An Unintended Vacation
Title: An Unintended Vacation
Characters: Ben Green, Sir Alexander Green
Rating: Mature
Warnings: for kidnapping, violence, death, emotional distress, and general author cruelty
Summary: Katie infraredphaeton mentioned that Ben had been on a few unintentional sojourns out of the country, from which he was quickly brought back by Sir Alexander. This is one of those brief journeys.
A/N: This took FOREVER to get finished, and is probably the longest completed story I have ever written. So. For Katie, Nikki, Aoife, Penny, and everyone else who kept pushing me to write it and then finish it, here you go.
Sir Alexander Green was not best pleased with the phone call he was having with his son’s school. “You mean to tell me that my son was kidnapped while supposedly under your supervision?” he asked angrily, while the secretary on the other side of the line flinched. “He’ll be in a new school then, as soon as he’s found.” He hung up, and immediately dialled another number. “Can I get everything we have on whoever has had unusual patterns of SIGINT recently, and everything on the kidnapping incident in South Manchester two hours ago, and get someone to put out a country-wide watch for my son. Now.”
***
When he woke up, Ben could tell that he had been kidnapped again. It wasn’t the bruises that he could feel swelling up all over his body from where he had been hit in the first few moments of struggle that told him this. It wasn’t the fact that he could feel the after effects of chloroform making him nauseous and dizzy. It wasn’t even the fact that he could feel his hands bound tightly together behind his back, wrapped tightly with a long piece of cloth limiting circulation to an uncomfortable point. No, it was definitely the burlap sack over his head.
Ben counted down from ten slowly in his head, breathing carefully and quietly, and wriggled his fingers and toes slightly to make sure he still had muscle function, and to assess just how bad the nausea was. After deciding that it wasn’t likely to result in immediate side-effects, he listened his surroundings. He was definitely moving, and it didn’t feel like an airplane, or a car, or a train, or... he was on a boat, he realised. And there, just close enough that he could determine the language they were speaking, those were voices.
Licking his lips and swallowing hard to moisten his mouth his mouth, he recited the phrase that had been drilled into him since he was four. “والدي هو رئيس وكالة ، وانه سوف يقتل إذا كنت على اتصال معي. وهو يتقن فنون الدفاع عن النفس ، الرماية ، واستخدام السموم خفية.” His voice was rusty, and not as much like his captors as he would have liked, and he was fairly sure it couldn’t be completely justified by the side effects of the chloroform.
There was a voice then, gruff and right in his face. “What did you say?”
Ben repeated calmly, this time in English, “My father is the head of an agency, and he will kill you if you touch me. He is proficient in martial arts, marksmanship, and the use of subtle poisons.”
The burlap sack was wrenched off of his head, and Ben blinked at the additional light. “But then, you know all that, don’t you?” Ben added half-under-his-breath, well aware that if anything else had been the case, then he wouldn’t be there.
The man glaring at him from far too close was dressed like a very typical businessman, but Ben was used to things having hidden dangers. “Behave yourself, or it won’t matter who your father is,” he growled, and Ben shut up, and leaning against the wall, dozed off.
***
Sheaves of paper littered his desk, and the clock read well past well past midnight, but he refused to go to sleep. One of these documents had to have the lead that would take him to his son. Earlier that day he had found out that the pieces of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb that they had SIGINT on had cut a lot of their chatter in the past week, but nothing major had been reported as occurring in the area, which was odd. And there were a couple of names in Saudi Arabia, known to want him dead, that had been quiet for a couple of months. It wasn’t much, but that was a start.
Every police station in the country was on high alert for anyone who looked even remotely like Ben. It had been nearly two hours from the time of the kidnapping to when he had been told, which was too long. Ben could be anywhere by now, and it would be too long if he let it sit until they reached their final destination, even if it would be easier to figure out where precisely that was. Too long and too dangerous.
He told Thomas to see about getting someone else to figure out where that would be, just in case. He would be focusing in on the Sahara.
***
Ben was shaken roughly awake, and he went to rub his hands in his eyes to shake out the sleep, and to recover his hair from the inevitable bedhead, and found with a start that he couldn’t. Everything came rushing back to him, and his eyes flew open, instantly alert.
“Get up,” his captor, the same one as before, said gruffly.
Ben complied, with difficulty. His arms were aching, his legs were shaking, and his head was pounding. He pushed against the wall to get the leverage he needed to rise to his feet. The boat shook with the hard shock of hitting a dock, and he nearly fell to his feet.
“Follow,” said the man, and Ben followed him off of the boat and onto the dock. He blinked at the sudden change in brightness, the sun bright and high in the sky and glaring off the ground ahead of him, the air hot and dry. He was hustled along quickly into a waiting jeep. Soon he was off into the desert. Ben hoped his dad could find him here, wherever here was.
***
“I need a passport with my photo, not my name, and visas to Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Algeria, and whatever else makes sense for the region. Whatever it takes. Multiple passports would work, doesn’t matter. I’m flying from Northolt in 6 hours. Bring it to me there, and fill me in on the cover’s background then.”
