Chapter 29
Jules's heart was pounding as she watched the scene unfold in front of her. Her eyes flickered everywhere as she tried to see through many of the small holes in the bag that covered her head. The space in the bag around her head grew warm as the air she breathed out built up around her and, along with the extra tunic and trousers that covered her other clothes; it soon felt as if she had a river of sweat running down her spine. The grainy material of the bag scratched her nose as she turned her head, trying to find Marc once more when she saw him knelt on the ground in front of Abbas. His head was turned towards her, his lips pressed tight together as Abbas pressed the machete to his throat.
"Tell your wife no hard feelings," Abbas smirked from behind Marc, his voice drifting through the thin fabric of the sandbag until it reached her ears, "after all I got you in the end, like I knew I would. I guess your woman isn't here to save you this time." Abbas sneered triumphantly.
Hearing him taunt Marc and holding a thick knife to his throat made Jules's blood boil. Slipping her hands out of the loose bindings they had placed around her wrists as fast as she could Jules slipped one hand underneath the tunic, where a handgun was resting in the waistband of her trousers, whilst she used the other to remove the sandbag from her head that hid her identity.
As she blinked her eyes against the sudden onslaught of light she felt for the hammer on the gun with her thumb before clicking it back. People's eyes slowly turned to look at her as they spotted the blonde hair and realised that it wasn't their Taliban buddy under the bag, but Abbas was still looking to Marc and he who grew confused when he saw Marc's lips tilt upwards at the corners slightly.
"Guess again," Jules said as she pointed her gun directly at Abbas's forehead. A sudden brush of wind carried the sandbag she threw to the side silently to the ground beside her as well as blowing the loose strands of hair out of her face, leaving her true identity irrefutable.
No other part of Abbas moved except for his eyes as he hesitantly looked up at her, as if not believing it was true. And the look of shock plastered across his face made Julia feel better for a moment.
Ignoring the click and rattle of guns as the men around them trained their weapons on her instead of Marc, Jules stared at Abbas as her finger hovered over the trigger. She itched to pull it after everything he had done to Marc and Sofia but she knew that it would start something they could not finish but she did not lower her weapon.
Abbas's eyes were like bottomless pits but as they focused on her and realised who she was she saw a fire erupt from inside of them suddenly. His lips curled in anger as he reached down and pulled Marc to his feet so that his body, much taller and broader than Abbas's, shielded him from her gun.
Her stomach churned unpleasantly when she suddenly saw Marc's face replace Abbas's where she had been aiming her weapon. Reaching up she cupped the bottom of the handgun so that she was holding the gun in both hands to steady her aim as she retrained her weapon back on Abbas whose head appeared behind Marc's shoulder. She tried to keep her eyes on Abbas but she could not help quickly glancing at Marc and the thick machete that was at his throat. In the dim light of the early evening she could see a thin line of red already marking his flesh. Gritting her teeth, Jules trained her eyes back on Abbas with determination.
"Let him go," Jules warned him as her nostrils flared and she tried to keep her temper in check but she was also terrified.
"Clever," Abbas congratulated their body swap before looking at Marc, "Your woman?" He asked.
"Yeah," Marc coughed as he tilted his head back away from the blade as much as he could, "You should really get yourself one."
Abbas's lips trembled in anger as he yanked the blade at Marc's throat back a little and Marc was forced almost onto his tip toes as Abbas reminded them both that he held his life in his hands, "You have just delayed the inevitable. Right now your precious country is under attack, you cannot stop it."
His words made Jules pause in shock as she and Marc looked at each other but they could not get distracted. She prayed that Abbas was wrong and he was simply trying to goad them.
"If you hurt him," Jules spoke slowly and clearly so he could not misunderstand her and she stared into his eyes the entire time, "I swear I will kill you."
Abbas paused as he weighed how serious she was before he let out a small chuckle of disbelief, "How?" Abbas laughed manically before he looked around them and briefly disappeared behind Marc making Jules's eyes widen in suspense before he reappeared smiling, "You are outnumbered and I have a knife his throat. If you make one move towards me I'll kill him."
Jules kept her gun trained on him and she could see Abbas growing agitated that she refused to back down. Shifting restlessly behind Marc Abbas shouted, "You have no shot!"
"That's what you think," Jules replied calmly as the corners of her eyes narrowed slightly.
"Enough of this. Shoot her!" Abbas screamed, waving his arm manically beside him at his soldiers in an invitation to open fire on her.
Her lips parted in a rush when she saw the men around her grip their guns tighter and begin to squeeze the triggers. Her body felt weightless for a moment as she stared down the barrel of a gun across from her when she heard the first bullet being fired and thought that at any moment her life could just end.
"No!" Marc shouted in reaction as he heard the distinctive sound of bullets flying through the air but a moment later he realised that it wasn't Abbas's men that were firing. The bullets he heard had being shot hit the ground at the feet of Abbas's men, blowing up the sand slightly in front of them, as a warning. Stumbling back a few steps Abbas's men began to murmur amongst themselves in fear as they looked around them wildly for the culprit. Marc looked towards the roof of the compound at the small blip that was Cromwell and mentally made a note to thank him later whilst he let go of the breath he was holding.
Abbas stared at Jules in shock and rage at their sudden display of prowess he did not know they possessed. Abbas thought that they were weak and ready to surrender but he could not have been more wrong. Now that Safia was safe and she and Marc had found their common ground Jules had never felt so determined to live.
