SUNNY AND WEBBER BUSTLE them all out of the house, even the minister.
Through the back door.
Around the pool.
Into a field under a dark green sky, with a helicopter circling overhead. As the helicopter lands, the wind from the rotors whips the grass, churning up a cloud of dirt. The sound is immense, a loud mechanical roar, and it’s enough to mask the arrival of the Emergency Squad: a half-dozen armed police in fatigues, creeping out of the darkness.
‘Halt!’
Sunny and Webber turn and aim.
A fast stand-off in the maelstrom.
Webber puts his shotgun flush with Mike’s neck, while Sunny walks forward aiming at one particular policeman.
Everyone’s screaming at each other in the din.
No one can hear a thing.
Bruno slowly crouches down.
Mike thinks about running.
Held in place by Webber, he sees a policeman with Sunny in the darkened distance, the two of them face to face. The policeman points his pistol in the air—a gesture, a brief surrender.
Behind Mike and Webber, the helicopter pilot hits a spotlight, and the field turns white.
Mike can see the policeman’s face now.
It’s Constable Chris.
The man who invaded his house.
Threatened his kids.
‘No,’ Mike says to himself. He takes two steps forward, but Webber’s arm grips his bicep, holding him back.
‘What are you doing?’ Webber shouts in the wind.
Then Sunny jolts.
Gunfire, he’s hit.
Sunny staggers momentarily. His shotgun erupts and Constable Chris’s arm detaches at the elbow, flying back in the gale like a snapped tree branch.
More shots in the night.
The helicopter starts moving, preparing to lift off. Webber drags Mike towards the light and pushes him into the cabin. Webber gets in beside him and they both watch as Sunny staggers through the grass towards them.
Webber jumps out.
The pilot panics and the helicopter shudders.
Sunny is pushed into the cabin. He grabs hold of a stray seatbelt and pulls himself upright with one arm as they rise into the air. No sign of Webber. Within seconds, they’re high above the ground, banking right.
A hand grasps hold of the lip of the cabin from the outside.
Sunny reaches out, grabs his friend’s hand.
Mike pulls the gun in his waistband and pushes it into the back of Sunny’s skull.
A second of recognition.
Mike pulls the trigger, blasting the interior of the cabin.
Sunny slackens, falls forward and tumbles out, collecting Webber on the way down, his hand ripped from the cabin edge in an instant.
Mike grabs a doorhandle, checks the exterior to be sure.
He’s gone.
They’re both gone.
Down below is Fantasyland. The bright lights of make-believe shining up, the fake mountain, the cosy colonial houses, the paving and gardens around the man-made canal that Noah Winters dug out with his own excavator. From this vantage, Mike can even see the mock version of the Endeavour floating in its dock, waiting for the first day of the invasion re-enactment.
Up the front of the helicopter, the pilot is yelling something, but Mike can’t hear him in the wind.
It doesn’t matter.
It’s over, he thinks.
The elation is profound.
Profound and short-lived as a blast of light explodes through the cabin, shredding it into a thousand metallic fragments that rip through Mike’s body as it falls back to earth.