Disintegration

and sprinted into the crowd. He was out of sight almost instantly, swallowed up by the constantly swaying figures which filled the field and surged toward the light and noise.
    Jas shoved the van into gear and motored away, willing the tired vehicle to move quickly through the swarming hordes. Just a few seconds later and the stockpile of fuel in the back of Sean’s dark green car behind them exploded, turning it from an ordinary vehicle to a deadly weapon in an instant.
    “You going after him?” Harte asked, craning his neck to look for Sean in the carnage.
    “Fuck him,” Jas grunted angrily.
    “What now, then? Do we look for Amir and Webb?”
    As with the first explosion, the sudden ball of smoke and flame that had just belched up into the sky was proving to be more of a distraction than the van. The dead converged on the remains of Sean’s car like a hunting pack.
    “Five minutes,” Jas announced. “That’s all we can give them.” He wasn’t interested in what might have happened to Amir and Webb, he just wanted to know why they hadn’t done the job they’d been sent to do. Pair of useless fools. He cursed himself for leaving the two of them together.

 
     
    50
     
    “Shit,” Howard cursed as the second car exploded in the distance. Hollis didn’t hear anything but jumped up when he saw the other man’s reaction. Sensing trouble he ran back outside, leaving the others standing dumbstruck in the courtyard in the middle of the hotel. He sprinted down the steps and out into the car park to see a dark cloud of smoke belching up into the sky above the top of the tall hedgerow. A distance to the left—at least several hundred yards, he estimated—the dirty pall from the first blast continued to climb into the air.
    Back in the courtyard, Caron sat down at the edge of the overgrown lawn and poured herself a large glass of wine.
    “Idiots,” Martin muttered nervously. “What in Christ’s name do they think they’re doing?”
    “Helping,” Lorna insisted.
    “Helping? How the hell is this helping?”
    “At least they’re doing something,” Gordon said from the opposite side of the courtyard.
    “Doing nothing is better than something,” Martin protested. “Doing nothing is exactly what we all should be doing. All this is going to do is bring the bodies back here to us.”
    “They might bring that helicopter as well,” Caron mumbled, knocking back her wine, already half-drunk.
    “Just give them a chance,” said Lorna.
    Martin paced up and down anxiously.
    “Think about it, Martin,” Gordon continued, desperately trying to calm him and diffuse his increasing panic. “This might actually help. They’re drawn to fire. Someone said yesterday that they were getting used to the music—well, maybe this will keep them occupied for a while longer and get rid of a few hundred of them at the same time.”
    “A few hundred?” he barked furiously. “A few hundred? Do you have any idea how many of them are out there? There are thousands and thousands crammed onto that bloody golf course.”
    “And you’ve said yourself that they can’t get off it.”
    “No I haven’t. I said we’d made it difficult for them, not impossible. The music’s kept drawing them in until now, and the fact there have been so many of them moving in the same direction has kept them penned in. If they start turning back in large numbers we’re screwed.”
    “But they’re still on the other side of the road, behind two fences that they’ll never manage to get through.”
    “If there are enough of them alight they could burn their way through,” Martin suggested, his logic suddenly screwed by his nervous fear.
    “That’s hardly likely,” Caron grunted, sniggering into her wine glass.
    “If it comes to it I’ll stand on a ladder chucking buckets of water over them,” Gordon said, irritated.
    “We haven’t got enough water,” Martin immediately answered back. The conversation was becoming ridiculous.
    Howard’s dog, which had been sitting at Lorna’s feet, stood and pricked up its ears.
    “What’s the matter?”
    The dog sniffed the air. As Lorna leaned down to stroke its head, it suddenly bolted. It ran at full speed across the courtyard, weaved through the marbled-floor reception area and jumped down the steps. Hollis spun around when he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye, then watched as it hurtled toward the track leading away from the hotel. It stopped just short of the mouth of