The fear of being abandoned burdened her chest. “And you … what will you do?”
Mike cleared his voice, moved his head in a gesture of denial. “I must take that man out. None of us will be safe, if I don’t stop him.”
Amelia still did not understand.
“I can get by, disappear, but he’ll come for you, thinking that you know where I am. I must get rid of him.”
“I’ll wait for you here,” she almost whined. He couldn’t make her go alone.
“No, Amelia, you must go.”
The awareness of the meaning of those words finally reached her out of the blue. “I won’t see you anymore.”
He nodded. “It’s better this way.”
“No!” He couldn’t leave her this way. She didn’t want that to happen. In different circumstances she wouldn’t implore a man, but now she felt lost at the sole thought she would never see him again. “I want to come with you.”
He smiled at her. “You don’t want that for real. When you’re better, you’ll agree with me.” He moved her away and let her go. “Go,” he murmured.
“No!” she insisted.
“I said go!” Mike shouted, his expression changing into the enraged one he had shown her at the lodge. “You can’t come with me. I don’t want you to come with me!”
She knew he was doing that to provoke her. His wasn’t a real refusal. The situation asked for it, but she felt hurt by the tone of those words anyway.
“Amelia, go away!” He pushed her, making her fall.
She expected him to apologise, to help her to rise, but he was just standing there observing her.
Humiliated, Amelia stood up. She looked in the direction he had pointed, then at him again, searching his eyes for a sign he’d changed his mind.
“Go,” Mike repeated again, but in a lower voice.
She ran her hand over her sweater and trousers, as if to remove the soil from them. She was still buying time, hoping it could help. But she got nothing in return. “Okay,” she murmured.
“Farewell, Amelia.”
She looked away. She hadn’t the strength to say goodbye. She turned and started walking. She could feel his gaze checking her. But she wouldn’t look back. He was right. Her presence would kill him. And if he had accompanied her, he would’ve drawn the killer to them. By sending her away, he was saving her life for the last time.
She had been walking for at least ten minutes, when she thought she caught sight of something in front of her. It was down in the valley. The terrain had resumed its downhill slant and the vision line had improved. There was a viaduct down there. It had to be the main road. What time was it? Perhaps six o’clock, more or less. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but cars and lorries travelled on the road with a constant frequency. She followed its shape up to the point where it reached the same level of the ground. It was a little more than a mile, but wasn’t far. A bit further there was a petrol station. The ideal place to ask for help. She would go there, she didn’t fancy trying to stop a car.
The sound of a distant gunshot echoed in the air behind her.
Amelia came to a halt and shut her eyelids. The strong wind had mitigated her nausea. Her head had stopped pulsing. With caution she brushed two fingers against her nape, on her wound. It had stopped bleeding. She’d hit it pretty hard, but her thoughts had become clearer in the last few minutes and that had caused an unhoped-for well-being. The fact she didn’t feel in danger anymore must not be unrelated to the improvement of her condition. She wasn’t completely sure she was fine, but she didn’t care at all. What would await her once she was back in the city? Medical care, the interest of her colleagues, that of the press, maybe even a commendation. And then? Nothing, as usual.
The gunshot was repeated. Then there was another, different from the previous one. Different weapons. One more. At a certain point she lost count.
She reopened her eyes and looked at the main road, whilst the sounds of the confrontation from which she was moving away became more intense. If she’d had a weapon, things would’ve been different. She would go to help Mike, she would make the difference. They would be two versus one. But he had sent her away, didn’t want to involve her.
She nodded to herself. Mike would get by. For someone who had already been dead in the Middle East, this situation was an almost banal one. He didn’t need her help, didn’t need her. It was her who needed him. As much as he tried to convince her it was the opposite, he didn’t have a complete picture of her situation; he didn’t know anything about it. He didn’t know how empty and desperate her existence was. And going back there now in these conditions, knowing everyone would pity her, now seemed unacceptable to her.
She turned, as the gunshots were coming closer. It would’ve been even more unacceptable to her to go away without knowing what had happened, spending the rest of her life wondering what had become of Mike, maybe hoping to find him in front of her one day.
What a miserable prospect.
The siren of an ambulance drew her attention again to the road, but it lasted just a moment. She turned her back to it and walked away.
She tried to retrace her previous path, but soon she realised that the shots had a different origin. She deviated from her route in an attempt to get closer.
Then they ceased. She slowed down, but didn’t stop. She could hear distant voices, rustling under the shadow of the trees. Moving amongst the trunks, she tried to focus on some figures, but she wasn’t certain they were human. The low sunlight penetrated through the fronds, confusing the outlines.
Bang.
Amelia started and was paralysed. It had been close.
“I’ve always known you were a hard one, Michael.”
The voice was coming from her right. She recognised it straight away. It was the man who had interrogated her in the cottage.
“I’ve been trained by the best,” Mike replied with some sarcasm.
Orienting herself with the voices, Amelia advanced slowly, putting down one foot after the other, making sure she didn’t place them on something which could produce a noise.
The other man laughed. “Flattering me won’t save you this time.”
