Blood Moon Rising (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 2) (10 page)

Mysha busied herself by the stove, coming over to check on Beatrix at regular intervals and bringing fresh cups of tea. Beatrix didn’t have her bag with her, and the Zomorph was in it. The pain was bad, but she was going to have to go without her pills. She concentrated on her breathing, and after a while, the pain receded a little.

The shack grew dark as the hour drew on. Mysha lit the
paraffin
lamp and hung it from a hook on one of the joists that supported the ceiling. The light was warm and inviting, flickering against the blanketed walls. Beatrix drifted in and out of sleep until she became aware of pleasant aromas. Mysha brought her a tray of food. She had prepared
sabich
, pita stuffed with fried aubergine and hard-boiled eggs. There was also shawarma, a wrap made of shaved lamb and goat.

“Have you kept food for yourself?” Beatrix said as the girl passed the plate across to her.

“Yes, I have plenty,” she said, although Beatrix knew that she was probably lying.

“Here,” she said, tearing the shawarma and passing half back to her.

“No . . .”

“Eat it, Mysha.”

The girl paused, but then did as she was told. She finished it quickly, betraying her hunger.

“Do you have a photograph of your brother?”

“For your story?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

She went over to a bag at the other side of the hut, and when she returned, she had a passport photo. She gave it to Beatrix. The young man in the photograph couldn’t have been much older than twenty. He was handsome, with a clear and open face and thick, jet-black hair. His hazel eyes sparkled with life.

“What’s his name?”

“His name is Faik. Faik al-Kaysi.”

“And his age?”

“Nineteen.”

“Do you mind if I borrow this?”

Her face flinched with reluctance.

“Don’t worry. He can bring it back himself after I get him out.”

“You can do that . . . ?”

“I’m going to try.”

Mysha put her fingers to her cheek, and her lip quivered. “I . . .”

“It’s alright, Mysha. I’m going to speak to some people I know. They will be able to help.”

Her voice cracked a little. “Thank you.”

She reached out and took the girl by the shoulder. “There’s something else. My station pays for stories . . .”

“I don’t want anything,” she interrupted quickly.

“I would feel bad if I didn’t pay you.”

She was about to protest again, but she was stalled by Beatrix’s raised hand. She put the other one into her pocket and took out two fifty-dollar bills. She pressed them into the girl’s hand.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll make sure you get your brother back again.”

“Thank you,” she sniffled, almost pitifully grateful.

Beatrix looked up at the wall opposite her. There were a dozen school achievement medals that had been clipped to the fabric covering, all in the name of Mysha al-Kaysi and all from at least three years ago.

“Those are very impressive,” Beatrix said.

Mysha was busying herself with cleaning the stove. She looked up and looked over to where Beatrix was pointing. She smiled shyly. “It is nothing. Just school.”

“Do you still go?”

“Not any more. I have to look after the house now that my . . .” She started to say “mother,” then “brother,” and then she stopped and looked down at the stove again. “It is alright. I was lucky to be able to go at all. Many of my friends cannot. They cannot read or write.”

“What do you want to do when you’re older?”

Mysha
looked at her as if
Beatrix
was fooling with her. “When I am older? I will be a wife, if Allah is willing.”

“You don’t want to do something else? A career?”

“This is not America, Beatrix. That is not for me. I will be happy to have a husband and a family.”

“And your brother wants to work on the oil field?”

“It is a good paying job. We do not have much. It would help.” She looked reluctant as she said it.

“What do you think?”

“It is dangerous. Many men are injured. Many die. I would worry.”

Beatrix finished the food and then helped to wash the dishes. The girl pulled a box away from the wall and took out blankets and a pillow. She arranged them in the centre of the makeshift room, layering the blankets to soften the rough contours of the bare earth. When she had finished, there were two separate beds. She indicated that Beatrix should lie down.

She did as she was told.

“Good night,” the girl said.

She extinguished the paraffin lamp, and the shack fell dark.

“Good night.”

Beatrix couldn’t sleep.

She was in an unfamiliar place, in an unfriendly country. The silence was intermittent, disturbed by a loud and drunken argument from the next shack along, the misfiring of a car engine and, in the distant desert, the howling of wild dogs.

But the inability to rest was thanks to more than those
distractions
.

She closed her eyes again, but her mind was racing too fast and would not be still. She gave up and sat, removed the blankets and as quietly as she could, she stood up. Mysha was beside her, snoring very lightly, her breath going in and out with a light snuffle. Beatrix stepped over her legs and pulled aside the tarpaulin that covered the door. She went outside.

Something was different. Unusual. It was quiet now. The argument had subsided, the car had passed on and the dogs had either found something to eat or had moved away.

