Down Among the Dead Men (50 page)

'Your hair looks funny.'

Noone refocuses.

The voice is coming from a child standing at his elbow. She's black, chubby, maybe ten years old, Noone can't really tell. He doesn't know any children. How she arrived there unseen he has no idea.

'What?'

'Your hair looks fake,' repeats the girl. 'Like a doll. Is it real? Did you have chemo? My cousin's hair fell out when he had chemo. He died.' Her voice seems, to Noone, to be younger than her looks suggest. Maybe she's a fucking retard?

'It's real. There's no chemo.'

'OK.' The girl shakes her head from side to side. 'But it still looks kinda fake. What happened to your legs?'

'They broke. Is your mom around? Why don't you go find your mom?'

'Were you in the Corps? My daddy was in the Corps. My daddy let me fire his gun sometime. Out in the desert. We used to shoot at rocks.'

'Yeah, I was in the Corps. You got someone you should be with?'

The kid leans her arm on the back of Noone's chair. He has to twist round to see her.

'What division was you in? My daddy's was the 11th when we was up at Las Pulgas.'

Noone doesn't reply but the kid's lost interest in his Marine division.

The girl bends down behind Noone's chair. 'Did you know your chair's all busted?' The girl is looking at the stitching along the seam where Noone has picked some of it loose. She pokes an exploratory finger inside the seam.

'Stop that, you little cunt!' hisses Noone. This shit has gone on long enough.

The savagery makes the child jerk upright and stare at him. There is fear and moisture in her eyes. And anger too.

'That's not a nice word. I heard it before. Derrek called me that one time on the bus and Momma hit him real good when I tole her.'

Noone glances round. There are one or two people looking in their direction. Although he's certain no one overheard what he said, an elderly woman looks at him funny, as if he's molested the brat.

'Look, kid, I'm sorry,' says Noone. He taps his legs. 'I get bad-tempered sometimes. On account of what happened.'

'In Iraq? Daddy was in Iraq.'

'Yeah, yeah, Iraq. Like daddy.' Noone smiles. 'So are we good?'

The child nods. 'I guess.'

'OK. You have fun now.'

Noone turns as he hears a crackle of excitement and chatter. The president's family has arrived at the cable car station.

It's time.

The tent begins to empty. Noone needs to get to the restrooms. The disabled stall will give him the privacy he needs to assemble the gun.

Frank Keane and the other guy are in the way.

Fuck it.

They're not looking for anyone in a wheelchair. As he passes they move out of the way, barely glancing at him, their attention focused on the arrival of the First Family. Noone keeps his head down and is swallowed up in the crowd.

He runs through the sequence once more.

After he assembles the gun in the restroom his first action will be to take the wheelchair to the middle of the central tent. With everyone focused on the stage Noone will conceal the weapon under his flying jacket until he's in position. Once in position in the opening of the tent he will stand and shoot the First Family and then the police and agents in the immediate area. They are mostly lined up in front of the stage so it will be easy. Then he will kill as many of the crowd as possible. In the tightly packed tent the deaths will run into the hundreds from that first attack. He has noted the positions of the TV cameras and will make sure no bullets are aimed in their direction.

He has given himself just one minute to shoot. After that, he is sure, he will be targeted by the police and agents approaching the carnage from the perimeter. He may be killed before the minute is over but he thinks that the lack of noise from the weapon and the panic of the mob will help. His position inside the shaded tent will also hamper any heroes outside. The crowds inside will prevent the cops firing into the tent until they are sure they have a good shot. By the time that happens it will be over. He will drop his weapon and hold his hands above his head.

Noone wants to survive, to have the cameras on him, to have his days, weeks and months in court, to have his father's name linked forever with a killer, a monster.

Fifty

'See anything?' says Koop.

Frank peers through the crowd.

'This is impossible. He could be anywhere.'

From somewhere near the cable car station there's a ripple of applause. People around the clearing start to move towards the path coming down from the cable car.

'They've arrived,' says Koop.

'Shit.'

A guy in a wheelchair comes past and Frank moves to one side.

