No reply. The light remained fixed on Shuster.
‘Ramirez?’
The rats’ squealing cries were suddenly drowned out by the clamour of automatic gunfire, and beneath the light, Hazo saw tiny white flashes spit in rapid succession.
In the same instant, Shuster’s face ripped open and the back of his head exploded in a spew of blood and brain matter. The force from the impact threw him backwards and he tumbled off the container.
Dropping to his knees, Hazo flashed his light down at the body. The rats responded instantly, swarming over it.
Then the light shifted to Hazo.
There was nowhere for Hazo to go. He was penned in by the platform’s railings. He scrambled for the handgun that Shuster had given him and sprang to his feet. Squinting in the light, he failed to make visual confirmation of a target, but blindly fired three shots. The light didn’t budge.
‘Drop the gun, Hazo!’ the gunman yelled up at him.
Hazo wasn’t surprised that it was Crawford’s voice. ‘No!’ he replied.
‘I’ll shoot you dead right now if you don’t drop the gun,’ Crawford threatened in a menacing tone.
‘Fine! You do what you must,’ Hazo screamed. ‘I’m already dead. Don’t you see?’
A pause.
‘Get off that platform,’ Crawford yelled.
Get off the platform? Hazo repeated to himself. Why would Crawford want him to come down? If he had no problem shooting Shuster off the container …
‘Get off … now!’
Having witnessed Holt’s horrible demise, there was no way Hazo was willing to sacrifice himself to the rats. Best to take a few bullets and avoid the suffering, albeit the rats or the plague. Hazo turned his back to Crawford, raised his arms and shut his eyes tight. ‘Shoot me!’ he yelled out. ‘Shoot me in the back like the coward you are!’ He gritted his teeth and waited for the end — waited for Crawford’s bullets to finish the job his microscopic assassins had already started.
No shots came.
Confused, Hazo eased his eyes open. ‘What are you waiting for!’ But directly in front of his face, he saw the answer to his own question. There, in plain view, a peculiar sticker was plastered on to the sheet metal housing covering a huge, tubular machine. The ominous symbol — a circle cut like a pie into six alternating yellow and black slices — carried a universal warning.
Radiation.
‘This is your last chance!’ Crawford screamed.
Hazo ignored him, as he tried to process this new information. He quickly assessed the huge machine. Why would there be radioactive material down here? Unless …
Could this be a nuclear reactor? Normally a nuclear reactor was a huge thing that powered cities. And they were always shielded with thick concrete to protect against radiation leaks. But Hazo quickly determined that a radiation leak so deep inside a mountain probably made such safety precautions a moot point. Clearly, if Crawford wanted him to back away from the reactor, it could only mean that he feared a stray bullet might pierce its volatile core.
‘Fine,’ Crawford yelled. ‘I’ll come and pull you down.’
Hazo turned and pointed the gun directly at the reactor, the way an executioner might — the way a Saddam loyalist might threaten a Kurdish carpet retailer from Mosul. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘You move, I shoot.’
For ten seconds there was no response.
Then the light beam shifted.
Hazo hesitated.
Still no reply from Crawford.
Hazo called down to him: ‘This is a nuclear reactor, is it not?’
Again, Crawford didn’t answer.
Without warning, something hurled out from the light — glinting in fast bursts as it pinwheeled directly towards Hazo. Before he could react, it struck him in the chest like a fist, pushed him back against the reactor. He crumpled down on to the platform. All feeling to his right hand instantly turned to pins and needles. Involuntarily, his fingers went limp. The gun slipped out from his ruined grip and skittered to a stop, close to the edge of the platform.
This time, Hazo found it impossible to catch his breath. He looked down and saw a black handgrip, buried to the hilt, sticking out beneath his right clavicle, close to the shoulder. When he tried to move towards the gun, bolts of pain shot down his arm and over his chest, making him see pure white. He screamed out in agony.
Then he could hear Crawford’s boots clanging up the ladder rungs.
79
It hadn’t taken much effort for Jason to persuade Crawford’s disenchanted marines to step aside so that he and Meat could get into the tunnel.
After squirming through the opening above the debris pile, they’d progressed quickly through a series of interconnected tunnels. Tight winding passages had widened into a subterranean corridor with a lofty ceiling joined at a point, which in turn, fed them through a tunnel that looked as if it had been dug by a huge gopher. Halfway through the gopher hole, where a sharp bend yielded to a lengthy straightaway, Jason abruptly dropped to one knee with his M-16 directed straight. He immediately signalled to Meat to halt his advance.
With no words exchanged between them, Jason leaned sideways and shone his light low to the ground less than ten metres ahead to emphasize a contorted body in desert camouflage blocking their path. The dead man was on his stomach in a pool of blood that looked purple against the dark limestone. Though the face was turned away from them, a glinting gold crucifix dangling from the corpse’s neck left little doubt as to the marine’s identity.
‘It’s Ramirez,’ Jason whispered softly to Meat.
Meat’s face gnarled with disgust.
Jason eased back to a standing position, listened intently for any activity. He turned to Meat. ‘Hear that?’
Meat nodded. ‘Sounds like rusty wheels.’
Jason proceeded forward and Meat followed close at his heels. As he stepped over the body, he caught a glimpse of the dime-sized red hole drilled through Ramirez’s temple.
Crawford, you bastard. You’re going to pay for this. All of this.
The tunnel curved yet again. After cautiously rounding the bend, Jason saw the slightest trace of light softening the darkness. He also heard screaming over the growing din of tinny squeals. One of the voices belonged to Crawford; the other, tinged with an accent, unmistakably Hazo. The exchange wasn’t pleasant. It sounded as if the two were arguing about something.
Jason looked back at Meat and said in an urgent tone, ‘Let’s do this.’
80
Hazo was amazed how quickly Crawford had made it up to the platform. It seemed like mere seconds had elapsed since the colonel threw the knife into his chest. Not enough time for Hazo to muster the strength to make a play for the gun. But even the slightest movement tweaked the blade against nerves and zapped him like a taser.
Sneering and wild-eyed, Crawford gave the handgun a swift kick and it sailed off into the darkness to disappear below the rats. ‘Nice try, Haji. But your aim was lousy.’
Hazo’s gaze burned with contempt. ‘You are an evil man,’ he said. Wincing, he tried to prop himself up against the reactor.
‘Don’t be such a bad sport. You’re no match for me. None of you Arabs is a match for me.’
‘I am a Kurd,’ Hazo couldn’t help point out.
Crawford shrugged. ‘You all look the same to me — Kurds, Saudis, Egyptians, Palestinians, Kuwaitis, Jordanians, Iranians, Afghanis … Call yourselves whatever you want. But you all popped out of the same fucked-up mould.’ He reached out and gave the knife a good twist and Hazo screamed out. ‘Don’t take my word for it, though. That virus inside you knows the difference … only likes A-rab DNA. And it looks to me like you’re one dead A-rab.’