Jane Higgins - The Bridge

But that wasn’t what Fyffe meant. She kissed my cheek and whispered in Breken, ‘Dear Nik. Go home.’

Dash and I sat locked in the backof an armored car, waiting to go to the Marsh. It was dark. The car we were in was practically hermetically sealed. There was no getting out, except through Dash.

‘Dash, we’re still friends?’

‘Course. More than friends.’

‘If I go into the Marsh, I won’t come out in one piece.’

‘Sure you will.’

‘No, listen. You have to believe either them or me about this, because only one of us is telling the truth.’

‘You only think like that because you’ve been so… indoctrinated.’

‘And you haven’t?’

‘They killed Sol! They used you to do it.’

‘Someone did. I want to find out who. I can’t do it from inside the Marsh.’

‘We know who!’

‘I don’t.’

‘I want you here, Nik, working with me. We can do good work together. Didn’t we always say that’s what we wanted?’

‘Yeah, we did.’

‘Well, then.’ She sat back, argument won. She took my hand. ‘Kiss me.’

When I didn’t move, she smiled and said, ‘What’s the matter? Forgotten how?’

So I did, I kissed her, and she said, ‘Okay, why did that feel like good-bye? You’ll be out of there in no time. And when you come out I expect something much happier. That’s an order.’

The driver arrived and as he opened the door there came a high-pitched, howling yell – a war cry – in Breken, from somewhere close. Fyffe came running towards the car, crying out. She grabbed the driver’s arm and gasped, ‘I saw them! I saw them!’

‘How many? Which way?’

‘Three or four – I couldn’t tell.’ She pointed away from the gates towards a complex of low buildings.

‘That’s where you were,’ said Dash to me. ‘They must be looking for you.’ She climbed out and I followed. Dash put an arm around Fyffe and the driver ran towards the complex. I looked at Fy. She looked back at me with a perfectly innocent expression then buried her head in Dash’s shoulder, and while Dash was telling her, don’t worry, you’re safe, I ran for the perimeter fence.

I hid in the shadows of the fence, watched the guards on the main gate, and hoped.

I hoped Dash wouldn’t be punished for taking her eye off me.

I hoped Suzannah would be okay, that they’d see that what she was offering was a chance to change the course of the war.

I hoped I could get out before they found me.

But most of all, I hoped Fyffe would be safe: that ISIS would never work out what she had just done. Her angelic face would help. Who could doubt that face? And having a powerful father, that would surely help too. I desperately didn’t want to leave her with ISIS and Jono and her grieving parents. But I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t waste this brave thing she’d done for me.

I skirted the perimeter, listening for trouble. The place wasn’t exactly high security: just a hospital that they’d planted a few extra guards around. Most of the security was inside, not out. Maybe they were more stretched than they were letting on. I came to the south gate where a lone guard was shouting into his comms unit.

‘Yes! I heard it! It’s hostiles. No, I haven’t seen any. Send someone down here. We need to reinforce this gate. No, I told you, there’s only me. I don’t care! The perimeter’s weak here. Get—’

I put a boot into his back as hard as I could. He went down with a grunt, and I kicked him again and pulled his gun away. He lay there gasping. The comms unit screeched. I settled for one more kick and a word in his comms unit, in Breken: ‘We’re everywhere.’

Then I ran.

I ran about twenty blocks, heading downriver towards the Mol. In the blackout it wasn’t difficult to be invisible. What was difficult was the thought that Dash was right: I’d said good-bye, to her and to Fyffe. Maybe forever.

The Mol at sunrise. A haze lay over the river. The bridge creaked in the cold air. Light grew in the sky. Two city guards paced at the bridge gate. I wanted to get past them, and now that I had a gun I could see a way to do that. I stood in a doorway close to the riverwall, took aim at a darkened shopfront across the road and fired. The guards came running. I hid in the shadows and when they’d gone by, shouting into their comms units, I ran onto the Mol.

I was heading for the place where Sol died. I hoped it would help me know what to do next.

But there was something there already. I was close before I saw what it was.

Suzannah. Her body had been dumped in the stain left by Sol’s blood. Now her blood ran with his. They’d slit her throat.

There was so much blood over her body and on the ground that they must have marched her there and done it as she stood in sight of home. No justice. No mercy.

The gun was heavy on my shoulder and thoughts raced through my head about what I could do with a free hand and a loaded gun. I stood there, looking at Suzannah. The slap of the river and the waking sounds of the city and Southside receded into white noise.

I felt Sol’s blood warm on my hands, his thin shoulders in my arms and his dead weight on my chest; I smelled Lou’s charred bones and his clothes burned to his body. The echo of gunfire rattled the air and explosions and shouting rose up from the river. I saw bodies strewn up and down the Mol and blood running across the concrete, dripping through the bridge and off the bridge and pooling on the surface of the river and flowing down to Port and out to sea. Both sides of the city were burning, and there was me standing in the middle of it, uselessly, with a gun in my hands and dreams of revenge crowding my head, because Lou wouldn’t ever sit up now and laugh and say, Ha! Joke’s over! and Sol wouldn’t frown over a number puzzle I’d made for him, and Suzannah wouldn’t front up to CFM and say, ‘Here is a way forward!’ There would be only confusion and shouting and gunfire and smoke and explosions, and the dead.

Then Suzannah came back into focus and I heard her say, ‘Some days, you know, some days, I tell myself: don’t look up, the mountain is too high, but choose for this day, for this moment; that is enough.’

I moved. Took myself across ground that felt sticky with blood, through air thick with the stink of people burning and the sound of my own breath rasping. I moved to the side of the bridge, gripped the gun, took aim at the river and fired. The noise obliterated all other noise. When the bullets ran out I was deafened and gasping and sick. I lifted the gun high and hurled it into the water. Then I laid my forehead on the side of the bridge and let the cold of the ironwork slide through me until the noises of the world came flooding back. Gulls. The waves. The wind in the ironwork above me.

I went back to Suzannah. Her face was calm, and her eyes were wide and dark. Her feet were still bare. I dropped down beside her and closed her eyes. She was curled towards me like a sleeping child hiding a secret treasure. When I looked closely I saw what it was. She was wearing a jacket packed with explosives. A message from the city to those who would come to take her home to Southside.

A crowd was gathering at the Southside gate. A man left the group and walked onto the bridge. My father. As tall and lean and battle-hungry as he’d been the first time I saw him. He said, ‘Ah, no,’ and put a hand out to Suzannah’s hair.

‘Don’t touch her,’ I said. ‘She’s dead.’

‘So I see.’ He knelt beside her without speaking for a while, then he said, ‘You got away. That’s impressive. We thought we’d lost you.’