Time was passing, and Mac was losing hope that the ransom video would lead to a rescue attempt. Survival was going to be down to him, and him alone. Physically, he was hardly in shape to mount an escape – his knee was as swollen as ever, and he continued to suffer intermittent stomach cramps and bouts of diarrhoea. He had no choice but to continue drinking the dirty water they gave him in unwashed plastic bottles. It was a vicious circle of drinking water to stay hydrated, but knowing that water was causing his stomach problems. And a diet of stale naan was not really building his strength.
However, he was determined. He wasn’t going to die here without putting up a fight. He watched through the tiny window, and spent hours stretching and flexing his muscles against his bindings for exercise. Now, whenever Pistol Boy came to bring him his rations, he was compliant and pretended to be weaker and more ill than he actually was.
In his mind, he rehearsed a daring escape plan. Daring because of the number of unknowns he would be dealing with. How many men? How many weapons? How could he get out of the storeroom? Getting out of the compound while surrounded by multiple hostiles was his biggest problem. Ideally, he would wait until the small hours, when most of his captors were asleep, but he could only get out of the storeroom by jumping whichever guard came with his evening food and water. So it would have to be early evening. And once he had set the plan in motion by ambushing the guard, he would have to commit to it one hundred per cent. As soon as he was out of the storeroom, it would be essential to minimise the amount of time that he remained inside the compound.
The main gate was always guarded by two men – he knew this as he could hear them talking and laughing through the day. Even at night, there were two men at the gate. He sometimes heard them speaking, and occasionally he would hear one of them snoring, but they would certainly still be awake at the time when he’d have to break out of the storeroom. They were armed, so he couldn’t consider the gate as a route out.
That left him with one other option – he would have to go over the wall. And maybe his chance had come.
This morning, Pistol Boy had given him his breakfast in a rush, untying his hands and then hurrying away. He never came back to re-secure him. Left alone, Mac untied his ankles. Then he spent the rest of the morning watching and waiting. He still wasn’t entirely sure how many men there were in the compound, certainly five at least, maybe more. In the afternoon, he visualised what he would need to do. He knew his chances of success were minimal, but if he rehearsed it in his mind enough times, he would be able to put his plan into action more fluidly.
For some reason, Pistol Boy was late with his evening meal. This suited Mac fine, as by the time he arrived it was almost dark outside.
Mac listened for his approaching footsteps, and took up position behind the storeroom door. When it opened, before Pistol Boy had the chance to look round for him, he raised his arms and smashed a full plastic jerrycan down on the kid’s head. Pistol Boy crumpled to the ground like a rag doll, dropping his pistol with a clatter.
Mac pulled him inside and quickly closed the door, as quietly as he could. He hoped that no one had heard the noise of the falling gun or the thud of the can on the kid’s head or, if they had, they had not attached any significance to it. With his back resting against the door, he listened, waiting for any response to what had happened. After a minute of silence outside, he knelt down and checked Pistol Boy’s pulse. The lad was out for the count, so Mac picked up his pistol, a Makarov, and searched his clothing for anything useful, helping himself to a battered pocketknife with a scarred wooden handle. Working as quickly as he could, he pulled the keffiyeh from around Pistol Boy’s neck and ripped it into strips. This enabled him to tie the boy’s hands, and to gag and blindfold him. Then he opened the door a crack and squinted out through the gap. In the twilight, the compound was full of shadows – in fact the entire wall that encompassed the heroin factory was in deep darkness. That was good, as this was his initial destination.
Opening the door a little wider, he slipped outside. He closed it silently behind him and found that he was able to snap shut the padlock. When Pistol Boy came round, he would be trapped in the storeroom – one less hostile for him to deal with. He peered cautiously round the edge of the small building. The guards on the gate were whispering about something, their heads bent close to each other. They were there to deal with external threats, and hardly took any notice of what was happening inside the compound behind them, and it didn’t seem like they’d heard anything from inside the storeroom. Other than this, the place seemed to be deserted. He guessed that everyone else was inside, sharing the evening meal. How long would it take for them to realise Pistol Boy was missing?
He scurried across empty ground, trusting that neither of the guards would pick that moment to glance around. He was in luck, and a couple of seconds later he was out of their sight, with his back pressed against the rear wall of the house. He had moved carefully, and the sound of the generator had covered the noise of his feet.
Pausing for breath, he listened again. There was a shuttered window in the wall above him, and he could hear the sound of voices from inside as the men ate their meal. Good. This was his moment. He moved quickly in the shadows along the back of the house and then darted across to the far wall where the heroin factory was situated. Halfway to his destination, the generator suddenly shut down.
The compound went silent as the house was plunged into darkness. Mac’s footsteps now sounded horribly loud in the empty seconds before the men inside started shouting. Confusion broke out, and Mac heard the guards running towards the house. Doors slammed, and then more people were running outside. Mac dived for cover behind an empty oil drum standing in the shadow of the high compound wall. Pain radiated from his knee up and down his leg, and he pressed himself into the ground as he waited for it to subside. He didn’t know if his captors had heard him or not. The shouting and footsteps congregated at the generator – that would be their first priority, but then Mac heard a shout go up from the other side of the compound. Had someone discovered what had happened to Pistol Boy?
Holding the pistol up, ready to fire, Mac peered cautiously around his oil drum. He could see four men gathered at the generator, which was located along the side wall of the house, near to the front. They were about six metres away from him, all intent on the machinery, not looking around.
Someone shouted from the other side of the house, and there were more footsteps.
It was now or never. If they had discovered Pistol Boy, they would waste no time in hunting for him. He shoved the pistol into the back of his waistband and took a deep breath. Bracing himself against the inevitable pain from his shoulder and his knee, Mac clambered up onto an upturned oil drum next to the one he’d hidden behind. Once he was standing on top of it, he could reach up with his arms to the top of the compound wall. In his weakened state, it took supreme strength to pull himself up, his shoulder screaming as his broken collarbone took the strain, but fear gave him wings. Gritting his teeth, he swung his hips until he was able to hook his good leg over the wall, then he was straining every sinew in his body to heave his torso up and over.
Gunshots rang out around him, and a bullet clipped the baked mud brickwork inches from his face. Unable to return fire, Mac rolled over the top of the wall, staying as low as he could, then dropped down the other side. Even though he landed on his good leg, his injured knee gave way beneath him and he sprawled headlong onto the ground. But he couldn’t afford to waste a second. As he regained his feet, he heard the creak of the front gate opening. The men were all shouting at once, and amid the noise he heard the sound of a car engine being started.
Without warning, AK fire rained down from above. Luckily he was hidden by the scrubby undergrowth that grew outside the wall. He pulled out the pistol from his waistband and looked up. Dope Boy was firing randomly into the field of poppies that abutted the compound. Mac didn’t hesitate for a moment. He raised the pistol in a double-handed grip, took aim, and fired. Dope Boy fell away on his own side of the wall, and the firing stopped.
As the headlights of a Toyota technical swung round the corner of the compound wall, Mac dived headlong into the poppy plants. And then he ran.
Despite his knee, despite his shoulder, despite the stomach cramps, he ran as fast and as hard as he had ever run in his life. Because if he stopped, he was a dead man.