Freefall

by Adam Hamdy

  It had taken a month of quiet persuasion for Vosuruk to finally understand that the strange westerner did not pose a threat to his people. Wallace had shown Vosuruk photographs and accompanying articles from his previous stints in Afghanistan and his work in Iraq, Somalia, and other troubled regions around the world. He’d explained that he wanted to document the life of a people for whom war never seemed to end. Like the other tribes of Nuristan, the Kom had been fighting almost ceaselessly for more than forty years, ever since leading an uprising against the Afghan Communist Government in the seventies. Children had been born and died knowing nothing but conflict, and Wallace wanted to show the world what life was like for a people who lived with ceaseless war, where the insignia on the enemy’s uniform was the only thing that ever changed.

  Wallace’s impassioned rationale had affected Vosuruk and finally, in early March, he and Guktec had taken Wallace into “c’er to”—the high country. Wallace hadn’t ridden for years, but his confidence soon returned and he was able to avoid disgracing himself as he’d followed the expert horsemen into the mountains. With ancestors who’d resisted Islamification in the late nineteenth century, decades of tribal warfare, and almost half a century of foreign interventionist conflict, the Kom had learned how to conduct military operations in a way that minimized their impact on daily life. Wallace was not surprised when, during their ride up to the snow-capped peaks, Vosuruk had revealed that he played a key role in organizing the militia and that Guktec was one of its leading lieutenants.

  Wallace had been led to a gurk’ata vo—a large cavern—two days’ ride from Kamdesh, where twenty-five warriors lived when they weren’t engaged in operations against the Taliban. Vosuruk explained that his people had been instrumental in the Northern Alliance and had led the struggle against the Taliban government. They had no desire to see a return to those dark days, so now they worked within a loosely organized Nuristani force to fight the largely foreign insurgents who operated from bases in Northern Pakistan. Some of the men spoke rudimentary English and Vosuruk translated for the rest. After overcoming their initial suspicion and reticence, Wallace had spent three days getting to know the men, who were all from Kamdesh and ranged in age from sixteen to forty-five. Winter closed many of the passes to Pakistan, limiting the opportunity for action, but with the advent of spring, all of them had been expecting to see combat very soon.

  The older warriors had fought many enemies. The eldest, Malik, remembered running ammunition up to his father during the war against the Soviets. The men had spoken of friends who’d died, the enemies they’d killed, and the dishonorable “dillik,” which Wallace gathered meant “rats,” who sold them weapons. Most of all, they had talked about their families and the toll taken by their absence in the mountains. Living in a perpetual state of war for four decades necessitated sacrifice, and every able Kom man spent six months of the year in the high country, fighting. Service was carried out in two-month rotations so that the men could have time with their families and attend to their land and livestock. Like the British and American soldiers Wallace had known, these men missed their wives and children and longed for an end to conflict. When they finally trusted Wallace enough to let him photograph them, he’d seen that their eyes were haunted by a painful longing for something none of them could remember: peace.

  Wallace had watched Vosuruk and the men consulting old maps and knew that they were preparing for an operation, but his host had refused to discuss it and said that it would be inhospitable to place his guest in danger. Wallace knew this was simply a polite way for Vosuruk to say that he still didn’t trust the strange Englishman and his camera. The Kom did not have many positive experiences of westerners. The British had handed Nuristan to the Afghans, the Soviets had tried to overrun their country, and the Americans had come in anger, to avenge the deaths of thousands of innocents.

  After three days and over fifty saleable photographs, Wallace and Vosuruk had returned to Kamdesh. Guktec had stayed with the fighters to begin his rotation, and, as they’d ridden back through the mountains, Vosuruk had spoken of his hopes for his children and his people. He longed for the comforts of a Western life, for education, and for a time when Nuristan was no longer touched by war. Wallace listened sympathetically. He knew the pain of longing for something that was beyond reach, but had said nothing of his own dark experiences.

  On their first night back in Kamdesh, Wallace had shown Vosuruk his laptop and the satellite uplink that enabled him to transmit the photographs to Getty Images, where they would be sold to any interested buyers. When Vosuruk saw them uploaded, and finally understood that Wallace was genuine in his desire to portray the truth of their struggle, he’d quietly assured his guest that he would soon have the opportunity to document one of their operations. Vosuruk had said no more about the subject, and, after almost four weeks of diligent patience, Wallace wondered whether his host had changed his mind.

