Evolution of Fear

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Clay watched the star-white crests of gentle waves curl and wash up onto the beach, listened to the hiss of water retreating across the carbonate sand, timeless.

  ‘That’s why development is the end,’ said Hope, taking Clay’s hand in hers. ‘Any noise, any light, and the females will choose to abort their eggs at sea rather than come ashore. Each beach represents a distinct family line, a tribe if you will, going back to the darkest reaches of time, megaparsecs, Clay. Develop, and that line is wiped out forever.’

  A point of light flashed on the shore, twice, three times. Clay looked at his watch. Midnight. He went below, opened up the priest hole, took the G21 from the bag, checked the mag, stuffed the pistol into the pocket of his jacket. Then he put the Beretta Crowbar had given him in Istanbul into the bag and closed everything up.

  They rowed ashore, drew the dinghy up over the sand to the tide line and stood peering into the darkness. Soon after, a dark figure came sliding down the closest dune, surfing on his feet, the sand hissing like water as it flowed beneath him. Hope stepped forward. They embraced, kissed alternate cheeks. He was older, mid-sixties Clay guessed, with thick, silver hair that shone in the starlight.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ the man said in English, the Turkish accent heavy in the consonants. ‘They are waiting for us, not far from here. Five men from the village. The only ones I could find who would talk. But I warn you, they are frightened.’ He looked at Hope. ‘I have told them that you are from the EU, an official leading an important commission. They will only speak with someone in authority.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Hope. ‘Well done.’

  ‘The monastery?’ said Clay.

  ‘I have a car in the village. It is not far. After we speak to these men, I will take you there.’ Without another word, the man turned and led them inland.

  After half an hour’s hard walking across country unchanged for generations, they came to a narrow, crumbling, tarmac road. Low stone walls, just ruins in places, frayed, overgrown with dark, tangled vines, lined the road on both sides. Beyond, the lighter shapes of terraced fields, more stonework, dark woodland. Clay looked back towards the beach and picked out the breast and nipple of Dune Point, the tiny black shape of Flame lying at anchor just beyond, barely visible. He figured they’d covered the best part of two and a half kilometres, gained perhaps five hundred metres of elevation. Hope walked barefoot, strap sandals swinging in her hand. Her friend – she hadn’t given his name – pointed up the road and kept walking.

  Soon they left the paved road and threaded along a narrow footpath adjacent to a stone wall until they came to a break in the wall next to a wizened, ancient pine tree. The man stopped, crouched low. Clay and Hope did the same. The man pointed down-slope towards the dark shape of a building, what looked like an old farmhouse, about two hundred metres away, squat and square, with an open forecourt, set back perhaps a kilometre from the road. ‘They will meet us there,’ said the man, his voice low.

  They waited. Clay glanced at his watch. Gone one-thirty. He looked out towards the farmhouse. A light flashed three times.

  The man stood. ‘It is them,’ he said, starting down-slope.

  Clay followed, Hope behind. He had just cleared the wall when lights flashed on the main road. Two cars, the hunger-bright eyes of a pair of jackals. He stopped, grabbed the man’s shoulder, pointed. The headlights swerved, flashing through the trees, across fallow fields. They were coming towards the farmhouse, half-way there already.

  The man stopped. ‘Bok,’ he said. Shit.

  ‘What is it?’ whispered Hope.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘Perhaps the police.’

  The cars had closed on the farmhouse now, painted the walls and buildings with their headlights. Five men stood in the courtyard, silhouetted against a big stone wall. The cars skidded to a halt in the gravel. Doors opened. Men emerged from the vehicles. Clay counted seven, all carrying weapons.