Alexander hung up abruptly and turned back to the sheaves of paper in front of him. He would probably end up in Mali - nearly everyone who ended up kidnapped with AQIM ended up in Mali - it was just a matter of finding him in the desert there. Before they shipped him off to whoever really wanted him. Or worse, had him executed. There was no room for error. He had to know exactly where.
***
The truck jolted to a halt, startling Ben alert again. It was dark now, late, and impossible to see anything beyond what the headlights revealed. He was pulled out of the jeep, and held tightly with his arms behind his back. He couldn’t see the knife, but he heard it being pulled out of its sheath and stiffened. Instead of slicing through him though, it was cutting away the bonds on his wrists, and he felt the blood rushing back into them. They had given him a nick on the back of his hands too, and he could feel that too, bleeding out onto the dusty ground. It stung, which was for the best, Ben decided. The release felt good, and Ben lifted his hands to his face to check for any serious issues. The circulation seemed okay, but he would pay attention.
One of his captors had thrown down a rug beside the wheel of the truck, and when he put his hands down again, the man pointed to it. “Sit,” he ordered. “Rest.”
Ben sat, but looked up at the men in the make-shift camp. “Please,” he called, voice croaking, after the man who was walking over to join his colleagues, “can I have some water?”
The man nodded. Ten minutes later he brought back a hot mint tea. Ben drank it all quickly, and fell into an uneasy rest on the carpet on the ground.
***
Sir Alexander arrived in Bamako shortly before noon. They had to be coming here; they had to be. He dropped into the Embassy and spoke to the Ambassador personally. “We don’t negotiate with hostage takers,” was the reply he received.
“I don’t intend to negotiate,” he told the ambassador.
“Extrajudicial force is frowned upon, sir,” the ambassador answered. “I understand that you are a member of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, but it would be months before we could co-ordinate a safe and legal rescue mission, if we can find his whereabouts.”
“By which point it would be too late. This is my son we are talking about.”
“Sir, please, be rational about this. This is not a normal occurrence. We don’t even know he’s alive.”
Sir Alexander gritted his teeth. “He’ll be alive. And I will rescue him if it takes me personally paying the ransom or killing them all.” He calmed somewhat. “Thank you for your assistance. This conversation never happened.”
The ambassador nodded mutely. As soon as Sir Green had left, he phoned the Ministry of Internal Security and Civil Protection and asked for a country-wide watch for a blond British boy, age 15, name of Ben Green, non-publicised. He didn’t think it would help, but he did not want the head of MI6 to hate him.
***
When Ben woke up, the sun was just rising, and three of the men who had him kidnapped were setting up a tent. A chill ran down his spine. Tents were not a promising sign. This would probably just be signs of life, but he knew that videos with captives were shot in tents. All of them.
He struggled to swallow the tea that was brought to him, and then to eat the rice that his stomach informed him was the first thing he had eaten in over a day. His stomach rolled, and he closed his eyes and lay on his rug. It was hot and it was dusty and the thought kept running through his head that this might be the last thing he ever knew and he was not going to cry, he was not. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he blinked to keep them there. And even though he didn’t usually, he prayed.
And then he was pulled up from the ground, and taken into the tent. Two men stood there with Kalashnikovs, facing a camera with an empty space between them. He was shoved into the gap, and forced to face the camera, kneeling.
“Tell them who you are,” the man behind the camera - which Ben noted was connected to a laptop which was connected to what appeared to be a satellite phone, which he assumed was then connected to the internet -instructed him.
Voice steady and clear, looking straight into the camera and demonstrating none of the fear he felt, he said, “My name is Ben Green. I live in Man - London, England.” He looked at the man giving instructions again.
“Your father.”
“My father is Sir Alexander Green, a civil servant. My mother is Janet Parry, the head of the BBC abroad.” He looked for more instructions, but the man just nodded.
“Good.” He looked at Ben’s primary guard, and said, “That’ll do for now.” Ben was escorted out of the tent, breathing heavily with stress and relief.
***
His encrypted satellite phone rang shortly after he landed in Kidal, and he picked it up instantly. “Do you have an internet connection? There’s a video you need to see. It was posted 10 minutes ago; we just found it. AQIM.”
Sir Alexander winced. “Ben?”
“Alive, sir.”
He let out a breath he had been very aware that he was holding. “Ten minutes and I need that video link somewhere I can find it. Make sure it doesn’t leak to the media. That’s the last thing I need, even if Janet would never let the BBC air it. I’ll get a connection by then.”
***
Ben had sat on his little rug and watched as they packed up the tent after the video. It had been hours, and he had been painfully hot, even after peeling off all of the excess layers of clothing, and despite the fact that he was sitting in the shade of the truck. But that was nothing compared to now, as he was forced to walk. His skin was blistering and red from the sun, and he had never felt so hot in his life.
All of them but the driver were walking. From the snipets of conversation he heard, in a mixture of Arabic and French, but no English, it was to save a little bit of gas, so they could go further on what they had. He heard something about a border, and wondered if they would get stopped there. But from what he could tell, they weren’t on an established road. Why would there be a border crossing, and if there was, would they know to look for him?
He just hoped his father was on his way.
