Split (1)

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"Wow! You've got a computer!" Khalid freezes with surprise, scarcely believing his luck. "Have. Have." Fatima grins and points at the screen, trying hard to tell him he can use it whenever he wants. There's nothing more he wants to hear. His big smile warms Fatima's heart, almost bringing tears to her eyes. But before Khalid can begin to enjoy it he races back to the living room to say goodnight to everyone and be polite for a while. Waiting until the house goes quiet before he returns to the cupboard to start the game for the first time. After half an hour or so, Khalid gets the hang of how to use the computer without being able to read the language. It gets better when he logs on to his e-mail and discovers that Tariq's game— _Bomber One_ —is ready. A whizz-kid friend of his in Lahore has helped to finish the program and download it. Tariq's sent him instructions on how to set up his profile so they can all play together soon. Khalid tests it out several times before getting too jet-lag flaky to carry on.
He sends off an excited reply before he shuts down the computer. Going deathly weird with tiredness the moment the screen goes black. Then he wanders into the front room trying to remember where Mum said he's supposed to sleep. His mind was on the computer at the time. Did she say the room next to the bathroom? Or was that his sisters' bedroom? Either way, Khalid doesn't want to disturb anyone by wandering into the wrong room so he wobbles for a bit before kicking off his sneakers and falling on the musty-smelling sofa in a heap. Still wearing the jeans and blue hoodie he's had on since yesterday morning. Within a couple of days, Khalid settles into a pleasant routine. Morning starts with breakfast in the far corner of the dining room, which is marked out by comfy cushions and rugs surrounded by large windows on two sides. Fresh fruits, juice, curry, rice and bread set him up for the two hours he has to spend watching over Uncle Amir until Fatima comes back from doing her marketing and relieves him. Giving him a chance to chat with the visitors who are always calling by, before playing and reading with Gul and Aadab to give Mum a break.
If it wasn't for all the news and talk about the earthquake in northern Afghanistan and the pictures of people freezing to death outside flattened houses, Khalid might feel worse about missing his team's football games back in Rochdale. He knows he can't complain when homeless people without proper shoes or blankets are shown on TV wandering snow-covered hills in their search for food. One of the visitors, a man called Abdullah, who is twenty-six, with a bushy black beard and cloth round his head, strikes Khalid as odd. He never mentions the earthquake, only Islam. A book-keeper with hard staring eyes and a scar on his cheek, he's in the habit of popping in every day to try to persuade Dad to come to the mosque with him. But Dad doesn't like him. Says he's too serious, even for him. Abdullah's staring eyes bother Khalid. But it seems the feeling is mutual and they mostly leave each other alone. Although Khalid likes the fact that this house is busier than his house in Rochdale, he's surprised at how different things are for people in Karachi. For a start everyone's much more polite and friendly than they are at home. Khalid can't imagine what happened outside the chip shop happening here. Instead they talk a lot about prices shooting up and about dwindling services and the lack of decent plumbing, complaining most when the taps run dry, which they usually do in the middle of the afternoon. Not that Khalid speaks Urdu. For some reason, Abdullah translates everything without ever being asked.
In the afternoon, the aunties like taking naps, which suits Khalid just fine. It gives him the opportunity to catch up on lost sleep after a night spent gaming with Tariq. Dad's often out—checking on cheaper houses for the aunties to move to. Then he sometimes helps with the street collections to send stuff to the earthquake region. So on the fourth day after they arrived, Khalid makes a decision to stay up all night playing _Bomber One_. No one in the house seems to mind what he does later, as long as he's helpful during the day. Probably thinking he hits his snug bed in the tiny room next to the bathroom some time after midnight. Never guessing it's nearer five in the morning, depending on what Tariq's plans are for the next day. At the moment, Tariq's busy studying for some accountancy exams, or so he says. Khalid thinks they sound more like A levels, but anyway Tariq always takes a break from his studies by playing a game or two, whatever the time is. Now there are more players: two in Egypt, one in Iraq, one in Australia and another in America. The game is really heating up. A secret group of fighters have to get together to plan the annihilation of an imaginary town called Arch Parkway. All of them enjoy going head to head at the same time and dreaming up mad strategies for winning, but really they're all on the same side.
It's still a bit basic and not as good as _Counter Strike_ or anything, but then this game's home-made and, who knows, one day Tariq might be able to sell it and make a ton of money and he might even give some to Khalid for helping him out with the names. "Could be a bestseller some day, with kids all over the world paying to play," the American says. "It's far better than anything out there," Khalid lies, suddenly yawning his head off. Secretly wishing he could play _Starcraft_ instead for a while—as he moves the mouse over the high buildings so the twinkling lights of _Bomber One_ come on again. 4 MISSING Khalid leans back from the computer when the call to prayer begins echoing around the city, realizing it's five o'clock. Almost morning. For a moment, he wonders if it's worth going to bed at all. Or maybe he should answer Nico's e-mail from Rochdale before making coffee to keep himself awake. It's hardly worth taking a nap because he'll need to get up for breakfast by nine at the latest.
Why is Nico talking about Niamh? Does he like her too? The thought worries him for a second before the sounds of Karachi waking up and of prayers fading away bring him back to the tiny, dark computer room. He starts googling the latest information on various computer games and after a while glances at Nico's e-mail again: "Hiya, Kal. Niamh says hello. I saw her at the shops last night and she says to tell you you should have stayed at the party, it was so way better later on, man." Wondering what to say back, Khalid wants to ask Nico if Niamh's seeing anyone. She didn't get off with anyone at the party as far as he knows. But if he does ask, everyone will know he likes her. And if Nico likes her too, then there's nothing he can do, because everyone knows he's nearly 4,000 miles away in Pakistan. In the end, he decides to keep it cool by not replying. He quickly closes the computer down when he hears Mum's footsteps clattering on the stairs. Running from room to room. "What is it, Mum?" Khalid hurries to find out.
"Dad. Where is he?" Mum's in a state, her hair spread out over her shoulders and still in her blue nightie. "What do you mean?" "Dad! He's missing, that's what. He went to see a flat yesterday evening after dinner and he hasn't come back." "Mum, he probably fell asleep." "Fell asleep? Where? In the street? Sometimes you know what's happened in your heart, Khalid. I'm telling you it's bad." "Sit down, Mum. I'll get some coffee. We'll sort it." Mum's eyes suddenly narrow at the flickering computer screen in the corner. "I hope you haven't been on that stupid thing all night," she says crossly. "I haven't, honest," Khalid protests. "I just couldn't sleep." This time she shakes her head with disbelief. "Don't try that rubbish on me!" "I'm on holiday. I don't see what the problem is." "Not now, you. I'm too worried for nonsense. You must go to find it, this place. The address, he wrote it down somewhere. Go wash your face. Brush your hair." After two cups of strong, evil-smelling coffee and a quick shower, Khalid grabs a pinch of yesterday's naan bread to eat while Mum works out where exactly in the city Dad went. This takes some time as she doesn't know the city and most of the street names are unfamiliar. Plus, she's in such a panic she has to sit back every now and then to pat her chest and calm herself.
"Perhaps we should wait until one of the aunties gets up? Or one of the neighbors comes?" she says at last. "Then we'll still be sitting here at nine. It's gone seven now. I'll find it, don't worry, Mum." Khalid folds the tourist street map of Karachi away in his pocket. Knowing if he turns to his right outside the house and keeps going left he should arrive in the right area eventually and hopefully someone can direct him from there. He checks the address scrawled in pencil on a scrap of paper again and heads towards the door. It's hot now. There's a feeling of promise in the lightening sky as the sun peeps through the spaces between the tall buildings in the distance. Khalid takes a deep breath. He hasn't been out of the house much, and never on his own, and he feels scared stiff of being mugged or beaten up or getting lost in a city he doesn't know and hasn't explored. Chickens squawk from a nearby yard. The street is empty apart from several bags of rubbish propped up in a doorway, an old Coca-Cola bottle and dented can of turpentine beside a rusting car.
A huge truck trundles past crammed with men huddled together like sacks of flour and wrapped in scarves that give little protection from the dust the tires are blowing down the street. Their faces are miserably thin. Hands folded in front. Heads down. _Workers_ , Khalid thinks. His heart is beating faster than his hurrying steps. Turning the first corner, Khalid sees a crowd gathering up ahead. A crowd he wishes he could avoid, but the narrow side alleys are also filling with men coming this way, running to catch up. There's a feeling of fear in the air. Or is it just him? Then the shouting starts. Some man on a platform begins yelling with his arms in the air. Others join in. Fisting the air violently. Young men push past dressed in exactly the same brown shalwar kameez that Aunt Fatima gave him. One of them shouts something that Khalid doesn't understand. The throng of men is growing by the second. Khalid stops. Turns to go back and find another route to avoid this chaos. But he gets caught in a sudden wave of men surging from a side alley. Pulling him forward in a lawless mass of anger that reminds him of getting caught in the rivers of fans coming out of Old Trafford after Manchester United have lost a game. The same feeling of suffocation and frenzy cuts into Khalid. The same fear of falling. Being trodden on. The only difference is the shocking sweet smell of coconut and musk drifting from their hot skin and hair.
With a mad degree of nudging and side-stepping, Khalid manages to work his way from the middle of the crowd to the area just past the yelling man on the wooden platform. The sun beats down on his bare head as he pulls up his sleeves, finding it easier to move through the crowd if he screams and punches the air like the rest of them. Soon Khalid's jumping backwards to his heart's content. Drifting across slowly until he arrives at the edge of the road, laughing. Clouds of dust billow around him and he starts to enjoy the ongoing joke of being a newly arrived foreigner and not really one of them, all the way to the end of the road, where he pauses to get his breath before turning down a quiet side street. No road sign to guide him, Khalid stops to pull the crumpled tourist map from his pocket. Sand everywhere. A corner of his eye flames red from grit, making it impossible for him to read. He stumbles down the dusty road, pressing hard on his eyelids to remove the dirt caught in his eye, but his sandy fingers are making it worse. He trips down a tunnel-like passage filled with shoppers hurrying with baskets towards the bazaar. Red-eyed, he gradually makes out the blur of a man in a doorway selling carved inscriptions on slabs of stone. Another trader points to turquoise beads and cinnamon sticks on a wooden tray that he lifts to Khalid's face. Khalid bends his head to tug at several lashes in a final attempt to dislodge the grit and blinks and blinks until he can focus on the old bead-seller standing beside him, too close for comfort.
Khalid shows him the address of the flat, but it's obvious he can't read English, leading Khalid to the conclusion that he might have to retrace his steps or get even more lost. Then a broad-shouldered, pasty-faced white man in a white cap appears out of nowhere and says something to the bead-seller in Urdu, nodding to Khalid to show him the address. "You lost?" he says in a broad Liverpool accent. Khalid is shocked. The man winks. "I know how you feel, mate. This place is a madhouse. Me name's Jim." "Khalid. Hi." He blinks, surprised. "How come you speak Urdu?" "I'm studying Eastern languages in London. Plus I'm a genius, like all Liverpudlians. Can't you tell?" Jim laughs and Khalid immediately warms to his friendly smile. "Yeah, mate, whatever you say," Khalid jokes in reply. Relieved to find someone who can help him, Khalid wanders with him through the bazaar as it fills with people and Jim tells him about his trip to Pakistan with two mates who are also students in London. "My friend Mohammed invited me here for the holidays and I thought, _Why not?_ At any rate, it gives us a chance to speak the language. Know what I mean? You're a bit bleary-eyed, mate. You OK?"
"I got some dirt in my eye." Khalid explains about the demonstration, his dad not coming home, plus the fact he's never been into the city until now. "That's why I've got this address, although I have no idea where the place is." "You're looking for your dad? What are you going to do if you don't find him?" "Dunno." The same question had occurred to Khalid when he left the house. "Look, I can take you to this flat. But I suggest if he's not there you scarper home and wait for news. If you want some good advice, don't go near the police without a group of male friends and then always cooperate with them fully. Answer any questions. Do ya hear?" Khalid nods. "Can't I trust the police, then?" "Let's just say there's loads of backhanders going round this city." Jim frowns. "Drug-trafficking and the like and plenty of CIA blokes paying out for supposed al-Qaeda suspects." "Just like my nearest city, Manchester, then?" Khalid laughs. Jim grins but his smile quickly fades. "They're obsessed with finding dirty bombs," he explains. "Men are disappearing all over the place."
