The Abrupt Physics of Dying Read online

  Clay swallowed and looked out at the ocean. ‘The villagers in Al Urush are complaining that their kids are getting sick.’

  ‘That’s all we goddamn need,’ Parnell said to Karila. He turned to Clay. ‘Well?’

  ‘There’s nothing obvious. But I did see a young boy …’ Clay trailed off, realising his error.

  ‘Go on,’ said Karila.

  ‘He looked bad. Ill, I mean. Ulcerous mouth, pallid face. He threw up.’

  The American laughed out loud, a deep, belly-shaking chortle that seemed to go on and on. He laughed until tears were streaming over his cheeks, finally erupting in a coughing wheeze that had to be doused with a shot from his inhaler. Parnell straightened in his chair, wiped his face on his sleeve, and took a deep breath. ‘Now that’s good, Straker,’ he said. ‘Fucking hilarious. Have you ever seen a Yemeni who wasn’t sick? Good one.’

  Clay ignored the American and reached into his backpack. ‘I took a water sample. It may tell us something.’ He put the bottle on Karila’s desk, imagining Parnell with a broken nose and a couple of missing teeth, then realising it might actually improve his appearance. ‘I’m going to have the lab run an ICP metals scan, PAH’s, total organic carbon, volatiles and main ions. It won’t cost you more than two hundred dollars.’

  Karila looked over at his boss and frowned.

  ‘Oh, and I met someone,’ said Clay, trying to keep his voice flat. He had no choice. He had to deliver the message. ‘Calls himself Al Shams, “The Sun”.’

  Both men looked as if they were going to fall out of their chairs.

  Clay continued. ‘He said Allah is going to sweep us away if we don’t give the people a fair share. He said war is coming.’ The hideous face was there now, the good eye raking its gaze over him. Clay blinked hard, tried to push it away, kill the words that had been swirling around inside his skull for the last two days. An opportunity, Al Shams had said. I am giving you an opportunity.

  Karila was staring at him. ‘Are you alright, Mister Straker?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I asked you a question.’ Karila looked over at Parnell, back at Clay.

  He hadn’t heard a thing. His tune-outs had become more frequent lately, more vivid, just like the dreams. A split skull wasn’t helping.

  ‘Say again?’

  Karila took in a lungful of smoke, rolled his eyes. ‘I said …’ he paused, smoke pouring from his nostrils, ‘… where did you see him?’

  ‘That son of a bitch,’ barked Parnell. ‘Vandalising wellheads, torching gen sets, siphoning oil from gathering lines.’ Parnell frowned, stared into Clay’s eyes. ‘He’s costing us a lot of money.’

  ‘And people have been hurt,’ said Karila.

  Parnell closed his eyes a moment, caught his breath, looked at Karila. ‘Get that lunatic Todorov in here,’ he said. ‘He needs to hear this. Get the Army on to this prick Mohammedan. Fry his Koran for breakfast.’

  Karila spoke into the intercom and then looked up at Clay. ‘Well, where was he?’

  Clay stood, faced Parnell. Clearly he wasn’t the only person in the room with mental-health problems. ‘Don’t you want to know what he had to say?’

  Parnell looked up at him through narrowed eyes, if they could get any narrower. ‘Answer him, Straker. Where was the fucker?’

  A flood tide of pain was inching its way from the back of his head towards his eyes. He blinked, tried to focus on the map spread across Karila’s desk. ‘About two hours out of Idim,’ he said. If he had a satellite image he could probably pinpoint the hidden oasis to within less than a hundred metres.

  A man walked into the room. He was short and powerfully built, his neck a tangle of sinew that spread like rootwork down into a broad substrate of muscle rippling beneath a tight black T-shirt. A shoulder holster was strapped across his chest. Clay had seen him around the office a couple of times, once back before Christmas on his first stint in the country.

  ‘This is Mister Todorov, our head of security,’ said Karila.

  ‘People calling me Zdravko,’ he replied in a heavy Slavic accent. He had strong, even white teeth, pale eyes, fair brush-cut hair, and what looked like a still-healing scar showing just above the neckline of his T-shirt.

  ‘Mister Straker has some information that may be of interest,’ said Karila. ‘About Al Shams.’

  Zdravko arched his eyebrows, creasing deep furrows in his forehead. He closed the door and stood with feet planted shoulder-width apart, arms folded across his chest, one hand on the butt of the automatic pistol at his ribs.

