Box 88 by Charles Cumming

Author:Charles Cumming
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780008200367
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-09-30T23:00:00+00:00

31

Kamran cut the wires behind Kite’s back. Kite had suffered a deep cut on top of the left wrist and had lost all feeling in his right hand. He made a fist with it, clenching and releasing the fingers while massaging the wrist. Torabi handed him a used tissue with which to mop up the blood.

‘I need to use the toilet,’ Kite told him as he was passed a bottle of water.

Torabi said something in Farsi and ordered Kite to stand up. Kite drained the water, put the bottle on the floor and was escorted from the room. Kamran put a gun in the small of his back. Hossein went ahead to open the bathroom door.

‘Leave it open,’ he ordered.

‘I want some privacy.’

The two guards looked at one another and laughed.

‘We’re not coming in unless we have to,’ Hossein replied.

‘What am I going to do? Dig a tunnel? There’s nothing in there except a bar of soap and a shower curtain. At least let me close the door.’

Kamran indicated that it would be acceptable for Kite to do that.

‘No lock,’ he said.

‘Fine,’ Kite replied.

As soon as he was inside the bathroom, he closed the door and lifted the seat on the toilet. He noisily unclipped his belt, pulled it free of his trousers, and sat down. The two guards were talking in the passage and did not appear to be taking much notice of what was going on. Quietly, Kite opened the cupboard under the sink, ducked down and started pulling at the loosened nail, shaking it from side to side, trying to turn it. It moved slightly. Reaching back, he flushed the toilet and used the covering noise to scratch away at the plaster with the belt buckle until an inch of the nail was visible. He could feel it very gradually moving away from the wall. Kite reached for the bottle of bleach and squirted some into the space around the head, hoping that it would loosen the plaster. For another thirty seconds or so he chipped away. The bleach was running down the paintwork, making no discernible difference, but Kite knew that the nail was coming. Pinching the metal head so it dug deep into the skin of his thumb and index finger, he at last yanked it free of the wall.

He stood up, almost striking the back of his head on the cupboard, and turned on the tap. The nail was about four inches long. If he could get one of the men alone, he could use it to disable them. More than one and he doubted that he would be fast enough to disarm them before they used their weapons. He slipped the nail into his hip pocket and looked up at the metal towel rail.

‘Hey!’

It was Hossein. There was a loud succession of knocks. He said: ‘Let’s go. Taking too long.’ The attachments at either end of the rail shifted when Kite moved it up and down. It was stuck to the wall only by adhesive.

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