Peta came over and said, ‘I’m sorry about Saskia.’
‘Yes, well, so am I. But I’m much more sorry for the rest of us. Saskia got what she deserved. These kids don’t deserve any of this, and neither do you. Your dad always used to say that you and I should never have gotten married, didn’t he?’
‘My dad had black days, just like you. He was in Vietnam.’
‘I never knew that.’
‘Yes, he was in the Medical Corps. They had a serious shortfall of surgeons in those days, and he saw a lot of young men die who didn’t have to. So I think he understood what your djinns were all about.’
Martin stood up. He put his arms around her and said, ‘I love you, Peta. I never stopped loving you, even when I was going crazy. Maybe even more when I was going crazy. If we manage to get through this—’
She eased herself free from him. ‘Let’s get out of here first, shall we? Do you know how frightened I am? Do you know how frightened Tyler and Ella and all of those children are?’
Martin said nothing as she went back to the hollow behind the washing pool. Then he bent down and picked up his sub-machine gun. He had heard stories of Muslim fathers in Bosnia shooting their own families and then themselves, rather than let the Serbs get their hands on them, to torture them and rape them. Would he consider shooting Peta and Tyler and Ella and Santos and all of his grandchildren, rather than let them be burned alive, or whatever Joseph Wrack planned to do to them?
He wondered for a moment if Wrack would simply seal the crevice with concrete, in the way that the Serbs had sealed up Muslim mosques and cemeteries during the Bosnian conflict, but that would mean sealing the entrance to the lake, too. If Santos was right, the lake was more important than all of their lives. There had been gold in the Joshua Tree National Park, and there probably still was, but in the middle of this drought, Lost Girl Lake was worth much more than gold.
He walked back over to the hollow. ‘Anybody hungry? How about we all have something to eat? I know that none of us has much of an appetite, but we need to keep our strength up.’
The first explosion was devastating. It made a flat, hard sound, as if two bricks had been banged together very close to their ears. The shock wave that followed it made the surface of the lake ripple, all the way into the darkness of the inner cavern, and then splash fretfully against the ledge. They were all stunned, and the little ones stood with their hands pressed to their ears, temporarily deafened.
Dust and smoke rolled into the cavern through the crevice, but as it dissipated they could see much more sunlight streaming in than it had before, and they could also see that the floor of the cavern was strewn with thousands of fragments of broken granite.
Martin realized at once what Joseph Wrack was doing. He had ordered his men to fire their rocket-propelled grenade launcher at the entrance to the crevice, blasting open a much wider hole for them to attack the cavern. He should have guessed that was what Wrack would do, because he had done the same in Afghanistan to penetrate Taliban fortifications. Each grenade contained over 700 grams of high explosive, and it would take only two or three to open up the crevice to three times its original width.
‘Everybody, get right down!’ he shouted, just as a second grenade exploded. This time, granite chippings rained down on them and bounced across the floor like hailstones, and the sound of the blast echoed deep in the unexplored depths of Lost Girl Lake.
Martin was lying flat, and he lifted his head to make sure that the others were all doing the same. Susan was actually lying on top of George and Mina, while Peta and Tyler and Ella had their arms around each other. Santos was lying a few feet off to his left, and lifted up his head, too. They exchanged looks that both meant: this is it. Whoever we believe in, God or Gitche Manitou, please don’t let any of us suffer.
There was a third explosion, and this time huge lumps of rock thundered down, and part of the rock face collapsed, so that the sun came bursting into the cavern as dazzling as an A-bomb test. Shielding his eyes, Martin saw Joseph Wrack stepping over the rubble with his flame-thrower in his hands, and his three men following behind him, two with their carbines raised and the third with a pistol.
‘Throw that weapon away, Makepeace!’ said Joseph Wrack, hoarsely. ‘Far as you can! Don’t get up! Just throw it!’
Martin took hold of the Colt Commando by its barrel and slung it sideways across the cavern floor. Immediately, one of Joseph Wrack’s men came crunching through the grit to pick it up.
