Last Light (21 page)

Aaron didn't respond. He looked terrible, even in this low light. His eyes were glistening with tears and his breathing was sharp and quick as he swallowed hard, maybe to stop himself throwing up again. His large hairy Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a fishing float with a bite. He was having a moment with his thoughts, not even realizing I'd spoken as he rubbed his stubble with shaking hands.

"Back to your place, then how far is it again, mate?"

I patted him on the shoulder and he nodded, turning the ignition with another little cough. He gave a quiet, resigned, "Sure." His voice trembled as he added, "It's about four hours, maybe more. We've had some very heavy rain."

I made the effort and kept my happy voice on, not really knowing what else to do or say "We'd better get a move on, then, hadn't we?"

We got through Fort Clayton and hit the main drag; the Barrier was up, it seemed the old security guy didn't play at night. I'd been wrong, the street lighting wasn't used now that there wasn't much traffic on it any more.

We turned left, leaving the lock and Clayton behind us, travelling in silence. A distant arc of light in the night sky indicated the city, along with flashing red lights from the top of a profusion of communication towers. Aaron just stared straight ahead, swallowing hard.

Before long we approached the floodlit toll booths by the old Albrook air-force base. The noise of the bus terminal blasted all | around us as power hoses washed the buses. A surprisingly large number of workers were waiting for transport, most holding small iceboxes and smoking.

Aaron spent the best part of a minute fumbling in his pockets and the glove compartment at the toll booth. A bored, middle-aged woman just stared into space with her hand out, no doubt dreaming about getting on to one of those buses at the end of her shift.

I let my head bob about as we bounced along the pot-holed road and into the sleeping city via El Chorrillo. A few lights were on here and there in the apartment blocks, and the odd scabby mongrel skulked along a sidewalk, then a black BMW screamed past us at warp speed. Five or six heads with cigarettes glowing in their mouths jutted backwards and forwards to the beat of some loud Latin music as it roared down the street. The BM had violet-coloured headlights, and a powerful fluorescent glow beneath the body work made it look like it was hovering. My eyes followed it into the distance as it hung a right, tyres squealing like something out of NYPD Blue.

I looked over at Aaron. He probably wouldn't even have reacted if we'd been overtaken by the USS Enterprise. He screwed up his face and deep lines cut into his skin. He looked as if he was going to be sick again as we bounced along, turning right at the junction the BM had taken. Once more we drove past the Pepsi stand, barred up for the night, and into the market area.

I thought I needed to say something to fill the silence, but I didn't know what.

I just looked out at the rubbish overflowing from the piles of soaked cardboard boxes that fringed the square, and cats fighting over the scraps.

In the end it was Aaron who broke the deadlock, wiping his nose into his hand before he spoke.

"Nick ... ?"

"What's that, mate?" I was almost too tired to speak.

"Is that what you do kill people? I mean, I know it happens, it's just that-' I pointed down at the gollock in the foot well

"I nearly lost my leg with that thing, and if he'd had his way, it would have been my head. I'm sorry, mate, there was no other way. Once we're the other side of the city, I'll bin him."

He didn't reply, just stared intently through the windscreen, nodding slowly to himself.

We hit the bay once more, and I saw a line of ships' navigation lights flickering out at sea. Then I realized Aaron had started to shake. He'd spotted a police car at the roadside ahead, with two rather bored-looking officers smoking and reading the papers. I gave myself a mental slapping, but not enough for him to see.

I kept my voice calm.

"Don't worry, just drive normally, everything's OK."

It wasn't, of course: they might stop a beaten-up Mazda just to relieve the boredom.

As we passed, the driver glanced up from his newspaper, and turned to say something to his mate. I kept my eyes on the cracked wing mirror, watching the four police cars as I spoke.

"It's OK, mate, there's no movement from behind.

They're still static. Just keep to the limit and smile."

I didn't know if he responded. My eyes were glued to the vehicles in the mirror until they dropped out of sight. I caught sight of my face for the first time.

It was a pleasant surprise. My left eye was half closed but not as swollen as it felt.

