The water bottle rolled from one side of the truck bed to the other as they went over bumps and potholes in the road. It was the most subtle form of torture imaginable. Mac was thirsty again within twenty minutes, and watching the water sloshing around inside the plastic only made matters worse. He would rather have been blindfolded.
Of course, that wasn’t true. He was now tied in such a way that he was sitting upright, with his back against the cab. He could hear pakul and keffiyeh talking or – more often – arguing in the front, but more importantly he could now see where they were going. As they drove, the poppy fields thinned out and the bland desert landscape came closer to the road. Eventually all signs of human enterprise disappeared and the road and the river parted company. Mac knew from having studied the map of Helmand before their mission to Najibullahkhan Kalay that from here on there was nothing but desert until they reached the villages along the southern border with Pakistan – but that was more than a hundred kilometres away.
Surely they weren’t going to drive on through the desert all night?
Hopes of being rescued faded. No one would venture down here. No one would even realise this was where he was being taken. And if he did manage to escape somehow, there was nowhere to go. He’d die of thirst, alone in the desert. Anxiety gnawed at his empty belly, and with each kilometre they travelled, panic bubbled closer to the surface.
Inside the cab, a sat phone chirruped.
One of the men answered – he didn’t know whether it was pakul or keffiyeh, as he hadn’t fixed their voices yet. There was a one-sided conversation, followed by a lengthy argument between the two men. Then the truck screeched to a halt and both men got out to continue their argument over the bonnet.
Their words meant nothing to Mac, but one of them sounded angrier, while the other seemed to be more placatory. He wondered who’d called them, and what had been said that had kicked off the row.
The two men climbed back into the truck, making it rock, and slammed their doors. The engine started and, to Mac’s surprise, the driver executed a fast three-point turn, churning up a cloud of dust as he revved the engine bad-temperedly. They were going back the way they’d come. Could Mac dare to hope that there had been a change of plan, and that they were taking him back to Lash?
Now they were driving faster than before, and inside the cab, pakul and keffiyeh were still arguing. Mac wondered which one of them was in charge. Maybe keffiyeh, as it was he who’d made the decision to give Mac a drink. But maybe he was just the more humane of the two.
Whatever hopes Mac had harboured during the hours of being jolted in the back of the truck like a sack of potatoes were summarily crushed when, without any warning, they took a sharp left turn off the road onto a dirt track. Mac was slammed sideways against his bindings, and then back the other way as the truck straightened. Now they were heading north-west. Mac tried to picture the map of Helmand in his mind, but he couldn’t remember any side roads off the main road heading south. God knew where they were headed, but it wasn’t back to Lash.
Mac looked around, trying to pick out features in the landscape that he might be able to remember easily, even if travelling in the opposite direction, but the land was dry and barren, and none of the rocks were different enough from each other to stand out. It made it impossible to estimate how far they had travelled and unlikely that he would recognise this stretch again if he needed to. The rutted track made for harder going. They had slowed down and the constant bumping and jarring exacerbated every one of Mac’s injuries – his tooth, his collarbone, his knee. Sunburn on his face, scalp and the back of his neck was now an added factor, and his mouth was as dry as it had been before the water.
A steep incline down heralded a change to the landscape. They were descending into a river valley. Back at the Helmand River along the stretch that turned west? Mac felt too disorientated to feel sure, but he was damn certain there weren’t any other sizeable rivers in the region. As they reached the flat plain through which the river snaked, once again there were areas of irrigation, and once again they found themselves passing by pink and purple poppy fields.
The sun had turned into a fiery ball on the western horizon, but the heat had hardly abated and Mac’s clothes were stiff and salt-stained with sweat. He was losing valuable hydration and starting to feel light-headed. They passed through two tiny villages, and it struck Mac that down here, his captors evidently saw no need to hide their trophy. A few kids, an old woman and the ubiquitous donkeys all ignored him, if they even noticed him. Perhaps the sight of kidnapped westerners had become commonplace to them, or perhaps they valued their lives enough to pretend they’d seen nothing. Either way, he wasn’t going to find help in these remote communities.
A sudden lurch and a change of sound from the tyres made Mac straighten up. The track they were on forded the river to cross over to the northern bank. A few splashes of water hit him on the arms and torso, but nothing like enough to cool him down. Then they were driving on gravel on the other side, until they picked up another rutted track.
The interminable drive went on.
All the time he’d been strapped to the light bar, Mac had been straining against the nylon rope that held him in place, and working his wrists against their bindings. If only he could get one hand free, he might be able to reach the bottle of water. He might be able to loosen the other hand and untie his feet. Even escape. But the knots held tight, and he felt he was making no progress at all. Any chance of escape wouldn’t come while he was still in the back of the truck, so now he longed for them to arrive at wherever they were going. What they had in store for him, he couldn’t guess, but he’d had enough of this hellish journey.
Eventually, as the sun was finally slipping away behind the low hills to the west, he heard pakul and keffiyeh arguing again. The truck slowed down – they were coming into another village. This settlement was larger than the previous few and there was even a handful of walled compounds. Mac guessed it was the southern stronghold of one of the narco barons. His heart fluttered as adrenalin surged, and as they made a turn off the track, fear bubbled up through his chest. Perhaps he could do with the journey lasting longer after all.
They came to a stop, and there was a hurried conversation which included a third voice. He heard the creaking of heavy hinges, and they pulled forward, through a gateway into a walled compound. A man closed the gates behind them, staring at Mac with undisguised disdain as he passed. He was heavily bearded and in traditional dress, with a Krinkov slung over one shoulder.
When the truck stopped, another two men appeared and, shouting excitedly, untied Mac from the light bar and dragged him out of the truck. Their eyes shone as if they were unwrapping a longed-for Christmas present, making Mac feel like a turkey ready for the oven.
‘Speak English?’ he said, looking from one to the other, as they dropped him unceremoniously on the ground. More men emerged from the compound building and gathered round to stare. ‘Do any of you bastards speak English?’
Maybe it wasn’t the right way to phrase the question, but Mac wasn’t expecting a reply. What he got instead was a kick in the ribs, though whether this was because the boot’s owner understood what he said or simply wanted to shut him up, who knew?
Pakul and keffiyeh were out of the truck, and Mac watched as an older man with a white beard drew them to one side. They spoke for a few minutes and then a large wad of US dollars changed hands.
He’d just been sold, presumably to the highest bidder. He hoped he was worth the money.