The Fallen (17 page)

Chapter 26

Tim closed the steel door and slid firm the heavy bolts, feeling himself relax as he did so.  He had chosen a room, one of the top floor offices near the stairwell, which had been built as a strong room for embassy staff to evacuate to in case of bomb threats.  If he ever had to make a last stand, it would be here, where at least he and Sarah could die together in peace, safe from the grasping hands of the mob.  He had removed the conference table and the twenty or so chairs and replaced them with a couple of mattresses and some bedding from the outbuildings.  This made a pretty cosy den where he and Sarah could rest, despite the heat and smell.  A skylight made of reinforced glass allowed the sun to flow in but now the air-conditioning was no longer running, it was too much.  He had stapled some bedding over the skylight as a makeshift shade, which he thought worked pretty well.  Another use for the room was that it kept Sarah confined for her safety, while he scoured the building for useful supplies to hoard.  He hoped that with time the people outside would either die off, disperse or get better.  He didn’t have another plan; just build a nest and hope for the best.  He was too tired to do more. 

From around the embassy compound he had gathered what he thought was a good stockpile of canned food, water and guns.  With enough supplies, if they did end up cornered in the room, they could wait out those besieging them, in the hope that they would lose interest as hunger and thirst took their toll.  He piled everything neatly to one side of the room, which would have been big enough to hold thirty or forty people.  Each office had water coolers with six or seven five-gallon bottles placed around them, so it had been easy enough to roll the bottles down the hall to their room.  In a shipping container outside there were probably two hundred more five-gallon bottles.  Even with the three of them they had enough to last several years, provided they used it for drinking alone.  

Then there were the guns.  He had taken all the rifles, pistols and ammunition he could find and locked them in two sturdy stationary cabinets in the strong room, which he also kept locked when he went out.  Despite there only being a small marine contingent to guard the embassy, they had quite an arsenal; an arsenal he was uncomfortable about leaving within easy reach of the cook.  He was unsure what other weapons the cook might already have acquired; the thought of the man having anything that could kill troubled him. 

While he was gathering supplies, the cook had been making his own plans, if they could be described as such.  Mostly they were rants on a theme, which changed by the hour as the cook paced around the kitchen and lobby areas drinking vast quantities of the embassy champagne.  He had already talked of reinforcing the car and scouring the town for more survivors like himself, prompting Tim to remove the Niva’s battery in addition to the key.  Next he spoke of driving to the airport under the cover of darkness and methodically trying each of the planes.  Tim managed to convince him that even if a plane did work, which he was pretty sure none did, neither of them knew how to fly or where they should fly too.  The cook was certain that if he could just get to the US Combined Joint Task Force HQ in Djibouti, where he had flown in from on his way to Juba, everything would be OK.  But he didn’t know exactly where in Djibouti the Task Force HQ was, nor could he explain why they would be unaffected.  Tim explained he had come from near the border with Djibouti and things were equally bad there, plus he was not prepared to risk the journey a second time without a very solid reason for doing so.  The cook seemed to only half-listen to Tim’s arguments and was carried away in his fantasies.

“If we could just somehow take the river,” said the cook, who was laying across a steel countertop, bottle in hand, “Get to the coast and get a boat, we could get back to the US - there is no way that everyone in the US is like this, I mean, T-I-A -
this is Africa
right?  This sort of stuff happens here, you know like ebola and AIDS and everything?”

Tim knew he shouldn’t engage but felt compelled, “I’m pretty sure this isn’t a disease Jed, you saw what happened to the electronics.”

“Like hell I did, I had to put out like four fires all by myself,” said the cook, re-enacting this by spraying champagne over an imaginary inferno. “But if it’s not a disease then what is it professor?”

“I don’t know, maybe a weapon of some sort. Maybe. I don’t know.  All I do know is that for now we are safe here and until we figure out a better plan we should stay put,” said Tim.

“That’s easy for you, you didn’t have to do what I had to do here.”  The cook took another large sip from the bottle. “The sooner we ditch this place the better; I mean how long do you think it will take those people out there to figure out that they can like, climb over the walls and just come in here and do whatever the fuck they want.”

