David Gilman - The Devil's breath

Max pulled his backpack over his shoulders and ran down through the loading bays. Where was everyone? This must be a cargo and luggage holding area, so no one would be here unless they were loading. He had been lucky so far, he knew that. Where was Scarface? He heard an engine grunt behind him, and as he turned a forklift truck accelerated straight at him. Scarface had the pedal to the floor, diesel fumes spewed out and the two metal loading shafts were rising to chest level as Scarface operated the hydraulic lever. He meant to skewer Max like a kebab. Max spun around and ran-but there was nowhere to go. He was in an alleyway of cargo. Crates and boxes were stacked high on each side and pallets supported all kinds of material. Industrial generators were housed next to domestic refrigerators; construction pipes and electric cabling shared a stack with crated household goods. Max ran as hard as he could, but there were only forty meters left and then Scarface would crush him against the end-of-alley shelving.

Max looked around desperately. Was there a chance he could climb up and pull something heavy down onto Scarface? That wouldn’t work; the forklift had a protective cage over the driver. Then he realized what he had to do-his only chance. He turned and faced the beast of a machine, now only a few meters away. He couldn’t dodge to one side, Scarface would twitch the wheel and crush him against the metal shelving. He stood his ground, like a matador waiting for the charging bull. Scarface was momentarily perplexed, but didn’t care. The two giant blades of the forklift’s arms were now at chest height. Max made a grab for them, barely hanging on as the well-worn metal slipped under his grip. If he couldn’t climb up, he would go under the wheels. Like a gymnast on parallel bars, he swung his lower body and hooked his leg over one of the shafts.

Max straddled the blade and hung on, his body almost within touching distance of Scarface. He sat as square as he could, staring down Scarface, who had not taken his eyes off him. The beard parted-a grin of victory. He would smash Max into the end shelving. Max glared at him. He was drawing on his last strength and energy, and he had to keep this sociopath’s attention focused. Max swore and shouted, and then spat as much spittle as he could manage out of his dry mouth. Scarface stopped smiling. The urge to kill Max was foremost in his mind, and impact was imminent.

Then, suddenly, Max swung under the metal shaft, clinging on with his arms and legs. In that moment Scarface realized that Max’s body had been blocking his view. He threw an arm up in self-defense, but it was too late. The forklift slammed into the end shelving. A hundred lengths of copper tubing that had been stacked there now reacted to the impact and rocketed forward above Max’s arms and legs and into the unprotected Scarface. A dozen lengths of pipe, as lethal as a hail of arrows, slammed into him. Max was shunted off the forklift and into the shelving below the remainder of the copper tubes, which spilled from the shelf and clattered over him.

Bruised and winded, he fought free and climbed from under the pier of metal. Scarface was either unconscious or dead. Copper spears punctured his arms and chest, pinning him to his seat. The forklift’s motor had stalled.

It was suddenly very quiet.

Max needed a drink.

Back in the terminal building, Max had his face over the water fountain, swallowing as much as the feeble spurt would allow. A young woman, dressed in bush fatigues, tanned and looking as though she lived and breathed Africa, had come up behind him. He thought she must have been about seventeen. Her bright smile and blue eyes looked even more stunning because of her short, sun-bleached hair. She was lithe but strong-looking, like an athlete, and the shorts that reached halfway down her thighs were evidently worn for practicality rather than fashion. A couple of grease marks, ingrained dust and dirt suggested that she used them as a hand-wipe whenever necessary. Max was caught unawares, and his heart was pounding, not because she had startled him, but because of the way she looked.

“Are you Max?” she asked.

“Yes,” he finally managed to answer, wiping a dribble of water from his chin.

“Sorry I’m late. Had a problem with a fuel line. Come on then.”

She turned away.

“Hang on a minute,” he called after her. He wasn’t going to be treated like a puppy-and after the last twenty minutes he was not going to follow anyone anywhere, no matter how appealing they looked. She stopped and waited. “I don’t know who you are,” he said, realizing this might be a setup.

She gazed at him. “I’m Kallie van Reenen,” she answered. “He said you’d be cautious. That’s good out here-it might keep you alive.” She raised an eyebrow. Was that enough information?

“Who said?”

“Mr. Farentino.”

Max nodded and fell into step with her. And wished she weren’t so attractive.

When they left the terminal she took him to the other end of the airport apron, where private aircraft were parked. Safari companies often flew their clients from here, and local farmers used it as their nearest parking area for the city. Farentino had warned her that Max was on his way, and as it was her father to whom the Bushman had delivered Tom Gordon’s animal-wrapped field notes, she was the starting point for Max’s journey.

The outside temperature was a shock. Sweat gathered around the waistband of his cargo pants and soaked a long stain down the back of his T-shirt. Max knew he would acclimatize quickly, as he had done before on trips with his father; but his body was also coping with the stress he had been through. He edged into the shade of a hangar and watched silently as Kallie did her preflight inspection on an old single-engine plane that looked to be well past its sell-by date. But he remembered his father telling him about these old bush-bashers. They were as solid as they come, and every aircraft had to have a vigorous ongoing maintenance and airworthiness certificate, so he took some comfort in that.

Kallie checked the propeller, making sure there was no damage to it; then the flaps; she ran a loving hand along the struts and then, finally, clambered on board. Max was edgy, expecting police cars to come screaming up any minute. But nothing happened.

He checked the phone. The message from Sayid on the blue screen was brief:

Peterson nos where u r.

Max grimaced. Thanks, Sayid, but recent events have already confirmed this.

“OK!” Kallie shouted. “Let’s go!”

Climbing into the cockpit was another step away from whoever else Peterson might have sent after him. He gratefully strapped on the safety harness. Kallie flicked control levers with practiced ease, clicked the radio on, contacted the tower and was given clearance to taxi. Max had a flight simulator on his computer at Dartmoor High, but this old plane’s instrument panel looked completely different from the F16s he tried to maneuver at Mach 2 on his computer screen. No target screen, no rate-of-climb dial, no radar. With a bit of thought he could identify the basic instruments as her fingers moved to the master and alternator switches, which turned on all the electrics for the plane. Stuck to the instrument panel was a somewhat tattered, postcard-sized, laminated board. The laminate was bubbled in places, and the heat had frayed the edges into brown crackling. Half a dozen words were typed on it: Rather Too Many Pilots Forget How It Goes .

“What’s this?” he asked, as she eased out the throttle lever, slowing the plane so that it was barely moving, waiting to take up position for takeoff.

“Oh, my dad. He worries. He taught me to fly. But you know what dads are like. Don’t want you to make mistakes if they can help it.” She hesitated, noticing the shadow that flickered across Max’s eyes. “Sorry, that was thoughtless of me. Under the circumstances.”