The Abrupt Physics of Dying

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Clay sat a moment, not quite believing what he’d just heard. ‘What do you mean, taken?’

  The Consul ran his hand through his hair. ‘I left them locked in my desk drawer. At first I thought perhaps I had misplaced them. But I clearly remember putting them there. Someone came into my office last night and took them.’

  ‘A break-in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how?’

  ‘Your documents were …’ the consul hesitated, ran his fingers across his chin with a rasping sound, like paper tearing. ‘It appears they have been confiscated.’

  ‘Confiscated? By whom?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Clay processed this for a moment, stared into the Consul’s pale eyes. ‘Without those documents there is no case against Parnell, against Todorov, any of them.’

  The Consul swallowed, paused.

  ‘Yes, I know. Once I found they were missing, I made enquiries. I have spoken to the Ambassador himself.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He told me not to pursue the matter.’ The Consul frowned. ‘Apparently your case has been taken over by a special department. It is beyond my security level. I have received instructions from the Ambassador to keep you here. A team is on the way here from France to interrogate you.’

  ‘Interrogate?’

  ‘It is most irregular. I can only assume …’

  ‘That I am the accused.’

  The Consul nodded. ‘You are a wanted terrorist.’

  Clay paused, gave himself four seconds, breathed. ‘I came to you. You’ve seen the evidence. You know I’m not a terrorist.’

  The Consul raised his hands to his head, exhaled. His lip twitched. ‘I telephoned Paris this morning. I spoke to a senior colleague, someone I trust. He called me back a few moments ago.’ The Consul paused, glanced over his shoulder again.

  Clay waited, watched another bead of sweat track down the Consul’s neck. The Consul held out the duffel bag, placed it in Clay’s lap. ‘You are in danger, Monsieur Straker.’

  Clay opened the bag. Inside, a pair of shoes, a navy-blue suit, white-collared shirt, an airline ticket, an unmarked envelope. He looked up at the Consul.

  ‘You were gone before I got here,’ said the Consul in a whisper. ‘The hospital staff didn’t see you leave.’

  Clay opened the ticket docket. Air France, first class to Paris.

  ‘They don’t know about Declan Greene. I didn’t tell them.’

  Clay nodded, looked into the Consul’s eyes. ‘How long have I got?’

  ‘About an hour.’

  Very Soon Dead

  As soon as the Consul was gone, Clay got out of bed and disconnected the IV. He stripped off his hospital gown, pulled on the boxer shorts and the navy-blue trousers, hopping barefoot on the concrete floor. He sat in the chair, pulled a pair of socks from the duffel bag, slipped them on his feet. Boots next. Clay fumbled one-handed with the laces, a seemingly simple task rendered impossibly slow. Finally he stood, half-dressed. He figured at least ten minutes had gone since the Consul’s departure. He grabbed the white shirt from the bag. It was freshly ironed – hotel laundry folded and pinned. He pulled out the baubled pins with his lips, spat them to the floor, ripped the cardboard support from the collar with his teeth, shook out the shirt, started to thread his damaged arm into a sleeve. His arm jammed painfully into the constriction. The bandage was too wide. The harder he pushed the more it hurt. He grabbed one side of the cuff in his teeth, the other in his right hand and ripped the sleeve lengthways. In the hospital quiet the tear sounded like a scream, a dry rupture in the fabric of the night. But his arm was through. Clay buttoned the shirt, slipped on the jacket – a little tight around the shoulders but otherwise not bad – and slid the airline ticket, the unmarked envelope and the money into his inside breast pocket. Outside, the lights of Oman strobed in the swaying palms, flashed across the wind-swept sea.

  The Consul’s surprise late-night visit played itself out again in his mind. There were clearly some pretty important people who had no intention of letting the truth about what had happened in Yemen come out. People with influence inside the French government. People with enough power to co-opt an Ambassador, dispatch a ‘special team’ from Paris. And, if they wanted the evidence gone, it was pretty likely they wanted the witnesses gone, too. The Consul had taken a career-ending gamble in warning him, had given him a way out and just enough time. The guy was smart, gutsy. With the money Clay had now, Hussein’s money, with his new identity apparently still safe, he could disappear for good, leave it all behind.