Joseph Wrack looked down at them, lying prone, and reached out with his left hand for the flame-thrower’s igniter safety-catch, which was just behind the nozzle.
He walked right up to Martin now, and he spoke so softly, as he usually did, that only Martin could hear him.
‘Ever heard that expression, “you’re toast”?’
Martin lifted his head and looked up at him. ‘I’m asking you, Wrack. No, all right, I’m not asking you, I’m pleading with you. You can cremate me if you want to. But please don’t hurt my family. Please don’t hurt any of these children. They’re totally innocent. They’ve done nothing. They’re only here because I brought them here, for the water.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Joseph Wrack. ‘The water.’
He looked across at Lost Girl Lake. Now that the sun was shining into the cavern, the water was even clearer than ever. Joseph Wrack walked slowly over to the edge of the ledge and stared down at it. He craned his neck to look up at the cathedral-like ceiling, with its tier upon tier of granite, and then he looked back into the water again. He seemed to be mesmerized, as if he were thinking of all the power and wealth that this lake could give him. Lake Wrack.
After a moment, he knelt down on one knee. Holding the hose of his flame-thrower well out of the way to one side, he dipped his left hand into the water and brought it up to his lips to taste it.
‘Not you!’ shouted Santos.
Joseph Wrack turned, frowning. Santos had climbed to his feet and was stalking toward him, shaking both of fists in fury.
‘Not you! That is sacred water! That water belongs to my people, and to the people my people choose to share it with! And we would never share our water with you, you murderer of children!’
Joseph Wrack stood up. ‘You listen to me, you old coot, you’d better lie down again, right now, or else it’s going to be the worse for you. And that’s a promise.’
But Santos continued storming toward him, throwing aside his Panama hat.
‘You murdered my grandson! You will not drink even one drop of our sacred water!’
Joseph Wrack’s security guards raised their carbines but Joseph Wrack lifted his left hand, palm raised, as a signal that he was going to take care of this, himself.
Santos was still at least twenty feet away from him when Joseph Wrack lifted up the hose of his flame-thrower and pointed it at him. He pressed the firing button on his igniter, and then the firing trigger. There was a high-pitched screech of pressurized gas and then Santos was enveloped in a two-second fountain of fire.
Santos stopped and stood still, blazing from head to foot, The flames were so fierce that Martin could only dimly see him, a shadowy outline with his fists still raised. He was burning, but he didn’t scream, and he didn’t fall to the ground. It was like watching one of those Buddhist monks burning, stoical to the last, in spite of the agony.
Martin was about to stand up himself when Santos took one lurching step forward, and then another. Joseph Wrack backed away from him, but then Santos suddenly rushed at him, like some terrible fiery nemesis, with a soft but audible roar of flames. Joseph Wrack was right on the very edge of the ledge, and Santos hurled himself on top of him, so that he toppled backward, with Santos clutching him tight. As they hit the water, there was a crackling and hissing of steam, and Joseph Wrack let out a crawwwkkk! that sounded more like a crow than a human.
Joseph Wrack’s three security guards ran to the edge of the lake, but for a moment they all stood there helplessly, not kno
wing what they could do. The water was so clear that they could see it was over thirty feet deep, and they were all dressed in combat gear. One of them, however, started to unbuckle his body armor.
Santos was charred black, and his clothes were in tatters, but he continued to cling on to Joseph Wrack, head-butting him whenever he tried to lift his face out of the water. Joseph Wrack was thrashing and struggling wildly but his flame-thrower pack was weighing him down, too. When its fuel tanks were almost full it weighed over sixty-five pounds.
Martin stood up and crossed quickly over to the side of the cavern, where they had stacked their boxes of food. As he did so, he prayed that none of the security guards would see what he was doing and take a shot at him. By now, however, the security guard who had taken off his armor had also unlaced his boots and kicked them off, and was preparing to dive into the water, while the other two were kneeling by the edge of the water, stretching out their hands as far as they could to see if they could catch hold of Santos’s legs.
