That’s when he sees her. Running. Legs pumping. Chin tilting back. She’s still wearing the vest. Still handcuffed.
Ruiz reaches her in moments, lifting her like a rag doll. She fights at his arms. Squirming. Screaming.
“Get it off! Get it off!”
Ruiz drags at the vest, pulling it over Holly’s head, turning her in a somersault, wrenching the fabric to the end of her arms, where it can go no further.
“Please. Help me!”
The Courier is slumped against the wheel arch of a rusting freight trailer; his head is tilted back and lips parted as though drinking in the sky. He’s drowning in his own saliva from a sucking chest wound. Dying.
Opening his eyes, he watches Ruiz and the girl. Then he glances at the mobile phone in his hand. The screen lights up. This thumb presses “send.” A two-word message: Allahu Akbar. God is great.
Kicking open the heavy metal door of an empty container, Ruiz carries Holly inside and lays her on the floor with her arms stretched in front of her. Then he drags the door closed, trapping the vest on the outside of the door, still attached to Holly’s handcuffs. He pulls at her hands, holding them a few inches inside the closing door. The vest is looped over the chain of the handcuffs and the double door won’t shut completely. He braces his feet against the frame, holding the handles, pulling with all his strength, shielding her body with his.
That’s when the prayer comes to him-the one from his childhood-the one he couldn’t remember in the church.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.
There are four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head,
One to watch, and one to pray,
And two to bear my soul away.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Taj is driving the van, keeping to the middle lane, using the cruise control to keep a constant speed. Being stopped by the cops would be silly. Stolen van. Bombs on board. Syd is in a playful mood. Poking his head between the front seats. Ketchup stains around his mouth.
“Did you see that girl? Do you think he was going to fuck her? I would have fucked her. She was fit. I mean, wow, she made Jenny Cruikshank look like a slag. Do you think he’s going to do it?”
Rafiq tells him to shut up. “Put your seat belt on. We don’t want to get picked up.”
Syd giggles. “You think they’re going to worry about my sodding seat belt, when they see the hardware we got in here.” He picks up one of the guns.
“Put that away!” says Taj. “What if someone sees you waving that thing about? They’ll call the cops. We’ll never get to London.”
Syd puts down the gun and leans back in his seat, sipping on a can of Red Bull. It’s raining. The wipers are slapping against the bottom of the windscreen, air blasting on the inside of the glass. Taj has to crane forward, trying to see the electric red smears of brake lights. London is still an hour away but already the traffic is building.
Syd leans forward again. “A thousand fucking people-how cool is that? The place is going to be packed. I feel like a fucking soldier. What are you going to do with the money? They reckon fifty grand will buy you a palace in Pakistan. That’s what I’m gonna do. Then I’ll bring my mum and dad over. Show them my palace. Tell my old man he can shove his fish-and-chip shop up his arse.” He crushes the can. “Are you going to bring Aisha over, Taj? Did you tell her? What did you say?”
Taj doesn’t want to talk about Aisha. Their last words had been harsh. He had never seen her in such a temper, so adamant that he was wrong. She had thrown the money at him. Spat on it. Tried to tear it into pieces. She would change her mind, he reasoned. She knows her place.
There’s a three-ton truck in front of him that has slowed right down and another in the left lane, side by side like the drivers are talking to each other. Taj indicates to overtake, but another truck cuts him off. Slows down.
What are these tossers doing, he thinks. He looks in the rear mirrors. The road is clear. The nearest cars are a hundred yards behind. That’s odd, he thinks. Then he notices the opposite carriageway is empty. Deserted.
“Something’s wrong,” he says.
“What?” asks Rafiq.
“The traffic.”
“Just go round these guys.”
“I can’t get past.”
“Hit the horn.” Rafiq turns and looks through the rear window. “Where has everyone gone?”
“They’re on to us.”
“What do you mean?” says Syd. “I can’t see anyone.”
“They’re fucking on to us!”
“Settle down,” says Rafiq. “Maybe there’s an accident.”
The three trucks in front have slowed almost to a halt. A fourth passes on the verge, squeezing against the safety rail. They all have roller doors at the back. Taj nudges the brakes and stops thirty yards from the nearest truck. Then they notice the police cars on the other carriageway. A military chopper is overhead.
“Go back!” says Rafiq. “Reverse.”
Taj struggles with the gears. Where’s reverse? There it is. Pedal down. The roller doors have rattled up. A dozen men in black body armor are crouched in firing positions. Taj spins the wheel, sending the van into a slide. It’s facing in the opposite direction, driving the wrong way. Ahead, a row of police cars. Lights flashing. Armed men behind the open doors. Guns drawn.
“Ram them!” says Rafiq.
“They’ve got guns.”
“Go back!” says Syd, wiping the fogged windows, looking for some means of escape.
“We’re fucked!” says Taj.
“We got the guns,” says Syd. “We can shoot our way out.”
“They’re going to kill us.”
“I’m not going to prison,” says Rafiq. “You heard what the Courier said. A week is going to feel like a lifetime.”
Taj has stopped the van a hundred yards away from the police cars.
“You want to run, you run,” says Taj. “I’ve had enough.”
“We made a pact,” says Syd.
“We’re not the three musketeers.”
Taj opens the door. Steps out. Holds his hands above his head. Walks slowly down the middle lane, watching his shadow in the beams of the headlights. Rain pours down his face, into his eyes and mouth. He can’t hear Syd and Rafiq arguing any more.
In the next instant he’s flying. Falling. The explosion blows out the window of the van and covers every surface in a film of pink. Ball bearings punch through the seats and the thinner metal in the roof, letting the rain pour in.
Glass showers across the tarmac, landing in his hair and on the back of his neck. Fragments of metal have torn his coat, but he can’t feel any pain. Lying on the motorway, eyes closed, arms spread like a crucifix, he sucks in the oily water like a breath and feels the residual heat of the day warm against his cheek.
Ruiz’s life doesn’t flash before his eyes in a conventional or chronological sense. Events run backwards like in that movie where Brad Pitt is born as an old man and grows younger every year. All of Ruiz’s accumulated knowledge is disappearing, along with his anger and weariness. Things are being unlearned. Discoveries are being undiscovered. Painful memories are being wiped clean.
Eventually all his grey hairs and fine lines are filled in and he’s a young man again, dancing with Laura at the twilight ball in Hertfordshire. The clock keeps rolling backwards. Soon she’ll be a stranger, who could pass him on the street with no recollection of the life they’re going to share or the children they are going to raise, but for the moment they keep dancing.
These are his final conscious thoughts before the pressure wave of the explosion buckles the door of the container and blows him backwards, slamming his head against the far wall. His eardrums are bleeding. He cannot hear the paramedics shouting for bandages and plasma, or feel the needle sliding into his arm or the mask covering his face.
Someone is getting blankets to keep him warm.