The Devil's breath dz-1

by David Gilman

  The first thing he had to do was contact Sayid and warn him about Mr. Peterson. Flipping open his cell phone, he waited as it connected to the local server and then he began texting. Thinking of Sayid brought the time frame into focus. Was it only yesterday he had left his school and taken the train to London and put this whole plan into action?

  “OK,” Sayid had told him, “you’d better take this.” His friend had handed Max his new phone. “I’ve swapped the SIM card, it’s clean. I don’t know where you’re going to end up, but if you really think there’s someone out to kill you and your dad, odds are they’ll have a trace on your phone.”

  Sayid explained that if Max texted him, the program he had created would scramble the message. Text was quicker and safer than voice. Sayid would then unscramble the message at his end, once the signal had been bounced in and out of European servers. With any luck the bad guys wouldn’t twig that Sayid was his contact; at least not for a while. The biggest problem would be if Max was out of range of any signal. The best Sayid could offer then was for Max to use a landline, take a chance with uncoded speech, and Sayid would rely on his computer to disguise the download.

  Max checked the text. Peterson followed me 2 airprt. Also thnk he searched my rm. Dont trst him. Rpt: Dont trst Ptrson.

  Twenty minutes before Sayid received Max’s encrypted text message, he was pounding, tired and wet from a strenuous cross-country run, up the broad granite staircase to his room. The boys always ran as hard as they could across Dartmoor’s demanding terrain because they had the time to themselves from when they crossed the finish line until the evening meal was served in the oak-timbered hall.

  His trainers squelched from the bog sludge, so he leaned against the wall and pulled them off, preferring the sensation of the cold stone beneath his feet. In that moment of silence he heard someone talking, and sounding quite exasperated. The voice was coming from Mr. Peterson’s room. As he got nearer to the closed door he could clearly hear Peterson’s voice; it was obviously a telephone conversation. Sayid made sure no one else was in sight and pressed closer to the old door.

  “… I told you he never got to Toronto…. I don’t know how he managed it! … and I don’t want to keep going over it … no … no, the boy at the airport must have been a friend, he’s not a pupil here…. None of that matters. We’ve lost him and I’m really worried about it now….”

  Then a few muffled words were said that Sayid could not hear. Peterson had probably turned away from the door, perhaps he was pacing back and forth across the room, as his voice was unclear at times. Then Sayid picked it up again.

  “… well, obviously South Africa … and if he knows or finds out what his father discovered … yes … yes … We must do what we can…. I feel responsible. Do we have any people over there? Anyone we can use? Good … put them on alert until I can find out more….”

  Sayid dropped a shoe. The noise it made was not particularly loud but it was enough for Peterson to stop talking. Sayid ran as fast he could on tiptoe along the corridor to his room, and as Peterson yanked open the door he was already around a corner, out of sight. Peterson looked up and down the corridor and saw no one, but he could not fail to notice the wet footprints and the globule of black mud on the floor. The footprints went straight towards Sayid Khalif’s room.

  Peterson weighed up the risks. Had the boy heard anything? He stepped back into his room. If he confronted Sayid now, it might trigger the boy’s suspicions that Max was heading into serious trouble.

  Max’s connecting flight to Namibia landed a couple of hours later. Windhoek’s airport had only a small building for its terminal, but South African Cliff Swallows nested there, and White-rumped Swifts swooped across the building’s panoramic windows giving a view of the harsh scrubland that lay beyond the runway. A dozen or more kilometers away, a malevolent-looking black cloud rolled across the horizon like a giant rain-filled tumbleweed; a sudden storm, prodded on by forked lightning, dumping its much-needed rainwater.

  The rolling weather front reminded Max of home.

  Dartmoor was a remote and sometimes dangerous place, but this huge expanse of wilderness could swallow him up and no one would know.

  Max suddenly felt very alone and, if he was honest, scared. The flight to Canada would have landed a few hours before he reached South Africa. If the people following him had watched the airport in Toronto and had seen his look-alike arrive, would that have been enough to fool them? If it hadn’t, maybe they had figured out where he was heading. He was about to check the cell to see if Sayid had sent any messages, when his eyes caught the fleeting blur of a swift as it swooped to catch a flying insect.

