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Local time – 7:25pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
The scene Alex had just witnessed made her legs shake and vomit rise in her throat. She sat on the toilet, her head between her knees, pleading with herself not to faint. Or cry. Or throw up. Henry and Josh had also jumped off their toilets, and neither was in any frame of mind to comfort her. The small bathroom now felt like a cage. Or a barrel and they were the fish. Phil was doing his usual angry pacing and it was making Alex feel even more scared. At least he wasn’t stupid enough to try whispering again. They were all completely silent, even their breathing making no noise at all. The only sound they could hear was the wailing of one of the men in the next room. The two men who had been shot were silent; it was one of the other Pakistanis who filled the room with the gut wrenching sound.
It had already occurred to Alex who the newcomer might be. When he said he was a CIA agent, she knew his accent was close to American, but also had another tone to it. Could this be the person who was after her? Bernie’s murderer? Hadn’t Henry said he could be Mossad? That would explain the accent. She knew she should feel relieved that he was no longer a threat, but watching him being shot, and knowing the Pakistanis were now looking for her, made her insides melt. She felt no emotion except agonizing terror. She would quite happily have sat on that toilet forever, if it saved her from facing the men and the nuclear weapon on the other side of the bathroom wall. But when the wailing quietened to a whimper, and a hurried conversation began, it was clear that this was not an option.
‘Leave him! Where are these people? They might have guns too.’
‘Please Ahmed, let us get the other guns from the car. It is not safe here without them.’
‘Ok. Mohammed can go. Bring the sports bag they are in.’
One pair of feet could be heard running from the room. Henry stepped up onto his toilet, and in a flash was back down. He held two fingers up. Two men were definitely still there. Seconds ticked by. When the feet jogged back into the room, the statement Alex heard made her stand in fright.
‘We do not have enough ammunition. I’m going to check if the guard has a gun on him.’
Josh ran past Alex, towards the dead body in the last stall. She heard him curse quietly. There was no gun. Before Josh could make his way out of the cubicle, they heard someone coming through the frosted glass door. Henry retreated into Alex’s cubicle. He lent against her, and she could feel him shaking. Even through her terror she wondered at it.
As the door swung open, a deafeningly close shot rang out. Alex closed her eyes, expecting more shots. But there was none.
Then Phil spoke. ‘Everyone out!’
Henry dragged Alex out of the cubicle. The bulk of a man lay crumpled over the threshold, blocking the outer door. Alex recognised him as the man who had slid under the truck. She couldn’t see where he had been shot, though blood ran from under his head, face down on the tiled floor. Alex leapt over him with one giant step. She tried to stay close to Henry, who was following Josh through the frosted door. As it swung open, Alex noticed Josh was holding a gun. He must have taken it from the man Phil shot.
Phil had already bounded into the nuclear exhibit room, and when the door closed behind them, he was already pointing his gun at the short Pakistani. But if he hoped for the element of surprise, he was disappointed; the man, only about four meters away, was aiming his gun directly at him. And from what Alex had already seen, he was not frightened to use it. She shrank back against the wall, trying to make herself invisible. Henry did the same, his eyes darting around the four guns in the room. Josh took two steps closer to the remaining Pakistani, who looked ready to faint from fear.
Phil glared around the room. ‘There’s three of us and two of you. Give up.’
His arrogance was impressive. He was the largest man in the room, and he yelled at the young Pakistanis, daring them to disobey. But the man in front of Phil didn’t recoil in fear. Alex winced as she saw him moving forward. Phil took a step backwards and spoke again.
‘Don’t move. I’ll shoot!’
The Pakistani didn’t hesitate in the face of this threat. He took another step forward, distracting Phil from his real intent, which was to quickly fire off two rounds. Both caught Phil in the neck. He flew backwards into a display case, shattering the glass and crashing down heavily on the floor. A muffled scream escaped from Alex’s mouth. Phil was making a gurgling, sucking sound. She’d never liked him, so a sudden feeling of wretchedness for him caught her by surprise. But there was no time to acknowledge her distress.
Things were so totally out of control that Alex felt a terror she had never experienced before, far worse than anything else she had felt in the last two days. She saw Josh’s eyes go wide, and in slow motion, he spun back to the man in front of him, who had turned and was running away. Like a hunter chasing prey, Josh went after him and shot him in the back. The man ran for two more spontaneous steps, before careering face first onto the ground. He didn’t move. Josh had almost certainly killed him. Henry edged backwards, closer to Alex. She wanted him to move away from her, to make it less easy to shoot them both with the same bullet. She crouched down and managed to slip underneath a display case. Though not hidden, it was as far as she could get from the scene. Josh yelled now, but not with the dictatorial power of Phil. It sounded like the voice came from fear.
‘Drop your weapon. Drop it now!’
The Pakistani’s head whipped left, noticing Josh entering his peripheral vision. Without a word, he snapped off another shot which caught Josh in the leg. Josh let go of his gun and dropped to his knees, clutching his bleeding thigh. Alex squeezed her eyes shut, as she heard another shot, and the sound of Josh sliding sideways onto the tiled floor. When her eyes sprang back open, she recoiled in shock. It was clear Josh was dead, as there was a gaping hole where his face used to be. Alex pushed herself hard against the wall. Her swallowed screams welled in her throat, threatening to draw attention to her. But the Pakistani was only looking at Henry, who was hesitantly taking a step forward, in the direction of Josh’s weapon which lay meters away on the floor. One wave of the gun and vicious glare from the Pakistani made him stand still, and another wave made him retreat back to the wall. Four dead or dying men now lay around the nuclear missile and Alex felt sure the gun would soon turn on her. Then Henry took a chance at changing his fate.
‘You said you have one PAL code! We have the other one. She has half. I have half. And you have one full code. You kill either of us, and you’ve done all this for nothing!’