Free Danger Close by Charlie Flowers Page B

was drawling in Spanish and the ladies of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan weren’t getting it. Once a Blackeye, always a Blackeye. Her two little helpers raked in the dollar notes and she swigged from a bottle of water, then resumed shuffling and dealing. The game looked to be Texas Hold ‘Em.
    I pushed forward until I was sitting in the inner circle. Without looking up Bang-Bang flicked a pair of cards down and spoke to me in what I assumed was Pashto as the card players took their deals. I’d forgotten that all her Dad’s side of the family spoke it. How stupid of me.
    I replied ‘Sorry luv, I only speak Quack Quack and Durka Durka.’
    Bang-Bang looked up and her eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth.
    And she rapidly composed herself and grinned back. A rustle went round the crowd. She spoke to them and they laughed, and she patted a space next to her as boy number one went off on an errand.
    We hugged, and time seemed to go away for a short break. I’d found her. She was shaking and clung to me like a limpet. She seemed so skinny, and didn’t smell too good. But then, neither did I, I supposed.
    Time came back. We acted normal. The crowd was watching us for a cue. Bang-Bang leant into me and put her head on my shoulder. She smiled.
    ‘I knew you’d find me. I knew .’
    ‘Always. But on a less bright note, we’re now BOTH in an Afghan prison.’
    We laughed at the absurdity of the situation. She looked up at me. The pupils in her eyes were like pinpricks.
    ‘Yeah. But I’m tunnelling out. Haven’t you heard?’
    ‘Yes, we got a lecture from the commandant about several thousand missing industrial-sized cans of beans.’
    Her shoulders shook again, but this time with quiet amusement. ‘Did he mention the potato peeling machine? I’ll show you what we’ve been up to with it all in a bit.’
    She checked her watch. They let them keep their watches here? ‘In fact, fiancé of mine, by eleven tonight, the machine should have hit the outer perimeter.’
    ‘This I MUST see. And may I enquire, oh darling fiancée, where you learned about tunnelling?’
    Bang-Bang raised her eyebrows. ‘OK. What is my Dad’s favourite film apart from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon?’
    Of course. ‘You got me. It’s The Great Escape.’
    ‘In one. I had to watch the damn thing every other weekend when Mum was at bingo.’
    She looked sharply at me. ‘How are me Mum and Dad? How are the girls? And how’s the Colonel? Still building his Death Star?’
    I grinned. ‘Your parents, the girls, and the Colonel, miss you and need you back. All hell is about to break loose back home. How did you get set up here? Any dramas?’
    ‘Not much. On day two the second-in-command ANA guy came in and tried to rape me in front me of everyone here. Mister Big Shot. Unfortunately for ANA guy, I’d kept a shard of window glass from over there…’ she waved left… ‘I’d wrapped some electrical tape round the shard and I hacked his throat open with it. I lost my nosering in the fight but he died. Badly. Hooah. The Americans had to send the Forced Cell Move Team in to drag his body out. This end of the prison and every person in it has thought I’m brilliant ever since.’
    I had to laugh. ‘Holly. I fucking love you.’
    She laughed back and punched my arm. ‘And I fucking love you too Rizwan Sabir. Hey, check this out, wanna see my bullet scar?’
    She pulled her salwar kameez top down so I could see a professionally-stitched bullet wound just below her collarbone. To our right, a couple of Taliban ladies blushed and turned away from this brazen display of flesh.
    ‘Apparently they dug the round out in the ambulance. Grazed my left lung. I nearly bled out and flatlined, but they had loads of plasma and antibiotics. I was lucky. Relatively.’
    ‘You were lucky. Who told you about what they did?’
    ‘A US Air Force nurse. She was OK. The others weren’t.’
    ‘Holly, me and Fuzz went to the airbase. We worked out the who, the what,