The Kill Zone by Chris Ryan Page B

impassively at his prisoner. He stank of sweat.
    And then he spoke. His voice was heavily accented, but his English was surprisingly good. ‘You will speak into the camera,’ he said. ‘You will give your name and tell the world that you are being well treated, for now, but that you will die a painful death unless the President of the United States announces the immediate withdrawal of his troops from Afghanistan. If you attempt to say anything different, you will be dead before you finish the sentence.’
    Jack took a deep, slow breath.
    Control your fear. Keep your mind calm.
    He had to do what they said for now – try anything macho and they’d be forced to assert their authority. And if Jack wanted to have any chance of escaping, he needed his body to be in as good a shape as possible. He nodded at the man, doing what he could to look as unprovocative as possible, then waited while the cameraman took up his position in front of him. A little red light shone at the front of the camera.
    ‘Speak now,’ said the leader.
    ‘My name is Jack Harker,’ he said. ‘Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.’ Then he licked his lips, kept his eyes on the camera and repeated the message his captor had given him.
    The cameraman lowered the machine. He stepped back while the leader approached Jack once more. He crouched down so that their faces were at the same level. Jack could see the pores on his dark skin, and the sweat on his brow.
    ‘Jack Harker,’ he rasped, fixing Jack with a passionless stare. Then, quite unexpectedly, his lips moulded into a smile. ‘You are lying, of course.’
    Jack shook his head. His captor’s smile grew broader.
    ‘You will deny it now. But given time, you will tell us everything we want to know. You will be begging to tell me things, because you will understand that I will only let you die once I am satisfied. And believe me, infidel, you will want to die very soon.’
    ‘Please,’ Jack insisted, his voice croaking as he did his best to sound deceptively weak. ‘I’ll do what you ask. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. My name is Jack Harker. Royal Regiment of—’
    ‘ Quiet! ’
    His four-fingered captor raised his good hand. Immediately the cameraman handed over the camera.
    ‘You are not the first soldier we have captured in recent days,’ the Talib continued. ‘We caught a younger man than you. An American. I will show you what happened to him.’
    He opened up the viewing screen of the camera, fiddled with the controls for a few seconds, then turned it round for Jack to see. The screen glowed bright in the dimness of the room, and the sound from the camera, even though it was quiet, seemed to echo off the walls.
    It was a scream. It sounded like an animal being slaughtered, but Jack knew it was a human. The image was blurred and shaky, and it wasn’t until the camera panned out a little that he realised what he was seeing.
    The kid was being filmed from behind. His body had been bound, using rope, to a cross, which his tormentors had leaned at an angle against one wall. He was fully clothed. At least, Jack thought he was. His arms were covered, and so was the bottom half of his body; but his back was such a bloodied pulp of devastated flesh that it wasn’t fully clear whether it was clad or not. The victim was struck from behind by some kind of lash; liquid spattered from his mashed-up back and he screamed again . . .
    Jack’s captor closed the camera. ‘That was the first day,’ he said. ‘The infidel did not die until the third day. We are looking forward to sending the tapes to his family, so they can see how their son died, squealing like a goat. Do you have a family, Jack Harker?’
    Jack nodded, and he could feel the skin round his eyes tightening.
    ‘We will find out soon enough,’ the man continued, his voice calm. He scratched his beard with his four-fingered hand. ‘You Westerners, you are so stupid. Your white-faced British soldiers crawl around this land