get through to a Quartermaster Sergeant, a buddy of Bolton’s, and through him to Major Henmarsh.

Carter had made the call well away from where any of the lads in his platoon could hear, but for some reason, he had allowed Andy to be within earshot. Andy had heard the news, and it wasn’t good.

The battalion had abandoned their permanent camp south-west of the town and pulled back to K2, the region’s main airstrip, where they were holding a defensive perimeter as a steady stream of Hercules C130s were landing and evacuating the British army from this region of Iraq, one company at a time.

Carter had said that the Major was looking into putting together a relief effort of some sort to bail them out, but from the grim look on the young man’s face, Andy guessed the officer had been told this was going to be a very long shot.

‘You okay?’ asked Andy.

‘Why the hell are they leaving?’

Andy shook his head. ‘This situation must have got worse.’

A lot worse if the British army was pulling out.

‘I just don’t get it. Surely they’d be sending more troops here to help calm this thing down.’ Lieutenant Carter wiped dust, sweat and grime from his face with his shemagh. ‘Things have just gone crazy.’

‘I’ve got a feeling there’s much more going on than we know about,’ Andy said quietly. ‘We know it started with a series of explosions in Saudi designed, by someone, to provoke widespread rage.’

‘Someone? You mean like Al-Qaeda?’

Andy shrugged, ‘Possibly, they’re the obvious candidates. This does feel . . . orchestrated, doesn’t it?’

Carter nodded absent-mindedly, distracted with more immediate concerns.

‘Listen,’ he said after a while, ‘I’m not sure they can spare the men to come after us. It sounded like they were stretched thin and getting a lot of contacts around K2.’ He bit his lip again, and then added, ‘We might have to make our own way out of this mess.’

‘Oh Christ,’ replied Andy.

‘But don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell my men. Okay?’

‘Sure.’

Carter squatted down on his haunches and leant against the pink wall, burying his face in his hands.

‘Shit, I don’t know what to do,’ he muttered.

Andy looked around and noticed some of the platoon looking uncertainly at the officer from their stations around the compound wall. He kneeled down beside him.

‘Your men are watching you,’ he whispered quietly.

The young officer immediately straightened up and sucked in a deep breath. ‘You’re right,’ he replied with a nod and a grim smile. ‘I’ll work something out.’

Andy nodded, ‘Sure.’ He wanted to give the lad a reassuring pat on the shoulder, but with those squaddies intently studying their CO, he knew they probably shouldn’t witness that. No matter how screwed up the young Lieutenant thought the situation was, as far as the lads were concerned, this had to look like a momentary operational glitch, that things were in hand and a remedy already on its way. Lieutenant Carter had to look upbeat.

Andy didn’t envy him having to brass it out like that. He stood up and made his way across the compound to where Mike, Erich and Ustov sat in the shade of the parked vehicles and, a few yards away, Farid and the two young drivers sat, watched over by a soldier.

Mike nodded in the direction of the Lieutenant. ‘What’s the news then?’

‘We’re not the only ones with problems.’

‘And what the fuck is that meaning?’ asked Erich.

Andy felt he had to support Carter and throw some sort of a positive spin on things, but it felt crap lying to them. ‘It means it might take them a little while to get round to helping us out. But they will.’

Mike offered a wry smile. ‘Sure.’

Andy’s mobile phone began to ring. He looked down at it with some surprise and checked the number of the incoming call.

‘It’s the wife,’ he muttered with a bemused look, which triggered a snort of laughter from both Mike and Erich, whilst Ustov simply looked confused.

‘I told you honey, never call me at work,’ quipped Mike.

Andy smiled and then answered the call. ‘Jenny?’

‘Andy?’ she replied. The signal was astonishingly clear. ‘Oh God. Are you all right over there?’

Andy was tempted to reply with some dry humourless sarcasm; after all, the last time they’d spoken, as he’d packed his bags preparing to leave for this particular job five days ago, it had been somewhat less than cordial.

‘I’m okay.’

‘I was worried. They’re saying on the news that the whole of the Middle East is in a right mess.’

‘What the hell’s going on, Jenny? What do you know?’

‘I don’t know, it seems like things are happening everywhere. There’ve been bombs and explosions in . . . in central Asia somewhere. ’

‘Georgia, near the Tengiz fields?’

‘Yes, that’s right. They mentioned that place on the news . . . Tengiz. They’re talking about oil shortages, Andy. Just like . . . you know, just like—’

‘Yes,’ he finished for her, ‘I know.’

‘And then this morning there was one of those huge oil-tankers blown up in—’

‘The Straits of Hormuz?’

‘Yes. You heard about it? Apparently it’s blocked off the Straits to all the ships that had oil and could have delivered it.’

Andy felt something ice-cold run down his spine. ‘Yes . . . yes, I heard that from somewhere.’

The Tengiz refineries hit, Hormuz blocked, pan-Arabian unrest triggered by an attack on something like the Ka’bah - all these events within twenty-four hours of each other. Exactly as described.

‘Andy, I’m scared. The trains aren’t running. They’ve stopped the trains, and there’s going to be some big announcement made by the Prime Minister. The radio, the TV . . . they’re all talking about problems right across the world.’

The only edge Jenny and the kids had right now over most of the other people around them was the few hours’ advance warning he could give her. She had to sort herself out right now.

‘Jenny, listen to me. If they announce the sort of measures I think they might at lunchtime, the shops will be stripped bare within hours. It’s going to be fucking bedlam. You’ve got to get the kids home, and go and buy in as much food—’

‘I can’t! I’m stuck up in Manchester.’

Damn! He remembered she’d arranged some bloody job interview up there. Part of her whole screw-you-I-can-do-just-fine-on-my-own strategy.

‘Is there no way you can get home?’ he asked.

‘No. No trains, no coaches. It looks like they’ve stopped everything.’

‘Then get Leona to make her way down from Norwich, pick up Jake, take him home and buy in as much as she can!’

A pause.

‘Jenny,’ continued Andy, ‘she won’t listen to me. I spoke to her yesterday. I think she thinks I’m just being an over-anxious wimp or something. She’ll listen to you. After all, you were always the big sceptic.’

He heard laboured breathing on the end of the phone; Jenny was crying. ‘Yes, yes okay. Oh God, this is serious isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I think it will be. But listen, you need to do this now. Do you understand? Don’t take “no” for an answer from her.’

She can be so bloody wilful and stubborn.

‘Of course I won’t,’ she replied, her voice faltering.

‘And then you’ve got to find a way to get down to London to be with them,’ Andy added.

‘I know . . . I know.’

‘Any way you can, and as quickly as possible.’

Jenny didn’t respond, but he could hear her there, on the end of the line.

‘Andy,’ she said eventually, ‘this is really it, isn’t it - you know . . . what you’ve been—’

‘Please, Jenny. Just get our kids safely home,’ he replied.