The Abrupt Physics of Dying (33 page)

He moved on towards the ponds. Directly ahead, the main evaporation pond loomed silent and dark like a mass grave of stars. He crouched and scanned the facility for activity. The big oil tanks screened most of the rest of the compound from view. He could see no one. He took a deep breath and set off at a run. With each stride he emerged further from the darkness, and as the noise from the generators increased he accelerated steadily, adjusting his direction to keep the big oil tanks between him and the buildings and walkways beyond.

He reached the outer berm of the main pond and flattened himself against the piled dirt slope, breathing hard. The outer berm was in partial shadow of the lights, and from where he lay he was completely hidden. He could hear the gush of the main discharge
pipe just a few metres away inside the pond. An overpowering stench filled the air, an alchemist’s blend of volatile aromatic hydrocarbons and the latent bitterness of barium, the smell of fossil water released from a hundred-million-year prison term vibrating with pent-up energy. He pushed his face into the crook of his elbow and forced back the urge to gag. It was the same smell as before, down in the wadi. They must be piping the water from the ponds, dumping it into the wadi.

And then, above the hum of the machines, he heard the distinct sound of voices. He froze and looked out into the darkness. Two orange embers, cigarette ends, burned in the distance. Two men were talking and laughing, sharing a joke in Arabic, walking along the well access road, camp workers perhaps, or soldiers. They were coming towards him.

There was only one way he could go. As quietly as he could, he slithered on his stomach to the top of the berm and slipped over the crest and down the interior slope into the pond enclosure. The berm was about two metres high on the outside, but inside the water level was lower, so there was room to lie on the slope without touching the impounded fluid. He crabbed his way along the slope, away from the men, and squeezed under the discharge pipe. The vapours here were even stronger, the smell a queasy mix of sulphur, chlorides and decaying solvents. He retched into his hand. The lights and shadows thrown from the compound and the swirl of stars reflecting on the slick surface of the pond disaggregated before him, like a nebula released from the laws of gravity. He put out one hand and dropped to his knees, vomiting uncontrollably. Between each bitter contraction he managed to scramble a few feet away from the pipe and up towards the lip of the berm. He collapsed just as he reached the clear air flowing over the crest.

He gasped and opened his eyes wide, gulping in the fresh night air, filling his lungs, purging toxins from his system. Gradually his vision widened as he reclaimed the dark periphery of consciousness. He was lying on his back with his head just below the lip of the
berm. The voices were closer now, back from where he had come, probably just beyond the berm. His escape route was blocked. He grabbed the handle of the instrument case and scrambled along the inside slope of the berm towards the second discharge pipe, away from the voices. Every few metres he stopped and slithered to the top of the berm to breathe deeply of the clean air that flowed from the wadi. He had to get the sample now and find a way out. Soon the vapours from the pond would overcome him and he would slide down into the liquid and drown in a metre of toxic slurry that he had helped to produce.

He pulled the pack from his shoulders, opened the case and balanced it against some larger stones near the top of the berm. If the men decided to walk up to the crest they would have a clear view of him, prone on the slope, bathed in the orange light of the flare. He had to work quickly. He gulped in a lungful of clean air, twisted down the bank and scooped up a sample of the emulsion. Then he crawled back up to the crest, exhaling as he went. He worked the instruments, recorded the numbers in the fieldbook, capped and stowed the sample.

That was it. He replaced the instruments in their individual protective foam graves, took a deep breath of good air, and then slid back down to the starry surface, pushing the open case before him. He pressed the lid of the case under the surface of the emulsion and let the weight of the water drag the case down. The dark liquid flowed over the instruments and penetrated quickly into the foam, covering over the shining eyes of the dials as the case sank out of sight.

He scrambled back to the lip of the berm and sucked in air. Then he pushed his head up and blinked into the harsh manmade light. Just to his right, where the second discharge pipe pierced the fence, was a gate, and just behind, a small workshop building, the larger main works shed, the cubic control room capped with a satellite dish, and the main entrance. The wadi edge was less than fifty metres beyond.

