Evolution of Fear

by Paul E. Hardisty

  He jumped.

  And suddenly the cliff edge was the cargo door of a Hercules and he was falling away from it, and as the ground floated up towards him, he knew that he could not go back, that even here time moved in one direction only and its tyranny was absolute. His right hand moved instinctively for the rip cord but he knew no canopy would blossom above to carry him gently to Earth, and he knew Eben was not there behind him, nor Koevoet, nor any of Valk 5, living or dead, and the ground pulling him down was not the green of Angola now but the dead, dry dune ground of some other place, and then, closer, voices, faint at first, louder now, blunted somehow, muffled.

  You killed them.

  Yes, he heard himself answering. I killed them.

  And the woman?

  Rania.

  Who is Rania?

  She’s there. I can see her.

  Where is she?

  There, in the wadi, looking up at me.

  Did you kill her too?

  Clay opened his eyes.

  He was lying face down in a hospital bed. Sweat covered every part of his body. He could smell the laundry-fresh smell of the sheets, the antiseptic clean of the linoleum floor, the smell of his own sweat. Daylight shone white and diffuse from a louvered bank of windows. He tried to move his legs, but they were as if made of softwood, spongy and unresponsive. His skull ached. Clay ran his tongue around the parched desert of his mouth, tried to swallow.

  Slowly, his vision sharpened. A private room. Whitewashed walls. A stainless-steel wash basin, a chair, an IV stand beside the bed, tubes running into his arm. Outside, the washed afternoon sawing of palm fronds, a couple of derelict, single-storey buildings, the paint peeling, windows boarded up.

  And that little red puncture set in such a pale and gentle landscape.

  He had to find her. He closed his eyes a moment, pushed himself up on his elbows, tried to swing his legs to the edge of the bed. As he did, something mean clawed at him, pushed him down. He collapsed back to the bed, panting with the pain, sweat blooming from his pores.

  Not long after, a doctor came. He was clean-shaven, hair close-cropped, fibred with silver. There were deep, good lines around his eyes and mouth, a father perhaps, mid-career. He glanced a moment at Clay’s chart, opened and closed his mouth.

  ‘How long have I been here?’ asked Clay, his own voice muffled, bubbling through a fathom of seawater.

  The doctor mouthed a reply.

  ‘Can’t hear you,’ Clay croaked, pointing to his right ear. Clay turned his head so that his right ear was against the mattress. ‘Try now.’ Koevoet’s Beretta going off right next to his head, back at the minefield, must have damaged his eardrum.

  The doctor shifted to the other side of the bed, facing him again. ‘Don’t worry about your ear,’ he said. His voice was gentle, the accent English, vaguely West Country. ‘There’s a bit of bleeding, but no permanent damage. Your legs are a bit more problematic.’

  Clay’s insides tightened. Ever since seeing Bluey’s legs blown off in Angola, his nightmares had regularly featured the inability to walk. Strangely, his left hand was almost always present and working in that same irrational shadow-world.

  ‘You were unconscious when they brought you in,’ said the doctor. ‘We operated right away. You’ve been asleep for thirty-six hours.’

  Clay fought back a curse. ‘There was someone else with me when I was brought in. A woman. Is she here?’

  ‘Yes, she’s here,’ said the doctor. ‘She was stable when I left last night, but I’ve only just come back on shift. I’m sorry, I don’t have any more information than that.’ The doctor checked Clay’s IV, told him that he’d removed nineteen mine fragments from his legs, that the scarring would be extensive but that the damage had been mostly superficial. He was already healing well and could expect to make a complete recovery.

  ‘Only thing, it should have been twenty,’ Clay said.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘Nothing, doctor. If you hear anything…’

  The doctor nodded and left.

  An hour later, Crowbar appeared. He was wearing a new suit. His hair was slicked back and he was carrying a black leather briefcase. ‘More improvements, I see, Straker,’ he said, taking a seat next to Clay’s bed.

  ‘How’s Rania?’

  Crowbar coughed, adjusted his tie. ‘The operation was long, but she’s hanging in there, seun. She’s tough.’

  ‘And the baby?’ He could barely say the words.

  ‘Look, Straker, I won’t bullshit you. They’re both alive, they’re both fighting. That’s all you can expect for now.’

  A deep ache twisted inside him, obliterating the pain in his legs. He tried to breathe it away, thought that a mathematical scale for the measurement of pain was needed, some Fahrenheit of hurt, the dolors of the heart so much worse than any of the flesh.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Here, at the UN hospital. At the end of the hall. They’re better equipped than anywhere on the island, especially for this type of wound.’

  ‘Al hamdillulah.’

  Crowbar frowned. ‘Still on with all that Muslim shit?’

  ‘She’s Muslim.’

  Crowbar blinked, said nothing.

  ‘Nice suit.’

  Crowbar grinned wide. ‘Ja, not bad. Looks more official, coming in here.’

  ‘I thought it was a dud,’ said Clay. ‘Delayed detonation.’

  ‘Those mines have been in the ground for a long time. Lucky for you. You were far enough away when it went off.’

  ‘Not far enough.’

