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  The Major’s mobile rang. It was Yokely. ‘They’ve taken him inside a house,’ said the American.

  ‘Is he okay?’ asked the Major.

  ‘They carried him in and he wasn’t moving, but if he was dead they’d have left him in the trunk.’

  ‘That’s reassuring,’ said the Major, coldly.

  ‘I’ll text you the co-ordinates but you should keep your distance. He’s still in Dora and Westerners stick out there.’

  ‘We’ll hang back,’ said the Major.

  ‘We’re going to bring the plane in for refuelling now,’ said Yokely. ‘Everything seems quiet and I’d rather be up there with a full tank. We’ll be down for about two hours. The transmitter’s still working fine so we’ll know if they move him. I’m getting our NSA guys here to monitor the tracker through the Iraqi phone service.’

  ‘Any sign of him moving, let me know,’ said the Major. He ended the call, then rang Armstrong to brief him on what the American had said. Armstrong was parked half a mile away in another Land Cruiser with Shortt, Bosch and Haschka.

  ‘Why doesn’t he have two of those things up?’ asked O’Brien from the back seat when the Major finished his call. He had a KitKat, which he broke into two. He offered half to Gannon, who shook his head. Muller grabbed for it but O’Brien grinned and moved it out of his reach.

  ‘We’re lucky to have the one, Martin,’ said the Major. ‘They cost over four million dollars each, the ground station is another ten, and they need a ground crew of three working on it full time when it’s in the air. Yokely’s doing it on the quiet because the Yanks wouldn’t want to put that amount of resources into one missing Brit.’

  ‘He’s a generous guy,’ said O’Brien, popping the last piece of KitKat into his mouth.

  ‘He’ll want his pound of flesh at some point,’ said the Major, ‘but we need him. We could follow the transmitters using the regular Iraqi phone network but the Predator gives us a visual, too.’

  ‘I hope he’s okay,’ said Muller.

  ‘You and me both,’ said the Major.

  Shepherd tasted blood in his mouth, turned his head and spat it out, then regretted it because the result was smeared across the inside of the hood. His head was throbbing, the pain was made worse because he was lying on his back. He rolled on to his right side and felt a searing pain in his skull. He took several deep breaths, then lay still and listened. He could hear nothing, not even street noise. He was lying on hard ground, possibly concrete. His wrists were bound behind his back and he had lost all feeling in his fingers. He brought his knees up, then tried to roll over to get up. The strength had gone from his legs and he fell back.

  He lay gasping for breath, then heard a door open and footsteps walking across the floor. Hands gripped his shoulders and turned him. Someone pulled up the hood and thrust a plastic bottle towards his mouth. Shepherd drank. It was lukewarm water. The man held the bottle to Shepherd’s lips until he spluttered, then took it away and pulled down the hood. He turned Shepherd around, then pushed him back until he was against the wall. They’d taken off his body armour.

  ‘Sit,’ said the man.

  Shepherd had the feeling he was the tall man with glasses, the one who’d pulled the gun. He slid down the wall and sat with his back to it, his knees against his chest. ‘I need to urinate,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘What?’ said the man.

  ‘I need to pee. To piss.’

  ‘Wet your pants,’ said the man. ‘I am not untying your hands.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Something hit Shepherd on the side of the head, a hand maybe. The man had slapped him, hard. ‘I will ask questions, not you,’ said the man.

  ‘Okay,’ said Shepherd, his ears ringing. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Peter Simpson,’ said Shepherd. It was the name in the passport and on the credit cards in his wallet.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Manchester,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘What are you doing in Baghdad?’

  ‘I work for a security company,’ said Shepherd.

  Shepherd heard paper rustling and realised that the man was flicking through his passport.

  ‘How long have you been in Iraq?’

  ‘I arrived yesterday.’

  The man chuckled. ‘You are in deep shit, Mr Peter Simpson,’ he said. Shepherd felt the man slap his boots. ‘Timberland?’ asked the man.

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What size?’ asked the man.

