Read Online The Abrupt Physics of Dying by Paul E. Hardisty - Free Book Online Page A

run an ICP metals scan, PAH’s, total organic carbon, volatiles and main ions. It won’t cost you more than two hundred dollars.’
    Karila looked over at his boss and frowned.
    ‘Oh, and I met someone,’ said Clay, trying to keep his voice flat. He had no choice. He had to deliver the message. ‘Calls himself Al Shams, “The Sun”.’
    Both men looked as if they were going to fall out of their chairs.
    Clay continued. ‘He said Allah is going to sweep us away if we don’t give the people a fair share. He said war is coming.’ The hideous face was there now, the good eye raking its gaze over him. Clay blinked hard, tried to push it away, kill the words that had been swirling around inside his skull for the last two days. An opportunity, Al Shams had said.
I am giving you an opportunity.
    Karila was staring at him. ‘Are you alright, Mister Straker?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘I asked you a question.’ Karila looked over at Parnell, back at Clay.
    He hadn’t heard a thing. His tune-outs had become more frequent lately, more vivid, just like the dreams. A split skull wasn’t helping.
    ‘Say again?’
    Karila took in a lungful of smoke, rolled his eyes. ‘I said …’ he paused, smoke pouring from his nostrils, ‘… where did you see him?’
    ‘That son of a bitch,’ barked Parnell. ‘Vandalising wellheads, torching gen sets, siphoning oil from gathering lines.’ Parnell frowned, stared into Clay’s eyes. ‘He’s costing us a lot of money.’
    ‘And people have been hurt,’ said Karila.
    Parnell closed his eyes a moment, caught his breath, looked at Karila. ‘Get that lunatic Todorov in here,’ he said. ‘He needs to hearthis. Get the Army on to this prick Mohammedan. Fry his Koran for breakfast.’
    Karila spoke into the intercom and then looked up at Clay. ‘Well, where was he?’
    Clay stood, faced Parnell. Clearly he wasn’t the only person in the room with mental-health problems. ‘Don’t you want to know what he had to say?’
    Parnell looked up at him through narrowed eyes, if they could get any narrower. ‘Answer him, Straker. Where was the fucker?’
    A flood tide of pain was inching its way from the back of his head towards his eyes. He blinked, tried to focus on the map spread across Karila’s desk. ‘About two hours out of Idim,’ he said. If he had a satellite image he could probably pinpoint the hidden oasis to within less than a hundred metres.
    A man walked into the room. He was short and powerfully built, his neck a tangle of sinew that spread like rootwork down into a broad substrate of muscle rippling beneath a tight black T-shirt. A shoulder holster was strapped across his chest. Clay had seen him around the office a couple of times, once back before Christmas on his first stint in the country.
    ‘This is Mister Todorov, our head of security,’ said Karila.
    ‘People calling me Zdravko,’ he replied in a heavy Slavic accent. He had strong, even white teeth, pale eyes, fair brush-cut hair, and what looked like a still-healing scar showing just above the neckline of his T-shirt.
    ‘Mister Straker has some information that may be of interest,’ said Karila. ‘About Al Shams.’
    Zdravko arched his eyebrows, creasing deep furrows in his forehead. He closed the door and stood with feet planted shoulder-width apart, arms folded across his chest, one hand on the butt of the automatic pistol at his ribs.
    Clay fixed his gaze on Parnell. ‘He said to tell you that you are a blasphemer.’
    Parnell glanced at Karila, smirked.
    ‘You are stealing from them, and poisoning them. They want their fair share, or they will make trouble. That’s what he said.’
    ‘Where you see him?’ said Zdravko.
    ‘Up on the
jol
.’
    ‘Speak English for fuck’s sake, Straker,’ said Parnell.
    Clay held a breath, let it go, the pain worse now. ‘On the plateau.’
    Zdravko’s face opened up in a smile as expansive as his biceps. ‘Plateau is big like my girlfriend’s back end, Straker. Al