***
It was definitely Ben, he saw, freezing the video on the first frame and looking closely. The student ID had been Ben’s, and the copy of Alice in Wonderland had been so definitely Ben’s that he had hardly needed to see his face to know. But - and he unpaused the video - here was the live proof, time-stamped with the ticking seconds, just two hours old. “My name is Ben Green. I live in Man - London, England,” his voice crackled, and that was Ben too. “My father is Sir Alexander Green, a civil servant. My mother is Janet Parry, the head of the BBC abroad.”
The video switched to a man, reading off a piece of paper in Arabic. “The price for this hostage is high, and non-negotiable. We are Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. We have your son, Sir Green, but we want you.”
Sir Alexander stopped the video, and called Thomas, back in London. “Could you track the location?”
“It appears that the two parts were filmed in different places. The AQIM man is somewhere in Kidal Province, Charlie’s working on pinpointing it. We haven’t found the link that sent the video of your son to him, but Tanya says that she can see about triangulating from the sunlight in the tent. She’s placing early bets on Mauritania, but moving east. It looks like your hunch about Mali was correct.”
Somehow, Alexander didn’t feel much better for that. “Thank you Thomas. I’ll have a sleep here, but call me the moment there’s any new development.”
***
Ben was bundled up and put in the truck again, and told to stay put and quiet. It was in English, and he wondered why they bothered with their fractured and heavily accented try at the language, when he understood their Arabic or French perfectly well. And they had to know he spoke Arabic, at least a little bit, because he had that first time. It was only then that he realised he didn’t see his very first captor anymore, the one who had looked like a businessman. He had been passed along.
The driver of the truck moved quickly, and the ride was filled with bumps and jolts. Ben bit hard on his lip to stay quiet as the jolts hurt everything that was already sore, bruises and burns both, but on a particularly hard crash it drew blood, and he stopped, gagging at the coppery taste in his mouth.
Two very awake hours later, the truck pulled to a stop. The driver came and joined him in the back with a flask of water. “Drink,” he said, handing it to him.
Ben drank, still tasting blood with the water. Everything hurt. “What are we waiting for?” he asked.
The driver grinned, showing missing teeth, “Everyone else.”
***
“A satellite targeted in the area caught some footage of a truck travelling quickly across the Mauritania/Mali border with some armed foot escorts, from Oualata Department into Goundam Cercle. Tanya’s triangulation estimates and some calculations say that this is probably Ben. I took the liberty of calling the NSA to keep that satellite on them, and we can confirm if they spot him. Tanya’s sending you the coordinates every hour on the hour.”
“And the AQIM man in Kidal?”
“Charlie’s pinpointed his location. We sent in a couple of other agents who are covering it. Ben couldn’t be there yet short of flying, and AQIM doesn’t have that capability.”
Alexander nodded. “Fine. I’ll get a vehicle.”
***
Five hours later, the first of their foot patrols returned to them. “لا احد.” The first man said, nodding, and Ben knew then that they must have crossed the border, and no one had caught them. That must have been why the truck, and why so fast. There had been no one there though; that’s what the man had said. Was anyone even looking for him?
He looked up and realised the driver was looking at him with a wide grin that really didn’t make him feel any better. “Welcome to Mali,” he said.
***
It hadn’t been difficult to find someone who was willing to rent, even sell, him their car for the price he was offering. It was almost surprising that there were so many offers, because he didn’t expect to see that many cars in all of Kidal. Eventually, though, he found a car that was in good condition. He purchased it, and promised the man that if it was still in decent condition at the end of his stay, he would sell it back for a fraction of the price. It was a good deal, although if it came to shooting, the car wouldn’t make it.
Both his Arabic and his French were perfect, and his attire traditional, and so he blended in somewhat, but Sir Alexander was well aware that there was a total halt of travel from most of the Western world, and that he was very conspicuous. He checked his vehicle, carefully loaded all of his gear and especially his weapons into it. And then he drove out of the city on the largest road he could find going west.
***
Everyone that they had expected had arrived, it appeared, as Ben was ushered out of the truck. The sun was no longer directly overhead, and the temperature was falling. It was now pleasantly warm instead of blisteringly hot, but Ben was exhausted and expected to keep moving, so it really didn’t matter. A feeling of doubt sank over him. It had been three days. It had never taken Dad this long to find him and save him before. Maybe it wouldn’t happen in time.
Ben shook his head to clear it of the thought, and trudged along through the dust and sand and rocks.
***
Alexander pulled well to the side of the road to answer his phone. Several hundred metres off to the side. On the other end of the line was Tanya, and she was excited. “He’s there, we found him, they’re moving again, I don’t think it matters for you, you aren’t close enough yet, the roads are still the same, but we found him.”
He took a deep breath. “You’re sure it’s him?”
“Ninety-nine percent. It follows with my calculations, and how many blond kids do you think there are in the middle of the bloody Sahara?”
“One too many. You said they’re moving?”
“Yes, south and mostly east, slowly. I’m projecting where they’re headed now. I’ll map out the best roads for you and get you something in an hour.”
“Thanks for the check-in, Tanya.”
“It’s what I do,” the physics whiz replied. “Oh, Thomas says he’s got news from Kidal, but he says that will wait.”
