He pulls the pin, and as he adjusts his position to throw, someone sees the motion and shouts, “Grenade!” and all hell lets loose.
The first shot kills the man with the grenade, knocking his body backwards, forehead first.
Theo loses counts of who fires what immediately after as the bridge bursts to life again with running, firing, falling, screaming. A thin sense of self-preservation makes him duck, turning as he drops, which is why the bullet that would have taken out his head rushes by his ear, a deafening rupture, a physical force he feels slamming into his eardrum which makes it sing a nightingale shriek. As the gun moved round to fire again, he drove his full body weight into the man behind him, and another shot smacked wide past his shoulder. Then they were on the ground, and Theo caught the man by the wrist, astonished at how much he wanted to live, how much he wanted to hurt the man who would have hurt him. He held on with both hands, and the man seeing this pulled one hand free and clawed at Theo’s face. His fingers missed Theo’s eyes as he jerked away, but tugged and hooked into the soft flesh below, pulling at his cheeks, sliding towards his throat, driving his chin up and away. Theo felt his arms stretch and buckle, felt the gun turn towards his chest.
On the other side of the car, the grenade, fallen from a dead man’s grasp, exploded.
The blast punched Theo in the face, in the ears, lashed his head back and sent him sideways, slamming into the wall of the bridge. The car jumped a foot in the air, smashed back down with a shattering of pipe and suspension and rupture of tyre.
For a moment the gunfire paused, smoke and dust filling the air, soft falling patter of melted tar and shattered safety glass. Then it resumed, a few snapping shots from those furthest from the blast, then a few more as others joined in the fun, heard in Theo’s mind through an ocean, the sea sloshing in his ears, a faded-down, tuned-out whomph-whomph of bullets flying, of men screaming, of bones breaking of fire crackling
he rolled onto his front
knows that in some way he’s injured, but isn’t sure where, or by what
crawled onto his hands and knees
falls
up again, crawled, knew he would die in this place, knew he wouldn’t, that it was unacceptable, staggered a few paces forward, fell, cursed his body, the universe, Dani and Lucy and the world, crawled once more, blinking through the smoke and blood, sees a man running towards him, before a stray bullet, maybe from the front, maybe from behind, knocked into the man’s chest and he falls, surprised, one hand pressing against the wound and coming away red, who’d have thought it? Who’d have thought that today he died, in this place, who’d have imagined that?
Theo tried to call out, someone’s name, wasn’t sure whose, maybe Lucy’s, couldn’t see through the smoke and the blood running down his face, can’t make a sound, tried again, noise catching at the back of his mouth
tries to run and can’t
falls
feels the ground pop next to his ear as a bullet slams down beside him
sees a dead man staring at him from a few feet away, tongue lodged oddly between his lips like he was about to blow a raspberry, or as if his face had grown a third lip
Heard a helicopter high ahead, and more alarms, sirens now, sirens coming closer, a roar of emergency in the night
Then a hand grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, pulled him to one side, dragged him still clawing at the air, backwards, off the bridge.
Down they roll, messy and down, Theo kicking out, snarling, biting, writhing against the hands that hold him, he manages to strike something squishy and hears a man grunt, they roll down a sloping pavement, bump against a bin, the gunfire is growing less now but the smoke the fire everything moving in shadows against the light, the shadows now long, now short the helicopter’s searchlight splashing white across the world and then vanishing Theo kicks again
they roll
a tumbling mess of limbs
tumble off a raised ramp onto the towpath below, slamming down hard enough onto flagstone to knock the breath from both bodies, and for a while they lie there, limp and bleeding by the waters of the canal, while overhead battle rages.
The other man stirred first.
Crawled to hands and knees.
And time is
Neila turns and turns and turns again, spinning at the end of the canal, and
the cards fall on the table the Fool the Magician the High Priestess the Empress the Emperor the Hierophant the Lovers the Chariot Justice the Hermit the Wheel of Fortune Strength the
“Theo!”
Theo grappled, clawed at the face of the man who held him, everything in pain, fumbling without direction. His hands were swatted down, fingers curled around his wrists. “Theo!”
He blinked blood from his eyes, shook his head at something familiar, then flinched to the side as overhead the helicopter swept in low and bright, white light and sudden gunfire, louder, clearer, cleaner than anything that had been on the bridge, smacking into metal and flesh.
“Theo!” A man in a balaclava, a man with a familiar voice. He pulled his mask away, dragged Theo a little higher, shaking him, pressing him back against the wall that ran beneath the bridge. “Theo! Lucy is alive!”
Theo looked up into Markse’s face and didn’t understand anything much any more, except the words that had his daughter’s name in them.
“Are you with me? Are you here?” Markse shook him again, hissed, dragging off his coat, pressing it into the blood at Theo’s side it’s a dark wool thing far too big for Theo he wonders what it’s doing in his hands. “They’ll kill you they’ll kill her they’ll burn it all run!”
He pushed Theo for good measure. He staggered, caught himself against the wall, did not fall, did not raise his head, put one foot in front of the other, tested his weight, stepped, stepped again, did not fall
did not fall
and time is
“You should do it,” said Dani. “I think it sounds great.”
“Don’t be boring,” chided Queen Bess, lady of the patties
blessed is her name blessed are her hands upon the water she washes away the blood of our sins she washes away the shadows her fingers are balm of the eucalyptus tree her eyes are the
And in Leicester two men met, did meet, will meet are meeting and Markse said, “There you are. Shall we?”
And together they walked along the canal, Theo and the spy, and the latter mused as the sun dragged high and the day grew a little less sharp, “The problem is you want everything now. You want change now. But not just change. You want a change that is… compassionate. You want the world to see that it is cruel, and bleak, and that the powerful have mastery and the weak have nothing. You want the masses to rise, to build a world where the children are safe, the elderly are protected and all men treat each other as equals, and brothers, yes? A new, beautiful world where somehow it all works out for the best. But Mr. Miller, all you do, all this that you have done—it just makes the fear worse. The screamers, the faders, the ragers, the silent ones who watch from windows; did you really think that when the world shook on its axis, they would run to their neighbour’s aid? Did you really think that this was the way? Did you think that kindness is born of terror?”
And they walked.
And after a while Theo said, “She’s alive. The rest is detail.”
And Markse sighed, and handed over a piece of paper with an address written on it, and said, “You’d better hurry. They’re going to Monaco as soon as the sale goes through. They’ll take Lucy and that will be…” And stopped himself at the look on Theo’s face. “These things should never be personal,” he muttered, to himself more than the company. “But once they are, you may as well make some sort of choice with your life. They haven’t found out it was me, but they’re going to work it out tomorrow. That’s when they’ll catch my driver, and after that all the pieces will fall into place, so I’m heading for the border now. I’ve got some papers saved up, money, there’s a little place I’ve had my eye on for a while. That’s all, I think, that’s all that is…”