Gelignite (22 page)

He began running for the church, consumed with hatred.

*

Mendoza said, 'No!!' He shrieked at Feiffer, 'They won't come!' He screamed, 'You've got it wrong and they won't come! I
know
!!'

'You bloodywell don't know! You think they will come otherwise you wouldn't have gone to such trouble to make sure no one knew! You know they'll come and you know exactly what they'll do to you! You don't hate them—you're afraid of them! That's the wellspring of your sort of superiority—bloody, unbridled
fear
! And they'll kill you stone bloody dead, make no mistake about it!'

'Then I'll blow the whole lot of them straight to hell!'

'Balls!' He glanced at the dog. It had started snarling.

'I'll blow them to hell!'

Feiffer stopped. He said, 'You've got fifteen minutes.' He glanced anxiously at the dog. 'I'll wait outside for exactly fifteen minutes and then, when the crowd comes, I intend to order my men back to their Stations.' He heard a noise behind him, near the front door to the church, in the little stone covered vestibule. He thought it must be a rat or a mouse. He said, 'Fifteen minutes.' His eyes rested on the shirt pocket where the toothbrush was. 'Fifteen minutes.'

Mendoza shook his head.

'Fifteen minutes.' He started for the door.

Mendoza said, 'No.' It was dark by the door. Something stirred behind one of the pews there. Mendoza said, 'You're bluffing.'

'Am I?' There was another sound, different, a long way off. It sounded like a moaning sound, or an engine—a heavy engine working deep underwater or in a tunnel.

Mendoza said, 'Yes.'

Feiffer knew what it was. 'I'll wait outside.' He went to the main door and stepped out into the vestibule. The dog came after him with his eyes glittering. He was making sure Feiffer went outside. The noise was there again. The dog sensed it. His ears pricked up. He became uneasy. The dog knew what the sound was too. He could smell something cold and ominous in the air, like the precursor to a storm. Mendoza shouted to the dog, 'Guard!!' He slammed the door behind Feiffer and left him standing in the vestibule with the dog.

The dog sniffed. There was something coming. The noise was growing louder.

Inside the church, Mendoza went to the window to see what the sound was. He looked across the graveyard towards the entrance of the cemetery. He had his back to the interior of the church. There was a slight rustle behind him. He heard the sound from the street getting louder and louder. In the vestibule, Feiffer glanced at the dog. He put his hand in his pocket for a cigarette to appear calm. The dog looked enormous.

It was the crowd. There were two thousand of them. Mendoza stared out the window. There was another rustle behind him. He couldn't believe it: they came as a dark moving mass, like a tide. They flowed down the street and the cordons seemed to disappear under them. The police weren't doing anything! He touched at the radio transmitter. It seemed to have lost all its potence. He thought of Feiffer. He turned and faced the closed door. He knew Feiffer was out there with the dog. He looked back to the crowd. He had the electric toothbrush. It was his ace in the hole. He reached in and touched it. He thought, "Feiffer—"

He touched at the toothbrush and knew what to do with it. He—

O'Yee shouted at him, 'YOU LOUSY MOTHERFUCKER!' and leapt at him. He took the first blow on his arm. The transmitter went spinning out of his hand. It was a Chink! Mendoza fought back like a madman. He shrieked out to the dog in the vestibule with Feiffer, '
Kill him
!'

The people in the crowd were shouting.

*

Auden stood up with the Armalite. He heard the crowd. He turned and saw them streaming down the road like lunatics. Spencer saw them. He saw someone in the crowd he knew. It was Frances. He thought, "Oh, no . . ." He said to Auden, 'Don't shoot!' There was a terrible snarling sound. He saw the dog at Feiffer's throat outside the church. He raised his rifle. The dog and the man fell over onto the ground and were rolling around near one of the headstones. He saw Frances coming towards him. He looked at the Chinese Constables. They were moving towards the crowd waving their arms. Someone came to the hole in the wall near the tower. It was Mendoza. Then there was someone hanging onto him and pulling him back. Then he was gone. Something came flying out, thrown. It was a little box. The transmitter. He saw O'Yee at the hole go out after the box. He made it to the ground and grabbed it. There was a flurry of movement from inside the church. O'Yee was on his feet running towards Feiffer and the dog.

