On the riverside of promise (28 page)

“Alright, I can carry this. Have you got the
fuses?” asked Ethan as he fumbled with another box.

Andy finally reappeared sporting a thin grin
and a thick bundle of a white, waxy rope.

“We’re done here,” he said and checked his
watch once more. “We’ve got about five minutes. We’ll have to lay
down the fuses and wait the patrol out. Then we jump them,” he went
on as he straightened his glasses, turned towards the door and
stood frozen still.

Nicole had just entered the room with a knife
in one hand and a gun in the other. She was aiming at Andy, her
face impossibly torn between anger and sorrow. She trembled visibly
when she spoke:

“So, what does your plan say about me
Andy?”

Andy turned around and looked at her with a
hint of guilt. He took a step closer instinctively before trying to
reply. Nicole placed her sights squarely against him, a couple of
feet away from his forehead, while Ethan turned slowly around,
trying to edge himself closer to her. She swapped targets at
blinding speed and told Ethan:

“I need answers. Hands were I can see
them.”

“Put the gun down, Nicole. I know I should’ve
told you. It just wasn’t the right time,” said Andy with a
sorrowful, earnest voice.

“Is there ever a right time?” asked Nicole,
her eyes wet already from a film of tears.

“Put the gun down before we’re vaporized,”
interjected Ethan. It made Nicole laugh bitterly before she
answered, sniffing her nose lightly:

“I can put a bullet on a man’s head a mile
away. Don’t worry, I won’t hit anything else other than you.”

Ethan took a side step and revealed his hand
was holding a small metal box, with wires stretching away from it,
set right into a block of Semtex.

“You want answers? That’s fine, I’d like some
answers myself,” he said decisively.

Nicole’s expression turned into one of
anxiety. She gripped her gun with uncertainty, while she began to
sweat. She kept her eyes fixed on Ethan without saying a word for a
few moments. Andy told her then, with as much truth as he could
muster in his voice:

“Come with me. We’ll leave this life behind.
I’ll quit the Service. They’ll debrief you, give you a new name,
everything. We’ll get lost somewhere in the world, start over. If I
can’t have anything, I must have you, Nicole.”

“Why didn’t you say so from the start, Andy?
I’d hoped the source was wrong. But no. All my years of work,
thrown out the window. For you, non?” she said trembling, her voice
wavering like that of a scared child.

“I thought I could keep it professional. I
thought I could just work you, like you were trying to work me. But
I just couldn’t, Nicole. Could you?” asked Andy passionately,
looking as if he was lost into her eyes. She whispered almost
inaudibly, “Non,” and her brow furrowed as she seemed to soften up,
giving in to a feeling she could not contain. But her gun was still
aiming at Ethan, who cut in with a polite little laughter and
said:

“You’re holding a gun, I’m holding a
detonator and you want to have a little moment? This is outrageous!
Listen, we either all walk away, or no-one does. My choice,
really,” said Ethan sounding smug and confident.

“Go on then,” said Nicole before she turned
to look at Ethan with a furious, mad gaze. She went on and said
with abandon:

“Go on, push that trigger. All I want to know
is that he loves me. That Andy loves me. We used each other. He
lied. I did too, at first. But I thought that he meant everything
he said and did.”

“Not everything, love. I took an oath and I
never break them. I took an oath to you as well and I won’t break
that one either. Come with me now, please,” said Andy with an
unseemly pleading tone.

“I can’t, Andy. Ce n’est pas possible. How
can… How can I trust you now?” she said, fresh tears flowing down
both her cheeks. Andy replied without hesitation, a fiery
conviction in his voice, an immaculate, fearless shine in his
eyes.

“Look into my eyes. Look into my eyes and
tell me that you don’t want to trust me. That you don’t love me
more than anything.”

“Je ne peux pas. Je peux pas, mon amour…
Je-”

Her voice was cut in mid-sentence as her eyes
went wide with shock and she gasped for a little air with her mouth
wide open. She half-turned her head to see Ethan next to her,
feeling the gun in her hand slip away. Ethan had stabbed her in the
stomach, the unimaginable pain rising up from her belly to numb her
senses. Andy grabbed her with his arms as she couldn’t stand on her
feet and screamed:

“No, no, wait! Wait!”

Ethan grabbed the fuses and told Andy:

“We need to move. She might’ve warned
everyone already. We have to go now, Andy!”

Andy seethed with furious anger, even as he
laid Nicole down up against a wall. He shouted at him even as she
bled profusely from her belly, her face going visibly pale even
under the yellowish lamplight:

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I was thinking of saving our arses. Now get
your wits about you and let’s move!”

“She was coming with us, damn you! Damn you,
Ethan! She was!” cried Andy, barely able to control a rising well
of sobs.

Nicole looked at him with her large eyes, her
pupils dilated. She caressed his cheek with a feeble hand, before
she whispered to him with real effort:

“I wouldn’t Andy. Not now, not ever. But I
still love you…” she said as she went into shock and fell
unconscious.

“No, no. I have to… I need to get one of the
kits, powder, bandages… Stop the bleeding…” mumbled Andy loudly as
he still held Nicole in his arms. Ethan was overlooking the
corridor, still seeing nothing alarming. He looked at his brother
and saw his earlier calm and professional self had turned into some
sort of living wreck. He grabbed him by the shoulder gently and
knelt down, came face to face with Andy and spoke softly:

“There was no other way, Andy. The way things
turned out, there was no other way.”

“Fuck you, Ethan. For God’s sake, she’s not
dead yet!” said Andy with a sob.

“She said so herself, she wouldn’t. You loved
her, I can see that now. But she knew and could choose not to try
and stop you.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter now, Ethan. You
killed her. You bloody fucking killed her!”

