CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Hamrun Industrial Park, no change here, still the only sign of life is the machine driven hum. Having parked the moped, I approach the Research Centre on foot. From a distance, all appears peaceful. As I close-in, the peace is confirmed. For now they tolerate the hole in the fence and the shot-up CCTV. The dog and the guard, however, are gone. The car park shutter remains as I left it, raised just enough to let me squeeze under. Through the gap, a wall of weak, hazy light spills out.
With gun in hand, I shuffle through the hole in the fence. Once through, I move quickly to the side of the shutter, where I pause, straining to sense any movement from within. With nothing detected, I crouch down and peer inside. No threat leaps out, no menace glares. The CCTV camera remains disabled. I take to the ground and push myself under the shutter, it ripples with clangs and bangs.
Back on my feet, I freeze in a shooting position, poised ready to fire on any sign of life. Without a target or a sound to explore, I move towards the stairwell door. As I reach it, a sound jumps from beyond it, the solid thud of a heavy door closing. I rebound to the side of the door, gun aimed and ready. The door is pushed open and out slips a guard, Hans? Do I shoot to kill, to maim or tame? Before I can answer, I lunge forward and smash the gun handle into the side of his neck. A punch, or two, later and the final flashes of his consciousness have been stubbed-out. He hits the ground, a dummy for me to tie and gag.
I reach the stairwell door. With gun probing, I tease the door open. Alone, I step inside, pause and listen. To the stairwell, the lift or the door ahead?
Where is the other guard? Where does he sit and watch? I move to the door ahead, and with the security pass I took from Carl, unlock it. No teasing, no probing, I barge inside and take the space, bold and blatant, fearless with nothing to hide. Steel steps take me down into a white, harshly lit corridor. A CCTV camera films my every move. As I rush towards an opened door, the voice of Steve booms my way.
‘Hans, he’s fractured…’
Steve lumbers out from behind the door and into a savage fist. Am I now alone, silent and invisible? Invisible and omnipresent, for inside the room, a wall of monitors allows complete and total vision. The centre is mine to know, but all I can see, the only focus I can pull is on a face, a close-up of a man, whose face is still, perfectly still, except for a stare that barely contains a mass of raging, menaced thoughts. His black skin is primed with a glutinous sweat and torn with sores, those beacons spewing pain. This is the photo on the South African’s phone, live but dying, a different man but the same disease.
For relief, I look away and find a wider view. On a monitor below I see a laboratory, a standard science lab, standard but for three black men all imprisoned in three glass cages. They are all naked, slumped, lifeless, on the floor in bare, glass cells.
I look at Steve, who has started to regain consciousness. Taking the gaffer tape, I bind his hands behind his back. As he starts to recognise me, and the situation he is in, I thrust the barrel of the gun deep into his mouth. His stare offers defiance, but not enough to mask his fear. Convinced he doesn’t underestimate my will, I step back, and with a flick of the gun, beckon him to stand. He complies and rises effortlessly to his feet. Once up, I grab him from behind, and with an explosive burst of aggression, power him into the room where I smash his face hard into the monitor, into the man and his disease. As I twist his face into the screen, his pained and angered voice erupts,
‘What?!...Show you?!’
I throw him out of the room. Gun aimed and ready to kill. Catching his stare, I nod my head.
‘You’re here for them? For fuck’s sake. What the fuck is this to you?’
I gesture with the gun for him to walk, which he does without protest.
‘You think this can end with you winning? Who the fuck are you anyway? Who the fuck do you think you are!’
We pass a door labelled, "Maintenance" then reach another, labelled B1. He stops.
‘There. And that’s all you’ll get from me, motherfucker!’
I push him away then unlock the door with the security pass. Pulling the door open, I gesture for him to enter. He complies, forcing out a laugh as he passes me.
‘You good for this?’
I follow him in and, seeing the lab, ram a full-strength punch into his kidneys. As he collapses to the floor, I, too, feel the wind punched out of me. Three men in three glass cages, lab rats, vulnerable and abused. The basic rules of civilisation do not, here, apply. I approach one of the men, his stomach pumps with short, rapid breaths. The sores cover his starved, desperate body. He makes no movement to look at me. Flies, mosquitoes, I don’t know, swarm inside the cage. Is he their feast? Has he been thrown to them, as meat? I rush to the guard, still wounded on the floor, stamp my foot into his throat and aim the gun at his face. He knows what I want, I want answers. Choking, he spits them out.