  Clay fixed his gaze on Parnell. ‘He said to tell you that you are a blasphemer.’

  Parnell glanced at Karila, smirked.

  ‘You are stealing from them, and poisoning them. They want their fair share, or they will make trouble. That’s what he said.’

  ‘Where you see him?’ said Zdravko.

  ‘Up on the jol.’

  ‘Speak English for fuck’s sake, Straker,’ said Parnell.

  Clay held a breath, let it go, the pain worse now. ‘On the plateau.’

  Zdravko’s face opened up in a smile as expansive as his biceps. ‘Plateau is big like my girlfriend’s back end, Straker. Al Shams just one small asshole.’

  Parnell smirked.

  Clay turned to face Karila. ‘They stopped us near the Kamar-1 well, commandeered the vehicle. We drove for an hour, maybe more. It’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Where did they take you?’ barked Parnell. ‘Which direction?’ He looked up at the security man and grinned. ‘We’ve got the bastard, goddammit.’

  Clay took a deep breath, remembering that piercing black eye, the intelligence cutting through the veil of fervour. He had a decision to make. ‘Problem is,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure.’

  The room fell quiet. The call to prayer rose in the distance and echoed across the city, drifting in on the breeze.

  Parnell stood and slammed the window shut, muffling the muezzin’s cries. ‘Whaddaya mean, not sure?’

  Clay swallowed. ‘They blindfolded me.’

  The room went quiet. Karila, Parnell and Zdravko stared at him.

  ‘What did you say?’ hissed Parnell.

  Clay looked down at his hands. ‘I didn’t see a thing. I was blindfolded the whole time.’

  Parnell stared at him for a moment and then pushed past towards the door. ‘Cocksucker,’ he muttered.

  ‘This man Islamic terrorist.’ Zdravko’s smile was gone.

  ‘Al Qaeda,’ said Parnell.

  Clay’s stomach felt as if he had just jumped out into the void.

  Parnell nodded.

  ‘The bastard uses religion to camouflage his greed. Same fucking hypocrites tried to blow up the World Trade Center last year.’

  ‘We’re not certain of that, Vance,’ said Karila meekly.

  Parnell turned and glared at his lieutenant, eyes bulging, cheeks reddening. ‘The authorities have confirmed it,’ he spat. ‘This is the prick who blew Thierry Champard to pieces, goddammit.’ Parnell took a couple of steps backwards as if suddenly deflated. He reached back for the arm of the chair, and sank into the worn leather. He stared at the floor for a long time. Then he crossed himself, pinned the points of his elbows onto his knees and cradled his head in his hands. ‘Hardest thing I had to do ever, call Thierry’s wife and tell her he was dead,’ he said without looking up.

  Karila looked down at his keyboard, tapped desultorily. Zdravko smirked, hid it with a cough.

  ‘Why did he kill Champard?’ asked Clay.

  Parnell jerked his head up from his hands. His eyes looked like they were about to burst from their sockets. ‘What kind of a bullshit question is that?’

  ‘Why Thierry? Why there, in the middle of Aden?’

  ‘How the hell should I know, Straker? Maybe you should have asked him yourself. You’re the one who’s been having tea with him.’

  ‘Soft target,’ said Zdravko. ‘In Aden no protection.’

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you, St
raker?’ said Parnell. ‘We’ve got a chance to nail this guy. Whose side are you on, for Chrissakes?’

  ‘I’m on Thierry’s side.’

  Zdravko glanced at Parnell, back at Clay. He spat on the floor. ‘You lucky, Straker,’ he said. ‘Very lucky. Could have been you, very easy.’

  Clay said nothing.

  Parnell coughed, took a shallow breath, looked at Clay. ‘What about your driver? Did he get a glimpse?’

  ‘Abdulkader,’ said Clay. ‘His name is Abdulkader.’

  ‘Did your driver see anything?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Maybe.’

  ‘Well, get him in here so we can talk to him.’

  Clay shuffled his feet. ‘Can’t do that,’ he said.

  ‘The hell you can’t,’ said Parnell, face reddening. ‘Get him in here, most pronto.’

  ‘I’m sure he’d be happy to,’ said Clay, boring a hole through the American’s forehead. ‘But he’s still there. They let me go, kept him.’

