The Crocodile Hunter by Gerald Seymour (best summer reads of all time txt) 📕

would have gone into lockdown . . . But they were in ignorance of any risk, and life was lived as normal within the hours when the place slept, after a fashion.

“I promise, Pieter, you have my promise.”

Fat good it would do Pieter to have Cammy’s promise.

It had seemed, a little after dawn and with the sun not yet high, as if this was a moment hoped for, even – after a fashion – prayed for. They were on foot. The three of them, all that remained of the brothers, had been walking through the night and were nearing, they believed, the Jordanian border. Left behind them in scraped graves were Mikki and Tomas and Dwayne and Stanislau. Ulrike had been leading, and each of the trio was burdened with rucksacks that carried ammunition and grenades, but they had only the scrapings of old food from tins abandoned by other personnel, and a few inches of bottled water between them. They had been looking for a place where they could shrug off the weight of the rucksacks, then hunker down in shade, each had and hope they didn’t get the shits. There had seemed to be a dried river course ahead and some scrub, and what Pieter would have called a kopje, a little hill with substantial rocks. Ulrike had spotted a wisp of smoke climbing, separating, dispersing: Ulrike had the best eyes. She had whistled for their attention, then had crouched.

They had stayed hidden, had seen a small settlement established among rocky crags, well camouflaged. Under tarpaulins draped in scrub branches were two big pick-up vehicles. More tarpaulins over three crevices. There were armed men, black-clothed, squatting. They had also spotted a sentry posted on the summit of the kopje, Pieter identifying his position, but he had disappeared. They whispered among themselves: what had they blundered across? They needed food and water . . . most likely they had found the covert location of one of the big figures of the movement. Cammy had been told, had not known if it were true, that a price of $100,000 was offered for the capture or the corpse of Kami al-Britani. A big man in the black flag leadership would be worth $5 million. The remote countryside of this province, devoid of roads, towns, villages, where there were few farms and no grazing land, would likely be home to various remnant groups of fleeing men, those who had not gone in the net with the women and the kids when the perimeter at Barghuz had collapsed. Had they had food and water, enough for the three of them, then they would have turned away and skirted the small camp. But they would die without food or water.

He would go to them, his decision. Pieter and Ulrike would stay behind, a quarter of a mile back, but would make themselves visible. A brief hug, nothing important.

He had gone only a few paces when he spotted movements among the stones, heard calls, had seen the awkward shapes of rifle barrels peeping between rocks.

Cammy had kept walking, had shown no fear. He had covered half the distance when a tall rake of a man had appeared from beneath the cover disguising one of the vehicles. A hand was held up, he was to stop. Cammy ignored it. He heard the arming of at least two weapons. His own rifle, the trusted AK that had been with him all of the last year, was on his shoulder and held there with a strap. He made it clear that he posed no threat. Ulrike and Pieter would have been watching him, covering him, Ulrike with her rifle that she could fire – could strip as well – and Pieter with the Dragunov sniper weapon that he coveted. The shouting in front of him rose in pitch. He was a hundred paces from his interrogator when he stopped.

Who was he? Who were they? What did he want?

He was Kami al-Britani. A foreign fighter in a unit led by the emir Ruhan. Wanted food and water and was headed towards a new battleground.

Was greeted as a friend, but told to stand where he was. He could smell meat cooking, would have been goat, giving off a rich scent. Only a man of importance, in flight, staying hidden and hoping to avoid the accursed drones, would have been fed on cooked meat. He saw four guards, big men and heavy-shouldered and all armed. A woman came. Head to toe in black, a pencil-wide slit for vision, no skin shown nor hair, and she came with a plastic bag and a plastic container. Cammy was being offered food and water.

The exhaustion was deep, hunger ached in his belly, and his throat was raw from lack of moisture. The woman, or she might have been a teenage girl, came towards him and four rifle barrels, at least, covered him.

He saw a face. Most of it was hidden behind a grey beard, loose below a sharp pointed nose, and deep-set eyes, and the hair scrambled around a small opening for the lips and his head was cloaked in a black hood. He recognised the man, had never seen him in the flesh. Cammy stared back at Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the caliphate, ruler of a broken cause, architect of a thousand destroyed dreams. He thought the woman would have been a wife, a child bride, and probably the only “groupie” permitted to accompany them . . . Did their eyes meet? Might have . . . Were others aware that their eyes might have met? The woman brought him a plastic bag in which were husks of bread and apples, and her small body was bent under the weight of a couple of gallons of water. They were put down in front of Cammy.

He bowed his head. He showed respect and gratitude. He called back that they would remain in his prayers. He had the blessing of God given him. Cammy turned and took the water and the bag and walked back