  ‘They’re on the move,’ said Nichols, nodding at the LCD screen and its real-time view of the house where Shepherd had been kept for the previous twelve hours. Yokely got up from the camp-bed he was lying on and went to stand at the other man’s shoulder. It was night and they were looking at the infrared image from the Predator.

  Three figures were moving from the house to the car. The one in the middle was stumbling, held by the other two. ‘He’s walking,’ said Nichols.

  Yokely nodded. ‘They must be passing him up the food chain,’ he said. He called the Major’s mobile. ‘They’re moving him now,’ Yokely told him.

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘He’s walking. They’re putting him in the car.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said the Major.

  ‘I’ll let you know which direction once they head off.’ Yokely put his phone away. ‘How’s it going, Phillip?’ he asked the pilot.

  ‘Hunky-dory,’ said Howell, who was sipping coffee from a chipped white mug. He had been piloting the Predator for more than sixteen hours and had only been able to take his eyes off the screens for the two hours when the drone was on the airfield being refuelled and serviced.

  ‘Fuel?’

  Howell flicked his eyes to the gauge and calculated in his head. ‘Fifteen hours or so.’

  Yokely looked at the GPS display. The cursor was blinking steadily. He smiled to himself. So far, so good.

  ‘I can’t breathe in there,’ said Shepherd, as the two men pushed him into the boot of the car.

  ‘What?’ said one of the men. It wasn’t the man who’d spoken to him inside – this voice was deeper and gruffer.

  ‘The exhaust’s leaking,’ said Shepherd. ‘The fumes will kill me.’

  ‘Hold your breath,’ said the man, and laughed. He grabbed Shepherd’s shirt collar and pushed him towards the boot.

  ‘If you kill me, I’m not worth anything,’ said Shepherd, quickly. ‘I kept passing out before and I could easily die in there.’

  The two men talked to each other in Arabic, arguing. Shepherd heard footsteps as the third of his captors approached, then the voice of the man who’d interrogated him inside.

  The man put his face close to Shepherd’s head. ‘What is the problem?’ he said.

  ‘The exhaust is leaking,’ said Shepherd. ‘The boot gets full of fumes. I kept passing out last time.’

  ‘You want to travel first class, is that it?’ The man said something to the others, who laughed.

  Shepherd opened his mouth but before he could say anything something hard smashed against the side of his head.

  Nichols winced. ‘That’s got to have hurt,’ he said. ‘Why did they do it?’

  ‘Because they’re tough, mean motherfuckers,’ said Yokely.

  ‘They’ve got him bound and hooded. Hitting him is overkill,’ said Slater.

  ‘No one said they were nice people,’ said Yokely.

  They watched as two of the men put the unconscious Shepherd into the boot while the third got into the driving seat. They slammed the boot shut, then one slid into the passenger seat while the other held back to shut the gates behind them. There was no other traffic in the road.

  Howell moved the joystick and put the drone into a lazy left-hand turn. Slater moved his control to keep the car in the centre of the screen. There wasn’t much traffic about so he had no problem following the vehicle, but it still required his full attention.

  Yokely pulled up a chair
. He moved his head frequently to keep an eye on both screens – the infrared camera view and the GPS monitor.

  ‘When are you going to move in?’ asked Howell.

  ‘That’ll be Spider’s call,’ said Yokely.

  ‘He’d better not leave it too late,’ said Howell.

  ‘I hear you,’ said Yokely.

  When Shepherd came to he was still in the boot. His head ached and he couldn’t feel his hands. The car was driving fast and the road seemed smooth. His mouth was bone-dry and it hurt to swallow. The exhaust smell was overpowering and he rolled over again so that his mouth was close to the boot’s lock. The combination of the hood and the fumes was making him drowsy and he fought to stay awake. ‘Please, God, don’t let me die like this …’ he whispered.

  Yokely watched the car on the infrared monitor. It had been driving for almost forty minutes and had now left the city, heading south towards Yusufiyah, a farming area between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. On the monitor it moved along a road that cut through fields filled with orange and date groves. Yokely looked at the GPS screen. Yusufiyah was a Sunni stronghold, and had been ever since the coalition forces had invaded Iraq. It wasn’t exactly a no-go area for the military but when they went in they went in hard and tended to stay in their vehicles.