“I think it will take them a while,” said Tim, “But they would have to have a good reason to try and make it over all that razor wire.  I’m not sure they’re smart enough to work out what we have here to risk it.”

“You’re not sure they’re smart enough?  They seemed pretty fucking smart when they were chasing me.  You locked me out, I could have died out there you know?” The cook was still clearly harbouring a grudge.

Tim tried to think of anything to counter the cook’s desperation to leave and deluded optimism about reaching safety.  “Look, Jed, listen.  You think the US forces in Djibouti are still operational?  Where’s the first place they’ll come and look for survivors?  At the US embassies; in Addis, Nairobi and here.  I mean isn’t that the whole point of the military?  If they can, they will be coming.”

The cook put down the bottle on the countertop and glared at him. “And if they can’t?”

“If they can’t, well at least we won’t have died in the desert trying to reach an empty base.”

The cook took another drink, the alcohol soaked gears in his fragile mind trying to process Tim’s logic.  After some time, he nodded slowly. “OK Tim. OK for now.  But I’m not fucking dying here.”

He felt mildly reassured that the cook wouldn’t do anything rash, at least not for the next twelve hours.  He bid him goodnight and started making his way back up to the strong room.  Of all the people who could have survived, why did it have to be someone like the cook?  Tim had devoted his life to surrounding himself with people exactly unlike the cook: rational people; calm people; educated people; kind people.  The cook to him was none of these things and he felt almost as distant from his mentality as he did from the runners outside.  If he didn’t feel he might need the car again he might have encouraged the cook to just take it and go.  He wished Asefa was there; someone who could ground him, keep him sane, make him laugh, tell him this was all just some bad juju that would come to pass.  

He reached the strong room and put down the supplies he had brought up from the food storage area.  He unlocked the door and opened it but as he did a hand and foot shot through the gap.  He held the door firmly and pushed Sarah, who was kicking and scratching at him back inside.  He saw that she had smashed up much of the room while he’d been away and the supplies he had neatly stacked were strewn across the floor.  He grabbed her and held her tightly until after a few minutes of struggle she began to calm down and whimper.  She didn’t like being locked in the room but he felt he had no choice and he wasn’t about to tie her up.  He unwrapped a KitKat and gave it to her.  She looked at it for a moment, smelt it suspiciously and looked at him.  He broke off a bar and ate half of it, giving her back the rest.  He motioned for her to eat and she did, devouring the entire bar in seconds and then looking to him for more.  He used to joke that she would get fat if she kept eating so much chocolate, which had annoyed her greatly.  Was she still his wife, would she ever be again?  He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, smoking it then holding it to her lips so she could breathe in the nicotine.  It seemed to calm her further; he could feel her relax and when the cigarette was finished they sat down.  He handed her an open bag of Gummy Bears and showed her how to eat them.  She smiled as she picked out the various colours, each of which she proudly displayed to him.  While she was occupied he brought in the supplies, locked the door fully from the inside and began tidying up.  To his surprise Sarah started to help him, placing the cans in a pile exactly as he was doing.  He hugged her and told her he loved her.  “Tim,” she replied, but that was all. 

That night after he removed her clothes and washed her, she had hugged him and they had made love.  He didn’t know if it was wrong but it felt right and for the first time in a long time he felt close to her.  They slept entwined and he could just make out the stars shining through the awning.  Perhaps they could make this work he thought, before drifting back to sleep.

The next morning he was woken by a loud banging on the metal door.  The cook was yelling,  “Wake up, Tim wake up, they are at the gate, they are climbing the walls.”

Tim threw on a pair of jeans. “Hold on I’m coming.” He opened the door to see the cook, who looked distressed.  He was holding a marine’s rifle and had a new handgun tucked into his belt.  Tim grabbed his own gun from on top of a filing cabinet and shut the door, but not quickly enough to prevent the cook’s eyes from peering over his shoulder to where his wife lay sleeping naked behind him.  He locked the door and looked at the cook. “What’s going on?”