  “Pam’o gu Soa,” Kurik said, pointing at his father’s brightly lit house.

  Wallace smiled, guessing that Kurik’s remark had something to do with the celebration that he’d purposefully tried to avoid. Vosuruk’s second son, Druni, a quiet, thoughtful man in his late twenties, was taking his third wife, Arani.

  The forest thinned as Wallace and Kurik reached the edge of town and the fragrant smell of cedar was replaced by the ripe scent of livestock and the aroma of food. Kurik led Wallace along the narrow track that ran up to his father’s house, and, when Wallace hesitated by the door to the ground-floor stable, he insisted, “No. Come.”

  Reluctantly, Wallace followed him up the ladder that rested against the stable wall, climbing on to a balcony that was built on the roof of the adjacent house. Kurik ushered him through the open doors into the main room, which was packed with happy friends and family, dressed in their most colorful clothes, all talking excitedly about Druni and Arani and their life together. Wallace could not help but notice that Somol and Bozor, Druni’s first and second wives, sat slightly apart from the rest of the group, and he wondered how they felt about the union.

  The wedding party stood on a huge, intricately woven colored rug that covered most of the floor. In prime position in the center of the room, a roasted goat was proudly displayed, surrounded by a rich banquet.

  “Welcome, Tr’ok Si’ol,” Vosuruk boomed from across the room.

  Most of his guests hadn’t noticed Wallace enter and now they turned to look at the reluctant westerner. Hearty cheers rang out, echoing their host’s sentiments, and Wallace shrank back slightly.

  “I didn’t want to intrude,” he explained.

  “T’chah!” Vosuruk waved dismissively, as if to indicate that Wallace had been guilty of great foolishness. “Now we can eat.” He signaled to his guests, who needed no further encouragement and set about the feast with enthusiasm. “Camera,” Vosuruk shouted above the hubbub, and it suddenly occurred to Wallace that his attendance wasn’t purely social.

  “Of course.” Wallace nodded, and he hurried from the room, clambered down the ladder and opened the stable door carefully, so as not to allow any of Vosuruk’s goats to escape.

  Three bridled horses pulled at their tethers in an effort to nuzzle Wallace as he crossed the room, making for the small partitioned space that had been his home for over two months. He drew back a hanging drape and placed his large camera bag on the low but surprisingly comfortable straw cot, then selected the 750, which would give him better performance in low light than the D4, and opted for the 50mm f/1.4 lens. Just as he was replacing the Peli lens case in his camera bag, he heard an unfamiliar sound outside. Hurrying from the stable, he climbed the ladder to find Vosuruk and Druni standing on the balcony peering up at the sky, their faces suddenly solemn.

  “What is it?” Wallace asked as his ears tried to identify the low throbbing that was growing louder with each passing moment.

  Vosuruk looked at Wallace, his eyes uncharacteristically fearful, his voice alive with apprehension. “Helicopters.”


  3

  They’d started burrowing the moment he’d come out of the coma, and the depressions they dug deepened every day. Physically, the bullets were long gone and scars covered the places where they’d torn into his body, but their psychological damage haunted him. Patrick Bailey wore a convincing mask of professionalism, and he doubted whether Superintendent Cross had noticed any change. His colleagues might have caught him drifting during a conversation, but it was only his family and old friends, like Salamander, who recognized the lingering effects of his shooting. His life was smaller, darker, and Bailey felt vulnerable, fearful—mortal. He’d noticed it in hospital, where he’d found himself jumping at unexpected noises and treating passing strangers with suspicion. Even after his doctor had given him the all-clear and he’d started his physical therapy, Bailey worried that they’d missed one or more of the bullet fragments—that deadly metal was lodged somewhere in his veins and would one day be dislodged to flow to his brain or heart, killing him instantly.