She looked up. The moon was shaded a burnt reddish-orange, the light reflecting through the smog from the burning gas and the sand in the air. It reminded her of a blood moon. Beatrix had seen one before, in Africa, so long ago that it seemed like another
lifetime
. There had been fresh blood on her hands then, the corpse of the Zimbabwean arms dealer still warm in the sand at her feet. He had dealt death and misery all around the continent, and he had, without doubt, warranted her attention. Beatrix had never given him a second thought, but now she found herself wondering about his situation:
Had he
had
a wife, children, loved ones? Did that make any difference?

A blood moon.

How appropriate.

She sat in the sand and watched the sky for thirty minutes, the incremental progress of the red stain as it seemed to darken and swallowed the whole of the moon.

She reached into her pocket and took out the torn strip of photographs. She unfolded it and looked at her daughter and the way that she was looking at her. She touched her fingertips against her sweet face.

Her thoughts ran away with her. She was thinking about the decisions that she had made. Once Isabella had been returned to her care and could no longer be used against her, she had made the decision to wipe out those who had done her wrong.

To
extinguish
them.

But was it a decision? A decision required alternatives, different paths that could be taken in lieu of the one that she had chosen. Did she have a choice in any of this? Were there other paths? How much room was there for free will?

She had spent almost a decade nursing her grudges, dripping poison into the open wounds that had been inflicted by the five men and one woman who had found their way onto her list. The wound had festered and become septic. There had never been any chance for it to heal. After long enough, the need to
avenge
herself on them had become reflexive, as instinctive as the scratching of an itch.

She had never stopped to think about whether there was another course that she could take.

She stretched out her legs to ease the ache and considered. She could stop, she supposed, and ignore what had been done to her. Not forgive them, and never forget, but just let the hatred go and abandon her short future to fate. But too much had already happened for that to be possible. There
were
choices, but those choices had consequences, too. Her own decisions were one thing.
She couldn’t influence theirs. She could go back to the riad, but
they would find her. She could flee and hide somewhere else,
but they would find her there, too. Perhaps the cancer would finish her before they did, but that was no solace.

Because there was Isabella, too.

Control and the others knew that Beatrix was in the world now, looking for them; their names were on a list, all ready to be struck out. They would do everything they could to protect themselves. She knew Control. He would feel cornered and vulnerable, and the only possible response for a man like him would be to go on the attack. There would be no respite. No surcease. She could go dark again, and he wouldn’t rest. He would be relentless, determined, and tear down the world until he found her. He had resources behind him that she couldn’t hope to beat. If she delayed, she would lose all of her advantages. He would find her in the end, and when he did, there would be nothing that she could do.

She had to take the battle to him while she had the advantage. She would keep moving, perpetual motion, so that he could be kept off balance.

She looked at the photographs again.

She had her daughter to think about now.

She had no choice.

There were no alternatives.

She was set on a course that she could not change.

Immutable.

Indelible.

Unshakeable.

She had to follow it to its destination, whatever that was.

She looked up into the darkened vault of the sky again. The moon, plump and fat, was suspended above the rolling dunes, an orange counterpoint to the flames that burned on the horizon, the torches of fired gas. The crimson filter crept all the way across the 
silver
disc, staining it all. Beatrix stood, brushing the sand from her legs. Her mind was clear now. She knew that she had no choice in any of this. Her fate was a focussed beam, from here to its
vanishing
point, that allowed no possibility of diversion. There was peace in that knowledge, and her mind, finally, was quietened.

She folded the strip of photographs along the crease and slipped it back into her pocket again.

She went back inside, fastened the tarpaulin behind her and returned to her bed. She was asleep within minutes.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he news that Ahmed was dead passed around the cell quickly, and then it was passed down the corridor to the other cells. It was adorned with new information, some of it true and plenty of it false, until it returned to their cell the next day so changed that it was difficult to know what to believe. The suggestion that he had suffered a heart attack was debunked, and now everyone believed the same thing: he had been tortured for his impertinence and had died during the ordeal.

That was probably true. The details didn’t matter.

The temperature rose higher and higher until the atmosphere was feverish.

Faik withdrew to the back of the cell. There was always violence just beneath the surface, but now it seemed dangerously close and ready to catch light. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the front when it started.

He didn’t have long to wait.

The guard with the shotgun went off shift, to be replaced by a man Faik recognised.
No one
knew his name, but since he had a cruel, braying laugh, he had quickly become known as
hîmaar
, or Donkey. He was a regular, and renowned for his sadism. He had spat into Faik’s bowl of rice on his first day inside, and there were stories of his particularly enthusiastic participation in the six-
on-on
e beatings that the guards used to punish those inmates who had done something that they found objectionable. He was also a heavy drinker, and Faik had noticed that he was often drunk while he was on shift. Tonight, Donkey was sweating heavily and he reeked of alcohol again; perhaps that was why he misread the atmosphere.