I looked over again to see how Aaron was doing and the answer was, not good.

He wasn't enjoying his visit to my planet one little bit. I wondered why and how he'd got involved in this shit. Maybe he'd had no choice. Maybe he was just like me and Diego, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We splashed our way through mini-Manhattan, where large neon signs flashed down from the top of buildings on to the wet tarmac below. It was a completely different world from El Chorrillo, and a whole galaxy away from what had just been happening in the old Zone.

Aaron gave a small cough. 'You know what you're going to do with that guy yet, Nick?"

"We need to hide him somewhere on the way to your place, once we're out of the city. Any ideas?"

Aaron shook his head slowly from side to side. I couldn't tell whether he was answering or if it had just come loose.

"We can't leave him to rot... God forbid. He's a human being, for God's sake."

There was resignation in his voice.

"Look, I'll bury him for you. There's an old tribal site near the house. No one will find him there. It's the right thing to do he's someone's son, Nick. Maybe even someone's father. The family in the picture, they don't deserve this."

"No one goes there?"

He shook his head.

"Not in a few hundred years."

I wasn't going to argue with that. If he wanted to dig a hole, that was fine by me.

I got back to looking at the neon as he drove, and hoped that someone like him found my body one day.

We came to the airport road toll booth the other side of the financial district, and this time I got out a dollar of my own money. I didn't want us standing still any longer than we had to. Diego would take quite a bit of explaining.

He paid the woman with a sad "Gracias' and a thanks to me for giving him the money. This wasn't a good night out for him at all.

The lights faded behind us as we hit the road out of town. I dug out the wallet again, hit the cab light and looked at Diego's family picture. I thought of Kelly, and the way her life would be if I died without sorting out the mess I'd created. I thought of all the things I'd wanted to say to her, and hadn't ever managed to.

I wondered if his mum had wanted to say those things to her son, to tell him how much she loved him, or to say sorry about the stupid argument they'd had. Maybe that had been the stuff that had flashed through Diego's head in the moments before he died, things he wanted to say to these people raising their glasses at the camera as I killed him.

The wind through my window got stronger as we gathered speed. I wound it up only half-way to keep me awake, and I tried to concentrate on what I'd seen on the CTR and get back to work. Instead, I found myself wanting to curl up like a seven-year-old, desperate to keep the night monster at bay.

"Nick! The police! Nick, what do we do? Wake up! Please!"

Before I'd even fully opened my eyes I was trying to calm him down. It's all right, don't worry, it'll be OK." I managed to focus on the VCP (vehicle checkpoint) ahead, set up in the middle of nowhere: two police vehicles, side on, blocking the road, both facing left. I could see silhouettes moving across the two sets of headlights that cut through the darkness. It felt as though we were heading straight into the Twilight Zone. Aaron's foot had frozen on the accelerator pedal.

"Slow down, for fuck's sake. Calm down."

He came out of his trance and hit the brakes.

We'd got close enough to the checkpoint for me to see the side windows of the four-wheel-drives reflecting our headlights back at us. Aaron dabbed at the brakes to bring us to a stop. There was a torrent of shouts in Spanish, and the muzzles of half a dozen M-16s came up. I placed my hands on the dash so they were in clear view.

Aaron killed the lights and turned off the engine as three torch-beams headed our way. The shouting had stopped, and all I could hear now was the thump of boots on tarmac.

SEVENTEEN

The three men who approached with M-16s at the ready were dressed in olive green fatigues. They split up, two going left, to Aaron, the other towards me. Aaron started to wind down the remaining half of his window. His breathing was becoming increasingly rapid.

There was an abrupt command in Spanish as the nearest man shouldered his assault rifle. Aaron lifted his arse from the seat and searched around in his back pocket. I saw the red glow of cigarettes beyond the 4x4's headlights as figures moved about in the shadows.

A green baseball cap and bushy black moustache shoved its way through Aaron's window and demanded something from me. I didn't respond. I didn't have a clue what he was asking and just couldn't dig deep enough for the energy to look interested. His M-16 swung round from his back and banged against the door. I saw sergeant's stripes and Tolicia' badges on his sleeve.