Sir Alexander pulled back onto the road with just a little difficulty, and was back on his way, a little flame of real hope puncturing through the sheer desperation.
***
It was dark and late when they stopped for the night. Ben waited for instructions as the evening’s chill began to really sink in. A mat was laid out once more, and Ben had another cup of mint tea to warm him up before he passed out on the rug to sleep fitfully.
***
It was five minutes past the hour, and Tanya, Charlie, and Thomas hadn’t called in with news. It had been two days straight of someone calling every hour. This could only mean one thing - he was too close to risk them hearing or seeing. He checked the phone, and just as he had expected, there was a flashing green marker that was him, and a solid red marker that Tanya was beaming in for him. That... that was Ben and his captors.
Alexander let the smile spread across his face. He was coming, and then Ben would be safe. He stopped the car, and checked. There was his handgun. There was his rifle. There was his knife. There was his carefully packaged C4. He checked the satellite phone again - they seemed to have stopped, seated in a dip between the dunes, quite a distance from his location, but at this time of night, it would be easy enough to make that up.
He drove slowly and as quietly as possible along the road until he was as close to the spot where they had set up camp as he could possibly manage. He got out of the car, then, and started to walk.
***
Ben woke from his fitful sleep to the sound of a guard falling to the ground with a gunshot wound to his stomach. It was barely dawn, and the entire camp was still asleep, save three guards. Now two guards, and now one. The sound of the men choking for air and woke others and the camp was soon swarming with men arming themselves and trying to help those who were dying. The sniper kept picking off individuals, and blood splattered on the rocky ground, and filled the air with the stench of pain.
A man dragged Ben up off his feet and into the truck beside where he was sleeping. “Stay here. Don’t move,” he growled, before leaving him alone. Ben hunkered down in the bottom of the van, well aware that it wouldn’t provide too much protection, and hoped that it was his father out there.
***
For a moment, Sir Alexander’s firing stopped while one of the captors dragged a blond boy that could only be Ben into the truck. He was alive and here. The relief was palpable, and he began firing again. One, two, three more down. Counting on the dim light of morning to disguise the movement, he crawled down the hill the way he had come and covered the rifle. Well over half of the kidnappers were gone now. For the rest he would need to be a little bit closer. He checked his camouflage and weapons again, and rose back over the crest of the hill and crawled on his stomach down towards his son.
***
The gunshots stopped, but the camp was still in disarray as Ben’s captors tried to save their wounded. The screams were loud, and the voices frantic. Ben could hear and see everything, but he did as instructed and stayed absolutely still in the truck. There were attempts to bandage wounds, but most of those who where hit were beyond saving, and soon there was a group of the remainder who were digging shallow graves to bury them, while everyone else stood watch.
***
Alexander was less than a hundred metres from the van where his son was. Somehow, he had to get him out of here, with neither of them getting hurt. The sun was high in the sky now, and there was nothing he could do except wait, absolutely silent. Wait until the sun began to set so that he would be missed in the glare of the sun and finally, finally finish what he had set out to do. Finally hold Ben safe in his arms again, and then he would call Tanya and get them a ride out of here.
***
Time crawled. Ben dozed off and on while the camp fell apart around him. He could hear the heated argument over whether they should just kill him and be done with it, whether they should spread out and search for their pursuer, whether they should move on and hope that they wouldn’t be followed. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to know what was going on, so he kept his eyes closed and just listened. They weren’t going to kill him, they were all going to stay tight and pray and come morning, they would all leave, more quickly.
***
The sun was just skimming the horizon when Alexander stirred, slowly moving his fingers and toes and then moving his arms and legs to make sure everything was in solid working order. It all was, so he began his crawl forward once more. The guards were obviously exhausted, falling asleep where they sat, and so he was able to move quickly, while they dozed. He shimmied around to the side of the truck facing away from their fire, and stood, muscles aching with the change in position.
Cautiously, he walked along, and got into the truck, freezing at the soft squeaking noise that it made. The guards didn’t notice, but Ben did. “Dad?” he whispered.
“Shhh,” was the only verbal reply, but it was paired with a set of easily understandable hand motions.
***
Ben waited for three minutes, and then followed his father. He crept out of the van, and walked out behind it, out of view of the main part of the camp. When he was sure he was well and truly safe in that regard, he carefully headed off into the desert in the direction he had been directed, leaving his father fiddling around underneath the truck.
***
Alexander pulled out the package of plastic explosive from his pocket, and slid himself gingerly under the vehicle, wrapping it around the top of the exhaust pipe, and then implanting the blasting cap and the timer, which was set for two hours later, or whenever the car began running, whichever came first. He clambered back out from underneath the car, and then followed Ben into the desert, headed toward his rifle, and then towards his car.
***
Ben stopped on the other side of the hillside, sitting beside the camouflaged rifle. Sir Alexander came over the hill five minutes later, and picked up the rifle and the camouflage netting, and embraced Ben, who gladly hugged him back. “I’m so glad you came,” he whispered.
“Let’s get you home now.” Ben nodded in reply, and they stood up to walk back to the waiting car, into the sunset, and away from the danger.
