Time slowed. Seconds spun out into eternity.
Clay could see the man’s hand tense around the AK’s pistol grip, the tendons starting to flex, the woman’s shriek hanging there in the terse viscosity of the stilled air, the blood creeping winter-slow in his own veins, everything mountain-clear and definitive.
Clay tightened his finger down on the Glock’s trigger.
That was all it took. This smallest of movements. The force required miniscule – insufficient to lift a pen. Three times, one-fifth of a second apart.
The first round clipped the man’s shoulder. The second hit his right leg just above the knee. A spray of red mist erupted from high on his chest as the third bullet hit. The man toppled back to the ground, the AK cartwheeling over the stones.
The woman shouted something, darted towards the weapon. Clay fired again, hit the AK where it lay. The woman’s outstretched hand jerked back as two more rounds sent shattered stone whirring around her. Rania screamed for him to stop, sprinted forwards until she was steps away from the woman.
Below, the shooting had lulled, took on a cadenced rhythm, slow and methodical. Muffled screams filled the silence between detonations. Clay reached the edge of the ridge, looked down into the valley. The air was so clear he could see every detail. The sunlight shining on the fractured sandstone slopes. The broad valley opening up onto the deep green of the Nile valley. Hatshetsup’s temple, its ranked gods and carved pillars set in perfect geometry. Near the top of the first stairway he could see a cluster of people, three of them, lying motionless. Cameras, bags and hats littered the ground around them. Dark stains haloed the bodies, deep red against the near-white sandstone. His heart tripped, shuddered. Further up, near the first bank of pillars, a woman sat propped up against a column, looking out towards the Nile. Her face and the front of her dress were lit by the morning sun. Inside the temple, tourists were running in every direction. A collective scream surged across the hills.
Clay could see that there was no escape. The tourists were hemmed in by the high walls of the temple. A man in a black police uniform and wearing a red bandana around his head stood at the only exit, brandishing an AK47. Inside, four other men, similarly dressed, walked among the screaming tourists, shooting them one by one. The police were nowhere to be seen.
Clay stood on the ridge, waved his arms above his head and shouted down into the valley. He raised his gun, fired off three quick rounds. If the attackers could see him or hear him, they paid no attention. The killing continued, slow and methodical. Clay counted at least thirty bodies now. From here he could see at least as many tourists running or hiding in various parts of the temple. Unless the police arrived soon, they had no chance.
Clay looked down at the wounded man. He was pushing himself along the ground with his undamaged leg.
‘Brothers, no, please,’ the man whispered. He looked up at the woman: ‘You bitch. What have you done?’
The woman paid him no attention, backed away from Rania. Before Clay could react, she drew a long-bladed knife and put it to the boy’s throat. ‘Get back, both of you,’ she screamed.
Rania gasped, held her ground. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I only want my son back. I don’t care what you do. Just give me my son.’ From where she stood, Rania could not see what was unfolding in the temple.
The man’s eyes widened. ‘Fatimah, what are you doing?’ he shouted at the woman. ‘Put that down.’
Rania swung her head towards the man, stood there staring, open mouthed. ‘How could you?’ she said. ‘For God’s sake, why?’
Below, another tourist fell, hit in the legs. He screamed, started using his arms to push himself towards one of the pillars. A smear of bright-red blood painted the tiles behind him. The gunman moved on, picked a new target.
Clay glanced at Rania, levelled the G21 at the man. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
‘I … I did it for you,’ the man blurted. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be this way.’ He turned towards the valley. ‘Brothers,’ he screamed, vocal chords rupturing. ‘No. No. What have you done?’
‘Fool,’ said the woman. ‘Did you really think that hostages would be enough? Nothing can be achieved peacefully. The blood of the kuffar is the only way.’ Her resemblance to Rania was unsettling.
The boy was crying now, his wails loud against the screams from the temple, the slow, methodical, crack-crack of the AKs.
‘Bitch,’ yelled the man. ‘Put down that knife.’
The woman backed away, again touched the blade to the boy’s neck.
Rania took a step forwards, stopped dead. ‘Please,’ she said, hands raised before her. ‘Whatever you want, we can help you. Anything. Just give me my son.’
The woman took another step back. As she did, her foot caught a loose slate. She stumbled, opened her arms to catch her balance. Just then, the man reached into the fold of his cloak, drew out a handgun, started pivoting it towards the woman.
‘No!’ screamed Rania.
Clay fired just as the man raised his arm for a shot. The big .45 calibre slug blew the man’s face apart. Bone and brain and blood-matted hair splattered the ground.
‘Hamid!’ screamed Rania.
Clay turned and faced the woman. She was about the same distance away, side on. The boy was strapped to her chest, facing out, the knife across his throat. Clay raised the Glock, pointed it at the woman’s head. ‘Drop that knife, or the same thing happens to you.’
‘Why?’ said Rania, closing the distance between them. Tears welled in her eyes, poured across her face. Deep sobs shook her body. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘For Islam,’ she said, raising her eyes to the sky. ‘For justice. They murdered my father, poisoned my family.’
Below, the firing had died down. The occasional shot rang out across the hills, the attackers finishing off the wounded, searching out the last victims.
Rania dropped to her knees, put her hands together. ‘He is only a child. Innocent and pure. You speak of justice. Show it now. I beg you.’
The woman was smiling now, looking down at Rania, queen to slave, goddess to supplicant. But it was not a smile of benevolence. Her mouth was etched in cruelty. She tightened down on the blade. She was going to do it.
Clay filled his lungs, blanked his mind. He put away the sounds of shooting still coming from the valley. He closed off Rania’s sobs, the cries of her son, the echoes of the dead and the dying, both real and remembered. He stilled all the tremors and ruptures of his soul. Then he exhaled, long and slow as he’d been taught, and pulled the trigger.
Force equals mass times acceleration. F = ma. Basic physics. The stuff you learn in high school. At that range, it took the fifteen-gram bullet less than eighteen one-thousandths of a second to reach its target, impacting the woman’s skull at a velocity of almost a thousand kilometres an hour.
The woman’s forehead disintegrated. Her body pitched over and sandbagged into the ground, the baby beneath her.
In the valley, the shooting had stopped. For a moment, silence came. The armed men were running back across the open ground towards the parking area.
Rania screamed, scrambled over to where the woman lay. The bullet had taken the top of her head away, scattered it over the crushed and powdered sandstone. Rania rolled the body over, tore at the carrier straps, wailing in desperation. Finally, she pulled her son free, cradled him to her breast.
Clay stood contemplating his work, the shattered bodies motionless but for the bloodstained clothing flapping in the breeze. He stepped over to where the woman lay and dropped his G21 and the two extra magazines to the ground next to her outstretched hand. Next to the dead man, he placed his two grenades. He stood, unarmed, looking out across the temple and the scattered bodies, these murders they had been unable to prevent. It was just gone nine-thirty. Forty-five minutes since the shooting had started, and still no police.
After a time, Rania’s sobs subsided and silence returned to the hills and the valley, this intended but long-since defiled resting place of kings.