  The car made a left turn, slowed, stopped at an intersection, then made a right turn. It pulled up in front of a large L-shaped building that was surrounded by a wall. Several vans were parked outside. Two figures came out, opened a gate and the car drove in.

  ‘Simon, see if you can ID that building,’ said Yokely.

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Nichols.

  ‘You think that’s where they’re holding the other guy?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Difficult to say,’ said Yokely. ‘We watch and wait. Softly, softly, catchy monkey.’

  ‘See, now, I’ve never understood that expression,’ said Howell, as he put the Predator into a slow left bank. ‘Monkeys are smart and you can’t creep up on one, no matter how slow you take it. You wanna take out a monkey, you shoot it with a tranquilliser gun.’

  ‘You always were a stickler for detail, Phillip.’

  ‘Pilots have to be,’ said Howell. ‘Otherwise they forget things like putting their landing gear down.’

  The men got out of the car and gathered around the boot. One opened it.

  ‘He’s not moving,’ said Slater.

  ‘I see that,’ said Yokely, quietly.

  Two ghostly white figures on the screen pulled Shepherd out and carried him into the building. Another closed the gate and followed the others. Yokely divided his attention between the two screens. The GPS monitor continued to blink. They knew where Shepherd was, but not whether he was alive or dead.

  The Major’s phone rang. He put it to his ear. ‘Yes, Richard?’

  ‘It’s good news, and bad news, I’m afraid,’ said the American. ‘We know where he is but he’s not moving.’

  ‘Shit,’ said the Major.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked O’Brien, from the back seat.

  ‘He walked out of the building and they hit him before they put him in the trunk,’ said Yokely. ‘Could be he’s just concussed.’

  ‘But we’ve no way of knowing,’ said the Major.

  ‘We watch and wait,’ said Yokely. ‘He’s in Yusufiyah, about thirty miles south of Baghdad. Problem is, it’s not as built up as Baghdad and Westerners tend to stick out.’

  ‘My inclination is to go in now,’ said the Major.

  ‘I understand that,’ said Yokely, ‘but we’ve got them under surveillance. They can’t go anywhere without us knowing so let’s give it a few more hours.’

  ‘Okay,’ said the Major, reluctantly, and put away the phone. He explained to Muller, O’Brien and Jordan what had happened.

  O’Brien cursed. ‘If he’s dead, we go in and we go in hard, right?’

  ‘He’s not dead,’ said the Major. He turned to Muller. ‘What can you tell me about Yusufiyah?’

  ‘It’s full of al-Qaeda militants. They call it the Triangle of Death and it’s a haven for insurgents. Is that where they’ve taken Spider?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said the Major.

  ‘If anything goes wrong, if he doesn’t get out of this, every one of those bastards gets it,’ said Muller. ‘Every single one.’

  Shepherd coughed and pain lanced his skull. He groaned. He could taste blood in his mouth. He was lying on his side on rough matting, which smelled of mould. He coughed again.

  ‘Do you want water?’ said a heavily accented voice behind him.

  Shepherd heard footsteps, then someone pulled at his shoulder and helped him to sit up. His hands were still tied behind him. The hood was lifted and the neck of a plastic bottle was forced between his lips. Shepherd drank for several seconds, then the bottle was taken away. The hood fell back into place. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You should rest,’ said the man. He helped Shepherd lie down again.

  ‘My wrists hurt,’ said Shepherd. ‘Can you loosen them?’

  ‘No,’ said the man.

  ‘I can’t feel my hands,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Shut up,’ said a second voice, harsher than the first. Shepherd heard a rustle of clothing then a foot slammed into his kidney. The blow took him by surprise and he screamed at the pain.

  ‘There’s movement,’ said Nichols. ‘A guy’s just left the house and gone to the car.’ He was studying the output from the Predator’s infrared sensor. It was eleven o’clock in the evening and the regular video output had shown nothing but darkness since eight.

