‘Get up. Come on.’ Ben dragged him to his feet.
‘Boo! I see you!’ Max had spotted them. He was between them and the key. And he now had a gun—Bailey’s. He fired at them, but his aim wasn’t so good when it wasn’t a young woman only a few feet away from him.
Nevertheless, they had no choice and began to climb the slope.
‘We should have stayed in the water, Ben. We could have—’
Another shot, this one taking a piece of gorse off the bush next to them.
‘God, you’re pathetic. I expected a bit more effort than this!’ Max sounded maniacally pleased with himself, tossing the little blue canister in his hand as he came closer.
He was at the bottom of the hill now, climbing slowly up behind them.
They heard a click and then a curse. The gun was empty. Aleksey saw this as possibly their only chance to turn and charge the maniac, but Ben picked up speed, towing him relentlessly. He seemed intent, determined, although all Aleksey could think was that they’d be trapped again. He had no idea how powerful the aerosol would be, whether it would spray out in a fine mist or produce heavier droplets like a lawn sprinkler.
They reached the top. Ben suddenly let his arm go, hissed, ‘Distract him!’ and disappeared behind the lighthouse. Aleksey sank to his knees, his hands behind his head in a position of complete surrender and shouted distinctly, but wearily, ‘Austin offered us the vaccine. I did not accept because I did not want the third horseman to destroy the world. But your aims and mine align. How will you patent your vaccine and manufacture it when the world governments come to you for it? You will need investment. You will need my money.’
Maxwell, panting, one hand on his knee, came to a pause in front of him. But not too close. ‘Where’s Ben?’ He’d tossed the gun and now only had the blue canister in his hands.
‘He does not agree with me. He does not understand the world as we do. You must have seen this when you talked with him.’
‘Yeah, I kinda got that at dinner. Really nice guy, as I said. Shame.’
Aleksey groaned and put his head lower, as if the exhaustion and stress were too much for him. He shuffled around on his knees so he was facing the lighthouse. Max unconsciously moved around too, staying in front of him. He was fiddling distractedly with the canister once more, twisting the cap around while he considered his options.
He heard something behind him, turned, saw Ben on the concrete base of the lighthouse, but must have assumed he could do nothing from there. He clearly didn’t know Ben very well. Ben took off from a sprint start and using the height, launched himself at Max. He dove, rolled and barrelled into him as he was fumbling with the cap, flattened him to the earth and snatched the canister. And then Ben was at the cliff edge, and as if he was still playing cricket on the moorland slope, he bowled the little blue tin off the cliff where it hung suspended in the air for a moment before it began to drop.
Maxwell howled and dragged himself to his feet.
Then he saw that Ben had apparently failed. All was not lost. The chimera had landed on the other side of the arch. It was just lying there on the turf of the joined sea stack.
With a gleeful cry he pushed past Ben.
Aleksey shouted.
Incredible to him, Ben didn’t even try to stop the running man. He just glanced back and shook his head fractionally.
Aleksey staggered to his feet and came to the cliff edge to stand alongside him.
Max made it to the other side and fell to his knees, cradling his precious little tin.
And then Ben stamped on the bridge.
A small cascade of stones erupted from the underside of the delicate arch.
Aleksey took his arm and Ben went further out and jumped harder.
Rocks began to shower down.
Max turned. ‘What are you doing? Hey! Don’t do that! Hey!’
Maxwell almost had a foot on the arch when it entirely crumbled away with a soft oomph like a drawbridge made of sand collapsing over a child’s sandcastle moat.
The bridge fell with a series of repeated splashes into the ocean far below. Max had withdrawn his foot and was now regaining his balance, staring disbelieving down. ‘What…?’ He gazed over the yawning space between them.
They turned away and started to walk back towards Guillemot.
‘Hey! What the fuck! You can’t just leave me here! Hey!Come back!’
