The Road to Hell (26 page)

Silk ribbons of red, white and blue streamed down from the towers lining the avenue leading into New Central Park, each one some thirty feet wide and stretching to within a few stories of the ground. The localised weather pattern was set to ensure steady gusts between the buildings, allowing the ribbons to sway gently in the wind.

The main stage was set at the far end of the park. A giant American flag, some four hundred feet high, hung down as the backdrop for the stage. The Stars and Stripes looked magnificent, thought Justice Dianora, as his shuttle landed backstage.

Already, over four million people crowded into the park in front of the stage, all vying for the best spot from which to watch the celebrations. There was two hours before the formal festivities began and still more and more people poured in. A rock band played ballads on the lower, front stage, as roadies worked around them, still setting up the main stage area behind them. From a distance, they looked like ants scurrying around beneath the bold stripes of red and white set next to the brilliant sea of silver stars on navy blue.

Hundreds of large holographic projectors were set strategically around the park. They showed celebrities arriving on the red carpet and moving among the marquees set up by the rich and famous in the premium viewing spots. Further back, corporate marquees projected subtle brand reinforcement while entertaining business executives and second-tier celebrities. Champagne breakfasts adorned the tables. The bulk of the crowd stretched from the quarter-mile marker to the towers almost four miles away at the back of the park. Families, teenagers, young and old alike laid out picnic blankets and deck chairs, staking out their small claim on the vast park, soaking up the sunshine. Thousands of portable toilets had been strategically distributed along with food stalls and first aid stations, all dotted among the seething masses.

New New York City hadn't seen anything on this scale before. The twentieth anniversary of the first shots fired in the civil war would be the largest celebration ever staged, with a projected national audience of over five hundred million and an estimated live global audience of well over two billion.

Justice Dianora beamed with pride as he reviewed the order of service with the chief of hosts, the principle emcee for the day. The decision to have Special Agent Kane speak after the opening ceremony, just before the executions, had been a controversial one. The council members were weary of pop culture icons, but their media analysts and political advisors assured them that Kane's meteoric rise as a hero of the state was something they should capitalise upon. Polling among all age groups had shown a high degree of interest in the death of the terrorist leader and everyone loves a hero, so the schedule had been trimmed to allow for a five minute speech over the backdrop of holographic images from the police files outlining the hunt for Artemis. A speechwriter had been appointed to work with the special agent. Yes, thought Dianora, it would go well leading up to the oaths of allegiance and the memorial for the fallen.

Dianora caught a glimpse of Kane sitting in one of the makeup rooms, reading through his speech on a sheet of electronic paper that mimicked the action of the teleprompter he'd use later on stage. Dianora tried to make his way over toward him, but found himself pulled in different directions by various stage coordinators and their assistants, all wanting a moment of his time to discuss some aspect of the ceremony.

Kane did not want to be here. And, no, he told yet another producer, he would not remove his glasses when he went on stage. His eyes were simply far too sensitive. Without them, the lighting would have fried his optic nerve. But even that fact did not seem to deter the various overzealous executives stage managing the ceremony. They tried to bully him into compliance. Fat chance, thought Kane. He was so annoyed he was about ready to start shooting some of these pests, and the thought of that made him smile.

Sitting there, thinking mischievously but jokingly about ridding the world of a couple of these corporate pricks, Kane realised he still had his blaster. Somehow he'd managed to slip through security still wearing his blaster in his shoulder harness. The bulge was barely visible under his morning suit jacket, but there was no doubt in his mind the security teams had picked it up with their full body scans. No one, it seemed, had the courage to ask him to surrender it. Hah, he thought, infamy has its rewards.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. The makeup team finished with him and he was herded into the green room along with dozens of others, mainly celebrities, singers and dancers, which made him feel distinctly out of place. The council members, including Justice Dianora, were already in their box seats at the back of the stage. They sat directly beneath the flag, looking out over the stage at the crowd. The senate members were seated in the first few rows at the front of the audience. The pecking order shouldn't have surprised Kane, but it did. If he had his way, he'd have been in a bar somewhere asking them to change the channel to anything other than this drivel.

As the time approached for him to go up on stage, a makeup assistant came over to touch up his already powdered face. The young man wanted to add a little more foundation and to spray a little more lacquer on his hair, but thought better of it seeing the scowl Kane gave him. Enough was enough. This was torture for him. All show, no substance.

With a producer standing beside him, he waited in the wings for an age before, finally, he was introduced and he walked out on stage.

The stage was absurdly large, with room for theatrical reenactments from the civil war later in the day. Kane walked past the five council members seated behind the podium, overlooking all the activity. Justice Dianora smiled, but he missed it.

The flashes going off all around him were playing havoc with his electronic eyes, even behind the dark shades. Tiny robotic flyers the size of a tennis ball zipped around the stage, remote control video cameras catching all the action and pre-processing 3D footage for the networks. Together, they ensured close-up shots from every strategic angle would be broadcast to the world. Kane stumbled at one point, distracted by a flyer and not seeing some cables taped to the stage floor. He stepped up on the podium and walked behind the lectern. His speech appeared on a transparent teleprompter strategically placed so it appeared as though he was looking directly at the audience as he spoke, reading from the script.