  The bird probably saved his life.

  As he turned to watch it, he saw two men heading towards him who looked as though they wrestled crocodiles for a living. One had long hair and wore a bush shirt and khaki shorts; his squashed-nosed face sported a scrub beard. A scar across his cheek separated the whiskers-a white slash against his sun-baked skin that the beard failed to conceal. The other was pure Hollywood. Tall and broad, his chest like two concrete paving slabs that his T-shirt could barely restrain. His close-cropped hair and pilot’s dark glasses could have got him work for any top fashion magazine. Instead, he and his partner, ex-South African policemen, were hired killers.

  Max didn’t have to think twice about their intentions. He ran for the nearest door and they followed, dodging the few remaining passengers. Max pushed through into a STAFF ONLY area, a long corridor with wire cages to one side and a solid concrete-block wall on the other. He heard the thump of the door as the men came after him. He risked a glance over his shoulder-the men were too big to run side by side along the narrow passage, so one of them ducked off to his right and clattered onto a metal spiral staircase that cork-screwed down through the cages which, Max realized, were for storing luggage waiting to be loaded on to aircraft.

  Scarface was almost on him. Max felt him snatch at his neck and the man swore, missing him, as Max stretched out an extra pace. But there was nowhere to go, and within a couple of seconds Scarface would grip him with those huge hands. Then Max saw the downwards-twisting rollers used by cargo handlers to slide heavy cases to the loading area below. Max dived, his backpack now on his chest like a belly board. The rollers rattled as he hurtled downwards. The man behind him shouted something in a foreign language and kicked the wire-caged wall in frustration. He would have to retrace his steps to the stairs. Max hit the curved stainless-steel barrier at the bottom of the chute. It flipped him over. He rolled, hugged his bag to his chest, vaulted over the low barrier and ran straight into Mr. Hollywood, who wrapped his muscled arms around him. “Got him!” he yelled; his expensive capped white teeth smiled as they chomped down again and again on a piece of well-chewed gum.

  He was too confident. Max threw his head back, giving himself just enough leverage, then slammed his heel down, as hard as he could, on the man’s ankle. It was one of the most painful self-defense tricks he had learned. Mr. Hollywood shouted out in pain and dropped his chin in disbelief as Max whipped his head back up, connecting with the perfect jawline. He heard the teeth shatter and a mumbled, agonizing choking sound. Max knew the man had probably bitten his tongue half through. The shock and pain weren’t enough to stop him though, and he lurched at Max, who rammed a shoulder with all his strength beneath the gasping man’s rib cage, as if he were tackling a rugby opponent. It rocked Mr. Hollywood back on his heels, the momentum forcing his legs against an overweight suitcase; he lost his balance and tumbled helplessly backwards towards the stainless-steel rim of the chute that moments earlier had flipped Max over. It sliced into the base of the man’s skull. Blood oozed around his T-shirt and his eyes rolled back into his head. Air bubbled through what was left of his smashed mouth. He wasn’t very handsome anymore.

  Max pulled his backpack over his shoulders and ran down through the loading bays. Where was everyone? This must be a cargo and luggage holding area, so no one would be here unless
they were loading. He had been lucky so far, he knew that. Where was Scarface? He heard an engine grunt behind him, and as he turned a forklift truck accelerated straight at him. Scarface had the pedal to the floor, diesel fumes spewed out and the two metal loading shafts were rising to chest level as Scarface operated the hydraulic lever. He meant to skewer Max like a kebab. Max spun around and ran-but there was nowhere to go. He was in an alleyway of cargo. Crates and boxes were stacked high on each side and pallets supported all kinds of material. Industrial generators were housed next to domestic refrigerators; construction pipes and electric cabling shared a stack with crated household goods. Max ran as hard as he could, but there were only forty meters left and then Scarface would crush him against the end-of-alley shelving.