  ‘You did everything you could.’

  ‘Not everything.’

  Crowbar said nothing.

  ‘How’s Hope?’

  Crowbar dropped his head, seemed to settle himself a moment. ‘She’s–’ He stopped, pursed his lips, gaze wandering around the bare walls. ‘She’s lekker. Strong. Running the Commission like a pro. Kicking arse and taking names. Opening statements were yesterday.’

  ‘Alexi?’

  ‘Back with ma. Well hidden.’

  Clay nodded. ‘Good, oom. Good.’

  ‘Chrisostomedes is getting desperate. Hope has put his operations and his candidacy under close scrutiny. It’s already causing a grande political shit-fight. Chrisostomedes and Dimitriou are trying to turn the hearing into a referendum on the President’s authority to involve the EU and the UN in the internal affairs of Cyprus. Fun.’

  ‘Rania’s the key. They know that. They’re going to try to get to her.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Straker. As far as Chrisostomedes knows, Rania is dead. But we can’t take any chances.’

  Clay tried to turn over. As he did, a blaze of fire filled his vision, like looking eyes-closed into the inferno, the twitching capillaries suddenly everywhere, blinding him. He gasped. Crowbar reached for his arm, held it.

  ‘Goddamn that hurts,’ said Clay through clamped jaw.

  ‘Stop being such a pussy.’

  ‘Fok jou, Koevoet,’ he said, trying to force a smile.

  Crowbar waved this away, pulled a newspaper from his briefcase and put it on the bed. ‘It’s all in there. Hope is going to need you to testify.’

  Clay looked around the hospital room. ‘The minute I set foot in that hearing room, Dimitriou will have me arrested.’

  ‘It’s not going well, Clay. Chrisostomedes is trying to discredit Hope. He’s claiming that she intended to develop Toxeflora Beach, and he’s produced documents to prove it. She’s going to need your help.’

  ‘They’ll charge me for assaulting Chrisostomedes, probably for the murders at the minefield, too. I could get ten years.’

  ‘More like fifteen,’ said Crowbar. ‘If Chrisostomedes becomes President, it could be more.’

  Clay shook his head. There were an infinite number of primes. Euclid had proved it in 300 BC. Enough to keep him busy a long time. ‘I’m getting out of here, Koevoet. As soon as she’s strong enough, Rania and I are going to disappear. Go somewhere the w
orld can never find us.’

  ‘Back to Africa,’ said Crowbar.

  Clay nodded. ‘Something like that.’

  Crowbar closed his eyes a long moment. ‘You’ll have to get off the island first. At least you can afford the top lawyer in the country.’

  ‘You got the money?’

  Crowbar grinned wide. ‘Fifteen million.’

  Clay breathed out, held it a moment. It was a lot of money. None of it worth anything without Rania. ‘Something important you have to do for me, oom. Paper and pen?’

  Crowbar fished in his briefcase and pulled out a chewed, inch-long stub of HB pencil and a paperback – a yellowing fourth-hand copy of The Brothers Karamazov. He riffled the pages, opened the back cover, tore out a blank endpaper and handed it to Clay.

  Clay glanced up at this man who never ceased to surprise him, set the paper on the book and scribbled instructions. The pencil was so dull and his hand so shaky his writing came out looking like a six-year-old’s doodle. ‘My boat’s in Larnaca harbour. There are some documents on-board Hope is going to need. With them, she won’t need me.’

  Crowbar took the paper, folded it and slipped it into his inside breast pocket. Then he dropped the Dostoyevsky into his briefcase. ‘Got to go, seun,’ he said. ‘Can’t stand here staring at your naked arse all day. I’ll be back soon.’ He turned to go.

  ‘Koevoet.’

  Crowbar stopped, faced him.

  ‘Dankie.’

  Crowbar waved it away and closed the door behind him.

  Clay pumped himself a dose of painkiller and opened the Cyprus English language daily and held it over the edge of the bed.

  Since his attempted assassination by a Turkish agent (predictable), Nicos Chrisostomedes’ popularity had surged. The latest pre-election polls now put him eight percentage points ahead of the incumbent. Neo-Enosis was on everyone’s lips. Tensions with the TRNC and Turkey hadn’t been this high since the war.

  The Commission had heard the latest scientific evidence on the current state of the marine and coastal environment in the eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus. And the news was not good. Inappropriate and poorly managed coastal development in particular was causing long-term environmental damage, pushing several species towards extinction. Chrisostomedes had accused Turkish developers, including Mohamed Erkan (mentioned by name) of illegally acquiring and developing Greek-owned coastal land in the occupied north. Chrisostomedes denied having any plans of his own to develop on Turkish-owned lands at Lara Beach.

  Clay closed his eyes, let the paper fall to the floor. He breathed in the night air, held it, let it go, felt the deadening work of the anaesthetic. None of this mattered. Not the pain, not the money. The political issues of a nation divided were of no importance. His life was nothing.

  Rania and the baby were still alive, still fighting.

  Nothing else mattered.

