Stephen Leather - The Hunting

CHAPTER 10

There were more than a hundred men at Zuhr prayers, the early afternoon worship, and those that couldn’t fit into the main tent performed the ritual outside, their prayer mats on the desert floor. As usual Sid prayed on autopilot, spending most of the time thinking about the killings he’d seen early that morning. A group of ISIS fighters had arrived in a pick-up truck, with two bound and hooded kafirs in the back. The prisoners were American journalists who had been captured at an ISIS checkpoint. The men were freelancers and the decision had been taken to not bother asking for a ransom but to kill them immediately.

They were beheaded in front of the shower block. An ISIS flag had been nailed to the wall and the two men had been given orange jumpsuits to wear before being forced to kneel down and to beg their president to stop killing Muslims around the world. Their appeals were filmed on a small video camera, then two men, their faces covered with scarves, used machetes to hack off their heads. The way the men struggled and the blood spurted down their chests as their eyes had bulged in terror was something Sid would never forget.

When the prayers were over, Amer came over, clearly excited about something. ‘Bruv, that vest guy is here. The suicide vest expert. He’s going to be showing us what to do.’

‘Cool,’ said Sid.

Amer patted him on the back. ‘Show some more enthusiasm, bruv.’

Sid grimaced. ‘I don’t like the whole explosives thing,’ he said. ‘We’re fighters. We’re warriors. Bombs are … cowardly.’

‘There’s nothing cowardly about a suicide bomber,’ said Amer. ‘Blowing yourself up to kill infidels – that takes balls.’

‘Bruv, the shahids are usually borderline retarded. They get talked into it. Or forced to do it. I heard that sometimes they ply them with drugs before they do it.’

Amer lowered his voice and put his face closer to Sid’s. ‘Don’t let the imams hear you talk like that, bruv.’

‘I’m not stupid,’ said Sid. ‘But I don’t believe everything I’ve been told.’

Amer opened his mouth to say something, but then he turned his head away.

‘What?’ said Sid. ‘Something on your mind?’

Amer shifted his weight from foot to foot. ‘I saw what you did on the beach, bruv,’ he said quietly.

‘What do you mean?’

Amer looked around to make sure that no one was within earshot. ‘You know what I mean. You fired high.’

‘I did what?’

‘You fired high, bruv. You had a bead on that woman and her kids and you lifted the gun before you pulled the trigger and the rounds went high. Then Jaffar fired and they went down and you ran up the beach to the hotel.’

‘Are you on something, man? Why the fuck would you say that?’

‘Because I saw it with my own eyes.’ He lowered his voice and put his head closer to Sid’s. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t said nothing to nobody. But I saw what I saw.’

Sid grabbed Amer by the elbow. ‘If you tell anyone, I’m fucking dead.’

‘Hell, bruv, you think I don’t know that? I’m just saying I know, that’s all.’

‘I couldn’t shoot kids,’ whispered Sid. ‘Or their mum. I just couldn’t do it.’

‘I hear you.’

‘That’s not what I signed up for. I thought I’d be fighting troops, like a soldier. Not butchering women and children.’

‘It’s about inspiring terror, bruv. It’s nothing personal. And at the end of the day, a kafir’s a kafir.’

Sid released his grip on Amer’s arm. ‘Yeah, you’re right.’

‘Look bruv, I understand, I do. You’re a brother, but on that day you were killing your own. Most of the people on that beach were white, like you. If we’d been attacking Asian holidaymakers then maybe I’d be feeling the same.’

‘I’m a Muslim first, Amer.’

‘I know you are. No one’s saying you’re not. It’s no biggie, you killed your fair share of kafirs that day, no one’s complaining.’ Amer patted him on the back, put his arm around him and the two men walked towards the training area at the edge of the camp. There was a shooting range and an obstacle course that they had to complete several times a week. Several dozen fighters had already gathered there.

They saw Faaz talking to Sal and went over to join them. ‘Bruv, how long do you think they will keep us at the camp?’ Amer asked Faaz.

Faaz smiled and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Your impatience is admirable, brother, but there is no need to rush.’

‘I’m as trained as I need to be,’ said Amer. ‘I’m wasting my time here.’

‘Training time is never wasted time, brother,’ said Faaz.

‘I don’t need to be taught how to make suicide vests,’ said Amer. ‘We need to be on the offensive. We need to keep striking fear into the hearts of the kafirs.’

‘We will, brother. And soon. But in the meantime, better to train than to just sit idle.’

An elderly man with a white beard and thick-lensed spectacles walked over from the admin block. He was holding a large cardboard box and behind him was a younger man in a white thobe who was carrying a mannequin. Fighters gathered around them, intrigued by the mannequin. The elderly man put the box on a wooden trestle table and pulled out a brown canvas vest with multiple pockets. He put it on the mannequin. Sid saw Amer approach the man and talk to him. Sid grinned at Amer’s obvious enthusiasm.

‘We should get closer and hear what he has to say,’ Faaz said to Sid.

They walked towards the crowd. There were more than fifty men there and more were heading that way from the barracks. Amer was stroking the vest, and saying something to the old man, when all of a sudden there was a flash of light and a deafening bang – and then the sound of men screaming in pain and terror.

CHAPTER 11

The woman was bleeding to death and there was nothing Raj Patel could do about it. And her unborn child was in an even worse state. He stared down at the gaping wound in the woman’s abdomen and at the bullet lodged in the head of the baby. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. He looked at the half dozen masked faces, all staring at him and waiting for a decision. The woman had been wheeled into the operating theatre ten minutes earlier, the victim of a sniper who had taken to shooting pregnant women in the stomach. The anaesthetist had put her under right away, they had put her on a blood drip and Raj had opened her up. But as soon as he saw the internal damage, Raj realised there was nothing he could do. The bullet had tumbled through the woman’s liver before destroying the baby’s brain. The liver was beyond repair and that meant removal was his only option, but there was no dialysis equipment in the hospital and no chance of a transplant. The baby’s chest was still moving and its heart was still beating but the damage to the brain meant that even if he could keep it alive, it would never leave the hospital. The faces staring at him were blank. At first Raj didn’t recognise them but then one by one he realised who they were. His mother. His father. Dr Williams, his mentor back at St Mary’s Hospital in London. Ricky, his childhood friend who had died from leukaemia when he was at primary school and whose death had set him on course to being a doctor. Raj looked at his blood-stained hands. He wasn’t wearing surgical gloves, he realised. Or a mask. In fact he wasn’t wearing anything. He was naked. Stark bollock naked. The baby was crying, and Raj looked down at it. Its bloody hands were reaching up to him. ‘Help my mother, Dr Raj. Please help her Dr Raj.’

Raj opened his mouth to scream but then he woke up, gasping for breath. A Syrian nurse was standing over him. ‘Dr Raj, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Dr Eloias needs you in the theatre.’