  Max looked around desperately. Was there a chance he could climb up and pull something heavy down onto Scarface? That wouldn’t work; the forklift had a protective cage over the driver. Then he realized what he had to do-his only chance. He turned and faced the beast of a machine, now only a few meters away. He couldn’t dodge to one side, Scarface would twitch the wheel and crush him against the metal shelving. He stood his ground, like a matador waiting for the charging bull. Scarface was momentarily perplexed, but didn’t care. The two giant blades of the forklift’s arms were now at chest height. Max made a grab for them, barely hanging on as the well-worn metal slipped under his grip. If he couldn’t climb up, he would go under the wheels. Like a gymnast on parallel bars, he swung his lower body and hooked his leg over one of the shafts.

  Max straddled the blade and hung on, his body almost within touching distance of Scarface. He sat as square as he could, staring down Scarface, who had not taken his eyes off him. The beard parted-a grin of victory. He would smash Max into the end shelving. Max glared at him. He was drawing on his last strength and energy, and he had to keep this sociopath’s attention focused. Max swore and shouted, and then spat as much spittle as he could manage out of his dry mouth. Scarface stopped smiling. The urge to kill Max was foremost in his mind, and impact was imminent.

  Then, suddenly, Max swung under the metal shaft, clinging on with his arms and legs. In that moment Scarface realized that Max’s body had been blocking his view. He threw an arm up in self-defense, but it was too late. The forklift slammed into the end shelving. A hundred lengths of copper tubing that had been stacked there now reacted to the impact and rocketed forward above Max’s arms and legs and into the unprotected Scarface. A dozen lengths of pipe, as lethal as a hail of arrows, slammed into him. Max was shunted off the forklift and into the shelving below the remainder of the copper tubes, which spilled from the shelf and clattered over him.

  Bruised and winded, he fought free and climbed from under the pier of metal. Scarface was either unconscious or dead. Copper spears punctured his arms and chest, pinning him to his seat. The forklift’s motor had stalled.

  It was suddenly very quiet.

  Max needed a drink.

  Back in the terminal building, Max had his face over the water fountain, swallowing as much as the feeble spurt would allow. A young woman, dressed in bush fatigues, tanned and looking as though she lived and breathed Africa, had come up behind him. He thought she must have been about seventeen. Her bright smile and blue eyes looked even more stunning because of her short, sun-bleached hair. She was lithe but strong-looking, like an athlete, and the shorts that reached halfway down her thighs were evidently worn for practicality rather than fashion. A couple of grease marks, ingrained dust and dirt suggested that she used them as a hand-wipe whenever necessary. Max was caught unawares, and his heart was pounding, not because she had startled him, but because of the way she looked.

  “Are you Max?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he finally managed to answer, wiping a dribble of water from his chin.

  “Sorry I’m late. Had a problem with a fuel line. Come on then.”

  She turned away.

  “Hang on a minute,” he called after her. He wasn’t going to be treated like a puppy-and after the last twenty minutes he was not going to follow anyone anywhere, no matter how appealing they looked. She stopped and waited. “I don’t know who you are,” he said, realizing this might be a setup.

  She gazed at him. “I’m Kallie van Reenen,” she answered. “He said you’d be cautious. That’s good out here-it might keep you alive.” She raised an eyebrow. Was that enough information?

  “Who said?”

  “Mr. Farentino.”

  Max nodded and fell into step with her. And wished she weren’t so attractive.

  When they left the terminal she took him to the other end of the airport apron, where private aircraft were parked. Safari companies often flew their clients from here, and local farmers used it as their nearest parking area for the city. Farentino had warned her that Max was on his way, and as it was her father to whom the Bushman had delivered Tom Gordon’s animal-wrapped field notes, she was the starting point for Max’s journey.

  The outside temperature was a shock. Sweat gathered around the waistband of his cargo pants and soaked a long stain down the back of his T-shirt. Max knew he would acclimatize quickly, as he had done before on trips with his father; but his body was also coping with the stress he had been through. He edged into the shade of a hangar and watched silently as Kallie did her preflight inspection on an old single-engine plane that looked to be well past its sell-by date. But he remembered his father telling him about these old bush-bashers. They were as solid as they come, and every aircraft had to have a vigorous ongoing maintenance and airworthiness certificate, so he took some comfort in that.

