by Hall, Thomas
"If anyone asks your name's Mary," Michelle says to Harriet.
I turn meaning to ask why she should lie about her name. Then I work it out for myself: she doesn't trust the people here not to hand Harriet over if Cortez asks for her. I hope that she's wrong, but a little extra caution can't hurt, so I say nothing.
I imagine the glass falling down around us. I imagine my daughter covered in cuts and blood.
"Come on," I say to Michelle, taking Harriet's hand.
"Where are we going?" she says, but she's following me before she gets an answer. She trusts me, I realise, or knows that, wherever I lead her, it will be better than this.
The police officers standing at the door are not armed. They look clean, as if they have been well looked after in these last few weeks. I do not need to put to the test which of us would win if it came down to a fight.
"You can't go through there," the man I approach says. He seems more like a bouncer than a policeman. This is okay, I've been here before, I know what to do.
"Please," I say. "You have to let us out. It's not safe in here."
He looks behind him. We can all hear the gunshots and feel the walls shaking. The man turns back to me. "I don't know what makes you think you'll be safer out there," he says.
This might be a terrible idea, but right now it's the only one I've got.
"Please," I say again. "My daughter is scared."
We both look at Harriet and she does look scared, although whether she is pretending or it's genuine I can't tell.
"I only want to take her somewhere where she won't have to see," I say.
The policeman sighs. "Toilet," he says.
"Excuse me?" I am sure that I must have misheard him.
"The toilet," he says again. "It's out of here and down the corridor to your right. You should lock the door."
He lets us through and we hurry to do as he suggested.
Outside the waiting area the noise is tremendous. Then the lights begin to flicker and there is another loud explosion.
The air fills with acrid smelling smoke. I cough and peer down the corridor. My ears are ringing and I can’t see much. Harriet gropes for one hand and Michelle for the other. I take them both and keep walking forwards.
My hearing returns, but I almost wish that it hadn’t. Now I can hear rapid bursts of machine gun fire and it seems close.
The ground shakes as more explosions go off. We fall from one side of the corridor to the other, ricocheting off the walls and struggling to keep on our feet. But we manage to keep going forwards until I find the door.
I push Harriet and Michelle in ahead of me.
I take a final look along the corridor. I see someone at the other end and turn away. I pull the bathroom door closed behind me and fumble with it until I find the lock and turn it. Nothing to do now except wait and hope that he doesn’t find us.
CHAPTER 33
WE LISTEN TO A GUNFIGHT WHICH SOUNDS TOO close. A few times it seems to hit the toilet door. Although that might be my overactive imagination feeding on the unending fear.
The lights are off and we sit huddled on the floor together.
“We can’t stay here forever,” Michelle says.
I am content to wait here until the shooting stops, but I know she’s right.
“What if Cortez wins?”
If Cortez wins then we're fucked. I don’t know what he will do to us, but I know it won’t be pleasant. A quick execution will be too much to ask for.
“He’s not going to win,” I say.
“How do you know?” she says.
I sigh. I suppose it is possible that he could win, but he’s fighting an army. He’s fighting the army and no matter how many guns and bombs he’s got, they are better trained. “How could he?” I say.
She doesn’t need to answer, I already know how he could win. He’s ruthless and he has nothing to lose. He will send men to their death to get us.
I squeeze both their hands and hope that we can either change the subject or stop talking completely. I don’t know about Harriet, but the thought of Cortez coming out on top of this is terrifying me.
I try to imagine what is going on in the rest of the heliport but I can’t. Or I don’t want to. Explosions and screaming punctuates the gunfire. The ground shakes. Will there be anything left of the place by the time it is over?
Cortez can’t win.
I tell myself this but I don’t believe it. I have seen what the man is capable of.
The gunfire stops and I look at the door, although I can’t see it in the darkness. I hold my breath and feel my heart pounding against my ribs. I wait for the screaming to start again, or for another explosion, but nothing happens.
I don’t know how long we wait in the toilet for. It could be five minutes, it could be thirty. I strain to hear what is happening on the other side of the door but the sound is muffled and my ears are ringing.
Michelle stands up. I reach for her hand and try to pull her back down, I am afraid of what she’s going to do.
“Where are you going?” I say.
She looks down at me. “I’m going to see what’s happening.”
“Come on Harriet,” I say and stand, pulling her up behind me.
“Stay here,” Michelle says.
“No, we’re coming as well.” I don’t want to spend the next few minutes wondering whether Michelle is still alive. I don’t want to wonder whether she will come back, or if the next person to open the door will be Cortez. It might be dangerous out there, but it will be dangerous in here as well.
She opens the door and smoky light fills the room.
It looks like the place is on fire, but there is no heat. There are voices in the distance and then the thud of engines.
We creep along the corridor, hand in hand, staying close to the walls.
I glance back towards the toilet and see the door hanging open. A wave of nostalgia for the time we spent in there washes over me. A part of me wants to go back, but I know there can be no progress if we don’t keep moving forwards.