Martin picked up his second Colt Commando and walked back toward the edge of the lake. By the time he got there, Joseph Wrack had managed to roll over, so that Santos was underneath him, but he could see that Santos’ arms were still clamped around his waist. The flesh of Santos’ fingers was seared black and scarlet, and some of the bones were exposed, like barbecued ribs. Martin couldn’t even imagine what pain he was in.
Joseph Wrack was spluttering and gasping and grunting but he was doing everything he could to keep Santos’ head under the surface.
The security guard dived into the water next to them, surfacing and shaking the water out of his eyes. He was about to seize hold of Joseph Wrack’s ankle when Martin shouted, ‘Freeze! Don’t move! Any of you!’
One of the security guards kneeling by the edge of the ledge lunged toward his carbine, which he had left lying on the ground beside him, but Martin snapped, ‘Freeze, I told you!’ and he froze. Martin stalked around him, picked up his carbine and tossed it well out of reach. He then picked up the other guard’s weapon, and the holstered pistol that the guard in the lake had left behind him, and threw them after it.
‘Tyler!’ he called, and Tyler stood up and collected them.
‘Mr Wrack’s drowning, for Christ’s sake,’ said one of the security guards, in a panicky, strangled voice. ‘You can’t just let him drown!’
‘I don’t intend to,’ said Martin. ‘You,’ he told the security guard in the water, ‘pull them to the edge here.’
‘Help me!’ blurted Joseph Wrack. ‘Help me!’
The security guard took hold of the leg of Santos’ pants, but as he did so, Santos released his hold on Joseph Wrack and sank. His lungs must have been filled with water, because he went down as quickly as a sinking rowboat, and the lake was so clear that they could see him dropping slowly all the way down to the bottom.
Joseph Wrack rolled over again, now that he no longer had Santos underneath him, acting as ballast. His eyes were closed now, and his lips were purple.
The security guard in the water said, ‘Roy! Vernon! Help me get him out here! He needs CPR, and quick!’
He dragged Joseph Wrack to the ledge and his two companions reached down and heaved their boss out of the water, and laid him on his side.
‘Get this goddamned flame-thrower off of him!’ said one of them. Hunkering down beside him, he unbuckled the belt around his waist. He was starting to wrestle off the shoulder straps when Joseph Wrack shuddered, and convulsed, and blurted out half a lungful of water. He opened his eyes and looked up at the security guard who was trying to take off his flame-thrower harness, and then he tried to sit up.
‘It’s OK, Mr Wrack, let’s just get you out of this thing, shall we?’
But Joseph Wrack pushed him irritably away, and coughed up more water.
‘Sir – you almost drowned – you need to—’
‘Get the fuck off me, will you?’ Joseph Wrack grated. He turned his head around, trying to orient himself. ‘Goddamned lunatic – pushing me into the water like that – what the fuck did he think he was doing?’
‘He was burning to death, that’s what he was doing,’ said Martin, very loudly. ‘He was burning to death and he wanted to take you with him.’
Joseph Wrack looked up. When he saw that Martin was holding a sub-machine gun and that his own men were unarmed, he said, ‘What? What the fuck is going on here?’
The security guard who had dived in to save him was just climbing out of the water. ‘Sorry, Mr Wrack,’ he said. ‘We were more interested in saving you. We didn’t realize he had another weapon.’
Joseph Wrack’s lips slowly stretched back to bare his long, narrow teeth, and he actually snarled. The security guard who had been trying to take off his flame-thrower was making a second clumsy attempt to unfasten his buckles, but again Joseph Wrack pushed him away, so ferociously that the man staggered backward and almost lost his balance. He picked up the nozzle of his flame-thrower and pressed the igniter button, and then he took hold of the firing grip and swung the hose around so that it was pointing toward Martin.
Without hesitation, Martin fired a burst of five shots at him, and he jolted with the impact as they hit him. The fifth bullet was a tracer round, which flared bright red as it flashed out of the barrel of Martin’s Colt Commando and ripped into Joseph Wrack’s chest. All of the bullets went right through him and punctured the gasoline tanks that were strapped to his back – Martin heard the metallic bang as every one of them hit home. But the tracer round, filled with incandescent magnesium, ignited the gasoline instantly.