  He didn’t need to see more. He set off at a sprint down the hill towards the farm. Breathing hard, he crouched behind a stone wall, the two groups of men no more than fifty metres away now across an open field. The villagers were crowded together, five of them, up against the wall of the building, some sort of barn with big, wood-beamed sheds buttressing the stone walls, a large, oak-plank door and no visible windows. Eight gunmen he counted now, some armed with shotguns, some with what looked like Uzis. He could hear voices, the men with guns shouting, the villagers mute, blinking into the glare of the headlights. Clay’s stomach lurched. He knew this, could see it unfolding as if in a dream, a nightmare he’d lived before. He pulled the Glock from his pocket, chambered a round. One mag, eight targets. Unlikely, but if he could take out two or three of them quickly, the darkness might give the villagers a chance. He’d have to get closer. He looked both ways along the wall, out across the field. Open ground, but the shortest, most direct route. That’s what Koevoet had always taught them: go in fast and hard, take the most direct route. He was about to stand when Hope appeared behind him.

  She’d lost her sandals. Her dress was torn at the hem. She crouched beside him, breathing hard. ‘Oh my God,’ she gasped. ‘What are they doing?’

  Voices rose in a crescendo.

  ‘Not what it looks like, I hope,’ said Clay.

  Hope looked down at the gun in his hand. Her eyes widened. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘What I can,’ he said. ‘Stay here.’

  By now the old man had joined them, panting, out of breath. He put his hand over Clay’s gun. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They are only trying to frighten them.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘I don’t know. They are not from here.’

  ‘Then how can you be sure?’

  ‘There are many of them and only one of you.’ He glanced at Hope. ‘We are unarmed. It cannot be done.’

  One of the gunmen had opened the big door. The villagers were being herded inside the building. Two of the gunmen followed them in.

  ‘I’m not just going to stand here and watch, broer. Take your hand away.’

  ‘Please, Clay,’ said Hope. ‘He’s right. You can’t just go in shooting. You don’t know what’s happening here. And you certainly can’t get them all by yourself. They’ll kill you. Wait, please. I’m sure they’ll go away.’

  Three armed men now stood outside the building, lit up by the car headlights like actors on a stage. The other three had moved back to one of the vehicles, a Land Cruiser parked furthest from the barn. Clay was ready, calm, focused. A plan mapped itself out in his head. He pushed aside the old man’s hand and stood.

  Hope reached up and grabbed his arm. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t.’ Her eyes burned in the headlights’ reflected glow.

  A single shot, hollow and muffled by stone, jarred the night. It had come from inside the barn.

  ‘Jesus.’

  Two gunmen ran from the barn. Two more started barring the door, chaining it closed. Another had split off from the group and was doing something to the wall of one of the outbuildings, waving his arm at the plastered surface, rendering, painting. The others ran back to the cars, returned with jerry cans and started jerking them around the sides of the building, over the wooden sheds. The sharp mineral tang of gasoline filled the air.

  ‘They’re going to burn them,’ said Clay.

  Hope gasped.

  Clay sprang forward, moved across the stubble field at an even jog. A flaming bottle arced up, crashed onto the roof, exploded. Two more followed. In seconds, the roof was ablaze. Clay was metres now from the first car. Muffled screams rose from inside the barn, incredulous, animal wails, then the dull hammering of fists on wood. Within moments the building was engulfed in fire, the flames roaring like a turbine. Orange firelight jerked across the courtyard. Clay could already feel the heat on his face, smell the smoke pouring into the night.

  He was at the first car now, some sort of Japanese sedan, its lights pointing towards the inferno. Two men were walkin
g towards the car, backlit by the fire, eyes narrowed as they looked into the car’s headlights. One carried a jerry can, the other what looked like a tin of paint and a brush. Clay stepped towards them at a walk, as if he were one of them. In the darkness they didn’t register him as a threat until it was too late. Clay raised the Glock from five paces and put a .45 calibre bullet into each man’s chest. They toppled to the ground without a word.

  Clay crouched and darted back behind the car, out of the lights. The Glock was loud. Despite the roar of the fire, the other men turned towards the sound and saw their two comrades lying in the dirt. Shouting now, a voice of command, arms waving. Two men, one taller, the other short and overweight, both armed with shotguns, detached from the group and started moving towards Clay. The others started running towards the Land Cruiser, twenty metres to Clay’s left.