The gate was open. He couldn’t go back. The two men were still smoking and talking at the far end of the berm. If he stayed inside the pond any longer he was sure he would pass out from the fumes, this time for good.

He scuttled along the inside of the berm all the way to the second discharge pipe, immediately adjacent the gate, climbing up to breathe and oscillating back down towards the water each time to make a little more ground. Finally he reached the second pipe. Waste gushed from the outlet into the pond; a fine spray of atomised liquid and toxic aerosols swirled in the flare light, floating in the already thickened air. Even the smallest breath seared his lungs, lurched him into spiral of vertigo and nausea.

He clawed his way to the crest of the berm and peered over at the contorted fence and the open gate, and into the shifting ground of the compound. Lights burned from inside the control-room window and he could see someone moving about inside. Otherwise it was clear. He must go now.

He rose to a crouch, but toppled over as the blood rushed from his head. He fell to his knees and dropped his head to the ground, struggling to fight off the modulating whine that filled his ears. The sound abated and he raised his head, certain that he must have been seen, so exposed was his position in the full light of flare and floodlights. But there was no one to see him. He lunged down the outer slope of the berm and through the gate and flattened himself against the wall of the small building just inside the fence. The door to the main works shed was directly across the gravel walkway, only a couple of metres away. Yellow light shone from a small window to the left of the door. He scanned the walkway and the buildings up ahead. Still no one. He was breathing so hard he thought his lungs would rupture, and his head felt as if it would collapse in on itself at any moment.

Someone shouted above the din of the generators. The voice came from the far side of the compound, back from where the Arabs had been smoking at the end of the berm. He sprinted across the
walkway and moulded himself against the corrugated steel wall of the work shed and pushed open the door and peered inside.

A tracked vehicle sat on the smooth concrete floor covered by a heavy canvas tarpaulin. The bogeys and armour plating were painted in desert camouflage. Behind the vehicle, against the far wall, supply crates of various sizes and shapes were stacked almost to the ceiling. On the near side, to his left, drums of diesel fuel, more wooden crates, work benches, drill presses and grinders, a compressor, shelves of tools, but no one to use any of it. The big sliding doors were only partially closed, and through the gap he could see the main entrance way. The big chain link gates were wide open.

He ducked inside and moved across the shop floor, the armoured vehicle on his right. The wadi edge was only a sprint away. He walked towards the open door with steady strides, past the crates and the tools hanging from hooks in their silhouetted dead-man spots on the wallboard, clear of the vehicle’s sloped front, until he was no more than a few paces away from the open door. He glanced at the stack of containers on his right – wood and formed metal, each stencilled with numbers and Cyrillic characters. Outside he could see open floodlit ground and the edge of darkness where the wadi would be. He was almost there. Just a few more metres to the safety of the wadi, then a couple of hours of hard walking down to the
ghayl
– meet Abdulkader, a two-day drive to the Omani border, and get the next flight out from Muscat. He could be in Geneva in six days.

Just Economics

Perhaps it was because he had allowed himself to believe, at just that moment, and for the first time, that he deserved this, that he deserved her. That kind of superstition had always plagued him, despite his professed determinism and his rationalist’s training that dictated every event was purely causative, without inherent glory. Things happened because someone or something made them happen. You pulled the trigger and the bullet left the muzzle, and if your aim was good and its path was true, it hit the target, but more often than not its course was altered by wind, or humidity, or gravity, and the difference might only be a matter of millimetres, and it hit where it hit – in a kid’s belly, a friend’s brain, a lover’s chest – and that was all there was to it. Or maybe Abdulkader was right. Perhaps Allah had willed it for some reason mysterious and wholly unknowable, and, if so, it was already done, already set. And there was always the possibility that he himself had caused it, through some symmetry between decisions made and the things he had decided he would not do. He would never know.

A man appeared in the door. He was squat and powerfully built. A small blunt-nosed submachine gun hung muzzle down from a strap over his shoulder, a
Ksyuka
. The man stood between Clay and the wadi beyond.

