Max Arena (42 page)

‘Time will tell,’ Abdullah said, ‘and you
know that I and Joseph are always here to help carry your burden in
whatever way we can.’

Elsa flicked her gaze back to Abdullah and
found that same evocative look in his shimmering eyes, like
starlight glittering off rippled water at the bottom of two deep
wells. She knew that behind those eyes, there resided the mind of
an extraordinary human being, capable of leading
vast masses or touching the soul of a
single person. Not for the first time, Elsa wondered if Abdullah’s
involvement in their plight at this crucial point in the history of
humanity was chance or actually divine intervention. If Elsa could
have prayed for someone to come and help them right now, she would
have prayed to God to send Abdullah. Goose bumps broke out on her
skin.

‘I know,’ she said simply, ‘and don’t worry.
I’ll be taking you up on that offer a few times before we get to
the end.’

Abdullah bowed and placed his flat,
upright palms together. Joe held his peace and indulged
in the moment.

‘
Well, I’ll leave you two night owls to
your politics,’ Elsa added. ‘I promised Kris I’d get up and watch
her early session with Max tomorrow and we all know I’m not a
morning person without a good night’s sleep.’

‘
Masa`a al
khair
,’
Abdullah said. ‘Good night.’

‘
Good night, Abdullah,’
Elsa replied and then turning to Joe asked.
‘
Will
we see you tomorrow, Joe?’

‘In the morning, yes,’ Joe said in return,
‘but unfortunately I will be making my way back to Canberra around
noon. Duty calls.’

‘
Okay. I’ll see you in the morning then.
Good night.’

‘Good night, Elsa,’ Joe said smiling. ‘I hope
you sleep well.’

Elsa smiled back and turned to walk from
the balcony and back into the house.
Abruptly, she stopped just inside the threshold
and turned back. Joe looked up and saw again the aura enshrouding
her. Abdullah also looked up.

‘
He’s okay you know?’ Elsa began. ‘Max I
mean. I know he’s been a bit quiet the last couple of days since
the incident, but give him a break. He just killed three men and
that would shake up any of us. He’s been busy wrapping it around in
his head in his own way, but he’s okay. He’s not about to lose the
plot and go psycho or anything like that, so don’t worry about him.
Max is fine, but what I said before is true. He needs to know he
has everybody’s support and right now he knows that he does. Max
has all the love he needs. As for him snapping out of it, my guess
is tomorrow he’ll wake up and be the same old Max. Just wait and
see.’

‘
We have been worried about him,’ Joe said
gently.

‘
Well, don’t,’ Elsa offered back. ‘He’s a
good enough man for all of us and he will
never
let us down.
Not ever
. Worry about everything else, but don’t
ever
worry about Max.’

Abdullah bowed again, his silent action
speaking louder than the words he could have spoken.

‘
Thank you, Elsa,’ Joe said. ‘Your words
have earned our trust. Good night.’

Elsa cast her glance from man to man and then
seeing their acceptance of her advice, turned and left. Joe and
Abdullah stood silently for a few moments and then turned together
to face each other. Abdullah spoke first.

‘
So, let us follow Elsa’s advice and find
something else to worry about,’ he said.

9am, 13
^th
October (1 week later).
Steel In Hand

Kris cast a careful eye over the grassed
course on the mansion lawn as her small army of assistants
scuttled
out of the way
to the shade of the Pain Train. She then scanned the edges of the
course and found a scattered host of television cameras,
strategically positioned to record the spectacle for the evening
news. Max was still number one on all forms of media and today it
was CNN’s turn to get their fix.

Satisfied that all was in order, Kris
turned her attention back to the mansion end of the course, where
she found Max waiting in his usual training attire of black shorts,
black singlet and orange shoes. Even from this distance she could
tell his body mass had grown significantly since meeting him for
the first time over three months ago. Max had responded so much
more than she had imagined. Now it was time for another test. Maybe
today was the day.

Speaking into her wireless headset
microphone, Kris addressed Max. ‘You ready?’

Max looked up at Kris across the distance and
said, ‘Let’s do it.’

‘
On my mark,’ Kris replied and she watched
Max immediately drop down on to his front on the grass. She then
began the countdown. ‘Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Go!’

Instantly, Max was up and
sprinting
, launching
himself forward across the turf away from the mansion. A corridor
of five javelins stabbed into the ground on alternating sides lined
up in front of him. Fifty metres beyond them stood five human
shaped cut-outs, shoulder to shoulder.

Max fixed his gaze on the central cut-out as
he powered forwards, his arms and knees pumping hard. As he
approached the first javelin, his eyes still glued to the cut-out,
his left arm snapped out and without glancing at the spear or
slowing down, he snatched it out of the ground and in a single,
fluid motion, hurled it straight ahead.

Without slowing his sprint, Max charged on
towards the next javelin, which was on his right side. As he
sprinted past and plucked it free, the first javelin, thudded into
and through the chest of the central cut-out, its tip jutting out
the back of the splintered target. An instant later, Max had hurled
the second javelin towards the far left target and maintaining his
pace, he careened onto the third javelin.

Again, just as the second javelin lanced
its target, Max grabbed and fired the third javelin towards the far
right cut-out. This one speared right through the head of the
target and only seconds later, the cut-out to its left copped the
fourth javelin clean through its neck.

Back down the course, Max reached the fifth
javelin and again pulled it free with his left hand as he sprinted
past and sent it flying, dead straight at the last human-shaped
cut-out. The weapon’s steel tip glinted in the mid morning sun as
it pierced the air at blinding speed. Max did not wait to see the
impact as he responded to Kris’ command in his ear.

‘Ice,’ was all she said.