One of the inmates stood up and walked over to the door. He was a young man called Abdul, just a little older than Faik, and of a similarly slight build. He would not have been the sort to arouse wariness or suspicion.

He called Donkey to come over.

The man swore in irritation, but raised himself from the chair and, with his shotgun held loosely at his side, came closer to the bars of the cell.

“What?”

Abdul grabbed Donkey by the collar of his shirt and yanked hard, pulling him onto the bars. His head bounced off the metal, and he grunted in pain and surprise. A second inmate, Abdul’s older brother Tarik, leapt to his feet and reached through to grab the guard’s flailing left arm, pulling hard so that he was trapped against the bars. He dropped the shotgun and shouted in sudden fear, but the other guards were in the guardhouse with a crate of Asrihah
arak
and oblivious to what was going on outside. Donkey kept his keys on a loop that hung from his belt, right next to his revolver. Abdul tore the keys from the belt and Tarik reached for the revolve
r. Donkey
fought desperately, punching through the bars with his right fist and managing to hold him off.

But now Abdul had the cell door open.

“Come on!” he yelled.

Donkey freed his arm and staggered away from the bars. He thought about the shotgun on the floor, saw the open gate and the men who were pouring out of it, and fled.

Tarik hurried outside and took the shotgun.

The other prisoners hurried to get out.

Faik stayed at the back. He felt sick with fright. He was unable to move.

The engineer started for the door, paused, looked back at him and then pushed through the scramble until he was close enough to reach down and pull him up.

“Come on,” he said, urgently, his eyes flashing. “You can’t stay here. We have to go.”

“They’ll shoot us.”

“And what will they do if we stay?”

Faik looked into his face and saw resolution. He allowed
himself
to be pulled up and to the open door and out into the
corridor
beyond.

They tried to open the other cells first, but Donkey’s key didn’t work in all of them. They opened three, and so there were a hundred or so prisoners who made it out. That was still more than enough to overpower the drunken guards. They swarmed into the room where they were drinking their
arak
and piled onto them, burying them under a weight of numbers and raining a brutal shower of kicks and punches down onto them until all were either dead or unconscious. They took their revolvers and another shotgun and pressed buttons until they had unlocked the gate to the canteen. They surged inside, roaring with pent-up fury, turning over tables and throwing chairs. A fire extinguisher was torn from the wall and crashed down again and again on the toughened glass in the door that opened out onto the exercise yard.

Faik was jostled into the middle of the mêlée as the door was battered open and the prisoners spilled out into the cool night air. They had exited into the exercise yard. The dusty surface looked lunar in the illumination of the prison’s lighting, and the first few men started to sprint across the fifty feet of open space to the
nearest w
all.

Faik cowered in the lee of the building.

This all felt horribly dangerous.

“Come on,” the engineer urged him. “There is a weakness in the fence. Over there, it is possible to open it. I have seen. Come on!”

He ran, and Faik followed, slowly at first and then faster.

Maybe he could get out.

Maybe he could get back to Mysha.

Maybe they could leave town.

Maybe . . .

There came a crack that echoed out across the wide space.

There were several prisoners ahead of them, heading for the same weakness that the engineer had identified.

Faik watched in horror as the head of the man farthest from them jerked back at him, a pink mist spraying out. His momentum carried him forward for another step, but then he toppled
backwards
, landing with a heavy thud on his shoulder blades.

There came another, echoing report.

The second man of the pair was drilled through the neck. He stumbled onwards for a handful of paces, turning back to them with his hands clasped around his throat, before he slumped to his knees and then keeled over onto his side.

Faik stopped. He looked up at the guard tower that overlooked the main gate. One of the sentries was turned in their direction. He had braced his left forearm on the timber balustrade, the stock of his sniper rifle nestled tight between his sternum and his chin. He was gently obscured by a pall of grey smoke that had issued from the muzzle of the long gun, quickly dissipating into the night.

The engineer stopped, too.

There was a third sharp pop, and the engineer jerked from the middle. The shot turned him around, and he stumbled towards Faik, a look of incomprehension on his face. A dot of red appeared on his orange jumpsuit and then burgeoned, the edges pushing
outwards
until it bloomed wider than the span of the hands he pressed against it. He moaned, his eyes rolled back into his head and he toppled down onto his face like a felled tree.

Faik dropped to the ground and covered his head with his arms. He closed his eyes and waited.