At first Zdravko appeared not to recognise him. The Bulgarian stood in the doorway, blinking in the harsh light. Clay bowed his head and backed away, mumbling in Arabic, hoping Zdravko would take him for just another bearded local worker. He knew
now, instantly, what the crates contained, and why they were stored here.

‘Stop,’ Zdravko barked.

Clay froze, pushing his chin down into his chest.

‘What the fuck you doing here, Abu?’

‘Sorry,
effendi
,’ he mumbled.

‘Come here,’ Zdravko shouted. ‘This restricted area. Where is your badge?’

Clay fumbled with his pockets, pretending to look for his badge. Zdravko still hadn’t recognized him. He had to do something now, or it would be too late. The Bulgarian reached for the weapon hanging at his side and started to swing the muzzle up level. Clay charged.

The collision drove the Bulgarian back hard into the steel door and sent the
Ksyuka
clattering across the smooth concrete floor. Zdravko groaned as his body slammed into the unyielding metal plate. The force of the impact drove the air from his lungs and whipped his skull back into one of the door’s protruding steel ribs. Blood erupted from his head and sprayed over the door as if flung from a painter’s sweeping hand. Zdravko slumped to the ground, back against the door.

Clay jumped up and moved towards the open doorway. He was almost clear of the doors when Zdravko shot out a foot, sending him crashing to the ground. He slammed down hard face first into the gravel just outside the doorway. Dazed, he rolled over and looked back. Zdravko was up and crabbing on hands and knees across the concrete floor towards the AK74. Clay twisted onto his side and reached for the handgun in his belt. Zdravko had reached his weapon and was swinging it around towards him. Clay pulled the trigger just as a sickening clatter erupted from the
Ksyuka
.

Blinding pain tore through his arm. At first it felt as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to his hand – a sudden crunching impact followed by a scorching wave of pain. He looked down at his left hand. The bullet had torn through the outer knuckles, severing the ring and baby fingers, leaving a bloom of ragged pulp. He could see no trace of the missing digits.

Zdravko lay motionless inside the building in a spreading pool of blood. Voices rose in the distance, from the camp and from somewhere back towards the ponds, shouts of alarm. He raised the Beretta and fired at the big floodlight that glared at him from directly above. His hand was shaking so violently that he missed altogether. He steadied his hand on his left forearm, the knuckles seeping blood, and fired two more shots. The third round found its target with a crash and spark, and a semblance of darkness was restored to this small piece of the desert.

He staggered to his feet, fighting to stay conscious, cradling his damaged hand in the crook of his other elbow, the Beretta still clasped in his right hand. He could see figures running around the camp compound, opening the gate, coming towards him now across the few hundred metres of open ground. They hadn’t seen him yet, but there was no way to make it to the wadi now.

The control room was only a dozen paces ahead. He loped to the building and pushed open the door with his shoulder. A man sat at the control panel, one hand on a cradled telephone handset.

Clay closed the door behind him and levelled the pistol. ‘Put it down,’ he said, sliding down to his haunches with his back against the door.

The man removed his hand from the phone and swivelled in the chair to face him. Karila’s television-blue eyes stared out from wide-stretched sockets. Outside, a confusion of voices moved closer. Clay raised the Beretta and pointed it at Karila’s head. There was a loud rap at the door. Someone yelled in Arabic. Karila stood up and moved towards the door.

‘Don’t,’ said Clay.

‘Please,’ said Karila, ‘I’ll make him go.’

Clay gave a brief nod. Blood flowed from his hand down over his forearm and dripped from the point of his elbow, soaking into his trousers. He felt faint, vaguely elated. Karila moved to the door and pulled it open slightly. Clay leant forward, ready to snap the door shut.

‘I saw him,’ Karila said.

Clay jabbed the Beretta hard into Karila’s knee.

‘He ran that way,’ Karila blurted. ‘Towards the tank farms.’ Karila stepped back inside and Clay slumped against the door, slamming it shut. Outside he could hear the muffled footfall and excited voices of a dozen or more men as they ran past in the direction Karila had indicated.

