Bonfire Read Online Free

silence. I went to the back doors. Magda came with me. They were unlocked. I opened them and found the barrel of an LMG only an inch away from the end of my nose. Holding the light machine gun was a man dressed in Arabic clothes like me. The keffiyeh covered his head and face except for his eyes, which burned with calculating aggression. It was the man from the police compound. I remembered his laughter and the cuff he had given me on the side of the head.
    Magda screamed and then abruptly stopped as she regained control. The scream was natural. Particularly when confronted with such unpleasant eyes. I nearly screamed myself. Cakes did have very unsettling eyes. Not only were they sunken, but the left eyelid drooped due to a badly healed scar.
    John “Cakes” Kipling laughed. I placed my hand on the barrel and lowered the FN Minimi until it pointed at the floor.
    ‘You tried to kill me,’ he said with an accuser’s voice.
    ‘Are you dead?’ I asked.
    ‘No,’ he said.
    ‘Then I didn’t try to kill you,’ I said. Banksy laughed. Banksy was one of the other two men inside the van and together with John “Cakes” Kipling and Mick made up the three-man team that had carried out the “smash-and-grab”. The target of their captive-rescue mission was also in the van. He was lying on the floor with his hands and feet tied and a hood over his head.
    ‘You shot at me with an AKMS,’ Cakes said. He was persistent.
    ‘I shot at you with blanks,’ I said. ‘I had to make it look convincing.’
    ‘You didn’t know they were blanks,’ he said.
    ‘Yes, I did,’ I said.
    ‘...how?’ he asked.
    ‘The AKMS felt light,’ I said. Again, Banksy laughed and this time, Mick joined him. Cakes swore and cast doubt on my ability to tell the weight of a specific part of my anatomy, let alone the difference between live and blank rounds in an AK-47. He was right. I had fired the rifle without knowing it held blanks, but I had also aimed to miss. ‘Anyway, I let you cuff me around the ear,’ I said. ‘So, we’re even.’ Cakes swore again and said something to the effect that he wished he had hit me harder.
    ‘Get him up,’ I said. Banksy sat him up and Mick pulled off the hood. The young man’s eyes reacted to the light.
    ‘That is Moha Hassan al-Barouni,’ said Magda with more than a little surprise in her voice.
    ‘Is it?’ I said. ‘That’s good.’
    ‘He should be dead,’ she said.
    ‘You’ve freed the right man,’ I said to Cakes with just the right amount of astonishment.
    Moha Hassan’s face expressed confusion until he recognised Magda Jbara and then it lifted into a smile. I suspected it was the first one for quite some time.
    ‘How did you save him?’ Magda asked and then without waiting for a reply said, ‘Why did you save him?’
    ‘Tell him that he’s safe with us,’ I said.
    ‘What will you do with him?’ she asked.
    ‘We’re going to take him home,’ I said. Magda’s mouth opened and then closed before she moved forward and began talking in Arabic to Moha Hassan. At the point in the conversation when the face of the nineteen-year-old registered understanding, I told Banksy to cut him free.
    Leaving Magda and Moha Hassan still talking inside the van Mick, Cakes, Banksy and I prepared for the next stage.
    Mick had responsibility for communications. The system we were using was a CDL [ CDL: common data link ], which is a secure wireless protocol network developed for use by the military. Deployed personnel bounce their transmissions either via high-altitude aircraft or via orbiting satellites. We were using satellites. For a soldier in the field, the system has the most important attribute: reliability. Mick signalled he had successfully added me to the network. I performed a verbal test and Mick nodded. He now had us all wirelessly connected.
    Next, onto the ground by my feet, Banksy dropped my in-field kitbag. I fitted the vest under my djellaba and pulled it tight. There was also a