Drought (43 page)

The security guard clicked his mike and said, ‘Eye-Sky Two. Eye-Sky Two.'

A crackly voice said, ‘Eye-Sky Two, Go ahead, Rick.'

‘Everything's good down here. We just have to tidy up some.'

‘How long's that going to take?'

Martin held up one finger and the security guard said, ‘Maybe an hour. Just hold on there, OK?'

‘Let me talk to Mr Wrack.'

‘Mr Wrack? Sorry, Lief. Mr Wrack's kind of involved right now. I'll have him get back to you.'

Martin patted the security guard on the back and said, ‘Good for you. Well done.' Then he tugged the radio away from his shoulder, dropped it on the ground and stamped on it. He kicked the crushed remains in the direction of Joseph Wrack's smoking corpse.

‘Just in case you go off message, if you know what I mean.'

He went back to Peta and the children.

‘I don't know about you, but I don't think we can stay here any longer, not the way we are now. They've burned our tents. They've opened up the cavern to the elements, and any stray coyotes that might want to come prowling in here. These security guys know where Lost Girl Lake is located now, and we can't just kill them in cold blood, or expect them to keep quiet about it when they get back to the city, because they won't.'

He reached out and took hold of little Mina's hand. ‘Apart from that, we've lost the only person who knew how to survive out here in the desert. I don't know which plants you can eat and which ones you can't. I don't know how to toast flower seeds and make them into cakes.'

‘I can cook,' said Mina. ‘Mommy teached me how to make brownies.'

‘That was out of a packet, stupid,' said Nathan. ‘They don't have packets in the desert.'

Peta said, ‘You think that we should go back?'

‘Wrack's dead, and so I don't think that anybody's going to be looking for me any more. I don't think the police are going to be worrying about Tyler, either, not now.'

‘But what about water, Martin? That was the whole reason we came here, for the water. How are we going to survive without water?'

‘We tell the water department where this lake is, and that should help. Come on, there are millions and millions of gallons here, and it would only take them a few days to set up a pipeline. In Helmand, we laid five miles of pipe in a single afternoon.'

Peta looked around, and smiled at the children. ‘You're right, I suppose. We'll just have to fight for our water like everybody else.'

As soon as she had said that, they heard thunder. It rumbled on and on, like a distant artillery barrage.

‘Hear that?' said Martin. ‘The voice of God.'

A
fter an hour, Santos' blackened body rose silently to the surface of Lost Girl Lake. The two security guards pulled him into the side and then lifted him out.

Grimacing with effort and disgust, they carried him outside, and then went back for the body of their fellow security guard. They laid them side by side with Saskia and the two security guards that Martin had shot. Peta made Nathan and George and Mina sit in Santos' Suburban, with Susan to look after them, so they wouldn't have to see.

There was no question of taking five bodies with them back to San Bernardino, and that was excluding the grotesquely cremated remains of Joseph Wrack. They couldn't bury them, however, because the ground was solid granite, and it would have taken pneumatic drills to dig even a shallow grave. Most of the bushes in the valley had been reduced to fine gray spidery ash, and the blankets in their tents had been burned, so they had nothing to cover them, apart from stones, and building a cairn for them, like they had for Mikey, would have taken hours.

‘We can come back for them,' said Martin. He looked up at the turkey vultures wheeling around on the thermals that rose out of the valley. ‘Meanwhile, I think we'll have to leave them to Mother Nature.

He stood over Santos' body for a few moments. ‘Hey, Kemo Sabay,' he said, quietly. ‘You did ask me to make sure that you were burned, didn't you? I know this wasn't exactly what you had in mind, but I hope it's enough for you. You'll be going back to your land now, anyhow. Meeting all of your people. I'm sorry for what happened to you. I'm sorry for what happened to all of you Yuhaviatam. I really am.' He paused, and then he said, ‘Gitche Manitou? Can you hear me? If you can, then take this guy to meet his Juanita, will you?'

Peta said, ‘Come on, Martin. We need to go.'

