Evolution of Fear

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Hope withered, took a step back. ‘Do you think I would kidnap my own son?’

  Pavlos leaned in, only a couple of paces from Hope. ‘You bitch. You fucking bitch. You’ve been wanting to take him from me ever since we–’

  ‘Ever since what?’ screamed Hope, counter-attacking. ‘Ever since you left me? Go on, say it. You left me. For that brainless whore of yours.’

  Pavlos flinched a moment and then started towards Hope, fists clenched. Clay stepped forward, interposed himself between trembling mother and heaving, near-hysterical father. He and Pavlos were inches apart. Clay could smell the foulness of the guy’s breath, the fear seeping from his pores. The guy was almost as tall as Clay, probably as heavy, but soft, arms and belly like dough.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Pavlos screamed, spraying Clay’s face with cold spittle. ‘Get the fuck out of my way.’

  Clay wiped his face with the sleeve of his stump arm, said nothing, just stared back at the man. For a short moment Clay wondered if he’d try. Pavlos puffed and heaved, the muscles in his neck twitching under their layer of fat, his fists still clenched at his sides, and then it was as if everything just drained out of him at once. His shoulders slumped and his head dropped and all of a sudden he was inches shorter and the rage was gone and only the fear was left. He backed away towards the middle of the room, sank into a chair and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘We’ll see what the police say,’ he muttered.

  Hope closed the door, leaned back against the wall and slid to the floor, burying her face in her hands. Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Clay’s phone buzzed. He put it to his ear, turning away from the warring parents.

  ‘It’s me.’ Crowbar’s voice was rough, hard. ‘Zulu Tango left the Limassol apartment ten minutes ago.’

  ‘The old lady?’ Clay answered in Afrikaans.

  ‘Still in there, as far as we can tell.’

  ‘Sit tight, Koevoet. There’s something I have to do.’

  ‘We need to go soon.’

  ‘Stand by,’ said Clay.

  Clay put the phone in his pocket, touched Hope’s shoulder, looking over at Pavlos. ‘Will you be okay, Hope? I have to go.’

  She looked up, nodded. By now Pavlos was catatonic, immobilised. Clay looked right at him, made sure that he was listening. ‘Call me if you need anything, Hope.’

  She nodded, the sirens close now.

  Clay turned and ran down the front steps and jumped into Hope’s car. He rounded the end of the street just as a police car sped past in the other direction, flinging a panic of strobing blue light across the house fronts.

  Clay sped down Digeni Avenue, turned past the English School towards Strovolos. Finding a broad gravel shoulder lined with dusty cypress trees, he pulled off the road, stopped, grabbed his phone and found the scrap of paper Katia had given him at the dinner party.

  She answered second ring.

  ‘Katia, it’s me, Doctor Greene.’

  ‘I know that isn’t your real name.’ She spoke as if she’d been expecting him.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  Silence for a moment, and then: ‘Come to my apartment.’ She told him the address.

  ‘Ten minutes.’

  ‘Doctor Greene?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m glad you called.’

  Katia’s apartment was in one of the new blocks that had gone up on the south side of Strovolos to accommodate the influx of tax exiles, bankers and accountants who now dominated the island’s economy. Eight stories, tall for Nicosia, it was square-edged, concrete and glass, all the old trees taken out and paved over.

  Clay parked around the corner and buzzed at the main entrance. The door clicked open. He ran up the stairs to the third floor, found apartment twelve and knocked.

  Katia opened the door. In her heels she was almost as tall as Clay. Her hair was down, big red rings freshly curled. Perfume hung in the air, something expensive. She was wearing pull-up stockings and a half-cup bra that left her big pink nipples exposed. She smiled. ‘I was hoping you’d call.’

  Clay closed the door, stood for a moment looking at her. Other than the hive cascading from her head and the carefully plucked curve of her eyebrows, she was hairless. She stepped closer, put her arms around his neck.

  ‘That’s not why I’m here,’ he said, gently pushing away one of her arms, trying to ignore the jolt of desire fizzing through his extremities.

