Disintegration

out, unable to open his badly buckled door. “This way,” he shouted.
    Disoriented by the jolting shock and speed of the crash, Harte continued to try and get the passenger door to open for a second longer, unable to understand why he couldn’t do it. Distracted, he looked up when he saw more movement out of the corner of his eye. The front of the bus was just a couple of meters away from where he sat, forced up at an unnatural sloping angle, and someone was trying to escape from inside. It was Martin. What the hell was he doing driving the bus? And what had he done? Blood was pouring down his face and he was banging on the glass.
    “Come on,” Jas yelled again, reaching back into the van and dragging Harte out onto the road. His head clearing, he picked himself up and ran around to the front of the bus. Martin was hammering frantically on the windscreen now, desperately trying to free himself.
    “Keep still,” Harte shouted. “Shut up and keep still!”
    Martin was panicking. He was kicking and screaming and trying to get himself out of the driver’s seat with no appreciation of how precariously balanced the bus was. Harte could see that all of the wheels on one side had been forced up the bank. Again he tried to stop Martin moving, but his words had no effect. The wiry little man finally freed himself from the seat and stood up to get out, scrambling up the steeply inclined floor. His desperate, clumsy movements were enough to upset the delicate balance of the bus and force it completely over onto its side. Jas yanked Harte back out of the way as the huge vehicle crashed down into the road. Martin was thrown across the cab, thumping his head again as he went down. This time he didn’t get up.
    “Do you think he’s…” Harte began to ask.
    “Probably,” Jas said, his voice cold and devoid of emotion. “Stupid bastard. What the hell was he doing?”
    Harte hauled himself up the front of the box-shaped vehicle and stood on its uppermost side, the top edge of the folding door at his feet. He dropped to his knees and pushed against it, managing to force it half-open.
    “Martin!” he shouted. “Martin…”
    Six feet below them, Martin began to groan.
    “We’ll come back for him,” Jas said as he pulled himself up. “Stupid, bloody fool.” He glanced down again at Martin’s slowly stirring body, then turned and ran along the side of the bus.
    “Looks like he was trying to clear the road,” Harte said, stopping when he reached the back end of the vehicle and looking down at the track, completely awash with blood and unrecognizable heaps of fetid remains.
    “Fucking idiot. All he’s done is block it.”
    “Come on, he didn’t know we were coming around the corner, did he?”
    “I don’t care. Fact is he’s blocked our way out. How are we supposed to shift this thing now?”
    “No idea. Come on, we’ll sort it out later. We should get back to the others.”
    He was about to move when he heard the distant whine of another engine. He remained where he was, completely motionless. Where was it? Who was it? It had to be Webb and Amir. Where the hell had they been?
    “Helicopter,” Jas said, immediately recognizing the noise and pointing up at the aircraft he’d just spotted. His heart began to thump in his chest and his legs felt heavy with nerves. Come on , he thought, this is it.
    He glanced over to his left. Two huge black columns of smoke were still rising high into the sky—surely they had to see them. Surely they’d fly over here to investigate … There was hardly any wind and the smoke was rising straight up like hundred-story-tall arrows pointing down at the hotel. He willed the helicopter to change course and fly closer.
    “They’ll see it,” Harte said under his breath. “They have to…”
    Jas stared unblinking at the single speck of black crawling across the white clouds. He watched it until it disappeared, praying it would bank around and come back.
    Minutes passed before he stopped looking.
    “That’s it, then,” he said dejectedly, his voice weak with emotion. “I don’t think they’ll be back again. We’re completely fucked now.”

 
     
    51
     
    Webb was upside down and he could taste blood in his mouth. The light was low and he struggled to make sense of his surroundings. Was it night already? Had he really lay here unconscious for hours, wherever here was? He could hear running water, and he could smell its pungent, stagnant odor too. What the hell had