died.
‘Shit.’ What had I forgotten? Bang-Bang was in a world of her own, perusing the map with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. She still had that massive nosering and attendant chain running to her ear, bold as brass. Mo had disappeared into the back under his own initiative to play at being the rendered POW. Outside on the airstrip the chatter of automatic weapons fire seemed to be growing.
C’mon, Riz, I chided myself. Think.
Of course. The choke. I touched the wires again and pulled the choke out, then pushed the black starter button. The engine rumbled, hacked, and then roared into life as I revved it. Choke off. I slammed my door shut, turned the interior light off and said ‘People, we are go.’
I wrestled the crash gearbox into first and we headed out right and onto the road that parallelled the runway.
All around us the detention facility was in meltdown. As we drove south to the American end we passed line upon line of every kind of emergency vehicle speeding north and troops of all description crashing out to deal with the riot. I searched on the dashboard, found the switches for the lights and sirens and hit them. I ground through three more gears and went for the main gate.
We roared past a line of burning A10 Thunderbolts, ammunition cooking off into the sky, and a sign saying ‘USO Bagram presents Mortal Kombat 9 Tournament’. Me and Bang-Bang both looked at each other with a “what?” expression.
I drove, I hit that pedal and raced down the flightline as behind us the night turned into day and plane after plane blew up and ammunition spattered into the sky.
Beside me Bang-Bang took a last drag on her heroin-fag, flicked the butt out of the window and readied her ID pass.
We screeched to a halt at the massive inner and outer main gate zone in a cloud of dust and sirens and blue flashing lights. The mixed ANA and US troops were preoccupied in either fussing over the gates, which had naturally stuck open, or watching the chaos taking over the base and talking on their radios. The red and white barrier was still down though. An Afghan soldier came to Bang-Bang’s window and she pushed her ID into his face and started yelling at him in Pashto. He recoiled as though confronted by a snake and flapped his arm. The barrier went up. I gunned the engine and left in a roostertail of dirt.
We hit a main road.
‘What did you tell ‘em?’
‘I told them we had a Taleb with AIDS in the back.’
‘Good work. OK. Babe. Left or right?’
Bang-Bang perused the map. ‘Where d’you think your derelict car is?’
I leant over and looked. ‘Swallow told me it’s two kilometres southeast of the southern fenceline, 155 degrees west-south-west of this corner, so… about here.’
I circled somewhere nondescript on the map.
She looked at the road markings. She placed her compass on the map and let it orient itself. Then she did the thing we’d always had drummed into us in al-Qaeda. Orient The Map.
‘OK… we go left.’
We went left. I turned the blues and twos off and we left the Bagram to its meltdown.
20
The great thing about Unimog trucks was that they could go where only camels and goats can go. After about forty minutes of me cursing the crash gearbox and the dried irrigation ditches, and me and Bang-Bang arguing as only couples can about directions, we alighted on the same ditch me and the SAS team had followed the other night. I started to recognise landmarks. I drove alongside the ditch, and presently we had the distant wreck of the car before us in our headlights.
I turned the headlights to half-beam and waited. Then I turned them off. I killed the engine. Night settled again. Around us, crickets chirped and our eyes adjusted to the cloudy moonlight. Nothing. Good. I reached back and rapped on the cabin wall to alert Mo in the back. Presently I heard the rear doors open and Mo came to my door.
‘Y’alright you two?’
‘Perfick, akhi. You know we have to love
‘Shit.’ What had I forgotten? Bang-Bang was in a world of her own, perusing the map with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. She still had that massive nosering and attendant chain running to her ear, bold as brass. Mo had disappeared into the back under his own initiative to play at being the rendered POW. Outside on the airstrip the chatter of automatic weapons fire seemed to be growing.
C’mon, Riz, I chided myself. Think.
Of course. The choke. I touched the wires again and pulled the choke out, then pushed the black starter button. The engine rumbled, hacked, and then roared into life as I revved it. Choke off. I slammed my door shut, turned the interior light off and said ‘People, we are go.’
I wrestled the crash gearbox into first and we headed out right and onto the road that parallelled the runway.
All around us the detention facility was in meltdown. As we drove south to the American end we passed line upon line of every kind of emergency vehicle speeding north and troops of all description crashing out to deal with the riot. I searched on the dashboard, found the switches for the lights and sirens and hit them. I ground through three more gears and went for the main gate.
We roared past a line of burning A10 Thunderbolts, ammunition cooking off into the sky, and a sign saying ‘USO Bagram presents Mortal Kombat 9 Tournament’. Me and Bang-Bang both looked at each other with a “what?” expression.
I drove, I hit that pedal and raced down the flightline as behind us the night turned into day and plane after plane blew up and ammunition spattered into the sky.
Beside me Bang-Bang took a last drag on her heroin-fag, flicked the butt out of the window and readied her ID pass.
We screeched to a halt at the massive inner and outer main gate zone in a cloud of dust and sirens and blue flashing lights. The mixed ANA and US troops were preoccupied in either fussing over the gates, which had naturally stuck open, or watching the chaos taking over the base and talking on their radios. The red and white barrier was still down though. An Afghan soldier came to Bang-Bang’s window and she pushed her ID into his face and started yelling at him in Pashto. He recoiled as though confronted by a snake and flapped his arm. The barrier went up. I gunned the engine and left in a roostertail of dirt.
We hit a main road.
‘What did you tell ‘em?’
‘I told them we had a Taleb with AIDS in the back.’
‘Good work. OK. Babe. Left or right?’
Bang-Bang perused the map. ‘Where d’you think your derelict car is?’
I leant over and looked. ‘Swallow told me it’s two kilometres southeast of the southern fenceline, 155 degrees west-south-west of this corner, so… about here.’
I circled somewhere nondescript on the map.
She looked at the road markings. She placed her compass on the map and let it orient itself. Then she did the thing we’d always had drummed into us in al-Qaeda. Orient The Map.
‘OK… we go left.’
We went left. I turned the blues and twos off and we left the Bagram to its meltdown.
20
The great thing about Unimog trucks was that they could go where only camels and goats can go. After about forty minutes of me cursing the crash gearbox and the dried irrigation ditches, and me and Bang-Bang arguing as only couples can about directions, we alighted on the same ditch me and the SAS team had followed the other night. I started to recognise landmarks. I drove alongside the ditch, and presently we had the distant wreck of the car before us in our headlights.
I turned the headlights to half-beam and waited. Then I turned them off. I killed the engine. Night settled again. Around us, crickets chirped and our eyes adjusted to the cloudy moonlight. Nothing. Good. I reached back and rapped on the cabin wall to alert Mo in the back. Presently I heard the rear doors open and Mo came to my door.
‘Y’alright you two?’
‘Perfick, akhi. You know we have to love
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