  Yokely got up off the camp-bed and walked over to stand behind him. Two more figures left the house and got into the car. Another went to the gate, pulled it back and the car eased into the street. ‘They’re taking a risk moving him at night,’ said Yokely. ‘It’s well into curfew and if they come across an army patrol, they’ll be shot to pieces.’

  Yokely stared at the screen that showed the position of the transmitter hidden in Shepherd’s boot. The cursor was still on the building, which suggested that Shepherd was inside it. It looked as if his kidnappers were returning home, which meant they had handed him over to the next link in the chain.

  The figure closed the gate and went back into the building.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Howell. ‘Stick with the house or follow the car?’

  ‘Stay put,’ said Yokely. ‘They’ve sold him to whoever’s in there. The question is, is it Wafeeq or not?’

  ‘With respect, the question is whether or not your man is still alive,’ said Howell, who was keeping the drone in a gentle left-hand turn some twenty thousand feet above the building.

  ‘Do try to be a bit more optimistic, Phillip,’ said Yokely.

  ‘They’ve hit him on the head twice, hard,’ said the pilot.

  ‘They’re thick-skulled, the Brits,’ said Yokely. ‘How are we doing for fuel?’

  ‘Thirteen hours or so,’ said Howell.

  ‘What’s the plan now?’ asked Slater.

  ‘We see if they move Shepherd on or keep him there.’

  ‘You’re thinking of going in?’

  ‘I want all my bases covered,’ said Yokely.

  ‘Richard, we’ve got a problem,’ said Nichols. He pointed at the GPS monitor. ‘Do you see that?’

  ‘Yeah, I see it,’ said Yokely. The flashing cursor that showed the position of the transmitter had moved. It was now almost a mile from the house.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ asked Howell. ‘Is one of those guys your man? And if it is, why did he get into the car willingly?’

  The Major’s mobile rang. It was Yokely. ‘We’ve got a problem,’ said the American. ‘According to the GSM, Shepherd’s on the move, back to the first place he was being held.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said the Major. ‘They were passing him up the chain and there’s no reason for him to go back.’ He cursed quietly. ‘The boots?’

  ‘I guess so. I think t
he original kidnappers have gone home with their ill-gotten gains, leaving Shepherd in the house without the transmitter.’

  ‘How’s the visual?’ asked the Major.

  ‘All we have is the infrared so we’ve no way of knowing what’s going on inside. We don’t know if that’s the place where Geordie Mitchell’s being held or if it’s another half-way house and they’re planning to move Shepherd on again. The infrared doesn’t work in buildings and if we’ve lost the transmitter we’ll have to rely on the visual to see if they take him out.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ asked the Major.

  ‘We need to know what’s going on inside the building,’ said Yokely. ‘If that’s where they’ve got Geordie, we can get ready to move in. But if it isn’t and it’s just another link in the chain, we have to wait and see.’

  ‘And I’m sure you want to know if Wafeeq’s in there,’ said the Major.

  ‘The two are connected, Allan. Let’s not forget that. Look, the Predator can watch the building and we can track the GPS, so at the moment there’s no panic. I’m going to pay the original kidnappers a visit.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘Information retrieval,’ said Yokely. ‘It’s what I do best.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ said the Major.

  ‘They can tell me what’s happening inside that building. For all we know they’ve already put him in an orange jumpsuit,’ said Yokely. ‘The three guys who took him off the street are heading home. We can interrogate them and keep them in cold storage until it’s over. I don’t see a downside.’

  ‘Okay,’ said the Major. What the American proposed made sense, but he was starting to feel that stable doors were being locked after horses had bolted.

  ‘I’d like to take Armstrong and Shortt with me,’ said Yokely. ‘I’m loath to bring in the heavy guns at this stage. If it becomes a full military operation, alarm bells’ll ring.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said the Major.

  ‘I’m about thirty miles away from them so I’ll get a lift out there. Can you call and tell them to expect me?’

  ‘Roger that,’ said the Major. He ended the call and twisted around in his seat to Muller and O’Brien. ‘It’s got a bit more complicated,’ he said. He could tell from their faces that they had gathered what the problem was.