‘Why? To what end?
‘I think, and I’m guessing here, but that would have meant the end of the mission. This big, important, prestigious mission. This would be the final nail in the coffin. You may be unaware of how hard the Boss is working to keep us going in the face of what’s being deemed unacceptable losses. He would be removed and the unit would be taken over by – someone else.’
‘Who?’
He shrugged. ‘The government. The military. No idea. But certainly St Mary’s would go in a different direction, with different goals, different targets, and maybe instructions to turn a profit. There would be less research, more interaction. It certainly wouldn’t be our endearingly crackpot little organisation any longer. But, and again I’m only guessing here, setting the unit on a path leading straight to the state St Mary’s finds itself in in my time.
I pointed at the screen. ‘Who is he?’
‘His name is Ronan. He’s angry because Sussman made it personal. Can we talk about him another time?’
‘Why did Sussman wait so long before …?’
‘So you could do most of the work and he could get the credit.’
Unbidden, there came to my mind a picture of Sussman in France. The hospital engulfed in flames. Kal and I burst into the pod. Sussman turned from the controls and said – what did he say? He said, ‘Max, my God, I can’t believe it. I thought you were dead. Why aren’t you dead?’
Not, ‘Thank God you’re not dead,’ but ‘Why aren’t you dead?’ And who arranged for us to meet by the linen rooms? And who sent me in for blankets? And who had I met the day before coming from the linen rooms?
Somehow, I got it together. A coincidence. It had to be. I was being paranoid. He was dead and we’d never know now. What I saw next pushed it out of my head completely.
On the screen, Sussman stormed back to his pod. At a signal from Ronan, he was grabbed, held by two men and dragged, struggling, away from his pod. Ronan stepped forward, crouched low in front of him, and slashed, stepping back quickly. I watched the blood spurt and heard the scream in my head.
Everyone vanished very quickly. They wouldn’t want to hang about with that amount of blood around. They say sharks can smell blood in the water from miles away. Sharks had nothing on the local wildlife here. Sussman tried to walk but blood gushed from wounds in his upper leg where Ronan had slashed his femoral artery. No power on earth could save him now. He tried to press both hands against the wound and walk at the same time, failing to do both.
‘Davey,’ I whispered. But even as I spoke a shadow flitted across the bottom of the screen. Fast and low. Then another.
‘Davey, get back to your pod.’ I leaped to my feet and the Chief stood with me. He reached down to switch off the laptop but I pulled his arm away.
I watched as the raptors gathered. I watched them circle their victim; classic predator behaviour. He crouched low on the ground, screaming with fear, bloody arms over his head.
Farrell said, ‘Max …’ but I had to watch. Whatever he’d done, he’d once been my partner and my friend. I owed it to him and to me.
I watched as the first two leaped in a pincer movement. Deinonychus. And it’s true; they don’t wait until their prey is dead before eating. I watched them rip and tear. I watched two of them fight over an arm. I watched his head roll away and felt glad because it was over for him. I watched them snarl and gobble. I watched them disperse afterwards. I watched the empty clearing until the Chief gently closed my laptop.
‘You didn’t have to see that,’ he said quietly.
‘Yes, yes, I did. I did this. I locked my pod. He couldn’t get to safety.’ My voice was hoarse. I swallowed once or twice. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, warm and comforting. The silence in the room sounded very loud. I could hear my own harsh breathing. I stood tense and still, willing it to slow, to regain control. Gradually, I unclenched one muscle at a time. As I relaxed, so did he. I laid my head back against his shoulder and closed my eyes briefly, then let my head hang forward.
‘Getting back into the pod would not have saved him. He was bleeding to death. Nothing could have saved him.’
‘He was my friend. The first one I made here. We’ve been friends for years. We were partners. We trained together. We cheated together. I wrote papers for him. He held my hair when I threw up. We were friends …’ I hadn’t realised I was speaking aloud.
‘Really? I saw someone who pinched your work and took the credit. Holding your hair was the least he could do. I saw someone who never hesitated to use you for his own gain. How many times have you covered for him with the Boss? And that last business in the pod? He met a bad end and I’m sorry for that, but I’m sorrier to see you blaming yourself for this. It’s nothing you did. It’s not your fault.’