The cook shook his head and motioned for him to follow him down the hallway to the stairwell.  “They just went wild out there, banging on the gate, trying to climb over.” 

They ran across the compound to the entrance area.  The first thing Tim noticed was a man caught in the razor wire topping the wall next to the gate.  The man was struggling to get free but was becoming increasingly entangled and was already bleeding from multiple lacerations.  Then he saw that a wrist was impaled on one of the spikes topping the gate.  The gate obscured the owner of the wrist who was hanging from it on the other side, as the hand would occasionally jerk as if trying to break free.  Finally he noticed a smell that made him instantly furious.  He turned to the cook. “What have you done?”

The cook looked sheepish.  “Nothing, nothing, I mean I was just grilling some of the steaks that’s all, they were going bad and they needed to be…”

Tim tried to control the anger that was welling up from inside him, wanting to break free and strangle the cook; it took all of his effort but he managed to remain outwardly calm in the face of such life threatening stupidity.  Sighing and shaking his head, he put one hand on the cook’s shoulder and gripped it tightly.  “Look, it’s the smell of the meat, that’s what’s bringing them here, put it out, and take whatever you have done inside and seal it in something.  Then get back here.”

The cook nodded, realising he had made a mistake and ran back towards the embassy building where Tim could just make out smoke gently rising from a BBQ.  Tim jogged over to the tower next to the gate and climbed the internal ladder to the guard booth that overlooked the street.  He peered over the rail so that only the top of his head and eyes were visible.  Before him he saw a hoard of fifty or more people scrambling outside the gate.  He could see the man hanging from his wrist trying to reach up to pull himself free but his strength had already gone and his free arm grasped weakly.  He’d either climbed on somebody’s shoulders or worse, been lifted up there.

 The strong hinges and bolts looked like they would hold but bodies from the crush were starting to pile up at the foot of the gate and surrounding walls, enabling others to clamber on top and reach higher.  It would not be long if they continued this way before they would be able to clamber over the lifeless ramp and get into the compound.  He stood up in the guard tower and yelled at the mob, “Hey!  Get back!  Back!”  He didn’t know if they understood but the yelling seemed to stop the crush for a moment before the crowd surged forward once more.  He fired a warning shot into the air but it had little affect.  He decided to try something else.  He aimed at the man caught in the wire and pulled the trigger.  The man stopped struggling and fell back, suspended limply by the razors.  The crowd did not seem to make the connection between the sound of the gun and the impact of the bullet.  He yelled again to get their attention and when some looked up at him he shot the man hanging from the gate in the leg.  The man screamed and the crowd drew back.  He yelled again and fired several rounds into the ground in front of them.  They retreated further, until a large woman stepped out ahead of the rest and shouted something; nothing more than a series of triumphant sounds but the crowd stopped retreating.  He would have to do it, he had to make them fear him or they would not stop.  He yelled out once more and aimed his rifle at the woman.  She stared back at him defiantly and opened her mouth to respond with a new cry but she hit the ground before she could and would never speak another word.  The crowd let out a collective scream and there was a stampede to escape from the devil in the tower.  Several more people were trampled in the rush.  Tim slumped down and sobbed but was brought back to his feet by the sound of gunfire. 

He looked over the rail to see the cook had climbed the inside of the gate and was shooting wildly with a handgun at the retreating crowd; he could see the man smiling.  Before he could say anything the cook had emptied his clip and jumped back down from the gate.  Tim climbed down the ladder and as he reached the bottom he felt the cook slap him on the back.  “Woah, you did good back there man, you like totally nailed that bitch, one shot, one kill – brutal.”  The cook was Generation Kill, brought up by sound bites and first-person shooters; to him this was just one more video game.  Tim gave him a cold look and walked back to the embassy building.

The cook ran after him.  “Hey did I say something wrong? Did I offend you man? You’re like me, you just did what you had to, right?”

Tim said nothing and kept walking.