  She looked at him a moment, unsure, as if surprised that a man had called on her not wanting sex. Then she smiled, turned and walked away. Her body was tight, pampered, the skin without flaw. She vanished into a doorway, returned a moment later wearing a floor-length, oriental-style silk dressing gown. She lit a joint and sat on the couch.

  Clay sat opposite her. ‘Where is Dimitriou?’

  She took a long draw on the spliff, a crisp sound as the weed ignited, glowed. ‘Why should I tell you?’

  ‘Because someone has taken Doctor Bachmann’s son, and I think he knows who.’

  She took another drag, offered him the joint.

  He waved it away. ‘No thanks, Katia.’

  ‘You’re not as fun as I thought you’d be.’

  ‘I’m not as fun as I thought I’d be.’

  She frowned, pinched the roach end of her joint and inhaled through puckered lips.

  ‘Where’s Dimitriou, Katia?’

  Katia exhaling: ‘I don’t know where he goes or what he does. He pays for this apartment, my clothes, expenses, and for that I do what he tells me.’

  Clay nodded, understood. ‘Have you heard him mention anything, anything at all, about Hope or her son?’

  ‘I hear a lot of things. They talk all the time, he and Nicos. They think I’m stupid, that I don’t know Greek. But I do.’

  ‘Better than me.’

  She smiled. ‘Like the last time I was at Nicos’ place in the mountains. I like that place. It’s so beautiful. The pool is great. Anyway, Nicos was showing Dimitriou some of his art, all that really old stuff he has. Did you know that Nicos tags each piece with a microchip, so that if someone tries to take it, the alarms go off? I bet you didn’t know that.’

  Clay nodded. ‘You said you liked scuba.’

  ‘You remember.’

  ‘There’s a wreck off Polis that’s good,’ he said. ‘You should try it.’

  She looked down at his stump. ‘What happened to your hand?’

  ‘I traded it.’

  She smiled. It was a sad smile. ‘That woman, the journalist.’

  Clay said nothing.

  ‘You traded it for her, didn’t you? You love her.’

  Clay nodded. Close enough.

  ‘I know why they were threatening your friend,’ she said.

  Clay looked into her eyes. They were the colour of the acid pools at the Mephistos copper mine, sterile and opaque. ‘Please, Katia.’

  ‘He lives near the Presidential Palace, on Afxentiou Street. Number five.’

  Clay stood. ‘Thanks, Katia.’

  ‘He’s an asshole. I hate him.’

  Clay said nothing.

  She stubbed out her joint, looking up at him from far away. ‘If you ever, you know, want to…’ she pulled at a curl, ‘…go diving, just call me.’

  By the time Clay reached the outskirts of Nicosia, it was already gone nine. Soon he was on the old Troodos road heading west for the mountains.

  He called Crowbar. He was still watching the Limassol apartment where they suspected Rania’s aunt was being held. Zdravko hadn’t returned. No one else had gone in or out. Clay pressed on, pushing Hope’s little car to the limit, speeding through the night. He could feel time start to fray, its long edges coming apart, spinning away. Everything had changed, though he could discern in the world around him no overt signs of transition. The car functioned as designed, the road unfurled before him in the myopia of the headlights, his heart pumped blood, the mobile’s green light pulsed in the darkness on the
empty seat beside him. And yet change was here, all around him, and it was as if he were being carried along in a fast-moving river, the banks far off and shrouded in fog. He could feel it cooling his blood, pushing him further into the darkness. Some live, some die. Those that live pass on their genes. Modification by natural selection, Darwin had called it.

  Clay closed his eyes, drove on. Time slowed. He could hear the engine screaming in front of him, feel its vibration. How long now? A second? Two? So many dead. And never with any time to understand, just that instant between living and not, with nothing in between, no time to prepare, to consider what was to be lost, what might have been. Binary only. On. Off. Where did the interface lie, at what limit? How long could a moment last?

  He opened his eyes. The road was still there.

  He jammed the accelerator to the floor, hurtled towards her.

  The road steepened, Sunday-night empty. The lights of Kakopetria flashed past, vanished in the rear-view mirror. Thick stands of pine reached blackened arms out over the road. He jammed his stump down onto the wheel, picked up the phone, hit redial and cradled it between his shoulder and ear.

  Crowbar answered.

  ‘Go in twenty,’ Clay told him.

