The Abrupt Physics of Dying

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Al Shams came and stood by his side. ‘Did you find what you were looking for, Mister Claymore?’

  ‘Some of it.’

  Another tribesman appeared, walked towards them. It was the old cyclops with the hennaed beard. As he walked, he changed the magazine on his weapon, stuffed the empty banana clip into the pocket of his jacket. He nodded to Clay. ‘Two dead,’ he said in Arabic.

  Al Shams hung his head, muttered a prayer. ‘We must leave, quickly. They will send helicopters.’ He turned and surveyed the scene, looked at Clay, that single window dark, full of stars. ‘The price is high, Mister Claymore.’

  ‘Always too high.’

  ‘God is great.’

  ‘It seems he is,’ said Clay.

  Strange Calligraphy

  It took them too long to reach the vehicles.

  Clay and Abdulkader carried Zdravko to Al Shams’ Land Cruiser and set him down on the back seat. He slumped over, unconscious. A young man, the medic who had tended Rania before at the village, set to work on Zdravko’s knee, tearing away the trouser leg, bandaging.

  Clay leant back against the front quarter-panel of the Land Cruiser and drained the water bottle Abdulkader had given him. Al Shams called out in Arabic, pointed to Abdulkader’s Land Cruiser. Two tribesmen struggled across the open ground, weapons slung across their backs, a corpse sagging between them, one man holding the hands and the other the feet. A tendril of blood trickled from the dead soldier’s neck, a thread unravelling, scrawling a strange calligraphy onto the sand. The dead man’s head hung back, eyes staring into a cloudless blue sky, Adam’s apple straining against the skin of the throat, the top row of teeth yellow in an open-mouthed scream. He had been a big man for a Yemeni, almost Clay’s size, and the tribesmen struggled with the body, hauling it like a rolled-up carpet, dragging it across the ground, ploughing a shallow furrow in the loose sand. They heaved the body into the back of Abdulkader’s Land Cruiser.

  Soon they were speeding along a rutted track, heading east, following the other vehicle. Clay was in the back seat with the medic. Abdulkader drove. Al Shams twisted around in the front passenger seat so that he was facing Clay.

  ‘They had orders to kill you,’ he shouted, voice shaking as the vehicle hurtled over the washboard. ‘We will take you to Wadi Masila, close to the border with Oman. It is remote, few live there.’

  Clay mouthed thanks and closed his eyes. Each bump in the road sent blades of pain slicing through his arm. He could hear the dead soldier’s head thudding on the cargo floor behind him.

  The young medic reached for Clay’s hand. ‘Please.’

  ‘What did you find, Mister Claymore?’ said Al Shams.

  ‘They are pumping produced water into the wadi,’ he said. ‘It’s intentional.’

  Al Shams closed his good eye, said nothing.

  ‘If it isn’t stopped quickly, every village along the escarpment will be poisoned. Many will die.’ Clay watched Abdulkader’s eyes flick to the rear-view mirror, away, and back again.

  ‘We cannot stop them,’ said Al Shams. ‘You have seen. We are too few. They have an army. Today we had luck.’

  Clay’s hand throbbed as the dirty bandages were cut away. Pus oozed from the gauze, putrid, septic. He clenched his jaw, looked away. ‘Can’t you sever the incoming pipelines, shut them down for a while?’

  ‘We have tried. A few times we have even succeeded. But there are many lines, and they are repaired the next day. Production continues.’

  Clay winced as the young medic pulled away the gauze. A sickening odour filled his nostrils.

  ‘If you could knock out the main generators at the CPF, that would do it, at least …’ Clay trailed off into silence.

  ‘It is infected. Is there pain?’

  Clay flinched, struggled to keep lucid. ‘Guess.’

  ‘And our water?’ asked Al Shams.

  ‘They are pumping the groundwater and using it to maintain pressure in the oil reservoir.’

  Al Shams muttered something that Clay could not make out.

  The medic clamped down on Clay’s wrist, applied his full weight. ‘Brace yourself.’

