Page 56 of Gamma

This gasp from her is from shock, rather than pleasure.

At that moment, brakes squeal, and a door opens, closes.

12

Driving Away From It All

We both freeze.

Apollo responds first, rolling me aside and yanking on his jeans one-handed, shrugging into his shirt awkwardly, with a lot of wincing and suppressed gasps of pain. He shoves his feet into his shoes barefoot, quietly unties the flap.

“Shit,” he hisses. “Guns are both in the cab.”

I’m working my way as silently as possible into my clothes. “Maybe they’ll go away?” I ask in a nearly inaudible whisper.

He shakes his head; whoever is out there has climbed up on the step—we feel the truck tip slightly.

I realize I lost the knife I’d had in my belt at some point—I remember it being there during the firefight at the fortress, but now it’s not. I dig in my pocket and withdraw the card-knife, creep as quietly as I can to Apollo, tap him on the shoulder, hand it to him.

He examines it, unfolds it—even in the dim light of the covered truck bed, the blade and handle are clearly coated in tacky blood. His eyes go to me, and I think he divines a measure of what I went through for him. He replaces the blade and holds the closed weapon in his hand.

A radio squawks, and the male outside responds in a mixture of Arabic and French. The suspension dips again as the man—police or military, most likely—hops down. Boots crunch this way.

Apollo glances at me, motions for me to get down. “Down, stay down.”

I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off with a harsh slice of his hand. He then moves the flap aside and swings a leg over the tailgate, then the other, and then jumps down.

“Hello,” he calls.

The response is a harsh, authoritative snap.

“I’m lost. I was just resting in the back…”

Another suspicious-sounding response.

“I don’t speak Arabic or French. English?”

“Bullet.” A tap on the side of the truck. “Shoot truck.”

“Yeah, no, I…I bought it like this. Taking it to Tunis to get it fixed.”

“Lie.” Angry, harsh, suspicious, thickly accented. “Shoot you. Shoot truck.”

Apollo sighs in frustration. “Okay, listen. Yeah, I got into some trouble.”

The question is in rapid Arabic.

“I don’t understand you,” Apollo says. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

What follows from the other man is definitely a long series of curses. There’s the digital beep of a cellular device indicating a microphone going active, and then a digital female voice speaks in English:

“Where are you going?”

“I told you. Tunis.” This is then translated into Arabic by the same digitized female voice.

Arabic from the man, translated: “What are you doing in Tunis?”

“Looking for my friends so I can go home and get this treated.” The translation follows, and there’s a pause.