A man appears at the end of the corridor. He is too far away for any of us to see him.
We stop. Michelle's hand squeezes mine. Who is the man? Which side is he on?
The thudding engine sounds are beginning to speed up and I know what is making them now. It gives me hope, but I am still not the first of us to move.
The man turns towards us. He is so big that he seems to fill the whole corridor. He sees us and I watch him reach for the gun at his side.
“Who are you?” he says. I can’t tell by his voice whether he is a friend or an enemy. “Identify yourself.”
Neither Michelle nor Harriet move.
I let go of their hands and stand up straight. I take a step forwards.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” he says.
I raise my hands. If he is one of Cortez’s men then he will kill me, but if that is the case he will kill me anyway. “We’re evacuees,” I say.
He takes another step towards me and I still can’t tell. “What’s your name?” he says.
I tell him.
Everything seems very distant. I wait for his response. The fact that he doesn’t immediately open fire doesn’t help. If he is one of Cortez’s men then it’s likely that he has orders to capture rather than kill us.
“Take a step towards me,” he says.
I do as he says.
“And another.”
Now I can see the gun in his hand, aimed straight at my face. If he pulls the trigger I will never know whether I was right to trust him or not.
“Your papers?” he says.
I fumble in my pocket and take out the three sheets of paper Doctor Little gave us. I hold them out and he takes them. He reads while still pointing the gun at me. I could take it off him, I think, but I don’t try.
After a moment he hands the papers back to me and finally lowers his gun.
“Okay,” he says. “You need to follow me, we’re getting
everyone out now.”
I turn back and reach for their hands. They come towards me and together we follow the man.
He leads us back along the corridor to the waiting room. I see the devastation that the gunfight has caused. Broken glass litters the floor, pieces of furniture lay everywhere.
There are people as well, bodies and pieces of bodies. There is blood and there is still screaming, although I can’t see where that is coming from. It haunts me like a ghost and I know that I will not be able to forget what I am seeing here.
The man takes out his gun as we reach the waiting room and I begin to wonder whether they have actually won the fight. He seems cautious, but he has seen things I can only imagine. I don’t flatter myself that I understand what he has been through.
When we enter the waiting room I see that we were right to leave. The glass has held, but the gunfight made it this far. There are more bodies, more blood. The policeman who let us escape earlier is laying face up with blood across his front.
Out the other side of the waiting room I see the helicopters and the people who survived the attack are waiting. Judging by the number of helicopters that I can see, several of them have already gone. I can’t tell whether there will be enough room for everyone who remains.
The helicopter door closes as it begins to climb into the sky. These are proper troop transportation vehicles. It is odd thing to see them wobble their way upwards. They seem impossible, like a whale leaving the ocean and learning to fly.
The doors on the other helicopters open and people begin to move towards them. There is an order to things. Men and women with clipboards stand at the front and give direction. They send some people in one direction and others in another. Likely depending on which quarantine boat they are assigned to.
The man who found us in the corridor leads us forwards as the helicopter banks and changes course. I watch it out the corner of my eye but the truth is I am more focused on where they are going to send us. Which one of these is ours and where will it take us?
There is no sense of the danger we are all in.
I hear a low-pitched whistle that could be from a firework and look up. The explosion is the loudest thing I have ever heard. It deafens me.
The helicopter is no more than twenty metres off the ground when the fireball consumes it. The bright light fills the sky like a miniature sun and we are all looking up at it. None of us notices the perimeter fence coming down as Cortez and his men ride towards us in armoured trucks.
Debris from the explosion rains down on the launch pad. I stand gawping at the sight of it and the dozen vehicles that are now driving towards it. Cortez is there, standing on the back of a truck with what I can only assume is a rocket launcher over his shoulder.
The man pulls us back and we stumble over the dead bodies and furniture on the ground. The people already on the launch pad scream and run. They are no longer paying attention to the men and women with the clipboards.
I watch as a half full helicopter closes its cargo doors and begins to climb. I don’t see what happens to it as I fall. I hope whoever is on board makes it, but at the same time I worry that it means fewer seats for us.
My hearing returns and, with it, some sense of what is at stake. Harriet is beside me and I see Michelle struggling to get back on her feet. I reach for her and pull her down. We are better off where we are, letting the soldiers fight Cortez and his men.
The second helicopter begins to climb. I watch it arching into the sky and feel sure that it's moving too slow. It won't make it, it can't.
I watch Cortez fire another rocket. The helicopter is an easy target and the range is so short that there is no hope for it. What are the people inside thinking, do they even know what is about to happen to them? Would it be better if they did or didn't?
Heat from the explosion knocks me down, I drag Michelle and Harriet with me. Bits of scorching hot debris land on me, but I don't dare move.
"We have to do something," Michelle says when my hearing returns.
"Us?" I say. "What are we supposed to do?"
