Chapter Nineteen
Danny lay on the ground. The pain in his stomach, which had been acute at first, had become numb. In fact, his whole body was numb.
It was strange. For the first time since the storm had started he found he could not hear the wind. He couldn't hear anything, actually: just the unsteady beating of his heart, and even that was getting weaker. He coughed. Something warm entered his mouth and spilled out of the sides. He supposed it should worry him, but it didn't. He was past worry now.
Danny closed his eyes. It was a peculiar thing, but he found he could almost imagine he was back home. Somewhere in the corner of his mind he heard the voices of his mother and father, as if they were in a different part of the house while he was on the brink of sleep. He couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but they sounded happy. Danny smiled weakly. That was good. It meant Basheera had returned to them.
In Danny's feeble, dreamlike state, he did not realize that this was impossible.
For a brief moment, he heard the wind again: a highpitched wail. Or was it the wind? His eyes flickered open. For the second time that day he thought he heard his sister's voice in the air. He couldn't work out what it was saying; indeed it didn't really sound like it was saying anything. It was howling, furiously, impatiently.
And then it all came back to him.
Ben. Angelo. The detonator. He allowed his head to roll in the direction in which the pick-up truck had moved off and it was at that precise moment that the pain in his stomach returned with a vengeance. He gasped.
The howling of the wind grew angrier. Danny felt he had to do something. He tried to push himself up, but his body couldn't do what his mind had instructed and he simply fell back down uselessly onto the hard road.
His eyes started to grow dim as the shrieking overhead became more intense.
He coughed again, and then he spoke. His voice was weak, barely audible. Even if there had been anyone by his side, they would have struggled to hear him.
'I'm sorry, Basheera,' he whispered in his native language. 'I'm so, so sorry.'
And then his eyes closed again. He lay there for a few agonizing seconds before exhaling a long, rattling breath.
Danny could hear nothing any more. Nor could he feel a thing. He would not be able to whisper his sister's name ever again, and he would be able to do nothing to help Ben and Angelo in this, their final, desperate mission.
As the wind howled furiously over Danny's body, his dark hair blew around slightly. But that was the only part of him that moved.
Danny's limbs were already growing cold now. He was quite dead.
'We need to keep the headlamps off,' Ben had shouted to Angelo as he started the engine of the pick-up. Leaving Danny alone at the side of the road was the most difficult thing he'd done all day and that, he realized, was saying something. It was almost a reflex action that made him concentrate on the job in hand to keep his mind from more distressing matters. 'If he sees us approaching, he'll detonate.'
Angelo moved Danny's shotgun a bit further along the seat, then slammed his door shut. 'Er, Ben,' he said dubiously, 'won't that make it a bit difficult to drive? It's very dark out there, you know.'
Ben shrugged, determination in his face. 'We haven't got a choice,' he replied.
'Maybe he'll just think it's a different truck.'
Ben turned to look at him. 'Is that a risk you want to take?' Angelo thought about it for a few seconds, then shook his head silently. 'I didn't think so,' Ben murmured. He started the truck and moved forward, taking care to circle around Danny as he proceeded.
Every instinct Ben possessed shrieked at him to go slowly but that wasn't a luxury he had. The mercenary would be going as fast as he dared now; Ben had to go faster if he was ever going to catch up. He held his breath, gripped the steering wheel firmly and put his foot down.
It was like being on a roller coaster in the dark. The road itself was straight, but Ben still had to strain his eyes to keep a watch out for any twist in its path. Come off the road now, he knew, and it would all be over. Just keeping the truck straight, however, was a job in itself. He was used to it being buffeted by the winds, but now there was a new urgency — and a new difficulty — to what they had to do. Each time the pick-up veered from its course, he felt a sickness in his stomach as he desperately tried to hold the vehicle straight.
Ben could feel waves of nervousness coming from Angelo. His Italian friend didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. He clutched onto the passenger door with both hands. Ben couldn't see them, but he imagined that Angelo's knuckles were as white as his face. Every time the wind blew them off course and the Italian's body jolted, he would gasp. But still he kept quiet. They both knew Ben was doing the only thing he could. The way they were going, the pick-up could end up a jumble of steel on the highway, but that was a risk they just had to take.
With his eyes firmly fixed on the gloomy road ahead, Ben did not even try to look to either side of him.
When Angelo shouted out 'Water!' therefore, it came as something of a surprise. He allowed his eyes to flicker left and right. There was very little ambient light, but he could just about make out what looked like the foam on huge waves in the distance. It looked like they were surrounded by sea.
'We must be on the Overseas Highway,' Angelo shouted.
'The what?'
'The Overseas Highway. It's a big road that goes over the ocean. It connects Florida to the Keys.'
Ben snapped his eyes back to the road ahead. 'How long is it?'
A brief pause. 'I don't know, Ben. I've never been on it before. Just keep the truck straight, won't you?'
As if to underline what Angelo had just said, there was a sudden gust that made Ben veer suddenly and dangerously to the left. He struggled to keep control of the pick-up.
'I'll do my best,' he shouted breathlessly at Angelo once he was straight again.
Ben was almost glad it was so dark. He didn't much like the idea of being on the Overseas Highway in the middle of a hurricane; he didn't even want to think about what would happen if the tornado caught up with them. A phrase Danny had used in the pick-up popped into his head: out of sight, out of mind. Well, the roaring waves of the ocean on either side of them weren't exactly out of mind, but as long as they were out of sight Ben could pretend he wasn't running a fool's errand. He could keep his attention focused on driving straight and looking out for the mercenary's truck ahead.
It was a few minutes later that they saw it. Hazy and indistinct in the distance, the two red lights didn't seem to be moving very fast, but Ben knew they probably were. 'That's him,' he shouted at Angelo. 'It has to be.' He didn't say out loud everything that was going through his head: It has to be, because nobody else would be stupid enough to be out here in this. 'How are we going to stop him?' Angelo asked. 'We can't stay hidden for long — as soon as we get a few metres away, he'll know we're on to him.'
It was a good question. Different scenarios passed through Ben's mind. He could try and get alongside the other truck and nudge the mercenary off the road. But the pick-up was the smaller of the two vehicles: in a collision it would come off worse. He could try and overtake, then bring the pick-up to a halt at right angles across the lanes; but the road was too wide for him to block it entirely, and the mercenary would simply be able to drive around them.
It was then that an idea came to him.
'Hey, Angelo,' he shouted. 'Ever fired a shotgun before?'
Angelo hesitated. 'A few times,' he said. He struggled for a moment as he searched for a phrase. 'Clay pigeon shooting, I think you call it.' Ben sensed him looking down nervously at the shotgun by his side. 'Look, Ben,' he said, his voice wavering a bit, 'I know we have to stop this man, but I don't think I could…'