  He drifted into a shifting territory of thousand-second minutes and the half-deadened flutter of palm fronds swaying in the Mediterranean breeze. There were grains of clarity there, too, grasped for the briefest moment and then scattered across wandering moonlit dunes. Time stalled, restarted, and then disappeared altogether.

  A hand shook him awake.

  He opened his eyes. The doctor was looking down at him, his face drawn into tight lines, the whites of his eyes shot through with burst blood vessels.

  ‘What is it?’ said Clay, awake now, riding adrenaline. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘The young lady you were asking about. She’s…’ The doctor caught his breath, seemed to compose himself a moment. ‘We must hurry. She’s asking for you.’

  53

  The Future Spread out before Them

  By the time Clay had crutched his way the fifty metres down the night-lit corridor to her room, Crowbar and Hope were already there. The nurse had cranked up Rania’s bed so that she lay propped up against the pillows, pale and gauntly beautiful, her night-black hair accentuating the bloodless white of her skin. Dual heartbeat monitors pulsed behind her.

  She smiled at him, the merest brightening of the eyes.

  Dopamine flooded his system. He gasped, swayed on his crutches. Crowbar took a step towards him, but he raised his hand and Crowbar backed away. Clay went to her, took her hand.

  ‘Oh, chéri,’ she whispered to him across galaxies. ‘With us it is always this way.’

  Clay said nothing, just stood looking into her eyes as if in this alone he could drown.

  ‘You are healing well?’ she said, her voice a thread.

  ‘Jesus, Rania. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Do not apologise.’

  He sank his chin to his chest. ‘I didn’t think. I just ran.’

  ‘Ridicule. You did the only thing possible.’

  ‘If I’d taken more time, thought it through…’

  ‘Please do not worry.’ She looked very tired.

  He straightened. ‘We’re going to get out of here, Rania. Disappear. Raise our son, together.’

  She shook her head, the barest movement. ‘Non, Claymore.’

  ‘Please, Ra.’

  That hint of a smile again. ‘Non, chéri. Une fille.’

  Electrochemical reactions flared inside him, cascading. A daughter. Not something he’d ever imagined, being a father to a little girl. So much he’d have to learn. So much to fight for.

  ‘I am sorry to interrupt,’ said the doctor. ‘But we must take her now.’

  Clay spun around. ‘Take her where?’

  Crowbar put his hand on Clay’s shoulder. ‘Easy, seun.’

  ‘We missed something,’ said the doctor. ‘She is losing blood. The baby is in distress. We must operate again. She wouldn’t let us start until she saw you.’

  She squeezed his hand, the faintest pulse. ‘Chéri.’

  Clay looked into her eyes, those dune-swept planets skidding away.

  ‘Those things I wrote,’ she whispered. ‘He forced me.’

  ‘I know, Rania. It’s okay.’

  ‘Héloïse? Is she alright?’

  Clay hesitated. ‘She’s dead, Rania. I’m sorry. We couldn’t save her.’

  Tears welled in her eyes, spilled down her cheeks.

  Urgency in the doctor’s voice now. Orderlies unlocking the caster brakes and starting to push the bed, he still holding her hand, trying to walk with her.

  ‘Sura Al Ma’idah,’ Rania said, the Arabic coming like breath, choking in her hallucination.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Her eyes fluttered, opened. ‘Promise me, Claymore.’

  ‘Promise what?’

  ‘Talion,’ she whispered.

  And then she was gone.

  Crowbar and Hope walked him back to his room in silence. Dawn bled flat and grey through the half-shuttered windows. An orderly helped him into bed, reconnected his IV, left. Hope sat by the bed. Mascara scarred her cheeks. Crowbar hovered by the door, alert. Clay stared at the wall, trying to process all that she’d said, the catastrophe of his psyche unable to cope.

  After a long while Crowbar said: ‘Dimitriou filed charges against you today in the criminal court. Two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Four counts of murder, including the curator of the Cyprus museum and Rania’s aunt.’

  ‘Jesus,’ breathed Clay.

  ‘You’re in luck, broer. No death penalty here.’

  Death. For so long, after the war, he’d welcomed it, sought it even. Now, suddenly, there was something to live for. ‘Did you get the documents from Flame?’ he asked.

  Crowbar opened his briefcase and passed the red folder to Clay. ‘Nice boat, by the way.’

  Clay handed the folder to Hope. ‘It’s all in there,’ he said. ‘Everything you need. It proves Chrisostomedes and Dimitriou colluded with Erkan to illegally develop Turkish-owned land in the south. Proves that everything Chrisostomedes is saying is a lie.’

  Hope started leafing through the document.

  ‘Chrisostomedes’ thugs followed us again last night afte
r the hearing,’ said Crowbar. ‘Had to lead them all the way to the Troodos, lose them in the mountains. Come daylight they vanished, like roaches.’

  Not for first time, Clay marvelled at the ability of some to dismiss mercy, as if being spared was simply a right, a matter of destiny. ‘I should have killed the bastard when I had the chance.’

  Hope brushed a strand of hair from her face. ‘Chrisostomedes is trying to implicate me in this conspiracy he’s fabricating.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s trying to tie us together, Clay, you – the supposed Turkish agent – and me. They have photographs of us, together.’