Khalid thinks back to his conversations with Nasir and Tariq. "Not my dad, though. He's a Westernized Pakistani. He doesn't even like it here—only wants to help his sisters move house." Jim shakes his head. "Everybody from a Muslim country is seen as a threat to the USA right now." Something about the way he says this makes Khalid feel suddenly more anxious than ever. If only he can find his dad and get back to Rochdale and their normal lives. After ten minutes, they come to a small block of flats. Jim leads the way up narrow concrete stairs to the top floor. With a firm hand he bangs on the door of Flat 26, looking round for signs of life. Then he peers into a small window hardly bigger than an envelope while Khalid waits anxiously for his dad to answer the door. There's nothing but silence and a moldy apple core on the dusty concrete floor at Khalid's feet. "Doesn't look good," Jim says before shouting in Urdu at the top of his voice. The door to Flat 25 next door opens in slow motion. Locks and bolts click and slide before an elderly man peers out an inch. He eyes them suspiciously.
" _Salaam!_ " Jim rushes to greet him while he has the chance. Quickly explaining about Khalid's dad. Pointing to Flat 26. The watchful old man takes his time to reply, as if not certain that Jim's telling the truth. A feeling of dread spreads over Khalid as the man looks them up and down, then spits. He stares hard with suspicious eyes, even as Jim speaks to him in the local dialect. Finally he answers quickly, then shuts the door. Bolting and locking it as fast as he can. His footsteps hurry down the creaking floor as if he can't wait to get away from them. Jim turns to Khalid and holds up his hands. "Sorry, mate. I tried. He said there's no one at the flat. Some rich bloke owns it, wants to rent it out. He thinks someone might have banged on the door last night but he's not sure." Khalid closes his eyes and breathes out. Like he's been holding his breath the whole time. Without saying anything, he peers in the small window of the flat to see nothing but a small hall with red tiles and a pile of unopened mail on the coir mat. "I guess he's not here, then," he says eventually.
They walk back together, Khalid in silence with a heavy heart and Jim talking non-stop about a girl he likes called Carla, an archaeology student he's madly in love with. Trying in his own way to make Khalid feel better by distracting him from the disappointment. "You know how it is when you like a girl, you can't get her out of your mind," Jim says, smiling. He leads Khalid down a side street to avoid the market and the demonstration, which has grown even larger. But the rhythm of men chanting and yelling, and a car screeching to a halt nearby, fire rockets of unimaginable fear and panic through Khalid with every step. _Dad? Dad?_ Terrified he'll never see him again, a sudden smell of woodsmoke overwhelms Khalid. His thoughts, his feelings and senses are out of his control. Unless Dad's at home when he gets there, his life will be turned upside down. A strange numbness sets in as Khalid walks the dusty road, drifting between noise and silence. Jim's voice takes him to the edge of a cliff and then back again, the pointless chatter sounding as if it's coming from the bottom of a deep cave somewhere.
"She's amazing. Know what I mean?" Jim says. "Yeah." Khalid hasn't got the energy to smile. The words _She's amazing_ — _amazing_ — _Yeah_ zip past in a circle above his head, while the terrible thought his dad might be dead squeezes a clamp around his heart. They walk in silence for a few moments and for some reason Khalid's mind shoots back to a day last September, when he and Niamh were sitting together under an oak tree in the park. And even though Holgy was pulling faces at him all the while and Nico was throwing sticks at the bench, Niamh told him about her plans to become a lawyer and live in New York. About how she was going to get out of Rochdale the moment she could, because her mum was driving her crazy after the divorce. "Will you have to marry a Muslim girl?" Niamh asked. "I can marry who I like," he'd said. Not wanting to get into this. Thinking, _Should I tell her if she isn't a Muslim she can convert? Loads do._ "Mum says it's better if I marry a Catholic. Hah, she had to marry one—and look where that got her. Anyway, we're past all that now, aren't we, Kal, us? Thanks for listening." Jumping up when the ice-cream van sounded its silly tune at the park gates.
"Are you in the mood for an ice cream?" "Er—no. Yeah, OK!" Khalid remembers how he grinned. Sitting there like a lost puppy until she came back with two double whips. Silently praying she'd sit next to him again, which she never did. Five days after the party, when he last saw her, he already felt bad. They went to Karachi, and now Dad's gone missing he feels even worse. Perhaps he should have warned him about the kidnappings and stuff that Nasir, the shopkeeper, had told him about. Jim stops suddenly. "That's your aunties' road, yeah? Didn't you say it was this street?" "Yeah. Yeah. They live at 74A." Khalid nods. Jim stares at him. "Are you OK? Do you want me to come and speak to your family with you?" Khalid shakes his head, knowing that a stranger in the house will just make things worse when he gets home without Dad. "OK, well, see you, then. Bet your dad's already home," Jim says with little confidence. "Here's my mobile number if you need anything. Look after yourself, OK?" "Thanks a lot," Khalid says finally. He wants to say more, like how he couldn't have found the flat without him, or spoken to the old man in the next-door flat, but he's worried if he talks too much he'll start crying or something. Jim understands and just grins a show of affection as Khalid turns and heads down his street. Raising a hand to wave goodbye in a half-hearted way.
As soon as Jim's out of sight something snaps inside Khalid and he runs as fast as his legs will carry him, arriving at the house in a gasping, dusty, hot heap. Adrenaline makes his head swim with a thousand awful pictures of Dad hurt, bleeding, kidnapped, shot, and he becomes convinced the instant he opens the door that Dad isn't back. When the sound of a passing, rumbling truck dies down, Khalid prepares himself by taking a deep breath of fried garlic and cumin. 5 EASTER There's an oasis of silence and peace inside the house as the door closes. The dark wall-hangings create a sense of cave-like gloom. Though his temporary home is familiar, it provides no comfort to Khalid as he pauses to gaze through the open door of the dark back room to see Uncle Amir curled up, asleep as usual, in the far corner. Everyone else, he can tell, is in the other room, listening hard. Knowing it's Khalid by the way he kicks off his sandals before he heads towards them with hesitant steps. Looking round at the sea of questioning faces, Khalid thinks that the whole neighborhood seems to have crammed itself into the living room. There's barely space on the small tables for another bowl of sugar cubes or cup of half-drunk coffee. He suddenly has no idea where to start. All at once, hundreds of inquiring voices fire questions at him in Urdu and Punjabi, neighbors and distant relatives crowding round him. The aunties wring their hands, sobbing. Mum stands in the corner, wailing. Gul and Aadab, pale and shaken, are close to screaming.
"I dunno where Dad is," Khalid says when everyone eventually falls silent. He goes over the chain of events as quickly as possible, not bothering to mention the demonstration and the hordes of angry men he'd come across. The moment Khalid finishes, leaving people none the wiser, everyone begins sounding off with their own ideas and gesturing to heaven for help. A stream of desperate prayers begins to flow from their downturned mouths. No one notices Khalid slip away to grab a glass of water, wash his dusty face and hands and flop on the kitchen floor. At last, he gets to sit on his own in a state of total disbelief at his useless, wasted search. He is tired out of his mind, head spinning from too many hours without rest. The wooden ceiling fan seems to loom over him as he builds a nest of red cushions on the floor, their gold tassels swinging as he lies down. Soon falling under the gentle hypnosis of the fan's whirring and faint clicks, he enjoys a moment's peace until people begin coming and going, stepping over him. Clattering cups, brewing coffee, whispering, trying not to be noisy, even though they can see he's not asleep.
In the end their constant interruptions force Khalid to get up again. He pads back to the living room, where Gul and Aadab stare from one sad face to another, wondering if anyone will notice if they eat the rest of the sugar cubes in the green glass bowl. Gul reaches to grab a handful and pass some to Aadab. Both try hard to enjoy the cloying sweetness while pretending not to be eating anything and, along with Khalid, gaze sadly at Mum. Fatima and Roshan stand with their backs to them at the window, looking out. Aunt Rehana listens blank-faced to a neighbor who's brought a pot of honey and some walnuts to cheer them up. Everyone is in the same state of lonely grief, only half here in this room, their minds overloaded with stories they've read in the papers about people who've gone missing and are later found dead from bomb blasts, accidents, murders. It's easy to think the worst here. Later, after a few hours tossing and turning in bed, Khalid gets up. He moves quickly, pulling on his jeans, hurrying to hear what's happened. Peeping into the living room, he sees the same faces, feels the same hopelessness, and steps back. Rushing instead to the computer cupboard, where he half expects an e-mail from someone, anyone, who might be able to tell him what's happened to Dad.
He opens the door and is amazed to find Abdullah on the computer. "What are you doing here?" "What do you mean?" Abdullah clicks on the corner of the page he's looking at so it disappears. Quickly turns to face Khalid with a calm, unsurprised smile. "That's our computer," Khalid stutters. "I have permission from the family to use this, but I have finished with it now so you may continue your game," Abdullah says in his annoying formal English and scrapes the chair back. The thought flashes through Khalid's mind that he's never told him about Tariq's game, but then anyone could see what he's been doing online because he didn't log off the last time he used the computer. From now on, he'll log off each time and shut it down properly. "Don't worry. I am not interested in what you are doing on the World Wide Web. I am not a spy," Abdullah says, reading his mind. "Myself, I am only reading the newspapers, as I have always done. My brother and my sister's husband, they come here to do the same. We have not been doing this for some days because your family are here. I was looking to see if there was any news of your father." He stands up and walks off, leaving Khalid standing there, unable to say anything back.
He feels guilty for a moment, but quickly forgets as he checks his e-mails. There are three: one from Tariq, suggesting the time to play _Bomber One_ tonight; one from Nico, rambling on about how he's downloaded a bunch of songs for free on his MP3 player; plus one from a kid at school called Jamie, who's doing his history coursework on Galileo too. "He could have had a stroke," someone says from the hall, their thoughts clashing with the lovely smell of curry that's building in the air. After a while Khalid closes the computer down and steps out of the dark cupboard, surprised to see Abdullah is back again with his wife. They are smiling at everyone and their arms are loaded with dishes of steaming food. "Bottle gourd curry and chapattis. Chickpeas too for you!" Abdullah says. Someone bangs on the door, too calmly for it to be urgent news about Dad. _Another neighbor_ , Khalid thinks, heading down the hallway and opening the door to a familiar face. "Hiya, how's it going?" Jim smiles. "Just thought I'd pop in on my way to the airport. Everything OK?"
Khalid shakes his head. "Nah, Dad's not here." Mum and the aunties disappear from the hall after seeing it isn't anyone with important news. "We still, like, don't know what happened," Khalid says, hogging the doorway. Hearing Abdullah and his wife offer to put the food out in the kitchen, all of a sudden Khalid's stomach twitches with hunger. "Have you checked the hospitals?" Jim asks. "The neighbors have." Khalid nods, all of a sudden wanting to talk about something else in case he gets worked up again. "We're just about to have some food. Do you want to join us? One more mouth won't make a difference round here." "Nah, I've gotta go. Thanks, though. Just wanted to see how things were going. Wish it was better news." Jim sighs. "Well, best of luck, mate. Hope you enjoy the rest of your Easter holiday." "Thanks." Khalid closes the door as Jim jumps back in his taxi. Remembering Easter at home, a picture of his town, Rochdale, flashes through Khalid's mind. Suddenly he's walking with his mates down a pretty cobbled street—York Street. The shops are crammed with chocolate Easter eggs as they make their way to the shopping arcade. He feels such a strong connection to the lovely old mill town that for the first time in his life he realizes he loves it there. Then Abdullah's suddenly behind him with a suspicious look on his face.
"Yeah, what?" Khalid asks, feeling annoyed again. "Who's that man?" he says, expecting an answer immediately. "Just some bloke." Khalid's tempted to tell him he's a grenade thrower, but stops himself, not trusting Abdullah to take it as a joke. "I met him in the market. He's a student in London and he helped me find the address of the flat Dad went to." "What else?" "Nothing else. What do you mean?" says Khalid, thinking, _None of your business_. "What things did he tell you?" Abdullah asks. "Things? What do you mean? Nothing. He's from Liverpool. He's English. Look, I'm starving. I haven't eaten anything proper since yesterday." With that, Khalid wanders off. He suspects Abdullah knows more about his dad's disappearance than he's letting on. That suspicious look on his scarred face isn't right and the sick feeling Khalid has in his stomach won't go away. Luckily, when Abdullah comes to get some food he doesn't mention anything about Jim in front of the others. Later in the evening, when the neighbors have gone home and the aunties and Mum have finally been persuaded to go to bed, the house falls silent once more. The latest decision is to go to the police in the morning. A group of male neighbors are preparing a list of questions to ask.
There were some questions Khalid wanted to ask Abdullah, but Mum stopped him by putting a finger to her mouth. She warned him not to speak out of turn, even though the knot in Khalid's stomach is still there. All this is on his mind as he switches on the computer. The familiar ping is the best sound he's heard all day. "Hiya, cuz." Tariq's already there waiting for him with a message. "My dad's disappeared," Khalid types immediately. Tells him the whole story without quite believing it himself. "I heard from my father," Tariq replies. "Everyone is so worried. They're saying the War on Terror is getting worse each day." Tariq sends Khalid some links to online articles written in English, knowing he hasn't seen any newspapers he can read since he's been here. "Why my dad, though? He's no one," Khalid questions after scanning the reports. "He's a man, isn't he, you dorkhead?" Tariq types. "That's good enough reason for them." "I don't get it," Khalid answers wearily, worried sick again. "Come on. Log on to _Bomber One_. Your dad might be back by the time we finish this game," Tariq says. "The others are ready and waiting."
