Killing for the Company

Panic rose in his stomach. No one was stopping. He didn’t blame them. He looked like a down-and-out, wild-eyed, dirty and drenched. And with the region on the brink of war, everybody was suspicious and on edge. But he couldn’t stay by the side of the road — might as well have a fucking firefly on his head. He found himself shouting at the passing traffic. ‘Stop! Fucking stop! ’

Nobody did.

He checked over his shoulder and his stomach tightened with dread. Lights. Airborne. A couple of klicks? They were hazy in the rain, but they came from the direction of the military base and they were heading his way. Luke started to run, against the line of the traffic but frantically waving his arms in a desperate attempt to persuade someone to stop.

Still nobody did.

The chopper was approaching. Impossible in these conditions to judge its distance or its speed. Certainly too close for comfort, and Luke reckoned he had no more than thirty seconds. Decision time. Did he go offroad? He couldn’t tell in the dark what kind of cover there was. Perhaps he’d risk standing out even more. But to stay here, waving down cars… He tried to put himself in the position of a search team. How much time would he need to track someone down in his position?

No time at all, he realised. No fucking time at all.

He could hear the chopper. It was hovering just beyond the junction with the main road, clearly scanning the area below. It was only seconds before…

Suddenly another wave of spray hit him, chill and muddy. Luke cursed — but then he saw that the vehicle which had caused it hadn’t driven past but had come to an abrupt halt just five metres up ahead. Luke ran back. The vehicle was a VW minibus, its front half painted yellow, its rear half white and with Hebrew lettering along the side. Underneath, much smaller, was the word ‘ Sherut ’.

As Luke came alongside, he saw that the side door had slid open to reveal a ramshackle, poorly cared-for interior with banks of worn seats, about half of them occupied. The driver had one arm on the wheel and was leaning over in Luke’s direction, calling impatiently to him in Hebrew. As Luke threw himself into the vehicle and slammed the door behind him, the driver grew more irate and Luke felt the eyes of the other passengers on him.

He turned to the driver and blinked stupidly at him. It took a couple of seconds to work out where he was. All the passengers had some kind of luggage next to them or at their feet; the driver himself had stretched out his palm. Luke twigged that he was in a shared taxi. He’d seen vehicles like this — usually in a state of profound disrepair — up and down Africa, but he hadn’t realised they were a feature of the Israeli transport system. He plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out the sheaf of notes he’d taken from the stolen Bergen. He peeled off a couple and thrust them into the fist of the driver, whose instant silence suggested that he’d overpaid. Luke took a seat by the window and silently urged the taxi to slip back into the lane of traffic. But the driver was taking great pains to stow away the money in a leather purse, and it was an agonising twenty seconds before the vehicle moved again.

Luke’s wet clothes clung to him and cold rainwater dribbled down his neck. Trying not to alert the other passengers, he kept an eye on the chopper, still hovering over the junction. He pictured the crew staring intently at the violent colours of a thermal-imaging screen as they scanned the surrounding area; and he found himself holding his breath.

The heli’s searchlight swung round in the direction of the taxi and momentarily blinded Luke. He became vaguely aware of the passengers muttering to each other, no doubt wondering what the chopper was looking for and perhaps suspecting it was their bedraggled new companion. Luke ignored them. As his vision returned, all his attention was on the helicopter. And on the searchlight, which he could see had lit up an abandoned WMIK in a ditch by the side of the road leading back to the military base…

The taxi moved beyond the chopper’s position.

Fifty metres.

A hundred.

Looking back, Luke saw that it was still hovering there. And then suddenly it turned — not in Luke’s direction, but the other way.

He sat back in his seat, closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing. He was safe, for now. But as the minibus sped along the main road, the knot in his stomach refused to go. His mind churned over everything that had happened over the past few days. Suze McArthur. Gaza. His men, dead.

But above it all were two faces. Alistair Stratton and Maya Bloom.

He suddenly turned and looked at the passenger behind him — an elderly man with silver hair and a tanned, lined face.

‘Do you speak English?’ he muttered.

The man looked taken aback. ‘Of course,’ he said.

‘What is the next stop?’

The elderly passenger was looking at him like he was a lunatic.

‘Why… Jerusalem, of course,’ he replied.

Luke blinked.