I saw that, behind him, the Cigarette had reached the end of the grid and was coming back fast towards us. SpongeBob, still triumphant, yelled over his shoulder into the cavernous space to come quick. Thankfully, I didn’t hear my name mentioned, and I figured that he was keeping that as a big surprise. The Cigarette came closer, closer …
I heard boots running, approaching fast. The Cigarette loomed directly above SpongeBob and I only had a second to act before everything about the mission fell to ruins. I pressed the yellow button.
SpongeBob heard the rattle of chains and flashed a glance upwards. The claws holding the huge boat released. He was too alarmed even to scream – instead, he tried to run. He was no athlete, though, and the sharkskin suit was cut too tight to let him do much more than a strange sidestep.
The rear of the hull, housing the twin turbines and all the weight, fell first. It plunged down and took him on the skull, compressing his head into his chest, exploding his neck and killing him before he even hit the floor.
As his body found the concrete I was already diving behind a mobile crane. The Cigarette hit the floor and exploded into fragments of fibreglass and metal. While the steel of the crane protected me from most of the debris, I still felt a stinging pain in my left calf.
I ignored it, got to my feet and ran hard for the little I could see of the roller door through the clouds of dust and swirling debris. I heard the cops yelling, and I guessed they were telling each other to take cover in case more boats started raining down.
I saw the open roller door, made it through and burst out into the night. I sprinted for the garbage skips, saw the Vespa and was thankful I had exercised the foresight to leave the key in the ignition. My hands were shaking so much it probably would have taken me five minutes to fit it in.
The engine burst to life, I roared out from behind the garbage skip, hurtled between a stack of shipping containers and fishtailed down the road and into the night before the first of the cops had made their way out of the warehouse.
My only concern was the chopper, but I saw no sign of it and guessed that, once the police chief thought I was cornered, he had dismissed it. Whatever the reason, driving more soberly once I hit the busier streets, I reached the hotel without trouble and slid the scooter into the small garage reserved for the manager’s old Mercedes.
I didn’t even notice that I was wounded.
Chapter Fifty-seven
THE MANAGER DID. He was alone in the foyer, sitting behind a desk on one side of the reception area, when he looked up and saw me enter. As usual – hand extended, his face alight with his signature smile – he came forward to greet me.
‘Ah, Mr Brodie David Wilson – you have been on the relax with a dinner of the fine quality, I hope.’
Before I could answer, I saw his expression change: a shadow of concern and perplexity crossed his face.
‘But you are wearing an injury of seriousness,’ he said, pointing across his always impeccably clean tile floor to where smears of blood marked my path.
I looked down, saw a tear on the left calf of my chinos and figured that the piece of flying debris from the exploding Cigarette had done more damage than I had realized. The blood had flowed down on to the sole of my trainers and I had now traipsed it across the hotel foyer.
‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I crossed the main road down near the BP gas station. There’s a rusty railing they use as a road divider. I guess I didn’t climb it as well as I thought.’
It wasn’t a great explanation, but it was the best I could do at short notice and the manager seemed to accept it without question.
‘Yes, I know this place,’ he said. ‘The traffic is of much madness. Here, let me be of helping.’
But I declined, insisting instead on making my way to my room, walking on the tip of my foot to prevent leaving any more bloody smears on his floor. Once inside, with my door locked, I took off my trousers and, utilizing a pair of travel tweezers, succeeded in pulling a jagged hunk of metal out of my calf. Once it was removed the wound started to bleed like a mother, but I had already torn a T-shirt into strips and I got it compressed and bandaged in a few seconds.
Only then did I open my shirt and turn my attention to the photo I had stolen from the wedding album. It showed Cumali and her then husband, smiling, arm in arm, leaving the reception for their honeymoon. He was a handsome guy, in his late twenties, but there was something about him – the cut of his linen pants, the aviator sunglasses dangling from his hand – that made me think he was a player. There was no way I could imagine him being a stalwart of the local mosque and, once again, looking at Cumali’s beautiful face, I encountered the same damn circle I couldn’t square.