There were gallows. It surprised him. He hadn't really thought too much about how the terrorists would be executed but a set of portable gallows sat on the lower, front stage, off to the side. It helped him to think of them as terrorists, he realised, it depersonalised things, made it easier to accept what would happen to them. Behind each noose stood one of the condemned, waiting to die. Harrison, Susan, Olivia and two others he didn't recognise. They were staring back at him, their hands handcuffed in front of them. They were innocent, he knew that, but what could he do?

For a second, he paused, looking out at the sea of millions of people stretching out as far as his eyes could see. The teleprompter flashed, highlighting where he was up to, prompting him to continue speaking. He looked at the words before him. The sentence blurred. There was only one word he could make out. It seemed out of place, out of context: loyalty. But he'd read the speech beforehand, several times over. There was no mention of loyalty anywhere. He blinked and realised the word was lonely. He continued reading aloud but within seconds another word, loyal, seemed to appear on the teleprompter, but it too didn't fit with the flow of the sentence. He looked again and it was the word, local.

His mind was playing tricks on him, teasing him, his conscience tormenting him. He glanced across at the condemned and felt guilty. Their blood was about to stain his hands. His palms were sweaty. His throat was dry.

He was stumbling through the speech and that embarrassed him, making his stutter worse. The words on the teleprompter switched to a message from the producer, saying, 'Take a sip of water, have a deep breath and continue.' But in the back of his mind all he could hear was Justice Dianora telling him his loyalty would be rewarded. Instead of standing before the world in the glare of the stage lights he felt as though he was still standing in the rain beside the senator's open grave.

“
Ah, to hell with it,” he said, his voice firming up as he reached inside his jacket and pulled out his blaster. He turned slightly to one side so he could see the council members as he spoke into the microphone. Dianora was distracted, talking with an aide who was kneeling down beside him, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

“
Justice Dianora, I am placing you and the other members of the council under arrest for conspiracy to murder Senator Bradley Johannes on the night of April 14th.”

He hadn't intended to do this in such a public forum, and he was pretty sure it wouldn't end well, but he felt good about coming clean.

The silence was deafening.

Six and a half million people sat in stunned silence before him.

His words finally registered with Dianora and the old man leaped to his feet.

“
WHAT?” screamed Dianora, his voice bellowing out across the stunned crowd. His face was flushed with anger, the veins on his neck strained under pressure.

“
Guards,” Dianora continued, his hand out stretched before him, pointing at the Special Agent just fifteen feet away. “Arrest that man. Get him off my stage.”

“
And look at that ring,” Kane added calmly, referring to the senator's old signet ring on Dianora's outstretched hand. The blue sapphire caught the stage lights, the large gemstone glistened in the daytime spotlights.

Instantly, the robotic cameras swirling around the stage zoomed in on the outstretched arm of the Justice. Dianora pulled back his hand, but it was too late. Shots of the ring flashed up above the holographic projectors dotted around the park. In the broadcasting control booth back stage, several producers from competing networks all scrambled to kick off pattern recognition searches to find out what that ring was and why it was so important. Within ninety seconds the on-air commentators for the ceremony had the answer whispered in their ear pieces and the speculation began in earnest.

Four ceremonial guards rushed in toward Kane.

“
Stun charge,” said Kane, talking into the vox-control on his blaster. Like all senate guards, the ceremonial guards were unarmed. They dropped like stones before him. The regular police wouldn't be quite so easy, Kane realised.

Yelling and screaming erupted around him. Pandemonium broke out, with the senators seated in the first few rows of the audience panicking and running for their lives. They overturned chairs, clambering past each other, scrambling for the aisles. On stage, the council members ran for the emergency exits. Stage hands and members of the sound crew helped them slip behind the curtains. Dianora bolted for the stairs.

“
You're not going anywhere,” cried Kane, shooting Dianora in the back and bringing him down with a fifty thousand volt charge. It felt curiously satisfying to be calmly in command of the unfolding confusion, the eye at the centre of the storm. Kane watched Dianora convulse and felt no guilt in enjoying that rarest of pleasures.

Armed police began storming the far side of the stage. Kane switched to plasma rounds. This was getting nasty, he realised, but it had to happen, and he knew exactly what those officers were thinking and the tactics they'd use. They'd shoot first and ask questions of the dead man later.

Local ground teams would be the first on the scene, converging from the various security check points around the stage. But they'd arrive at different times, they wouldn't know each other and they'd probably move on him without any coordination, and that would play into his favour.

The flyers, wearing jet packs, would be patrolling deep in the crowd, up to three miles away. With their flight time, it would take around fifteen minutes for them to arrive at the melee. Knowing that, central command would probably only dispatch a couple of them, the closest ones, keeping the others in reserve for crowd control.

It was the cruisers that worried him. Although the airspace had been cleared for the ceremony, there would have been a hundred or so hovering between the towers, providing back up for crowd control. They'd be upon him within a minute or two.

Down below, on the front stage, several of the prison guards were armed. They began shooting up at the lectern, but in the excitement of the moment they were firing wide. Novices, thought Kane. This was probably the first time they'd fired their service blasters in the line of duty and the surge of adrenalin marred their aim. They were jerking at the trigger rather than squeezing gently. It was the regular police that worried him. He wouldn't hold them off for long. It was only a matter of time.