Last Light (42 page)

I could hear them in the kitchen area and began to smell cigarettes. The talking was heated: today had been one big fuck for all concerned.

There was movement, a chair scraping, boots walking towards the computer room. I froze, both eyes open but blurred by rain, index finger pad on the trigger, waiting, waiting ... I was going to have the upper hand for no more than two seconds. After that, if I didn't get this right, I was history.

The boots appeared. Green Guy. He turned, saw me, his scream cut short as I squeezed. He fell back into the living room.

As if on autopilot I followed him through the doorway, stepping over his body into the smoke-filled room. They were panicking, screaming out at each other, wide eyed, reaching for their weapons.

I moved off to the left, into the corner, both eyes open, squeezing short sharp bursts, aiming into the mass of movement. The hot empty cases bounced off the wall to the right and then my back before clinking against each other as they hit the floor. I squeezed again ... nothing.

"Stoppage! Stoppage!" I fell to my knees to present a smaller target.

It was as if my world was in slow motion as I tilted the weapon to the left to present the ejection opening. It had no working parts: they were being held to the rear. Looking inside, there were no rounds in the magazine, no rounds in the chamber. My eyes were now fixed on the threat in front.

I hit the release catch and the empty mag hit my leg on its way to the floor.

Two bodies were sprawled, one moving with a weapon, one on his knees trying to get the safety off. I locked on to it. The mist of the propellant was already mixing with the heavy cigarette smoke. The bitterness of cordite clawed at the back of my throat.

I twisted the weapon over to its right and presented the magazine housing. The fresh magazine was still in my left hand; I rammed it into the housing, banged it into position from the mag bottom, and slapped my hand down hard on to the locking lever. The working parts went forward, picking up a round as I got the weapon into the shoulder, brought the barrel to what I was looking at, and fired on my knees.

Another mag and it was all over.

There was silence as I reloaded, apart from the rain hitting the roof and the kettle whistling on the cooker. Two of the bodies were on the floor; one was slumped forward over the table, his face distorted with a dead man's sneer.

I remained on my knees, surveying the carnage. The acrid stench of cordite filled my nostrils. Mixed with the cigarette smoke, it looked as if a dry-ice machine was running, covering the bodies, some with their eyes still open, some not. There wasn't much blood on the floor yet, but it would be there as soon as their bodies gave it up.

I looked around. Everybody I had seen was accounted for, but the bedrooms had to be checked.

Getting to my feet, butt in my shoulder, I gave three short bursts through the door to Luz's room then forced my way in, and then the same with Carrie and Aaron's. Both were clear and Luz's window was now closed.

I turned to the kitchen. The floor was covered in a mixture of mud and blood.

I went over to the stove, kicking my way past empty cans that had been shot or pushed on to the floor, and took the kettle off the ring. I poured myself a mug of tea from a tin of sachets on the side. It smelt of berries and I threw in some brown sugar and stirred it as I walked towards the computer room, kicking a weapon out of the way. I dragged the blood-soaked Green Guy away from the door;

empty cases chinked together as his body moved them across the floor. I stepped into the computer room and closed the door behind me.

Seated in a director's chair, I slowly sipped the sweet, scalding liquid while picking out two empty cases that had got caught between my chest and the harness on their way to the floor. My hands were starting to shake a little, as I silently thanked all those years of skill-at-arms training that had made stoppage drills second nature.

Tilting the mug for the last few drops of the brew, I got to my feet and went to Aaron and Carrie's bedroom. I pulled off the harness and changed into an old black cotton sweatshirt with a faded Adidas logo on the front.

It was time to drag Aaron out of the mud. I put the harness back on, gathered up their purple bedsheet, and went to the Land Cruiser with the M-16. I checked that the keys were still inside, lowered the rear seats ready for Carrie, then climbed into the Mazda and fired it up.

The headlights bounced up and down as I bumped through the mud to Aaron. He was heavy to retrieve, but I finally got him into the back of the Mazda and wrapped him up in the sheet. As I tucked one corner over his face, I thanked him quietly.

