Deadly Sky (ePub), The (14 page)

12.27. Nearly half an hour since the explosion. It felt like five minutes. It felt like five hours.

The plane was flying normally. The engines had throttled back to their usual speed, and the deafening roar had faded. They didn't seem to have suffered any damage.

We're safe, Darryl told himself yet again. We're safe. He sat gazing down at the calm, perfect reach of blue sea. He couldn't wait to be on the ground, to step out into the soft fresh air again. He sat, drawing in one slow breath after another, feeling the aches all through his body.

Alicia had raised her head now and sat gazing
ahead. Raoul did the same. They hadn't said another word to each other.

12.39. The older pilot stood beside them, talking to Alicia. His face was tight; he stretched out one hand.

The girl looked blankly at him. Raoul spoke, telling her something, voice still flat and unfriendly. She reached down beside her, and passed over the squat grey gun. Hell, Darryl realised, I'd forgotten all about it! We're lucky it didn't go off when we were being chucked about. He thought of how her cousin had lied to her. Could they ever trust each other again?

In front of him, the pilot spoke to Raoul, held out his hand once more. The young man sat motionless. Darryl felt himself tense again; knew the pilot was poised to move, also. Raoul wasn't going to try anything now, surely?

He jerked as the long-barrelled gun appeared. Raoul lifted it, pushed at the base of the handle, and an oblong metal container clicked out. The magazine, Darryl guessed, with all the bullets. Raoul passed it to the waiting pilot, who took it, then jabbed a finger at the gun.

Raoul shook his head, politely almost. ‘
Non. C'est à mon père
.' The pilot began to point again, shrugged, turned away. Raoul quietly put the gun back down by his side.

They must be almost back on their proper course
now. It was almost as though nothing had happened. Beside Darryl, Alicia was so quiet, she seemed asleep.

But Darryl knew she wasn't. He began to speak, found his lips were dry, swallowed, and went ‘Alicia?' The girl turned to gaze at him, face quiet, eyes dark and sad. Darryl spoke the same words that she'd said to him.

‘
Je— Je regrette.
I am sorry, too.'

They flew to Papeete while Darryl slept. Both of these seemed incredible, but in the cabin, where some people still sobbed and hugged one another now and then, he felt his head sink forward and the world go distant. Man, I hope I'm not going to start dribbling, he thought.

When he hauled his head back up to peer at his watch, it read 1.58. When he looked again, what seemed just three minutes later, it read 2.44.

The clink of glasses woke him. Françoise, eyes red, hands still shaking slightly, was in the aisle, serving drinks. Just like on an ordinary flight, except that people kept standing to embrace the air hostess, or kiss her on both cheeks.

Françoise reached the row where Darryl and Alicia sat, smiled at him, and passed him a tall glass. She
ignored Alicia completely, and began to move on.

‘Excuse me?' Darryl heard his voice, saw his hand stretch out towards the tray of drinks. Françoise smiled again. ‘You are thirs-tee?' She passed him a second glass. He handed it straight to Alicia. The air hostess pressed her lips together, and turned away. Alicia murmured something, and drank.

A couple of minutes later, another figure stood beside him. His mother. She ruffled his hair (he
wished
she wouldn't do that) and said: ‘Swap places, Da.'

Darryl felt puzzled, but rose and made his way back to his mum's seat. For a few minutes, he sat gazing at the Pacific edging past below. When he peered forward, his mother's arms were around Alicia, holding the girl against her. Alicia's shoulders were shaking; Mrs Davis was stroking the young girl's hair and murmuring.

At last a chime sounded above their heads. One of the pilots, speaking in French first as usual, then: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are soon at Papeete. When we are landed, please stay in your seats. We need to tell the authorities about … matters.'

Mrs Davis rose, and came back down the aisle. ‘You sit next to her again, son.' As Darryl hesitated, his mother smiled. ‘Just be there, love.' He moved forward;
Raoul was motionless in the row ahead. Alicia looked up, and managed a half-smile as Darryl sat. ‘You are kind person,' she went. ‘Your mother is, too. You speak truly. You are not like … like some.' Her eyes glared towards where her cousin sat. Darryl didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.