In the church, Mendoza ran to the bell tower. The Mauser was laid out on a flagstone, fully loaded, with stripper clips of ammunition in rows beside it. He snapped the battery toothbrush onto the side of the gun and slipped a wire loop at the end of the brush lever around the trigger. He drew back the hammer, aimed it at O'Yee through an empty window and pressed the battery button on the body of the toothbrush.

The Mauser held ten rounds. It threw them all out in one explosive half second burst

Spencer saw O'Yee go down. Auden started firing at the tower.

*

The ground subsided around him. He hadn't been hit. He couldn't believe it. O'Yee grabbed the transmitter and rolled back against the stone wall of the church. He tried to get the transmitter apart. The aerial was short and too strong. There was a screw in the battery compartment. It was tight. He ripped at it with his fingernails. Nothing. He drew his revolver and fired a shot at the bell tower. Mendoza had another clip of ten rounds in the magazine. He touched the electric button. The ten rounds ripped out over O'Yee's head. O'Yee snapped open the cylinder of his gun and got the fired case out He tried the lip of the brass against the screw notch. It was the right width. He started wrenching at the empty case to turn one sharp side of it into a screw-driver. The case was still hot. He dropped it

The crowd were on their faces in the street. A burst of ten shots flew out from the bell tower and tore wedges from the stone fence to the street. Auden got a quick bead on the bell tower window and loosed off a magazine on full automatic. The bell tower disappeared into a flurry of dust stems. He tore at another magazine and rammed it into the Armalite. He looked at Spencer.

Spencer was on his feet, running. He went towards Frances. There was another flurry of shots. They passed over his head. Auden took aim and banged three rounds into the tower. Auden looked over at Feiffer. He couldn't see anything.

Feiffer had his hands around the dog's throat. It was incredibly strong. He tried to hold it off. There seemed to be teeth and claws everywhere. He felt one of the claws rip through his coat and catch him down the arm. He squeezed with every ounce of strength at the dog's larynx. The dog stopped snarling. Its eyes bulged. He thought he had it. Then it pulled away and he felt its breath on his face. It was going for his throat. Feiffer hung on and squeezed. He tried to get to his feet. He slipped over. He heard a burst of gunfire. He scrabbled to one knee with his hands still around the dog's throat, holding him off. He got half upright and tried to scrabble the dog towards the wall of the church. The dog gyrated and fought back. It had muscles like steel. He got to the church wall out of the line of fire and tried to twist the dog against the wall. The dog got its teeth into his arm and ground them in. He got the dog to the wall and twisted it away. He wanted to bash its head against the wall. It was too strong. It fought back. He was losing. His strength was going. Feiffer knew he was losing.

Spencer said, 'Frances!' He raced across the street to where Frank lay on the ground. She seemed to be crying.

Auden loosed off another three rounds. He couldn't see him. He shouted at the tower, 'Where are you, you bastard?' He shouted at the tower, 'Bastard!' He saw Feiffer momentarily. The dog had him. Auden shouted to Spencer, 'Cover!' He knew Feiffer would be dead by the time it was over. He shouted to Spencer, 'Cover me, you lousy fox-hunting man!' and Spencer turned and had the Armalite in his hands, crouching next to Frances in the street. Spencer shouted, 'She's not hit!' as Auden went over the wall towards the church.

O'Yee got the screw loose. The batteries were inside. He tore them out. He pressed the tone-send button. Nothing. He shouted at someone, 'It's safe!' as Mendoza sent a wild burst at where Auden was running across the graveyard.

Auden made it to the dog. He tried to get a shot in. There seemed to be blood everywhere. The dog's head came out of the flurry and he bayoneted it through the ear with the gun barrel. He actually felt the muzzle penetrate bone and brain. He pulled the trigger. There was a terrible thump and a frenzy of movement and the thing was dead. He looked up at the bell tower. He saw Mendoza for a moment. Mendoza had the Mauser trained on the crowd. He ripped something from the side of the gun and took a single aimed shot. Auden tried to move back to get in a shot but the angle was too great.

