Dead Boy Walking

by David Brining

  #30. VILLA AL-SEKEM, AJLOUN, JORDAN

  Thursday July 16, 21:23

  THE LITTLE blue Golf bounced wildly over the rutted desert road towards Al-Sekem's villa, Hamza Madani cursing as he wrenched the steering wheel round ninety degrees and sent the car skittering sideways through a bend on loose, pebble-strewn sand. Overhead, two black Chinook helicopters shadowed their progress, the deafening roar of the double rotors drowning the rattle of the Volkswagen's engine and churning the dust into thick, swirling clouds. Black-clad commandoes were emerging from the olive groves and orange trees, spraying the sky with long bursts of brightly coloured tracer bullets which reminded Ali of the celebratory fireworks that had marked the start of the Jerash Festival. Ropes fell from the choppers, a dozen black-clad men clinging on like grapes on a vine, sliding into the compound out of sight, the shooting began and the Chinooks swooped away again as an explosion illuminated the razor-wire and those huge steel doors inscribed AL-SEKEM ENTERPRISES.

  Skidding to a halt alongside the abandoned X5 they noticed the driver's door was gaping open like some horrendous wound or the black maw of a waiting predator.

  ''Booby-trap!'' yelled Ali. ''Leave it!''

  He leapt from the car, flinging the stupid turban aside, and raced up the slope towards the terrace feeling for his mobile phone. He was going to detonate the bomb, blow up the villa, erase the whole damned thing. Behind him the shooting intensified and grenades popped against the factory gates. Four Rottweilers charged out, barking, snapping, foaming with fury, engulfed within a screaming, whirling hailstorm of bullets.

  The sleeping pool lay smooth and glassy under the stars. The bomb was under the deep-end, close to the aluminium ladder. Ali weighed the Nokia in his palm. Hash Five would do it.

  There was a sudden flash of white in the darkness. Al-Sekem, crouching, leaping, crashed into him like a charging polar bear and tumbled him into the pool. The water was surprisingly cold. Ali's head broke the surface. He coughed and spat out the chlorinated water. Surging up, Al-Sekem embraced him from behind in an octopus-grip, dragging him to the white-tiled bottom.

  Ali clutched the Nokia tightly but, with his arms pinned to his sides, he could not press the keys. Anyway, he did not really want the device to explode under his own feet. Just don't drop it, he urged, and lashed at Al-Sekem's shins with his heels. He made no impression underwater but he was not panicking, just carefully releasing his breath in slow streams of tiny silver bubbles. He thought he had more lung capacity than Al-Sekem and anyway, he had a plan.

  Prising off the waterlogged boots with his toes, he slid the satin trousers down his thighs as another shiny bubble broke the surface. His chest was swelling, his eyes were beginning to pop, his lungs were starting to strain. He fed more air through his lips and kicked free from the pants. He caught them in his hand. The boots had sunk out of reach. Al-Sekem jerked him violently, crushing him again.

  Just as Ali felt his chest threatening to burst, Al-Sekem pushed upwards into the air to suck in a fresh lungful. Seizing the chance, Ali slammed his head back into his captor's face. Something crushed against his skull. Al-Sekem roared with pain. Ali bent the man's gold-ringed fingers back as he fought to escape the stifling octopus-grip.

  Al-Sekem took another deep breath, pinned Ali's upper arms against his sides and plunged underwater again, manoeuvring him against the tiled wall so he could squash him. Ali felt his lungs squeezed by the pressure of the man's chest on his back. Now he was almost immobile. Al-Sekem was shaking him, trying to make him drop the phone. He lashed back with his heel, tried to head-butt again. Nothing happened. Al-Sekem, standing on the floor of the pool, was slowly crushing the breath from his body. Silver discs dribbled up from his lips. His lungs strained. Black spots danced before his eyes. Al-Sekem pressed again. Ali could feel the tiles, cold and smooth, against his cheek. His fingers were numbing in the cold water. He dared not drop the phone. He had to act, and act now, before he passed out.

  Bracing himself, he slid his hands and knees up the tiles and heaved against his captor with every ounce of his remaining strength. As Al-Sekem was forced a pace backwards, Ali managed to get his feet up too. His chest hurt and his vision blurred but he pushed strongly once again and extended his legs to their full length. This time Al-Sekem, still clutching Ali against his chest, staggered and slipped. Ali got his heel to Al-Sekem's knee and trod down as hard as he could. Al-Sekem opened his mouth, swallowed water, coughed, spluttered and, releasing his grip, struck for the surface.

  Ali shot upwards, gulping down another massive lungful of air as his head popped through. Al-Sekem, still coughing, was floundering. Ali whipped him hard across the face with the wet trousers then wrapped them round Al-Sekem's head. He swam for the side, clambered out, tore off the waistcoat and raced back to the house shouting for Hamza but Al-Sekem was already coming, ripping the trousers away, heaving himself from the water, peeling back the soaking white jacket, coming after him, through the doorway, dark glasses gone, water streaming from the gelled black hair and dripping onto the night-black shirt.

  ''Ali Al-Amin.'' Al-Sekem's nostrils flared. ''I will kill you with my own bare hands.''

  Ali backed towards the table. ''Give it up, Moustapha. It's over.''

  As though in confirmation, an explosion rent the night, rocking the villa and shooting a jagged, orange plume into the sky. A wind-turbine swayed alarmingly, one of the steel hawsers that held it upright snapping with a vicious crack.

  Al-Sekem scooped up one of the heavy, ornate chairs and hurled it at Ali, who dived to the right. The chair glanced off his left arm. It hurt like hell. He grabbed a candlestick off the table and flung it at Al-Sekem. It missed. Al-Sekem laughed coldly.