What's going to happen to her? he wondered. Her and Raoul. Will they go to prison? Yes, he realised, they have to. Will the world ever know what they tried to do, and why? Yes, he told himself, again; they have to, as well. How about Lily and Napoleon and the others back on Mangareva: how will they feel? Will anything happen to them because of Alicia? Too many questions to which he didn't know any answers.

One thing he did know, however: the girl in the seat next to him had changed his life. He looked at her, then shifted his gaze to the glittering sea crawling past beneath. The same Pacific, but different. Everything was different.

Darryl felt himself yawning. He was shattered, exhausted. His body ached; he wanted to sleep for days. Was he even going to be able to crawl onto the flight back home? Oh well, he just had to sit. He had nothing else to do now.

Yes, he did. He took a breath, then said, ‘Alicia.' Her name sounded strange in his mouth. The girl turned to him. ‘You are brave,' he told her. He kept his voice
low, so he didn't feel embarrassed about other people hearing. ‘Very brave. Your father would feel proud. I will not forget you.'

When he looked at her a couple of minutes later, Alicia was crying quietly again. But he didn't regret what he'd said.

They circled the airport, once, twice. Of course: they had no radio; they must be letting the control tower get a good look at them. A neat row of palm trees passed underneath them. Cars – it seemed ages since he'd seen cars – in a parking area. The sea: always the sea.

Finally, they straightened up and began their approach. Waves gave way to sand, rough grass, a perimeter fence, the runway. Darryl twitched as he saw blue and red flashing lights speeding along beside them. Fire trucks; an ambulance: the control tower must have realised something was wrong. After all, they'd been off the air for hours, and they'd taken a lot longer than usual to get here. He peered again at his watch: 4.10. Yeah, they were so late. Maybe he should complain?

The tarseal flashed by, rising towards them. A bump, a second bump, the lurch forward in their seats as engines went into reverse, clapping and cheering,
and some more sobbing from behind, and they were slowing to a stop. They were safe; it was all over.

All over except for Raoul and Alicia. The plane hadn't even halted when the younger pilot pulled himself out of the cockpit, jabbing his finger at the two cousins to stay in their seats. The hijackers hadn't even looked at each other, except for Alicia's earlier glare.

The growl of the twin engines died away. Flashing lights and wailing sirens sped up beside them. The pilot swung the heavy cabin door open and a clamour of voices instantly came from below.

Five seconds later, a khaki-uniformed policeman was inside the plane. An officer, judging from the badges on his shoulders. The young pilot talked to him, fast, intense, pointing to Alicia and Raoul, to the cockpit, back to where they'd flown. The police officer turned to the cousins, snapped something at them. They stayed silent. He began shouting instructions out to the runway, where two jeeps had screeched to a halt, more figures in khaki and blue uniforms jumping from them. Darryl gulped as he saw the rifles in their hands.

After ten minutes or so, the passengers were led from the aircraft. A few still sobbed. A few glared at Alicia and Raoul, or spat out words that Darryl suspected he
probably wouldn't find in any French textbook. The police who had crowded into the cabin moved them on.

Darryl and his mum were the last to go. As she reached where her son stood in the aisle waiting, Mrs Davis reached down and touched a hand to Alicia's cheek. The girl didn't look up. Darryl's mother murmured to Raoul, who gazed at her, then nodded once. She took Darryl's hand, and they started down the steps.

A small bus waited on the runway. The other passengers were filing on board. A man called to the Davises. ‘Please, you come. We are taking you to the hospital, and then to a hotel. You come.'

On the bus, they found seats and slumped down. I could sleep for
three
days, Darryl told himself.

A movement in the doorway of the plane made him look up. Alicia and Raoul were being brought out, men with rifles ahead of them and behind them. The young man seemed to be trying to say something to the girl, who twitched away from him. Darryl watched as they started down the steps; he tried to decide how he felt.