“I must admit it, Jeff. I made a big mistake with you. I let down my guard, I trusted you.”
Now she could glimpse something, the dark silhouette of a man with a rifle held by a shoulder strap. She felt her breath failing her as she made out a gun in his hand, aimed at Mike, who was raising his arms in surrender. She shifted her gaze to the ground, where his gun and the inevitable rucksack were resting. He must have retrieved it. But he was in trouble now. Yet he was addressing that Jeff guy with a mocking smile.
“Never trust a spy, least of all a former spy.”
“Yeah, how stupid of me. I thought I could make one big strike, so that I could retire from the business and enjoy the rest of my life on a tropical island.” Mike laughed. “And instead, my friend has pulled me into this story knowing well that I would be eliminated in the end.”
He was still appearing calm. Perhaps he had a plan, even if she couldn’t imagine what it could be. Or he didn’t care at all. It seemed that he didn’t know any fear. She’d seen him worried for her, but not for himself. He had nothing to lose. Amelia knew that sensation, because it was the same one she was feeling right now. It was the same one that had pushed her to abandon the idea of saving herself and go back. The same one that shouted in her head, begging her to do something.
“I’m sorry, Michael. If I don’t do it now, someone else will, sooner or later. And then they would do the same to me. So …”
Amelia stopped thinking and, summoning up her remaining strength, she hurled herself at Jeff. “No!” She swooped at his back.
His arm shifted in the very moment he was pulling the trigger. The shot got lost among the branches.
She was clinging to him, his rifle pressed against her chest, and she was fastening her arms around his neck. Jeff started struggling, trying to shake her off. She p
ut a hand on his face, plunging her nails into his flesh. The man shouted and backed off. Amelia’s back hit the trunk of a tree. Her already tortured ribs transferred the pain to the rest of her body and unwillingly she released her grip.
It happened in a moment. Jeff turned and grabbed her, putting her in front of him. What she saw afterwards was Mike, brandishing his gun, while she felt the cold metal of the barrel of another weapon against her temple.
“You must be sure to aim well, Michael.”
Mike wasn’t wearing the same calm expression of earlier anymore. It wasn’t his own life in danger now. Jeff was shielding himself with Amelia’s body.
“If you fail, you could hit her.”
She’d worsened the situation. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but it wasn’t really so. She raised her hand slowly, until she reached the pocket. She touched it. It was still there.
“She doesn’t have any role in this story, let her go. It’s just between you and me.”
Amelia pulled out the flick knife and opened it. And with a rapid gesture she drove it into the man’s thigh.
Jeff wailed in pain, as he let her go.
No, it wouldn’t be enough. A mix of sensations: terror, hatred, a desire for revenge burst in her chest. Any rational thought was suspended. Guided by a primordial instinct, Amelia picked up a boulder at her feet and, making her arms swing, shoved it at the head of her assailant.
He shouted louder. His weapon fell to the ground.
But she hit him again on his face, yelling.
Jeff thrust his arms forward to defend himself. He backed off, limping, whilst his blood poured unceasingly from his thigh.
Amelia advanced and hit him again.
The back of his foot touched a root emerging from the ground. Jeff tripped over it, slipped, and collapsed.
She didn’t stop. She bent over him, placed a knee on his chest, and raised the boulder again. “Go fuck yourself, Jeff,” she heard her voice say. She hit him once more, and then again, over and over again.
“Amelia!”
He had stopped struggling, he wasn’t moving anymore, but she couldn’t stop. Something blocked her arms, her hands. She raised her gaze and met Mike’s.
“Enough,” he said, in a calm tone.
She watched him, panting. What was happening?
“You can stop now. He’s dead.”
As if she’d been awoken from a dream, Amelia came to her senses. She saw the boulder and her bloody hands. Then her eyes landed on Jeff’s smashed face. She started trembling. The big stone slipped from her fingers.
What had she done? Was she the one who’d done that?
She felt herself being dragged and then found herself standing in front of Mike.
“It’s over,” he said.
She realised she was weeping because the image of him appeared clouded. “What …” Her attempt to express the whirlwind of thoughts upsetting her mind died.
She let Mike pull her towards him. “It’s all over. Nobody will hurt you anymore,” he whispered, stroking her head.
She had killed that man. No, she’d massacred him. It was like she had poured out an ancient repressed rage on him, which had been living in her heart, feeding off the emotions since the day of Joseph’s death. It had grown bigger and bigger, without her realising it. And all of a sudden it had exploded. She hadn’t been able to stop it and hadn’t even wanted to. And now that her sense had re-emerged from her thoughts, the horror of what she’d done was starting to fade out, leaving room for relief.
She looked at her hands, smeared with blood, gathered on Mike’s chest. She moved her head back, hypnotised by that sight. “I … don’t know …” What didn’t she know? The reason why she’d kept hitting that man, when he wasn’t able to harm her anymore? Or maybe the reason why now she didn’t feel responsible for her own actions?
He enclosed her wrists with his fingers. “It’s all right.” He lowered his head to meet her gaze. “I’ll take you home now.”