"I don't know," she says. "But we're the reason he's here. If we don't do something then he's going to kill all these people."
These brave doctors and nurses, police officers and firefighters don't deserve to die. But neither do I.
"Daddy?"
I can't look at Harriet, I can't compare her life to anyone else's. She is the most important thing in the world to me, the only important thing to me. I would let every single person out there die rather than let her get hurt.
But even if Cortez kills all the soldiers, he won't stop. This isn't about volume for him, it's about her. It's about me. It's about Michelle. He won't stop until we are all dead.
The realisation of what I must do comes. I wait to see whether there will be guilt for even thinking such a thing, but none follows. Have I changed so much that I no longer feel guilty for deciding to kill a man? Or is it the world that has changed? Either way, I know what I have to do now and that makes a surprising difference.
CHAPTER 34
THE FIGHTING CONTINUES.
BULLET HOLES PEBBLE A HELICOPTER as it attempts to start its rotor.
"Daddy?" Harriet says.
I look at her and smile. "It's going to be okay sweetheart. Wait here with Michelle and do as she says, understand?"
"Where are you going?" she says.
Where am I going? That is the question. I don't actually know. Now that I've made up my mind what to do, it seems as if how to do so should come naturally, but it does not.
Only one idea comes to mind but I am not suicidal enough to try it.
The gunfire is continuous. How many people does Cortez have available to throw at this problem? If it is a war of attrition then which side can dig in and last longest?
“I’ll be back soon,” I say.
I can’t stand to look at either of them and I won't say goodbye. Instead I move away with no clear idea of what I am going to do.
The helicopters have stopped trying to take off. Soldiers surround them, shooting at Cortez and his men.
The two sides are both taking heavy casualties, but Cortez has the advantage. His people are behind armoured vehicles. The the soldiers of the heliport are exposed and vulnerable. But they are better trained, and that shows in the number of Cortez’s men who are on the ground.
I stand as close as I can get without exposing myself to the gunfire. It is not close enough. Cortez is still twenty metres away from me. I would need a gun to kill him from here.
All I have is the knife that Rob gave me. For the last few weeks it has been strapped to my leg, but now I hold it in my hand. I should have used it the last time Cortez threatened me and my people. I was a different man then, not yet living in the new world.
I watch Cortez. The rocket launcher is beside him and he now wields a large gun which he is firing into the crowd of evacuees. He is laughing. The only thing that keeps me from killing him now is the distance between us and I have no idea how to cross it.
The ground between us is the smooth asphalt of a launch pad. There is nowhere to hide, no way to get to him without being seen. As soon as I step out I will, more than likely, be killed.
I glance back in the direction I know Harriet and Michelle to be hiding. When Cortez has finished killing the soldiers he will find them and what will he do to them? I hate to imagine it. I wish that the world wasn’t so cruel, but I see now that it is. The change has happened and there is no way for us to return to what we were. I can’t solve new problems with old actions.
I turn back to Cortez and I am ready to try this. If I don’t then I will be dead anyway, at least this way there is a chance.
I hide the knife in my coat and remove the scabbard from my leg. I stand up straight and try to feel confident, but I don’t. This might work, but the chances are small. I take a deep breath and prepare for what might be my last words.
“Cortez!” I shout.
I wait for the gunfi
re to stop but it doesn’t. If anyone heard me they are ignoring me.
“Cortez!” I shout again, but the result is the same.
Even this couldn’t be easy. I attempt to compose myself but it is futile. If I am going to do this, then I need to do it now, before even more people die in the man’s vicious attack.
I raise my hands and step out of the waiting room.
“Cortez!” I shout.
No one stops shooting. I have no choice but to walk towards him, putting myself in the firing range of the people who are trying to protect us. As well as those who want us dead.
I walk with my hands in the air, calling his name.
A boy is the first to turn and see me. He doesn’t look much older that Harriet and I am angry that Cortez has filled his army with more victims. The boy should be running around a playground, not shooting a machine gun. He turns his gun towards me.
I stop walking but the boy doesn’t shoot.
We stand and look at each other for a moment. The fight continues around us. I wait with my hands in the air until the boy lowers his gun and walks towards me.
“I’m here for Cortez,” I say, when he is close enough to hear me.
“Why?” the boy says. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Evan Alexander. He’s been looking for me and my daughter.”
I can see at once that the boy knows my name. He raises the gun again. He is now so close that he has to aim it upwards to get a shot at my face.
“He’ll want to see me,” I say. “I have information he wants.”
“Where’s your daughter?” the boy says. He’s a smart one, or else he’s been well briefed.
“She’s hidden,” I say. “I want to make a deal with Cortez.”
“Tell me where she is first,” the boy says.
If he shoots me now it’s all over. Now that I stand amongst Cortez’s men I can see how many of them there are. It’s only a matter of time before they overwhelm the army. Then they will search the heliport and find Harriet. But if I tell the boy what he wants to know, then it will still end the same way.