Khalid eventually clicks through to the game, hoping for a simple distraction. The other players quickly line up their soldiers, moving them to the target points to start. The fighter planes shift into view. All the points from the last game are quickly calculated to the highest fraction before the battle begins. Losing himself in the desire to win, Khalid types wildly. His fingers start tapping to the beat of the pictures on the screen until the keyboard appears to be playing the game on its own. Spontaneously battering every plane in sight. Using up bombs to bust the targets with effortless ease. Blasting the enemy's boats out of the water, power surges through Khalid with every explosion. Finally he's not thinking about anything else but the game and suddenly his mind feels lighter, despite the complicated scoring system. At last, coming up for air, Khalid pauses to dash to the loo. Hurrying, jeans half zipped, he's determined to get back to the computer before it's his turn to man the rockets, when the front door swings open. Immediately excited and distracted, Khalid rushes back down the dark hall to the door. Surely only his dad could be coming through the door without knocking at this time of night?
But he's badly mistaken. Blocking the hallway is a gang of fierce-looking men dressed in dark shalwar kameez. Black cloths wrapped around their heads. Black gloves on their hands. Two angry blue eyes, the rest brown, burn into Khalid as the figures move towards him like cartoon gangsters with square bodies. Confused by the image, he staggers, bumping backwards into the wall. Arms up to stop them getting nearer. Too shocked and terrified to react as they shoulder him to the kitchen and close the door before pushing him to his knees and waving a gun at him as if he's a violent criminal. Then vice-like hands clamp his mouth tight until they plaster it with duct tape. No chance to wonder what the hell is going on, let alone scream out loud. Stunned and shaking, Khalid feels his world slow down to a second-by-second terrible nightmare as they grab at his ankles and arms, handcuffing them tight before dropping a rag of a hood over his head. Then, without missing a beat, someone kicks him in the back, ramming his body flat on the floor. A heavy boot lands firmly on his spine, forcing Khalid to moan with muffled pain, while dust from the rug works its way inside his nose, making him sneeze uncontrollably through the threadbare hood. This simple reaction makes the strangers add a sharp thrum of boots to his side and a fiery agony explodes over Khalid's body as, stunned and shaken, he snorts desperately, trying to get air in through the tape stuck fast across his mouth.
_Dad. Dad_ , Khalid pleads silently. This must be what happened to him. Khalid twists and turns, unable to breathe or scream or stop his heart from thumping. He recoils in terror as they lift him like a crate, hot fists on his legs and shoulders, and silently carry him out. Dumped in the back of an open truck, he groans as his face and body smash hard against the floor. The sudden movement of the truck jolts him from side to side as it drives off, the men breathing heavily and crowding over him with their smells of warm flesh and tobacco. Paralyzed by fear, Khalid wonders desperately where they are taking him. Who are they? Why him? What for? Questions he can't even speak out loud. The sounds of the city die away as the truck speeds along a potholed road that sends Khalid rolling across the truck in agony. He breathes in oil stains and the stench of animals, knocking his head on the uneven metal floor. A hefty boot kicks him back to the center each time he slides their way. Pictures of his kidnapping flash quickly, one after the other, through his mind, building to an overwhelming fear that he's going to be dumped at the side of the road any second and left there to die.
6 POWER As the truck rumbles over another pothole, Khalid's cloth-covered face is pressed into the spreading dirt and dust flying across the hot, hard floor. Head pounding, arms tied back and aching like mad, eventually all he can think is, _Why put a gun to my head? Is this really what happened to Dad?_ The situation is so way beyond Khalid's everyday reality, he can't take it in. Things like this don't happen in his world. Things like this can't happen to him. It's more like a movie or a computer game. Again and again he thinks back to Abdullah always hanging round the house. About what Nasir and Tariq told him about people lying for money. Are these men US soldiers? But why would they be interested in a British kid like him? There must be a mistake. If they've got his dad, then they'll work that out soon enough. Khalid rolls to one side when the truck turns a corner and a big boot nudges him away. One of the men at the edge of the truck shouts angrily, which makes Khalid want to scream. His mum, his sisters, his aunties, they'll go out of their minds when they find him missing. First Dad and now him.
After a while the truck stops. Two men lift Khalid out to carry him across a concrete forecourt with footsteps and cars nearby. Inside the building the cloth hood is whipped off. A bright ceiling light dazzles Khalid for a moment as he tries to make out the faces of his kidnappers hidden behind tightly wound black cloths. Only their angry eyes and rough fists give a small clue that the blue-eyed one might be a Westerner, with his freckly pink hands. Without warning someone behind Khalid rips the duct tape from his mouth, slashing his lips and skin to bits, tearing wisps of hair from his face, making him feel he's been stung by epic-sized bees. He screams in pain as his eyes flood with water. Clenching his jaw as they leave the hand- and ankle-cuffs where they are. Now out of his mind with fear, pain and anger, Khalid gazes down at the state of his jeans, covered in dust, totally wrecked, and feels so weak and dizzy he can barely breathe or utter a sound. What the hell are they up to? No one will believe this—it's too crazy for words. He almost smiles with delirium at the thought of what Holgy or Nico would say if he tried to convince them.
"Who are you?" he asks desperately, almost whispering, but no one speaks. They all sit there until a podgy-looking Pakistani with immaculate hair and neatly pressed shalwar kameez, a huge gold ring on his right hand, appears from nowhere and shuffles him into a gray room, which he locks the second they're inside. The man looks him over for a second with a shocked expression that proves Khalid's face is badly swollen and bruised. He can taste the blood from his lips as it dribbles into the corners of his mouth. The throbbing under his eye is so painful Khalid has to squint to take in the gray room, which smells of dog biscuits. It's empty apart from two chairs, a rug and small black table with a wodge of loose papers on top. The man points Khalid to one of the chairs, then bends down to unclick Khalid's ankle-cuffs, which he kicks across the room. He gives the impression that Khalid's ordeal might soon be over. But then he takes a moment to twist the chrome watch that Dad gave Khalid for Christmas from his wrist and it becomes clear that it won't. The man squirrels the watch away in his pocket before sitting down opposite him.
"Name and address," he says in perfect English, pen poised. He speaks so beautifully, Khalid begins to doubt the man's from Pakistan at all. "Give me back my watch," Khalid croaks. "You'll get it later," the man answers. "Is this a police station or what? Why did those idiots beat me up?" "Just answer the questions," the man says sourly. "What are you doing in Pakistan?" "Doing in Pakistan? I'm here with my family on holiday. Then I'm going back to school in England, where I come from. My name's Khalid Ahmed. You've just been to my aunties' house. You know my address." He can't believe this is for real. "England? University school? Your name's Khalid Ahmed?" "I'm at a school for kids. Teenagers. I just said my name." Khalid sighs. "Who are you? Let me out of here." The man tilts his head to one side to get a better look at him. "Where have you been since you arrived in Karachi?" he says, as if he knows something Khalid doesn't. "Nowhere. What are you on about?" Khalid's even more confused when he takes a small photo from his back pocket.
"Who is this man?" He points angrily to a blurred photo of someone in a brown shalwar kameez jumping in the air with arms outstretched, surrounded by hundreds of similar-looking men. This guy could be anyone. "Dunno. How would I know?" "What's his name?" "I don't know him, mate. But do you know where my dad is? What's all this for? Why am I here? And give me my watch back." The man stares at him, uninterested. Clearly this is a one-way conversation and Khalid gets angry. He's seen enough kids round his way being stopped and searched by the police to know what his rights are. "I'm saying nothing until I get a lawyer. That watch cost my dad thirty-five pounds. Give it back." "This is Karachi, not England," the man says. "You don't have any legal rights here. Tell us what you know and you can go home." "I've told you the truth. Get me someone from the British Embassy. They'll help me out. I haven't committed any crime." "You don't understand. You are wanted. We can't intervene. I'm sorry." For a moment the man does seem genuinely sorry, which surprises Khalid.
"Someone wants me? Come on. I haven't done anything. Are you crazy?" Confused and nervous in equal measure, Khalid quickly tells him about himself, about his family and Dad going missing. Everything about Jim and looking for the flat. "I'm only just fifteen," he adds. "We are living in terrible times," is all the man says. As if his hands are tied and the truth's unimportant. "You look much older than fifteen. It's late. I'll see you in the morning." He gets up to leave. "You can't leave me handcuffed like this!" Khalid shouts. "My arms hurt!" The door slams. "You stole my watch!" The lock snaps. Baffled and shocked, Khalid's no closer to understanding the reason for being kidnapped, beaten up and brought here, and the more this goes on, the weirder and sicker he feels. The thought of how Mum will cope when they find him gone in the morning crushes him. He feels guilty even though none of this is his fault. All of it on top of Dad disappearing is too strange and mad to take in. How can something of this sort happen to an ordinary family like his?
Now there's a horrible pain in his side which makes him think they've shattered one of his ribs, and what with his aching arms and shoulder, the throbbing pains in his chest and legs, his stinging face and sore eye, he's so tired and weirded out he can hardly think. Too messed up to sleep, Khalid shouts out a list of vile swearwords as he walks around the room. Magnifying them in his mind as he yells. Stabbing the air with them. Angry beyond belief with himself for not keeping his mobile phone in his pocket, even though they would have taken that too. Picturing it beside the computer in the cupboard where he left it, he wonders whether it's worth trying to kick the door in with his bare feet before he lies down on the cool, concrete floor. Within minutes, he's asleep. A while later he wakes suddenly, due to the unbearable aches and pains throbbing in every part of his body. The ceiling light is blazing down on his eyes. He turns to face the door, gazing at the bleak shadows of the table and chairs, and cries his heart out.
In the morning, still half asleep, Khalid settles into an upright position, determined to stay clear-headed enough to get himself out of here. Believing these people, whoever they are, must know by now they've got the wrong person. Khalid Ahmed isn't such an unusual name, he reassures himself. Listening to footsteps approach the door, Khalid decides to do as Jim advised him, to cooperate as much as possible. He knows he was reasonable last night, but things might go better today if he's more helpful. Calling the podgy guy "Uncle" will show respect. Khalid smiles, now feeling confident he'll be out of here within hours. When the lock turns in the door, Khalid's ready and smiling. But instead of the guy from last night another younger Pakistani comes in with tea and flat bread to tempt him. "Where's the other man?" Silence. Khalid tries being friendly. "What's your name?" Silence. Then the man leaves without saying a word, clearly unable to speak English, taking the tea and bread with him. "Bye," Khalid calls. No response. The door clicks shut.
A few minutes later, a woman with straight brown hair, about thirty-five, in a gray suit and white shirt, comes in with a clipboard. Two men in navy trousers with blue and white pinstriped shirts accompany her. Standing at the door, they say nothing while she pulls up the other chair. Then another guy in a black suit slips in behind them. "Hi, Khalid," she says in a friendly American accent, as if she's going to help him. "I'm Angela and this is Bruce." She points to the man in the suit. The other men she doesn't bother introducing. "Now, what exactly were you doing in Afghanistan last week?" Khalid's mind is scrambled again. "My name's pronounced _Haleed_ ," he says, surprised at himself for mentioning it, some-thing he gave up doing years ago in infant school. "I've never been to that country!" Angela smiles sweetly at him. "Come on now. We know you were there. We have your passport." This was getting ridiculous. "That can't be true. My dad keeps all our passports. How come you've got mine? Have you got my dad?"
"Your father? Why do you keep talking about him?" "What? I told that other guy—he's missing." "Your father works for al-Qaeda?" "What? No! He's a chef in Manchester. Don't be daft. You can phone the restaurant. They'll tell you. Ask my aunties, my mum." "You have no idea where your father is?" Angela frowns. "Don't you?" Now Khalid's getting really confused. "Why would we?" Angela leans back in her chair, exchanging glances with the men at the door as if to say, _This might take a while_. Khalid is totally baffled. "I'm only fifteen," he says. "You can't do this. I haven't done anything. Where's my watch?" One guy butts in. "My name's James. I'm from MI5." The silent one nods briefly, staring at Khalid with a stern expression. "Then get me out of here!" Khalid yells. "I'm afraid we can't do that," James says. "You have to! I'm only a kid!" "It's best to cooperate with the Americans and tell them what you were doing in Afghanistan and why you were at the demonstration." "What demonstration? That thing the other morning? I just pushed through the crowd on my way to look for my dad. You've mixed me up with someone else." If the British guys won't help him, who will? Khalid finally crumbles. "Please!" he begs, tears springing into his eyes. But the men are expressionless, unmoved.