“I’ll have to live with that too. Don’t let
it go to waste, Andy. Let’s fucking move,” said Ethan with urgency
and Andy looked at him in a strange, awkward fashion. He told him
then in a choked, sobbing voice:

“No-one behind, right?”

“It’s just us brothers now, Andy,” said Ethan
and his brother nodded as if mesmerized. He made the sign of the
cross and kissed Nicole on the forehead before he got up. He then
picked up the crate of Semtex and followed Ethan.

The two of them moved silently, working as a
team who knew exactly what to do from before hand. Ethan kept a
wary eye waiting for a patrol to come looking, feeling like they
had already ran out of time. Andy moved like a machine, and led
them to a storage room which was filled to the brim with cases full
of dynamite.

Ethan began laying down blocks of Semtex
around the storage room, while Andy worked as if in a trance,
running the fuse to many different cases, making sure at least one
would eventually light up. The Semtex would go off and that should
be enough for the next room filled with fuel barrels to burn up in
an explosion. The ensuing fire would obliterate everything and
everyone not just inside the complex, but certainly above as
well.

Andy laid the last of the fuses and checked
his watch. The patrol was actually running a little late, but when
Ethan took another look outside the door down the corridor, he saw
two men walking towards him. They suddenly stopped and aimed their
weapons. They started shouting in Igbo, while Ethan shook his head
and raised an open palm.

The guards were now starting to bellow with
outrage and kept coming closer, demanding some sort of explanation
or identification that Ethan had no hope of providing. Instead he
remained as apathetic as possible and when the guards came within
thirty feet or less, he suddenly pulled his Browning and knelt in
one motion. The guards saw Ethan draw the gun and let fly a burst
of rounds. But they were aiming from shoulder-high and their shots
missed wildly, chunks of concrete flying off the walls.

Ethan ignored the shots against him and aimed
calmly in their direction, placing three shots against each one of
them. The bullets met their targets at the chest and stomach in an
almost identical fashion. The guards fell backwards as if they’d
been hit by a truck, while one of them let fly another burst from
his AK-47. Ethan shouted to Andy while reloading the magazine with
bullets from a case of ammo in the room.

“We’re made. Are you done?”

“Done,” said Andy flatly as he appeared
through the door, holding the rest of the fuse.

“Good, light it up,” said Ethan as he checked
the corners for signs of more men. Andy replied slowly, as if
awaking from a deep slumber:

“I’m sorry?”

“Light up the bloody fuse and let’s make a
run for it.”

“Well, like this it’s only going to give us a
couple of minutes at the most.”

“Better run fast enough then,” replied Ethan
and looked at Andy with a wild-eyed gaze as he took out his knife,
cut out most of the rest of the fuse Andy was holding and lit it up
with his cigarette lighter.

“Go!” he shouted and ran in front, while Andy
swore under his breath and followed him. He shouted rough
directions to Ethan who already had an instinctive idea about where
the exit lay. Half a minute later, they were running down the exit
corridor. There were two men at the feet of the ladder barely
visible in front of them. Another two were already climbing down
when Ethan carefully placed a few shots that seemed to miss
wildly.

The two Igbo guards seemed to be taken by
surprise seeing Andy running alongside Ethan, but the reality of
flying bullets made them start shooting only a moment later. They
were trying to aim steadily, but they were on full burst; the
awesome kick of the AK-47 sent the bullets flying around the walls
and the ceiling, almost miraculously missing them both.

At the same time, Andy and Ethan unleashed a
flurry of single-action shots, without stopping or even slowing
down their run. The shots struck home, as jets of blood seemed to
eject from one man’s torso and the other man’s legs. They had lost
their balance falling on the ground, barely alive, screaming from
the pain.

The men climbing down the ladder had remained
stuck halfway down, trying to upholster their handguns.

By that time, Andy and Ethan had come so
close that they could clearly see the anxious fear on the men’s
faces. They had time enough to exchange a few more shots,
adrenaline levels, training and experience making all the
difference. The guards fell on the floor with a thump, one of them
outright dead with a hole in his head.

Andy urged Ethan to climb first and as he did
so he took a look on his watch and his face turned ashen. He pushed
Ethan’s buttocks upwards as he climbed and felt an invigorating
rush of heavy rain. Ethan got outside and took a quick look around
him, catching the glimpse of small teams of men spread around the
mansion in disarray.

When Andy got outside right behind him he
simply shouted:

“Run like all Hell’s loose!”

They started running in a southerly direction
while they heard shots flying, unable to see how far off from the
mark they were falling. The rain had already turned the dirt into
mud, while the river up front seemed to froth out of control. They
kept running while the bullets sometimes buried themselves in the
mud or broke branches off a nearby mangrove. Ethan asked then with
a shout:

“Time?”

“Should’ve blown up by now!”

“It should? Fuck! If it hasn’t then we have
to-”

Without ever having time to finish his
sentence, Ethan felt the earth beneath his feet tremble as if a
terrible earthquake was underway. He slightly paused in his running
stride as if he wanted to stop, turn around and look. Andy caught a
glimpse of him from the corner of his eye and instinctively reached
for his brother and brought him down along with him, flat on the
ground. Then they felt a terrible wave of overpressure that washed
over their bodies like a steamroller, pressing them into the
mud.

A horrible rumbling noise like a thunderclap
tore up the air; a few moments later, they felt gravel and sand
fall on top of them like a cloud had settled above them. Andy
hesitantly turned around to look and Ethan followed suit a moment
later. Among the billowing dust cloud and the large fire, they
could make out a crater at least three hundred feet wide. Another
explosion was heard and they saw flames flickering wildly and
debris shooting up in the air.

“It’s done,” said Ethan as he got up and
started walking with evident relief in his face, as if the thick
rain cleansed everything. Andy got up, made the sign of the cross
and followed him without ever turning to look back again.