Characters: Ben Green, Sir Alexander Green
Rating: Mature
Warnings: for kidnapping, violence, death, emotional distress, and general author cruelty
Summary: Katie infraredphaeton mentioned that Ben had been on a few unintentional sojourns out of the country, from which he was quickly brought back by Sir Alexander. This is one of those brief journeys.
A/N: This took FOREVER to get finished, and is probably the longest completed story I have ever written. So. For Katie, Nikki, Aoife, Penny, and everyone else who kept pushing me to write it and then finish it, here you go.
Sir Alexander Green was not best pleased with the phone call he was having with his son’s school. “You mean to tell me that my son was kidnapped while supposedly under your supervision?” he asked angrily, while the secretary on the other side of the line flinched. “He’ll be in a new school then, as soon as he’s found.” He hung up, and immediately dialled another number. “Can I get everything we have on whoever has had unusual patterns of SIGINT recently, and everything on the kidnapping incident in South Manchester two hours ago, and get someone to put out a country-wide watch for my son. Now.”
***
When he woke up, Ben could tell that he had been kidnapped again. It wasn’t the bruises that he could feel swelling up all over his body from where he had been hit in the first few moments of struggle that told him this. It wasn’t the fact that he could feel the after effects of chloroform making him nauseous and dizzy. It wasn’t even the fact that he could feel his hands bound tightly together behind his back, wrapped tightly with a long piece of cloth limiting circulation to an uncomfortable point. No, it was definitely the burlap sack over his head.
Ben counted down from ten slowly in his head, breathing carefully and quietly, and wriggled his fingers and toes slightly to make sure he still had muscle function, and to assess just how bad the nausea was. After deciding that it wasn’t likely to result in immediate side-effects, he listened his surroundings. He was definitely moving, and it didn’t feel like an airplane, or a car, or a train, or... he was on a boat, he realised. And there, just close enough that he could determine the language they were speaking, those were voices.
Licking his lips and swallowing hard to moisten his mouth his mouth, he recited the phrase that had been drilled into him since he was four. “والدي هو رئيس وكالة ، وانه سوف يقتل إذا كنت على اتصال معي. وهو يتقن فنون الدفاع عن النفس ، الرماية ، واستخدام السموم خفية.” His voice was rusty, and not as much like his captors as he would have liked, and he was fairly sure it couldn’t be completely justified by the side effects of the chloroform.
There was a voice then, gruff and right in his face. “What did you say?”
Ben repeated calmly, this time in English, “My father is the head of an agency, and he will kill you if you touch me. He is proficient in martial arts, marksmanship, and the use of subtle poisons.”
The burlap sack was wrenched off of his head, and Ben blinked at the additional light. “But then, you know all that, don’t you?” Ben added half-under-his-breath, well aware that if anything else had been the case, then he wouldn’t be there.
The man glaring at him from far too close was dressed like a very typical businessman, but Ben was used to things having hidden dangers. “Behave yourself, or it won’t matter who your father is,” he growled, and Ben shut up, and leaning against the wall, dozed off.
***
Sheaves of paper littered his desk, and the clock read well past well past midnight, but he refused to go to sleep. One of these documents had to have the lead that would take him to his son. Earlier that day he had found out that the pieces of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb that they had SIGINT on had cut a lot of their chatter in the past week, but nothing major had been reported as occurring in the area, which was odd. And there were a couple of names in Saudi Arabia, known to want him dead, that had been quiet for a couple of months. It wasn’t much, but that was a start.
Every police station in the country was on high alert for anyone who looked even remotely like Ben. It had been nearly two hours from the time of the kidnapping to when he had been told, which was too long. Ben could be anywhere by now, and it would be too long if he let it sit until they reached their final destination, even if it would be easier to figure out where precisely that was. Too long and too dangerous.
He told Thomas to see about getting someone else to figure out where that would be, just in case. He would be focusing in on the Sahara.
***
Ben was shaken roughly awake, and he went to rub his hands in his eyes to shake out the sleep, and to recover his hair from the inevitable bedhead, and found with a start that he couldn’t. Everything came rushing back to him, and his eyes flew open, instantly alert.
“Get up,” his captor, the same one as before, said gruffly.
Ben complied, with difficulty. His arms were aching, his legs were shaking, and his head was pounding. He pushed against the wall to get the leverage he needed to rise to his feet. The boat shook with the hard shock of hitting a dock, and he nearly fell to his feet.
“Follow,” said the man, and Ben followed him off of the boat and onto the dock. He blinked at the sudden change in brightness, the sun bright and high in the sky and glaring off the ground ahead of him, the air hot and dry. He was hustled along quickly into a waiting jeep. Soon he was off into the desert. Ben hoped his dad could find him here, wherever here was.
***
“I need a passport with my photo, not my name, and visas to Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Algeria, and whatever else makes sense for the region. Whatever it takes. Multiple passports would work, doesn’t matter. I’m flying from Northolt in 6 hours. Bring it to me there, and fill me in on the cover’s background then.”