'Sorry,' says Frank but the vet doesn't respond and rolls through the crowd in the direction of a temporary restroom block.

'Do we go and see what's happening?'

'I don't know,' says Frank. He's still looking at the wheelchair but without knowing why. Jumping at ghosts, he thinks, and turns back to Koop.

From the cable car station a phalanx of people is moving down the path. A dark swathe of Secret Service agents is at the front looking exactly, Frank notes, as they do in the movies. Sunglasses, suits and earpieces. Behind them are a woman and two children: the First Lady and her two pre-teens. Even from this distance they look relaxed and happy to be up in this cool air paradise.

As they arrive at the level of the clearing the crowd starts being herded gently into the tents and encouraged to face the stage.

The band is playing upbeat music that Frank doesn't recognise. There is cheering and every second person has an iPhone held aloft.

Frank's finding it hard to concentrate. There's something in his head that won't come out. Something important. Something about shoes.

The First Family entourage arrive onstage and wave to the crowd. For many at the back it is their first clear look at them and there is a roar of applause. They look, to Frank, like a pleasant family. The two children are tentative in their acknowledgement of the crowd but it's clear they have been in public on many occasions. A man in a suit and shiny cowboy boots steps to the microphone and makes an announcement.

'Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Please stand for the national anthem.'

As the band strikes up the first familiar chord, Frank remembers what is bothering him about the guy in the wheelchair. Not shoes.

Boots
.

Dust-covered boots worn by a man who can't walk.

'The guy in the wheelchair,' he says, grabbing Koop by the arm and moving through the singing crowd. 'It's him.'

Fifty-One

The toilet block, a temporary structure about ten metres long, moves slightly on its base as Noone rolls the wheelchair up the access ramp and inside. The place is empty; a stroke of luck. Noone wasn't sure what he'd have done if the disabled stall was occupied. A row of metal basins is against one wall and stalls along the other.

Noone goes into the disabled toilet at the end and bolts the door behind him. Now the time is here, he feels euphoric.

This is going to happen.

There's a gap above and below the door but it can't be helped. Noone stands and rubs some feeling back into his legs before squatting behind the wheelchair and ripping out the stitching from the seat cushion.

He pulls out the Micro Tavor and tries to remember how to put the two pieces together. After a couple of false starts –
relax –
he's relieved to hear the casing click into place with a solid-sounding
snik
. He takes out one of the clips and snaps that into position. He puts the spare clips inside the pockets of the flying jacket. He won't get time to use more than three.

With everything in place Noone tries to get himself prepared. Despite everything going to plan he feels nauseated. There are so many ways this could still go wrong.

There's a sound from outside the door. A furtive sound, the creak of someone trying to conceal a footstep. Noone freezes, his senses fully open.

Another creak.

Noone moves quickly and opens the toilet door a crack.

There, in the centre of the restroom, her eyes wide, is the girl.

'Your legs,' she says. Her voice is tiny. Whatever her learning problems she knows she made a bad mistake coming in here and it's too late to fix it now.

Noone swings the gun towards her.

Outside, louder than Noone expected, the band begins the familiar opening to
The Star-Spangled Banner
. Noone's finger rests on the trigger, the automatic weapon centred on the girl's round face.

Do it
.

Do it now
.

'Fuck!' Noone drops the barrel of the gun so it's pointed at the floor and reaches out to grab the brat. She scrabbles backwards, frantic.

'Mommy!' she yells, heading for the door, her voice loud in the bathroom. Although it's covered by the music from outside, there's still a chance someone might hear. Noone feels his scheme beginning to unravel.

Noone darts forward, grabs hold of the girl by the hair and hauls her backwards. She's screaming like a siren now and Noone backhands her savagely across the room, cutting the noise off almost as soon as it starts. The girl hits the wall and crumples to the ground. She may be dead, Noone doesn't know. He fucking hopes she is, the fucking interfering bitch.

Shit. Shit. Shit
.

Noone paces the restroom.

Relax. It's OK. A bump in the road. Put the kid in the stall and carry on. No problem.

Then things start happening quickly.