  Once this fear had taken root, Bailey found it impossible to shake. And the ghostly bullets, like burrowing insects, kept digging into his insecure mind and throwing up new filth. A residual blood clot lingered near his lungs; the stress and strain on his heart had weakened it; the coma had changed his sinus rhythm, making him prone to stroke. As their burrows grew bigger, the parasites became stronger, adding new fears, which compounded Bailey’s stress. The Met’s resident psychotherapist, Jean Davis, a thoughtful woman with a dark little office off Edgware Road, tried to talk Bailey through the aftermath of trauma, and explained that anxiety would manifest itself in physical symptoms. She tried to teach him techniques to cope with his fears, and Bailey smiled and pretended to learn, so that by the end of his mandated six weekly sessions, Jean would declare him fit for duty and the force would have no hint of the damage being done by the terrors conjured by his paranoid mind.

  During calmer moments, Bailey told himself he was being irrational and knew that Jean was right: he was just as fit, healthy, and capable as he’d been before Pendulum shot him, and his fears were unfounded. But whenever rationality threatened to take hold, the evil parasites burrowed deeper and revealed some new horror to unbalance him and push him into the grip of panic. Bailey had sacrificed so much of himself, saving John Wallace from Pendulum, and it had taken months of intense physical therapy for him to recover from the shooting. He’d been commended for his bravery, but he didn’t think there was anything brave about his actions. He’d simply done what was necessary, and he had paid a heavy price. His body was better, but he feared that his mind might never recover.

  So Bailey spent his days pretending to be the detective he once was, wearing a smile like an ill-fitting mask, feigning competence like an actor in a TV cop show. At night he became reclusive and withdrew from those who knew him best, so that they would not question him about the changes they’d seen, and, through voicing their concerns, give his anxiety even more power. He set his intellect against his fear and tried to solve the problem, spending lonely evenings in his flat researching ways to combat anxiety. But every new fact only seemed to give the parasites greater power and each new revelation only seemed to stimulate a new fear. Finally, he realized that logic was no match for primal irrationality. He’d come close to seeing his doctor, but didn’t want anxiety or mental health issues flagged on his record, so he’d resigned himself to the hope that time would heal him, and forced his way through each day trying to ignore the growing feeling that death waited for him at the end of every step.

  A uniformed officer walked in front of his car and Bailey slammed on the brake. The seatbelt snapped tight as he jerked forward, and he felt his heart start to race as he realized that he’d almost run the man over. The young officer moved to the driver’s window and knocked on the glass.

  “Sorry, sir, the street’s closed,” the officer said.

  “DI Bailey,” Bailey replied, fumbling for his warrant card.

  “Park anywhere on the left,” the PC instructed, stepping away to move the barricade that blocked the road.

  Bailey waved his thanks as he drove on, shaken by the manner of his arrival. His efforts to combat his anxiety so consumed him that he often found himself retreating into his mind, becoming oblivious to the outside world. He relied on autopilot to keep him functioning, but now and again it was starting to fail. He would miss entire sections of the daily briefing, or set out for a location and end up somewhere else. This time his autopilot had succeeded in bringing him to the right place; Ufton Grove, a short residential street that was either in South Dalston or North Islington, depending on whether you were buying or selling one of the four-story Georgian terrace properties. But he was unnerved that he’d nearly collided with the uniform and concerned at his inability to recall most of his journey through London’s busy streets.

  Bailey pulled into a space marked by police cones, behind one of the two liveried police cars that were on the scene. The forensics truck was parked directly outside number 112, an end-of-terrace home located on the southeastern corner of the street.

  He turned away from the low afternoon sun slanting through the branches of the budding blossom trees and hurried across the street into a tiny garden. As he walked up a stone path set between patches of brushed gravel that swept like a frozen sea around a handful of pot plants, Bailey willed himself to focus. He challenged himself to rise above his anxiety and to allow his keen eye and incisive mind to truly connect with the world. A detective cut off by fear was no use to anyone.

  A shabby-looking man waited for Bailey on the threshold. Greasy black curly hair fell around a lard-white, puffy face.

  “DI Bailey?” the man asked as he offered his hand. “DS Murrall. Call me Jack. Thanks for coming.”

  Bailey shook Murrall’s clammy hand and wondered whether the sheen of perspiration that covered his face was a sign of nerves or ill health. Murrall’s poorly fitting, cheap suit was speckled with patchy stains—he looked more like a deadbeat traveling salesman than a cop.