A van waited, doors open, more uniforms and rifles beside it. The officer who'd been first on the plane began talking to another. Alicia and Raoul stood nearby. The cousins who had started the flight as allies had ended it as enemies.

As Darryl kept gazing, Raoul turned, murmured to his cousin. The girl's head came up. What was he blaming her for now?

He wasn't. The tall, young figure bent suddenly, kissed Alicia on the forehead. Then he took a step backwards and reached a hand inside his shirt. Darryl's breath stopped, and his stomach clenched.

Alicia screamed. The police wheeled around, flung themselves forward.

Too late. As Raoul raised the long-barrelled pistol and placed it to the side of his head, Darryl knew there had been one bullet left in it after all.

All of the passengers and crew, except Alicia, were taken to the hospital first. They had to shower, washing their hair and their bodies, even the soles of their feet and inside their mouths and noses, with chemical-smelling soap. Then they were given green hospital gowns, and sat around in a big bare room where police stood guard at the door.

After half an hour, boxes of clothes arrived. Not theirs. ‘You will have return of your clothes sometime,' the officer from the plane announced. ‘We must be made sure that no radioactive from bomb is on them.' The replacement clothes looked as though they'd been grabbed from a second-hand shop or something. But
they were clean, and they sort of fitted, and Darryl was too exhausted to care.

Another twenty minutes, and two men in green overalls came in, nervous expressions on their faces. One held a small grey metal box with a dial like the one Darryl had seen his dad use to see if their car battery was flat. A cord ran from it to a heavier box that the other man held. The smaller box was passed over their hair, their hands and feet, down their backs. Passengers shut their eyes; some began to sob again as they were examined. The pilots stood rigid. Darryl felt himself tense as the grey metal rectangle skimmed his body. His mum stood calmly. Her hair was still wet from the shower; she looked young.

Finally, the two men relaxed, went, ‘OK, all OK.' More sobbing from passengers and from Françoise.

They were kept sitting there. Voices murmured in the corridor. A siren wailed in the distance. The police watched from the doorway.

Darryl stared at the cream-painted walls. He wasn't seeing them. He was seeing Raoul's body collapsing to the ground, Alicia struggling in the grip of shocked policemen as she tried to reach him, screaming her cousin's name over and over and over. He saw more police cars speeding towards them, lights flashing. His mother, rushing from the bus, shoving aside the policeman who tried to stop her, thrashing her way into
the knot of yelling, pointing figures around Alicia, and taking the weeping girl in her arms again. He saw the body crumpled on the tarseal of the runway. And the blood.

He'd sat frozen, gripping the seat in front of him, while his mother was bundled back onto the bus, and other passengers gabbled or moaned around them. As they finally began heading towards a gate on the far side of the runway, he saw a tractor slowly towing their plane away, heading for a different corner of the airport as well. He supposed it would have to be decontaminated, too. When he twisted his head back for a glimpse of Alicia, the cars, the flashing lights, the crowd of uniforms and other people hid any sign of her. Where were they going to take her? What was going to happen to her? He couldn't imagine.

It was dark by the time they arrived at the hotel – a square, concrete place in a side street, where the staff all stared at them as they were brought in.

Darryl had to share the hotel room with his mother that night. It was her hands that held him when he started screaming at Raoul slowly putting the gun to his head, while the sky flashed white, a black and red pillar of smoke poured upwards, and a blast wave he
could see in the air raced towards them, flinging Noah and others from a boat far below. He jolted awake and clung to his mother, sobbing and gasping for breath as the new nightmare faded.

‘What's going to happen to Alicia?' he mumbled. ‘What will they do to her?'

He felt his mother shaking her head as she held him. ‘I don't know, Da. I don't know.'

‘She didn't realise, did she?' Darryl said then. ‘She didn't realise what Raoul was ready to do?'

His mum sighed. ‘No, son. If she had … The poor, poor girl.'

