David Gilman - The Devil's breath

His cell rang; the screen showed it was an unknown name but the number was familiar.

“Sayid, it’s me.”

“Kallie. Have you found Max?”

“No, he’s still missing. I don’t know whether no news is good news or not. But things are going a bit crazy.” She explained everything that had happened to her and how she was trying to keep out of everyone’s sight. She was convinced that the Walvis Bay docks, Shaka Chang’s shipping line and his warehouse were connected to Tom Gordon’s disappearance and Anton Leopold’s death. Somehow the whole mess would lead them to Max.

“Listen, Kallie, Max is my best mate, but I think you should back off,” Sayid said, beginning to realize how completely out of their depth they all were now.

“No way. Someone tried to kill me. I’m involved and this whole thing with the cops and your Mr. Peterson stinks. Something’s being hushed up big time and I’m going to find out what it is-and when I do, I need you to alert the British authorities, the Foreign Office or someone, because I don’t know who I can trust out here.”

“I don’t know who to trust either. I did a bit of illegal snooping. Peterson is getting help from MI6.”

“Who? Oh, the spooks?”

“Yeah. This is even bigger than we imagined, Kallie.”

There was a pause at the end of the phone and Sayid guessed that, like him, Kallie was trying to think what to do.

“I don’t care, Sayid, I’m going ahead with my plan.”

“Which is?”

“I’m flying over the route from Walvis Bay towards the mountains. Shaka Chang has trucks shipping machinery from the docks. Anton Leopold was killed at the docks. I can’t get in, but they must be bringing something out. I’ll be following them.”

“That’s dangerous, Kallie. They might have guns. If they spot you, you could be like a fat pigeon on a duck shoot.”

“I’ll fly high enough,” she lied, knowing that over a certain height one or two of the military control towers might pick her up.

“I hate this business of not being able to stay in touch,” Sayid said.

“There’s nothing we can do about that. I don’t have a satellite phone.”

“Me neither.”

“So. That’s it then.”

Her words sounded so final, prodding his conscience. “I have to be able to do more than just sit here,” he said. Beyond all their fears, a simple fact remained: a father and his son were missing in a hostile environment. They were both British subjects and Sayid remembered his own citizenship ceremony after Max’s father had sponsored him and his mother. They had been given a new life, a place of safety away from the terror of war, and he was not going to stay silent. “I’m going to the police, Kallie. What’s happening isn’t right. It’s just not right. I’m going to tell them everything I’ve found out. The cops can make a fuss of their own, and if they don’t I’ll go to the papers.”

“The cops might throw the book at you. And the spooks might just lock you away in a dark hole somewhere. Sayid, that’s a crazy thing to do.”

“And what you’re doing isn’t? This way, at least one of us might get through to somebody who cares and who can do something. I won’t mention you when I talk to whoever.”

“And if I get nabbed I won’t say anything about you being my contact in England.” She paused a moment. “Hey, I hope we get to meet one day.”

“Me too.”

“And Max.”

“Definitely. We can do this.”

“We’re on our own then,” she said.

“No. There’s three of us in this thing, and Max is strong and he’s really determined about everything he does, and even if he had both legs broken he’d crawl to get to where he wanted to be. We have to be as brave as he is, Kallie. I have to tell someone.”

Those final words brought the realization that he was risking everything he had been given. And not just him: they could repatriate his mother as well. They might both be sent back to the place that had claimed his own father’s life at the hands of assassins.

“Let’s talk when we can,” he said.

“Sure. Good luck, Sayid.”

“You too.” Sayid switched off the phone. He had reached a point of no return.

A few minutes later, he stood outside his mother’s room. He knocked, heard her call “Yes?”

He opened the door. His mother sat, marking term papers. Sayid didn’t move. She gazed at him for a moment and saw the boy’s uncertainty.

“What is it?” she said gently.

* * *

Kallie gazed across the heat-baked landing strip, mentally plotting her route. There would be a lot of flying and she was tired, having already been in the air for hours. Tobias moved next to her and shared the view. He sipped a beer and said quietly, “Tell your father. He’ll know what to do.”

She shook her head, wishing it could be otherwise, knowing she could not take the risk. Her father loved her, she was in no doubt of that, but his reaction could start a small war, and she did not want to be caught in the middle.

Someone had run into a Dartmoor foal and killed it. The high moor road was not only a scenic drive for tourists but also a rat-run for villagers getting across the moor to one of the major roads. Drivers didn’t usually stop when they killed an animal, be it a sheep or a Dartmoor pony, and this incident was no different. Special Police Constable Debbie Shilton closed the door of the village substation’s small office, having arranged for the hill farmer to remove the poor creature’s body. The death of the foal saddened her. There was a callousness in some people that she could not comprehend. Leaving any animal suffering after causing it an injury was not on so far as she was concerned, and she wished that if the culprits were ever caught, the law would prosecute and make an example of them. However, that seldom happened, even when troublemakers were caught red-handed. There were times when people’s behavior sickened her. Maybe she was not cut out to be even a part-time copper.

A car driven by a woman pulled up. There was a young boy with her. The boy looked anguished and the woman seemed scared.

“Please, officer, can you help us?” the woman said.

Shilton cast aside the momentary self-doubt; that was what she was here for, to help. Though she guessed, by the look of the young boy, that this was probably no more than a missing family pet. She smiled compassionately at Sayid.

!Koga had known fear in his young life. There was the time a lion challenged the hunters for the gemsbok they had brought down and he was suddenly faced with the snarling fury of a hungry lioness. He’d been so frightened that he screamed and shouted and threw stones at her, until she wilted under the hail of sharp rocks. That day had earned him respect from the other men. But it was not the fear of the lioness that had driven itself into his heart, it was the dying gemsbok. He had returned to the buck, the size of a small horse, and readied his knife. The hunter’s poison had taken a long time to work, but now its central nervous system was paralyzed and it lay helpless.!Koga knelt next to its head and thanked the gemsbok for allowing itself to fall victim to the skills of the hunters. He touched its soft muzzle with his hand. But he hesitated. The gemsbok’s brown eyes gazed at him in a moment of unspoken affinity.!Koga, transfixed, let the knife fall to the ground. The eyes held him until the last heartbeat. And then, as the life receded from those eyes,!Koga sensed the long and lonely journey that would one day be his own death. That was what frightened him. Not death, but the journey afterwards. And that same fear had touched his heart when Max had asked that he leave him alone for a while.

Max was in the pilot’s seat. The monster that was the Devil’s Breath lay somewhere ahead, and he had to find the route, but something other than the desperation of finding his father gripped Max. He didn’t know what was going to happen. Gently, his voice barely above a whisper, he told!Koga to pull down the camouflage netting and wait by the tall grass, a final rational thought to keep the plane hidden.!Koga could not imagine what his friend would see or where the shapeshifter of his mind would take him, but it was an unknown land and!Koga was convinced, like any hunter, that every wilderness harbored its own ferocious animals. Max’s eyes began to look like those of the dying animal that!Koga remembered so well. Afraid that his friend’s journey might capture his own soul and take him into the unknown, he moved away quietly.