The Fox and the Pigeon hole Chapter 27

27. Time

The morning sun has not yet risen as Lance and Dimitri walk together across the mossy floor and up the smooth verge. Hourne is standing on the highest point surveying the landscape before him. The first rays of light are just creeping over the horizon, tree’s bushes and boulders cast long shadows, creating a sharp world of dark caverns and glowing precipices. “Do you see?” Hourne asks gruffly as they step up on to the grass beside him.

“See what?” Asks Lance, still half asleep. Hourne points across the canopy. Faintly in the distance Lance can just make out some small black shapes, he could have mistaken them for flies but they moved too slowly. First one, then half a dozen of the small shapes become visible all moving in the same direction. “Helicopters?” ponders Dimitri. Hourne grunts in agreement.

“Kurt and the others must have done their job then” Lance looks up at Hourne, wondering why it was so important for them to watch a group of helicopters at the crack of dawn.

Hourne looks troubled, “Or they’ve alerted the government to our plan and those helicopters are on ther’ way to kill us all” An icy silence follows. Hourne stares blankly at the fleet of helicopters, their black forms getting larger every second.

“They would still have to fly in this direction to get to Collen, we don’t know what could have happened” Dimitri attempts to calm him but Hourne turns and fixes him with a wild stare.

“What was I thinking putting trust in those dogs. Putting the fate of all of us on them who’d have killed us had it been the other way around” Hourne looks lost and angry, mostly at himself.

“Oscar…” Dimitri holds his shoulder, “You only did what you thought was best. Besides if they are coming for us we’ll put up such a fight as they could have never expected. We’ve done so much already, even if we fail” he falters “It wasn’t all for nothing” Hourne allows a faint smile to alight temporarily on his hard face. Lance feels reassured, even if Hourne doesn’t. The two men seem to have enormous trust in each other, Lance wonders what their story is.

The great disc of the sun finally makes an appearance, they watch its golden warmth spread across the land towards them, unhindered by mountains or forests, glinting off of great rivers and winding streams alike. All of a sudden the peace of the scene in front of him is broken, Lance feels a cold feeling spreading through him. It seems to wind its way up his spine, like a thousand knives piercing him from navel to neck. The landscape topples over as his knees buckle, he sees the sun and the stars spinning out of control; their light growing until he is almost blinded. As if from far away, across a loud river he hears shouts, he hears his name, but he can’t be sure whether he’s the one shouting. His whole body convulses, he feels everything at once, blasting heat, and terrible cold. A storm is raging and his skull will break from the force of the thunder in his head, he’s sure of it. This is the end.

~  *  ~

“DAWN! DAWN! LOOK AT ME! PLEASE DAWN!” Lance is looking down at the limp form of Dawn in his arms, her face bloodstained and her eyes empty. “NO DAWN! No, you can’t be dead!” His whole body shaken with sobs, he holds her tight, kissing her one final time. Her hair is dirty, half of it is black as if singed by fire. Lance feels like he’s never felt anything before, a great blackness is closing in on all sides and he doesn’t know or care what will become of him. Everything that had mattered was lying in front of him, dead. “Lance!” Someone shouts, he feels a vague sense that this has something to do with him. The voice sounds urgent but how could anything be urgent anymore, all is lost. “Lance!” Shouts the voice, closer this time. The world comes into sharp focus, he’s on a stone street, the clean lines and tall buildings are alien to him. The shape of a man comes at him like wave, “Lance?” the man sounds afraid, angry, heartbroken. And then he remembers who he is, what’s happening around him, suddenly everything that was so hopeless a moment before has suddenly become terribly important. Sergeant Hourne is standing over him, tears in his eyes. “What’s happened?” He asks standing up, letting Dawns lifeless hand fall from his. Hourne looks between Lance and the girl on the ground, devastated. A loud crash and a series of terrified shouts brings them both to their senses. “We have to go. They knew our plan, they were ready. It must have been that bastard Rafael! He told them before I had him shot in the head, should’ve done it sooner, I should of done him in a long time ago!” Hourne looks ready to sprint back in to the smoke and collapsed buildings to take on the government single handedly.

“But” Lance searches for some hope, “What about the others, Dimitri, the army”

Hourne looks at him with an air of mingled sorrow and admiration. He looks down, shaking his head. “Dead, all of them, dead”

There’s another explosion not far off. “C’mon, we have to go. NOW!”

“Wait!” Lance cries, looking down at Dawns broken body. Hourne looks pitifully back at him.

“Lance, I’m so sorry. But we have to go”

“This can’t be happening, this isn’t happening” The whole world seems wrong, he can’t find what exactly it is but nothings ever been so important.

“Lance please” Hourne pleads “She wouldn’t want you to die as well, we have to leave

 her- “

“NO! This can’t be happening. I mean it hasn’t happened. You’re not listening to me! It’s happened again, I’ve seen things like this before and they’ve always come true”

“You mean” Hourne suddenly realises “the drug”

It’s all so clear now; the strange dreams the drug; it all makes sense. Suheila’s death, his child, the ship. But they can’t all be true. How could he and Dawn have a child if Dawn dies now. Hourne, Kuruk, Dimitri they were alive as well. Something must be wrong. “I don’t understand” He moans.

“What am I supposed to do!?” He looks up at Hourne angrily. All the while the shouts and explosions get closer, the battle still rages on behind them. Gunfire joins the cacophony of noise. Whatever he does Lance knows that he must do it soon.

“What do you mean?” Hourne shouts, if only to be heard above the fighting. He is caught by a sudden idea and looks down at Lance before glancing ahead of him to the approaching forces. “You mean. You’re going to go back?”

“Yes!” Lance shouts. The same idea strikes him. “What If” he looks around, as if looking for something to reassure him “What if I’m meant to stop this! I can save her and everyone else!”

Hourne nods, smiling. “You can stop all this from happening Lance!” He grabs Lance by the shoulders, “When you go back tell me… tell me they know the plan. Tell me to change it! Tell me to wait twelve minutes!”

“What!”

“When we attacked the city, their air forces were still twelve minutes from being out of range! If we’d ‘ave waited they wouldn’t have been called back! Do you understand!”

Lance can barely hear Hourne anymore over the torrent of noise behind him, he simply nods. Hourne smiles down at him. The explosions are almost directly behind Lance he can feel the force of them shaking the ground beneath him. He can hear the officers running towards them and see the fires reflected in Hournes eye’s. Bullets fly past them hitting the buildings on either side and producing dust as the stone wall disintegrate. They are both going to die in the next several seconds but a calm descends. The shouts and bullets and fires seem of little importance. Lance sees a small metal canister land on the pavement a few metres away. He feels a coldness in his spine once more. The grenade explodes and the world is filled with fire, Hourne is thrown away from him. He sees the billowing explosion but everything is silent. He watches the fires rise into a cloud above him, its deep reds and golds swirling like water around a stone. The world falls on its side and his vision is nothing but cloudless sky; in an instant its pure blue burns like paper. The world shrivels and shrinks into blackness and is blown away by a rushing wind.