John Case - Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Wilson said.

Ibrahim looked puzzled. So did Belov. Nearby, the family was kneeling in the dirt, holding hands and praying.

“Why not?” Belov asked.

Wilson didn’t know what to say. “It’s late.”

Ibrahim gave him a look that questioned his sanity.

The boy with the tire around his shoulders sank to his knees.

The telephone must have rung six or seven times before anyone answered. Wilson’s heart was crashing against his ribs, while threads of silver began to wiggle and curl in the corner of his left eye.

Commander Ibrahim jumped to his feet, shouting into the phone. “Hallo? Hallo? Who is this?” He listened for a moment, then growled with impatience: “Speak English, for God’s sake! Where’s Hakim?” He listened for a while longer. “Then get him! Who the fuck do you think I’m calling? It’s his phone, isn’t it?” He kept his ear to the satellite phone, but turned to Wilson and Belov. In a quiet voice, he asked, “So what should I do with the boy?”

“Let him go,” Belov said. “You’ve made your point.”

Ibrahim nodded. “I suppose… What do you think?” he asked, raising his chin to Wilson.

Wilson didn’t know what to say. The vision in his right eye was beginning to go, and his thoughts were elsewhere. “I’ve got my own problems,” he muttered. If Hakim didn’t come to the phone (and why would he, how could he?), Ibrahim would begin to wonder. And that could not be a good thing in this place, under these circumstances.

Ibrahim frowned. “We all have – Hallo? Hakim! Where the fuck have you been? Speak up, man! I can barely hear! Look, we’ve got a problem with the glass samples that you sent. Yes, ‘the glass samples’!” A long pause. “Well, some of the glass was made in China. What the fuck am I supposed to do with… what? No, it’s not a lot of money. Maybe ten percent.”

“Maybe six percent,” Belov mumbled.

Commander Ibrahim was smiling now. “Okay, my brother! Now, you’re talking! I’ll tell him what you said… What? Yes, of course, he’s standing right next to me. Okay, okay, but… all right, no problem.” Commander Ibrahim handed the phone to Wilson. “He wants to talk to you.”

Belov was smirking.

Wilson was nearly blind, his eyes spangled with neural fireworks that only he could see. He laid the phone against his cheek, and said, “Hello?”

Ten seconds passed before Hakim said a word, and when he did, his voice was weak and tired-sounding. “Frank?”

Stupidly, Wilson nodded. Then he caught himself, and said, “Yes?”

“It’s Hakim…”

“I know.”

“So… everything’s okay? At your end, it’s okay?”

“Yeah,” Wilson said. “It’s fine.” How many people are listening, Wilson wondered. And where are they keeping him?

“Then I’ll see you in Antwerp in a couple of days.”

“Right,” Wilson said.

“At the De Witte Lelie Hotel. As discussed.”

“Right.”

A moment later, the phone went dead.

Wilson took a deep breath, then tossed the phone to Commander Ibrahim.

Who was smiling. “Sorry, Charley! He says you get ten percent less.”

Belov took a step toward him, looking outraged, but Wilson put a hand on his sleeve. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll make it back the next time around.”

Commander Ibrahim turned his attention to the boy with the Firestone necklace. “I’ve decided,” he said. Then he paused, savoring the moment as everyone’s eyes turned to him. “He’s just a boy… from a poor family… and it was a small diamond.”

The family was nodding in agreement. The boy, too.

“But…” Ibrahim paused for a second time.

Wilson could see it coming.

“I have a mine to run,” Ibrahim said. “So here’s what we’re going to do.” Ibrahim reached into his pocket, and pulled out a lighter. Moving around the table, he went to the family clustered on the ground, and gave the lighter to the mother. “Light him up, Mother…”

She wailed.

Seeing what was happening, her son scrambled to his feet. But with the tire around his neck, and his hands behind his back, it was impossible to get anywhere. One of the soldiers grabbed him by the tire, spun him around, and shoved him back the way he’d come.

The mother was hysterical.

“Well, if you won’t do as I ask,” Ibrahim said, “we have an even bigger problem.” Still looking at the mother, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. On cue, three soldiers came out of the little pink building, carrying five tires and a can of gas. The family gasped, and one of the younger boys swooned dead away.

But Ibrahim was having a grand old time, and so were his men. Some of them were laughing, and all of them were bright with excitement. “Light him up, and that’s the end of it! I promise you, Mother, once the boy toasts up, you can go home!” He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She was shaking her head so hard, it seemed almost as if it might fly off. “You understand, don’t you? You’re as responsible as the boy is! More! You brought him into the world. So now, I think, it’s up to you to take him out. If you don’t want to do that, if you can’t do that, I’ll quite understand. But then, I’m afraid, there’s a tire for each of you!”

Ibrahim sank to his haunches, a few feet in front of the mother, and looked her in the eye. “What’s it to be, then? You’re in charge, Mother! You decide! The boy – or the family? C’mon!” He spun the lighter’s little wheel, and a flame flickered.

“Let her alone,” Wilson said.

Commander Ibrahim turned, and stared.

Wilson stepped forward with his hand out, palm up. “Let me do it.”

It was a test.

If, like Nietzsche’s superman, Wilson was (as he believed) “beyond good and evil,” then any remnants of “conscience” he might have were artifacts – the detritus of his own evolution. Static.

If he thought about it, he could probably work out an equation for it. A formula for the moral equivalent of the signal-to-noise ratio.

The idea, of course, was to shed his conscience as if it were a snakeskin. Just walk right out of it and keep on going. If anyone came after him, they’d see it in the grass, a ribbon of scales – and they’d wonder: Was Wilson nearby? Was he hunting ?

It was important to Wilson – essential, really – that he should be comfortable with the violence inside him. And so, the boy…

His eyes rolled back as Wilson approached, cigarette lighter in hand. He stood in front of the kid for what seemed like a long time, waiting for him to look up from the ground. That was a part of it – having the strength to look his victim in the eye, embracing his fear, while accepting the injustice that was about to take place.

The boy must have sensed this as well, because he kept his eyes on the ground for what seemed like a long time. When, finally, he shook himself from what seemed like a waking swoon, and looked up, Wilson met his gaze for an instant, then spun the lighter’s little wheel and lit him up.

The kid came alive in a rush, darting this way and that, engulfed in flames and trailing a veil of acrid black smoke. Militiamen leaped out of his way, laughing, as if they were playing a game of blind-man’s bluff. Every so often one of the soldiers would spin him around with a kick in the ass or a tug on the tire. But the game didn’t last long. It was over in thirty seconds. Though Wilson couldn’t be sure, it seemed to him that the boy had a heart attack. One minute he was running around, making noises, and the next…

There was a sort of clumsy pirouette that ended with the boy sinking to his knees, clawing at the tread. Then he stiffened, and that was that. Like a tree, he toppled sideways, and lay in the dirt, smoking.