How to Betray Your Country by James Wolff (pocket ebook reader txt) 📗

back to the vizier – had been one of admiring approval. Yes, he had said to himself, over and over again: now that’s a good idea.

By the time he was close to the house it was almost dark. The taxi dropped him several hundred metres from the driveway that swung down, cratered and puddled, towards the sea. Other than two cement trucks there was no traffic. He tried Lawrence’s number again and stepped off the road to wait among the trees. He didn’t have much time – the vizier might decide at any point he couldn’t wait any longer and head for the border without him. After that there would be nothing anyone could do about it. August wouldn’t be able to tell Lawrence what vehicle they were in or how many of them there were or even what they looked like.

His eyes adjusted slowly to the dusk. Trees dragged their branches across the surface of a puddle-coloured sky. He called Lawrence again and this time left a message. He walked through the trees towards the driveway, his hands held out in front of him. The wind grew louder.

He stepped out onto the driveway. Following its edge, he walked down until the whole house came into view, battered and leaning as though it might fall over at any moment. A dark-blue or black saloon car was parked just beyond it, its nose pointing towards August and the way out. He couldn’t see if there was anyone inside. There was no point hiding. If he was being watched from the house, behaviour like that would look more suspicious than standing in plain sight. A faint glow came from the top floor. As he came closer he saw that the car was empty but that the boot was open, its interior light flickering dimly. A dark wet patch that looked like blood stained the edge of its roughly carpeted floor.

The front door was unlocked. He stepped inside and pressed himself against the wall. There were things in his favour. That the vizier hadn’t seen the house before today, that he would need to keep the hostage alive until they crossed the border. The sound of a man’s voice came from upstairs. If violence was necessary – and he had little doubt that it would be – he would choose his moment and use as much speed and force as possible to take the vizier by surprise.

On the first-floor landing he stopped to listen. A low voice was coming from the top floor. Was the vizier with someone? Or making a phone call? He placed his foot on the next stair and suddenly heard a scraping sound in the room to his left. He pushed the door open and saw a dark figure slumped on a chair. The only light came from the half-shuttered window at his back. Stepping into the room, August eased the door closed.

It was the Iranian. He was dressed in the same grey suit and black shoes he had been in before and his hands were tied behind him. Dirt and oil were smeared down the left side of his face and a blood-soaked bandage had been wrapped loosely around his neck.

He said something in Farsi. When August didn’t reply he tried again in heavily accented English.

“Please. Help me.”

A pair of pliers lay on the floor in the corner of the room. The voice upstairs rose slightly as though arguing.

“Doctor, please,” the Iranian said weakly. “Help me.”

He shifted on the chair and the floorboards groaned.

“Who is upstairs?” August said quietly.

“Doctor, doctor. Please.”

“Upstairs.” August pointed. “How many?”

“What? One. One person. I need doctor.” He started to cry. “This man, he is … monster.”

“Be quiet,” said August. “I’ll bring help.”

“Who you are?” he asked. “Police?”

“No. Tell me, does he have a weapon?”

“What?”

“The man, does he have a gun or a knife?”

“No, no. You are here alone?”

“Yes. But I’ll bring help, don’t worry.”

“Someone he knows you are here?”

“No, but I’ll —”

In an instant it all becomes clear. August smiles. What else can he do? He could take a step backwards, he could reach for the door handle, but he knows it wouldn’t make any difference. It is far too late for that. Slices of dying light fall through the shutter and onto the floor between them. How does he know what is happening? Even he can’t be sure – an inflection in the man’s voice, a smell, one question too many as he tries to find out whether August has come on his own. He smiles again, this time in admiration at the ability on display. To have done all this, to have fooled him so completely, and for so long. The man in the chair smiles back at him.

And stands up. His hands aren’t tied any more. He removes the bandage from around his neck and straightens his powerful shoulders. As he steps forward, August sees he is holding a knife.

And he says, with the face of the Iranian, in the voice of the vizier, “My friend, it is nice to meet you properly at last. I only wish the circumstances were different.”

PART TWOIdeology

August wakes folded into a darkness so profound that it is clear what he previously took for darkness was merely the veiling of a distant glow – from a street lamp, headlights, a charging phone. Here there is nothing. Here there is none of that. Beyond the immediate darkness of whatever he is trapped inside is the darkness of a room, the darkness of a house, the endless darkness of night. His knees are jackknifed into his chest. He can’t move and the muscles across his shoulders and down his back start to cramp violently. His wrists are bound together in tape. He reaches out with fingertips to touch … plastic. Smooth and then moulded into ridges. If he strains his head upwards he can feel something hard above him. He has lost all sensation in his feet and a wound pulses above his left eye,