Chris Ryan - Osama

The miles disappeared. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. The small, winding roads grew wider and straighter. There was more traffic now. Time check: 0832. He pulled out to overtake a trundling Eddie Stobart lorry and immediately his eyes and ears were filled with the sound of another truck thundering towards him from the opposite direction, twenty metres and closing, its horn blaring. Joe yanked the bike back over to the left, just in time. The truck powered past him, the slipstream knocking him slightly off balance. He pulled out again. This time the road was clear. Opening the throttle, he overtook Eddie Stobart, passing under an overhead sign as he did so. Cardiff: seventy-five miles.

He did a quick calculation. A hundred and twenty-five miles to go. He hunkered down to reduce wind resistance and increase speed.

0900 hours.

It was cold in the house, but that wasn’t the only reason Eva shivered. The pain was getting worse. The wound in her side was too sore to touch, and though she wanted to take a look, the idea of removing Joe’s hastily applied dressing was more than she could bear. If only she could stop herself shaking as she sat on the edge of the bed, the handgun gripped tight in her fist. She didn’t know why she was still trembling. She and Conor were alone, weren’t they?

She looked at the door. It was open just a couple of inches. Fighting the pain, she eased herself up and moved towards it, stepping round the Arabic books that Joe had swept onto the floor.

She stopped suddenly.

The door was opening.

Shaking even more, Eva raised the gun. A cat miaowed, then appeared in the doorway. Eva dropped her hand in relief, hissed the cat away, then lurched to the door. She closed it and turned the key. It wouldn’t help much, but she felt safer.

With her back to the door, she surveyed the room. It was chaotic. Not so much a bedroom, she thought, as a storeroom.

Her eyes fell on Conor. He hadn’t moved since Joe had left. How long had it been? Half an hour? An hour? She limped back to the bed and perched by the boy’s small, motionless body.

She found herself grinding her teeth. Complex, conflicting thoughts troubled her. She realized she’d been avoiding looking at Conor. Joe’s little boy. Caitlin’s little boy. She realized, in a moment of honesty, that she was jealous. Eva had never thought of herself as the maternal type, but maybe that was just her way of protecting herself. Whatever the truth, the kid needed her help.

‘Conor?’ she whispered. ‘Conor, sweetheart, are you OK?’

No answer. She stroked his lower leg gently.

She winced suddenly as a stabbing pain seared out from her wound. She clenched her teeth again as she mastered it. Then, very gently, she pulled the coat to cover the boy properly. He was still hugging himself, and although he wasn’t moving, his eyes were wide open, staring without expression. Did he know where he was, or who he was with? Eva thought not. She could see Joe in him – something in the eyes – and she remembered him when he was Conor’s age. Quiet and serious, but stockier, less frail. But then he’d never had to go through what Conor had gone through. She stroked his calf again. He was so thin. There was barely any flesh on him. Had Ashkani given him anything to eat? She doubted it. Why would he, when he wanted to keep him compliant in the hours leading up to his death?

‘Are you hungry, sweetheart?’

No response.

Eva chewed on her lower lip. ‘I’m going to go downstairs, find you something to eat.’

Silence.

Descending the stairs, clutching the banister so hard that her knuckles went white, was among the most painful things she’d ever done and by the time she reached the ground floor she was gasping in agony. Even though it was fully light outside, it was gloomy in this shabby hallway, and just as gloomy in the kitchen. All the cupboard doors were open – Eva vaguely remembered that Joe had come downstairs to fetch water – but there was no food. Just mouldy bread and tins of Whiskas, and they hadn’t been reduced to that yet.

A noise at the front door. She stopped dead.

Her pulse thudded in her ears. But there was no other sound. She crept out of the kitchen, doing all she could to ignore the stabbing pains in her side, holding her breath, clutching the gun.

The hallway was undisturbed, the door shut. She took another few paces.

There were letters lying on the doormat. They hadn’t been there before. With a surge of hope, she struggled to the door, fumbled desperately with the latch and opened it. A red mail van was pulling back onto the road – thirty metres away.

Help.

Eva stumbled outside and waved her hands in the air. She tried to shout, but lacked the strength for more than a feeble croak.

‘Don’t go…’ she whispered. ‘ Please don’t… ’

But moments later the van was gone. All was silent, and they were alone again.

It was everything she could do to stop despair from overcoming her. She wanted to hammer her fists against the cold stone walls of the house. Think of Conor , she told herself. He needs you . She stepped back inside, closed the door and hobbled up the stairs again.

The boy hadn’t moved. She had to do something for him. She couldn’t just sit here, getting weaker and weaker and worrying about whether Joe had managed to raise the alarm. The wild look in his eyes as he left had lingered with her. She pushed from her mind the idea that he wasn’t in control.

Joe had said this was Ashkani’s safe house. Surely he would have food here – something the boy could eat. She stared helplessly at the boxes on the floor. There were so many of them. Where to start?

The largest boxes were the two to the right of the wardrobe. They were sealed with so much packing tape that it took her two or three minutes just to open the first one. It was only half full with toiletries: shaving gel, razors, toothbrushes, everything Ashkani might need to take care of himself. The second box was filled with a bewildering array of medicines, most of them with long names Eva did not recognize. She emptied both of them onto the floor, hoping to find something to eat hidden among the bottles and boxes. There was nothing. She spotted a box of codeine and swallowed a couple of tablets. She didn’t know if it would do any good for the splintering pain in her side, but it couldn’t harm her.

Which box to try next?

It was a smaller one that caught her eye. The bizarre thought came to her that it looked like the box in her attic that was full of baubles for the Christmas tree she decorated every year. She limped over to it, knelt on the floor and started picking at the packing tape with her broken nails. As she tore off the tape, the top layer of cardboard came with it.

When she saw what was inside, she held her breath.

The box was brimful of ammunition. Eva had received very little firearms training, but she recognized the magazines full of rounds and the neat little packs of plastic explosive. There were wires and battery packs and even four small canisters that looked like grenades. Sitting on top of all this equipment, however, was something that perplexed her.

It was a small tray, about eight inches by four, wrapped in a cardboard sleeve that was emblazoned with the British Airways logo. Eva picked it up. It was heavier than she expected for an airline meal, but that was what it must be – food. She noticed that, despite not being chilled, it had no smell. Eva stared at it, barely daring to slide the tray out of its paper sleeve. What would Ashkani be doing with an airline meal in a remote safe house?

Her mouth was dry, her limbs heavy. She removed the sleeve. The food tray had a foil lid, crimped around the edges, though it was clear that even if the tray had once been factory sealed, someone had opened it. She pulled the foil off.