Local time – 9:55pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Alex knew the iPad no longer worked. She saw Henry smash it and heard it bounce off the dashboard and clatter into pieces on the floor of the cockpit. The vision of Gerome had disappeared first, but as it fell and the screen shattered, she could still hear the speaker for just a moment. Gerome’s words lodged themself in her heart. She couldn’t do anything but let them burrow there and spread out into every pore of her body. They had killed Bernie.
When she realised Henry was getting paid, she knew something wasn’t right. His determination to set off a nuclear missile, obliterating the lives of thousands of innocent Indians, and without doubt starting a war between India and Pakistan that could easily escalate into a world war, was more evil than she had ever thought possible. She knew then she had been deceived. But when she heard Gerome tell her that Henry and his team had killed Bernie, everything caught up with her. She knew the naked truth of what she had done. Henry and Phil were the enemy. Everything they had told her was lies. She had helped them to use Bernie’s iPad to find this weapon. Bernie had wanted to find it to destroy it. The injured man at the Army Museum had said ‘Bernie ... destroy.’ She had helped Bernie’s murderers to do the one thing Bernie wanted no one to be able to do.
Henry chose the moment of Alex’s total devastation to attack. But in that instant, her body reacted with an animal fury. Before he had time to wrap his hands around her arms and pull, her leg snapped fast towards him, and caught him in the rib cage. It connected like a cement block fired from a cannon. He flew backwards, tumbling out of the truck, flat on his back. Alex lunged forward, searching for Phil’s phone. She knew it was there somewhere, but the darkness at her feet and the pieces of broken iPad all over the floor made it impossible to find a small black phone that must have somehow slipped off the seat.
In an instant, Henry sprang back into the cockpit and, instead of reaching to drag her out, he put both his hands around her throat. She tried to batter him away, but he was already latched onto her. He pushed her backwards until she was flat on the seat. Her arms slapped at him, desperately trying to grip onto something that would make him stop; in this position, her resistance was completely overthrown by Henry’s strength. His fingers felt like they were a machine, closing around her neck and making it impossible to breathe. His knees kicked into her stomach. She knew he was doing his best to kill her. Any second she would pass out. She tried punching his arms, but it just made him grip even tighter. She could feel her eyes bulging out of her head, and her vision started to go fuzzy.
She was going to die. Henry was going to kill her. There was no room for fear. Only hatred and anger at the man who was murdering her for money. She pictured him dumping her body on the side of a Pakistani street and leaving it there. She imagined him reaching for Phil’s phone, and smiling to himself as he entered the coordinates into the GPS on the dashboard. He would hear the missile fire, but he would never see it explode. The poor residents of Mumbai. Alex could only imagine a fireball and a mushroom cloud, like the images she saw from Hiroshima in history books. Women with babies and children running for their lives. She couldn’t let him do this. While there was still life in her body, she could not let him do this. A clarity spread through her.
She let her body go limp, dropping her right arm off the edge of the seat. She shut her eyes as if she had passed out. Henry let go of her neck ever so slightly, and she sucked in a tiny breath of air. Just as he went to change position, to put more pressure on her throat, she ran her hand along the floor of the cockpit, her fingers searching for something she had seen there. When she found it, a burst of adrenalin spurred her body into action. With one hard thrust, she stabbed a piece of the broken iPad screen into Henry’s abdomen. The glass wedged there for a moment, and she felt it slicing into flesh. He cried out in pain, and pulled backwards, away from her. The glass came out, and she still held it, noticing it had also cut her hand. Before he could move out of her reach, she thrust again, screwing the shard into his chest. Blood made it slippery now, so she used both hands to push it hard and up, making a large gash that poured even more blood onto her.
Henry was no longer trying to grab her. He held his stomach, trying to stop the flow of blood, which seemed to be pumping out of him. When he couldn’t, he slumped back against the door. She kicked him twice in the legs, and then used her foot to push down on the latch so the door swung open and Henry fell backwards out of the truck. Just when she thought she might have to jump on top of him and make sure he didn’t get back up, she saw a car racing towards them.
She sat clutching the shard of glass for what seemed like the longest minute of her life, oblivious to the pain of her bleeding hand. Then two men were out of the car and running towards her even before it had stopped. Three men. The cavalry. Not Henry’s friend. The relief almost made her faint.
Still clutching the piece of glass, she climbed shakily out of the cockpit. One of the men went over to Henry, dragging him away from the nuclear missile. The driver joined him, and they looked like they were checking whether he was still alive. The other ran to Alex, and caught her as she fell into his arms.
‘He was going to kill me, he was going to set it off, I had to stop him… ’ she cried out, trying to explain the bloody mess.
‘We know. You’ve stopped him. It’s OK. You’ve stopped him.’