  Kallie checked the propeller, making sure there was no damage to it; then the flaps; she ran a loving hand along the struts and then, finally, clambered on board. Max was edgy, expecting police cars to come screaming up any minute. But nothing happened.

  He checked the phone. The message from Sayid on the blue screen was brief:

  Peterson nos where u r.

  Max grimaced. Thanks, Sayid, but recent events have already confirmed this.

  “OK!” Kallie shouted. “Let’s go!”

  Climbing into the cockpit was another step away from whoever else Peterson might have sent after him. He gratefully strapped on the safety harness. Kallie flicked control levers with practiced ease, clicked the radio on, contacted the tower and was given clearance to taxi. Max had a flight simulator on his computer at Dartmoor High, but this old plane’s instrument panel looked completely different from the F16s he tried to maneuver at Mach 2 on his computer screen. No target screen, no rate-of-climb dial, no radar. With a bit of thought he could identify the basic instruments as her fingers moved to the master and alternator switches, which turned on all the electrics for the plane. Stuck to the instrument panel was a somewhat tattered, postcard-sized, laminated board. The laminate was bubbled in places, and the heat had frayed the edges into brown crackling. Half a dozen words were typed on it: Rather Too Many Pilots Forget How It Goes.

  “What’s this?” he asked, as she eased out the throttle lever, slowing the plane so that it was barely moving, waiting to take up position for takeoff.

  “Oh, my dad. He worries. He taught me to fly. But you know what dads are like. Don’t want you to make mistakes if they can help it.” She hesitated, noticing the shadow that flickered across Max’s eyes. “Sorry, that was thoughtless of me. Under the circumstances.”

  He shook his head. “It’s OK. Honest. My dad’s the same.”

  She smiled. “It’s a reminder. A whatchamacallit. When the words trigger things …”

  “A mnemonic.”

  “That’s it.” She pointed at the capital letter for every word, each a stab at a pilot’s memory. “R-Radios on. Rudder check movement; T-Trim elevator to takeoff position, throttle tension and set for start; M-Mixture rich, magnetos on; P-Pitot heat-that’s in case there are icy conditions, not much chance of that today; F-Fuel select for tanks, flaps set for takeoff; H-Harness secure, hatches closed; I–Instruments, check
temperatures; G-Gyros set to the compass heading, gear selected down and three green lights.”

  Max knew he would have trouble remembering the reminder, let alone what it stood for. Before he could think of anything sensible to say, Kallie’s voice changed to a monotone, concentrated answer as she responded to the instructions from the air traffic controller’s voice in her headphones. The old Cessna 185 rattled like a supermarket cart full of empty tin cans. Kallie eased in the throttle, gave Max a reassuring smile-which did little to help his nerves-and then the plane lurched forward, centered on the runway’s white strip. Suddenly they were rumbling towards the horizon. Max watched the airspeed indicator climb from 60 to 65 miles per hour-the plane was ancient enough for its dial not to show aeronautical knots. The rev-counter touched 2550 revs and Kallie pulled the plane up into the sky, straight at the high hills that were far too close to the end of the runway for Max’s liking. The long, gradual climb took forever, and the plane rocked a little. She smiled at him. “This kind of heat can make things tricky in the air.”

  She seemed confident enough that they were going to clear those fast-approaching hills.

  “Would you keep your eyes on the road,” he muttered.

  After half an hour he could barely hear himself think. The plane’s engine was deafening, and there was only one pair of headphones, which were clamped over her ears. They were cruising at 130 miles per hour, the vast expanse of the country below them etched with the occasional never-ending line of a road. Max tried to take an interest in the mountains to the east, their slopes furthest from the westering sun now cloaked in shadows and dust haze. But he was feeling rotten.

  “Not long!” she shouted. “Only a couple of hours!”

  He was uncomfortable. His backside ached. The old seats were like the old-fashioned tubular chairs they used to have in the school’s assembly hall, and he could not see above the instrument panel. How could you land when you couldn’t see the ground?