  Parnell took a sharp breath.

  Zdravko stretched an asylum grin. ‘This good. Very good.’

  Karila stood and looked at the map spread across his desk. ‘Think about it, Vance. A hostage. This is a serious escalation, kidnapping Petro-Tex staff. We can push the government to act.’ He smiled at his boss and jabbed the map with his index finger. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Kamar-1. It’s a start.’

  ‘Get the Army on it,’ said Parnell, turning to Zdravko. ‘Tell ’em everything we know. They want this fucker as much as we do.’

  Clay’s stomach lurched, sank.

  ‘More,’ said Zdravko. ‘Much more.’

  ‘What about Abdulkader?’ said Clay. ‘We need to get him back.’

  Parnell twisted partially in his chair to face Karila. ‘What’s our policy on local casual labour, Nils?’

  ‘Cash only. No contract. No obligation.’

  Parnell crossed his arms across his chest and glared at Clay.

  ‘I have an obligation,’ said Clay, struggling to contain his voice.

  Karila glanced over at Parnell. ‘The car wreck in Lawdar, last month. Clay’s driver pulled him clear.’

  Parnell lowered his voice: ‘This has nothing to do with what happened month last.’

  ‘So you’re just going to leave him there?’ said Clay.

  ‘No, we ain’t,’ said Parnell. ‘We’re going to get the Army and the PSO to go and take this fucker out, like I already said. Your driver can fend for himself, Straker. He’s one of them, after all.’

  ‘Then I’m going back out there to get him myself.’

  Parnell jerked to his feet, sucked in his breath with a rasp. He looked like he was going to go into cardiac arrest.

  ‘You stay put, Straker, goddammit.’

  ‘Please, Straker,’ said Karila. ‘Go and see the doctor. He’s in the building now.’

  ‘Yeah,’ smirked Parnell, ‘go and get your head examined, Straker.’ He grinned at Karila.

  ‘Then I want you back here in an hour,’ said Karila. ‘We have an important visitor.’

  ‘And don’t leave Aden, Straker,’ said Parnell, lumbering towards the door. ‘The PSO is gonna want to talk to you.’ He stopped short of the doorway, turned to face Zdravko and jabbed his index finger into Zdravko’s chest. ‘And you, Todorov, you make damn sure he talks to them.’

  Bulgarian Gangbang

  An hour later, Clay stood in the office courtyard with the other employees, about forty in all, under a sky writ in drought. They had already been waiting half an hour and people were getting restless, shuffling about, shielding their eyes against the low-angled sun, chatting in half a dozen languages. Parnell had arranged the group with expats at the front – Parnell, Karila, Clay and a few of the engineers – the overseas nationals, Egyptians mostly, behind, and the Yemenis at the back near the compound’s west wall: teaboys, cleaners, drivers, guards – all men. Now he paced nervously, wiping sweat from his forehead and neck with a greying handkerchief, checking his watch. Zdravko was standing at the main gate speaking into a radio handset. He clipped the handset to his belt, looked up at Parnell and nodded, barked a command at one of the Yemeni guards.

  ‘Ready everyone,’ shouted Parnell, clapping his hands twice, taking his place beside Karila and Clay. ‘He’s here.’

  The steel gates rolled open. A black Mercedes sedan with tinted glass pulled to a stop in the courtyard. The gates closed with a clang. An expectant hush fell over the group.

  Parnell pushed his hair back across his head. ‘Let me do the talking, Nils. And keep your mouth shut, Straker.’

  Clay speared out a ragged salute.

  Parnell’s jaw twitched.

  A tall man in a perfectly tailored cappuccino wool suit and open-collared white shirt emerged from the Mercedes, looked briefly around the compound, nodded to Zdravko, and strode toward the waiting crowd. Clay recognised him from the photos in the newspapers. Rex Medved, President and major shareholder of Petro-Tex, made directly for Parnell, hugged him as if he were his best friend, and pumped his hand.

  ‘Wonderful to be here,’ said Medved, flashing an American dental-work smile. He was very good-looking, in a magazine kind of way: square-jawed, mid-forties, Clay guessed, salon-perfect skin, Caribbean tan. A diamond solitaire stud winked in his left earlobe.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ said Parnell, a smile plastered over his face.