  “Happy to help,” Bailey replied with a smile. “What you got?”

  “Upstairs,” Murrall said as he headed inside.

  Bailey felt an arrhythmical thump in his chest, and fear instantly shrank the world to nothing. He paused by the front door, aware that he was incapable of doing his job until the wave of panic had subsided. His mind turned inward, studying his body for further signs of imminent death. He longed to take his pulse, but knew he was being watched.

  “You OK?” Murrall asked.

  “Sure. Just getting my bearings,” Bailey lied.

  As suddenly as it had arrived, Bailey was through the tunnel of panic and the sensory world burst into life all around him. He became aware of his own reflection in a large, gilt-framed mirror that hung in the white hallway. You’ve aged, he thought, looking at his haunted eyes. The rest of his body hadn’t markedly changed since the shooting, but he knew he was carrying a few more pounds on his previously athletic frame, and a close observer would notice that his dark skin was blemished by traces of stress-induced acne.

  He followed Murrall up a narrow staircase. The thick green carpet reminded Bailey of a stately home, and the red runner, complete with brass fixings, suggested old-fashioned class combined with easy access to money. Family photographs lined the stairs. An attractive couple, both lean, both exuding confidence, smiled with two handsome young boys.

  “Sylvia Greene,” Murrall noted as they climbed the first flight of stairs. “Editor of the London Record.”

  “I thought I recognized the name,” Bailey observed.

  “Husband is Connor Greene. He’s a graphic designer,” Murrall continued. “The two boys are Hector and Joseph. They’re at their cousins’.”

  “The mother?” Bailey asked, studying a portrait photograph of Sylvia. He saw it now, a familiar look in her eyes that lay well concealed beneath the confident ease—a haunting.

  Murrall nodded. “She’s upstairs,” he said, indicating
another flight of steps.

  Bailey followed the rotund detective, who was already slightly out of breath. He glanced into the family’s bedrooms as they crossed the landing and saw that even the boys’ were immaculately well ordered. The furniture was an eclectic mix of antiques that looked as though it had been cobbled together at numerous estate sales. Creating this casually beautiful family home had taken a great deal of careful effort. Bailey noted more silver-framed family portraits on an occasional table that stood at the foot of the next flight of stairs. He followed Murrall up to a tiny landing set in the eaves of the roof. Two doors led off the small space. Bailey sensed activity in the room that lay to the right and followed Murrall inside.

  Sylvia Greene’s body was hanging from an exposed rafter. A couple of forensics officers working in their white overalls acknowledged Murrall as he and Bailey entered.

  “They haven’t finished,” Murrall said, “but I wanted you to see her. See why we called you.”

  Bailey noticed the similarities immediately. The rope around Sylvia Greene’s neck was the same gauge as the one found in John Wallace’s flat, and, like Wallace, Sylvia was in her underwear.

  “Is that blood?” Bailey asked, noting deep red droplets on the green carpet.

  “We think so,” Murrall answered. “She isn’t wounded, so we think she might have cut an assailant.”

  “May I?” Bailey said, stepping forward.

  “Sure.” Murrall nodded, and Bailey continued toward the body.

  “Who found her?” Bailey asked as he studied the scene.

  “The husband, Connor Greene.”

  Bailey concentrated on his surroundings and tried not to think about the man’s profound horror as he discovered his dead wife. A large leather-topped desk stood beneath a Velux window which was cut into the sloped roof. The desktop was neatly presented: a laptop, ordered piles of paper, more family photographs, a pot of pens and pencils—nothing looked out of place apart from the captain’s chair that lay on its side directly beneath the body. Bailey drew close to Sylvia and studied her fingers, which hung at head height. Her nails were ragged and broken and had a great deal of dirt and material pressed beneath them. He looked up, and felt himself go light-headed as he gazed at death. Bodies never used to bother him, but now he had to fight the urge to run, to get as far away as possible. He forced back his fear and concentrated on Sylvia’s neck, which was raw with scratch marks, where she’d tried to rip away the noose. The abrasions were bright red and her skin wasn’t yet showing the bluish tinge of the long dead—the body hadn’t been hanging for more than a few hours. Bailey looked beyond her lank blonde hair to the rafter, where the heavy rope pressed tightly against the hard wood.