Max Arena (34 page)

Then Max pulled
off his first real, eye-opening feat and the crowd lulled. By Max’s
standards it was simple stuff, but for the general public, the
effort was enough for them to stop and consider if they had
actually just seen an ordinary man do what he had just done and how
was that possible?

After Max
completed his ten burpees at breakneck pace to warm up, he jogged
across to the boxes, of which there were five. The first and
shortest box stood at forty centimetres high and then each of the
other four boxes increased in height by another forty centimetres
to the last box, which stood at two metres. The four boxes rested
lined up one after the other in increasing height with a gap in
between each. Max simply ran up to the first box and without
breaking stride, bounded on top, feet together. Then, without
slowing down or pausing, bounded down to the ground and bounded
straight up onto the next box like a human kangaroo and proceeded
to continue all the way through until finally, he bounded straight
up onto the two metre box before swan diving off and executing a
double somersault to land neatly back on the grass.

By now the
crowd had quietened down a little, but then Max did his next trick.
He turned back to the two metre box and vaulted up to the top into
a hand stand. Then, again without pausing, he flipped forwards to
land on the ground and vaulted up onto the next slightly shorter
box and into a handstand. He then repeated the motions all the way
back to the shortest box to ultimately land neatly on the grass at
the end of the boxes. By now, the crowd was noticeably dulled. He
had their attention.

Next up Kris
had him perform some extraordinary tumbling runs up and down the
length of the field, which at any Olympics in history, would have
easily secured him the gold medal. Triple and quadruple somersaults
and twists were standard fare and all of them executed with
unnatural precision. On his final two runs Max improvised and
snatched up a fifteen kilogram kettlebell from the edge of the
field and just like a rhythmic gymnast, flung it up in the air to
catch it again in between tumbles and flips without dropping it or
missing a beat. Now the crowd was stunned. This wasn’t just like
the Olympics. It was like the Olympics on steroids.

Then Max
proceeded to walk the entire length of the field on his hands,
except to say he walked was an understatement. He essentially
ran
on his hands and then when he reached the far end with
Kris jogging along next to him, he not only stayed on his hands to
perform a set of vertical press-ups, but then did ten single arm
vertical press-ups on each hand. As he pushed himself through the
sets, a lone voice rang out over the now smothering silence, ‘Max!
Go, Max!’

Now halfway
through his routine, Max’s pace did not falter even slightly.
Abdullah kept his gaze and senses keyed into the masses. There was
no longer any evidence of hostility. The negative placards had been
lowered and those outspoken groups had disappeared into the sea of
silence, but that lone voice of support had stirred a ripple and
now Abdullah could feel the tension changing. People were
whispering in each others’ ears, but not taking their eyes off Max,
unwilling to let slip even a moment of the spectacle. Bodies began
to press harder up against the railing. Even the security detail
was exchanging queried glances as to what was going on, but
Abdullah knew exactly what was happening. Max had the crowd hooked
and now he had another twenty minutes to reel them in.

After his
handstands, Max dropped back to his feet and sprinted to the middle
of the field where a weighted barbell lay. The over-sized radii of
the multiple, circular weight plates on each end of the bar clearly
indicated a significant amount of steel mass was locked on. Max did
not break stride. He ran up to the bar, squatted down and then
immediately pushed upwards with his arms and legs to toss the
entire bar and weights into the air. He then deftly caught the bar
with his upstretched hands and lowered it down onto his shoulders
behind his neck, military style. Kris then motioned for him to
follow her and Max did, not walking or even jogging, but in great
bounding strides, launching from one foot to the other. Kris led
him in a growing spiral that led outwards until he reached the
boundary fence. Max then shifted from single leg bounds to double
leg bounds, the barbell bending and flexing over his shoulders.

Abdullah could
see the expressions on the faces in the crowd as Max got close
enough to let them see the weight denominations on the plates. One
hundred kilos. Shock. Disbelief. Astonishment. Hands covered open
mouths. Slack jaws, and then, a fist in the crowd punched the air
and a cheer went up as Max went past. Next, a group of young girls
started jumping and screaming as Max bounded by. The further round
the crowd Max went, the wave effect in the crowd followed him.

