34

When Arwood was stuck in the cell with Benton, he’d wondered what was behind the inner door, if only because, after so many years of game shows, he had no choice but to wonder what was behind curtain number two.

It turned out that when they finally dragged him through that door, there was nothing behind the proverbial curtain, because it led first into a small antechamber or guardroom, and then outside to a courtyard that could once have garrisoned a company of men and their horses. Outside, in that courtyard, Larry shot into the air as a signal or warning — a message in a language Arwood did not speak. Maybe it was a signal to someone. Maybe it was to make Benton think Arwood had been killed.

‘I’m not sure there’s been anyone to tell you guys, as you live in kind of a closed-off world that only reads its own press,’ Arwood says as he is pulled across the courtyard, ‘so just in case you don’t know this, you are in fact a bunch of complete fucking arseholes.’

What this journey behind the curtain has taught him is that the room where he was kept with Benton is but one corner of an old military fortification. Of the four square towers, only his holding cell and the one directly across from it look intact. The others were bombed out and ruined long ago. Connecting these four corners are castle walls. Arwood looks up as he walks, and views the mountains to the west. Ahead of him is only the wall. Beyond that is a clear view north into the plains in Ninawa that he cannot see.

Long ago, this fortification provided a high-terrain advantage — an Arab Masada. Later, when man took to the skies to kill from above, and war was fought from the wings of eagles, the advantage was lost.

As Arwood walks, he imagines the view of this fortress from inside the cockpit of an A-10 Thunderbolt — a plane that many call ugly, but one that Arwood has found stunningly beautiful since he was a boy. He made one with his uncle. He studied the specs. What might it be like to hear the 1,100 rounds of 11-inch-long 30mm tank-killer bullets ripping into these walls at four thousand rounds a minute? He smiles at his captors as he imagines those aerial gunfighters lingering over the fortress, giving close air support to onrushing infantry — flying low and slow, distinguishing friend from foe, getting their chins into the fight, and blowing these people to hell.

Inside the next room, he is tossed onto the floor. Half an hour later, Abu Larry comes in for a chat: he wants to know Arwood’s name and who he works for. Arwood explains that he is on assignment for Wallpaper Magazine to write an exposé on the interior design of terrorist holding cells.

‘And I’ve got to say,’ Arwood adds, ‘I love what you’ve done with the place.’

Abu Larry shoots him in the leg.

The bullet rips through his quadriceps. Arwood is then uncuffed, and allowed to tend to the wound. He is left alone, and there he sits for hours, thirsty beyond belief. Later, in the blackness of that night, the door opens, and Adar is pushed at him.

He rushes to her as best he can, and holds her face in his hands. She starts to cry when she sees him. He turns her head, and examines her scalp, neck, and shoulders. Though it is against every local code of behaviour, he turns her around and lifts up her garments, to reveal her bruised but unpunctured back and then belly. She does not resist him. When he is convinced she isn’t injured or bleeding, he again sits on the floor, and rests his body against the wall.

She sits by him, as she did on the Ural.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ he says.

Adar does not speak.

‘Did they touch you?’

Adar still does not speak.

Later, they toss in Jamal, too. He has the same gunshot wound as Arwood.

‘You OK?’ Arwood asks.

‘Of course I am not OK. They shot me.’

‘Have you seen Benton?’ Arwood asks.

‘No.’

Jamal explains that they gave him Adar’s dress to stop the bleeding of his wounds. They had told him that his companions were dead. Jamal said he was happy to see them, but he does not look happy.

‘Did they ask you any questions?’ Arwood asks.

‘My name. Who I worked for. If I was sent to spy on them.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Arwood says.

‘Do you think they are going to kill us, Mr Arwood?’ Jamal asks.

‘I think that whatever is about to happen is going to happen soon.’

He calls himself Abu Saleh. He talks at Märta and Tigger for twenty minutes about the imperialist West, about the treatment of the Palestinians, about the will of God, about the suffering of his people, about the meaning of jihad, about how Muslims must live by the word of the Koran, and how no power on earth will ever stop that from happening again, and how Märta and Tigger are now his hostages.

He explains how ISIL in Syria has new needs that separate it from al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says there will be a caliphate again. And the West will shudder.

Märta has never seen a man shot before. She does not know whether Tigger has, but she is glad he is the one to talk. ‘Time is wasting,’ Tigger says, sounding unimpressed and uninterested. ‘I suggest you tell us what you want, because we have a call scheduled at eight-thirty. And if we do not make that call at eight-thirty, then this conversation is over, and there will be consequences for everyone involved.’

‘You will give me your telephones now.’

Tigger, conscious of the time now and the window that is about to close on their chances, looks at Märta and tells her to place the call.

Abu Saleh raises his hand to signal his men to come.

Märta dials.

Tigger looks up, expecting to see two assault rifles in his face, but is surprised to see only the calm street.

The two henchmen are no longer at their posts. They no longer seem to be anywhere.

Abu Saleh looks at Tigger, and registers the look of confusion. He turns to look for his men, and finds them gone.

He shouts in Arabic for them to come.

Märta has dialled, and the phone rings.

‘Put it on the speaker and turn up the volume,’ Tigger says.

Abu Saleh, irritated for the first time with his new loss of control, shouts again for his men.

‘No one’s answering,’ Märta says.

‘There is no Plan B,’ Tigger says.

It is 8.32 a.m.

Yelling something in Arabic, Abu Saleh, certain his men are not coming, bursts to his feet and yanks a hidden pistol from his belt, and makes the mistake of leaning across the table to place the barrel of his gun against Märta’s heart.

Tigger is no longer in the military. When he was, he served in intelligence. He had no interest in joining the special forces, no compulsion to prove his manhood through brute force and sustained discomfort, and he did not believe that most conflicts could be solved by violence. He was a thinking soldier, and liked reasoning his way to victory.

Abu Saleh, sensing that Tigger is a man of talk, has made the error of equating that with weakness.

Abu Saleh is a tall man. Like Osama bin Laden was, he is spindly — not unlike Tigger himself. So when his Webley is extended across the table, and the edge of that table meets Saleh’s legs at mid-thigh, Tigger has little trouble using his own left hand to grab Saleh’s gun wrist and — rather than pushing against him — twist the man’s body, using inertia to pull him over the tabletop and flat onto his stomach, in a motion as smooth as dance.

With Abu Saleh prone, Tigger immediately twists his wrist to the breaking point while tucking Saleh’s arm into the pit of his own. With Saleh’s elbow and wrist painfully locked, and the weapon pointing harmlessly into the distance, Tigger bends his hand back until the gun comes loose.

Holding it in his right hand, he presses the barrel of the pistol into Abu Saleh’s temple without changing his own body position.

‘Oh, this is just swell,’ Märta says.

‘How’s that call coming?’

‘He hasn’t answered yet. When I said earlier I wanted them off- balance, this isn’t what I had in mind.’

‘Well, this is all very awkward for everyone,’ Tigger says.

‘Who are you?’ Abu Saleh asks.

‘Believe it or not,’ Tigger says, ‘we really are who we say we are. Only, we are not feeling ourselves today, because you have made us very nervous.’

Märta holds up her finger to silence them. The call is connecting.

She says, ‘Yes.’ There is silence while the voice on the phone speaks. ‘His name is Abu Saleh,’ Märta says next. ‘You know him?’ Märta nods to Tigger. ‘You’ll do this?’ she asks the voice on the phone.

Moving the phone away from her ear, she presses the speaker button and places it on the centre of the table beside Abu Saleh’s undignified and prone body.

‘It’s for you,’ she says.