‘Now get back,’ said Clay.

Karila retreated to the console. ‘You’re badly injured. You need a doctor.’

He waived the Beretta at Karila. ‘You think so? Fuck you.’

‘Please, let me help you, Clay.’

Clay laughed. It surprised him. ‘It doesn’t suit you, Karila.’

Confusion joined fear in Karila’s eyes. ‘What?’

‘Compassion.’ Clay pulled himself to his feet, cracked open the door a few inches and peered outside. The way was clear.

‘Wait,’ said Karila. He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a medical aid kit. ‘Please take this.’

Clay slid off his backpack, dropped it to the floor, and kicked it toward Karila. ‘In there,’ he said. A swell of pain surged up through his arm and slammed into his brain. The periphery of his vision started to go dark, like curtains closing. He staggered and bent his head low, trying to swim back towards consciousness. Slowly he fought back the darkness. Clay leant his shoulder against the door, steadying himself. Blood dripped from his hand to the steel plate deck.

Karila put the white box into the pack.

‘Throw it to me.’

Karila tossed the pack at his feet.

Clay raised the Beretta. ‘Now move back.’

Karila retreated to the control panel, holding his hands up in front of his body as if they might somehow shield him from the bullets.

‘Please,’ he begged. ‘I have children, a wife.’ Face-down in the desk drawer.

‘Everyone has someone,’ Clay croaked.

‘I saw the damage, I …’ Karila stumbled. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What happened at Bawazir, Nils? I saw Zdravko there.’

‘I don’t know. Please believe me, Clay,’ Karila blubbered. ‘We just wanted the chief arrested. He was making trouble, turning the villagers against us. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.’

Clay stood glaring at the man who only a few weeks ago had signed little Mohamed’s death warrant. He raised the Beretta to Karila’s face, his hand shaking, and said: ‘Tell me one thing, before I … What are you doing with all that fresh water from the new well?’

Karila looked down at the floor and dropped his hands as if resigned to his fate. ‘We’re injecting it into the oil reservoir, to keep the pressure up.’

‘So you can produce more oil.’

Karila nodded.

‘Why not use the formation brine, Nils? Why not just put all that crap back where it came from? I saw the discharge pipe in the wadi, you lying bastard. You’re killing these people.’

‘Please, Clay. It wasn’t my decision.’

Clay pushed his injured hand hard into his side. ‘Do you know sharia law?’

Karila shook his head.

‘Well, you better start studying.’

Karila mumbled something he could not understand. The words were garbled. Clay felt faint. He doubled over and steadied himself against the edge of the console. Karila took a step forward.

Clay raised the weapon. ‘Don’t,’ he whispered. ‘Now tell me.’

Karila backed away. ‘We have no choice, Clay. Please believe me. Once the brine comes out of the ground and contacts air, its chemistry changes completely. Treating it so that it can be re-injected is too expensive. The groundwater is so pure it can go straight in. And we don’t pay anything for it. It’s just economics, Clay, that’s all. Please understand.’

‘Just economics. Beautiful.’

Clay raised the handgun and aimed at Karila’s chest. ‘And all those weapons you have stored here. That’s just economics, too, isn’t it?’

Karila fell to his knees, hands clasped before him as if in prayer. He was crying, heavy tears rolling down his face. ‘Please, Clay,’ he mumbled through his sobs, ‘I’m just an engineer. I’m only doing my job.’

Clay tightened his finger on the trigger, felt it move. ‘Does your job include killing people?’

‘I don’t make these decisions. Oh God, please, Clay.’ Karila crumpled to the floor in a heap.

Clay stood looking down at his boss, his client, the Beretta shaking in his hand, the trigger partially depressed. Karila’s words tore through his pain-shattered brain. He could feel himself shunting towards the far edge of clarity. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We all do.’

Clay lowered the weapon, turned, pulled open the door with three bloodied fingers and staggered outside. He glanced over to the shed. Zdravko was gone. Without looking back he ran as fast as he could through the main entrance and towards the wadi and the safety of darkness.