  Clay left the car on the side road where he’d stopped before with Hope and plunged into the forest towards Chrisostomedes’ mansion. Lights flashed between the dark, upright torsos of the pines, among the pleading arms, through the needle fingers. The fence was there, the glow of the gatehouse. A single guard inside, a car parked just nearby, inside the compound. Clay stayed in the trees, moved downslope, away from the gate, picking his way through the granite boulders, over the steepening outcrop. The house was above him now, perched on the cliff. He zipped up his jacket put on his headlamp, unlit, and started climbing. He’d always been a strong climber – as a child in the trees outside his parents’ house, before the war with friends in the Draakensburg. One-handed, unbalanced, he had to rely far more on his feet and the power of his legs, shift his centre of gravity down. The lower section was steeper and more featureless than he’d remembered. Twice he dead-ended, had to backtrack, find a new route. Finally he found a fault zone, a near-vertical discontinuity in the rock. It was some way out from under the house, visible from the balcony twenty metres above, within the throw of the building’s lights.

  Twenty minutes had come and gone. Crowbar would have gone in by now, and with any luck would have rescued Rania’s aunt. Clay jammed his stump into the fault and started to climb. Able to use his left arm this way, he moved quickly up to a layer of fractured basalt. A narrow, weathered ridge marked the interface between the layers. Bird droppings dotted the rock, lines on a road. He hugged the rock face, toed his way towards the house. He was almost back in shadow when the phone buzzed in his pocket. He kept moving. Soon he had reached the lowermost foundations. He swung up over a cross brace, followed the rock to the abutment where it met the main slab. The dining room where he’d last seen Rania was directly above. He flicked his headlamp to red, ran the beam along the abutment wall. Nothing. He’d have to go up and over. He followed the base of the slab, gained the side of the house then extinguished the headlamp, moving along the concrete wall until he came to a recess. Inside, a doorway leading into the foundation. He tried the handle. Locked. He switched on the headlamp again, examined the handle, the locking mechanism. Light off, he stood with his back against the wall, breathing hard. The phone buzzed again.

  ‘Broer.’ It was Crowbar. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘About to go in.’

  ‘She’s not here.’

  Clay’s heart loped. ‘What?’

  ‘Gone. The place was empty.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Go anyway, bru. Get her.’

  ‘If they–’

  Crowbar cut him off. ‘You may not get another chance. I’m on my way.’

  Clay closed the phone, jammed it into his pocket. If he managed to get Rania out, Zdravko wouldn’t hesitate to kill her aunt. But every minute that passed pushed Rania further towards the edge. How long would Chrisostomedes keep her around? Now that he had Hope’s son, did he still need Rania? Crowbar was right. Clay pulled out the Beretta, stood back, aimed at the door handle.

  Just as he was about to pull the trigger, a muffled detonation rang through the house.

  Clay stopped dead, listened. The sound of blood pulsing, of air moving through his mouth, inside his head, the wind in the pines, the squeak of twisting wood as the trees swayed in the breeze.

  And then, in quick succession, two more bangs, gunshots, coming from inside the house. Clay raised his gun and fired.

  40

  The Ladder of Divine Ascent

  The 9mm slug blew the lock to pieces. Clay kicked in the door, swung the red beam of his headlamp around the room. A storeroom: an old lawnmower, shovels, tools, a workbench of sorts, boxes, everything covered in dust. At the far end, a stairway made of rough-cut wood planking. Clay approached the bench, pocketed the Beretta, scanned the tools. He picked up an axe, ran his stump over the dullness of the blade and replaced it on the bench. A hammer, a hand-drill, a power-saw, stacks of old blades. From upstairs, the sound of someone running, a door slamming.

  Clay grabbed a steel crowbar and moved quickly up the stairs. At the top, a blade of light shone from under a wooden door. The door was locked. He set the crowbar’s claw to the door frame and pushed. The wood splintered and came away. He flipped the crowbar around and forced the bolt, swung the bar under his left arm, pulled out the handgun, pushed open the door with his foot.