  Clay hugged the ground, looked out from under the car, watched the men’s feet approaching, the orange firelight jerking across the gravel. The others had reached the Land Cruiser. Doors opened, closed. The engine started, a tapping diesel, poorly tuned. The two men stopped next to the bodies of their comrades. A voice shouted out from the Land Cruiser. One of the men shouted back. There was a loud crash as a section of the barn’s roof caved in. Embers flooded the night sky. Clay took a deep breath. Bastards. He had to get to the barn, and quickly. He bounced into a crouch then moved along the right side of the car, keeping it between him and the men. The two were right there, just inside the throw of the headlights. Tall crouching down, examining his dead colleagues, Short looking back towards the Land Cruiser. Clay stood, widened his stance, steadied the Glock on his stump, fired three times. The first bullet hit Short in the side of the head, sent him pitching backwards into the dirt. The second missed altogether, hurtled away into the night. The third slammed full force into Tall’s trapezium. At that range, the heavy slug tore through the back of his neck, exploded milliseconds later from his lower back. He slumped face-first onto his prone colleague.

  Short was on his back, feet scrabbling in the dirt, blood streaming from the side of his head, squinting into the headlights. The bullet must have grazed him at low angle, deflected off the skull. Still on his back, he raised a sawn-off shotgun, aimed it at Clay. A hundredth of a second later the concussion of the charge exploding, loud, very close, shot spraying the car, tearing into metal, smashing glass. Clay felt himself picked up and thrown, kicked hard in the jaw, the right shoulder and upper chest. He fell to the ground, aware he’d been hit, the pain not coming yet, just the dull ache of impact. He rolled, looked under the car. Short was standing now, backpedalling towards the Land Cruiser. Another blast from the shotgun. The car lurched as the pellets slammed broadside into the windows and door panels, smashed out the front lights. Short was at the Land Cruiser now. A door opened. Outstretched hands pulled him inside. The vehicle’s engine roared. Gravel spat as the Land Cruiser swerved and sped away down the track.

  Clay sat up with his back against the car, put the Glock on the ground, raised his hand to his shoulder, felt the blood there, wet, gritty. He could see Hope and the old man running across the open field toward him, their faces a blur, painted in firelight like denizens of hell. He touched his fingertips to his face. His eyes were starting to swell shut and a thick, warm liquid trickled over his top lip and into his mouth and out over his chin and neck.

  He grabbed the pistol, pulled himself up and ran towards the barn.

  The heat hit him like a blast wave from a Cuban rocket, sucking the air from his lungs, searing his face. Doubled over, he moved towards the barn’s door. Long tentacles of flame reached out from under the door, searched their way up the planking. Clay raised the Glock and fired at the outline of the chain lock. The metal housing blew apart. He dropped the gun, pulled off his jacket, wrapped it around his hand and yanked the chain from the door. Then he stepped back, filled his lungs, the air thick and hot in his throat, grabbed one half of the door, pulled it open, and plunged into the flames.

  28

  The Killing Gene

  Everything was burning.

  Smoke and flame enveloped him. He fell to the ground, crawled forward, eyes streaming, blind, feeling with his stump. He hadn’t gone far, a few metres only, when his knee bumped something soft. He reached out with his hand. It was one of the villagers, lying on the ground near the door. Clay grabbed what felt like the man’s collar, staggered to his feet, started dragging him back towards the open doorway. The man was heavy, unconscious. Clay leant his left side towards the doorway, reached out into the burning air with his stump, jerked the body across the ground. His lungs screamed. He would have to breathe soon, flood his lungs with smoke. He pumped his legs, drove forward. A temperature gradient, the slightest cooling. A few more steps. He could sense an opening, feel a counter-current of air, oxygen being sucked in to fuel the fire. The doorway was close. His nervous system demanded: breathe. He groaned, let go of the man and with his last strength dove forward.

  The smoke caught in his lungs as he hit the ground, an acid wail. He crawled forward, sucking in cooler night air, vaguely aware now of Hope and the old man dragging the villager free of the barn, the crash as more of the roof caved in, a burning village of embers pouring from the open doorway, scattering the ground around him, a haemorrhaging carpet of glowing cinders. He staggered to his feet, breathed deep and quickly, hyperventilating, preparing for a deep dive. Then he turned and ran back inside the barn.