Soon the door opens and the men leave. Angela's joined by another guy who is about forty years old with a round, smiling face. Getting Khalid's hopes up for a second. But after whispering to the woman, all he says is, "We've got the others." "What others? Have you kidnapped my mum and sisters?" If only they'd tell him what they suspect him of doing, he could put them right, but they turn away whenever he glances at them. Talking quietly to each other out of earshot. "WHAT OTHERS?" Khalid yells. Then the round-faced guy begins tapping his foot. At this, Angela gets up and two Pakistani guards grab Khalid by his handcuffs. "Am I going home? Where are you taking me?" Khalid shouts as they walk him to the door, then down the mildew-smelling corridor and outside into blazing sunshine towards a dusty brown truck parked right outside. This time they don't bother with the cloth hood. They know he has no idea where he is and there's nowhere to run. It's then that Khalid first begins to think they won't be taking him home. Shoved in the back, pushed face down again, he can just about make out four more men in shalwar kameez as they climb in to sit on the edges of the truck. Holding on with their hands, they lean over Khalid in case he decides to escape. Their tobacco-smelling breath makes him want to heave but there's no room to move, their sandals and hairy toes are right in his face. Nobody speaks. The driver speeds off down a wide, busy highway, jolting Khalid again on the uneven metal floor. Dirt in his face. In his eyes and mouth. He bumps around like an empty brown bottle, trying to avoid another jolt to his ears and bruised head.
Suddenly the truck brakes sharply and Khalid's quickly bundled out of the back, sweaty men on either side of him. They push him towards a tall building with high windows and shove him through a black shiny door to the poshest place he's ever seen. Full of gilt-framed pictures, luxurious red and gold chairs, the marble hall smells of silver polish. If it wasn't for the men beside him with their hands on his shoulders, Khalid might think this was the home of a famous Pakistani cricketer. Two men from the truck disappear inside one of the rooms. The others stay close to Khalid as they push him into a smaller room at the far end of the hall. Once inside, the door closes quickly behind him and the key turns in the lock with a loud double clunk, giving him the feeling it won't be opened again any time soon. Khalid runs to the window to see if he can escape. But there's another two men outside in a parked car and, in any case, the window's bolted. Down the wide street, there are other tall buildings, some with black gates in front of them. Across from him is a park-like open space, marked out with narrow railings. It looks nice out there. Safe. Rich. The kind of area Khalid goes out of his way to avoid at home in case someone thinks he's a burglar or up to no good. The kind of road that makes him feel poor and scruffy. Out of place. Uncomfortable.
Why didn't they just ask him to come with them? Why kidnap him with a gun and beat him senseless? Why the stupid hood and cuffs if all they are going to do in the end is bring him to a flash place like this? With little idea what to do or think, Khalid sits on the dark yellow sofa with his feet on a small coffee table, rubbing his sore wrists against his T-shirt behind his back in an attempt to shift the cuffs farther up his arms. His aching shoulder hurts worse than ever. The pain in his side forces him to sit leaning forward, almost doubled up, staring at the ornate rugs on the wooden floor while wondering what on earth they are going to do with him next. He doesn't have long to wait before two men in jeans and blue shirts creak open the door. Khalid quickly drops his feet from the coffee table and sits up straight, trying his best not to look scared. More Americans, they introduce themselves as Dan and Bobby. Like last time, no surnames. "We're here to help you," Dan says unconvincingly as he lounges in the chair opposite with his big hands clasped in his lap. The gentler-faced Bobby nods several times as he holds out a blown-up photo of Khalid jumping high, arms in the air, at the demonstration in Karachi.
"Is this you?" Khalid nods, surprised to see the photo. Do they have photos of everyone at the demonstration? Was it an al-Qaeda event or what? Or have they been following him? The two men look at each other. "Right," says Dan. "Good. Now, tell us what you are doing here and we'll let you go." "I told you! I got caught up in that, trying to look for my dad. I didn't even know what it was!" "What were you doing at the demonstration?" "Who was the guy in the skullcap next to you?" "What's the name of the man to your right?" "Why did you return to Karachi from Afghanistan?" "Who did you meet in Afghanistan?" "What did you bring with you?" "Why did you go to the demonstration?" This was beginning to feel like a scene from _Groundhog Day_. The same questions going round forever. With the same answers being ignored because they don't fit the answers the Americans want. Dan's and Bobby's freshly shaved faces and neatly combed hair, together with their wide, toothy smiles and stupid questions, force Khalid to suspect they are completely out there, on drugs or something.
He does his best to hold his temper. Patiently telling them again and again who he is and why he's in this photo they have. Reminding them he's never been anywhere near Afghanistan. Wondering if he's going to lose his mind if this carries on much longer. "I'm fifteen," Khalid says for the millionth time. "I'm still at school." This time Dan leans back on the chair, shaking his head impatiently. "Come on! Answer the questions." "Admit you're twenty-two and a member of al-Qaeda. Go on," Bobby says with the kind of smile that's worse than nasty. "What? No way. How come you think that?" Khalid pleads. Dan finally looks like he's given up. "OK, Kandahar for you," he says smugly, flicking a finger at Bobby, who rushes to the door. "You're wasting our time!" he adds with a smirk. "What do you mean 'Kandahar'?" Khalid shouts, a part of him thanking his dad for making him learn the map of Asia when he was young. "That's in Afghanistan! I told you I haven't been there and now you want to _take me there_? Are you crazy? I want to see my family. Where's my mum? Someone's made up lies about me—I know what goes on here. Don't pay them. Was it Abdullah, that maniac?'
"You should have trusted me!" Dan heads for the door, ignoring his outburst. Five seconds later, the guard reappears and Khalid jumps up, ready to fight, though there's little he can do with his hands cuffed behind his back. But all that happens is the guard roughly pushes him away, then waits beside the door as Dan and Bobby leave the room and quickly follows them to ram the key in the lock. Once Khalid is alone on the dark yellow sofa once again, the thought slowly dawns on him that they really are going to take him to Kandahar. His mind races back through their questions in a desperate attempt to figure out who they think he might be. "Do I look like a terrorist?" he says aloud, totally confused by the whole thing. His thoughts scatter to consider every possibility. _Is it because of Dad? Did he do something bad? Was the demonstration about al-Qaeda? What do they think I've done? Why do they keep talking about Afghanistan?_ All he knows is that something's gone terribly wrong, and, with his dad not around, it's probably going to get a whole lot worse.
An armed Pakistani guard comes in with a bottle of water. His movements and face are gentle, unlike those of the last one. Khalid gets the sense he can talk to this guy and gestures to him that he needs the loo. The guard uncuffs him. At last Khalid can see the damage the truck journey has done to his arms, which are covered in red marks, cuts and bruises and ache with a sudden, dragging pain as they fall to his side. The guard eyes Khalid's arms, then frowns to himself. He leads him outside, where another guard throws a white towel over Khalid's head to prevent him from seeing where he's going. The first guard clutches his elbow, walking him slowly to the toilets at the other end of the corridor. A murmuring sound inside one of the two cubicles tells Khalid he's not alone as the towel's removed. The door locks quickly behind him as he gazes at the dark, damp toilets that look like something out of a horror film. No windows. Only one dripping tap and two stained porcelain urinals. Such a flash house and these smelly toilets are ten times worse than the ones at school.
"Hello?" Khalid whispers to the closed, gray cubicle, aware the guard's listening outside. The murmuring suddenly stops. The door opens and an alarming-looking Indian man with dazed eyes and a vacant expression pushes past without seeing him. "Hey, man!" Khalid whispers. Shocked by the greeting, the man bangs anxiously on the door to be let out. In a second he's gone, leaving Khalid even more bewildered. How many others are there like him here? Is this posh house a disguise for a prison? Who owns this place? The door opens again for Khalid soon after. He is handcuffed once more, the towel is thrown over his head and he's led up some stairs and down another corridor to another room, where the towel's removed again. Khalid can't bear it any longer. "I need help." A weird sound like that of a wounded animal escapes his mouth. "Please! Please!" His teary eyes meet the guard's flat, cow-pat eyes. A look of hopeless recognition that they're both out of their depth passes between them. The gentle-faced guard lowers his head to gaze at the floor while Khalid begs for help.
"I haven't done anything wrong. I'm a schoolkid. Please get me out of here!" Knowing this might be his last chance of escape. "I cannot." The guard sighs. "Why are you helping them, not me? At least go to my aunties' house and tell them where I am. Please. Please. If you can't help me, help my mum." "We have rules not to aid," he answers, clearly upset. "Who'll know? I won't tell anyone! Please. My poor mum." Suffering from a roller-coaster of emotions, Khalid thinks maybe kicking him before running for the stairs is worth the chance of getting shot in the back. Anything's better than being held here. This time the guard stays quiet. A look of guilt passes over his worried face as he hurries out. Quickly the lock turns, clicks then clunks, followed by the kind of silence that feels as if it might go on forever. Khalid turns from the door with a tightness in his throat and tension in every muscle of his aching body that threatens to bring him to his knees at any moment. For some reason the room this time is smaller, far less luxurious, containing six hard wooden chairs, a polished table and several rugs. The window is covered with black tape. _A dining room_ , Khalid thinks. Suddenly aware of the sound of a hammer drill starting up in a building close by, the rhythm of rapid gunfire adds to the strange feeling of being holed up in someone else's nightmare. He's trapped, finished, with no one to help him and no way out.
Khalid's never felt special. Nothing but an ordinary kid from Rochdale. He's OK at football. If he works hard he gets decent grades at school. He isn't bad-looking, but none of his features are amazing. Not like his mate Tony Banda, who looks like a film star and has gorgeous Lexy for a girlfriend. Not like Holgy, who's a brilliant goalkeeper. Not like Nico, who's famous for being the top alcohol trader in the area. Not like Mikael, who's clever and great at football too. And aside from Khalid's close friends, it's easy to go through all the kids he knows and pick out something about them that makes them stand out. While him, he's no one—nothing. Nobody. That's what makes this whole thing worse than embarrassing. Everyone's going to laugh their heads off when they hear Khalid Ahmed's been kidnapped. He sits on one of the hard wooden chairs, staring at the five empty ones that surround him. Who uses this room? It doesn't feel used. Why him? Why's he sitting here with his arms cuffed behind his back, feeling totally crushed and aching all over?
A short while later, Khalid sees the nice guard for the last time when he opens the door to fling a thin, brown blanket at him, which smells of mice. His bedding for the night. Another guard brings a cold dinner of chicken curry, which, after uncuffing his wrists, he watches him eat. Only to grab Khalid's elbow the moment he finishes popping the last fingerful of rice in his mouth. This time he kindly attaches the cuffs a little looser, Khalid guesses, to make the night more comfortable for him. He must have been held here for over twenty-four hours now without reason. Why? Khalid curls up under the smelly blanket on the red oriental rug. Pausing for a second to wonder how the carpet-makers manage to weave such intricate geometric patterns, he lets his mind drift off to imagine a weaver alone in a small dark room, deciding where to put the diamonds and crosses, the bold border with red flowers. A few years ago, Dad insisted on taking him to the oriental rug sale in Rochdale Town Hall. Khalid moaned all the way, while Dad was as excited as a child. Rubbing his hands at the thought of the beautiful carpets they were going to see.
"Oriental carpet patterns always please the eye," he told Khalid. "No matter how different the pattern, the effect is always the same, beautiful. Do you hear? A kind of magic is there. Many patterns, but one carpet. Unity, that's what they are showing here." Of course they couldn't afford to buy a rug. The cheapest was several hundred pounds. Not that Khalid cared. Bored out of his skull, he didn't really take in any of this stuff at the time. Even when they arrived at the town hall, which was crammed with people wanting to buy, rug after rug held up by the auctioneer as if they were the crown jewels, Khalid didn't get it. "A carpet's a carpet, Dad! It goes on the floor." Now Khalid wishes he hadn't said that. He feels guilty, worrying that Dad must have been disappointed by his lack of enthusiasm even though he didn't say anything at the time. But when he did speak he said something Khalid never forgot. "Giving thanks for something beautiful is the best way to find peace." Now the more Khalid examines the rug he's lying on, the deeper and more satisfying the patterns appear to be. How peculiar is this? Sitting up suddenly, he can see himself handcuffed, on this strange floor, scared to death, and all he can do is stare at this rug. But the longer he looks, the more perfect the repeated diamond shapes seem to be. A strong black line here and there turns the pattern on its head for no reason, breaking the set order in a strange, surprising way. Which forces him to wonder why the shapes suddenly reverse and then sometimes continue as before. In a flash, he suddenly understands why Dad took him to see the carpets.
