Jason Elliot - The Network

Billy props me up against the wall because it’s obvious I can’t stand any more, and takes off the pillowcase.

In size it’s more like a pigeon than a chicken, and it’s obviously led a hard but honourable life, like most Afghans, and there’s barely more than a mouthful for each of us. Salahuddin divides it up reverently after uttering a Bismillah over the miserable carcass, and we eat it together, listening to the distant gunfire and explosions coming from the valleys where the Taliban are killing Salahuddin’s Hazara relatives, making us wonder whether we’ll get out of the mountains alive. The flesh has a smoky flavour that comes from the wood it’s been cooked over, and it’s the most delicious meal I’ve ever had. I’m savouring it now for the second time, picking the flesh from the bones and sucking on them until they’re smooth, and the satisfaction is indescribable. And I realise that my satisfaction has been transmitted to my face, because Billy is looking into it with a puzzled expression, asking me what the fuck is so funny. He cannot know that I am eating a chicken and, despite everything, taking more pleasure in it than he can possibly imagine.

And now all I know is that I have been alone for a long while in my ill-lit tunnel, and Billy and the Face are striding towards me with a new look of determination on their faces. Whatever is coming next, I have had enough. Nemo me impune lacessit. Or to put it more colloquially, nobody fucks with me and gets away with it. I will put my elbow into Billy’s groin, headbutt the Face and sink my teeth into whatever part of him I can. Then I will take his pistol and get away, because I have no reason to believe, Section 29, ‘that this custody is lawful’.

I’m being lifted up on both sides, but not roughly this time.

‘Come on, Captain,’ says the Face in a tone I haven’t heard before. ‘Let’s get you in your carriage before it turns into a pumpkin.’ The hostile banter has dropped clean out of his voice, and the effect on my plan is disarming. His voice is real. My feet are dragging under me. I pass through another smaller room and then outside into darkness and feel the cold air on my face. Hands manoeuvre me into the back of a car, where I lie on my side and the pain in my rib flares up and leaves me gasping. The engine is running.

‘Jesus, what have they done to you?’ Through the drunkenness of exhaustion, I recognise the voice.

‘I cannot answer that question,’ I mumble.

‘Turn that heater up now,’ says the voice I recognise. It dawns on me it’s H, who gets into the back of the car, props me up and brings a small hip flask to my lips filled with his blessed Glenlivet. ‘Easy does it,’ he says, ‘end-ex, mate. You’ve done it, you bastard.’ He’s taking off his coat and sliding it behind my back and over my shoulders. ‘What d’you say we get you home?’

I can’t stop shivering, but there’s an electric warmth spreading across my chest, and I’m so relieved I can’t speak, and upset that I can’t speak. I try to wink at H, but my eye’s already closed, and the effort makes me wince instead. I see the Face come to the rear door, and H lets down the window. The Face rests his arms on the door frame and sighs.

‘All yours, skipper,’ he says. ‘Not a word. Top notch. If he ever gets bored send him over to us, why don’t you?’ Then Billy appears beside him and passes the ziplock bag with my possessions through the window.

‘Give him a fucking fag, then,’ says Billy with a look of outrage. The Face hands Billy a cigarette, who lights it and reaches inside the window to put it in my mouth. The smoke goes straight to my head and makes me dizzy.

‘You can’t whistle for shit, Billy,’ I tell him.

‘And you’re a stubborn cunt, and all,’ he replies. And Billy is grinning from one side of his face to the other, like a boy who’s made a new friend.

I sleep a whole day and a night, and wake up in the unreal luxury of a clean and warm bed. H has brought the local doctor to me, who doesn’t normally make house calls, but the two of them go back a while by the look of it. It’s not the first time he’s been to the house to look at a minor injury that’s never been properly explained by its owner.

‘You have been in the wars,’ says the doctor as he looks me over.

‘Only two, actually,’ I say.

He tells me there’s not much to do for a cracked rib except patience and painkillers, which will also bring down the swelling in my eye and left hand. My eye gets a butterfly suture and a wry suggestion to stay away from doors.

Hot water feels like a miracle, and the breakfast that H cooks is worth any lottery win. After we eat, H asks if I’m ready for a debrief. He gets out one of his laminated maps and points out the crossroads where I stopped to get petrol, and the place where I began my night-time escape. We find the ridge where I woke up, and we find the village of Shobdon and the airfield where my travels came to an end.

‘What I don’t understand is how you knew I was at the airfield,’ I say.

‘Clever that,’ he says with a knowing smile. ‘Where’d I put your jacket?’ He retrieves it and goes to work on the stitches of the collar with his penknife, extracting a thin piece of black plastic the size of a large stamp with a six-inch-long tail of fine wire. It dawns on me that I never really had a chance to escape my pursuers after all.

‘Tracker,’ he says, tossing it in his palm. ‘A bit sneaky beaky. Used to use these all the time Over The Water. We were going to let you go a lot longer, but we couldn’t have you nick a plane. Nice idea, though.’ He grins. The airfield is where the Regiment has been known to practise what he calls hot exfils, which is Regiment-speak for getting people like H in or out of countries where there isn’t much time to socialise, and involves driving a Range Rover at high speed on or off the ramp of a moving Hercules aircraft, which H calls a Fat Albert. He doesn’t know why Hercs are called Fat Alberts, he says; they just are.

The place I had my tete-a-tete with the colonel is, as I’ve guessed, an abandoned chicken farm on the periphery of the airfield, and the colonel, he says, really is a colonel with the Green Slime.

‘Arrogant bastard, but a good soldier,’ he concedes. Billy, he tells me, is just a big softie, and the Face, who’s actually called Nick, was the youngest member of Pagoda Troop at the Prince’s Gate hostage rescue.

‘He said he was going to shoot me,’ I tell him.

‘Don’t be daft,’ says H. ‘We’re not allowed to carry weapons. Probably just a water pistol.’ A wink suggests this isn’t the whole story, but I let that go.

‘What about that fucking farmer who tried to kill me?’

‘Old Tom? We knew where you were, so we put him at the bottom of the woods. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Known him for years. Some of the lads practise their OP skills on his farm.’

‘What happened to the dogs?’ I ask, because this has been puzzling me.

‘Dogs?’ he asks. ‘We didn’t have any dogs. Must have been a hunt. Happened to me on my E amp; E once,’ he says, going back to his own selection days. ‘Whole pack of them came swarming over us. I was sure I was going to be Platform 4’d. Scared the life out of me, but a minute later they were all gone.’ He folds up the map. ‘Sorry about all the psycho games. They get quite into it sometimes. Must have liked you.’

‘They don’t know what I’m used to from my ex,’ I say, and the effort to laugh hurts my eye again.

I retrieve the Firm’s magic mobile and bring it to life. There’s a text message waiting which reads int locstat, which is Seethrough’s way of asking where I am and what I’m doing. I call London, activate the encryption and listen to the watery-sounding ringing tone until it stops.