‘Fuck you! Nothing more from me, motherfucker!! This ain’t no nine to five! I want this!! You hear me!! I want this!! Do it!! Fuckin’ do it!’
I pull the trigger, in my head I see me pull the trigger but, bang, a fist pounds against a glass cell. I turn. The African Man is looking at me, recognising my presence. I step toward the cell. He wants to speak. I crouch down, face-to-face with him. His deep, heavy African accent slithers through the glass.
‘Burn us…Kill it…Burn us.’
The cell door has a pull mechanism. I move to grab it.
‘No!’ he pleads. I stop.
‘Disease. Into mosquito, into us, and into Africa! Burn it! Burn it! We are dead. There is no cure!’
Couldn’t I just call the police? What doubt can there be? I move to the guard and search his pockets.
‘Burn it! Ha! Fuckin’ African’s! Too much voodoo. It’s the primitive mind!’
I pull a mobile phone from his pocket.
‘Won’t work, no signal. Not here. Go upstairs. Call the police? No. C’mon. Don’t destroy this! Join us!’
Call the police? Not now. Not now you want me to.
And now? What now? A disease, new or modified? Man-made by them? Into Africa and into man. But why? Has the world enough cheap labour? To slash and burn, to destroy and create, to save this beautiful earth?
Think. Act. Film the evidence. Andrew’s phone, could it be traced without a signal? Reaching for it, I remember Henry’s phone. Could it film what I see? Could it offer me clues? I slip off my rucksack and pull out the phone. As I turn it on, I move back to the African. Can I save him? If I free him will I also free the disease? He speaks, running on empty. His need to convince me is all that fuels him.
‘Burn it! Everything! Everything! Destroy it!’ he demands.
He must tell me, Steve, he must tell me! As I turn to face him, an alarm starts to buzz, sharp and penetrating. He has risen from the floor. To mock me, he repeats the action I missed, he throws a kick at a wall mounted alarm. I rush to him, the gun aimed at his face.
‘You think I give a fuck. You think that’s ugly to me? Well wrong. It’s beautiful!!’
Then suffer for it. I pound punches and kicks into his body and face. As he falls to the floor, I aim a kick at his left knee. The kick connects and snaps the joint in two. His agony is his anchor and pins him to the floor.
The alarm looks like a standard fire alarm, but who I wonder is now speeding this way? Too much knowledge for me to control. I wanted to take some for the good of whomever, but now? Now, this place must burn. I hunt for and find two gas taps. Leaving them off, I run towards the door. About to exit, I remember Henry’s phone. If the signal returns, then so be it.
Into the corridor. Hunting fuel on every floor; gas taps turned on, flammable liquids smashed and released, pilot lights lit. No humans or animals found, although my search is incomplete. I can only destroy, I cannot save. As I go, I check the phone for clues and information. A call was made to Spitz, to a landline number in London. Could this give me his address? The only text is from someone named Fox, which reads:
&nbs
p; "Is your GOD capable of this? Is HE the one to save us? You may have found HIM but pray you haven’t lost us."
Attached is a video file, which I play and watch. A computer generated animation shows a volcanic island, alone in the middle of an ocean. An explosion, not an eruption but an explosion running the length of the island causes half the island to crash into the ocean. The displaced water rises up and forms a tsunami that speeds away towards the horizon. The shot dissolves into a bird’s eye view of the ocean. The tsunami is tracked as it races towards the African coastline. Another dissolve, the tsunami reaches land. Desperation and devastation as people, animals and buildings are all consumed by the wave.
Is this a threat, a plan, an ambition? I, myself, am feeling drowned. In the Maintenance Room, I turn off the water supply and pull leads from an emergency generator.
Back to the lab. I have returned with two, large gas bottles. Placing them next to Steve, I open the values and let gas spew into the air. No mask hides his fear.
‘You want me to talk? I don’t know anythin’. Nothin’ more than this!’
I ignore him, completely blank him. I rush to the gas taps, turn one on to a gentle flow then, using my cigarette lighter, ignite the gas to create a pilot light - a whisper waiting to roar.
With the Henry’s phone, I film more evidence. Not of my innocence, but of the crimes committed around me. The conscious African watches me. He is calm but has no strength to speak. I pause, watching him, flicking my stare between him on the screen and him for real. Another life about to end, another story about to finish.
And now, what now, do I let them burn? Do I turn and run? Do I flee into a darkness where this death I will never be see for real? A bullet would be easier for them, but for me? Can I risk contact with the disease? Can I risk a spark from the gun? Can I add more kills to my name?
