Local time – 8:45pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Alex barely had time to acknowledge how safe she felt, tucked in close to Henry in a small steel cockpit, before the realisation of how much danger she was in crashed down on her again. The seat might be safe, but the cargo sure wasn’t. When Alex looked over at the other compartment, which was completely separate to hers, she could see Ahmed fidgeting in his seat. They could only communicate using the hand held radios on the dashboard; Henry had already picked one up.
‘I’m going to drive. You just do what you’re told. And don’t even think about touching your key pad.’ Henry barked like an army sergeant at the startled Ahmed. He didn’t respond to Henry, and Alex watched him surveying the instruments in front of him. Both cockpits had a steering wheel and dashboards similar to each other, so Alex guessed it could be driven on either side. Perhaps having two command points was a back up if one of the drivers was maimed or killed transporting the weapon. The keypad Henry had mentioned looked the same as the one under the vehicle, but it was in a glass case that needed to be smashed before it could be used. Even thinking about entering the code made Alex’s heart race with fear. Within moments, Henry was confident enough to press a large button on the dash and start the engine. It rumbled like an old school bus. A sizeable gear stick stuck out of the floor and Henry had to reach for it while pumping hard on the clutch to move the vehicle into reverse. The circular building’s only flat side, behind them, was made up of a giant roller door, painted white to camouflage it into the white walls. It was obviously the only possible exit.
‘I’m going to reverse up to the door and then you jump out and see if you can unlock it.’ Henry said to Alex. She nodded, almost overwhelmed at the thought of this task.
Henry rolled the transporter slowly backwards and it covered the distance from the centre of the exhibition floor to the door in seconds. When he was only feet away, he stopped and put the gears in neutral. Then he looked at Alex waiting for her to get out.
‘I just can’t believe we’re taking it. I can’t believe no one is going to stop us!’ Alex knew she was talking to put off getting out. Henry looked impatient.
‘Bernie knew what he was doing Alex. He wouldn’t have laid out his plans so carefully for someone else if it wasn’t so important. We have to get going.’
‘I know. I agree. But where are we going? How are we going to drive a missile transporter through the streets of Rawalpindi without arousing a lot of attention?’ Now Henry’s look of impatience turned to annoyance, and rather than listen to his response, Alex turned away.
She pushed down on the door latch, which was the twin of the one on the outside, and used all her strength to lean against the steel door. It groaned open and she jumped down onto the ground and went to the centre of the roller door. A large padlock hooked around a bar at the bottom of the door, latching it to a steel loop embedded in the concrete floor. She looked at it for a few seconds, but didn’t bother to touch it. Without a key, or the largest bolt cutters in the world, there was no way to open it. The roller door was made out of galvanised iron, and Alex tapped it to see how thick it felt. It seemed to be exactly the same as the roller doors used on residential carports. She ran back to the vehicle and pulled herself up.
‘There’s no way to unlock it. Do you think we can drive through?’
‘We’ll have to try.’
Henry put the gears into first and drove forward again. Alex watched Ahmed pick up his radio, but he looked too startled to say anything. When they had gone past the centre of the room, where the truck had been sitting, Alex grabbed Henry’s arm.
‘Don’t go too far forward. The missile sticks out the front, you don’t want to hit the wall with it!’ Alex didn’t care if she sounded like a hysterical back seat driver. When it came to a nuclear missile, safety always won out. Henry didn’t look at all concerned.
‘I’m nowhere near the wall. I just want to get a bit of a run up.’ Alex picked up the radio and said to Ahmed, ‘Hold onto your seat. We’re going to reverse through the door.’ His frightened eyes went even wider at this news, and he clutched both sides of his seat like he was riding a rollercoaster. Henry put the gear stick back into reverse and hit the accelerator hard. The vehicle lurched backwards, with a reverse bunny hop. Alex was shocked at how fast it moved. She watched in the tall side mirror, and braced herself against Henry as the roller door got closer, and then crashed to the ground with the impact of the back of the vehicle. The door had seemed solid, but it was nothing compared to the steel casing of the truck. There was actually no need to brace herself, or hold onto anything as the crash barely registered in the vehicle. The corrugated iron was ripped from its sidetracks and snapped downwards like a bed sheet falling from a clothesline.
Henry didn’t stop until he had reversed the vehicle away from the loading bay and onto the road that ran behind the museum. The sun had gone down and the dark street they found themselves in was empty. Alex was sure the sound of the door crashing down would draw some attention. But when she looked around, no one was there. The glow of the lights from the circular museum building spilled out into the street through the gaping hole they had made. She was looking at the bodies still strewn across the floor, wondering when they might be found, when a sound made her head snap to the right. The street wasn’t empty. And her heart sank when she realised how stupid they had been. She could see from the looks on Henry and Ahmed’s faces that they too had seen what she had. Six army trucks were driving rapidly towards them, in a close-knit convoy. Each had armed soldiers crowded in the back. As they drew closer, Alex couldn’t focus on anything except the business-like semi automatic weapons carried by each serious looking soldier. She had survived a gunfight and was almost tortured for this weapon. The dreadful realisation that these men were going to shoot her arrived so quickly that she had no choice but to let it paralyse her with fear.