TICK TOCK (EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Book 1) Read online

  Smith gave a wry grin as my mouth dropped open.

  “He can’t help it,” Smith grinned, “but keep listening, you might learn something.”

  I closed my mouth with a snap: it was hard to believe in a peaceful religion when ISIS—the so-called Islamic State in Syria—had killed tens of thousands of men, women and children with chilling brutality. It was hard to believe in much at all.

  I ate my meal out of a plastic box, and sat outside with Clay and Smith, watching the sun sink behind the mountains, the brilliant colours fading to grey. The goon in civvies had disappeared, although Smith said he’d be our go-between to bring supplies once a week.

  “You can trust Larson,” he said casually.

  I didn’t trust anyone, and I had serious doubts about this mission. But the only way I was getting out of here was on foot. Technically, I’d be going AWOL which wouldn’t do a lot for my career.

  Smith tapped my boot with his foot.

  “Have you thought about how you’re going to start training them?”

  Clay looked up, his eyes shadowed in the twilight.

  It was clear that we were training hard routine here—rather than just living in a rental and eating normal food, this op was aimed to toughen up the trainees. But I was supposed to be teaching them bomb-making, too, so there were some supplies that would help with my job.

  “I need a laptop.”

  Smith frowned.

  “For the purpose of?”

  “Are you going to ask that every time I say I need something to do my job?”

  He gave a thin smile.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. I need a laptop because if I’m teaching them what it takes to make an IED, then the first lesson is to show them an explosion in a bomb-making factory that killed four terrorists.”

  Smith glanced towards the cabin.

  “And how will that help teach them the skills they’ll need?”

  Clay gave a hollow laugh.

  “Is that what you call motivation, James?”

  I met his eyes.

  “I call it encouraging focus.”

  Smith looked at Clay and they shared an unspoken exchange.

  “I’ll get the laptop,” he said. “But it will be encrypted and you’ll have no access to it or to Wi-Fi without my say-so. What else is on your shopping list?”

  “A projector: first, because explosions look better on a big screen; and second, I’m not going to teach while I’m squinting at a laptop.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to teach them to make IEDs from universal sources?”

  He frowned.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Commonly available resources: specific chemicals, steel ball bearings, push button switches, battery connectors and cables, ignition systems. Hell, you can buy Thermite on Amazon—that’s a pyrotechnic composition of metal powder. Or buy enough fireworks and you’ve got a source of black powder. It’s not even that hard to get TATP: triacetone triperoxide, which is a high explosive. One of the ingredients of TATP is hydrogen peroxide—easy to get hold of over the counter at most pharmacists.”

  “I didn’t think TATP was very stable.”

  “It’s not, but it’s easy to source.” I shrugged. “ISIS and co. use it as their go-to explosive, so they obviously know by now how to make and use it with a degree of safety. The Paris IEDs in 2015 were TATP, and the Brussels airport IED team in 2016 left 200lb of TATP in their flat.”

  He grimaced and nodded.

  “Bomb-makers don’t usually care whether or not the people delivering the IEDs will live through detonation. That’s why most of them are suicide bombers, whether they’re planning to be or not. Or you could get ammonium nitrate, a chemical compound most commonly found in fertilizer—slightly more stable.”

  “Okay, so you’ll teach them to source what they need. But supposing this cell is a little more sophisticated,” Smith persisted. “What sort of supplies would you expect them to have? What resources should they be prepared for?”

  “Detonators—what you call caps; det cord; high explosives; munitions; fertilizer; nails or scrap pieces of metal; a dozen burner mobile phones. In eight weeks, I can teach making a basic pipe bomb and pressure plate devices to target military traffic, maybe time devices against infrastructure and RC—remote-controlled—bombs.” I stopped to think. “Wire coat hangers, alarm clocks with hands that move around, silver paper, lots of batteries of different sizes, caps from a pop gun. That enough?”

  “A pop gun?”

  “In the hope that they won’t kill themselves the first time they try to make a bomb.”

  He nodded, then looked over my shoulder. I glanced up to find Amira watching us.

  “So you’re going to teach me to make things go bang, soldier?” she asked, her tone deliberately taunting.

  “Yeah, and it might be you. Better take notes.”

  Back in the 1980s, the British SAS took the Mujahid to Scotland and trained them to fight the Russians occupying Afghanistan. They let that genie out of the bottle and we ended up fighting their descendants in the Taliban thirty years later.

  I saw the flash of hatred in her eyes and regretted my harsh words. Once again I couldn’t help thinking that this was a really bad idea.

  Amira

  MY HANDS WERE still shaking. I sat hunched on the bed, my knees drawn up to my chin, my arms wrapped around my shins. And still they shook, the tremors running through my entire body. My heart cannoned against my ribcage and I squeezed my eyes shut, my breath coming in short bursts as the panic ricocheted through me.

  My body shook the ancient bed so it shuddered in sympathy, the creaks and cracks sounding as if they were coming from inside me.

  I gulped and gasped, trying to unhear the words he’d said, but they tunnelled through my brain, echoing louder and louder, warring with my thundering heart.