He checked his Eldorado to make sure that he hadn't left anything in the glove box, and then he put up its roof and locked it. He didn't know whether he would ever be coming back for it. Their trek along the Path of the Sacred Bear had wrecked its suspension and its muffler and ruinously scratched its paintwork, but he might be able to salvage it one day.

Tyler drove them up the valley in Santos' truck, with Martin sitting in the back to keep the two security guards covered. When they reached the head of the valley, they saw the two dark-blue ESS helicopters, one on either side of the wash, a Robinson Raven and an AStar. Their pilots were sitting on a rock together a little way away, smoking. Tyler brought the Suburban to a halt and Martin climbed out, with his sub-machine gun raised, and both of them stood up in alarm.

‘Hi there, gentlemen!' Martin called out. ‘This isn't as threatening as it looks, so I'm asking for a little calm. No – relax, you don't have to put up your hands.'

‘Where's Mr Wrack?' asked one of them. ‘How come you left Mr Wrack behind?'

Martin said, ‘Mr Wrack has had an accident. That's why we had to leave him behind. Let's just say that he's not in very good shape right now. What you're going to do now is fly us all back to your base in San Bernardino – all of us. After that we're going to part company, as friends, I hope.'

‘What kind of an accident?' said one of the pilots, in a strong South Carolina accent. ‘What – you mean he's
dead
?'

‘Yes, he is, I'm afraid. I guess that's what you get for playing with fire.'

‘
Told
him he shouldn't have brung that flame-thrower,' said the pilot. ‘Didn't like having that dang thing aboard with me one bit. Plus all of that extra gas.'

The other pilot shrugged. He seemed completely unperturbed. ‘Far as I'm concerned, Dooby, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.'

They lifted off from the head of the valley and tilted south-westward, back across the Joshua Tree National Park and Desert Hot Springs until they reached Highway 19, which would take them back toward Redlands, and then to San Bernardino.

Martin and Peta and Ella and Mina were in one helicopter, with one of the two surviving security guards, while Tyler and Susan and Nathan and George and the other security guard were in the other.

Martin had given Tyler the pistol that he had taken from the ESS man who had dived into the water, but neither of the security guards seemed to be interested in giving them any trouble. Lief, their pilot, appeared to be positively jubilant that Joseph Wrack was dead.

‘Don't get me wrong,' he said. ‘Assholes I can tolerate. If a guy's an asshole he's an asshole. We all behave like assholes now and again. It's the human condition. Darwin's Origin of Assholes. What I can't tolerate is assholes who behave like sons of bitches, and Joseph Wrack was the meanest son of a bitch I ever came across, ever. Don't know what's going to happen now. Maybe his deputy's going to take over – Jim Broader. He's an asshole, I'm telling you. But a son of a bitch, no.'

He talked non-stop as they flew along the highway, and Martin was glad that he was the only other person in the cabin wearing headphones.

Far ahead of them, on the horizon, he could see lightning flicker. As they neared Redlands, however, and veered north-westward toward San Bernardino, he was sure that he could see gray clouds building. He turned around in his seat and pointed them out to Peta. ‘Haven't seen clouds like that in over a year!' he shouted.

‘What?' she shouted back.

‘Clouds! Over there!'

The wind was beginning to rise, and buffet the helicopter, and the pilot stopped talking as he concentrated on keeping them on course. The roaring of their engine rose and fell as they circled at last around the ESS helipad off East 3rd Street, on the northern perimeter of San Bernardino International Airport. Martin turned his head around to see where the other helicopter was. It was close behind them, off to their starboard side and slightly higher, but it was struggling against the wind just as much as they were. The two helicopters dipped and danced like two dragonflies before they finally settled on to the concrete landing pad.

Almost at once, four ground crew in fluorescent orange overalls came hurrying out of the helipad building to anchor both helicopters with hooks and cables.