  Clay looked down at his bandaged arm. The possibilities flashed through his mind, options cascading, scenarios playing out. Why would the French government, so publically committed to justice in the case of Thierry Champard, choose to sequester the very evidence needed to achieve that goal? And why had the Consul felt compelled to disobey his own ambassador and provide Clay with means of escape? Something was terribly, fundamentally wrong. He knew this viscerally, as a truth, as you know right and wrong from the earliest age, and keep knowing it, even when it is blasted down into the deepest recesses of your being.

  There was only one course he could take. As Rania had said all that time ago outside the hotel in Aden, he was locked in now, committed.

  Clay stood, grabbed the empty duffel bag, walked quickly to the doorway. He was going to find out who was coming for him, and why. And he was going to do it on his terms.

  The corridor was empty, the lights dimmed for night. He paced down the hall, found Afia’s office. The door was unlocked, the office dark, empty. Clay closed the door behind him, switched on the light, walked into the storeroom, scanned the shelves. Almost immediately he found what he was looking for. A box of sterilised green hospital scrubs. He found the biggest coveralls he could find, and threaded them over his suit. A bit short in the arms and the legs, but it would do. He grabbed a second pair of coveralls from the box and draped them over his shoulder. Nearby he found another box containing surgical masks and elasticized caps, selected one of each, stuffed them into the oversized coverall pocket. In the corner, a pail, a mop with a sturdy wooden handle. He found a full bottle of commercial strength bleach, placed it in the pail, put the mop under his arm, carried the pail into the office, set them on the floor beside the door. From the glass cabinet he took two large syringes in their sterile packaging, four big compresses, bandages, a tube of the antiseptic that Afia was using on his wound, a couple of rolls of medical tape, a box of painkillers, and dumped them into the duffel bag. It took him longer to find the anaesthetic, two big phials of fentanyl, a hundred times more potent than morphine, fast-acting. Those, too, went into the bag.

  Clay closed the cabinet, grabbed the chair from Afia’s desk and placed it at the office door. He cracked open the door, checked the corridor. Deserted, still. Then he wedged the door open with the mop end, turned out the light, sat in the chair. He had a clear line of sight to his room.

  Clay estimated that about fifteen minutes had passed since the Consul’s departure. Whoever was coming for him could be here at any moment. He opened the bleach, poured the contents into the bucket, gagged on the chlorine vapours as the heavy liquid glugged in the darkness. Quickly he covered the pail with the extra scrubs to keep the vapours down. Soon the air cleared. He took a few deep breaths, grabbed one of the syringes, tore open the packet with his teeth. He placed a phial of fentanyl between his knees, pushed the needle into the cap, pinched the plunger casing between his fingers and pulled up the plunger with his teeth, drawing in the liquid. In a few minutes he had two charged syringes ready to go. Big doses. With the plastic caps covering the needles, he gently lowered the syringes into the outside pocket of his coveralls. Then he pulled the cap over his head and strapped on the surgical mask. He was ready.

  Time passed. An orderly pushed a trolley down the corridor past Afia’s office, his back to Clay. The trolley wheels squeaked as he turned and disappeared into the north wing. Clay shifted in
the chair, the pain in his arm awakening now, stirring. And with the pain came doubts, battalions of them, regiments. The Consul had given him a head start. Now that was gone. An hour, the Consul had said, but how could he have been sure? It could be a lot more. The flight for Paris left at 5:00. Afia would be back on shift at four. He didn’t want to mix her up in this. That gave him another two and a half hours at most. He’d have to leave for the airport by 3:30 at the latest, and hope he could find a taxi.

  The hospital was quiet, as if all the patients had died in their sleep and now lay cold and open-mouthed in their beds, the staff yet to find them, yet to realise. Whoever was coming for him, this would be the time.

