Deep Black - Andy McNab [80]
‘Salkic almost lives in there. That’s where we meet him. But Benzil can’t go inside the mosque. They’d smell him. So I go. I’m really good at all the prayers now.’ He was quite proud of himself.
Benzil looked at me over the top of his dark glasses. ‘But now I fear Mr Nuhanovic may have already left for Sarajevo, earlier than expected.’
We worked our way through a market selling vehicle parts, American uniforms, weapons, and some of the drugs that should have been in the kids’ hospital they’d visited that morning. The skeletons of Iraqi military trucks were everywhere, along with the twisted remains of the odd Hummer and a burnt-out AFV.
‘I hope we can meet. I know I can convince him it’s the right thing to do. He’s a target for so many people. The West want him dead because he can unite Muslims, the corporations because of the boycotts, the fundamentalists because he’s preaching the wrong message.’ He nodded out towards the crush of people in the market. ‘Some of his enemies are here, just the other side of this glass.’
He removed his gigs and leaned back against the door. ‘I have talked enough about our situation. But what about you, Nick, what is your place in the story? Would you like to be part of something different? Would you like to be part of keeping him alive?’
Soon the market was behind us. We bounced along pitch-black, deserted streets and Rob hit the lights.
Both of them were silent now. I didn’t know if it was because we were nearly there, or they were giving me time to think.
Benzil must have been reading my mind – or was it showing on my face? ‘No need to rush your decision, Nick. We have time.’
There was a heavy, dull thud. The front of the vehicle lifted. The windscreen shattered. The car rose up and over to the right, then bounced back down. Rounds rained into the bodywork, punching through the steel.
Rob lunged for the footwell, scrabbling for the AK. Two rounds thumped into his neck, spraying the interior with blood. His head lolled from his shoulders, held by just a few ligaments.
I shoved the door and rolled out on to the road. Glass showered down on me. Petrol spewed out of the vehicle as more heavy 7.62 AK rounds ripped through metal.
I turned back, trying to grab Benzil, but I was too late. He was slumped in the footwell. The rounds poured in. I kept low, sprinted back to the junction, turned right and leaped over a fence. I landed in a garden.
60
Kids screamed. Dogs barked. My legs weren’t moving as fast as my head wanted them to. It felt as if I was running in mud.
People peered from their windows and shouted when they spotted me. ‘American! American!’ A couple of women started the Red Indian warble.
There were a couple of long bursts from near the vehicle as I ran down a narrow alley between two tall breezeblock walls. Arab screams echoed behind me. A burst water main had left the ground slimy and I lost my footing. I stumbled over a pile of rotting garbage and fell face down. Scrambling on all fours to move forwards and get up, I saw headlights moving back and forth about seventy metres ahead. All I wanted to do was get there and turn, it didn’t matter which way – anything to get out of the line of sight and fire.
I kept running, not bothering to look back. My feet kicked old cans and newspapers. My hands were stinging like I’d fallen into a nettle bed.
I stopped about two metres short of the road, and had a quick check left and right. A few pedestrians hovered on the dark pavements. Some shops and houses had electricity, others just a flicker of candlelight.
I was covered in Rob’s blood. My hands were soaked with it; shards of glass were sticking to it. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to regain my breath.
There was a junction about twenty metres down. I stepped out of the alley and started along the pavement, concentrating hard on the weeds growing in the cracks between the paving-stones, keeping myself in the shadows.
A couple of people spotted me immediately and pointed. Somebody behind me shouted. I ignored it and kept going. All I wanted to do was