Alexander hung up abruptly and turned back to the sheaves of paper in front of him. He would probably end up in Mali - nearly everyone who ended up kidnapped with AQIM ended up in Mali - it was just a matter of finding him in the desert there. Before they shipped him off to whoever really wanted him. Or worse, had him executed. There was no room for error. He had to know exactly where.
***
The truck jolted to a halt, startling Ben alert again. It was dark now, late, and impossible to see anything beyond what the headlights revealed. He was pulled out of the jeep, and held tightly with his arms behind his back. He couldn’t see the knife, but he heard it being pulled out of its sheath and stiffened. Instead of slicing through him though, it was cutting away the bonds on his wrists, and he felt the blood rushing back into them. They had given him a nick on the back of his hands too, and he could feel that too, bleeding out onto the dusty ground. It stung, which was for the best, Ben decided. The release felt good, and Ben lifted his hands to his face to check for any serious issues. The circulation seemed okay, but he would pay attention.
One of his captors had thrown down a rug beside the wheel of the truck, and when he put his hands down again, the man pointed to it. “Sit,” he ordered. “Rest.”
Ben sat, but looked up at the men in the make-shift camp. “Please,” he called, voice croaking, after the man who was walking over to join his colleagues, “can I have some water?”
The man nodded. Ten minutes later he brought back a hot mint tea. Ben drank it all quickly, and fell into an uneasy rest on the carpet on the ground.
***
Sir Alexander arrived in Bamako shortly before noon. They had to be coming here; they had to be. He dropped into the Embassy and spoke to the Ambassador personally. “We don’t negotiate with hostage takers,” was the reply he received.
“I don’t intend to negotiate,” he told the ambassador.
“Extrajudicial force is frowned upon, sir,” the ambassador answered. “I understand that you are a member of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, but it would be months before we could co-ordinate a safe and legal rescue mission, if we can find his whereabouts.”
“By which point it would be too late. This is my son we are talking about.”
“Sir, please, be rational about this. This is not a normal occurrence. We don’t even know he’s alive.”
Sir Alexander gritted his teeth. “He’ll be alive. And I will rescue him if it takes me personally paying the ransom or killing them all.” He calmed somewhat. “Thank you for your assistance. This conversation never happened.”
The ambassador nodded mutely. As soon as Sir Green had left, he phoned the Ministry of Internal Security and Civil Protection and asked for a country-wide watch for a blond British boy, age 15, name of Ben Green, non-publicised. He didn’t think it would help, but he did not want the head of MI6 to hate him.
***
When Ben woke up, the sun was just rising, and three of the men who had him kidnapped were setting up a tent. A chill ran down his spine. Tents were not a promising sign. This would probably just be signs of life, but he knew that videos with captives were shot in tents. All of them.
He struggled to swallow the tea that was brought to him, and then to eat the rice that his stomach informed him was the first thing he had eaten in over a day. His stomach rolled, and he closed his eyes and lay on his rug. It was hot and it was dusty and the thought kept running through his head that this might be the last thing he ever knew and he was not going to cry, he was not. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he blinked to keep them there. And even though he didn’t usually, he prayed.
And then he was pulled up from the ground, and taken into the tent. Two men stood there with Kalashnikovs, facing a camera with an empty space between them. He was shoved into the gap, and forced to face the camera, kneeling.
“Tell them who you are,” the man behind the camera - which Ben noted was connected to a laptop which was connected to what appeared to be a satellite phone, which he assumed was then connected to the internet -instructed him.
Voice steady and clear, looking straight into the camera and demonstrating none of the fear he felt, he said, “My name is Ben Green. I live in Man - London, England.” He looked at the man giving instructions again.
“Your father.”
“My father is Sir Alexander Green, a civil servant. My mother is Janet Parry, the head of the BBC abroad.” He looked for more instructions, but the man just nodded.
“Good.” He looked at Ben’s primary guard, and said, “That’ll do for now.” Ben was escorted out of the tent, breathing heavily with stress and relief.
***
His encrypted satellite phone rang shortly after he landed in Kidal, and he picked it up instantly. “Do you have an internet connection? There’s a video you need to see. It was posted 10 minutes ago; we just found it. AQIM.”
Sir Alexander winced. “Ben?”
“Alive, sir.”
He let out a breath he had been very aware that he was holding. “Ten minutes and I need that video link somewhere I can find it. Make sure it doesn’t leak to the media. That’s the last thing I need, even if Janet would never let the BBC air it. I’ll get a connection by then.”
***
Ben had sat on his little rug and watched as they packed up the tent after the video. It had been hours, and he had been painfully hot, even after peeling off all of the excess layers of clothing, and despite the fact that he was sitting in the shade of the truck. But that was nothing compared to now, as he was forced to walk. His skin was blistering and red from the sun, and he had never felt so hot in his life.
All of them but the driver were walking. From the snipets of conversation he heard, in a mixture of Arabic and French, but no English, it was to save a little bit of gas, so they could go further on what they had. He heard something about a border, and wondered if they would get stopped there. But from what he could tell, they weren’t on an established road. Why would there be a border crossing, and if there was, would they know to look for him?
He just hoped his father was on his way.