  Clay reached into the breast pocket of his suit, withdrew the envelope the Consul had given him. Inside were two folded newspaper clippings. He slipped one from the envelope, and unfolded it. There it was, in the dim wedge of corridor light, in an article dated 14th June, yesterday: Finnish engineer Nils Karila, 39, shot dead in Yemen by South African national Claymore Straker, a member of an Ansar Al-Sharia terrorist cell. Straker, a suspect in the murders of at least twelve other soldiers and oil workers, was killed by government forces as he was trying to flee across the Omani border, along with several other terrorists.

  Clay looked up, scanned the corridor. Jesus Christ. They must have shot Nils for helping him escape. He remembered the photograph in Karila’s office, the kids in the snow, their smiling faces, and swallowed down a gasp. He thought of Abdulkader, of the body of the dead soldier lying in the back of the Land Cruiser as they fled to the border, its head thudding on the floor with each bump in the road, miles and miles of it, him unable to stop it, to help the boy rest, until the sound of it had coalesced with his own dreams, the beating of his heart. It was with him now still, that ragged whunk of soft bone and hair on car-rug and particle board, the bloody headless torso lying in the sand, Clay’s passport in the torn chest pocket. Jesus, he breathed.

  He replaced the clipping in the envelope and waited.

  The same orderly squeaked past with his trolley, coming back towards Clay this time, past his room. Clay pushed the door to with his foot, the mop head compressing until the gap was less than an inch. The orderly passed by without a glance. Clay released the pressure and the door cracked open a bit more. Fifty minutes now, maybe a bit more since the Consul’s visit. The pain in his arm was back, insistent, demanding. He was about to reach down and grab a box of painkillers from the duffel bag when a lone figure appeared at the end of the corridor.

  Clay filled the deepest part of his lungs, exhaled slowly. The man was powerfully built, medium height. He wore a dark leather jacket, jeans, black military-style boots. Everything about the guy – the number-two cut, the gaunt over-trained face – said military. French intelligence? SF? Whoever he was, he was striding down the corridor now, his gait long, confident. He stopped outside Clay’s room, reached to the small of his back, tugged down the hem of his jacket, glanced both ways, turned the handle and disappeared inside.

  Clay jumped to his feet, jammed the mop handle under his left arm, flicked the scrubs off the top of the bucket and picked the bucket up by the handle. He stepped out into the corridor. Afia’s office door clicked shut behind him. In a moment he was at his door. His heart was racing. The pain in his arm was gone, obliterated by adrenaline. He breathed deep and opened the door.

  The man was standing beside the bed, looking down at the twisted empty bed sheets, the disconnected IV line hanging from his hand. He turned and faced Clay. His expression betrayed nothing. He just stood there looking at Clay.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Clay muttered in Arabic, deepening his voice.

  The man let the IV line drop, took a step away from the bed. His hands were by his sides. He said nothing.

  Clay lowered his head, shuffled forward a few paces. Three metres separated them, less. ‘No visitors now,’ Clay said, in Arabic again.

  The man looked over to the window, the door to the balcony, back at Clay. He pointed at the bed. ‘Where he is?’ the man said in English. His voice was cigarette rough, heavily accented.

  Clay hunched his shoulders. ‘No visitors now,’ he said in English, shuffled a few steps closer. ‘You go.’

  The man raised his forearm, glanced at his watch. ‘Where this man?’ he said, pointing at the bed again. Vhere zees man? Not French. The accent was Slavic, Russian perhaps.

  Clay paused, looked back at the door, faced the man. ‘Toilet,’ he said in Arabic.

  The man seemed to understand. He started towards Clay, towards the door. Clay bent as if to put the bucket on the floor, reached his bandaged arm under it, cradled it close to his body, watched the man’s boots step closer. A pace away now.

  Clay burst from his crouch, flinging the contents of the bucket into the man’s face. The man threw up his arms, too late to prevent the concentrated bleach from reaching his face and eyes. He screamed in pain, stumbled back, tearing at his eyes. Clay grabbed the mop handle in his right hand and drove its butt-end hard into the man’s throat. The man gasped and collapsed to his knees, fumbling behind his back. Clay lined him up and let go a withering kick to the head, toppling him to the ground. Still conscious, blinded, gasping for breath, the man squirmed on the floor, pulled out a silenced handgun.