Closing the tailgate, I left the wagon where it was, then dragged Blue and hid him amongst the tubs before walking back to the house. I turned off the livingroom lights and closed the door before kicking Blue's empty cases under the desk and storeroom shelving. Luz didn't need to see any of that: she had seen enough already today. I knew what happened to kids when they were exposed to that shit.

Finally, using a torch from the storeroom shelves to light me, I dragged the cot out into the rain and threw it into the back of the Land Cruiser. It just fitted on the opened lower half of the tailgate. Then I headed for the dead ground and the treeline.

THIRTY-SEVEN

The wipers pushed away the flood with each stroke, only for it to be instantly replaced, but not before I glimpsed the entry point in the treeline.

The Land Cruiser hit a tree stump and reared up, tilted over to the left, and came back down just as the headlights hit on the palm-leaf markers.

I left the lights and engine running, grabbed the torch from the passenger seat, ran round and dragged out the cot. With a firm grip on one of the legs as it trailed behind me, I broke through the treeline.

"Luz! Where are you? Luz! It's me, it's Nick, call to me!"

I shone the torch in a broad sweep but it only reflected back at me off the wet leaves.

"Luz! It's me, Nick."

"Over here! We're over here! Nick, please, please, Nick!"

I turned to my right and pushed towards her, dragging the cot away from a stand of wait-a-while that wanted to hang on to it. Just a few feet more and the torch beam landed on Luz, soaking wet, kneeling by her mother's head, her hair flat and her shoulders shaking. Carrie was lying beneath her, in pain, covered in leaf litter. Seeing Luz's face in the torchlight, she raised a hand, trying to remove the hair stuck her face.

"It's OK, baby, everything's OK, we can go back to the house now."

I dragged the cot alongside them, and inspected the job I'd done on her leg. It wasn't as good as it should have been: maybe I didn't deserve that first-aid badge after all. Thunder rumbled and cracked above the canopy.

"Where's Daddy? Is Daddy at the house?"

Luz looked at me from the other side of her mother, squinting into the torchlight, her red face wet with rain and tears.

I looked down and busied myself with the dressings, pleased that the weather, distance and canopy would have soaked up the sounds of automatic gunfire. I didn't know what the fuck to say.

"No, he went to get the police ..."

Carrie coughed and screwed up her pale face, smothering her ;M child into her chest. She looked at me quizzically over her head. I If closed my eyes, put the torchlight on to my face and shook my head.

I?

Her head fell back and she let out a low cry, her eyes shut tight.

Luz's head jumped up and down as her chest convulsed. She ;

tried to steer her mother's thoughts elsewhere, thinking it was ;

only physical pain.

"It's OK, Mom, Nick's going to get you back ;

to the house. It's OK."

;V

I'd done as much as I could with the dressings.

"Luz, you've got r to help me get your mum on the cot, OK?" Moving the torch slightly so as not to blind her, I looked at her scared face, nodding ' slowly as rain coursed down it.

"Good. Now get behind your mum's head, and when I say, I want you to lift her from under the armpits. I'll lift her legs at the same time and we'll get her on the cot in one go. Got it?"

I shone the torch above Carrie's head as Luz got into a kneeling position behind her mother's head. Carrie was still thinking of Aaron. That pain was far greater than anything her leg was causing.

"That's right. Now put your arms under her armpits." Carrie raised herself limply to try to help her daughter.

I jammed the torch into the mud. The beam shone up into the canopy and rain splattered on to the front of the lens. On my knees, I slid one arm under the small of her back and the other under her knees.

"OK, Luz, on my count of three are you ready?"

Thunder reverberated over the canopy.

A small but serious voice answered, "Yes, I'm ready."

I looked at what I could see of Carrie's face.

"You know this is going to hurt, don't you?"

She nodded, her eyes closed, taking sharp breaths.

"One, two, three up, up, up."

Her scream filled the night. Luz was startled. Carrie had gone down harder than I'd have wanted, but at least that phase was over. As soon as she landed she started breathing quickly and deeply through gritted teeth as Luz tried to comfort her.

"It's OK, Mom, it's OK ... ssssssh."

