The Kill Zone (2 page)
Authors: Chris Ryan
Some children might have been hasty, but not Adel. He was careful. Meticulous. He breathed calmly and did not shoot until he was ready.
The noise of the discharge echoed across the desert. In the distance, a frightened yelp – a wild dog, scared by the sudden bang. The recoil was strong for the small boy, but he absorbed it well before lowering the weapon and handing it wordlessly to his brother. Farzad took the AK-47 confidently and did not need his grandfather’s assistance in positioning the gun and firing a round into the black night.
‘Good,’ their grandfather announced once Farzad had lowered the Kalashnikov. ‘Very good.’ He walked up to them and put his arms around their shoulders. For a moment they were silent, just standing there, looking out into the darkness. ‘Who knows what war will be like when
you
are men,’ he murmured. ‘When you are called upon to fight – and do not doubt that you
will
be called – it is important that you know your weapon, and that you know it well. But remember this. Your weapon is not the most important thing.’
you
are men,’ he murmured. ‘When you are called upon to fight – and do not doubt that you
will
be called – it is important that you know your weapon, and that you know it well. But remember this. Your weapon is not the most important thing.’
The old man tapped on his skull with two fingers and the boys watched him attentively.
‘It is with your weapon that you win the battle,’ he stated, ‘but with your mind that you win the war.’
A silence.
And then, prompted by his grandfather, Farzad raised the weapon once more. This time, he flicked the selector lever to automatic. He adopted the firing position and squeezed the trigger. As many novices do when they first fire an automatic weapon, he gripped too hard. The recoil threw the barrel of the gun upwards and to the right; the night air filled with the thunder of rounds being quickly discharged. As he released his finger, a huge grin spread over Farzad’s young face.
In the years that were to follow, Farzad never forgot the events of the next few seconds. He wanted to know if the end of the barrel was hot, so with the butt still pressed into his shoulder, he stretched out his left hand to touch the metal. It
was
hot, and his discovery pleased him. He turned, ready to explain to his grandfather what he had learned.
was
hot, and his discovery pleased him. He turned, ready to explain to his grandfather what he had learned.
But his grandfather looked alarmed.
‘
The safety!
’ the old man said harshly. ‘
Make it sa
—’
The safety!
’ the old man said harshly. ‘
Make it sa
—’
He never finished his sentence.
Farzad’s thumb was still over the end of the gun barrel when his finger slipped; the gun was pointing just to the left of his grandfather. There was a short burst of fire as the 7.62 mm rounds blew his thumb away and, as the gun lifted to the right, pumped into his grandfather’s stomach and ripped a seam along his chest.
Farzad screamed in pain. His brother cried out. ‘
Grandfather!
’
Grandfather!
’
The old man opened his mouth too, but no sound came out. Just a sudden gush of foaming blood. He collapsed.
Farzad fell to his knees, blood oozing fast from his own hand, and in the confusion he could sense Adel doing the same. Adel shook their grandfather, as if that would do something to bring him back from the brink.
It did nothing, of course.
His final breath was long and choking; blood seeped from the wound in his belly, saturating his robe and oozing on to the ground.
The boys fell silent. Farzad’s body was shaking.
‘Is he dead?’ Adel whispered finally.
Farzad laid his good hand on his beloved grandfather’s head. ‘Yes, Adel,’ he managed to say, gritting his teeth through the pain. ‘He is dead.’
And then he started to moan as blood pumped from his wound.
Suddenly their grandmother was there. She took in the scene and started to scream – a panicked, hysterical scream.
Farzad looked towards her. She was silhouetted against the flames. Her shrieks had silenced his own, and now they filled the air. His lip curled, half because of the pain in his hand, half because he felt a burst of uncontrollable anger towards her. ‘Silence!’ he said, doing his best to imitate his grandfather. But the old woman failed to obey him. Instead, she strode up to where he and Adel were crouched and, seemingly unaware of the dreadful wound to his left hand, started to rain blows down on him, her frail old fists surprisingly forceful.
Farzad stood up and raised his bloodied hand to protect himself from his grandmother’s anger, but still she swiped at him.
‘What have you done?
What have you done?
What is this wickedness? You are an evil child! I saw it in you when you were born. There has always been something wicked about you, and now . . . now
this
!’
What have you done?
What is this wickedness? You are an evil child! I saw it in you when you were born. There has always been something wicked about you, and now . . . now
this
!’
Adel strode the few paces to where the old lady was beating his brother, stood behind her and pulled her roughly away. She tripped and hit the ground, but the screaming didn’t stop. If anything it grew louder and more desperate.
‘Be quiet!’ Farzad hissed, pressing his wounded hand against himself in a vain attempt to stem the bleeding. ‘People will come. They will see what has happened.’
‘
What have you done? What have you done?
’
What have you done? What have you done?
’
Farzad was now shaking with anger rather than pain. He looked at his grandmother and then back at his brother.
Something passed between them. Nothing spoken; just a silent agreement that there was something they needed to do. If their grandmother continued to scream, people from all around would come to see what had happened. They would find their grandfather, and they would learn that Farzad had killed him. The local mullah would try them and they would be stoned to death. As males, they would be buried only up to their waists – it was customary for women to be buried up to their shoulders so their arms were not free – but then the locals would hurl rocks at them. The tradition was to let a family member cast the first stone, to try to knock out the victim so that he would suffer less. But grandfather was their only male relative and he wouldn’t be throwing stones at anyone.
The time will come when all who are true to the Prophet will be called to rise up and fight against them.
Farzad knew his duty: to keep himself and his brother safe so that they could fight their holy war, just like their grandfather had urged them. Satisfied that he had his brother’s approval, he didn’t hesitate. Their grandmother was standing between him and the fire, no more than three metres away, with her hands pulling at her hair in anguish. He pointed the AK-47 at his grandmother’s head. Her eyes, closed with grief, noticed nothing, and she continued her desperate howling.
