Harry shook his head. He was beginning to feel dizzy from the acrid smoke swirling around in the cabin. ‘We’ve got time. Go ahead.’
Kleeman looked as if he couldn’t believe what was happening to him. But he clearly saw the resolve in Harry’s face, and finally buckled.
‘All right. . it was me! Is that what you want to hear? I found her. . she was in the canteen.’ His voice dropped to a wheedling tone. ‘I went to get a drink, that’s all. I couldn’t sleep. She was probably there to steal food. What one of your men called a camp rat. She was nothing!’
‘A victim, actually,’ said Harry. ‘She was a victim.’ He felt a huge sense of anticlimax at hearing the final confirmation from Kleeman’s own lips, and fought to resist the urge to stamp on the man’s face, to thrust the contemptible words back down his throat. ‘We were supposed to be protecting kids like her, remember?’
‘For Chrissakes, why should you care?’ Kleeman gave a shrill scream as something cracked like a gunshot and sparks began joining the smoke pouring into the cabin. His face was blood red and he began to sob in fury and desperation, like a child denied a treat. He stared up at Harry, his eyes no longer possessing any sign of sanity, and little vestige of anything human. ‘You’ve killed people, haven’t you, so why the moral fucking judgement?’
Harry heard a shout from up the slope. He glanced back. Rik and the CP man were clear with the injured crewman, and waving frantically at him to get out. Whatever they saw from up there must have been bad.
Then Kleeman grabbed his ankle. The envoy was struggling to get out, clutching desperately at Harry’s clothing and trying to push him to one side, babbling incoherently. For just a second, Harry was tempted to respond and pull him clear, to take him back to face justice for what he’d done. Then he realized that there would be nothing adequate to deal with this man. Whatever the fallout against the UN was going to be, it would be dealt with, no matter how brutal. But individuals like Kleeman always knew too many people, carried too much influence. A word here, a touch of political pressure there; they had built their lives on contacts and used them whenever trouble threatened. And if Kleeman left this place, it wouldn’t be to stand trial, of that Harry was certain.
Ballatyne was going to be pissed off, he figured. No happy endings. But that was too bad. He’d get over it.
As he swung his feet out of the cabin, he felt a sickening lurch as the helicopter dropped further, and heard the tearing sound of the trees giving way underneath.
‘Harry — she’s going!’ Rik shouted.
‘Wait!’ Kleeman cried. ‘Tate, you can’t leave me. Come back here! You can’t do this!’
Harry didn’t answer. He slipped over the rim of the doorway. When he looked back, Kleeman was staring at him like a man looking up from the bottom of his own grave.
He turned and made his way up the slope to where Rik was waiting.
As he reached the top, the flames billowed around the side of the fuselage and began licking through the open door. Then the broken machine finally slipped out of the clutches of the trees and plunged into the gorge below, a long metallic-human squeal following it all the way down.