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I’d not gone without a fight, though. Even now, when it no longer matters in any way, I’m obscurely proud of that. I’d come out of the car shooting, and had even managed to get past the first few of them before they got me. I don’t remember anything about that – a flash of pain, and then I was floating above the street, looking down at them looking down at me.

They’d been disappointed and angry. A quick death for me, with no opportunity for a little casual sadism followed by a show trial and a public execution – this wasn’t what had been planned. A death fighting alone against overwhelming odds is a heroic death, not one a monster ought to have.

Of course, by now a lot of people have already realised who the real monsters are.

Once, people had lined the streets like this, when I’d gone on my first public motorcade, waving to them from the back of a car. Now, I’m going among them one last time, and my flopping hands wave as they drag along the ground, bloodstained fingers signing a final farewell.

I drift over the heads of the crowd, watching them watch my corpse. Some of them are eagerly snapping photos, mostly with cell phones, though a few have digital cameras with long telescoping lenses and at least one has an ancient black box which probably uses real film. I wonder for a moment where he intends to have it developed. By tonight these photos will be all over the net, and self-satisfied newscasters will interview smirking politicians speaking of how summary justice was visited on the fugitive dictator. And then they’ll move on to the sports news or the latest high tech release from Hollywood.

The crowd doesn’t seem to be as enthusiastic about my death as the men in the pickup, in their assorted uniforms, had expected. People, even those who are taking photos, are beginning to look around at each other, and murmur uneasily. The men sense the unease, the growing apprehension, and this makes them in turn apprehensive and angry. They lift their automatic rifles and glare at the people, daring someone to do something to give them an excuse to shoot.

The people know, though, they already know what is going to happen. They can see for themselves that without me, without my being held up as a bogey, an enemy, they will fall apart even faster, begin fighting among each other even more openly, and soon the country will remember my time with sighs of nostalgia. The people know, and the men in the pickup, I think, are beginning to realise it as well.

It’s only a matter of time before they start looking at each other with suspicion, wondering which of them will be on the other side of the new frontline a fortnight from now. I can see the thing grow in their eyes, like a slow-rising tide.

I find myself drifting higher, and now I think I can see where they’re taking me. Up ahead is the bulk of a hospital. It’s going to have a morgue, and there they’ll probably put me on ice, to display to the world. Pink faced politicians with deep pockets will come from distant countries and smile for the camera, saying that they’re sure my death will be an important step forward for the country and the cause for freedom. Then they’ll dash into their cars and rush back to the airport, never to return. They’ll be able to see which way the wind is blowing, and they’ll know that the primary objective now is to avoid blame and association with the disaster.

I wonder what Furqan will do. We had, of course, planned for the eventuality that something might happen to me, and I’d left him strict orders that if I weren’t back by midnight he should assume I’ve been captured or killed, and take over the movement. I’m sure he’ll do a good job, a better job than I would myself; and, besides, he’s not tainted by direct association with me. Nobody outside my immediate circle even knows who he is. But they will, I think, they will.

I hope he is not going to go looking for revenge. There are much more important things at stake than that. Besides, what is the point of revenge? I’m through with all the pain and fear, the agony and the ecstasy. There’s nothing to avenge any longer.

More time than I’d thought has passed, and I’ve drifted higher. The town is a purple smear below me, the sun a red swollen ball in the west, red as the blood that had dripped from my shattered head. Someday, that sun will swell further, a hungry giant that will burn this planet to a cinder of dead rock, and all I’ve striven for, all that I fought to build and then to regain, will be as meaningless as the greatest symphonies and the most poignant love songs ever sung. Someday this will all be gone anyway.

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