Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

Even the people in the vicinity of the steps could not know it all.

Some of them, distracted from the firework display by the sudden movement, had seen Hamoud grapple the bomber into the fountain. They had seen, as well as heard, the explosion. It was a sight that would remain with them as long as they lived. Hamoud’s body had taken the force of the blast. He could not absorb it all, of course. The force of the explosion had thrown the bomber himself up into the air in a shower of blood, water and shrapnel. Those closest to the blast were thrown outwards from it, their skin burned, their hair scorched. A nail flew into the shoulder of the black man with the kid on his shoulders. Another pierced the leg of a young woman. Yet another blinded an old man in his left eye.

But they could not know, amid the panic and the chaos and the injury and the blood, that the bulk of the shrapnel in the bomber’s jacket had torn into the flesh of Hamoud’s thorax and abdomen.

They saw dismembered body parts, flying through the air and lying on the ground, mangled, wet, cauterised and smoking, and the sight revolted them. It revolted them not only because the limbs were gruesome to behold, but because they were the limbs of an extremist. A fanatic. A killer who wished harm on them and their families.

But they could not know, as they gathered their weeping children into their arms to protect them from the vision of these body parts, that the body parts floating in the fountain belonged to a man who had sacrificed himself to save them.

They could smell the rank, acrid stench of burning flesh and it made some of them sick.

But they could not know, as the fireworks continued to flower in the sky, and the music continued its inappropriate counterpoint to the screams, that a woman holding hands with her two children had suddenly stopped hurrying to the exit, and the sickness in her stomach was more profound than any of theirs. The screams had reached her ears. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, there were tears, and her children were looking up at her. She bent down to hug them each in turn, and drew some comfort from the warmth of their bodies and the way they wrapped their little arms around her and held tight.

Then she said: ‘We must do what your father asked.’ She took them by the hand again and led them to the exit.

TWENTY-SIX

For the first time that night, Danny was thankful for the rain. It offered cover from the police officers behind him. And he had to outrun them.

The alleyway extended for another thirty metres. Danny sprinted along it, ignoring the pain in his right arm where Bethany’s bullet had grazed him, his feet splashing heavily in the flood of water on the ground. The cops would be following, forty metres distant, perhaps less. He didn’t need to check behind him to be certain of that. If they got close enough, there was every chance that they would take a shot. Distance was essential.

At the end of the alleyway he could turn left or right. Both led to busy streets, with the hazy glare of car headlamps moving through the rain. There was nothing to choose between his two options. Bethany could have gone in either direction, but she was not his primary concern now. She no longer had the memory stick. The footage was lost. His attempt to stop the President’s conspiracy had failed. He turned left at random and emerged, soaked and panting, on to the busy road.

A police car screamed past. Danny pulled his wet hood further over his face and hurried in the opposite direction. There were still no pedestrians out in the rain. He was a lone figure as he pounded the path, and although his head was down and his weapon concealed, he knew he had to hide. The police were everywhere, and there were no crowds in which to lose himself. It was impossible to be the grey man when you were sprinting alone along deserted pathways.

He soon came across a right-hand turn which led down a side street filled with large commercial rubbish bins. It was dark, dingy, unwelcoming and stank of debris. The places nobody wanted to go were the perfect places to hide. He ducked down the lane and secreted himself behind one of the huge plastic bins. There was rotting litter on the ground and rain streaked down the wall behind him. He crouched in shadow, his wet clothing clinging to him, and removed his weapon, ready should he need to use it. He listened hard through the rain. The distant sound of sirens came and went. He thought perhaps he heard the sound of voices shouting. But the rain washed away these fragments of sound, and Danny remained undisturbed and undiscovered.

Defeat did not sit well with Danny Black. He had the mindset of a Regiment man. A mindset that valued operational success at all costs. Bethany White had denied him that success. Thwarted his operation. There was a part of him that wanted to hunt her down and finish the job the head shed had given him. Another part of him, however, felt as much anger with the head shed as with Bethany. They’d killed her boy. He hadn’t deserved that, whatever his mother might have done. Danny didn’t know what made him feel more bitter: that he was in some way complicit in the death of a child, or that they’d kept him in the dark about it while he carried out their instructions. Either way, they’d been playing Danny as well as Bethany. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised after all these years. He was just a soldier, after all, there to do a job and not ask too many questions. But the head shed’s deception had an unintended consequence. Despite everything, Danny felt a strange complicity with Bethany. He was not going to go looking for her. She could be anywhere in Washington DC already, in any case. She was somebody else’s problem now.

The rain continued to fall. Danny stayed where he was. His body temperature was dropping. His arm was in pain. He was cramped and wet and uncomfortable. But he could wait here, hidden in the darkness, for as long as he needed while the police moved on and he worked out his next move.

Bethany White did not know where she was. She had run, and run, and run. Everything was a blur. She was clutching her right forearm with her left hand. There was blood and it hurt, but she didn’t care about that. Rain streamed into her face, but she didn’t care about that either. There had been tears for a while, washed away by the downpour, but now there was just a hot, burning mass of pain in her chest. A desperation and an anger like she had never known. They had intended to take her life. She could cope with that. She could even understand it. But to take the one thing that meant more to her than that? She could never forgive them for it.

She stopped running. She was breathing heavily. Her surroundings came into focus. She was outside a liquor store in a small street with barely any traffic. She had no phone and no money, but these things were not so hard to come by, especially if you had a Glock 17 in your fist. She looked through the window of the store. There was just one customer: a lanky young guy with a ponytail and a thin raincoat, wet from the weather and slightly unsteady on his feet, buying beer. The cashier was putting the beers into a brown paper bag while the young guy placed some bills on the counter. Moments later, he was heading to the exit. Bethany could tell he was drunk. She gripped her handgun behind her back, checked to see that the street was empty, then stood to one side of the store and waited for him to step outside.

The young man paused for a moment in the doorway, looking out at the rain with a bleary expression of distaste. Then he shrugged, stepped out into it and walked in Bethany’s direction. He didn’t even appear to notice her until she was standing right in front of him, her weapon raised and inches from his chest.

He stopped. His jaw dropped.