  It was as if his nerve endings were being doused in acid. In reflex he jerked his hand away and almost pulled the medic over on top of him, but then he held fast, bit down. The pain speared through him, flooding his senses. He put his head down, swam through it. After a while he looked up, smiled at the medic through clenched teeth. ‘Ouch,’ he said.

  The medic smiled back, set about bandaging his hand.

  By now the sun was low in the sky. The Land Cruiser was thundering along, gravel pelting its underside, the engine straining. The medic handed him three capsules and a bottle of water. ‘Take these, the best I have, I am afraid. Inshallah they will help with the infection.’ Then he leaned forward and said to Al Shams in Arabic. ‘He will need a surgeon soon.’

  Al Shams turned and faced Clay. ‘We are being followed,’ he said. ‘They are far behind, perhaps an hour. But they are coming.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Clay. ‘How many?’

  ‘There is no way of knowing. Several vehicles.’

  Clay pivoted around, looked out of the back window. Three plumes of dust rose from the horizon into a blushing sky.

  The medic was preparing a hypodermic needle. The metal flange rattled against the glass ampoule as he drew out the liquid. ‘I will give you morphine. A small dose. You will sleep a few hours.’ He extended Clay’s arm, tapped a vein.

  ‘Can we outrun them?’ Clay said.

  ‘God willing,’ said the medic, sliding the needle into Clay’s arm.

  For hours he faded in and out, time strung out like the endless plain, hours become days, punctuated only by glimpses of far-off hills shrouded in haze, fragments of conversation, the Arabic garbled, ancient, dust boiling around the vehicle, pouring through the open windows, coating everything and everyone, the suspension rattling and pounding over every rut and ridge. Twice they pulled to the side of the road, sheltering under scrub or among boulders as they watched helicopters flirt with the horizon, the men’s voices low and tense, setting out again only when they were convinced the sky was clear.

  An eternity gone, the vehicle lurched to a halt. Clay was awake, lucid. His hand throbbed. It was dark. They were in a broad shallow-sided wadi, the cliffs black, the sky above strewn with stars, the thorn of a new moon. The other vehicle was there. Engines were killed and silence descended. Al Shams’ men gathered around.

  Al Shams opened his door, stepped out of the vehicle. The men stood in a semi-circle around him. Clay stood with the others. The air was cold and pure.

  ‘We will separate,’ said Al Shams in Arabic. ‘We will draw the soldiers away from Mister Claymore and Abdulkader. Prepare the vehicles.’ The men murmured agreement and dispersed. Cans of fuel were unloaded, the Land Cruiser’s tanks refilled. Abdulkader levered open the bonnet of his vehicle, peered inside.

  The medic handed Clay a satchel. ‘Painkillers, another dose of morphine if you should need it, and fresh bandages.’

  Clay reached for the man’s hand, took it in his. ‘Shukran k’teer,’ he said.

  The medic nodded, pointed to Al Shams’ vehicle. ‘Now I must look after your friend from Petro-Tex.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He will not play football again, but he will live, inshallah.’

  ‘Take care of him. We need him.’

  Al Shams took Clay’s arm, walked him into the darkness a few paces from the vehicles. ‘Abdulkader will get you to the border.’

  Clay looked off to the West. ‘Are they still following, even at night?’

  ‘They have been with us for hours. We have not been able to lose them. They are very good.’

  ‘Is the border open?’

  ‘Only the road crossings are guarded. Abdulkader will show you. Get out, Mister Claymore. And then, please do not forget us. Use what you have learned. As you said yourself, every day matters. It is a race.’

&nb
sp; ‘I will do my best.’

  Al Shams reached out, put his hand on Clay’s shoulder. ‘Be careful. Saleh will not recant. The PSO needs scapegoats. Claymore Straker is an Ansar Al-Sharia terrorist, just as I am. You are Declan Greene now.’ Al Shams handed Clay an envelope. ‘All we can spare,’ he said. ‘Enough to get you out. And be careful. The PSO has agents in Oman.’

  Clay nodded thanks. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘We will continue our fight, God willing.’

  Clay looked up at the stars. Never had he seen such a firmament. ‘Hussein is dead.’

  ‘He is in paradise, al hamdillulah. I owe him my life many times.’ He smiled his crooked half-smile. ‘President Saleh’s secret police is not so infallible.’