They all climbed out, and by now the sky above them was heavy with low gray clouds. The speed with which they had rolled over was astonishing. There was another flicker of lightning, and a grumble of thunder, and then, like some kind of Biblical miracle, it began to rain. They all stood looking upward. The children had their arms outspread. At first, the rain was nothing more than a few warm spots, but then it started to come down harder.

It thundered again, much nearer and louder.

Martin turned to Peta. Her blonde hair was wet and straggly, and raindrops were running down her cheeks like tears.

‘What did I tell you?' he said. ‘The voice of God.'

It rained for only twenty minutes before the clouds passed over and the sun came out again, so that steam rose from the sidewalks and the whole city shone blurred and bright.

But it thundered and rained again, during the night, much more heavily this time. Peta turned over and said to Martin, ‘Are you awake?'

‘I haven't slept yet,' he told her. ‘I can't stop thinking about everything that's happened, and I still can't believe that I'm here.'

In the darkness, she touched his face with her fingertips, as if she were blind. ‘It will be different this time, won't it?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I promise you.'

It kept on steadily raining for over two hours and he could hear it chuckling in the gutters and filling up the rain butt in the back yard. He still couldn't close his eyes, but he put his arm around Peta and held her while she fell asleep again. He didn't know what was going to happen to him now – whether the police would come looking for him for killing Joseph Wrack or Joseph Wrack's security guards, as well as destroying one of his helicopters. Then there was the question of him springing Tyler from custody, when Tyler had already been charged with felony homicide. In a strange way, though, he felt completely calm about it – for tonight, anyhow. He knew that a kind of justice had been done, and that once the truth was known, he and Tyler stood a good chance of being exonerated. Most of all, though, he was back with Peta, and Tyler and Ella were sleeping in their own bedrooms, and it was raining.

The following morning, on NBC News, it was announced that Governor Halford Smiley, who had unaccountably been missing for over twelve hours, had been discovered dead in a parking lot in south San Bernardino. Apparently he had been the victim of a car bomb, although there was no indication as to who might have wanted to blow him up, or why. No terrorist organizations had claimed credit for killing him, although an extreme group of environmental activists calling themselves Thirst For Action had said that they would ‘line-dance on his grave' because his ‘rotational hiatuses' had been tantamount to class genocide.

For the time being, Lieutenant Governor Kenneth Korven would be taking over the running of the state of California. He had already agreed that the Environmental Protection Agency should temporarily take over the rationing of water, at least until the drought emergency was over. That would mean that all of those neighborhoods whose water had been permanently cut off would have their supply restored, at least every alternate day, and that those neighborhoods who never had been cut off would have to suffer the same restrictions.

Lieutenant Governor Korven also announced the fortuitous discovery of a ‘substantial' underground aquifer in the Joshua Tree National Park. It was possible that this water could be used to alleviate the drought crisis in San Bernardino County and surrounding areas.

After the first rainfall in well over a year, weather forecasters were cautiously predicting a gradual return to normal precipitation. There had been intermittent rain all across the Midwest, and in parts of Louisiana there had even been flooding. Several tankers stranded on the bed of the Mississippi had been refloated.

For the first time in days, there was no serious rioting in downtown San Bernardino, and no more fires, although some looting continued. That evening, it rained again, very softly and gently, and the air began to cool. The following morning, very early, Martin and Peta heard a gurgling noise coming from their bathroom, and it was their toilet cistern filling up.

On the third day, Martin took a taxi down to the office in Carousel Mall. The downtown area was still a scene of devastation, although burned-out cars were being lifted up on to low-loaders and crews of men in high-visibility coats were sweeping the broken glass and rocks and trash from the streets.

The only person in the office was Brenda, the receptionist, her hair still tightly French-pleated, scowling as always.

‘I think Arlene will be wanting a word with you, Martin,' she said, as soon as he walked in through the door. ‘She's not in today and I haven't been able to contact her at home, but I'm quite sure that she'll have something to say.'

Martin smiled. ‘That's OK, Brenda. I'll come in tomorrow and if there's anything eating her I'm sure we can sort it all out. For now, what staff cars do we have in the parking garage? I need to borrow one.'