  I was a trained nurse and I knew exactly what was happening to me, but still I couldn’t control the terrifying panic that gripped me. I couldn’t catch my breath and dark spots danced in front of my closed eyes, disorientating; faintness chased me as sweat broke out in a sheen across my skin. I felt like I was being smothered, and I tore the niqab from my face, desperate to breathe.

  I pictured it with terrifying clarity—my body flying apart in a haze of red, atomized by the force of an explosion. It could happen to me just like that, it really could.

  Minutes ticked past as my rigid body held me in an iron band of terror, then slowly, achingly slowly, the fear leaked away, leaving me weak, trembling like a puppy on the fourth of July as fireworks spun in starbursts around me.

  I wiped my hand across my forehead, and it came back slick with my sweat, the stench of my fear filling the small room.

  He didn’t trust me, that English soldier. And I didn’t trust him. Why had they chosen him? Why bring in someone from the British Army? His strange accent, those pale eyes, his stillness, the dislike I saw on his face. And he was attractive, too, with the lean body of a greyhound, and the strikingly handsome features that could have stared out of high-end fashion magazines.

  I’d been so certain that this was the right thing to do, even though Karam had stayed silent, but now, hearing the reality of what lay ahead, my nerves failed me.

  I was going to die.

  I tried to imagine what Zada and my parents would say when they found out. Would they understand? Or would they curse me the way I’d cursed Karam?

  I’d had almost no contact with my family for the last six months. They missed me, wondering why I hadn’t responded to their calls and messages, bewildered by my silence, becoming desperate. As far as the hospital knew, I’d taken a leave of absence brought on by the stress of my brother’s death. But I’d been too cowardly to tell my family to their faces that I was going away, so I’d mailed them vague letters that explained nothing but told them not to worry. I knew they would.

  I told them that I needed to find myself. The wo
rds were contemptible: I knew exactly who I was and what I had to do.

  But I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t ready to die. I wanted to live and see my sister marry and have children, and maybe she’d have a son named Karam, in honour of our brother.

  I wanted to feel free of this burden, this debt that he’d left behind, a debt I was trying to pay in my own way. I wanted to feel free again.

  Free of grief. Free of pain.

  But when I closed my eyes, I saw the British soldier’s eyes and I heard again the dozen ways that I might be tortured before I died.

  I feared that more than I feared death.

  As the horror of my panic attack ebbed, I unclenched my hands and picked up the MRE pack, still warm but cooling fast.

  Even though my stomach lurched and saliva pooled in my mouth, I knew that I needed to eat.

  There were several different types of food pouches, but I stuck to the vegetarian ones because I didn’t trust the meat was halal. Even the ones designed for Muslims serving in the military. It felt strange to think that I was one of them now.

  Everything was so new and strange: the training, the effort to be more like my sister, to fit in, and now wearing the niqab.

  I pulled it off and breathed freely. My hair was a damp, sweaty tangle and my ponytail was a fistful of rats’ tails. My jeans hung loosely from my hips—I must have lost ten pounds over the previous months of training. It wasn’t just Army rations, it was the workouts that they’d put my body through. Mentally tough and physically tough—that’s what they said. I didn’t agree—I thought they were training me to be emotionless, to be a good little soldier and do as I was told. They didn’t know that I had my own agenda.

  I was still getting used to my niqab: there were many challenges in addition to feeling hot and stuffy. Just taking a drink of water was a major challenge of Twister proportions. But I also felt cut off and isolated from the world around me, and every sound was muted, slightly muffled. At least my eyes weren’t covered in the thin veil of the burqa that some Muslim women wore, their whole world a dim haze. How could you ever recognize a friend in the street? The first day I’d worn the niqab, I felt like a blinkered horse, able only to look straight ahead. But you know what? It was different not to be leered at or looked at, to be too fat or too thin, with too big a bust or too generous an ass, or for wearing last year’s fashions. I could wear pyjamas to the mall if I wanted. I was invisible, separate.

  Although I got a few nasty comments from the ignorant—men, women and kids—it wasn’t me but what I represented when I wore the niqab. That was a strange and powerful feeling, that a piece of clothing could cause such strong responses. But I understood it, too—the niqab was isolating and the woman wearing it in public stood apart. It was a powerful symbol, but a divisive one.

  In Austria, the burqa had been banned completely, and other countries debated whether women in teaching positions should be allowed to wear them. But in some largely Muslim countries, they were required.

  When I heard a knock on my door, I snatched up the niqab, tugging it over my head hurriedly, but no one came inside.

  “Amira, we train at 0600. Get a good night’s sleep.”

  Clay’s voice. I could recognize it already. Wearing the niqab heightened my other senses, and I could hear the kindness.

  I hated him for that, his kindness. He had no reason to be kind to me.

  “Fine,” I called out, and bit back the automatic ‘thank you’ that was on the tip of my tongue.

  I pinched the back of my hand.

  “Remember who you are,” I whispered.

  I lay on the hard cot, the air thick and stuffy, and listened to the sounds of the cabin settling into sleep, familiarising myself with the creak of the old wood, the restless rustling of the leaves in the tall trees beyond my window. I listened carefully, but the chirp of crickets mocked me, the sudden screech of an owl making me jump, then laugh at myself.