Just as the fifth javelin ripped into its
target, the force of the impact
tearing it violently in half, Max side stepped sharply to
his right towards a red marker cone on the ground, which he rounded
to face back down another course directly adjacent to the javelin
course he had just completed.

Without pausing, Max accelerated ahead,
snapping his gaze up to the end fifty metres distant. Standing like
a gleaming, white portal at the far end was a rectangular block of
ice, three metres tall and two metres wide. Max also knew it was
ten inches thick and solid and that he had to go through it,
literally.

‘
You’ve got fifteen seconds,’ Kris said
evenly into his ear.

Lined down both sides of the course were more
javelins as well as uniformly spaced kettlebells, weighing fifteen
kilograms each. With the time remaining, Max had only these “tools”
to break through the ice blockade fifty metres away.

Max’s vision sharpened, bringing the array of
“tools” into stark focus with the ice shining bright at the end.
While still accelerating into the start of the course, Max already
had his plan secured.

In the first ten metres, he reached full
speed. Snapping both hands out, Max grabbed a javelin from each
side and with a double-armed throw, hurled both of them down the
length of the course. Seconds later and forty metres in front, the
two javelins speared into the very centre of the ice block,
quivering in place and cracking the face.

Moments later, two kettlebells smashed
into the frozen block right next to the two javelins, the
added
impact blasting a
depression into the cracked face. Then two more kettlebells
pummeled in, expanding and deepening the depression, causing the
javelins to fall out. Large cracks crazed outwards across the
gleaming surface.

Twenty five metres out, Max hurled two more
javelins, their damage even greater at this shorter distance. A
circular crater had now formed with some serious structural damage
starting to expand outwards in the ice.

At fifteen metres, Max picked up two more
kettlebells, one in each hand, still at full pelt and with a
double-armed, underarm swing, flung both “tools” at the ice. Both
kettlebells subsequently crashed into the very centre of the block,
knocking out the two protruding javelins and even more
ice.

At ten metres, two more kettlebells
wreaked even more havoc and now, Max was out of room. At five
metres out, he picked up two more kettlebells and this time did not
throw them. Instead, he tucked them under each arm and ploughed his
frame forwards with no hint of slowing down.

Kris squinted her eyes as she stared at
the unfolding scene, her body tense.

Max took two more
sprinting steps and his orange clad feet
left the ground. He became airborne and like a human javelin, flew
through the air, his body ramrod straight from his pointed toes to
his outstretched arms and in his far reaching hands, he held the
two kettlebells. Pulling his chin to his chest, Max aimed directly
for the centre of the crater he had pummeled into the ice. He
closed his eyes and Kris held her breath.

The kettlebells took the brunt of the impact,
smashing through the last couple of distressed inches of ice.
Shards of frozen water exploded out the back of the block as first
the kettlebells came through, closely followed by Max’s
outstretched arms.

A split second
later, Max’s entire frame shot through the gaping
hole, his shoulders blasting the final blockages away from the
hole. As his orange sneakers came through, Max let go of the
kettlebells and let gravity pull him downwards. Arcing his body
down, Max hit the grass at full throttle and executed a forward
roll and let go of the kettlebells, fragments of ice sailing
through the air behind him in his wake.

No sooner had Max started to straighten to
his feet, he heard Kris’ voice in his earpiece.

‘Get to the sword,’ she said.

Sharply pivoting on his left foot, Max
spun ninety degrees and spotted his next marker cone nearby.
Bounding towards it, he rounded it and dropped straight into a
sprinter’s starting crouch
next to it.

‘Go,’ said Kris.

The adrenalin coursing through Max’s body
instantly ratcheted up even higher, firing every muscle fibre in
his body to maximum power. His entire frame snapped into motion,
his left foot flicking forwards, his left arm flicking back and
high and his right arm flicking hard forwards. Max’s legs drove
into the ground to push himself forward like a prime mover,
powering into action. In four seconds, he had transformed from
human being into a freight train.

Lifting his focus from his feet and up to
the end of the one hundred metre stretch of open grass,
Max spied a sword stuck into
the turf, its steel blade shining like a mirror in the
sun.

Kris looked intently on. The moment she
had said go, she had clicked a button that remotely started a
timer. Max’s speed was being recorded.

Storming across the green velvet,
Max’s senses honed in on the
hilt of the blade. A white tunnel closed out the rest of the world.
No longer consciously controlling his hurtling form, Max was in
full auto mode, his body now more like a machine, intent on
achieving only one thing. Getting that weapon into his hands as
quickly as physically possible.

‘
Come on,’ Kris mumbled, the tension in her
voice matching the tension in her body. Today really could be the
day. It felt right. It felt very, very right.

Motoring at t
en metres out, Max whipped out his right hand and
in full flight and literally in mid stride and airborne, he plucked
the sword cleanly from the ground. Simultaneously, he crossed an
invisible laser beam and the timer stopped.

‘
That’s it,’ Kris said to Max. ‘You’re
done. Take a breather.’

While Max slowed down, Kris closed her
eyes and took a deep breath. Both the ice test and the javelin
course were new ones and he had aced them, but right now, she
needed to know the time
for the sprint. If it was what she hoped, it was a
milestone and an unbelievable one at that.

Kris lifted her left wrist up, which bore a
miniature touch screen. For the first few moments, the screen was
blank and then suddenly, some numbers lit up. It was a time in
seconds and hundredths of seconds.

Her brain took a split second to register
the time and then Kris deflated, all the tension in her body
melting away. Nine point six seconds exactly. No world record
today, but Max was closer again.

‘
Zero point two seconds short,’ Kris said
as she looked across at Max who had turned back to face her across
the lawn. ‘You’re close enough to taste it.’