42

The fireballs were huge and billowing: monstrous black clouds tinged with Satanic tangerine. Towers of pungent smoke filled the sky.

‘Amy! Amy!’

David edged up over the parapet of sand: the complex of buildings was gone. Replaced by a hideous wall of flame and devastation; the air was shuddering with the heat of the blaze; secondary explosions added to the surging noise.

Angus was prone beside him. Lying on the sand. He put a hand on David’s shoulder.

‘It’s the oil generator – the fuel’s gone up.’ The Scotsman turned on his back, and looked towards the sea. ‘The boat…The bastard boat…Fuck -’

David was staring in horror at the destruction: anyone in or around the building would have stood no chance. No hope. No chance.

Angus muttered:

‘They must have come from Walvis Bay? Maybe Oranjemund…’

‘David?’

A softer voice. David swivelled.

It was Amy. She was unharmed. Standing in the sand. Trembling.

And behind her was Nathan Kellerman, bleeding profusely, and staggering.

Amy sank into David’s embrace.

‘I was coming down to see you…then I got knocked over…’

He hugged her close. Angus asked Nathan:

‘Eloise?’

Kellerman’s voice was slow, and wearied:

‘She was engulfed.’

His suit was smeared with a tar-like substance; David realized it was blood. Kellerman was bleeding from a chest wound.

And now a new noise joined the tumult, cars were screaming to the shoreline, and men in blue overalls and desert boots were jumping out. David recognized Solomon and Tilac, the Kellerman Namcorp guards. Nathan lifted an arm:

‘Shoot.’

The men obeyed: they unhoisted rifles and knelt in the sand, and took aim. The boat was already departing, churning south – job done. But the Namcorp men fired anyway, and the echoes of the crackling rifle fire joined the roar of the burning fuel dumps, and the soft explosion of buildings crumpling in the flames. The smell of burning petrol was vicious, greasy black smoke was fogging the oceanic sky. Amy was shivering now. Angus was remonstrating with Nathan.

David could barely hear their conversation. He caught the odd word: Amsterdam, helicopter, dinghy. He looked between the two of them. Nathan was handing something to Angus. It looked like a gun, a pistol – and something else: a small black velvet pouch. Despite his deep tan, Nathan Kellerman had a notably white pallor; and the blood was still oozing from some hideous wound, staining his soft linen jacket a blatant burgundy. Angus, by contrast, seemed energized; he turned to David and Amy.

‘Nathan wants us to use the company boat, down there.’ He pointed. ‘He’s right. We actually have a chance – let’s take it.’

‘What?’

Angus gestured at the wide black cloud now drifting down the beach. ‘They’ll have zero visibility for an hour or two. The guards can hold them off with gunfire.’

David protested:

‘Eloise…’

‘She is dead, David. Nathan wouldn’t lie. Come on. They’ll be watching the roads out of the Forbidden Zone, but if we take the boat to Luderitz -’

Amy said, very softly: ‘I think he’s right.’

Angus was already hoisting Nathan’s sagging arm over his shoulder, assisting him down the beach. David and Amy swapped glances, then followed, stunned and frightened. A few more rifle shots smacked the hot air behind them.

Behind the next cove was a small pier, and a tethered rubber speedboat with a powerful looking engine.

Angus got in, and assisted his benefactor into the boat. But his boss’s head was lolling, unsteady on its axis. Amy climbed in alongside; David swiftly followed. The oily smoke from the explosions blotted out the sun, turning the desert day into twilight. The Scotsman ripped the cord, the motor growled, and moments later they were speeding along the coast.

Flames and burning buildings receded behind. For a while they were silent, watching the dismal spectacle slowly dwindling, the dinghy buffeted through the blue choppy waves. They passed a disused diamond mine: a skeleton of eroding steel looming above the cliffs.

Nathan was almost whispering, as he lay back on the black rubber of the boat. His face wet with sweat, a Navajo smear of red blood across his cheek.

‘So Eloise is dead. The last Cagot…’

‘Yes.’ Angus wore a regretful smile. ‘They won, Nathan. Miguel is no damn use.’

An anxious pause. Nathan Kellerman reached out a hand, and touched Angus’s wrist. The gesture was delicate, gracious, refined.

‘Angus. There is one more way.’

‘What?’

‘Find the Fischer results.’

‘What?’

The glittering green eyes of the Scottish scientist were fixed on the pained and twitching face of his boss, Nathan Kellerman. David leaned close to try and overhear this pained and fraught conversation. Angus asked Kellerman, ‘You know where they are?’

‘No. But…Dresler maybe. Maybe he does. He was the last option. If we failed at Tamara that was my very last option – I think he knows where they kept the data – but he will – it will be difficult to get it out of him.’ Kellerman coughed, into his own hand. He looked down at his palm, now cupping his own blood. The Jewish dynast fell back, and gazed at the sky, a kind of wild acceptance in his eyes. Accepting the sky and the sea. Then his barely focussed eyes turned to Angus, once more.

‘So Dresler knows, I think. And I always felt I could force it out of him, if I was truly desperate, but you’d have to take him…very close to the edge. I never wanted to risk it before, he was too useful.’ Another anguished cough. Then he continued, grimacing. ‘But now? What does it matter? Try it. Nothing to lose.’ Kellerman was sweating in the sun. ‘And this is my stop, Angus. Here’s where I get off.’

Angus grabbed at Kellerman. ‘C’mon, Nathan.’

‘I am fucked, Angus. Look.’ Nathan opened the jacket, like a prostitute letting fall her nightgown; a huge glistening oval of blood, like a red scarlet sea nettle, pulsed in his chest. Amy and David stared at each other. Angus had turned, he was trying to slow the boat; but even as the motor puttered out, Nathan Kellerman lifted himself to the side of the boat.

David shouted, reflexively:

‘No!’

It was too late. Kellerman was over the side and slipping into the water, into the cold Namibian waters. David stared, aghast. Kellerman’s white face was a sad oval in the blueness; Angus was steering the boat to a halt.

But Nathan was already half under, slipping deeper into the waves. His chest smoking blood.

And now the sharks were on him. The water was crazy with dorsal fins, evil and swooping. David glimpsed a vicious serration of teeth, already stained red. The devouring fish were tearing in a frenzy at the bleeding and flailing body, pulling it under. David couldn’t help watching: the sight was transfixing. The sharks were ripping at the arms and the legs, like a kind of obscene children’s game. Tagging and taunting the scapegoat. And then moving in for the kill.

Nathan Kellerman didn’t scream. He seemed to accept his hideous death as he was torn apart, and pulled under the waves for the final time. David stared down into the sapphire fathoms; the sharks were pirouetting around the dim black corpse. A belch of blood and gas burst to the surface, foaming the waters red.

And then silence.

Angus said nothing. He started the boat, once again, and they cruised through the anxious waves, under the dignified sun.

They motored past the desolate coves. Sea birds wheeled, their cries like dying falls. David stared at the black rocks and yellow sands.

He thought of the blood in the water; a man being eaten alive.

Then the Scotsman spoke.

‘All the data and the bloods were in that building. And Eloise. Everything’s gone. And he thought we’d be safe…’ Angus was shaking his head. ‘Kellerman was so stupidly stupidly wrong. Poor bastard.’ The Scotsman adjusted the rudder, to steer them closer to the shore. ‘We’ll be in Luderitz soon.’