There was only enough ammo in the magazine for a short burst of fire. But it was enough to silence her.
The rounds slammed into her head. Farzad watched with detached curiosity as it collapsed in on itself, as her limbs twitched for a few short seconds before falling still. He barely noticed that part of his grandmother’s brain matter had spattered on to their faces, warm and sticky.
They stood there, surrounded by the sudden silence of the desert, and the bleeding corpses of their own flesh and blood.
It is with your weapon that you win the battle, but with your mind that you win the war.
Farzad and Adel had to think carefully and clearly. It would be stupid to leave the corpses there, ready to be identified by anyone who passed. Their grandparents were well known in this area. Unanswerable questions would be asked. The brothers made their decision with only a few brief words.
First they needed to attend to Farzad’s hand. Their grandfather had once taught them how to cauterise the wound of an injured goat, rather than let the precious animal die, and now they could think of no other way of stemming the frightening flow of blood from Farzad’s fist. They crouched by the fire together, Farzad with a wild look in his eyes, Adel gripping his wrist firmly.
‘Are you ready?’ the younger boy asked.
Farzad nodded, biting his lip in preparation, before allowing Adel to thrust the bleeding stump into the red-hot embers.
Farzad had expected to scream, but he didn’t. The pain was too searing for that. He was almost unable to breathe, but he kept the wound against the heat for five seconds.
Ten seconds.
He pulled it out, gasping breathlessly, then plunged his hand into a small pot of water by his side. If anything, it made the fierce, burning pain worse, but he still managed to master his desire to shriek with pain. When he removed it, he looked at his four-fingered hand with something approaching horror.
Adel looked horrified too, and Farzad suddenly felt responsible for him. He put on a brave face.
‘We must do it now,’ he whispered.
Adel nodded.
They moved their grandmother first, each of them taking an ankle and dragging her towards the fire. When they were close, Farzad moved to the head end and together they flung her on to the pyre. The bulk of her body deadened the flames for a moment, but they soon returned – a bigger blaze than before as her clothes caught fire. Strange smells filled the cave. First, a dry, acrid smell as the old woman’s wispy hair curled and shrivelled into nothing. The clothes burned brighter as they soaked up the melting body fat from underneath; and now there was a new smell – a thick, greasy aroma like fatty mutton burning on a spit.
‘We need more wood,’ said Farzad, and he was right. Although the body was burning, it was not reducing in size. It would take longer to destroy the bodies than they thought. The wood supply was at the back of the cave. They selected small logs first, to get the fire roaring again. The mutton smell grew stronger, and now they fed the fire with larger logs.
Their brows were sweating by the time they turned to their grandfather.
His death was painful to them. While their grandmother continued to burn, they stood by his side and whispered prayers for the dead. But the prayers couldn’t last forever.
‘He would want us to be safe,’ Farzad said, and Adel nodded.
They bent down and dragged him towards the fire. He was heavier than the old woman, but not so heavy that they couldn’t lift him and throw him on to the blazing remains of his wife.
The skin peeled from his face, and the smell of burnt flesh filled their senses for a second time.
All night they fed the fire. By dawn they had exhausted the wood supply. The bodies were like long, charred stumps, each a metre and a half long. It surprised them that even after all these hours, they had not yet reduced to embers. And so they poured water on the ashes and Adel took a shovel from the cave while Farzad carried the stumps to the mulberry tree. Adel dug a hole, and they placed the remains of their grandparents inside.
‘We must leave this place,’ Farzad said when it was done.
Adel nodded a little uncertainly, and Farzad realised that he looked scared.
‘Remember what Grandfather said,’ he whispered. ‘It is our duty to prepare ourselves to fight. And it is my duty, Adel, to take care of you. I swear to the Prophet, may peace and blessings be upon him, that I won’t let anyone hurt you.’
Farzad stood up, and walked over to where the AK-47 was still lying on the ground. He strapped it over his shoulder, returned to his brother and held out his good hand. Adel took it and stood up, but they kept their hands clasped firmly.
‘Brother,’ Farzad whispered.
‘Brother.’
And without another word they turned and walked into the steel light of dawn, leaving the remains of their family, and of their former life, behind them.
THIRTY YEARS LATER
25 JUNE
1
Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
03.00 hrs
An enormous dome of light shone in the Afghan desert.
It was visible from miles around, a pulsating hub surrounded by flat ground and sand. If anyone were brave enough to approach it by foot, they would soon hear the low rumble of armoured trucks getting ready to go out on patrol; they would be almost deafened by the sound of military aircraft taking off and landing. Come close enough and they might hear the sound of Coalition personnel shouting instructions at each other. It might still be night-time, but this place was alive with activity 24/7.
No Afghan locals would dare come near it without an invitation, though. Not Camp Bastion.
Jack Harker hurried through the British base. Two hours before dawn and he was already sweating. The mercury was reading twenty-five degrees. Come noon it would be double that and everyone on the base would be guzzling water. One clear piss a day was the aim, according to the medics, but that was a fucking joke. Jack hadn’t managed a clear piss in five months.
Bastion was huge. Four miles long, two miles wide, it was home to 4,000 troops and was getting bigger by the day. Its hospital was as advanced as anything back home, its infrastructure as complex. Feeding, cleaning and caring for that volume of personnel was a massive operation in itself. Jack hurried past the Pizza Hut in the centre of the camp – a taste of home that was meant to make them feel better about the fact that they were stuck out in this shithole of a country surrounded by heavily armed militants. It was closed now, but some of the lads were sitting outside, smoking and taking advantage of the relative cool. They were having an argument about something – animated, but good-natured.
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