  The light hurt his eyes. He was in a corridor, empty white walls, hardwood floor, somewhere on the same level as the main dining room. He started south, towards the front of the house and the main stairway. Another retort, louder this time, close, the distinctive bark of a large-calibre handgun. A second later the alarms went off. Clay started running. The corridor doglegged left, ended. There were doors on both sides. Clay went right, south, and pushed open the door. He emerged into a narrow, dimly lit perimeter of some kind. The outside wall was solid rough-hewn stone that curved away in both directions like the interior of a cave. Towards the inside, a screen of heavy timbers, like looking into the depths of a forest at dusk, soft, butter-coloured lights shining between the trunks, and beyond, the main entranceway. Clay went left. The underside of the staircase came into view. A gap opened up in the screen work. He set the crowbar on the floor against the wall and emerged into the main gallery.

  Ahead, the front door was wide open, the night staring through. Alarms screamed, lights pulsed. Clay reached the base of the staircase. The stairs were still hidden from view by the sweeping wooden balustrade. He looked up to the mezzanine. No one. He swung around to the first step. A face stared up at him, eyes wide, mouth open. The man was sprawled across the bottom four steps as if he’d been trying to slide down head-first on his back. Blood seeped from a hole in his forehead, trickled across the hardwood, dripped to the stone flag floor. It was Spearpoint.

  Clay bypassed the body and took the steps three at a time. He worked his way through the upper floor, room by room, moving quickly, the Beretta up, ready, cradled in the partial crook of his left arm. Rania’s room was empty, the bed made, the closet bare. He knew it was hers. He could smell her.

  She wasn’t here. Damn it all.

  Clay burst from the room, flew down the hall to the mezzanine, the alarms wailing in his ears. As he reached the top of the stairs he saw a man limping across the stone flags towards the front door. A black duffel bag hung from his shoulder. He carried a handgun. It was Zdravko.

  Clay raised the Beretta, fired, missed. Zdravko ducked, stumbling out of the door. Clay crashed down the steps, sidestepped Spearpoint’s lifeless body, raced across the gallery and out into the night. Zdravko was halfway across the gravel car park now, silhouetted by the lights of the guardhouse. Clay could see the body of the gate guard lumped dark in the gravel next to a car. His pulse was slow, his breathing calm. He raised
the handgun, took aim, fired. Zdravko kept running, that crazy stiff-legged limp. Clay fired again. Zdravko jerked as the bullet clipped his left thigh. He stopped, swayed, spun around, raised his weapon. Clay rolled away as rounds slammed into the wooden beam behind him. Zdravko was almost to the car, still going, dragging his leg. He reached back with his pistol, fired on the run, blind. Rock chips flew from the wall inches from Clay’s head. Clay crabbed left, stood, planted his feet. Zdravko was opening the car door. He reached back again, the handgun scything wildly, fired twice more. A window to Clay’s right exploded in a shower of glass. Clay steadied himself, sighted down the barrel and unloaded the clip.

  Zdravko fell in a heap.

  Clay dropped the spent magazine to the ground and loaded a fresh one. He used his mouth, his knees. Just like he’d practised at the cottage. Three seconds. He walked towards the car, weapon ready. Zdravko lay motionless, face down. As Clay approached, he could see the damage. He’d hit him in the neck, the upper shoulder, lower back and the base of the spine. Blood oozed to the ground. Zdravko was dead.

  Clay stood looking down at the man who had threatened the woman he loved, who’d murdered his friend, others besides. He watched the blood soak into the gravel, working its way between the stones, the bubbles coming up, bursting thick with plasma. He looked at the weapon in his hand, hot still, impassive, uncaring, ready to continue.

  ‘Only Allah decides who lives and dies,’ he said aloud. ‘Something a friend said to me once.’ He turned over the body and looked at the face. ‘But in this case, we’ll make an exception.’

  Lights flashed through the trees. A car was coming up the drive. Clay reached down and picked up Zdravko’s bag, kicked the dead man’s handgun under the car, then moved to the guardhouse, crouching against the wall.

  The car came to a halt outside the gate. Clay heard the engine stop, a door open, close. Footsteps crunching in the gravel, heavy, approaching slowly. Whoever it was would have seen the bodies by now. Clay readied himself. The footsteps stopped. Seconds passed, the alarms screaming still.