Before long, Khalid can't help giving quiet thanks to the thousands of weavers who are, right now, hard at work making something as beautiful as this out of wool, cotton or silk. Not guessing that it could mean so much to a fifteen-year-old boy who's usually playing computer games and larking about with his mates. It's true, saying thanks does make Khalid feel better for a moment—even a bit more peaceful, like Dad said. In a second, Dad's wide smile comes back to him and that quick laugh he has whenever he spots something special. Silly things like a stone in the shape of an egg. "The whole world's in this kind of surprise," Dad once told him. The idea that Dad might also be staring at a carpet in some other room, somewhere in Karachi, feels like a real possibility suddenly. But the truth is, the rug he's lying on is the only link he has to him right now. Khalid's mind is desperately grab-bing at something to stop himself from going completely crazy, tugging at the shapes and colors of the rug like a baby pulling apart a favorite blanket.
He lifts his head from the rug to stare at the ceiling, wishing the yellow glow from the bare light bulb above him would spin into the shape of a genie. A fat, laughing genie or jinn, like the one in the story of Aladdin's lamp. The jinn, an immortal in human form, is coming to carry him away from here. He can see him, right there, right now, carrying him home on a magic carpet, back to his mum. His mum. "Your wish is my command," the jinn says, and Khalid's heart locks on to the image of being returned to the computer cupboard, switching off the machine this time. Seeing himself pick up his mobile, put it safely away in his denim pocket, the chrome watch back on his wrist, and walk up the stairs to bed. Waking a few minutes later to the smell of steaming hot tea and Mum standing over him with a wide smile, saying, "Dad's still asleep." But the jinn has gone. No one comes and after a while the light bulb flickers off and Khalid's thoughts change course to the hopeless feeling he'll never get over this. Lying on his side, he listens to the night-time noises of the big creaking house, occasional footsteps and the murmur of a passing car outside. His eyes on the beautiful rugs reaching out to the dark hidden corners of the room which smells of mold and wax polish. The only light a streak of yellow coming in under the door.
7 BREAD In the morning another armed guard, with a drooping face and a curling beard, brings Khalid tea and bread. Uncuffing him like last time, the guard stands over him until he finishes eating. Footsteps hurry past the door while Khalid sips the hot, sweet tea, and the sound of banging and angry shouting from the room above keeps him company as he hungrily snaps up the flat bread. Scoffing it in three eager mouthfuls. The smell of stale white flour on his fingers. "Any chance of a shower?" Khalid says without much hope. Finally losing it when the guard turns away to gaze vacantly at the blank wall. In one fell swoop, the tea and plate crash to the floor as Khalid leaps at him. His hands close tightly round the soft skin of the guard's warm neck and the anger rises so fast Khalid's fingers tingle as the guard struggles to pull them off, punching him like a boxer as he wildly yells for help through the stranglehold. Four guards charge in, pointing their guns at Khalid's head. Standing feet apart like a firing squad, ready to kill him the second he releases the guard's neck. But, exhausted by the power of his own nervous fury, Khalid drops his hands and sinks in a heap on the floor, head hanging low. Thick black hair falls over his forehead and he begins to sweat as an out-of-body feeling of sheer hopelessness drains him of every molecule of energy.
Now he's down, a boot jams into his side, knocking him flat. His arms are twisted back, he's handcuffed tight. Another boot lands on his shoulder. Boots come down on his stomach until there's nowhere for Khalid to turn to get out of their way. He doubles up in pain until blood runs from his nose and he vomits. He lies there for what seems like hours until eventually he falls asleep. Waking up to find the room dark again. The moment he remembers what's happened, he panics. His stomach hurts. Arms hurt. Face hurts. There's hardly a part of him that isn't in pain. Despite the tears welling in his eyes, Khalid stares into his invisible future and sees nothing worth living for, just a small horrible world with nasty people who don't give a damn about anyone. At that point, the door opens and a square of fluorescent light floods the room. Khalid squirms to focus on the shapes at the door, unable to make out the shadowy faces. A man says something that might be in Urdu. Khalid picks out a word that sounds familiar.
Then one of them says, "Only English him speak." "Up from there!" another quieter voice commands. With the shadow of a gun on the wooden floor beside his feet, Khalid struggles to stand, a piercing pain in his ankle causing his foot to suddenly fold, making it hard to balance. But he tries and tries—knowing if he stumbles they'll start kicking him again. Two rugged-looking men on either side of him elbow him to the door and out of the room. There's enjoyment on their faces as they rush him down the corridor to yet another room. A room with a ceiling light, a small desk and two black plastic chairs. _What kind of weird game are they playing with me?_ Khalid wonders. _Are they moving me around so I won't remember where I've been?_ Three of the men hurry away, leaving only one man with a kind face. Khalid sees he looks ashamed when he meets his gaze. He quickly lowers his eyes before sneakily attaching one of Khalid's handcuffs to the chair. The other arm is left to hang limply in his lap. Then he stands back while Khalid examines the extent of the yellow and purple bruises on his brown skin. Plus his filthy hand, which is smeared with dirt, dusty and bloody, with a few carpet threads attached. His fingernails look as if they've been dipped in ink. Khalid raises his arm for the guard to see his injuries, pointing his finger firmly at him as if he's responsible for the state he's in. But the guard doesn't seem to care. He leaves, only to return a couple of minutes later, grinning for the first time with tatty, wonky teeth while he cracks open a bottle of water.
"Thank you." Khalid's suspicious of his sudden smile, not wanting or trusting the kindness he's showing by giving him a measly bottle of water. Khalid would rather he scowled at him. Then maybe this jailer–prisoner relationship might have a vague chance of being an honest one. Khalid glances down, avoiding his gaze. He drains the last drops of water and thrusts the empty bottle back at the guard. Watching him closely while he talks rapidly to the other man waiting at the door. In the end, the man rushes off. He gives a final gesture of irritation by flinging his hands in the air before slamming the door. "Yeah, and good riddance," Khalid says out loud, then wonders if his rude remark has seen off his chance of breakfast. But no, soon the door opens again and another, much harder-looking man hands him a piece of thin warm bread that Khalid stuffs quickly in his mouth. Making a mental bet with himself that this is the last bit of food he'll see today, he's anxious to swallow the lot before the guard makes it back to the door. Just to shock him. Show him how hungry he is. How nasty they all are.
Now what? Feeling somehow crushed the moment the door closes without the guard even glancing at him. Some things you get over and some things you don't. Khalid knows this will stay with him for the rest of his life. With each slam of the door, followed by the sound of hurriedly retreating footsteps, Khalid feels such self-pity it makes him want to faint. Waiting and waiting in this room smelling of grime, that's bad enough, but the thing that hurts the most is not understanding anything. 8 MASUD The ear-splitting noise of screeching furniture being dragged across the ceiling wakes Khalid up. For some reason the maroon velvet curtains are open. The strange sight of sunshine flooding the room takes a few seconds to reach his brain. Someone must have come in while he was sleeping and pulled the curtains back. Nothing else about the room has changed. The small desk is in the same position in the middle of the floor. Two black plastic chairs on either side of it. Bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The now-familiar smell of filth on the walls.
It's then he realizes that two pieces of tape fixed to the window have come undone. The curtains are in the same place. Now he remembers the guard with the wonky teeth coming in last night, fixing him with a sorry look and trying to rouse him as he lolled in the chair, half falling off. The guard uncuffed Khalid from the seat, then gently recuffed his wrists behind his back so he could lie down on the rough coir matting that covers most of the wooden floor. He threw Khalid a smelly blanket from the doorway before shutting out the yellow light from the corridor—he remembers that. Khalid wonders if it's possible to pull all the tape off. If the window opens he might somehow be able to get out. The thought makes his arms begin to ache. In whatever position he tried to sleep, he had to compensate for the unnatural place his shackled wrists found themselves. The best was when he lay on his stomach. Only then did the pain in his shoulders ease a little. For some reason, the sight of the clear blue sky brings a feeling of expectation to Khalid. Perhaps today's the day he'll be going home, though by his reckoning this is the fifth day since he was captured and nothing's happened to give him any hope.
With a sudden burst of energy, Khalid jumps up, runs to the window and, with his back to it, begins scratching at the tape stuck fast to the frame. Eventually, one corner comes away. Threads of tape peel off like string, leaving the main strip behind, which irritates him into getting down on his knees to attack it with his teeth. He soon realizes he's achieving nothing but getting the odd stringy thread in his mouth—they tear off like cotton. Then the door opens and yet another new guard smiles at him. Speaking in hesitant English. "You want go toilet. Yes?" Khalid nods, getting up slowly from the floor and angrily spitting out masking tape. "Tell me what I'm doing here." "Americans they you want." The guard gives him a concerned grin. "That's crap," Khalid responds. "I haven't done anything to them. What did I do?" This time the guard widens his eyes and shrugs, giving the impression after this question that he has no choice but to ignore him. His smile quickly disappears. Like before, Khalid's led to the toilet with a cloth covering his eyes. Like before, he's back inside the plain room in a couple of minutes. Again, the door snapping shut on him feels like some kind of insult. Like a thump in the back.
"How dare you?" Khalid pounds it with cuffed wrists, then switches round to kick the door until it opens again. "You can't leave me here on my own!" he yells at the same guard, who's quickly joined by another man. They both look at him for a second, then agree something between them with a shared look and a few whispers. Instantly, the cloth is thrown over his head again and he's led down the same corridor as before. Soon a door opens and he's pushed inside. The towel is whipped off his head as the door closes on another bleak, gray room with an old desk and two chairs, and the strange sight of a scruffy handcuffed man sitting cross-legged on the bare concrete floor. His small face is swollen and covered in bruises. His ruffled, graying hair and beard are matted with dirt but there's a strange, calm dignity in his expression. "I am Masud Al-Dossadi," he says proudly. "And you?" "They kidnapped me. Beat me up. Stole my bloody watch, the gangsters," Khalid gasps. Masud nods wearily. "You have a name?"
"Khalid Ahmed. I'm English, from Rochdale near Manchester. You know it?" "Rochdale?" For a moment, Masud searches his mind for such a place before shaking his head. "I'm fifteen. That's all," Khalid says. "They can't do this to me." "Me—forty-eight years." They both half smile and Khalid tries to find a comfortable position to rest his bruised body as he sinks to the rough floor. The pain in his side starts up again the second he straightens his spine but, anxious to hear Masud's story, he ignores the discomfort, leaning in to catch every word. "What happened to your face?" Khalid asks. Masud sighs. "First they make resolution, I very dangerous person. Beat me with big pipe. Then they are preventing me from sleep. Make standing all night. Hit hard on head when I start to fall. Then use pipe again all over body." "Who? Who did it?" Khalid asks, horrified. "The Pakistan security men, they doing it under American orders," Masud says. "Who do you think?" Khalid goes cold. Shivers race up his spine. "Why?"
"I am Egyptian man," Masud explains. "They collect me up at Afghanistan border with 2,000 dollars I got in my pocket for not buy many things because village gone. They putting bomb there, now is being my fault." "Because of the money?" Khalid suddenly understands why they might have been suspicious. "For five years I'm buying many goods from there to sell in the shop I got in Cairo. Turquoise necklaces, blue ceramic bowls, woodwork. Birdcages are very, very good to buy at Afghanistan. Anything, I bringing it back." He smiles. "I am knowing this country long time. Plenty things good to see. Nice people invite me eat—all time. Good people, not like you think." "But why did you go there when you knew there was a war on?" Khalid thinks he's friendly, a sweet man without the slightest hint of malice in his face, but he still can't understand why he went to Afghanistan when everyone knew it was dangerous. Head high with peeping eyes, bruised and swollen, Masud begins his tale. "You asking me why? The roads are bad and some of the towns they not really towns, just little ramshackle house, but Afghanistan is wonderful country. Mistake I making this time was go from bombed mountain village to visit Kabul with good friend. We are wanting to see what happening."
Pausing to catch his breath, Masud twists round to make himself more comfortable before continuing. "Americans looking everywhere, all time for Bin Laden—it ruin my business. Kabul is very sad there. Bombing every day. Women, children, dying in streets. Explosions going all time. I'm trying leave. But thousands of refugees in same position, going also." Khalid remembers the pictures of truckloads of men on the news. Broken men with sand-colored cloths wound tightly around their heads. Staring at the cameras along the dusty road. Dad saying, "Do they look like terrorists? Or refugees?" But the newsreader said they were members of the Taliban and maybe they were. Either way, how could they tell? And at the time Khalid thought, _Who cares?_ They had nothing to do with him—until now. "Then I'm having moment of typhoid," Masud says. "Lucky for me, my friend is looking after me until I well enough cross the border for Pakistan. When they looking at my passport they ask why I'm always going Cairo to Afghanistan? Why I stay Kabul for months? Why I having much money in pocket? I am telling them about my business, but no believe, and I'm having no birdcages, just necklaces in pocket."
