Being Read Free Page B

words – stop there or I’ll kill him … drop the gun … turn round … stand against the wall – they were ridiculous. Like something out of a stupid spy film. I couldn’t believe what I was saying.
    I couldn’t believe any of it.
    It couldn’t be real. These people couldn’t be real. Real people don’t do this. Real people don’t have guns. Real people don’t really do these things. They just don’t. And what about me? How could I be doing this? How could I be sitting here on a hospital trolley, all naked and bloody, with my belly cut open and a gun in my hand?
    How could any of it be real?
    I glanced down at the mess of my stomach, and I knew that it was real.
    It hurt.
    Hurt is real.
    I had to get out of there.
    ‘You,’ I said to Casing, ‘pick up the gun and give it to me.’
    He stiffened for a moment, his eyes twitching in fear, then he slowly bent down, picked up Cooper’s gun and cautiously handed it over.
    ‘Get over there,’ I told him, waving the pistol at the far wall. ‘Away from the door. Face the wall.’
    I waited until he was facing the wall, then I turned my attention to Ryan. All this time, he hadn’t moved. He wasjust standing there – controlled and serene – his eyes fixed steadily on mine. I still had his pistol held to his head, and now I was vaguely aiming Cooper’s gun at his belly, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
    He just looked at me.
    And I looked at him.
    Then he spoke.
    ‘Robert,’ he said, slowly and calmly, ‘I’m going to take this surgical mask off. Is that all right?’
    I nodded.
    He carefully reached up and lowered the mask from his mouth, revealing a clean and confident smile. It didn’t surprise me. Without the mask, he looked like what he was. I had no idea what that was, but he looked like a man who never let go. A hard man. A big man. He wasn’t big, but he was big. Big as a shiny black wall.
    ‘Why don’t you put the guns down, Robert?’ he said. ‘Just put them down, and then we can talk.’
    ‘Shut up,’ I told him.
    He raised a sleek black eyebrow, then lowered it. ‘What are you?’
    I looked down the gun barrel into his eyes. They were silver, like silver moons. Or brand-new coins.
    The room was white.
    The gun was black.
    My fingers were pale on the trigger.
    ‘What are you?’ he said again.
    That’s the question.
    That is the question.
    ∗
    When I told Ryan to shut up and lie down on the floor, he didn’t move for a while, he just stood there, staring into my eyes. He didn’t look at the gun in my hand, but I knew he was wondering what I would do if he went for it. Would I pull the trigger? Would I shoot him? Could I do it?
    He knew that I could.
    He could see it in me.
    It was there.
    With a slight nod of his head, he slowly lowered himself to the floor.
    ‘Face down,’ I told him. ‘Hands out to the side.’
    He did as he was told.
    Keeping both pistols levelled at his head, I glanced at the anaesthetist behind me. He was wearing a green V-necked tunic over a thin white T-shirt. His eyes were scared.
    ‘Kamal?’ I said to him. ‘Is that your name?’
    ‘Yes.’
    I nodded at Ryan. ‘Can you put him to sleep? Anaesthetize him?’
    Kamal hesitated, his eyes glancing quickly at a pack of plastic syringes laid out on a metal tray.
    I said, ‘I’ll kill him if you don’t.’
    Kamal carried on looking at me for a while, and for a moment I thought he wasn’t going to do anything, and I started wondering what I was going to do if he didn’t – shoot him? shoot everyone? – but then I saw him take a deep breath, and he nodded, and I watched with relief as he reached for a syringe and moved out from behind his machinery.
    ‘Will that do it?’ I asked him, gesturing at the syringe in his hand. ‘Will that knock him out?’
    He nodded again.
    ‘Do it,’ I told him.
    As he crouched down beside Ryan and started rubbing at the back of his hand, a sudden spasm of pain ripped through my stomach. I put down Cooper’s pistol