  Of course. Al Shams’ man on the inside. ‘That’s how you were able to evade them for so long.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Abdulkader appeared out of the darkness and stood a few metres away. ‘We must go,’ he said.

  Al Shams nodded.

  Clay drew a deep breath, tried to push back a wave of pain. ‘But why?’ he managed after a while. ‘Why would a journalist try to kill you?’ he stopped short.

  The last can of fuel gurgled into Al Shams’ vehicle. The cyclops slammed closed the tailgate. Engines started.

  ‘She warned me, Mister Claymore. She came to me that night and told me they were coming. She gave us just enough time. My guard shot one of them before he was killed, God protect him. It was Rania, Mister Claymore, who shot the second assassin, the one you tripped over.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Clay stood gazing at this man, this hideous prophet. ‘But how did she know?’

  Al Shams leaned close. ‘DGSE,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The last thing Hussein told me before he left: she was working with Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Groupe Action. French Intelligence.’

  Clay felt his throat tighten. He was suddenly short of breath, labouring for oxygen. ‘But she is a journalist – a well-known one – you saw her stuff.’

  ‘Yes. But she was also an operative.’

  Jesus Christ. All that time. All those whispers. He took three deep breaths. ‘Who were the assassins?’

  ‘God knows. They looked Yemeni. But they carried no identification, no markings.’

  ‘How did she know they were coming?’

  ‘We can only speculate.’ Al Shams reached into his pocket and withdrew a folded piece of newsprint and slid it into Clay’s shirtfront pocket. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘Now go, and may God protect all of us.’

  Clay stood in the dust as the men jumped into the vehicles. Abdulkader was already in the driver’s seat, had the engine turning. Al Shams was waving them on from the open window of the other vehicle. They needed to go first. Al Shams and his men would slow, allow their pursuers to close the gap, while Clay and Abdulkader diverted south. Clay climbed into the passenger seat. Before he had even closed the door, the car was rolling.

  All the Empty Places

  Clay and Abdulkader sped on through the night, the heavens turning above, Antares kissing the black mountains, Spica, Regulus, the little boy flying Arcturus’ kite, Agena’s double star drowning. Still moving east. Somehow, Abdulkader managed to keep to the unpaved road, distinguish the poorly graded gravel from the wash of the plain in the downcast headlights. The Land Cruiser was taking a pounding. With the stars starting to fade, Al Shams’ vehicle peeled off to the north. He watched it until it disappeared. They were on their own. Clay took a deep breath.

  And He has cast firm mountains in the earth and rivers and roads for you to go aright, and landmarks, and by stars they find the right way, and if you would count Allah’s favours, you would not be able to number them.

  Clay fumbled with his breast pocket and withdrew the scrap of newspaper Al Shams had slipped there. He unfolded it on his thigh, pinned back the edge with his thumb, held back each edge with his fingers. It was a short piece, no more than ten lines. In the dim light of dashboard instruments he read and re-read the two short paragraphs, not believing what his eyes told him, as if there had been some misprint, some error of editing. She had been shot, it said, while reporting on the civil war in Yemen, was evacuated to Djibouti, treated at the military hospital there. In critical condition, she was flown to Marseilles. Doctors fought hard to save her, but her wounds had been too extensive. She died in hospital in Marseilles, members of her family by her side. There were a few lines about her background, her short career as a journalist, a tribute from her editor. Rania LaTour, foreign correspondent for AFP, dead at twenty-six.

  Clay crumpled the scrap in his fist, doubled over in the seat, retched till it hurt. Tears poured down his face, all the empty places inside him coalescing into a single gaping void. For a long time he sat and watched the road spin out before him, desolate, grey, lifeless.

  The pain in his hand grew. It came in waves now, big thundering rollers that crushed his will. The world turned. Day was coming.

  Clay twisted around in his seat, searched the distance, the layer of brown haze that smothered the world. Twin threads of grey dust spiralling into the sky. Less than an hour behind, he guessed. ‘They are getting closer,’ he said.

  Abdulkader drove on, his jaw set.

  ‘How far to the border, Abdulkader?’ The voice was not his, a thin imitation.