Then Kris
flicked a hand out towards the centre of the field and Max
instantly obeyed. Heaving the barbell off his shoulders and
casually throwing it out in front of him, he sprinted to the middle
of the playing field where he found three fifteen kilo kettle
bells. Squatting down he grabbed two of them by their handles and
then tossed each of them into the air and before anyone knew what
he was doing, he then threw up the third one and started to juggle
all three.

Abdullah
watched, heard and felt the crowd respond. They went nuts. Max was
now not just training or even performing, but he was showcasing his
talent. No one had ever seen a man juggle kettlebells of any weight
let alone fifteen kilos each and Max was doing it easy. Kris
positioned herself in front of Max and motioned for him to start
walking forwards, which he did. Then Kris started to jog backwards
and Max followed, his gaze glued to the flying kettlebells. Then
Kris turned and jogged faster, veering again towards the outer
fence line. Max stayed with her and kept his routine in check. This
time the crowd response doubled. Up close, they recognised Max for
what he was. Awesome. Half sprinting, he kept all three kettlebells
smoothly in motion and all the while making it look as easy as a
Sunday afternoon stroll. The only proof that Max was working at
superhuman capacity was the sweat cascading down his skin.

After a full
lap around the field, Kris flicked her hand out again and this time
it was towards the far end. Max again instantly obeyed, letting the
three kettlebells thump back to earth and not giving them a
second’s thought as he sprinted to where Kris had instructed him.
Once there he looked the length of the field to find Kris standing
at the other end, exactly one hundred metres distant, with her
right arm raised. The giant LCD screen on the clubhouse read, ‘100m
0sec’. It was clearly a one hundred metre time trial and Max was
ready to go, crouched on the white line at his feet, his back
arched in a sprinter’s start position.

Then Kris let
her hand fall and Max was off, Kris’ voice inside his earphones
giving him the word. Max launched off the spot, his entire body
ripped with straining muscle and tendons. Before anyone could
really focus on his movement, Max was halfway down the field, his
orange shoes a fluorescent blur against the green of the turf. With
his knees pumping high in front of him and his arms driving like
hammers Max rocketed the length of the field, his pace blinding all
the way through to the end where he blew past Kris at full speed.
Jamming his feet into the grass, Max slowed himself and jogged back
to where Kris stood, looking up at the big screen on the clubhouse
as he did.

Fingers and
hands shot out of the crowd towards the LCD screen as the masses
noticed the time. 10.21sec. It was not Olympic time, but it was
close and they had just witnessed it. Then the crowd noticed Max
crouching in position in front of Kris, ready to run the length
again. Kris raised her hand. The timer zeroed and she dropped her
hand. Max shot off again, barely having had time to recover from
the first time trial.

With seemingly
even greater power, Max sprinted the length of the field, his
orange shoes now just an arc of colour against the green palette.
Again he covered the distance before anyone really knew what was
happening. Hammering himself to a stop, Max, and the entire crowd,
turned to look at the clock. 10.14sec. The cheer was deafening.
This was really real.

Then Max was
down on the line again, crouched and ready to go. Kris’ raised arm
snapped down and Max flashed into action. This time he virtually
flew off the line, his feet exploding into motion when they hit the
ground. Not a single pair of eyes blinked before Max careened past
Kris at the finish line. This time after stopping, Max did not turn
to look at the screen. The crowd did and their response confirmed
to him what he suspected. 10.06sec. He was getting faster. Max was
now in the realm of Olympic skill.

With over six
thousand people filling the air with cheers and screams, Max again
crouched on the starting line in front of Kris. Again she raised
her arm. The noise and racket faded into the background of Max’s
senses. His entire being focused on the silence in his earphones.
Then Kris dropped her arm and said, ‘Go.’