***
It was definitely Ben, he saw, freezing the video on the first frame and looking closely. The student ID had been Ben’s, and the copy of Alice in Wonderland had been so definitely Ben’s that he had hardly needed to see his face to know. But - and he unpaused the video - here was the live proof, time-stamped with the ticking seconds, just two hours old. “My name is Ben Green. I live in Man - London, England,” his voice crackled, and that was Ben too. “My father is Sir Alexander Green, a civil servant. My mother is Janet Parry, the head of the BBC abroad.”
The video switched to a man, reading off a piece of paper in Arabic. “The price for this hostage is high, and non-negotiable. We are Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. We have your son, Sir Green, but we want you.”
Sir Alexander stopped the video, and called Thomas, back in London. “Could you track the location?”
“It appears that the two parts were filmed in different places. The AQIM man is somewhere in Kidal Province, Charlie’s working on pinpointing it. We haven’t found the link that sent the video of your son to him, but Tanya says that she can see about triangulating from the sunlight in the tent. She’s placing early bets on Mauritania, but moving east. It looks like your hunch about Mali was correct.”
Somehow, Alexander didn’t feel much better for that. “Thank you Thomas. I’ll have a sleep here, but call me the moment there’s any new development.”
***
Ben was bundled up and put in the truck again, and told to stay put and quiet. It was in English, and he wondered why they bothered with their fractured and heavily accented try at the language, when he understood their Arabic or French perfectly well. And they had to know he spoke Arabic, at least a little bit, because he had that first time. It was only then that he realised he didn’t see his very first captor anymore, the one who had looked like a businessman. He had been passed along.
The driver of the truck moved quickly, and the ride was filled with bumps and jolts. Ben bit hard on his lip to stay quiet as the jolts hurt everything that was already sore, bruises and burns both, but on a particularly hard crash it drew blood, and he stopped, gagging at the coppery taste in his mouth.
Two very awake hours later, the truck pulled to a stop. The driver came and joined him in the back with a flask of water. “Drink,” he said, handing it to him.
Ben drank, still tasting blood with the water. Everything hurt. “What are we waiting for?” he asked.
The driver grinned, showing missing teeth, “Everyone else.”
***
“A satellite targeted in the area caught some footage of a truck travelling quickly across the Mauritania/Mali border with some armed foot escorts, from Oualata Department into Goundam Cercle. Tanya’s triangulation estimates and some calculations say that this is probably Ben. I took the liberty of calling the NSA to keep that satellite on them, and we can confirm if they spot him. Tanya’s sending you the coordinates every hour on the hour.”
“And the AQIM man in Kidal?”
“Charlie’s pinpointed his location. We sent in a couple of other agents who are covering it. Ben couldn’t be there yet short of flying, and AQIM doesn’t have that capability.”
Alexander nodded. “Fine. I’ll get a vehicle.”
***
Five hours later, the first of their foot patrols returned to them. “لا احد.” The first man said, nodding, and Ben knew then that they must have crossed the border, and no one had caught them. That must have been why the truck, and why so fast. There had been no one there though; that’s what the man had said. Was anyone even looking for him?
He looked up and realised the driver was looking at him with a wide grin that really didn’t make him feel any better. “Welcome to Mali,” he said.
***
It hadn’t been difficult to find someone who was willing to rent, even sell, him their car for the price he was offering. It was almost surprising that there were so many offers, because he didn’t expect to see that many cars in all of Kidal. Eventually, though, he found a car that was in good condition. He purchased it, and promised the man that if it was still in decent condition at the end of his stay, he would sell it back for a fraction of the price. It was a good deal, although if it came to shooting, the car wouldn’t make it.
Both his Arabic and his French were perfect, and his attire traditional, and so he blended in somewhat, but Sir Alexander was well aware that there was a total halt of travel from most of the Western world, and that he was very conspicuous. He checked his vehicle, carefully loaded all of his gear and especially his weapons into it. And then he drove out of the city on the largest road he could find going west.
***
Everyone that they had expected had arrived, it appeared, as Ben was ushered out of the truck. The sun was no longer directly overhead, and the temperature was falling. It was now pleasantly warm instead of blisteringly hot, but Ben was exhausted and expected to keep moving, so it really didn’t matter. A feeling of doubt sank over him. It had been three days. It had never taken Dad this long to find him and save him before. Maybe it wouldn’t happen in time.
Ben shook his head to clear it of the thought, and trudged along through the dust and sand and rocks.
***
Alexander pulled well to the side of the road to answer his phone. Several hundred metres off to the side. On the other end of the line was Tanya, and she was excited. “He’s there, we found him, they’re moving again, I don’t think it matters for you, you aren’t close enough yet, the roads are still the same, but we found him.”
He took a deep breath. “You’re sure it’s him?”
“Ninety-nine percent. It follows with my calculations, and how many blond kids do you think there are in the middle of the bloody Sahara?”
“One too many. You said they’re moving?”
“Yes, south and mostly east, slowly. I’m projecting where they’re headed now. I’ll map out the best roads for you and get you something in an hour.”
“Thanks for the check-in, Tanya.”
“It’s what I do,” the physics whiz replied. “Oh, Thomas says he’s got news from Kidal, but he says that will wait.”