  ‘Another hour, inshallah.’

  A ridge of mountains loomed ahead, black against the dawn. Only the brightest stars still shone.

  ‘You will cross before the sun rises.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I will continue north, draw them away.’

  Clay turned in his seat, looked back in the direction of their pursuers. The twin dust columns were there, closer than before, distinct now. And then a speck appeared on the horizon, just abeam the two vehicles, almost lost in the haze. It seemed to hover there in the distance, unmoving. Clay watched it slowly climb away from the surface until it hung distinct above the brume. It was getting bigger, low to the horizon. It was coming. Shit.

  Clay reached for the AK. ‘Something’s coming, fast. I think it’s a helicopter.’

  Abdulkader betrayed no emotion, just drove on, implacable as before. The helicopter was moving quickly now, closing the distance steadily. Clay laid the AK’s forestock across his arm, braced himself against the door frame. The helicopter grew in the gunsight. It was bearing down on them now, gaining fast, tracking them, tail up, weapons trained groundward. The mountains were close, half a mile, less. He could see the pilot’s helmeted head swivelling under the cockpit glass, the chin turret gun pitching down to target them. It was directly behind them now. He couldn’t get a shot.

  ‘They’re going to fire on us, Abdulkader,’ he shouted. ‘Get off the road. Now.’

  Abdulkader jammed on the brakes just as the air erupted in a scream. There was a flash of riveted underbelly and blunt rocket pylons as the machine shot over them so close that Clay could have touched it standing on the Land Cruiser’s hood. A fraction of a second later they were engulfed in a cyclone of dust that sent them skidding off the road, Abdulkader blind and fighting to control the vehicle as it lurched across the rocky ground. They shuddered to a halt in a shower of sand and flint.

  ‘Get out,’ shouted Abdulkader.

  Clay grabbed his backpack and threw himself from the vehicle. He landed hard on one knee, the AK flying from his hand and rattling across the ground. A bolt of pain shot up his leg and for a moment the limb would not respond, just hung limp. He hobbled away from the vehicle, blinded by dust, dragging the stunned leg, stumbling across the loose sand. A shallow depression opened up between two low outcrops. He dropped to the ground and huddled against the caprock, dust gritting his teeth. His heart was beating so fast he thought it would explode.

  He looked left and right, craned his neck back towards the new disc of the sun, shining yellow through the dust cloud. The sound of a screaming turbine filled his ears, rotors thumping close
by. He curled into a ball and pushed himself into the rock, the fear inside him thick and deep like fever. There was a loud whoosh. He knew that sound. He closed his eyes and covered his head with his arms. A deafening concussion split the air. The sky lit up and a wave of searing heat passed over him. Flaming chunks of metal rained down, thumping to the ground with a junkyard clatter.

  He lay motionless for a long time, listening to the fading sound of the helicopter and the crackle of flames, the acrid smell of burning rubber filling his nostrils, not daring to look up.

  The Way It Was Supposed To Be

  The vehicle was a mangled flaming wreck. Clay lurched through the smoke, eyes burning, stumbled over the AK, picked it up. The ground was littered with chunks of smoking metal and twisted, melted plastic. A pillar of black smoke towered into the sky, a beacon. Closer, he could see that the rear of the Land Cruiser had taken a direct hit. Only the front of the vehicle was recognisable. Just beyond the largest piece of wreckage, a body lay in the sand. He ran across the wasteland, stood looking down at the corpse. The head was gone, the limbs charred and black. Clay turned away, gagging. It was the soldier from Al Urush. He stumbled on through the smoke.

  Clay found Abdulkader lying in a shallow depression. The Arab looked up as he approached, crisped his lips. There was a deep gash on the side of his face. His hands were knotted across his abdomen, low down, near his hip. Clay knelt beside him. Blood pumped from between Abdulkader’s fingers, dripped to the ground.

  ‘Jesus, Abdulkader.’ It was all he could say. Clay opened the satchel Suleiman had given him, tore open a compress bandage with his teeth. ‘Move your hands.’

  Abdulkader pulled up his shirt to reveal a puncture about three inches long and half as wide, low down. Blood welled up, dark, artesian.