"What about your friend?" Khalid asks. "What happened to him?" "They say he have no visa. What happening to him? I'm not knowing this. Then they say my passport out of date. I telling them I got typhoid. Very ill I being for months, but they not hearing." "Maybe they just wanted your money?" Khalid says. "They stole my watch." "This is possible." Masud sighs. "But now they got money, you think they free me? They say Americans wanting me. They accuse me of being enemy combatant." "An incompetent? Why?" Khalid knows that word well. Remembering Mr. Tagg calling Nico an incompetent when he handed in his essay outline on the Spanish Inquisition with only three words on the page and plenty of space in between: _beginning, middle, end._ Masud looks a lot cleverer than Nico to him. It doesn't make sense. "Combatant. Enemy combatant." Exhausted, Masud closes his eyes. "Oh, right. Sorry!" Khalid nods. "Look at me!" Masud shakes his head. "I'm looking," Khalid says. Hoping for more. "They are thinking I fighting against them. Against America. But I have no gun. No bullets. No knife. Only turquoise necklaces and money in pocket."
"They can't keep you here forever," Khalid says quietly, trying to comfort him. "No, they telling me in morning I'm going Kandahar in Afghanistan for processing. Why they bringing me all way here first, I'm not knowing." For a second, silence overtakes Masud. "Kandahar." Repeating it, Khalid rests his head on his chest. Reminded of what the guy Dan said—is he still going there too? The memory of his abduction comes back to haunt him, speeding round and round inside his head. Why didn't he try and stop them? Why didn't he fight or try to run away? Why didn't he scream? Do something? And though he and Masud are in the same situation now, they have nothing in common. Two weeks ago he was playing football in the park in Rochdale. Rochdale, for heaven's sake—nowhere near any war zones or dangerous borders, any bombing or kidnapping. Masud is a grown-up who was found with a bunch of money in his pocket in a dangerous city, while he—he was just returning from the loo to the computer at his aunties' house. Somebody sold Khalid to the authorities, made up lies about him, he's certain now that's what happened. It's the reason no one listens to him. It must be. But what can he do to change their minds and convince them he's innocent?
The faint tapping of footsteps resonates down the corridor. Khalid glances at the door, still half expecting someone to come and tell him there's been a mistake. "In the name of Allah . . ." Masud responds to the call of prayer coming from a nearby mosque. Khalid mumbles something about being tired, blushing slightly, but he has no desire to join in. The one thing he wishes he could change right now is the religion he was born into. 9 TO KANDAHAR Inspired by Masud's calm dignity, Khalid finds plenty to think about when they take him back to his room and he lies down—but he can't sleep. There's a car outside that keeps honking its horn and there's no comfort to be found on this hard floor and itchy mat. So there are others here who have lost not only their families—Masud had a wife and four children in Cairo—but their businesses too. Masud has lost everything. What's going on in the world that this can happen? Khalid cannot get his head around any of these crazy facts and each day he feels weirder than the day before.
Not until the first glimmers of daylight begin to peep through the gap in the window and he spreads flat on his stomach does Khalid finally fall asleep. Waking up hours later to another quivering bolt of blue sky at the top of the window doesn't rid him of the feeling of impending doom. The shooting pains down his arms, caused by trying to sleep with his wrists cuffed behind his back, are so severe now he feels sick and light-headed. Worse than ever. He curls into a ball on the floor and cries. He'd always thought of himself as strong, but he realizes now that this was because he had his mum and dad to pick up the pieces whenever anything went wrong. And what went wrong in the past—letters from school and underage drinking and stuff—was nothing like this. Now there's no one to make his aching arms better. He can't even touch the sore skin under his eye to feel if the swelling's going down. Has to ask permission to go to the toilet, like he's at primary school. Five minutes of suffering the rough bristles of the mat on his wet face is enough, though. Khalid stops crying and turns on his side, only to endure the sudden pressure of the hard floor on his shoulder. He sits up, groaning in agony. Letting his head fall, he moves it slowly round to stretch his stiff neck, but it doesn't help ease the pain.
He never wanted to come to Karachi. Why didn't he argue with Dad? He could have stayed with Mac next door, or Nico, or one of Dad's friends from the restaurant. He doesn't like Pakistan. He's totally British, so why did he smile politely when Auntie gave him the shalwar kameez to wear? It was so uncool and a horrible sand color, and if he hadn't worn it that day when he was trying to get past the demonstration maybe he wouldn't be here now. Panicked and frightened, locked inside this unending pain, Khalid begins to imagine he's still in England, waving his family goodbye at the airport—off they go to Karachi without him. Great. He feels better for a moment, until the door clicks open and the ordeal of breakfast starts again. Two unsmiling guards. Warm water. One thin piece of bread. Watchful dark eyes on him. Guilty downward glances as he eats and drinks. But then the routine changes. He's cuffed more tightly and, after being taken to the toilet, led from the house. The only sound is the faint rustle of his denim jeans as he walks barefoot between the guards, tears falling.
They push him into a car that smells of grease and petrol. One guard on either side. Khalid doesn't bother to wonder if they are taking him home to his aunties' house. In these handcuffs it doesn't seem likely. At least this time there's no hood and, despite the hot, sticky air, he can vaguely see tall buildings through the grimy window as they turn the corner and merge with the traffic on a wide highway. The scruffy driver keeps his deep-set shadowy eyes on the busy road ahead. The serious man beside him speaks only to give what sound like directions in short, angry bursts. In the seat next to Khalid the heavily covered man keeps his head down the whole way, veined hands in his lap, so Khalid doesn't get the chance to see what he looks like. He doesn't dare challenge him or reach for the door handle to try and escape. The tense, clammy atmosphere in the car is so unbelievably bad he knows they will happily kill him if he moves a limb. After about an hour, worried sick, Khalid senses an airport as the car turns off the main road. He can hear the sound of planes overhead. Engines whirring. As they draw nearer, he sees lines of men in shalwar kameez, heads bent, handcuffed like him, being led up the ramp of a cargo plane. He scans them quickly for anyone who might be Masud. Other men in army uniform yell orders with an American accent. Then a few men shout in Urdu or another language he's never heard, perhaps Arabic. The same harsh tone to their voices causes his skin to creep with fear. A fear Khalid fails to master as they lead him trembling from the car up the ramp of the plane. An aggressive soldier screams abuse, kicks Khalid up the backside to hurry him inside the door. A suffocating feeling of unbearable heat lays into him like a branding iron the moment he steps into the entrance of the dark plane. A plane crammed with men. They push Khalid down the lines to join the middle row, where he squashes into the aisle, grateful for a bit of space to one side—until another man crashes down on the floor next to him.
As the plane taxis to the end of the runway, there's no doubt in his mind he's going to Kandahar. The sound of the sudden powerful rush of the engine tears into his heart, scooting him back to that day, which now seems so long ago, when he sat down in the comfy seat to fly to Karachi. Packet of crisps and fizzy drink safely stowed in the seat pocket. Then a terrible noise starts up that makes Khalid feel he's inside a tumble dryer as the plane roars off with its cargo of prisoners, squashed together like sardines in a tin. All of a sudden an insane panic builds up at the realization that he's leaving his family behind. How will they find him now? The chaos, the craziness—it feels like he's being stunned with charges of high-voltage electricity, destroying his ability to think clearly. Strips of sunshine from the plane windows light up the bent shapes huddled on the ground as Khalid breathes in the foul smell of hopeless desperation. 10 PROCESSING Some time later, in a vile, sticky heat, the plane lands with a thump on the runway, screeching to a halt as a soldier yells, "Welcome to Kandahar, folks!" The loud voice has a ring of satisfaction to it that crushes Khalid as well as confirming where he is.
He's squashed between two much larger handcuffed men who've spent the whole journey praying. Their bobbing heads and closed eyes are now impossible to ignore as men nearby join in. Each in turn, including Khalid, is hauled up, pushed towards the wide ramp and led stumbling from the plane to an area of dusty ground and the noise of engines, generators and mad barking dogs. Khalid sinks to his knees after a thump on the back. A plastic hood is shoved over his head while he sniffs the spreading dust. Then he's thrown down on his face to wait. A man begins wailing, pleading for help nearby. A man Khalid hopes isn't Masud. Within minutes, Khalid's bundled towards what sounds like a big echoing building. A building teeming with yelling soldiers and the sound of men crying and groaning as they're herded and kicked into line with hard boots. A soldier trips Khalid, crashing him to the concrete floor with a violent yell. A familiar pain rips through his side, giving him the sensation his arms are splintering from their sockets. He bangs his head so hard he blacks out for a second and teeters on the edge of consciousness. Coming round only when they start stamping on his aching spine to hold him down before buzzing a metal-cutter through the tough handcuffs, allowing his arms to flop to the ground like rags.
Then they begin ripping off his T-shirt and jeans and pull him to his feet totally naked. Surrounding him, one pulls off the hood. Khalid squints at the extraordinary sight of soldiers screaming abuse at naked men lined up against the white walls of a massive hangar-like, metal-ceilinged building. The prisoners' heads are bowed in shame like something out of a horror movie as another man photographs each one in turn. Men with gloves start searching Khalid's body. Touching him all over. Others scream in pain at the intrusive violence of the searches. The worst embarrassment of their lives. Humiliated at every turn by the soldiers' ugly taunts, the naked men are taken to one side and photographed again. When it comes to Khalid's turn, he refuses to move forward. Standing proudly, no matter what they intend doing to him. With a swift punch, he's knocked into line. Several photos are taken of his face, front on as well as in profile. After that a barber shaves his adolescent face stubble, then his head, with the same tenderness as a sheep shearer with a thousand fleeces to go. Then another photo's taken of Khalid with his head shaved.
"OK, move it. You're done!" The photographer dismisses him. Swearing harshly at the next man in line to hurry up. The middle-aged, soft-faced man, naked, vulnerable, with tears in his eyes, glances at Khalid as if to say the experience means his life is over. It ignites a terrible anger in Khalid, who knows the shaving of the man's beard—an important part of his Muslim identity—is the final insult for him. The naked man sits and weeps while his face is being shaved. The barber carries on, while the sight of grown men crying and yelling like babies as they're routinely humiliated gnaws at Khalid's heart. The two nearest him, naked as the day they were born, close their eyes and silently pray. It's then that Khalid spots two kids younger than him: one skinny boy about thirteen years old who's acting brain-damaged, with his tongue hanging out and rolling eyes, and another scared-looking boy at the back of the line who's so small he could be eleven or younger. He cranes his neck to see them better, but they disappear from view when, one by one, men are taken into a nearby concrete building.
Shielded by a soldier on either side, Khalid is shoved into a small room where more American soldiers take his fingerprints, then swab saliva from his mouth before herding him through another door where two men in jeans and white shirts sit behind a green plastic desk. The biggest American smiles. Holding out his hand as if welcoming the shivering, naked Khalid to Afghanistan. "Hi, I'm Anthony. This is Sam. We're CIA." Khalid doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Standing there waiting to hear his fate, he's not sure if he's supposed to say hi back to them or not. With a poker-like expression on his pink face, Sam asks, "When did you join al-Qaeda?" Not this again! "Listen to me—I've never joined them. I don't know anyone in al-Qaeda," Khalid says breathlessly. Scared of the thoughts going on behind Sam's sharp voice, he's not sure what else to say. Then Anthony raises his eyebrows. "You speak good English!" "I _am_ English!" "Oh yeah? Where you from?" "Rochdale." Khalid watches Anthony lose interest, not having any idea where Rochdale is. "It's near Manchester!" But the queue behind him is getting longer and the Americans keep looking past him to check it out, giving him the impression these questions are just a formality.
"When did you last see Osama Bin Laden?" Sam pipes up. "What?" Khalid frowns. "I've seen him on telly if that's what you mean. I've never met him. You lot can't even find him, so how am I supposed to know where he is? Just let me go. I haven't done anything." "Tell me about your links to terrorist cells in England." " _What?_ " Khalid's too puzzled to answer. "You communicated by code on the computer with other terrorists." "No way. Who said that?" Khalid says. "What computer?" "But you know Al-Jaber?" Anthony asks. "Who's he? What computer are you talking about?" Sam clasps his fingers together on the green desk. "As usual, another time-waster!" He nods to the soldiers to take Khalid away. Making space for the next naked man to be asked the same questions. They lead Khalid off to one side and hand him a large white T-shirt and navy-blue plastic-feeling trousers with an elasticated waist. They don't bother with underwear, taking him as soon as he's dressed to another room, where a different man asks his name and address, and whether he's married or not. The names of his children.