  ‘On our way to Zimbabwe for a meeting,’ said Medved, waving his hand as if to say it was nothing. ‘Thought we would divert and see how you lot were doing.’ His accent was upper-crust English, public-school intonation laced with arrogance. ‘What’s the point in having a jet if one can’t take a little side trip now and again, eh?’ He flashed teeth. ‘I only have an hour.’

  Parnell introduced Karila, then Clay.

  Medved shook Clay’s hand. They stood eye to eye, the same six foot three. ‘Ah yes, Claymore Straker. I understand you have done good work for us.’ Medved looked across at Karila. ‘I want to do the right thing here in Yemen, Straker, look after the people and the environment. Keep it up.’

  ‘Do the right thing. Look after the people. You can count on us,’ said Clay. It was almost like being back in the Battalion. Parnell glared at him over Medved’s shoulder. Clay shot back a plastic smile and, still clasping Medved’s hand, leaned forward and spoke into his ear.

  ‘My driver, one of your employees, has been taken hostage, Mister Medved, by locals who say we are poisoning their kids. We need to get him back, and we need to look into their grievance.’

  Medved released Clay’s hand, took a step back, stared him in the eyes. For a moment it looked as if he was going to say something. Then he looked away, smoothed his lapels, faced the crowd, and opened his arms wide. Behind him, Zdravko stood impassive, eyes shielded by reflective Raybans, watching, coiled.

  ‘Thank you so much, Mister Parnell, everyone, for such a warm welcome, and for your great efforts over the past year.’ Medved lowered his arms, smiled and nodded at Karila. ‘Our operations are bringing badly needed revenue, jobs and prosperity to Yemen. We are doing good things here. The next few months will be exciting for all of us, and I need not remind any of you of how important our new expansion plans are. Get it done, and we will all share in the benefits.’

  The crowd broke into applause. Medved took a step forward, bowed his head quickly, and stood clapping with the staff. Then he raised his hands. ‘Thank you all. Now, please return to your good work.’

  The crowd began to disperse.

  Medved moved forward, grabbed Parnell’s upper arm. His smile was gone. ‘And now, gentlemen, if I could have a word with the General Manager, please, alone.’ The two men disappeared through the front entrance, a schoolmaster hurrying a naughty pupil to the detention room.

  Karila tapped Clay on the shoulder. ‘What on earth were you doing, Straker? You were supposed to keep quiet. What did you say to him?’

  ‘I told him I wasn’t getting paid.’

  Karila frowne
d. ‘I’m starting not to like you very much, Straker,’ he said, and strode away after his bosses.

  Clay returned to the company guesthouse late, fresh stitches throbbing in his scalp, his already shortened attention span fractioned by thoughts of Abdulkader. He showered, ate, and went down to the common lounge.

  An F14 Tomcat shot across the television screen, twisting in a dogfight. Missiles fired, jerking heat-seekers trailing white spume. Clay sank into the couch as an enemy plane disintegrated in an orange ball of fire.

  ‘Top Gun,’ said an American contractor Clay had seen around in the guesthouse from time to time: Jim, one of the facility engineers. Tall man, lanky, strong Southern accent, a lost-and-found Florida Gators baseball cap permanently grafted to his head, tobacco chewer, pretty much kept to himself.

  Clay nodded to him and put his feet up on the coffee table. Tom Cruise as a fighter pilot. Questionable. Something to help kill the hours, dull the frustration of having to stay put in Aden, deaden the guilt he was feeling. The man who had pulled him unconscious and bleeding from the burning car wreck on the road down from Lawdar only six weeks ago was a prisoner of terrorists, and now he had triggered the one thing Al Shams had warned him against: bringing in the Army. Perhaps Medved would push Parnell to take action. If it was really about money, as Clay was beginning to suspect, they could ransom Abdulkader back.

  A third enemy aircraft plummeted ground-ward in flames.

  Clay tore a tin of Budweiser from the plastic noose and handed it to the American.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jim.

  Clay pulled the tab on a beer and took a long draught. ‘You heading up to the CPF soon?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s with the lockdown out there?’

  ‘They’re worried about terrorists.’

  ‘You mean the locals.’

  ‘I guess.’ Jim took another gulp of beer.

  Clay put down his beer and leaned forward, forearms across his knees. ‘Did you know Thierry Champard?’

  Jim turned away from the screen and fixed his gaze on Clay. ‘Yeah, I knew him. He was my back-to-back.’