* * *
The Dragonfly shatters the beautiful synchronicity of fleeing prisoners, courteous wind, moonlit sea. The machine knocks its massive metal cogs, hammers at the sky. It strips the sea naked with its floodlights as it slices towards us. I shield my eyes against the cruel, white light. Romano is positioned at a gap in the door. Meirong is kneeling on the seat behind him, her face a white orchid blooming in the midst of metal death. Romano’s automatic weapon slides through the opening. I throw myself at Vicki, hurl her to the floor as bullets tear apart the air molecules surrounding us. The light bounces off the sea, bares the vulnerable belly of the Dragonfly as Lolie takes aim, returns fire. The helicraft roars away, advances again. More ear-splitting explosions. Romano is shooting at the hull of our escape vessel, not at our fragile skulls or our soft parts. Lolie, too, is shooting at their machine, not their mortal bodies.
She puts a bullet through a spinning blade. Mr Rawlins jerks the Dragonfly sideways, swoops out of range. He charges at us again. Romano lets loose another volley of bullets suffocated by water. This time the lifeboat jolts, sends a shudder through our skeletons. Water washes beneath our seats.
Vicki panics. ‘We’ll drown!’
I crouch against her, squeeze her tightly. No. I will never let her. I can swim right across the Tantwa River.
Lolie shoots the tail of the Dragonfly this time. The white beast simply shivers and flies straight up. Samuel crawls to the edge of the lifeboat, wrests open a sluice in the boat lining. Barry’s pink water drains. Fresh water runs in to take its place.
Eulalie shouts hoarsely near the bow, ‘Milja Mongoose is dead!’ Her words thread between the sounds of splintering fibreglass. She is standing now, thrusting her hands at me, ‘Tell him! Her heart stopped last week!’
I tear my phone from my pocket, stab at the screen. I tap Megaphone Mode, watch the speaker sound amplify a hundred times. I type the terrible news. My digital voice bounces off the sky, returns to us. It is not strong enough.
The Indian stabs at his black box, shouts something.
‘What, Vihaan? Tell me!’ Samuel puts his ear to the Indian’s mouth. ‘Malachi!’ Samuel leaps up and grabs my phone from me. He jams a cable into it, lets Vihaan plug it into his communication system. The Dragonfly is plunging towards us for another hit on our hull. Samuel swipes the screen, pokes at a setting.
My spokesman is no longer African. He is simply BOOMING. He shouts the terrible news of Milja Mongoose like the riot police before a crowd of angry thousands. ‘MILJA MONGOOSE IS DEAD! HER HEART STOPPED LAST WEEK!’
Romano hears it through the metal casing. His bullets cease. The Dragonfly veers aimlessly. Romano is on his knees in the doorway, clutching his rifle to his breast. He cannot question the truth of Eulalie’s message.
Mr Rawlins’ mouth barks something cruel at him. Meirong crouches behind Romano, tugs at the ripped fabric on his shoulders. She is trying to resurrect him, get her war vet to shoot.
Josiah jams the engine to full speed. The waterlogged boat grinds slowly through the ocean. We strain towards the lightening skyline, stagger towards freedom. Behind us, the clatter of the helicraft sounds the savage grief of a bereaved father.
There is a reckoning happening up there in the Dragonfly. The wind brings us wisps of a man’s roar, a woman’s shout. I think I can see Mr Rawlins, thin-lipped, glaring towards us. They dare not come close without the cover of Romano’s machine gun.
Suddenly Lolie shrieks. ‘Josiah!’
Josiah has left his engines and crawled to the bow. He is playing tug-of-war with Lolie’s rifle.
‘No-o-o!’ Lolie screams, but Josiah rips the weapon from her and gives her a vicious kick. Lolie smashes back against Shikorina. When she stands up, her back is smeared with red. Josiah is aiming for Mr Rawlins. DTT DTT DTT!
Immediately the engine lowers its pitch. The flying creature loses velocity. Its tail dips then lifts, as if in a last desperate mating ritual. It tips onto its side, wallows in the night air. Something explodes. The Dragonfly plunges head first into the water fifty metres from us.
White foam boils all around the crash site. Slowly the air bubble in the front lifts the cockpit. The machine sinks again, then finds its equilibrium. It floats, half buried in the purple sea.
‘Romano! Romano!’ I try to scream. ‘Meirong!’
My enemies. My friends!
A black head bursts to the surface. It is him! I can see from the gold streaming off his dark skin. Romano swims straight towards us, his arms cleaving through the heaving, shining sea. I stumble towards Samuel. He almost throws my phone to me.
‘Josiah. Cut the engines!’ The voice blasts from my Samsung, deafening.
Josiah stares defiantly at me, his machine gun hanging in his hairy fist. I stand up, lurch for the engines. Josiah scrambles along the port side. He snatches my fingers from the engine, twists them violently. I howl with fresh pain, tear them free.
I switch my settings to normal, top volume. ‘Let Romano live!’
‘Listen to him!’ Samuel shouts at Josiah.
Josiah stares at us both with contempt. He reaches up reluctantly, kills a switch.
The heavy boat rocks in limbo. Romano swims to the side. It is Charmayne who reaches down to clasp his wrists. The priest killer throws his arms around her waist, helps her haul Romano into our watery vessel. The sea is lapping at our shins now. Romano sits in his sodden clothes like he is seated in a grassy graveyard. He hangs his head as