"That was just a warning." Jules told him confidently, "Now let him go before I tell them to shoot to kill."
Abbas was not about to lose the man that had murdered his son a second time, or lose him to the same woman that had thwarted his last attempt for revenge. "You are trapped," Abbas told her, "And alone. My men are everywhere. You cannot last for long and then I will kill you all and spit on your corpses."
Jules clenched her jaw as Abbas began to see through their bluff and she did not know what to say so she kept her gun trained upon his head, praying for him to make a mistake and give her a better opening.
"Don't do this," Marc said as he looked at Julia, "You won't win."
Abbas chuckled as he heard Marc's words before he smirked at Jules, "I would listen to him."
"Actually," Marc turned his head a little towards Abbas, as much as the machete would allow, "I was talking to you."
The corner of Jules's lips tilted upwards until she saw the tremor in Abbas's lower lip and thought he would slit Marc's throat right there and then. "Hey Abbas," Jules tried to distract him, "How well do you see in the dark?" She asked.
Abbas turned to look at her with confusion whilst Marc winced as he pulled the blade ever closer to his throat. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of Marc's face as his chest rose and lowered rapidly. Jules stared at him, not sure what she looked like but hoping it conveyed to him some hope.
"Do you and your men have any night vision scopes or goggles? Anything?" Jules taunted them as she looked from one to another before she jerked her chin upwards towards the sky, "Light is fading fast and it'll be dark soon."
Abbas looked back down at her, "You will all be dead by nightfall so it does not matter."
"You'd better hope so," Jules took a threatening step forward, her eyes trained on Abbas's, "Because we do our best hunting at night."
* * *
Crouched behind the pile of rocks along with the others, Carlos grew restless. They had all heard Cromwell firing shots at the Taliban fighters and knew it was only a matter of time before they stormed the compound and once that happened it would be a slaughter. He looked over his shoulder at Jasmine and the group of children; there were so many of them that they easily made up an entire classroom of children in one of the many schools in Britain, just without the same reassurance of security and promise of a future. Looking back out across the distance to Jules and Marc and seeing them in such mortal danger whilst he sat there doing nothing did not sit well with him.
"Fuck this," Carlos muttered under his breath as he stood, grabbed his rifle and began to check the ammunition he had left.
"What are you doing?" Twitch looked up at him.
"I will not sit here whilst my friends are in danger, I need to do something." Carlos said as he snapped the magazine clip back into place in the rifle and slipped the strap over his head until it rested on his shoulder.
"I'm with you brother," Twitch stood up and clasped Carlos's hand with his own, "Why should they get all the fun?" He tried to smirk. Carlos gave him a faint smile in gratitude.
"What will you do?" MacAndrew's voice came from the corner.
"It's nearly nightfall," Carlos reasoned as he turned to look at her, "I reckon a few of us could slip past that mob out the back and give them a surprise they wouldn't be expecting. Even the odds a little."
"You can't. Langdale said-" Ridgeway began to order them when Carlos raised a hand to silence him.
"I'm going to stop you right there. Do you think Jules holds the monopoly on disobeying orders?" Carlos scoffed, "Clearly you've forgotten about me. Kazeem and Hasan should be back soon with the jeeps so we should have some transport out of here."
"Who are Kazeem and Hasan?" Ridgeway asked but Carlos decided to ignore that question at the present moment in time leaving Ridgeway looking to everyone else in confusion.
"I'd put your other men . . . and woman," Carlos added when he saw the female operative shoot him a look, "on the roof to help Cromwell, if I were you. We may need some cover fire."
"What about the children?" MacAndrew stood and questioned him.
"A line of twenty-six children would gain a bit of attention," Twitch told her in disappointment before he turned to look at Jasmine who was holding Safia and the other reunited children tightly against her, "The best place for them is in here. Barricade yourselves in the other room and make yourselves as small as possible when the firing begins. We'll come back for you."
"You're not leaving me here," MacAndrew dusted her hands off on her trousers before removing a handgun from her belt; "I'm coming with you."
"I don't think-" Carlos began.
"-Oh please, enough with the patronising," Samantha snapped, "I was the top of my class in field operations and the shooting range. You could use an extra gun and an extra pair of eyes."
Carlos and Twitch looked at each other and raised their eyebrows, "Okay then," Carlos nodded, satisfied with her answer, "Let's go. You guys start preparing some cover." As they left the room Carlos turned to Ridgeway's operatives that had followed them out of the room to head for the roof, "Your primary target is to keep Jules and Marc alive, copy?" Carlos looked at each of them in turn to make sure they understood when he saw the three operatives looked at each other, sharing an unspoken message, "What?" Carlos snapped.
The female operative straightened her shoulders, "What about Abbas? He is an incredibly high target and we have him in our sights, if we let him go then isn't that going to incite a lot of trouble."
"What is your name?" Carlos asked her.
She frowned, "Wright."
"Well, Wright," Carlos took a step towards her, "If they die then you're gonna have a whole lot more trouble from me than from anyone in the British government. Got it?"
Wright looked away momentarily at her men before she stared him back dead in the eye, "Got it."
"Good," Carlos said, "We all get out of here alive tonight, do you hear me? Now let's get to work."
A/N: Sorry for the short chapter. I hope the next one will be a bit longer and more in depth. As always, thank you for your patience xxxx