Countdown to Terror

Prologue

Prologue

The pain was intense. It was if two giant clamps were squeezing his stomach from either side. He couldn’t sit still or lie down; nor could he stand up. Several faces materialised, peering down at him. ‘You’ll be fine in a minute. This will help,’ one said, as a syringe entered his arm.

The Gent was disorientated. He wasn’t in that place; there were no guards. It wasn’t a bullet this time. It was night-time, so why wouldn’t they let him sleep. The pain wasn’t so bad now: morphine works, but it messes with your head. Here was another one, in a different colour uniform, ‘Just checking your blood pressure, sir’.

‘Want to sleep,’ he murmured. ‘Why won’t they let me sleep?’

Six hours later he woke up in a sweat. It had been a nightmare – a flashback. When he’d been rescued from that place, they’d said there would be flashbacks. Post-traumatic stress, they’d called it; he preferred friggin’ nightmare. And for some years into the future he would have occasional bouts of serious abdominal pain as small bits of shrapnel decided to move around. Looking about he remembered now! It was May 2012. Last night’s nightmare was not about that place at all; he was now in his own bed in the converted barn on a South Cheshire farm. Sheila, his new architect girlfriend, was gently nudging him. Last night had merely been a recollection of five days when he had collapsed with a serious bout of abdominal pain and had to be carted off to A&E at South Cheshire Hospital, where, because he had arrived in a car to get there faster, he’d not been considered urgent. He’d been unable to stand, sit or lie down, and had writhed about on the floor of A&E, entertainment for the would-be patients, until eventually they had decided there was space in the resuscitation ward to check him out. A doctor had arrived, accompanied by several different aides in various uniforms. The doctor’s cheerful greeting was, ‘We’re not looking too well, are we, sir?’ Five hours later, at midnight, chest shaved, and morphine drip attached and a myriad of questions and tests completed he was moved to a room for the night. Another uniform came in, asking the same questions for another hour. Then at last they’d gone and he could sleep, save for regular hourly visits to check his blood pressure.

Fortunately, the metal eventually moved south and he recovered enough to be let out by lunchtime the next day.