At the crowd, standing over Frank, Spencer saw Mendoza's face between the cross-hairs of the telescopic sight. He could almost feel Frank's life next to his feet. He squeezed the trigger with a feeling of ice in his heart.

It was a single shot among many, but it echoed, and went on echoing around the cemetery for what seemed a very long time.

Auden was helping Feiffer to his feet. There was something hanging half way out of the window of the bell tower. It looked like a dark clothed lizard.

Auden looked back at Spencer. He was standing very still, like a statue, with the gun still trained on the window. Someone was standing next to him, a girl. Auden waited. Spencer did not shoot again.

6 PM

The Commander waited until Doctor Macarthur's people had taken the covered stretcher out through the main entrance of the cemetery. He looked at Feiffer, O'Yee, Auden and Spencer. They seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Feiffer had his arm bandaged and one sleeve of his coat gone.

The Commander said, 'Well. . .' He looked at the crowd. They were standing about in knots waiting for the uniformed men with magnotometers to locate the last of the bombs. He said to Feiffer, 'I suppose you expect me to say that laying on a riot was a bad idea.' He glanced over at Ho talking to a few people by one of the tombs and sighed. He said quietly, 'Quite frankly, I'm not that much of an old dog. I'm not that up on the behaviour of Chinese crowds.' He said quietly, 'I'm glad someone around here is.'

Feiffer winced with the pain from the anti-tetanus shot. 'I didn't really expect they'd come.' He said, 'It was a bluff.'

O'Yee said, 'I precipitated it. I overreacted.'

The Commander said, Hmm.' He gave the impression he was reasonably happy about that too.

O'Yee said, 'I'm sorry.'

The Commander opened his hands dismissively to wave that aside. He said to O'Yee, 'You're the Chinese, not me.' He said humbly to Auden, "We all live and learn, Phil, don't we?'

Auden looked at him. He didn't quite know what to say. He thought he meant about Special Branch. Auden was happy where he was. Auden said, 'If you say so, sir.'

The Commander nodded. He looked tired. He walked back to his car thinking about Korea.

Feiffer had told Ho to tell the crowd the cemetery was being reopened for new business. The one with the best feng shui in Hong Kong. The crowd had known nothing about Mendoza. He hadn't been sure that if they had known, they would have come. He looked at O'Yee.

Political.

Best to say nothing. Still, maybe they—

O'Yee smiled happily at him. Feiffer said nothing.

9 PM

She was gone. Feiffer went through the apartment looking for a message, but there was none there. He thought she had probably just stepped out for a moment to talk to someone in one of the other apartments or to watch television with them. He went to the bed and lay on it fully dressed and thought about Mendoza. There was a horrible looking thing, half wrapped in a brown paper parcel, at the end of the bed. He gave it a kick and it fell onto the floor and rolled out into the living room. Fortunately, it was in a cage. And dead. It was something she had obviously bought to keep her company: it looked like a stuffed toucan. Feiffer thought she had probably picked it up for next to nothing in one of the Thieves' Markets.

He wondered where she was. He took the telephone off the hook before the hospital rang to say that, two hours earlier, his wife had suddenly gone into premature labour, that she was well and that he had a son, and closed his eyes to sleep.

He remembered that O'Yee had promised to come by about midnight for a drink and got up again and put the front door on the latch. The bird, upside down, glared at him with its beady black eyes. He thought the sight of that would blow anyone's evening. He went back to bed and fell asleep wondering where the hell the so-called thieves in the so-called Thieves' Market got something like that in the first place anyway.

*

O'Yee wrenched open Feiffer's front door with an enormous box of cigars in his hand. He felt marvellous, joyous, the bearer of good tidings. There was a horrible looking thing staring at him upside down on the floor of the apartment and he snapped on the light for a moment to see what it was...