Read Deadly Sky (ePub), The for Free Online

red paint. The pot lay on its side by the building’s front door, red liquid still dripping from it. The ambassador was mopping at his ruined suit, and shouting. The minister stood staring.
    For two – three – seconds, everyone else seemed locked in place, frozen with shock. Then a voice bellowed an order, and the police on the steps camecharging into the crowd, arms rising and falling, batons clubbing. The guy who had hurled the paint was battling through the press of bodies behind him, trying to get away.
    Screams and shouts of panic arose from those on the footpath as well as the marchers. People began stumbling, fleeing, crowding towards the market or back along the street down which the protest had come. A woman fell: others tripped over her and went down, too. Darryl glimpsed scared, shocked faces. The little kids wailed and clung to their mothers.
    Thwack! Thwack!
Batons smacking on backs and shoulders as the police drove in a wedge through the crowd, shouldering aside anyone in their way. Their mouths were open; their eyes slitted. A few people hit back with fists or signs. One sign smacked down on a policeman’s head and splintered, leaving the khaki-uniformed figure wearing the upside-down Y peace symbol around his neck like a necklace.
    That high school girl’s mum must be here after all, Darryl thought. A crazy half-laugh, half-snort rose inside him.
    One of the hymn-singing women stumbled past him, gripping a little girl whose face was buried in her dress. A man reeled across the footpath, with blood – real blood, not paint – streaming down the side of his face. The American tourists had vanished.
    In front of Darryl, a policeman tripped or was pushed, and sprawled face-down on the ground. Next second, the young man from the plane stood above him. The placard part of his sign had gone; he gripped the thick wooden handle, lifted it over his head like a club, face twisted in anger, and began to bring it hurtling down on the fallen figure.
    He stopped, wooden shaft frozen in his hands, just as Darryl cried out. Another rush of fleeing, struggling bodies, and he was swept away.
    Whistles shrilled. A siren wailed, speeding closer. Police in blue and khaki had hold of a twisting, kicking figure, dragging him across the ground towards the building whose steps still dripped with the red paint. The protestor was flailing and struggling as unfriendly hands hauled him away.
    More police appeared, striding into the crowd, shoving at anyone in their way, kicking aside signs lying on the ground. Darryl shrank back as two blue uniforms seemed to be heading in his direction. His heart thumped; his back felt cold and crawly. He should go – he should get away. Instead, he stood there, staring.
    Other people were being dragged towards a police van that had appeared up the street. The minister was talking angrily to an equally angry police officer, waving his arms and pointing.
    I never knew it would be like this, a voice inside Darryl’s head had begun mumbling. He remembered the man on TV, and the march he’d been in. Were any of those people here today? He didn’t even know if they were from Tahiti.
    More sirens. Another van arrived, skidding to a halt, uniformed figures spilling out of it. People pushed past Darryl where he stood at the edge of the footpath. A woman bumped into him, clutched at his arm as she nearly fell, gasped something at him in French. ‘Sorry,’ he heard himself mumble. ‘I’m English – New Zealand, I mean.’ Talk sense! went the voice inside his head.
    A policeman strode towards him, baton in hand. Sweat ran down the man’s face. He glared at Darryl, who felt his back crawling again, and shouted at him. ‘
Va-t’en! Va-t’en!
’ Darryl gaped, tried to say something. The policeman thrust his baton towards the far end of the steet. ‘
Va-t’en!
Go!’
    Darryl went.

SIX
    Nobody was singing in the streets or down the narrow alleyways as he headed back to the hotel. Nobody was