That sentence terrified her. “No!” She was shaking her head. “I can’t go back anymore.” It would mean pretending she was the same person she’d been before. She wasn’t. She didn’t even know who she was anymore.
“Sure you can.”
“I don’t want to.” She was imploring him again, although she knew she wouldn’t make him change his mind, even if this time she’d been the one who saved his life.
“You have no choice. This is the end for you; for me, this is just the beginning. I must leave the country fast.” He paused to sigh. It seemed that he was thinking about something, formulating a strategy. “But you must do me a favour.”
He wanted to leave her alone, abandon her, after all she had done, and now he wanted a favour, too? She tried to move away from him, but Mike was still holding her wrists.
“You must give me a few hours. I’ll take you to the closest hospital, but you must avoid saying what happened, not straight away. You can pretend you’re in shock, confused.”
“I’m fine!” she shouted at him.
“Listen to me.” His tone wasn’t gentle anymore, he’d switched to intimidation. “I must sort out a few things and I don’t need the police looking for me, too.”
Amelia stopped to watch him closely. “I’ll do that on one condition.”
“No, you’ll do that, no conditions. That’s all.”
“Stop trying to frighten me. It doesn’t work anymore. You aren’t in a position to order me around.”
Mike let her go. “Let’s hear this condition.”
“Promise that I’ll hear from you again.”
“No, no, it’s an awful idea. I—”
“Once the dust settles,” she interrupted him. “I’m not saying immediately.”
He hesitated.
“Perhaps in a while all this won’t matter to me or to you. But if it should still matter to you, come and look for me. I only ask this of you.”
“I don’t like to lie to you.”
Amelia stared at him, trembling. Right now she would’ve preferred a lie. “Why?!” she shouted, as she hit his chest with both hands clenched in a fist.
His face contracted, Mike stepped back.
But she advanced and hit him a second time. “Why do you consider me just a fucking burden? I’m not a dead loss. I can take care of myself. What is so terrific about loneliness?” Another step forward from her and one backward from him. “Has it ever occurred to you that I could be useful to you? That two is stronger than one?” She stretched her arm out, pointing to Jeff’s corpse. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead now!”
“If it weren’t for you …” Mike cut her off, enraged, overlapping his voice on hers. Then he paused. He was breathing deeply, as if he was trying to calm down. “If I hadn’t allowed you to distract me,” he continued, in a more controlled tone. “If you hadn’t attracted Jeff’s men to the lodge, leaving the light on during your pathetic escape attempt.” He gestured, pointing down, to stress that detail. “If I hadn’t wasted my time retrieving you and preventing them from killing you, Yasir would be alive now.” He sighed. “He was a brother to me.”
His words, loaded with sorrow, pierced her like many sharpened stiletto daggers. She could barely look at his face, down which a small, slow tear was rolling without him doing anything to hide it. She wished she was able to console him, but Mike was right. How could she expect him to take with him a woman he’d just met, when because of her, the only person he considered family had died?
Shame pushed her to resume looking at her hands. “I’m covered in blood.” She forced herself to change the subject. There was nothing more she could say in response. Nothing that made sense. “I can’t go back this way, it’ll be difficult to explain this.”
She was already creating a new story in her head. She couldn’t tell the entire truth. If in the beginning she’d been a victim, now things had changed. She’d joined the dots and, except for a few details, she had enough information to solve the case. The pro
blem was that she hadn’t learnt one part of that information during that long day; it was something she wasn’t supposed to know at all. And that made her situation a bit more complicated.
“There’s one thing I must do, before taking you to the city again.” Mike had picked up his rucksack again and was looking for something in it. He appeared to have regained a certain tranquillity. “Yasir should have taken care of it …” He left the sentence half-finished, as he pulled out a pack of wet wipes. He offered it to her.
She took out some wipes and started rubbing her hands. The readiness with which she was removing the blood of the man she’d just brutally murdered was having a strange effect on her. It was like nothing that had happened in the last twenty hours was real. Any morals were suspended, there wouldn’t be any consequences. But things wouldn’t go that way. They were leaving behind a trail of corpses, evidence, DNA. She would have to explain what had happened in a credible way.
No, she couldn’t go back home, she couldn’t go back to the police. And Mike wasn’t available to help her right now, but whatever he had to do, before leaving her, it meant more time at her disposal. More time to make his anger cool down, more time to convince him. Or to find another solution.
She checked her clothes. The tracksuit she was wearing was dark. The blood stains weren’t so evident. She would have to get rid of it anyway, but for now it wouldn’t be noticed.
“I must also meet a person for some documents. I can’t use Mike Connor’s name anymore. It’s too risky. And Jeff already knew my other aliases. I can’t hope he had kept this information to himself. I need something completely new and I need it quickly.”
Jeff had to be an interesting element in his story. Another former CIA agent?
There was a whole world behind the man in front of her and she would’ve liked to have known every detail. The fact that he was informing her of his next steps made a glimmer of hope blossom in her.
But Mike was still speaking. “There’s a place … where we can clean ourselves up, eat something.” Eat something? She was sensing an evasive tone in his voice, as if he was hiding his real intentions. What was the point? “Let’s go.”
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