The kid isn't dead. That's one thing. She's on her feet and screaming like a bastard again, just as a heavyset woman wearing a volunteer uniform comes in.

'Mommy!'

The woman looks at Noone, her face distorted in horror. 'What the hell?'

Noone shoots her. Two ripples of bullets cut across her midsection and the kid screams as her mother crumples.

Noone is turning the gun towards the kid when Koop runs in. Instinctively, Koop knocks the child sideways, away from the gun.
Her head clangs against a handbasin and the child drops like a stone beside her dead mother as Koop puts himself between her and Noone.

Noone presses the trigger.

Frank, coming in a beat behind, sees a soft blap of bullets rip through Koop's left arm. Blood and bone spatter across the plasterboard walls of the restroom and onto Frank.

Koop makes a deep, guttural sound and his left hand falls free from his wrist, ripped clear by the spray of bullets. Four or five holes appear in the wall and a cloud of plasterboard particles billows across the restroom. Koop falls heavily on top of the girl.

Frank skids on the rubberised floor.

Time solidifies.

Then Noone, jerking free of the momentary paralysis, opens up with the Micro Tavor. In the confines of the restroom, his movement is baulked by the door of one of the stalls and his bullets splinter a metal handbasin next to Frank. Water begins spraying across the floor from a cracked pipe.

Frank feels a hot liquid sensation in his face. Half-falling, half-jumping, he throws himself to one side, hitting the door of one of the stalls hard. It opens inwards and Frank falls awkwardly against the pan. Behind him, the toilet door slams shut.

It happens so fast that no one, not Frank, not Koop, not Noone, has time to analyse what to do. There is just pain and panic and disbelief and raw gut instinct. Blood and water pools across the floor of the restroom.

Frank can feel blood in his mouth. Prone on the toilet floor, he glances at the girl, whose head is bleeding freely, and at Koop, his eyes opening and closing while blood pumps out of his mangled arm onto the unconscious child. All he can see of the mother is the sole of her shoes. They are dusty. Like Noone's boots.

Frank sees all this: the dead, the dying, the injured, and the pointless hyper-sharp details, all in a micro-second, his senses open to maximum capacity.

The thread guiding Frank back out of the tunnel is sliding from his grasp; he can feel it, slick and wet and treacherous, spooling from between his scrabbling fingers, moment by tortuous moment.

Where the fuck are the police?

Then Frank realises that the whole stop-go carnage has taken place in near silence. The sound of the gun is masked by the squat suppressor, the girl's screams and the noises of the ricochets and movements, covered by the music from outside. It occurs to Frank that it is very likely he won't live to hear the end of the anthem.

Frank can hear Noone coming towards him now to finish him off.

He pushes himself upright and slams the toilet door back on its hinges. He's in luck. The edge of the door catches the American, smashing him backwards into a metal handbasin. The gun is jolted from Noone's fingers and lands heavily on the floor.

Frank doesn't hesitate. He takes a step forward and cracks his elbow into Noone's skull and the man buckles, moaning. Frank opens his mouth to shout for help but only hears himself gurgle. He's lost more blood than he thought. His head swims.

Noone punches Frank in the face. He's twisted away so the blow isn't powerful but it lands where the sink fragments have hit Frank's face and Frank feels a hot pulse of almost unbearable pain rip through his body. He reaches his arm around Noone's throat and fastens onto his own wrist to create a chokehold.

It stops Noone moving but the American has just enough of his chin down to make the choke only partly effective.

'Please,' Noone croaks but Frank's not sure Noone knows he's said anything. In any case he can't reply even if he wants to.

The floor of the restroom is slick with blood and water.

Frank can't tell if Koop and the girl are dead or alive. Everything's happening in a series of flash frames.

His face is tight against Noone's, so close he can hear the American's breath rasping through his throat, feel the synthetic hair of Noone's wig in his nostrils, and smell his odour of sweat and blood and cologne. Frank recalls sparring with Chrissy Cahill back in Liverpool. In the clinches you hear your opponent's heartbeat, sense the heat of his breath and . . .