Joseph Wrack blew up. Martin, half-deafened by firing his Colt Commando, heard almost nothing but a dull, reverberating thud. But blood and body parts and shrapnel and pieces of twisted harness were blasted in all directions. There was an extraordinary roar as his body was engulfed by fire, almost as if the fire were some voracious animal that wanted to devour what was left of him.
His three security guards were all knocked to the ground by the explosion. It looked to Martin as if the one who had been trying to remove his flame-thrower was dead. The other two were lying side by side, their faces blackened and their hair scorched, but one of them was already trying to sit up, and the other was stirring.
Martin turned back to Peta and Tyler and Ella and Santos’ grandchildren. None of the children were crying. They all looked too shocked.
He went up to Peta and put his arm around her.
‘My God,’ she said. ‘You saved us. All except for poor Santos. You saved our lives.’
Martin looked back at the grisly remains of Joseph Wrack, still burning fiercely like an effigy that had fallen from the top of a bonfire. He didn’t know what to say. As soon as he had seen Joseph Wrack coming down the valley with his flame-thrower, he had thought that none of them could expect to survive. Now the smoke from Joseph Wrack’s body was drifting out of the cavern and into the morning sunshine, and they were still alive.
He walked over to the edge of the ledge and looked down into the lake. He could see Santos lying on the bottom, but he knew that it wouldn’t be long before he would rise back up to the surface and they could lift him out.
He went across to the two security guards and said, ‘How many choppers did you bring in? I heard two.’
One of the security guards nodded, and coughed. ‘Two, yes.’
‘Any more of you goons still up there?’
‘Only the pilots. There was only five of us altogether, not counting Mr Wrack.’
‘Can you get in touch with them?’
The security guard held up his two-way radio. Looking at his soot-smudged face more closely, Martin could see how young he was. Only a kid, underneath that body armor and that military-style uniform. But Martin remembered that when he and his buddies had first been sent to Afghanistan, they had all been kids, too, even though they had believed that they were men. You never see yourself as others see you.
‘Tell them that everything’s going to plan. Tell them to
wait a while longer. You have some mopping up to do, that’s all.’
The security guard hesitated, but Martin pointed his Colt Commando at him and said, ‘Look at me. Go on. Just look at me. Do I look like I’m in the mood for you to piss me off? People have died here today. You do what I tell you or I’ll shoot you between your legs and then see how your life turns out.’
The security guard clicked his mike and said, ‘Eye-Sky Two. Eye-Sky Two.’
A crackly voice said, ‘Eye-Sky Two, Go ahead, Rick.’
‘Everything’s good down here. We just have to tidy up some.’
‘How long’s that going to take?’
Martin held up one finger and the security guard said, ‘Maybe an hour. Just hold on there, OK?’
‘Let me talk to Mr Wrack.’
‘Mr Wrack? Sorry, Lief. Mr Wrack’s kind of involved right now. I’ll have him get back to you.’
Martin patted the security guard on the back and said, ‘Good for you. Well done.’ Then he tugged the radio away from his shoulder, dropped it on the ground and stamped on it. He kicked the crushed remains in the direction of Joseph Wrack’s smoking corpse.
‘Just in case you go off message, if you know what I mean.’
He went back to Peta and the children.
‘I don’t know about you, but I don’t think we can stay here any longer, not the way we are now. They’ve burned our tents. They’ve opened up the cavern to the elements, and any stray coyotes that might want to come prowling in here. These security guys know where Lost Girl Lake is located now, and we can’t just kill them in cold blood, or expect them to keep quiet about it when they get back to the city, because they won’t.’
He reached out and took hold of little Mina’s hand. ‘Apart from that, we’ve lost the only person who knew how to survive out here in the desert. I don’t know which plants you can eat and which ones you can’t. I don’t know how to toast flower seeds and make them into cakes.’
‘I can cook,’ said Mina. ‘Mommy teached me how to make brownies.’
‘That was out of a packet, stupid,’ said Nathan. ‘They don’t have packets in the desert.’
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