Stephen Leather - The Hunting

A man stood over Raj and there was the crackle of a taser but as the man struck Raj rolled off the bed. He hit the concrete floor and rolled again, then came up in a fighting crouch. There were men with tasers everywhere, and men with carbines, all wearing night vision goggles, moving like ghosts in the darkness. The man who had tried to taser him walked around the camp bed. The taser crackled again. Raj kicked out and caught the man in the hip, then he stepped forward and punched him in the chin, sending him sprawling. A man with a carbine appeared in front of Raj and pointed his weapon at Raj’s chest. He was about to pull the trigger when a taser crackled behind Raj and he went into spasm, falling to the floor.

When he came to, he was being dragged face down across the desert floor, his bare feet scraping through the sand. He gasped for breath. It was pitch dark outside but he could just make out the squat bulk of a Chinook helicopter, its twin rotors turning slowly. ‘Guys, I’m on your side,’ he gasped. His captors ignored him. He tried to speak again but there was so much sand in the air that he began to choke and cough. The two men dragged him over to the ramp at the rear of the helicopter, and then hauled him to his feet. The interior of the Chinook was lit by red bulbs and he could make out Erol and Jaffar sitting on seats bolted to the sides, flanked by soldiers. ‘Guys, listen to me, I’m a Brit, I’m not …’ He heard the crackle of a taser once more and he passed out.

This time when Raj regained consciousness he was harnessed into a seat and his wrists had been ziptied. The noise from the twin turbines was deafening. He looked left and right. The men either side of him were wearing military fatigues but with no markings to say who they were with. Navy SEALs, maybe, or Delta Force. They were wearing Kevlar helmets with night vision goggles attached, and again there were no markings. The two men were staring straight ahead and both were chewing gum. Raj knew that there was nothing he could say to them that would change the outcome of what was happening. At some point he was sure that someone would listen to him and understand that a mistake had been made, but now wasn’t the time.

They had removed his watch but it felt as if they had been in the air for less than an hour when the massive helicopter began to descend. It landed with a double thump, then the rotor slowed and the rear ramp was lowered. The prisoners were taken from their seats and manhandled down the ramp. Overhead, with a roar of its engines, a jet was taking off. They were at an airfield, Raj realised. A military airfield by the look of it. They were probably in Turkey, he thought. Incirlik Air Base, maybe.

When he reached the bottom of the ramp, he stopped and spoke earnestly to the man who was gripping his right arm. ‘Listen, my name is Rajesh Patel. I was born in London.’

‘Half the foreign ISIS fighters out here were born in London,’ growled the man.

‘You’ve got the wrong fucking guy.’

The man took a set of plastic cards linked with a metal ring from his pocket. He flicked through it and then held up one of the cards next to Raj’s head. ‘That’s you,’ he said.

‘Show me.’

The man showed the card to Raj. On it was an image of an Asian man with a close-cropped beard and piercing brown eyes. There was a likeness, Raj could see that, but it definitely wasn’t him. ‘That’s not me,’ he said.

‘It fucking looks like you.’

The man read the name on the back of the card. ‘Amer Qasim,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Your name. It’s Amer Qasim.’

‘I told you my name. It’s Rajesh Patel. Raj.’

‘Where’s your ID?’

‘In my wallet.’

The man began to pat down Raj’s trousers.

‘It’s not there,’ said Raj. ‘It’s back at the hospital.’

‘What hospital?’

‘The hospital I work at.’

‘You work at a hospital but you sleep at an ISIS training camp?’ The man laughed harshly. ‘Do I look fucking stupid?’ He grabbed Raj’s shoulder. ‘Get on the plane.’ He gestured at a Gulfstream G550, parked on the tarmac fifty metres away from the Chinook.

Another man led Sid from the helicopter ramp towards the plane. Raj gestured with his chin at Sid. ‘Ask him, he’ll tell you. He’ll tell you who I am.’ The man ignored him so Raj shouted over at Sid. ‘Sid, mate, tell him I’m not with you.’

Sid tried to speak but the man escorting him pushed him in the small of the back. Sid stumbled forward. The man pushed him again. ‘No talking!’ he barked.

Raj flashed his own escort a pleading look. ‘He’ll tell you who I am,’ he said. ‘Just ask him.’

‘You know him?’

‘His name’s Sid, He’s from London, too.’

The men sneered at Raj. ‘So you know his name’s Sid, he knows you, you’re both from London and we grab you both from an ISIS training camp in Syria. But you’re not really a terrorist?’

Raj opened his mouth to speak but the man backhanded him, hard. Raj tasted blood and his ears were ringing. He tried to speak but the man slapped him again. ‘You say one more fucking word and I’ll drag you unconscious onto that plane.’ He grabbed Raj by the throat, squeezed hard and then thrust him towards the Gulfstream.

There were now four of the men that had been taken from the camp standing at the steps leading up to the hatch of the plane. Four men in fatigues were standing guard holding Heckler & Koch 416s with the barrels aimed at the tarmac. The HK416 was the favoured weapon of American Navy SEALs and Delta Force but they didn’t look like special forces to Raj. Most of the special forces guys that Raj had met in the past had been super fit and usually under thirty. These guys seemed older and heavier, so Raj figured they were former soldiers working in the private sector. But for whom?

He joined the queue at the bottom of the steps. The Asian guy at the front of the queue was being handed a white adult disposable nappy, the sort they gave to patients in hospitals who were at risk of soiling themselves. The man was told to remove his pants, put on the nappy and then put his pants back on. It was Sal, Raj realised. One of the Somalians. Sal was struggling to follow the instructions, his bound hands making it difficult to remove his underwear.

Raj turned to look at his captor but the man grinned before he could even phrase the question. ‘It’s going to be a long flight.’

‘Why can’t we use the toilet?’

‘Because you’re going to be hooded, shackled and handcuffed,’ said the man.

‘Where are you taking us?’

The man’s grin widened. ‘You don’t get the concept of the hood, do you?’

Raj opened his mouth to reply but the man raised his hand and glared at him as if daring Raj to speak. Raj sighed and averted his eyes.

Sal was taken up the stairs. A man at the top shackled his ankles and led him inside the plane.

More prisoners were brought from the Chinook and forced to line up behind Raj. One by one the three in front of him were made to put on the nappies, hooded and taken up the steps. Erol. Then Jaffar. Then Abdullah.

When it was Raj’s turn, he refused the nappy with a shake of his head. ‘I’ve got control of my bladder,’ he said to the man.

‘You don’t know how long we’ll be in the air for, and the hood and the shackles aren’t coming off until the wheels touch the ground so shut the fuck up and put on the diaper.’

Raj leant closer to him. ‘Mate, I know you won’t listen to me man to man, but can I at least appeal to you soldier to soldier?’

‘What the fuck are you talking about? Either put the fucking diaper on now or we’ll taser you and put it on while you’re unconscious.’

‘Listen to me, I was a Royal Marines Commando, pretty much the same training as you went through. I served in Afghanistan, I’m one of the good guys.’ He nodded at the gun which was in the nylon holster on the man’s hip. ‘Your weapon is a Glock 19, which pretty much replaced the SIG Sauer P226 as the sidearm of choice for SEALs. It only has thirty-four parts and it will still fire with eleven of those parts missing. When I was with the Marines I was issued with a Glock 17, which replaced the Brownings that we used to use. We had seventeen rounds in the magazine as opposed to yours which only has fifteen in the clip, but I guess it’s not how many rounds you have it’s what you do with them, right? Look, I was a soldier, the same as you.’