Solomon Creed. Simon Toyne

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СКАЧАТЬ safe now, sir,’ he says with a professional calm that only makes me more anxious. How can he know I am safe, how can he possibly know?

      I look back and past him towards the town and the sign, but there is a parked ambulance blocking my view and this makes me anxious too.

      ‘I need to get away from it,’ I say, pulling my arm away, trying to make him understand. ‘I think the fire is here because of me.’

      He nods as if he understands, but I see his other hand reaching out to grab me and I seize it and pull hard, sweeping his feet from beneath him with my leg at the same time and twisting away so he falls to the ground. The movement is as natural as breathing and as smooth as a well-practised dance step. My muscles still have memory it seems. I look down into his shocked face. ‘Sorry, Lawrence,’ I say, using the name on his badge, then I turn to run – back to the town and away from the fire. I manage one step before his hand grabs my leg, his strong fingers closing round my ankle like a manacle.

      I stumble, regain my balance, turn back and raise my foot. I don’t want to kick him but I will, I will kick him right in his face if that’s what it takes to make him let go. The thought of the solid heel of my foot crashing into his nose, splitting his skin and spilling blood, brings a sensation like warm air rushing through me. It’s a nice feeling, and it disturbs me as much as my earlier familiarity with the smell of death. I try to focus on something else, try to smother my instinct and stop my foot from lashing out, and in this pause something big and solid hits me hard, ripping my leg from the man’s grip.

      I hit the ground and a flash of white explodes inside my skull as my head bangs against the road. Rage erupts in me. I fight to wriggle free from whoever tackled me. Hot breath blows on my cheek and I smell sour coffee and the beginnings of tooth decay. I twist my head round and see the face of the policeman who nearly ran me down. ‘Take it easy,’ he says, pinning me down with his weight, ‘they’re only trying to help you here.’

      But they’re not. If they wanted to help, they’d let me go.

      In a detached part of my mind I know that I could use my teeth to tear at his cheek or his nose, attack him with such ferocity he would want to be free of me more than I do from him. I am simultaneously fascinated, appalled and excited by this notion, this realization that I have the power to free myself but that something is holding me back, something inside me.

      More hands grab me and press me hard to the ground. I feel a sting in my arm like a large insect has bitten me. The female medic is crouching beside me now, her attention fixed on the syringe sticking into my arm.

      ‘Unfair fight,’ I try to say, but am already slurring by the time I get to the last word.

      The world starts turning to liquid and I feel myself going limp. A hand cradles my head and gently lowers it to the ground. I try to fight it, willing my eyes to stay open. I can see the distant town, framed by the road and sky. I want to tell them all to hurry, that the fire is coming and they need to get away, but my mouth no longer works. My vision starts to tunnel, black around the edges, a diminishing circle of light in the centre, as if I am falling backwards down a deep well. I can see the sign now past the edge of the ambulance, the words on it visible too. I read them in the clarifying air, the last thing I see before my eyes close and the world goes dark:

       WELCOME TO THE CITY OF

       REDEMPTION

       5

      Mulcahy leaned against the Jeep and stared out at the jagged lines of wings beyond the chain-link fence. From where he stood he could see a Vietnam-era B-52 with upwards of thirty mission decals on its fuselage, a World War II bomber of some sort, a heavy transporter plane that resembled a whale, and a squadron of sharp-nosed, lethal-looking jet fighters with various paint jobs from various countries, including a MiG with a Soviet star on the side and two smaller ones beneath the cockpit windows denoting combat kills.

      Beyond the parade of military planes a runway arrowed away into the heart of the caldera, snakes of heat twisting in the air above it. There were some buzzards to the north, circling above something dead or dying in the desert; other than that there was nothing, not even a cloud, though he had heard thunder a while back. A spot of rain would be nice. God knows they needed it.

      He checked his watch.

      Late.

      Sweat was starting to prick and tickle in his hair and on his back beneath his shirt as the trapped heat of the day got hold of him. The silver Grand Cherokee he was leaning against had black tinted windows, cool leather seats and a kick-ass air-conditioner circulating chilled air at a steady sixty-five degrees. He could hear the unit whirring under the idling engine. Even so, he preferred to stand outside in the desert heat than remain in the car with the two morons he was having to baby-sit, listening to their inane conversation.

      – Hey, man, how many Nazis you think that bird wasted?

       – How many gook babies you think that one burned up?

      They’d somehow made the assumption that Mulcahy was ex-military, which, in their fidgety, drug-fried minds, also made him an expert on every war ever fought and the machines used to fight them. He’d told them, several times, that he had not served in any branch of the armed forces and therefore knew as much about war planes as they did, but they kept on with their endless questions and fantasy body counts.

      He checked his watch again.

      Once the package was delivered to the meeting point he could drive away, take a long, cold shower and wash away the day. A window buzzed open next to him, and super-cooled air leaked out from inside.

      ‘Where’s the plane at, man?’ It was Javier, the shorter, more irritating of the two men, and a distant relative of Papa Tío, the big boss on the Mexican side.

      ‘It’s not here,’ Mulcahy replied.

      ‘No shit, tell me something I don’t know.’

      ‘Hard to know where to start.’

      ‘What?’

      Mulcahy took a step away from the Jeep and stretched until he felt the vertebrae pop in his spine. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘If anything was wrong I’d get a message.’

      Javier thought for a moment then nodded. He had inherited some of the boss man’s swagger but none of the brains so far as Mulcahy could tell. He had also caught the family looks, which was unfortunate, and the combination of his squat stature, oily, pock-marked skin and fleshy, petulant lips made him appear more like a toad in jeans and a T-shirt than a man.

      ‘Shut the window, man, it’s like a motherfuckin’ oven out there.’ That was Carlos, idiot number two, not blood, as far as he knew, but clearly in good enough standing with the cartel to be allowed to come along for the ride.

      ‘I’m talking,’ Javier snarled. ‘I be closing the window when I’m good and ready.’

      Mulcahy turned back and stared up at the empty sky.

      ‘What kind of plane we looking for? Is it one of these big-assed nuke bombers? Man, that would be some cool ride.’

      Mulcahy considered not replying, but this СКАЧАТЬ