Page 72 of The Lawyer
Scrambling backwards, I tuck up tight into a corner and pant. What the hell now? I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job. Me and my fucking mind need to get a grip of themselves. If I hadn't sat in that café the other night, I never would have heard the commotion, and then I wouldn’t have eavesdropped at the bar when they started talking about the bloody coup in the first place. Tracking Asif down was idiotic enough, but following his directive about only meeting here was monumentally stupid.
The engine starts under me, and before I’ve even got a chance to get to my feet and attempt escape, it’s pulling off, and I’m being tossed around because of the rough ground. My fingers grip the metal above my head, hanging on for dear life, and then I look at the doors. I’m getting out of here before I’m taken wherever they’re aiming for. Fuck knows what might be waiting for me, but I’m no damsel in distress.
Stumbling towards the back of the truck, I eventually find the handles and try wrenching them open. They’re stuck fast. I pull the pins out of my hair, perhaps hoping to jack the locks somehow with the only piece of metal on me. That doesn’t work either, so I try wrenching and pulling again in a desperate bid for freedom. Nothing happens but me being thrown to the floor again as we race over more harsh terrain. My fists hit some part of the wall, fingernails trying to prise off some of the casing. Still nothing.
Frustrated, I sit and run through my options. There aren’t many that I can think of that end particularly well. If Asif believes I’m an enemy, I can only assume I’m on the way to one of his prison camps. Journalists are useful as bait, especially when they’ve got my name attached to them. Jesus, I don’t even know how he found out who I am, and now I’m on my way to some vile hovel of exile so he can ransom me off to the highest bidder?
This has not gone well.
And it does not go well for another Christ knows how long, as I continue to be bumped and barged around in this fucking truck. It’s dark, stifling hot, and all I can smell is the scent of death that’s probably already occurred in this space.
My head drops into my hands, frantic thoughts taking me back home to a family that, while oddly disjointed, is everything to me. They need me, and I need them, and now I’m possibly going to die, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to get myself out of the situation I’ve put myself in.
A sudden crash sends me rolling sideways, and my head rebounds off the side of the truck. I claw hold of the side of the vehicle as my body rolls over itself and the truck falls sideways. It turns again and again until I eventually feel my battered frame level out. Quiet for a second or two, and then gunshot sounds almost immediately.
I move, dazed from the impacts all over me, and inch towards the doors in a blur. They’ve buckled open slightly, and a slither of light peels in from headlights outside. I kick at them, using the sound of the gunshot to cover my noise, and then start trying to squeeze myself through the small gap I’ve created. It’s not big enough, and I rally to kick my way out again, but blinding light streaks into my eyes from nowhere.
“Jesus,” falls out of me as I stumble backwards.
The doors are sprung open, and the light gets brighter as the gunfire continues outside. I cower, shoving myself to the front of the truck as far as I can go. This is it. I am going to die, or be raped, or bloody worse that I can’t think about at the moment.
“Get the fuck up,” whispers from someone.
My gaze sneaks back up at the sound of his British accent, hand trying to shield me from its intensity. “Up. Quick.” The light drops a little, and I see the figure of a guy climbing in to me, a rifle hanging low in one of his hands and the other reaching for me. “Calm down. Listen. Do as I say. Come on.”
He’s got my arm in his hand before I agree to anything, and the full force of him starts pulling me towards the doors. I slide across the metal, feet trying to cling onto the relative safety of this truck for some odd reason.
“Maybe not fucking fighting me would be helpful,” he seethes, yanking me out of the open doors and into the night. I’m shoved by his hand on the back of my neck, hard fingers gripping and pushing. “Keep your head down and move.”
“What's going on?” I stutter.
“Quiet.” His gun’s up in front of us before I focus on the answer, a bolt of light and noise firing out of it. I almost gasp at the sight of a man dropping to the ground in front of us, but I’m pushed forward again to the undergrowth before I can. “Keep breathing, keep moving,” he hisses.
“Who are you?” I ask, running through the brush.
He turns us both, gun up again and pointing back where we’ve come from. “Saviour, I guess.” A shot comes over our shoulder, more men suddenly arriving from somewhere, and I watch another body drop to the ground behind us.
I spin in his strong hold, head into his chest because at the moment, he’s the only thing I’ve got. His arm goes around my back, the gun leaning on my shoulder, and he drags me backwards.
“Rhodes? That you?” His whole body relaxes at the sound of that name being called, the metal on my shoulder slowly lowering.
“Yeah.”
“What you got there?”
“Don’t know. She sure as shit wasn’t in the back of that truck for a date, though.”
I lift my face out of his chest, watching as more lights start strobing over the floor towards us. “I’m a journalist.”
Five men get closer to me, all of them as filthy as I am and dressed like they’re in the war zone they're in. I look them over, still unsure what is about to happen, and then look back at my saviour in the hope that he still is. He doesn’t smile, nor does he give me any indication that this is a team I want to be onside with in the dead of night. He backs off instead and lets his gaze roam over my body. It’s hungry enough that I turn to look at the other guys, two of whicharesmiling about something.
My hand goes up. “Don’t even think about it. If you knew who I was, you wouldn’t even contemplate it.”
“Who you are was just about dead in the back of a truck,” one of them says. “I’m thinking you should show a little gratitude.”
The very way he says it makes my skin crawl, and I turn back to look at the one guy I’ve got any hope of trusting. “I’m Ivy Broderick. Of Broderick Media. I was here for an interview with Asif Hussain, and he thought I’d been sent in to spy for Kalif.” He pulls the baseball cap off his head, his fingers running through his lank, dark hair.
“Broderick Media, huh?”