  Pivoting on his right heel, Ali shot a slapping snap-kick at the jaw and a roundhouse at the ribs. The impact stung his wet feet. His third kick missed altogether.

  Almost lazily, Al-Sekem caught his ankle. After a momentary consideration, he smashed his elbow into Ali's knee then flipped the boy over and flung him head-first and screaming along the length of the polished wooden table, his flailing limbs sending crockery and cutlery flying to the floor. He skidded off the end and crashed painfully into the marble steps that led to the picture-window. The coffee-table shattered against the steps showering him with splinters of glass. Another chair burst into matchwood somewhere close to his face. He could feel blood on his head, a sharp pain in his knee and a dull fire in his left arm. The baggy white shirt was shredded to rags. He was a sitting-duck.

  Struggling into a sitting position, he shuffled sideways to his right and inched up the steps on his bottom. He wanted Al-Sekem to think he was going to try to escape through the window so he would throw a sculpture and break the glass. But he didn't. Instead he scooped up a chair-leg and, stepping to the edge of the thick white rug, smacked it hard into his palm.

  ''This is a strong, solid chunk of wood,'' he said. ''What Uthman did to Hisham, I shall do to you, and then, my dear Master Amin, I shall beat out your brains.'' Hefting the leg, he strode decisively into the centre of the rug.

  Panting for breath, arm hanging uselessly, knee screaming insistently, blood flowing freely, Ali squirmed backwards towards the picture-window. This was the end. Ali braced himself, swallowing hard. Suddenly he became aware of the Nokia phone, hard in his hand. Hash Five, Hash Five, Hash Five pounded in his fogging brain. He pressed #5. The phone fell from his failing fingers. He was finished.

  A rumbling explosion roared upwards and outwards. Every pane in the villa shattered. Ali shielded his head with the remnants of his shirt and his hands. Shards of glass sliced his skin. Several hundred litres of water erupted volcanically from the pool, cascading over and through the house in a tidal wave of fury. Sun-beds, terracotta tiles and pieces of pipe, hurled into the air by a massive, invisible hand, danced in the billowing smoke then collapsed as though exhausted into the angrily flaring tongues of flame that leapt greedily to devour them. The wind-turbines lurched violently, giants stumbli
ng drunkenly after a party. Water poured into and shorted the electrical system which sprayed the room with crackling, popping violet-blue sparks.

  Al-Sekem, shaking his head uncomprehendingly, bared his gleaming white teeth in the most savage expression Ali had ever seen. The businessman seemed scarcely human.

  Another deafening crack was followed by an ominous creak, like that of breaking ice.

  Al-Sekem glanced down then back at Ali. For a second they stared at each other, the man in the middle of the rug, the boy with his back against the window-frame. The creak evolved into a long-drawn groan and, with another shattering crack, Al-Sekem plunged from view. The water beneath suddenly boiled furiously. A gold-ringed hand with cracked, broken fingernails flailed wildly in the air. Then Al-Sekem shrieked as the piranha ripped into his flesh, ripped into his head, his face, his arms, his hands. A fine spray of blood drizzled from the pit.

  ''Help me!'' Al-Sekem's legs were entangled in the heavy, water-logged rug. ''Help me!''

  The piranha squirmed into his shirt, into his trousers, nibbling, nuzzling, invading his clothing, invading his hair, invading his flesh, tearing his stomach, tearing his hands, tearing his lips, tearing his tongue with those deadly razor-sharp teeth.

  ''That's for Hisham, Fish-Bait!'' Ali yelled back.

  Even from the top of the stairs, he could hear the ghastly gnashing of the thrashing fish and Al-Sekem knocking against the walls of the tank as he struggled under the weight of the piranha-pack. There was another gargled scream. More blood spattered the marble floor.

  Horrifyingly, Al-Sekem rose from the bubbling cauldron. Several fish hung suspended from his face, dangling like tarnished silver jewellery, blood streaking their writhing bodies as they devoured his ears and cheeks. White bone gleamed through the ripped, ravaged skin. Al-Sekem gargled Ali's name, once, then the inky black stain of jugular blood flowered round his head, he turned his icy-blue eyes to the Rape of Proserpina and sank out of sight.

  Another shattering explosion shook Ali to his feet. Breathing heavily through his nose, dripping water and blood, he circled the bubbling, bloody-frothed mouth that had become Al-Sekem's grave and hobbled painfully back through the house as another explosion tore through it. Somewhere overhead, a windmill screeched loudly as though in pain. The turbine started to topple, freeing itself almost joyfully from the restrictive strait-jacket of steel mooring-cables. These snapped like cotton threads.

  Ali ran.

  The turbine swooped down, a falling tree to smash through the villa's roof.

  In his bedroom he seized the rucksack he had packed last night and the Babolat racket. Another thunderous explosion brought down the ceiling in a choking, smothering dust-fog. Blindly, he stumbled from the villa, groping his way to the fresh, open air, suddenly aware that yet again he was masked in blood, smoke and dust, wearing only briefs and the shredded remnants of a shirt. His life had come full circle. He almost laughed as he jumped through a burst window into the front garden, fire raging furiously behind him, and tumbled towards the Golf.

  ''Fine time for a game of tennis,'' grumbled Hamza Madani from the driving seat.

  ''Sorry.'' Ali tossed the faithful rucksack and the Babolat racket into the back. ''I had a pressing engagement with Al-Sekem. Don't worry.'' Ali smiled through the mask of blood and smoke. ''I left him feeding the fishes.''

  Then he fainted.