  This time he got further in, stuck to the same wall where he’d found the first villager, figured they’d huddle together for protection. He moved forward in a crouch, sweeping the ground ahead with his stump, like a blind man with a cane. Still nothing. He moved right, towards the wall. He had maybe another thirty seconds left. The heat was intensifying. He could feel it raw on his face, searing his skin, see it bright-red through his eyelids, smell it everywhere, the char of wood, the singe of hair, burning rubber and boiling metal. Nothing. Shit. He pushed ahead. Still no one. The heat boiled around him, a living turbulence that threw him back. He could go no further. He spun around, aimed for where he thought the doorway was. As he did, his left foot hit something, the unmistakeable give of living flesh. Clay swung back around, reached out with his hand. It was another of the villagers, unconscious. Clay crouched low, started pulling the man free. This one was smaller, lighter than the first. In a matter of seconds Clay had him clear of the barn.

  He collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

  Hope was there, crouching beside him, her hand on the back of his head. Clay retched, spluttered, the pain already starting to cut through the adrenaline. He twisted, pushed himself to his feet, tried to open his eyes. Through narrowed, streaming slits, he could see the barn engulfed in flame, the doorway like the maw of a roaring furnace. Three men were still inside. Clay took a step forward, started breathing.

  Hope grabbed him by the arm. ‘Don’t,’ she said over the din. ‘It’s over.’

  Clay took another step.

  ‘Please, Clay. You’ve done all you can.’

  He hung his head. She was right.

  They stood a moment watching the fire. Then, still holding his arm, she walked him over to the shot-ridden car where the old man had laid out the two villagers.

  The old man looked Clay over. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘Breathing,’ he said. ‘Thanks to you and Hope.’

  Clay looked back at the barn. ‘I’m sorry, I…’

  The old man nodded and handed Clay the Glock. ‘You must leave. The police will be here very soon.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I will tell them the truth. I was here meeting with my friends. Strangers came and…’ He glanced over to the courtyard wall. ‘Come.’

  Clay and Hope followed the man across the courtyard, the fire throwing quivering shadows across the ground. They stood and stared at the wall. Scrawled in blue paint over the whitewashed surface, Clay could just make out the wo
rds: ‘Remember Guenyeli.’ The Cyrillic characters were strong, almost exaggerated. Beneath the words was the symbol omega enveloping the letters N and E: the mark of Neo-Enosis.

  Sirens pulsed in the distance. Clay shook the old man’s hand and wished him luck.

  Hope kissed the old man on both cheeks, held him a moment. Tears streaked her face. ‘Come with us,’ she pleaded. ‘They will never know.’

  ‘These are my friends. Someone must help them.’

  ‘How will you explain the bodies?’

  ‘I will say the perpetrators argued amongst themselves.’

  ‘You will go to jail.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I think not. How can they know? Perhaps I will be a hero.’

  They could see flashing red-and-blue lights now, coming down from the village, the hum of engines.

  Hope kissed him again. Clay took her by the hand and pulled her away. They started off across the empty field at a run.

  They kept running through the night, the pyre’s orange glow chasing them, finally retreating as they neared the dunes, quiet returning like a salve, a cure. It was just gone three-thirty. A half-moon had risen, throwing silver shadows across the land. They found the dinghy, rowed out across the polished surface, the water tapping at the inflatable’s stretched skin like impatient fingers. Hope clambered aboard. Clay followed, hauled up the dinghy and lashed it to the foredeck. He fired up the diesel, left it idling in neutral, went forward and started bringing up the anchor. But it wouldn’t come. Clay reached over the side and tugged on the chain with his hand. It was taut, vertical.

  Clay clambered back to the cockpit.

  Hope was busy with the medical kit. She looked up. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Anchor’s caught. Fouled on something. I’ll use the engine.’ Clay took the wheel, put the engine in gear and motored forward slowly. Flame started ahead, then abruptly swung head-around as the anchor held. Clay tried again, this time moving parallel to shore. Same result. With the sandy bottom, there was no way the Danforth should foul like this. They were wasting valuable time. Clay throttled back to idle, put the engine in neutral, stripped down to his shorts and jumped over the side.