He heard the young voice, shrill with excitement: 'Sergeant, there's one alive. Over here, one of the fuckers is alive.'
He awaited the shot. The only part of his life flickering across his mind was the last two years – because the older past was forgotten.
He heard the answering shout, more distant and anxious. 'Watch him, kid, watch him close. He moves his hands, shoot him. I'm coming. Go careful, take no chances.'
Caleb was his past, and erased. He was Abu Khaleb, and that was his present. In his hand was the opened wallet with the photograph of a taxi-driver, his wife and children, the identification card of Fawzi al-Ateh. His brain, at flywheel speed, worked for his future, and his survival, and his lifeline was the photograph that almost matched his face.
Chapter One
The aircraft banked on its final circuit, then its nose went down and it started the descent.
Above him, the voice was loud, shouted over the increased pitch of the engine noise. T tell you, this has been a journey from hell.'
A voice barked back, 'You want to do it every week, sir, then you get kind of used to hell.'
It's the shit bucket, isn't it? That's the smell I can't get rid of.'
I'd say, sir, that having to wipe their arses for them is worse than the smell.'
He was ignored, might not have existed. He was as much a piece of cargo as the crates loaded with them on to the transport aircraft after he and the four others had been secured on the steel floor. It might have been four days, or five, since the journey had started. He didn't know. They had landed three times, or four, for refuelling.