The Power(55)

‘Shit,’ says one of the men with their beers and signs. ‘I think that’s a bomb.’

Tunde runs towards the sound, holding his camera very steady. There is a cracking sound, and he hears masonry falling. He rounds the building. The fondue-chain place is on fire. Several other units are collapsing. People are running from the building.

‘There was a bomb,’ one of them says, directly into Tunde’s camera lens, his face covered in brick dust, small cuts bleeding through his white shirt. ‘There are people trapped in there.’

He likes this version of himself, the one who runs to get closer to danger, not away from it. Every time he does it, he thinks, Yes, good, this is still me. But that in itself is a new thought.

Tunde circles the wreckage. Two teenagers have fallen. He helps them up, encourages one to put her arm around the other for support, because her ankle is already blooming great blue bruises.

‘Who did this?’ she cries directly at the lens. ‘Who did this?’

That is the question. Someone has blown up a fondue restaurant, two shoe stores and a well-woman clinic. Tunde stands back from the building and takes a wide-angled shot. It’s pretty impressive. To his right, the mall is on fire. To the left, the entire front of the building has come away. A whiteboard with shift allocations still attached to it crashes from the second floor to the ground while he films it. He zooms in. Kayla, 3.30–9 p.m. Debra, 7 a.m.

Someone is crying out. Not far away, but hard to spot in the dust-on-dust – there is a pregnant woman trapped in the rubble. She is lying on her huge belly – she must be eight months gone – and a concrete pillar is trapping her leg. Something smells of gasoline. Tunde puts down the camera – safely, so that it’s still recording – and tries to crawl a little closer to her.

‘It’s OK,’ he says, hopelessly. ‘Ambulances are coming. It’s going to be OK.’

She screams at him. Her right leg is crushed to bloody meat. She keeps trying to pull away from it, to kick back against the pillar. Tunde’s instinct is to hold her hand. But she is discharging with great force every time she kicks against the pillar.

It is probably involuntary. Pregnancy hormones increase the magnitude of the power – perhaps a side effect of a number of biological changes during this time, although people say now, very simply, it’s to protect the baby. There are women who’ve knocked their nurses clean out while giving birth. Pain and fear. These things whittle away control.

Tunde shouts out for help. There’s no one nearby.

‘Tell me your name,’ he says. ‘I’m Tunde.’

She winces, and says, ‘Joanna.’

‘Joanna. Breathe with me,’ he says. ‘In’ – he holds it for a count of five – ‘then out.’

She tries. Grimacing, frowning, she breathes in and puffs it out.

‘Help is coming,’ Tunde says. ‘They’ll get you out. Breathe again.’

In and out. Once more in, and out. The spasms are no longer jerking her body.

There’s a creak in the concrete above them. Joanna tries to crane her neck around.

‘What’s happening?’

‘It’s just some strip lights.’ Tunde can see them dangling there by just a wire or two.

‘It sounds like the roof is coming down.’

‘It’s not.’

‘Don’t leave me here, don’t leave me alone under here.’

‘It’s not coming down, Joanna. It’s just the lights.’

One of the fluorescent strips, dangling by a single wire, sways and snaps and crashes into the rubble. Joanna jerks and spasms again; even as Tunde is saying, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’ She’s breaking again into that uncontrollable cycle of jolts and pain, she’s struggling to pull herself out from under the pillar. Tunde is saying, ‘Please, please, breathe,’ and she’s saying, ‘Don’t leave me here. It’s coming down.’

She sends her power into the concrete. And a wire thread within the concrete connects with another, and another. A light bulb explodes in sparks. And a spark ignites that gasoline-smelling fluid that had been dripping. And there is fire, suddenly, all around her. She is still shouting as Tunde picks up his camera and runs.

That’s the image they freeze on the screen. They’ve said there’d be upsetting images, after all. No one should be surprised to see this, but isn’t it just terrible? Kristen’s face is grim. I think anyone watching would agree that whoever did this is the scum of the earth.

In a letter to this news channel, a terrorist group calling itself Male Power has claimed responsibility for the attack, which destroyed a medical clinic catering to women’s health issues alongside a busy mall in Tucson, Arizona. They claim the attack is only the first ‘day of action’, intended to force the government to act against the so-called ‘enemies of man’. A spokesperson for the office of the President has just completed a press conference, giving the strong message that the government of the United States does not negotiate with terrorists and that the claims of this ‘conspiracy-theory splinter group’ are nonsense.

Well, now, what are they even protesting about, Tom? Tom scowls, just a micro-expression, before the practised face peels over the real one, the smile smooth as frosting on a cupcake. They want equality, Kristen. Someone’s saying, cut to commercial in thirty in their earpieces, and Kristen’s trying to wrap it up, but something’s going on with Tom; he’s not bringing this chat to a conclusion.