They weren't allowed out of the hotel next day. Nobody told them why. Nobody told them anything. Mrs Davis spent a lot of time on the phone in the lobby. ‘I've got things to fix up, love,' she told Darryl. Yeah: school meetings about her report, maybe; different flights. It was hard to believe stuff like that still mattered.

For a while he sat on a chair and half-watched as she waved her arms around at an operator somewhere who obviously didn't speak much English.

That afternoon, after a lunch in the hotel dining room, where the pineapple juice tasted only half as good as the juice he'd had before, and where the hotel
staff never smiled once, they sat talking for a while to a few of the other passengers. Then they were called, in turn, into an office where a voice could be heard asking questions.

When it was their turn, Darryl and his mother found themselves sitting opposite yesterday's police officer and a man in a cream suit. Darryl stared: he'd seen that suit before. He'd seen the same man wearing it, or one exactly like it, splashed with red paint, at the anti-nuclear demonstration just … was it really just ten days ago?

The policeman went first. Names, where they were from, why they'd been in Mangareva, had they ever met Alicia and Raoul before. But he didn't call them Alicia and Raoul; he called them ‘the terrorists'. When Darryl's mother explained how they'd stayed at the lodge where Alicia lived, how she'd talked with the girl about maybe coming to school in New Zealand, the other man – the ambassador, if that's who he was – butted in. ‘So you were friendly with this stupid girl and her criminal accomplice?'

Mrs Davis gazed at him. ‘No. We were friendly with a promising, fine young woman and her cousin.' She kept her eyes on the two men. ‘A young woman who did everything she could to save us.' Darryl had never felt more proud of her.

When they came out of the room, a few more
unfriendly questions later, a new figure was talking to the other passengers. A tall man in a minister's collar. Darryl recognised him, too. He'd been in the demonstration as well. Darryl wondered if the ambassador knew he was there. He wondered how the minister felt about Raoul.

Their suitcases were outside their rooms when they went up to rest. Darryl suddenly had to sleep; his eyes kept sliding shut. His mother couldn't stop yawning. But first he changed into his own clothes. Hope my undies aren't radioactive, he thought. Too bad if they are.

He sat and watched TV for a while. A music programme, with Abba singing ‘Waterloo' in English while the French words kept popping onto the screen at the bottom. Weird.

‘Mum?' The question was suddenly in his mouth. One he had to ask. ‘Why did Raoul do it? Why did he … kill himself?'

Mrs Davis was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching the TV with eyes that kept closing. She turned to look at him, and rested a hand on his. ‘I don't know that, either, son. Maybe he felt he was a failure. Or maybe he wanted to do one last thing to make
everyone listen to them. I wonder if he wanted to take some of the blame away from Alicia? No easy answers, I'm sorry.'

Darryl nodded. He'd already started to understand that. And he remembered all those things on the island: the paint, the dummy, the painting on the fallout shelter. Raoul had been set on his path. Nothing could have stopped him.

‘You were wonderful,' his mother added. ‘The things you said to Alicia on the plane – you saved her life, I'm sure of that. Raoul? I don't think any words would have stopped him.' A pause. ‘He loved his cousin: I'm sure he was saying that at the end.'

Darryl sat, staring at the carpet. The collapsing body. The wailing girl. He made himself nod again.

His head jerked up at his mother's next words. ‘They are taking Raoul's body back to Mangareva.' She watched her son. ‘One of the pilots told me. The whole of the island is helping pay for it, I think. They are going to bury him on the mountain.'

Darryl remembered the high, rocky slopes of Mount Duff. Huge, pure sweeps of sea and sky; trees and perfect beaches below. He swallowed.

His mum spoke once more: ‘He was that little girl's uncle, did you know?'

As Darryl stared, she nodded. ‘The sweet little one who wanted you to dance with her. Lannya, wasn't it?'

Darryl pictured the young man laughing with the excited small girl and her mother as they flew to Mangareva. He said nothing. If he tried to speak, he knew he'd start to cry again.