I pulled the torch from the mud and placed it on the cot next to Carrie's good leg so that it shone upwards, creating horror-movie shadows on their faces. The hard bits are done."

"It's OK, Mom. Hear that? The hard bits are done."

"Luz, grab your end, just lift it a little and I'll lift this end,

OK?"

She jumped to her feet and stood as if to attention, then bent her knees to grip the aluminium handles.

"Ready? One, two, three, up, up, up."

The cot lifted about six inches and I immediately started crashing backwards through the vegetation in the direction Carrie's feet were pointing. More thunder rumbled, swamping Carrie's sobs. Luz still thought it was just pain.

"We'll see Daddy soon. It's OK, Mom."

Carrie couldn't hold back and cried out into the storm.

I kept checking behind me and soon made out the lights of the Land Cruiser penetrating the foliage. Just a few paces later we were out in the open.

The rain was relentless as we lifted Carrie into the back of the vehicle, like a patient into an ambulance, her legs protruding on to the tailgate. 'You need to stay with your mum and hold on to her in case we hit a bump, OK?"

There was going to be no problem with that. Carrie pulled her child down and mourned covertly into her wet hair.

As I drove very slowly towards the rear of the house, the headlights cut through the rain and bounced back off the shiny skin and Plexiglass of the Huey. Its rotors drooped as if depressed by the weather.

Carrie was still getting soothing messages from Luz as we pulled up by the storeroom door. It took longer than I'd expected to get her inside, kicking cans out of the way, not worrying now there was no one to alert. We waddled with the cot into the brightly lit computer room. She was in a bad way, with soaked, bloodstained clothes, pruned skin, glued hair, red eyes and covered from head to toe in leaf litter.

As we lowered her to the floor near the two PCs, I looked to Luz.

"You need to go and turn the fans off."

She looked a bit confused but did it anyway. The fans would make the moisture evaporate quicker, producing a chilling effect. Carrie was in enough clanger from shock as it was.

As soon as Luz left us, Carrie pulled me down to her, whispering at me, "You sure he's dead, you sure? I need to know ... please?"

Luz made her way back to us as I looked her straight in the eye and nodded.

There was no dramatic reaction: she just let go of me and stared up at the slowing fans.

There was still nothing I could do to help her with her grief, but I could do something about her physical injuries.

"Stay with your mum, she needs you."

The medical suitcase was still on the shelf, though it had been opened and some of the contents scattered. I collected everything together and threw it back in the case, then knelt at the side of the cot and searched through to see what I could use. She'd lost blood, but I couldn't find a giving set or fluids.

"Luz? Is this the only medical kit you have?"

She nodded, holding hands with her mother, squeezing her fingers tight. I guessed they would have depended on a heli coming in to get them in the event of serious illness or accident. That wasn't going to happen tonight, not with this downpour -but at least it was keeping Charlie at bay. As long as it kept raining so hard he wouldn't be able to fly back to find out why contact had been broken.

I found the dihydrocodeine under the shelves. The label might have said one tablet when required, but she was getting three, plus the aspirin I was pushing from its foil. Without needing to be asked, Luz announced she was going to fetch some Evian. Carrie swallowed eagerly, desperate for anything to deaden what she was feeling. With this lot down her neck it wouldn't be long before she was dancing with the fairies, but for now she was studying the wall clock.

"Nick, tomorrow, ten o'clock..." She turned to me, her expression pleading.

"First things first."

I ripped the crunchy Cellophane from a crepe bandage and started to replace the belt and bits of sweatshirt in a figure of eight around her feet. She had to be stabilized. As soon as that was done, we needed to be out of this house before the weather improved and Charlie fired up his helis. Even if the rain stopped when we were half-way to Chepo, the Hueys would catch us up en route.

The clinic in Chepo, where is it?"

"It's not really a clinic, it's the Peace Corps folks and-' "Have they got a surgery?"

"Sort of."

I pressed the soles of her feet and her toes and watched the imprint remain for a second or two until her blood returned.

Two thousand people, Nick. You've got to talk to George, you must do something.

If only for Aar-' Luz returned with the water and helped her mother with the bottle.