"He wants your ID, Nick."

Aaron presented his own. It was snatched away by the sergeant, who stopped shouting and stood back from the window, using his mini-Maglite to inspect the docs.

"Nick? Your ID, please don't vex these people."

I pulled out my plastic bag lethargically from under my jacket and rummaged in it like a schoolboy in his sandwich box, just wanting this to go away.

The other policeman on Aaron's side had been standing behind the sergeant, his assault rifle shouldered. I heard boots behind the wagon, but couldn't see anything in the mirror.

I gripped myself: What the fuck am I doing? Switch on! Switch on!

My heart-rate pumped up a few more revs per minute, and at the same time as I looked in my bag I made a mental note of where the door handle was, and checked that the door-lock knob was up. Lethargic or not, if I heard the squeak of rusty hinges from the tailgate I'd be out and running. Handing my passport over to Aaron for the sergeant, I knew I was reacting too slowly to all of this.

There's a body in the back, for fuck's sake!

The sergeant was gob bing off about me as he looked at my passport with his Maglite. I only understood the odd word of Aaron's replies.

"Britanico ... amigo vacaciones ..." He nodded away like a lunatic, as if he had some sort of nervous disease.

The sergeant now had both our IDs in his hands, which would be a problem if I needed to do a runner. Without a passport, my only option was west, or the embassy.

Straining my ears, I waited for the tailgate to open. I ran my hands through my hair, keeping my eyes on the door handle and visualizing my escape route, which wasn't exactly difficult: three steps into the darkness to my right. From there, I'd just have to take my chances.

I was brought back to the real world by the sergeant bending down once more and pointing at my clothes as he rattled off something to Aaron. He replied with a funny, and forced a laugh, as he turned to me.

"You're a friend and I picked you up from the airport. You wanted so much to see the rain forest so I took you in at the edge of the city. Now you never want to go in again. It was so funny, please just smile."

The sergeant had joined in the laughter and told the other guy behind him about the dickhead britanico as he handed back the IDs. Then he banged the roof of the Mazda and followed the others towards the blocking wagons. There was a lot of pointing and shouting, followed by the roar of wagons being revved and manoeuvred clear of the road.

Aaron was shaking like a leaf as he turned the ignition, but managed to appear relaxed and confident from the neck up for the police's benefit. He even waved as we passed. Our headlights caught four or five bodies lined up on their backs on the side of the road. Their clothes glistened with blood. One of the kids was still open-mouthed, arms flung out and eyes wide, staring up at the sky. I looked away and tried to focus on the darkness beyond the headlights.

Aaron said nothing for the next ten minutes as we bounced along the pot-holed road, headlights lurching. Then he braked suddenly, pushed the selector into Park, and jumped out as if a bomb was about to go off. I could hear him retching and straining as he leant against the Bac Pac, but not the sound of anything coming up. He'd left it all at Clayton.

I just let him get on with it. I'd done the same myself, when I first started:

sheer terror engulfs you and there's nothing you can do but fight it until the drama is over. It's later, when there's time to think, not only about what's happened but, worse, what the consequences might have been if things had gone wrong that's when you part company with your last meal. What he was doing was normal. The way I had behaved back there wasn't, not for me.

The suspension creaked as he closed the door, wiping his waterlogged eyes. He was plainly embarrassed, and couldn't bring himself to look at me. I'm sorry, Nick, you must think I'm a real pussy. Guys like you can handle this stuff, but me, I'm just not made for it."

I knew that wasn't exactly true, but I didn't know how to say so. I never did at times like this.

"I saw a couple of guys blown away a few years ago. I had nightmares about it.

Then, seeing Diego's body and those kids back there hacked to death, it just..."

"Did he tell you what had happened?"

"It was a robbery. PARC. They cut them up with those things." He pointed down at the gollock.

"It doesn't really make sense -they normally don't bother folks here. No money." He sighed, both hands on the steering-wheel, and leant forward a bit.