Max snapped
into action, every fibre in every muscle rippling. He kept his head
down for the first twenty metres, his gaze fixed on the ground. He
then raised it up to focus on the finish line and in a matter of
heartbeats, blew past halfway. From the crowd’s perspective, it
looked like Max was floating, his orange-clad feet hardly seeming
to touch the ground. His hands and arms also disappeared as they
powered his motion like a steam train at full tilt. Max lost all
sense of his surrounds. All he could see was the finish line and
despite his blinding pace, the world seemed to grow still around
him, his heart beat slow and resounding in his ears and in what
seemed like minutes, but was really only seconds, Max streaked to
the far length of the field and smashed past the finish line.

Stuttering to a
rapid stop, Max straightened and sucked in a deep breath. The time
trials were over and the entire session was done. His focus melted
away and the roar of the crowd washed over him like an ocean wave
surging to shore. Looking around, the entire field was thronged by
a heaving mass of raucous humanity. All Max could see was smiles
and all he could feel was energy.

‘Take a look at
the screen, big guy,’ Kris’ voice said into his earphones.

Max turned and
looked up at the big screen. 9.98sec.

‘You’re now
officially one of the fastest men on the planet,’ Kris added.

Max shifted his
gaze from the screen to the glass windows of the clubhouse. Sheikh
Abdullah watched Max look up in his direction, but he knew the man
was not seeking him, but rather his family. Turning to the side,
Sheikh Abdullah found Elsa standing on her own with Millie and
Jason jumping at the glass, just as excited as the thousands of
strangers outside cheering on their father. Then Elsa slowly lifted
her hand and placed it flat on the glass.

Abdullah
quickly turned back to Max and found him staring back up with his
own hand out in front. They had found each other and they both now
knew that there was hope for them all to be safe, while Max
continued his training to save the world. Now it was Abdullah’s
turn to smile.

‘
Al-ḥamdu lillāh
,’ he said to himself. ‘
Praise be to
Allah.’

10pm, 15
^th
August (later that night).
Boys’ Night

The matte black
military helicopter skimmed the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the
faint light of the sickle moon illuminating the sea just enough to
make it shimmer and shift like black mercury. Flying low enough to
avoid radar detection, the aircraft was effectively invisible and
almost inaudible with its state of the art noise dampening
technology.

Approaching the
island estate, the mansion’s lights glared into the night like a
beacon, allowing the pilot to easily fix on to her target without
the need of the high tech controls surrounding her. Suddenly, the
fringing palms of the island jutted up in front, but without any
hint of panic, the pilot calmly adjusted the rotator controls to
smoothly lift the helicopter over the trees, the palm fronds
lightly ruffling in the downwash.

The broad
southern lawn of the estate opened up beneath the aircraft as it
zoomed ahead. The mansion was now clearly visible in the pilot’s
night vision goggles. With a flick of a switch on the side of her
helmet, the view through the goggles changed from night vision to
thermal. Four human shaped figures instantly lit up on the back
patio of the mansion. The pilot smiled.

‘I have eyes on
all four targets,’ she said into her helmet microphone.

‘Roger that,’
crackled the reply. ‘Continue with patrol circuit. Stay in
touch.’

Peter ignored
the whisper quiet helicopter as it flew overhead. Instead his gaze
roamed around the nightscape across the southern lawn spreading out
from the back patio of the mansion. He knew there were at least
three foot patrols out there somewhere along with the patrolling
helicopter overhead and two more naval patrol boats lurking not far
off the beach, but none of this guaranteed their safety. At least
not in his mind. He was the last line. He was the safety net. Max
and his family were only truly safe while he remained vigilant and
more importantly, alive.

‘Your
helicopters, Abdullah,’ Prime Minister Tollsen said as he stood on
the verge of the patio, turning his unlit pipe in his left hand,
‘are like vampires. They come out after dusk and then disappear
before the sun rises. I would dearly like to see one of them up
close in the light of day, just to confirm they are real.’