"I'M FIFTEEN!" Khalid screams for England. "DON'T YOU GET IT?" That's when he loses consciousness. Blacking out from the thump to his back. Waking up later on a cold earth floor in a makeshift wire cell. One of many cells dividing a long, low building into ugly compartments. The prisoners are dressed in the same blue trousers, some in Afghan-style white caps. The grinding sound of a nearby generator interrupts everyone's thoughts with the same constancy as a road digger and there's a faint smell of urine in the air. Then a whiff of cooking oil. "No talking while you're here," the military policeman warns him as he patrols the space between the cells. Khalid gazes around him, through the dazzling spotlights shining from either end of the row. Eyeing the bucket in the corner with disbelief. A bottle of water to one side. Blanket folded on the floor next to a thin mat. Woollen shawl on top. A man with big cheeks and bushy eyebrows in the next cell watches him closely, sympathy in his eyes as he waggles his head from side to side, as if to say, _Keep quiet. Take no notice. You'll be OK._
Beside the open doors at either end of the building, soldiers with huge rifles, machine or hand guns laugh and joke among themselves. Their eyes move down the lines every few seconds to check nothing's changed. As if any of them have the smallest chance of escaping when they can't even leave their cells to go to the toilet without asking permission. It's not really a surprise to Khalid when the nearest man covers his lower body with a shawl to go to the loo in the metal bucket, but surely they have toilets here for all these men? What kind of place is this? In desperation, Khalid scans the cages for Masud, for Dad, for any familiar face in the midst of this madness—or even for more boys who look his own age. As he gazes from cell to cell, face after face stares back at him with the same look of miserable resignation. Utter defeat in their dark eyes. Angry, afraid, lost and forgotten—just like him. One man kneels to pray, hands clasped to his chest. The hum of his words gradually spreads round the cages until many adopt the same position. The volume of their voices increases to such a pitch, it adds a strange echo to the noises outside of planes and barking dogs.
Khalid sits back against the wire wall, full of compassion for their devotion but angry at the same time. Angry at the Americans for seeing them as just that: Muslims. Dangerous foreigners who they can't even tell apart. Angry too at the Muslim religion for getting him into this mess. He once heard a newsreader say it was the fastest-growing religion in the world. Khalid remembers wishing the media wouldn't say stuff like that. People don't want to hear those facts, and he doesn't particularly want to be lumped together with loads of people he doesn't know, Muslim or not. And Muslims aren't all the same, just like Christians aren't all the same. He's Khalid—himself, not a result of any religion. He hasn't even done anything with his life yet. Time drags. Not being allowed to talk makes the hours go by slowly. There's nothing to do but watch the soldier with the machine gun walk up and down, staring into each wire cage as if there's a chance something might happen. The soldiers at either end of the row chat idly to each other. Laughing. Coming and going after coffee breaks and lunches. Performing high-fives after only ten minutes apart, as if they haven't seen each other for years. Acting as if they're guarding a warehouse of baked beans instead of forty kidnapped men with no access to a lawyer and no way to reach their families.
Khalid realizes that the only stuff he knows about prisons is from films. American films. Exciting ones where the hero wins the respect of the most hardcore prisoners before breaking out. But then he remembers they have the death penalty in America too. Death Row—yeah, people are electrocuted there all the time. Khalid remembers a news item about some guy who spent twenty years on Death Row before they found him innocent. Plus that film, what was it called? He'd watched it on Nico's computer after he'd downloaded it from the Internet. They watched loads of films like that when there was nothing else going on. Usually lounging around on the beds and floor with the rest of the gang in Nico's older brother's bedroom until Pete came in and screamed at them: "Get off my bed!" And everyone would scramble as if they'd committed a crime by just sitting there. Holgy was always the first to straighten Pete's stripy duvet, plump up the pillow and apologize: "Sorry, mate." "Don't sit there again!" Pete would yell, while Khalid and the others kept their eyes focused on the computer, annoyed by his interruption but unwilling to react. They all know Pete is a mess—a bad-tempered bloke all round. The complete opposite to Nico, who rarely has anything but a smile on his face.
Suddenly realizing there's nothing to relieve the boredom but remembering his mates and small incidents like this, Khalid wonders if perhaps little fox-faced Holgy had been right when he said, "We're all holograms, you know?" He'd made the mistake of saying this when they were in the first year, all about eleven years old. Repeating the fact to everyone whenever he got the chance. So much so, they gave him the nickname Holgy, even though his real name, Eshan, is so much nicer. Being short for hologram, it was the obvious choice. Invented by Nico, who else? "Your real life is happening on another planet," Holgy argues whenever he gets the chance. "You are just a stupid gonzo reflection." "No, YOU are," Mikael puts him right. He's the brainbox, after all. "Shut up about holograms," Tony would add. "I'm a deathless star." Then the conversation would spin quickly to include Darth Vader, possible life on Mars and whether Lyn Howser has better legs than Jancy King. Yeah, awesome Lyn Howser and the new tattoo of a butterfly on her right ankle that makes them all drool.
In fact, Khalid was the only one who liked talking to Holgy about holograms. Holgy forced him to think about things that were far beyond his imagination, and the idea of reality being nothing but a projected 3D perception made him feel weird. Almost like electrodes were sparking fires in his brain. Trouble is, there's no one here to talk to about anything. There are no computers. Nothing to read. Nothing to do but think. All they have is one copy of the Qur'an between them. The guards pass it on when someone's finished with it. The problem, though, is it's written in another language and, after glancing at the pages for a while, Khalid gives up trying to make sense of the holy book. Holgy, what would he do if he was stuck here? Khalid guesses he'd sit there just like him. Legs crossed. Staring across at the sleeping man next to him. Thinking a mixture of things. Same as him. Khalid's mind directs itself to the ongoing problem of his history coursework, however unimportant that seems right now. Like all his mates, schoolwork is something he worries about non-stop, simply because the teachers and his parents never let up. Most of them pretend not to do homework or care about school, but they all do.
"What are you going to do with your life if you don't get any qualifications?" Dad always says. "Er—become a chef like you?" Khalid once smirked. "Not like me," Dad said. "These kids now, they got college degrees in catering to cook. To be electrician these days you must have papers. Everybody want certificates." Khalid knows he's right. Most of his mates—well, Nico and Mikael along with him—are in the top set for most of their subjects, expected to get As and Bs in seven or more GCSEs, and the pressure is constant. Escaping some of that by being here is no relief, because weirdly all Khalid can think about is if this goes on for much longer he won't have time to look at any of his coursework over the holidays. Unless he gets out before term starts he'll fall behind. Will the teachers take something like this into account? Khalid doubts they'll care. None of the "official" people here care what happens to him, so why should they? What if he never gets out and fails all his GCSEs? He'll become the class loser. They might even make him redo everything and put him down a year to repeat the work he's almost finished. What a fool he'll look then. Sat in the year below's class. Probably behind that idiot Derek Slater and the bunch of stupid toads who follow him round like he's God. Despite his growing fear, Khalid decides he's not going to allow that to happen. Nothing will make him suffer the shame of being a year older than the rest of his class.
If worst comes to worst, he'll refuse to go to school ever again. He'll ask Mac, their neighbor, to get him work in the supermarket where he's a cashier, stacking shelves or something—part-time. Anything to make some money to pay for the bus fare to the sixth-form college on the other side of town. He read in the local paper that they do GCSE courses in the evenings with loads of good subjects. Now Khalid has a plan, he feels slightly better. More prepared. They can punch him, keep him awake, treat him like a criminal, but they can't ruin his chances of a better life when he gets out of here. And that's _when_ he gets out, not if. "No one's ever going to do that to me, man!" Khalid says out loud without thinking. Embarrassed, the moment the words leave his mouth. The soldier halfway down the line turns to look at him. The man two cages down quietly puts down his bottle of water and whispers something. Something that sounds like English but Khalid can't be sure. Khalid shuts his eyes to blank everything out while he goes over the plan again. Mumbling to himself so the approaching soldier will think he's crazy. It works. The soldier passes by, his brown desert boots pausing in front of Khalid's cell for a moment before moving on.
Khalid conjures up an image of himself in baggy jeans and a white, long-sleeved T-shirt, hair slickly gelled, waiting at the bus stop for the number 23 that will take him to college. Stamping the picture at the front of his mind, a weird feeling spreads over him that his real life is happening somewhere else. Perhaps Holgy's right. We are all holograms. Imagining he's waiting for the bus right now instead of sitting in a wire cage in Afghanistan sparks a picture of Niamh in the weird red-and-brown knitted Peruvian hat with side bobbles she sometimes wears. She's waiting, arms folded, for the bus. "Hiya, Kal. You all right?" Smiling at him with glossy pink lips. "Not bad," he says. "Your hair's looking great," she says. "Yeah? Thanks. I, um, great hat." No, no! This isn't working. Khalid can't tell her he likes that mad hat. She'll have to take it off. That's better. Niamh's still smiling at him in 3D moving color, as real to him as the wire that surrounds him. She only disappears when voices at the end of the row bring Khalid back to the present time.
The noise of creaking wheels forces him to glance at two men in white aprons wheeling a food trolley into the building. A few men stand up to grasp the wire fence in anticipation, carefully watching the guards take cardboard boxes from the trolley and dish them out by throwing them over the tops of the cages. "Nice curry lunch!" one of the trolley men shouts in a strange, not-quite-right American accent. "Here you go!" Imitating feeding time at the zoo, Khalid quickly grabs it but finds the tightly folded box hard to open with his fingers, and has no choice but to bite into one corner. Pulling back damp cardboard with his teeth until specks of white rice and a runny curry are revealed. The curry is like nothing Khalid's ever seen or tasted before. The small squares of stringy meat, which he hopes is chicken, not pork, are surrounded by yellowy broccoli spears and raisins. Raisins? Who puts raisins in curry? Whoever made the sticky white rice should give up trying to cook. His mum would have a fit if she saw him eating like this with no spoon, knife, fork, pepper, salt or anything else. They never ate with their hands at home, because she insisted on them being British first, while when they were in Karachi with the aunties, they scooped up their rice with their hands like everyone else. Here, Khalid has no choice but to drop his head in the slop like a dog. The man next to him is licking his food hungrily. Another sucks the contents up from a hole he's made in the middle. Everyone improvises the best way they can to get the runny food down their throats as quickly as possible. Worse than the glue they call curry that's dished up in the school canteen, this stuff smells and tastes of rotting lettuce.
Then plastic containers of crackers and cheese are flung at them. Wrapped tightly like airplane food, they take an effort to get into. Unfortunately, Khalid's crackers land in his toilet bucket in the corner of the cell and, since it hasn't been emptied yet from this morning, he decides to go without. After lunch, the soldiers appoint a couple of them to empty the buckets. The first two refuse. In the end, they ask for volunteers and three men from the other end of the row are let out of their cells. The volunteers stretch their arms and legs for a moment. One man, who looks a bit like a Muslim Tony Blair, with the same grinning face, nudges the smaller man beside him, nodding as if to say, _Anything's better than being stuck in there all day_. After watching them closely, Khalid half changes his mind. Perhaps he should have volunteered, though he can't get his brain past the horrible job they are doing. But there are clear benefits: for a start, the soldiers keep well away from them as they enter each cell to collect the bucket. Meaning each one has the chance to exchange a few words with the occupant and find out something about who they are and what has happened to them. They even get the opportunity to whisper to each other as they head towards the end of the building to hand the buckets over.
When the Tony Blair lookalike gets to Khalid, he's ready for him. "I'm only fifteen. English. I'm innocent," he pleads quickly. The man smiles. Saying something kind in a language that sounds like Pashtu, which confuses Khalid. Then he disappears into the next cell. Khalid watches closely as his neighbor reaches out to greet him like a long-lost son. Shutting Khalid out. There's no one here he can talk to. He's not like any of these men. He'd have a better conversation with the guards. Increasingly frustrated, it's the final nail in his coffin. Not only has he been kidnapped and taken to this joke of a place, but he can't speak to anyone and he appears to be the youngest person in this building. Some look like they might be in their twenties, but none of them look as young as him. Where are the two kids he saw when he arrived? He's not even that comfortable talking to people older than him. The respect-for-elders thing has been drummed into him for so long, he finds it difficult to be natural about it. Remembering how some of his class had an easy, jokey relationship with the teachers, while he blushed when attempting to say something friendly to them. Even to Mr. Tagg, who's the best of the lot.
His mind spirals out of control. Are those two boys being held somewhere else? Given special treatment because of their age? It didn't look like they were at the time, but perhaps things have changed now. Khalid's thoughts exhaust him. Totally alone, out of place and forgotten, he lies down on his mat to cry. Hiding his head in his arms so no one can see. 11 RED CROSS When a solid, overbearing heat descends on the building, the sound of plane engines whirr into action, interrupting Khalid's fitful sleep. In an attempt to stop the noise from fully waking him up, he turns over and dreams of chips and Cheddar cheese being spread on the football field at home in Rochdale. Then he opens his eyes, quickly calms himself down and tries to go back to sleep, but he picks up the dream at exactly the point where he left it, going through the whole nightmare again of trying to stop the mess ruining the field. The noisy trucks, the shouting men and the incessant hum of the electricity generator annoy him as he sits cross-legged on the mat for a moment to bring himself round. All the time wondering about the men nearby—blue and white shapes he can barely make out through the layers of wire. Who are they?
