Afghan Bound Read Free Page B

throat and taped his mouth. I’d just bent over to administer more stimulant when the sound of gunfire explode all around us. Bullets came ripping through the tent, thudding into anybody that was still standing. Then the Russians entered to find me lying across one of their majors with hypodermic in hand. I was dragged away and never saw him again. Maybe he died, I don’t know.’
    â€˜So that’s how you got away,’ put in Justin. ‘A hell of an adventure, but I don’t see what that has to do with Charlie being arse up over the chair this afternoon.’
    â€˜That was the start of things,’ explained David. ‘You see, I couldn’t ignore what I’d seen – the things I’d witnessed.’
    Suddenly the telephone rang, making both men jump in their seats. While David answered it Justin thought that whoever was on the other end must have had excellent hearing, because his friend’s voice was barely audible. As the telephone conversation continued Justin took the opportunity to replenish the drinks yet again, all the time straining to hear what was being said in the hall. Before he returned to his seat he’d gleaned that David was about to give another private consultation.
    When David came back into the room he closed down the dampers on the wood burning stove. ‘It’s warm enough, don’t you think?’
    Justin nodded absently. ‘How long before the Russians let you go?’
    â€˜They didn’t. Half of them wanted to string me up as a mercenary. As far as they were concerned I was a rebel sympathiser, poking my Western nose in where it wasn’t wanted. By the time some officer saved me I was missing a couple of teeth and about two pints of blood. In the end I was flown up to a military hospital in Herat. They fed me up and told me someone important was coming to see me.’ He laughed bitterly at the memory…
2.
    David thought he was going to come home a hero. Then the officer from the Komitet Gosudarstvennoye Bezhopaznosti arrived. David was all smiles, shaking the officers hand and thanking everyone for his rescue. The man’s face had more scars than a butcher’s block; what it didn’t have was a smile. Obviously the KGB training budget didn’t stretch to a pleasantry course. Either that or Nikolai had played truant the week it was run.
    â€˜What were you doing with the rebels?’
    David was prepared for the question and told his story truthfully from beginning to end.
    Nikolai remained expressionless. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that under the conventions of war, mercenaries are treated in the same manner as spies and saboteurs? There is no difference.’
    The realisation dawned quickly. They don’t believe me, thought David. Or they don’t want to believe me. He was about to protest when the KGB officer spoke again.
    â€˜It seems a shame to shoot such an educated man,’ he said. ‘A terrible waste of knowledge.’
    â€˜But I’ve done nothing wrong,’ pleaded David. ‘All I’ve done is tried to help those—’
    â€˜You are,’ Nikolai interrupted contemptuously, ‘an enemy of the USSR, and like all our enemies you will be destroyed.’ With that he mumbled something to the two guards and walked from the room, leaving David to ponder his future – what little remained of it.
    Bad thoughts and the searing heat made for an uncomfortable night. Sleep was only possible between the bangs and flashes of sporadic gunfire away in the hills.
    Morning brought with it more toothache and the return of the sinister man from the KGB, followed closely by two white-coated men. David’s stomach was alive with butterflies.
    â€˜Mr Harper, you are a very lucky man.’
    His words did little to lift David’s spirits, although he did note the irony of the word ‘lucky’ as pain once more coursed through his swollen jaw.
    â€˜In Herat we