There was nothing to see, absolutely nothing to focus on.
Even the floor beneath his feet had somehow lost substance. His hands—unseen—waved in the air before him, as though grasping for light itself.
'What are you doing?' he shouted, a feeble entreaty to the blackness.
Naturally there was no reply.
So disorientated was Quinn-Reece that he had to will one toot to go forward. The thought that he might be stepping over the brink into an abyss was difficult to dismiss. He moved his other foot, arms still outstretched like a blind man's (which, in effect he was), even though he knew there were no obstacles in his way.
Another step.
His breathing was fluttery.
Another step.
He could not see them, but he was aware that his fingers twitched like insect antennae.
Another step.
And he touched flesh.
So unexpected was the sensation, and so tense had QuinnReece become, that he shrieked like a woman. He fell away, a leg coming into sharp contact with the dais. He slumped across it and lay shaking.
Wondering why the fingertips of the hand that had touched whatever-no, he meant whoever-stood in his way were tingling, he brought them closer to his face, disregarding the fact that he was unable to see. He felt something clinging to them.
He rubbed his fingers together and whatever had been there flaked away. It had been tissue-thin.
'Who's there?' he managed to say, and was uncomfortable with the sound of his own voice.
The silence was more frightening than any reply.
A warm breath brushed his cheek. He spun around on the platform, scurrying to its furthest edge, away from whoever had leaned over him.
But a sigh close to his ear sent him scuttling back.
The men who had dragged him into this room must have slipped inside somehow after the lights had gone out! Yet he hadn't heard the opening and closing of a door, there had been no sudden shaft of light.
How could they be in there with him? He remembered the spicy smell before he had been hooded. The smell was familiar. From where, from when?
A low chuckle. From someone close by. And then a hand caressing his cheek.
Quinn-Reece flinched violently and quickly squirmed away.
The touch against his cheek had been roughened as though the other's skin was crispy with age. When he tried to wipe off the mark he felt had been left there, he discovered flaky tissue hanging to his own skin. He slapped it off in revulsion.
He twisted his head, this way and that, sightless but attempting to perceive. His whole body was quivering uncontrollably now. He sniffed, for there was a peculiar aroma in the air. Nothing to do with spices, this. Something different, vaguely unpleasant. Like a faint moulding dampness. Decay.
Light lashed out at him.
He cringed, covering his face with his hands. Peeped through open fingers at the rectangle of vivid colours high on the wall. One of the screens was lit.
It depicted a relief map of an island. A recognisably irregular shape. New Guinea. The colours merged, became a muddy blur. Faded to white. Became black.
A new map lit up. He forced himself to look. Was it?—yes, it was. Brazil. There had been a recent find, a low-grade gold deposit. Not by Magma, though. No, by Consolidated.
As the colours merged, Quinn-Reece looked around the room. The brightness from the screen should have revealed anyone else present. But he was the only occupant.
Blackness again.
Another screen came alive, and this time he could guess the location without recognising it. Namibia.
Yes, there had been a new discovery of uranium there. Again, not by Magma. He began to understand some of what was going on.
'Felix?' he ventured.
Total blackness. Still no reply.
'Felix, you're making a mistake. The girl, you said yourself . . .' His words trailed away. Kline wasn't in the room. Why was he talking as if he were?
Quinn-Reece began to slide his legs off the dais. He stopped when he heard a soft chuckle.
This time not only three screens lit up: they all did. And the colours ran together, from one screen to the next, frames no longer divisive, blues and greens and browns beginning to streak, to flow around the room, a swift-moving stream, faster and faster, a kaleidoscope of colour, dazzling him, mesmerising him, melting together, faster now, merging, gradually becoming white, an absence of colour, a broad pale strip circumscribing the room.
Things began to break through that white band. Creeping things. Black and shiny. Like giant cockroaches. Although their limbs, three on either side of their glossy shells, were like human arms. But scaly, and dark.
They hatched from the whiteness, wriggling through, dropping to the floor and into the shadows where only muted reflections on their curved backs could be observed. They scuttled across the floor towards him.
Quinn-Reece moved to the centre of the platform, drawing up his legs, denying to himself that this was happening, certain it was a nightmare, wondering why he could not wake.
The cracked band of white vanished.
Terrible blackness around him once more.
Nothing at all to be seen.
But he could hear those things tapping towards him.
'Felix, please!' he implored, for he knew that Kline was responsible, that Kline was punishing him for his betrayal. But he didn't understand how this could happen, for he realised it was no nightmare, the pain in his lower lip, where his teeth had clamped down, too sharp to be dreamt. He shrieked this time. ' Please!'
A chuckle from somewhere behind.
And a clicking close by as the first of those creatures scrambled over the edge of the dais.
Some time later, the doors to the white room opened and Khayed and Daoud slipped in. They went straight to the dead but unmarked body spread across the low dais, lifted it between them, and carried it out.
When the doors closed behind them, the room swiftly regressed to black.
KHAYED AND DAOUD. DISPLACED AND FOUND
They were not truly Jordanians. Asil Khayed and Youssef Daoud were born, in fact, as displaced persons, their families having fled Palestine when the Independent State of Israel was declared in May 1948. Their parents were of the same clan and came from the same village, which was close to Jerusalem. They had been led to believe by those who had their own political motives that the Zionist forces would destroy their homes and meagre crops, would slaughter their children and livestock, would rape their women, would torture and murder the men. Flight to the River Jordan was their only hope.
They came to the refugee camp at Ein es Sultan, one of many such sites scattered around the city of Jericho and along the West Bank. There the two Arab boys were born within weeks of each other, to be raised in the squalor of a vast tent city containing tens of thousands of grieving migrants, where there were no toilets, kitchens, or medical facilities, and where most days were spent awaiting the arrival of water trucks and supply convoys from Damascus and Amman. The tents provided by the International Red Cross were of thin canvas which, unlike the tough Bedouin tents of animal skins and furs, were virtually useless against the rains and sandstorms. Their beds were nothing more than light sleeping mats. Running, open sewers and hills of rotting garbage were everywhere, attracting flies and mosquitoes by the millions.
Severe dysentery was rife. Cholera, typhoid and other diseases claimed thousands of lives. Fierce rainfalls