It takes a while before Khalid gets to know the man to one side of him. " _As-salaamu alaikum_ ," he greets him each morning. Soon Khalid answers him with the words, " _Wa alaikum as-salaam_ ," as if he's an old friend. One day he surprises Khalid. "My name is Abdul Al-Farran," he says. "You speak English," Khalid gasps. He can't believe the man hasn't spoken to him until now—he must have heard him shouting at the guards. But he doesn't want to waste the opportunity by getting annoyed. Abdul turns out to be the most random guy he's ever met. Pressing his face against the wire, Khalid sees he's slightly overweight, with a downturned mouth and miserably fat cheeks. His bushy eyebrows have a life of their own, rising and falling like curling caterpillars whenever he speaks. Having decided to trust him, Abdul tells Khalid he was born in Lebanon. He moved to Pakistan, where his brother lives, some years ago to get a job teaching math. His English is quite good too, which helps. "Mistake for me was travel all places, all time. I'm look—for wife. When I return Islamabad, I meet very bad man. Big fight. He make lie. Tell police I making bomb factory in house. My wife tell me run away, so I go Afghanistan. Wrong time I go that place." Khalid finds it difficult to follow Abdul. He has the annoying tendency of jumping from one subject to another without pausing and Khalid can't always understand what he's getting at. Plus there's the problem of his jumping eyebrows making it hard to concentrate, but he likes having him to talk to—it finally makes him feel a part of the group.
"How old are you?" Khalid interrupts, moving closer to their shared wire wall. Abdul smiles and holds up his fingers, quickly flashing three tens and a five for him to count. "Thirty-five?" "Yes," Abdul says, sighing. "I'm only fifteen!" "Fifteen! Bring you here for why?" Abdul's shocked. "I dunno. Who knows? I should be at school." "Then you must take chance to learn. I will teach everything I know for you." Abdul grins. "Hezbollah, you know, means party of God!" "Party of God?" Khalid blinks with surprise. From news reports he'd heard at home, Hezbollah were a dangerous group of some kind. Didn't they go round kidnapping Westerners? But maybe Abdul is right. Maybe the actual meaning of the word is far more simple. Even so, he looks round to make sure no one's listening. He's scared, in case the word will be held against him in some way, thinking it really means terrorist—or something far worse—and Abdul Al-Farran's having him on. But then, "Fakir means poor man," Abdul Al-Farran says without a hint of concern for the easy way he'd mentioned Hezbollah.
"Yeah? Cool." Khalid makes an effort to calm down. Not really able to decide who Abdul really is. Maybe the word Hezbollah is a secret signal of some kind. "Hmm." Thoroughly enjoying being a teacher again, Abdul's face crumples into a huge smile. His eyebrows suddenly part. "Imam means leader. Many English words they come from Arabic words. Yes. Genie—spirit. Sofa. Mattress. Checkmate—the king is dead. Algebra. Orange. Monsoon. Cotton. Zero. All Arabic." There's no stopping him. Now Abdul has an audience, Khalid must wait and listen. Trouble is, his mind keeps wandering. It's not his fault that Abdul reminds him of his geography teacher, Mr. Giles, who speaks in the same dull tone of voice, which sends the whole class to sleep even though what he's saying is interesting. "The word syrup, this is also Arabic!" Abdul smiles. "Sultan too." "Really?" Khalid mutters, without much hope he'll ever stop bending his ear with endless information, certain Abdul Al-Farran has spent his life reading the dictionary.
"Ah, of course! I finish now." Obviously slightly hurt by Khalid turning his head away from the wire, Abdul finally stops talking, drawing his bushy eyebrows down for the last time. For today anyway. A military policeman wanders past. Not bothering to tell them off for spending the last half-hour talking. It seems that as long as they whisper for no more than a couple of minutes at a time no one will say anything. At least not on his shift. The later shift consists of two nasty soldiers who seem to enjoy making their lives miserable, but these two—one of whom is called Wade and comes from Atlanta—are almost human in the way they treat them. Khalid feels a gut-wrenching shame for insulting Abdul Al-Farran. Especially after he's dreamed of having someone to talk to. "I just can't take it all in," he tries explaining later. But the midday call to prayer starts up from the other end and Abdul is happy to move from the wire to face Mecca. Prayers fill the rusty hangar, rising to bounce off the roof and echo in the humid air like exotic birdsong. They transform the ordinary sounds of the building into a pure connection to the divine.
In time, Khalid's eyes adjust to the dense wire separating the cells. In time, he can focus his eyes to see Abdul quite clearly without getting up from his mat. While the door wire is thin enough to see the soldiers walking up and down every few minutes, Khalid has no desire to look at them. Wade, the friendly soldier, walks past again. This time he stops in front of Khalid to adjust the machine gun hanging on his chest. "Don't you like praying?" he says with a cheesy, fake grin. "Not right now," Khalid says. "But you're Muslim!" "Yeah, but we don't all pray all the time," Khalid says crossly. Not seeing any reason to explain why he's not able to let go just yet. "Perhaps you'll make a better Christian than a Muslim. I can bring you some pamphlets Mom sent me from Atlanta, so you guys can learn about Jesus." So that was it. The reason for Wade's friendly manner. They were lost souls in need of saving. Mom in Atlanta was worried about them. "It's all right, thanks." Khalid sees him off with a weak smile. Hiding his anger and frustration by clenching his fists behind his back.
Some time later, three sterner-looking soldiers, the first two with guns pointed at everyone, come down the line. The biggest one begins unlocking every other fence in turn. While the last soldier follows with an armful of shackles. Soon men are handcuffed and pushed out. Tied together with a long rope and led away. Khalid cranes his neck to see where they're going and before long his question is answered when they return with water dripping down their dazed faces and soaking-wet hair. Plus big damp patches on their clean white T-shirts. "Shower?" Khalid gasps in anticipation. The soldier nods, cuffing him tight. The thought of gushing water and sweet-smelling soap dominates Khalid's mind as he's tied to ten other men. Soldiers double up beside the line, all eyes and guns. Twinkling hot sunshine hits Khalid's face as he lowers his lids and steps from the gray hangar into an empty forecourt. Everyone is soon pulled through a block of cool shadow and a short walk takes them to the nearby doorway of a building with a wet, cold concrete floor. Inside the gray walls is a miserable place smelling of toilets, with rusty stains dribbling down the walls from the shower heads and a sound of running water. A sound with no feeling of pleasure attached.
The fear of communal washing is too much for the man behind him and he begins screaming, shaking his head in fear. Two more join in, yelling objections, while Khalid meekly allows himself to be untied, then uncuffed. He steps quickly to one side to undress, hard eyes bearing down on him, a gun a few centimeters from his forehead. The crying men are pushed to one side and stripped. Their clothes flung on a heap. One of the naked men stumbles, then falls to his knees. Head in his hands. They soon haul him up and throw him under the shower. In a state of shock, Khalid faces the wall and squeezes the small soap brick which smells of taps, a hair's breadth away from kicking out at something. For a moment he tries to relax into the water and enjoy the sensation. But the sound of crying cancels out any pleasure. It's OK for Khalid, he's used to showering with his mates after school sports and football matches. He's not embarrassed to be seen naked. But for these men this is worse than death. By the time Khalid's back in his cell, his mind flipping in and out of the abuse he just witnessed, he's in no mood to talk to the fair-haired man in jeans and red bomber jacket who's wandering down the hangar with a bulging white plastic bag under his arm. Accompanied by one of the military policemen, this guy is a picture of happiness. Greeting each prisoner in turn with an Arabic phrase or two, he's giving out paper and pens and a small plastic cup with a red cross on the side. When he gets to Khalid's cage, he gives him a proper smile before saying with a posh-sounding American accent, "I'm with the Red Cross. Do you want to write a letter to anyone?"
"A letter?" It's the first time Khalid's thought about it. "Just one letter? Can't I do more?" "However many you want!" The soldier opens the cell and hands Khalid three pieces of paper and a black pen. Plus a cup which holds a card with a number. His is 256. "I'll be back later," the guy says, smiling. "Wait a minute." Khalid grabs the door of the cage as it's being locked again. "I shouldn't be here. They've made a mistake. I'm a schoolkid." The man looks at him for a while. "OK, I guess you don't look so old," he says after giving him the once-over. "But you're not a prisoner of war now—the term is 'enemy combatant' as the military like to say. I'm afraid that's the situation at the moment." He nods. The last drop of hope drains from Khalid the second the man's comforting smile disappears. "The letters won't get there, will they?" Khalid shouts after him, watching him quickly move on to speak to Abdul in Arabic. "What was the point of that?" Khalid whispers to his friend when the man's gone.
"Doing job." Abdul shakes his head. "Red Cross—they have power to do nothing. America making all rules. Finish for us." "Enemy combatant! Me?" Khalid laughs. "How mad can they get?" Nevertheless, he sits in the corner, paper on his lap, to write a letter to Mum and Dad. Even though he doesn't know for sure where they are, it's worth trying to reach them. He half suspects Mum won't return to England without her husband and son. But then, neither will Dad if he's turned up at the aunties' somehow. He won't leave Karachi without knowing what's happened to Khalid. Or maybe he's here in Kandahar, somewhere in another building. Who knows where he is? Either way, it's hard to decide where to send the letter. A letter that probably won't arrive anyway, because the Red Cross will most likely hand it over to the Americans. Then Khalid has an idea to write to Mr. Tagg. And maybe Mac, his neighbor. The Red Cross man has given him three pieces of paper. One of them might get to his family. If not, there's a chance someone out there might read the truth.
"So this is how it happened when I went missing," Khalid writes. Describing his abduction in Karachi, before quickly adding details about the trip he made to the flat, looking for his dad. Finding once he starts remembering, the words stream out. A feeling of being someone else watching his own life overtakes Khalid as he scribbles as fast as he can. The first page fills up before he says anything about Kandahar, leaving him no choice but to draw an arrow pointing over the page, with the words STORY CONTINUES written along the edge. Sadly, the blue airmail paper is too thin to take the strong black ink of the pen he's been given and the words on the other side jumble into those on the first page. So much so, Khalid gives up after adding quick kisses for Aadab and Gul. Going over the final words, "How can this happen? I didn't do anything wrong!!!!!", he sits back to read what he's written. Just how well he's described his situation, he doesn't care. This is urgent. There's a sudden feeling of panic in his chest as he realizes he's left no space for the address. Unless it'll fit along the bottom of the first page under the arrow he's drawn. He sucks his bottom lip and frowns as he tries to squeeze the address in and, weirdly, the words "9 Oswestry Road, Rochdale, Lancashire, UK" fit perfectly at the bottom of the page. He worries they might not notice the address down there, so he goes over it several times with the pen to make it stand out. Then does the number 9 again in case someone thinks it's a zero.
Khalid's tempted to quit worrying and start again on the next page. But he's only got three pieces of paper and he might not be given any more. Trying all the while not to wind himself up by fretting that the letter won't reach them. But when it comes to what to say to Mr. Tagg, the tip of the pen hovers over the blank page like a fly. Mr. Tagg's a teacher, after all, so he's going to notice the bad sentences and misspellings, isn't he? All this worrying cramps Khalid's style. After several crossings-out, he decides to give it a rest for a while and go back to the letter when he's clearer about exactly what he wants to say. Glancing down the cages, he watches one man toss his cup in the toilet bucket, while another jumps on his. The cup feels and smells like the foam they stuff boxes with, but Khalid keeps it anyway. When the Red Cross man finally comes to collect the letters, Khalid still hasn't got round to deciding what to say to Mr. Tagg and Mac. Instead, he gives him the letter for his family. A horrible feeling inside warns him it'll never get there and a split-second picture in his mind of Mum crying her eyes out at the kitchen table, Gul's arms around her neck, brings tears to his eyes.
12 WADE The boiling-hot days fold into each other, passing by without notice. Once a week, Khalid's taken for a shower. Once a week he writes another letter and hands it to a soldier to give to the Red Cross guy, and one by one the months pass by. "September 2002," he recently heard a guard shout in answer to one of the men's questions, and still there's no sign Khalid will ever go home. The familiar sounds of trucks and whirring engines, squeaking leather boots and the humming generator settle at the back of his mind, like a TV permanently left on in another room. Today the smell of petrol mixed with a whiff of vegetable soup reminds him he's woken up in the wrong place again. Now and again, one of them is taken away for questioning. The same routine each time. First the military policemen call out a number so that person knows it's his turn. Then the soldiers drop by with an armful of shackles to bind him to himself. Today it's Abdul Al-Farran's turn. "Good luck," Khalid whispers. The poker-faced soldier forces Abdul to get down on his knees, legs crossed, hands behind his back while he applies the shackles. Abdul quietly prays the whole time he's being clanked and locked into the chains.