Sir Alexander pulled back onto the road with just a little difficulty, and was back on his way, a little flame of real hope puncturing through the sheer desperation.
***
It was dark and late when they stopped for the night. Ben waited for instructions as the evening’s chill began to really sink in. A mat was laid out once more, and Ben had another cup of mint tea to warm him up before he passed out on the rug to sleep fitfully.
***
It was five minutes past the hour, and Tanya, Charlie, and Thomas hadn’t called in with news. It had been two days straight of someone calling every hour. This could only mean one thing - he was too close to risk them hearing or seeing. He checked the phone, and just as he had expected, there was a flashing green marker that was him, and a solid red marker that Tanya was beaming in for him. That... that was Ben and his captors.
Alexander let the smile spread across his face. He was coming, and then Ben would be safe. He stopped the car, and checked. There was his handgun. There was his rifle. There was his knife. There was his carefully packaged C4. He checked the satellite phone again - they seemed to have stopped, seated in a dip between the dunes, quite a distance from his location, but at this time of night, it would be easy enough to make that up.
He drove slowly and as quietly as possible along the road until he was as close to the spot where they had set up camp as he could possibly manage. He got out of the car, then, and started to walk.
***
Ben woke from his fitful sleep to the sound of a guard falling to the ground with a gunshot wound to his stomach. It was barely dawn, and the entire camp was still asleep, save three guards. Now two guards, and now one. The sound of the men choking for air and woke others and the camp was soon swarming with men arming themselves and trying to help those who were dying. The sniper kept picking off individuals, and blood splattered on the rocky ground, and filled the air with the stench of pain.
A man dragged Ben up off his feet and into the truck beside where he was sleeping. “Stay here. Don’t move,” he growled, before leaving him alone. Ben hunkered down in the bottom of the van, well aware that it wouldn’t provide too much protection, and hoped that it was his father out there.
***
For a moment, Sir Alexander’s firing stopped while one of the captors dragged a blond boy that could only be Ben into the truck. He was alive and here. The relief was palpable, and he began firing again. One, two, three more down. Counting on the dim light of morning to disguise the movement, he crawled down the hill the way he had come and covered the rifle. Well over half of the kidnappers were gone now. For the rest he would need to be a little bit closer. He checked his camouflage and weapons again, and rose back over the crest of the hill and crawled on his stomach down towards his son.
***
The gunshots stopped, but the camp was still in disarray as Ben’s captors tried to save their wounded. The screams were loud, and the voices frantic. Ben could hear and see everything, but he did as instructed and stayed absolutely still in the truck. There were attempts to bandage wounds, but most of those who where hit were beyond saving, and soon there was a group of the remainder who were digging shallow graves to bury them, while everyone else stood watch.
***
Alexander was less than a hundred metres from the van where his son was. Somehow, he had to get him out of here, with neither of them getting hurt. The sun was high in the sky now, and there was nothing he could do except wait, absolutely silent. Wait until the sun began to set so that he would be missed in the glare of the sun and finally, finally finish what he had set out to do. Finally hold Ben safe in his arms again, and then he would call Tanya and get them a ride out of here.
***
Time crawled. Ben dozed off and on while the camp fell apart around him. He could hear the heated argument over whether they should just kill him and be done with it, whether they should spread out and search for their pursuer, whether they should move on and hope that they wouldn’t be followed. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to know what was going on, so he kept his eyes closed and just listened. They weren’t going to kill him, they were all going to stay tight and pray and come morning, they would all leave, more quickly.
***
The sun was just skimming the horizon when Alexander stirred, slowly moving his fingers and toes and then moving his arms and legs to make sure everything was in solid working order. It all was, so he began his crawl forward once more. The guards were obviously exhausted, falling asleep where they sat, and so he was able to move quickly, while they dozed. He shimmied around to the side of the truck facing away from their fire, and stood, muscles aching with the change in position.
Cautiously, he walked along, and got into the truck, freezing at the soft squeaking noise that it made. The guards didn’t notice, but Ben did. “Dad?” he whispered.
“Shhh,” was the only verbal reply, but it was paired with a set of easily understandable hand motions.
***
Ben waited for three minutes, and then followed his father. He crept out of the van, and walked out behind it, out of view of the main part of the camp. When he was sure he was well and truly safe in that regard, he carefully headed off into the desert in the direction he had been directed, leaving his father fiddling around underneath the truck.
***
Alexander pulled out the package of plastic explosive from his pocket, and slid himself gingerly under the vehicle, wrapping it around the top of the exhaust pipe, and then implanting the blasting cap and the timer, which was set for two hours later, or whenever the car began running, whichever came first. He clambered back out from underneath the car, and then followed Ben into the desert, headed toward his rifle, and then towards his car.
***
Ben stopped on the other side of the hillside, sitting beside the camouflaged rifle. Sir Alexander came over the hill five minutes later, and picked up the rifle and the camouflage netting, and embraced Ben, who gladly hugged him back. “I’m so glad you came,” he whispered.
“Let’s get you home now.” Ben nodded in reply, and they stood up to walk back to the waiting car, into the sunset, and away from the danger.