  Clay jumped left just before the man fired. The bullet smashed into the concrete wall behind him. The man adjusted left on sound, fired again, missing Clay by an inch, no more. Clay moved right as the man fired again, further left this time, missing completely. The round clattered into the metal frame of the bed. Clay circled right, getting closer. The man heard him, swivelled on his back, tracking the sound. He fired blind again, four quick shots that smashed into the wall at close range. Shattered masonry filled the air. Clay whipped out another kick that caught the man’s arm, sent the handgun flying from his hand and spinning across the bleach-slick floor. The man dove after the gun, arms sweeping desperately across the floor, searching. But he’d misjudged the direction. The handgun lay two metres away to his left.

  Clay stepped past him, picked up the gun, pointed it at the man. A Russian Makarov PMM nine millimetre. Eight round magazine. One round left.

  Outside in the hall, commotion. A door opening and closing, voices, footsteps.

  Clay pulled off his mask, the cap, threw them to the ground. ‘On your knees,’ said Clay in English.

  The man was in pain. Tears streamed from his eyes. The skin of his face was seared bright pink. The man pushed himself up, sat on the floor.

  ‘Who sent you?’ hissed Clay.

  The man said nothing. His face was twitching.

  ‘Tell me what I want to know and I’ll get you help. Save your eyes.’

  The man struggled to his knees.

  ‘Who are you?’

  No answer.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The man pushed his knuckles into his eye sockets. ‘Not important,’ he breathed.

  Shouting now from the corridor, lights coming up.

  Clay pushed the silencer into the man’s head, made him feel it. ‘Important to me. Tell me or I’ll give you something they can’t fix.’

  ‘Fuck you. You dead man. You and your bitch.’

  Clay started. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘We know you here, asshole. We find her very soon. Both. Dead.’

  Clay staggered back, stared down at the blinded stranger swaying on his knees. He stood a moment, not quite comprehending what he’d heard. He dropped the Makarov into his pocket, reached into the other, grabbed one of the syringes, pulled off the cap, and plunged the needle into the man’s neck.

  Angels and Men

  30th June, Geneva, Switzerland

  Clay flung open the double doors and stood looking out over Lake Geneva from his room at the Hotel Métropole. The sky was clear, the air crisp. Ice-capped mountains burned like white phosphorous in the distance. A ferry slid across the glassy early-morning surface of the lake.

  He’d left the hospita
l through the gardens after climbing from the balcony, the would-be assassin unconscious on the floor. He’d hailed a taxi in the street and arrived at the airport just in time to make the Air France flight. By the time he arrived in Paris, half-smashed on airline booze, he’d almost convinced himself that Rania was still alive. We find her soon, the assassin had said. Who else could he have meant? It had to be her.

  He’d gone straight from arrivals to the ticket desk, bought an ongoing ticket to Geneva, arriving late the same evening. At immigration, a lone bearded Aussie had attracted no attention, just another tourist in the queue, passport stamped and on his way.

  But now Clay sat on the bed, looked out over the lake, and tried to think clearly. Sober, hungover, he put his head in his hand and crushed the weak part of himself that had dared to hope. He knew the damage had been too extensive. He’d seen it too many times. The medic had said that the brachial artery had been hit. He’d tried to clamp it, he’d said, frowning, unsure. With a wound like that, she would have had little chance, despite the evac, despite the medical attention she would have received on the plane. And, yet, she’d seemed almost stable when he’d last seen her in the Mukhalla airport, the world tearing itself apart all around them. Had the news reports of her death been a ruse designed to protect her? Koevoet had told him stories of South African DCC agents whose covers had been blown and had been provided with similar stories, new lives.

  Find me, she’d said.

  He’d been here for more than two weeks now, trying to do just that. He’d tried every possible combination of telephone numbers from the note on Rania’s cigarette package, transposing fours and nines, ones and sevens, zeros and nines, everything that could remotely be misconstrued as something else. He’d made hundreds of telephone calls. And with every perplexed, muttered negative, in French, in German, in Italian, he’d felt her slipping away. And with every day that went by, more lethal radiation was pumped into the groundwater in the Masila. More dead kids. More miscarriages. Lives ruined. Fortunes made.