The door swung open just as the restrainer snapped.
10: Average Adjuster
Light swamped in. She scuttled to the left, behind another bench. But too late; she knew it was too late. There was too much light and she must have been seen.
She expected the soldier to shout out, but he didn't. There was a noise like a chuckle, and the sound of a hand moving over metal. Something clinked on the far wall. The soldier spoke to her in Spanish but she couldn't make out the words. She peeped over the top of the bench. The opened white loop of the plastic restrainer lay by the leg of the bench she'd been attached to; it ought to be obvious, but the man hadn't reacted yet. He slapped the metal bulkhead at the side of the door, cursing. Looking for the light, but still it didn't come on.
She realised then that her eyes had adjusted over the hours, and his were still tuned to the wash of luminescence in the corridor outside and in the rest of the ship. She was looking for a weapon, but couldn't see anything on the surface of the bench she was hiding behind, or anywhere near by. A wrench; a big screwdriver or a length of angle iron; there ought to be hundreds of things she could use but she couldn't see any of them. She looked round in desperation as the soldier said something else and came further into the workshop. She peeped over the top of the bench again, hoping she'd missed something on its surface. The man was smoking; she could see the red glowing tip of the cigarette, being transferred from mouth to hand. Señorita…
Behind her she glimpsed something long and thin and glinting; stacked rods of some sort. She reached back, grasped. The soldier bumped into something, cursed in the semi-darkness.
It was like taking hold of a skeletal arm; two thin pipes, cold as bone and close together; ulna and radius. She felt up to a knurled collar like a cold brass knuckle. That was when she realised what she was holding. The soldier made a sound like hand rubbing flesh through cloth and said again, Señorita? The red tip of the cigarette glowed brighter, waving around in the darkness in front of the man. Light from the corridor reflected from his rifle.
She felt the end of the brasswork, then the twin hoses. They led back a few coiled metres to the tanks. They were upright but in the shadow of the door. She was still under the level of the bench. Her fingers crept up to the valves. She'd seen Broekman do this; even Philippe. She found the taps, whirled them round. The hiss of escaping gas sounded like a whole family of disturbed snakes. The soldier stopped, hesitated, then changed direction, came towards her. 'Hello…? he said. The glowing cigarette tip came closer, brandished like a sword.
When he was close enough, and the smell of the unignited gases was wafting back over her, making her dizzy, she threw herself forward, still holding the brass limbs of the oxyacetylene torch.
The gases flared on the tip of the cigarette, igniting with a whoosh and blowing flame towards the surprised soldier, flashing through the air in a vivid yellow ball. The man's hair caught; she saw his face, mouth opening, eyes closing as his brows sizzled and shrivelled and flamed blue. His burning hair lit up the beret stuffed underneath his left epaulette, the two grenades attached to his chest, the Kalashnikov strapped over his right shoulder and the belt with the oily black holster hanging over his left hip. He drew in a breath and screamed as his hair sputtered and crackled and lit up the whole workshop.
He lit the place well enough for her to see a massive wrench hanging on the wall not a metre away. She stepped smartly to it, unclipped and swung it in one movement. His scream had barely started and he had hardly moved — the cigarette he'd dropped hadn't even hit the deck — before the jaws of the wrench buried themselves in his skull, and he slammed into the metal deck as though he'd thrown himself there. His hair billowed yellow and blue for a moment, then sizzled out against his scalp, crisping it brown-black in places. The fumes stank, made her gag, and only then did she slowly pull the black tape from her mouth.
The last lick of flame, slowly consuming a set of curls over the soldier's left ear, was extinguished by the black ooze of blood welling from where the circular head of the wrench had hit.
She watched. Thought: How do I feel?
Cold, she decided. So cold. She kicked him over, pulled the assault rifle free and hoisted it, checking the safety was off. No noise from the open doorway. She waited for a few seconds then put the gun down and reached forward to take the man's uniform off. She hesitated before she touched him, then stood, hefted the wrench and smashed it into his forehead. Only after that did she strip him.
She whistled under her breath as she did it; Sousa.
She didn't mean to impersonate a soldier, she was just sick of the torn, soiled yukata. She wanted to be clothed again.
She tore some relatively clean strips off the yukata, wiped herself as clean as she could with a couple of them and tied one narrow strand round her head, keeping her hair back. The soldier wasn't too much bigger than her, so the uniform fitted. He'd been one of the ones who'd raped her; the one who'd bitten her ears. She fingered her earlobes; puffy and scabbed with blood.
She studied one of the grenades in the light spilling from the corridor. She even held the little shiny handle down, extracted the pin, inspected it, and then replaced it, letting the handle click back. She tried to recall how much time had passed between Sucre dropping a grenade into one of the groups of men, and the explosion. A bit more than five seconds, she decided.
The Kalashnikov was easier. She'd watched; safety, semi-automatic, automatic. The emplaced magazine was full and two more hung on his belt. The pistol was a Colt, just like Dandridge's; the safety was a simple switch, on and off. The soldier had a Bowie knife on the belt, so she gained that as well. A cigarette lighter and packet of Marlboros in one breast pocket. She threw the cigarettes away. She looked for a radio but he didn't have one.
She was at the door before she thought to go back and take his watch. The little Casio said 6:04.
She stared at it. It couldn't be that late. Next morning, already? She tilted the display. 6:04.
P, said the little letter to one side. P6:04.
Evening. The same day. She couldn't believe it. She was sure she'd slept for hours. She shook her head, stuffed the watch in a trouser pocket.
The corridor seemed very bright. The engine room was more brilliant still, and hummed noisily; it smelled of oil and electrics. Deserted.
She crept along the open grillework of the catwalk between the two main engines, towards the high girn of the donkey engine and the whining AC generator. The stairway to the main deck level left her feeling exposed and vulnerable, but nothing happened.
The evening air was still warm. In one corner of the sky, off to the west, a single dab of red hung thick and dim; above, over all the sky, a uniform darkness extended, starless and without moon. Thick cloud like a layer of something more than night. She decided the watch was right, and her senses had been wrong. She waited a moment, felt the eastern wind move across her face and hands, and watched the lid of cloud close over the red hole where the sun still shone, until darkness consumed the lake and the land.
The exterior of the ship was darker than she was used to; they'd turned the mast floodlights off or hadn't ever thought to turn them on. She slunk along the side of the superstructure, past dark portholes, heading forwards. She didn't know what to do. She'd dressed herself as a soldier but she wasn't one. She'd left the real soldier lying there and they'd have to go looking for him soon, so maybe she ought to forget about dressing as a soldier and strip off again and get into the water and swim away; she was a strong swimmer and the coast wasn't far…