Strike Back by Chris Ryan

Author:Chris Ryan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

The Toyota kept ploughing on over harder and harder terrain. Porter had long since lost track of what time it was. Two, maybe three hours they had been driving. It was hard to keep up, as it was to keep tabs on your direction when a blindfold was strapped over your eyes: lose that most basic of the senses, and the others seem to go as well.

How far have we gone? Porter tried to calculate. Sixty, perhaps seventy miles. But in which direction it was impossible to tell.

The roads had been getting rougher as time moved on. He wasn’t even sure they were still on a road at all. At a guess, Porter reckoned they had been driving north, but he couldn’t be certain. They might well have crossed into Syria by now. Neither of the men up front had uttered a single word the whole time, and Porter had long since given up trying to talk to them. They didn’t even talk to each other.

Suddenly, he felt the Toyota judder to a halt. Porter didn’t react. It had stopped several times in the past couple of hours as it encountered some obstacle on the road, but each time it quickly restarted. This was different. The engine had been turned off. He could hear doors opening. Somewhere in the distance – outside the car – he could hear voices.

‘Get out.’

From the tone of the voice, Porter could tell it was the taller man speaking.

He levered himself out of the back seat, and swung his legs down onto the ground. Still unable to see anything, he knocked his head against the roof of the car, and he could feel a dull ache where a bruise might be starting to form. He kept on moving, until he was standing, he guessed, just next to the car.

‘Where are we?’ said Porter.

‘Stay quiet,’ barked the man.

His tone was harsh and cruel, but there was a hint of amusement in it as well.

Then, a silence.

Porter could sense there were people around him. He couldn’t see anyone because of the blindfold. He couldn’t hear anyone any more either: if they were there, they were keeping quiet. But he could sense them all the same. There was a body heat in the air all around him. There was a charged, tense atmosphere that you could smell in the air. There are plenty of guys here, he told himself. And probably all of them want to kill me.

‘Why won’t you answer me?’ he said.

‘Just move,’ hissed the taller man.

‘I can’t bloody see anything.’

Suddenly a hand was gripping his shoulder. It squeezed tight, and he could feel the muscled fingers digging hard into his flesh. ‘Just move.’

‘Not until you take my blindfold off.’

Porter dug his heels into the ground. The man was still holding on to his shoulder. Stand my ground, Porter thought. We have to start this right. Once they start treating me like a prisoner rather than a negotiator, then I’m done for.

The grip on his shoulder started to relax.

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