  My thoughts turned to the men I’d be working with. Larson was a brute and I didn’t like him; Smith had been efficient and professional; and Clay warm and friendly. But then there was the man in the room on the other side of the cabin. He unnerved me in a new way. I’d met many hardened men over the weeks of training, but he wasn’t like them. They’d seen me as an asset to be used; he thought I was in the wrong place. I’d prove him wrong—or maybe I’d prove him right, just not in the way he expected. My heart sped up as I thought of what he was going to teach me: to make bombs.

  He was younger than the other men—my age, perhaps. Although I knew that didn’t mean anything. Some of Daesh’s best bomb-makers were teenagers.

  I thought about that a lot, in the quiet of the night when my unquiet mind tormented me. Children forced to fight—you’d never recover from that. The child-soldiers recruited by both sides in a war they didn’t understand.

  I’d never believed that this war was about religion—wars never are. They’re always about politics, always about power—who has it and who wants it, who is prepared to kill for it. In Syria, there were followers of Daesh or followers of Assad, the Syrian President: one killed with guns and bombs; the other with gas attacks—and both killed civilians.

  James.

  The British soldier said his name was James. Like one of Jesus’ apostles. How very Biblical.

  Or Quranic, depending on your point of view. In Islam, Jesus was a prophet and messenger of God, born without sin in a virgin birth. Does that sound familiar? It’s no surprise as the three largest religions on earth all stem from the Abrahamic faith: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All so close. All with similar beliefs. All blindly believing that their faith is the one and only.

  It would make me weep, if all my tears hadn’t died with Karam.

  My brother, give me a sign. Am I doing the right thing?

  The owl screeched again, and I shivered in the stifling warmth of the tiny room.

  I was already on edge, so when a sudden scream pierced the night, this time I really did leap out of bed, searching for a weapon.

  I grabbed the heavy brass lamp next to my bed and stumbled to the door, terrified.

  Shouting was coming from the British soldier’s room, but I couldn’t tell how many people were in there.

  I gripped the lamp more tightly and strained my ears to pick out words, but the only certain sound was “no!” said loudly and forcefully. I waited, my heart racing, my breathing accelerated, deafening.

  The sounds died away suddenly like a radio being turned off, and I held my breath. I heard his bedroom door open and he walked to the bathroom, very slowly, his footsteps heavy. The door clicked shut and I could hear the rush of running water.

  My heart rate began to slow as I analyzed what I’d heard—the man had been having a nightmare, a bad one.

  Retreating, I jammed the chair against my door and went back to bed.

  I still didn’t like him, but it made him seem more human.

  MORNING CAME SLOWLY but too soon, and I woke with red-rimmed eyes, drugged with tiredness. I’d sweated through the rest of the night and the scent of my own body odour was strong.

  I stumbled from the bed, swatting at the thin sheet that caught itself in knots around my ankles, cursing as my shin banged painfully against the footboard.

  Still limping, I pulled the door open and lurched to a halt.

  The British soldier was standing by the cabin’s open door, his shoulder propped against the wooden frame, silhouetted. He wore only sleep shorts, and the rising sun made his skin glow, casting a halo around his smooth head. He held a cup of coffee in one hand, his head bowed as he took slow, grateful sips. I saw the shadow of a tattoo across his shoulders but I couldn’t see the markings clearly. It looked like a clock, maybe.

  Infidel.

  The word came to me more easily now.

  Some Muslim scholars said tattooing was a sin, because it changed the natural creation of God. They caused pain, were impure and therefore prohibited by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upo
n him).

  The British soldier turned to stare at me, not startled, not surprised, but with wariness in his eyes. He held the coffee cup in front of him like a weapon, and my eyes were drawn to his strong arms, the hard muscles of his chest, dog tags glinting in the light, his flat stomach rising and falling above the trail of light brown hair that led downward.

  In my old life, I would have said he was hot, but these days I was training myself to think only pure thoughts. And I had to focus on my job.

  His insolent eyes drifted up my legs and across my breasts, lingering on my face.

  I was uncovered!

  My hands flew to my hair and I stumbled backwards, my cheeks heating with humiliation and shame as I scrambled to find my niqab.

  I swore silently, then prayed for forgiveness for both sins. I had to do better.

  My life depended on it.

  James

  I’D KNOWN THAT she was standing behind me, watching me. I’d heard the creak of her cot as she climbed off the bed, heard the soft rustle of sheets, and listened carefully as she’d opened the door.

  I waited for the soft footfalls that meant she was walking towards me or towards the bathroom, but when I didn’t hear anything, I turned around.

  She was a mess.

  Her left cheek was creased from sleeping face down on her pillow, and her hair was a knotted tangle, stuck to her head on one side, greasy and uncombed. Her t-shirt was thin and her tits pressed against the worn material so I could see the darker tint of her nipples underneath. Her legs were long and smooth, with skin the colour of caramel. And those eyes—the eyes that had seemed older glaring at me through her niqab were soft and liquid with surprise, then narrowed in anger, and finally drooping with shame.