I turn and move to leave. The guard screams a will to confess, adding,
‘We’re getting paid. We deport ‘em, tonight! This is for us, but we deport ‘em. By boat, from Valletta, tonight! You can make it. You can make it! The Fallen Fresco. Check the times! You can make it!!’
I continue on my way, rushing into the corridor until something pulls me back. Whipping out my cigarette lighter, I spark a flame then throw it into the lab straight at Steve. A fireball ignites around him - this man, this Guy, this fuel for empty flames. With room to step around the fire, and Steve's fading scream, I take my position, smash each cage with a bullet then beat the disease to its goal.
With a second to spare, I twist free of an explosion. Into the corridor I flee. A quick look through my all seeing eye reveals a blitzkrieg of fire and explosion.
In the car park, Hans remains disabled. I pass him without thought or concern.
Out into the night, where sirens and fire give life to the stagnant streets. I clear the fence then sprint away, away from the sirens and the moped, away from a newly parked car, and away from an inferno that destroys as it saves.
Running directionless, swirling, sucked towards the centre. I take a dozen turns but remain trapped in the Industrial Park. The sirens fall silent. A helicopter’s warning light flashes in the sky, like a missile on a radar screen seconds from a target.
I take another turn and see another car, parked twenty metres ahead. Its shape and dark colour match that of the newly parked car. Suspicion fails to slow me. I have no time to be nervous, or to move with subtle care.
With gun in hand, I reach the car. It is empty, and the bonnet is hot. I try the driver’s door; it opens. How and why? Is this for me, a special delivery for me? I slip inside. No key in the ignition, but the sun visor? Yes, a key. I take it and stab it into the ignition. About to turn it, I stop. Make a decision. Do they need to blow me up? Am I that slippery, that dangerous? Fuckin’ shoot me! It’s easier, easier to clean-up the mess. I turn the key, and the engine starts.
I have speed. Coincidence or conspiracy? Whatever, it’s mine, and I’ll take it.
I want to show control. I want to drive like I have nothing to hide, but I drive like a man set loose from a deranged, screaming spirit, with everything to hide but no place to dump it.
Finding the edge of the Industrial Park, I take a road to Valletta. The road is mine and mine alone. Solitude, again, is my victory.
Reaching Valletta, I park the car. A quick look outside confirms my solitude. Two helicopters hang in the sky but are too distant to concern me. Back inside the car, I take Steve’s phone and connect to the Internet. With Spitz’s number still fresh in my mind, I give it to Google and click for results. A link takes me to a website for a company called Deep Blue Solutions. The number relates to their London office. The home page describes them as a private security firm and claims that they:
"provide strategic support to governments and the commercial sector in the specialist niche of security and intelligence related services with particular emphasis upon designing and implementing solutions related to international terrorism, security force capability and complex geopolitical issues."
Meaning what? They’ll fight for you, or for your money at least. With their website otherwise sterile, I Google the company name and find a newspaper article titled "The Fat Cats of War." It labels them a private military company and reports that two of their employees, who in 2008 were working as private security guards in Iraq, were arrested and charged with the murder of sixteen civilian people including women and children. A week before their trial came to court the men escaped from prison and were never seen again. The article goes on to report that the company has worked in Afghanistan and Iraq under contract from the US military. It is also believed that they have considerable connections in Africa and are known to have provided the dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea security and military support. Claims have also been made that they have trained numerous rebel and gorilla groups throughout the African continent, mainly those fighting for control of precious natural resources. The founder, John Spitz is an American, ex-special forces and connected in Washington. A photo of him shows a business suited skinhead sitting at a plush, office desk. A faint, unsatisfied smile is forced for the camera. His posture is perfect, and his stare is charmless, open only for business. The article states his age is forty-eight, but here he looks younger with an upper torso that is broad and muscular.
Is this my man? Is this the man with whom it could end?
"We are one but not the same."
The same as whom, the brains and the money? Because they are what, the muscle? They work together, but for what? For tonight? Into Africa and into man? Unwanted immigrants arrive in Malta. Some get returned with immediate effect, but others, from so-called unsafe countries, can’t be booted right around. The law and lawyers see to that. The solution, slip beneath the law. A solution Spitz and his people use to their own advantage, to colour a piece of the bigger picture, which is what? To spread disease, to suppress scientific innovation, to instigate mass murder! To fuck with me, to draw me down, to turn me into a man who can kill on demand? I was a free man, never afraid to be still, but now, here I am forever rooted in frenzy. To the harbour. To the ship. To what, to kill some more?