The Knives Read Free Page A

ransacked his brain for some bridge-building language. ‘Why we are here … is to deal justly. You will deal justly with us, no? In Islam all men are brothers, right?’
    ‘You know Islam?’ He gestured sharply between them. ‘You tell me what is Islam? You not my brother. These are my brothers. You, you deal with Croat, with Serb. Killers of Muslim!’
    One of the Afghan’s comrades stepped forward suddenly, shouting and gesticulating with a pointed finger to the skies. Blaylock could feel his heartbeat, could sense movement behind him, and wanted not to turn, and yet turned. And so he saw the muscular African man coming at him, machete held loosely at his side. As Blaylock went to reach into his flak jacket the mujahid hefted up the huge knife and thrust it under Blaylock’s chin to within an inch of his Adam’s apple.
    He felt an injection of dread, dosing down like melting ice from his scalp to the soles of his feet.
    In the same moment he heard a heavy clunk and a hydraulic siren-sound, and saw past the African’s head to where Bravo Zero’s gun turret was traversing with stunning speed into position to fire.
    Meeting the African’s gaze as he had been trained, seeingnothing there but dispassion, Blaylock was conscious of motion all around, the sounds of rifles being slipped from shoulders and cocked, then the sight of men scampering onto the facing banks on either side of the Warrior.
    As the blood hammered in Blaylock’s temples his mind raced to compute, to conjure a proper leadership decision, the correct procedure to rescue a man at sea, the man being himself.
    Kill them all, God will know his own.
    ‘Alright, cut it out, man, cut it out, cool it, yeah?’ A young man was shouting as he came toward Blaylock from the bank, also bearded and turbanned and in camouflage, yet his accent was of the South Pennines, and the hand gesture he was making seemed to signal an end to the skirmish. Glancing to the African, Blaylock could tell the big man had seen something meaningful behind him. His machete was lowered, though his dispassionate gaze stayed in place.
    ‘Sufficient unto the day …’ Blaylock heard himself mutter. He turned to face the Afghan, who glowered at him. Never give an order that can’t be obeyed , he thought, and stepping back he saluted smartly. ‘Another time. We’ll meet again, I trust.’
    Then he turned and felt his feet moving under him, his guts tightly clenched. In motion he gestured to the Warriors to start the business of turning round as best they cumbersomely could. At his back he heard dissent, jeers, and a rising chant, ‘ All ā hu Akbar! ’
     
    ‘Fuck me,’ Trev offered, as they rumbled back down the trail to Vitez. ‘That was a moment, eh, boss?’
    ‘Yep. Focuses the mind, doesn’t it?’
    Blaylock, though, could not quite hear his own voice. He placed a Marlboro absently between his lips, bit into the butt, then removed it and tossed it away. His body’s alarm mode had receded, the panic rush from the adrenals had slowly turned course and been transformed, somehow, to a belated and low-burning rage.
    He retrieved his notebook and smoothed out his tracing-paper map with an unsteady hand. He extended his pencil lines to Fazli ć i and there drew a circle; followed, on reflection, by a star; then, encircling it like a safe harbour, a crescent moon.
    Then fury surged in him again and he scored it out with hard strokes.
    ‘Another time …’? Yeah right. Fuck me . It had been, he knew, a poor riposte. Were there to come ‘another time’ then, no doubt, he would have to do better.

1
    Howay you slack bastard. Up and at ’em. Fight the losing battle . So Blaylock’s inner voice drove him on.
    London at sunrise wore a lacklustre look. The weather was turning, autumn insinuating – the greyness of air and sky he saw as the city’s natural state, slowly retaking hold over the careworn streets of Kennington. Wearing shorts, tee-shirt and the disregard for cold that