The Tower (19 page)

‘You’ve looked better.’ The voice took him by surprise. He recognized it. ‘Don’t worry,’ the voice came again. ‘I haven’t told anyone who you are. You still have a number of serious outstanding warrants on your head and to be perfectly frank I just can’t face the paperwork.’

‘Arkadian!’ Gabriel opened his eyes to a figure in a complete HazMat suit, one arm in a sling and a familiar face smiling behind a plastic visor.

‘I heard some lunatic had ridden in here on a horse,’ Arkadian’s voice was muffled behind layers of material that kept him isolated from the infected air. ‘How you feeling, better than you look, I hope?’

‘I feel like I’m dying. I probably am dying.’

‘Nonsense. You’re the picture of health compared to some of these people.’ He glanced up and across the huge empty space of the church. ‘Most of them have been driven insane by this thing. They have to be heavily sedated just to stop them howling and weeping and tearing at their own flesh.’

Gabriel shuddered and clenched every muscle as a new prickling blossomed and spread inside him. He could see how easy it would be to give in and be driven mad by this unbearable sensation. ‘How many cases?’ he managed, between gritted teeth.

‘Twenty-eight confirmed so far, eighty-four more being held in quarantine. They’re all here in the Old Town too. So far it’s only adults, children seem to have some kind of immunity and everyone’s hoping to God it stays that way.’

‘How many dead?’

Arkadian hesitated. He watched Gabriel snatching shallow breaths and guessed he was mindful of attracting the attention of the doctors. ‘How many?’ Gabriel repeated once the spasms had eased.

‘Nine.’

‘When was the first?’

‘Two days ago, a waiter working at his aunt’s café on the embankment. She was the next to die.’

Gabriel closed his eyes. He thought back to the two figures with breathing masks he had seen as he approached the Old Town wall; the paper suits and HazMat signs. If they had reacted fast enough to put a quarantine in place and isolate the infected then perhaps it had been contained. Maybe he wasn’t too late.

‘Have all the people infected worked close to the Citadel?’

‘Yes – all except you. You have been the cause of much excitement, and also concern. Concern because you’re the only one with the Lamentation who hasn’t originated inside these walls, excitement because it seems to have affected you differently. Most people are driven incoherent by it and die within forty-eight hours of the main symptoms appearing. But you can still talk. How long have you had it now?’

‘I don’t know. Days.’

‘More than two?’

‘Five, I think.’

Arkadian’s eyes misted a little behind the visor as he imagined five days of this kind of suffering. ‘Why did you come back?’

Gabriel shivered, freezing again despite his burning skin. ‘To protect Liv. I wanted to bring it back where it came from. I wanted to return it to the Citadel.’

‘Well – you have done.’

Gabriel shook his head. ‘Not quite.’

Arkadian looked on until Gabriel had ridden out another spasm. ‘Listen,’ he said, leaning closer. ‘I’m going to have to let the doctors know you’re awake. They need to ask you some questions and run more tests. Right now you’re the best chance they have of finding an antidote to this thing.’

‘OK. Just don’t tell them who I am.’

Arkadian managed a smile. ‘You take me for a fool? You’ll be no good to anyone if I have to throw you in jail.’

‘But I want you to do something for me first. Send a message to the Citadel. Try and persuade them to open their doors and allow the sick inside.’

Arkadian stared down at him as though he had genuinely lost his mind. ‘They’re not going to do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s the Citadel, they don’t let anyone inside.’

‘Things change. This infection started in there, it must be decimating the population of the mountain. They probably need medical help more than anyone. Tell them doctors will come too, along with all the medical equipment they need to study this thing and try and find a cure. It’s airborne. That’s how I got it. I breathed it in when I was there. And all these people here worked on the embankment closest to the mountain, that’s why they got it. So we need to return it to where it started and keep it contained. Just imagine if this thing spread.’

A sudden noise made Arkadian look up. A woman was fitting and bucking so hard against her bed it started to shift and move across the floor. Three suited medics converged, obscuring her from view. One of them struggled to push the bed back into place while the others fought with the woman who was now howling like a banshee. They were trying to sedate her but she was thrashing so hard they couldn’t get the needle in her arm. The disturbance started to spread and others, tied and bound in the surrounding beds, began to rouse from their chemical slumbers. Then, as quickly as it had started, the thrashing stopped. The woman gave one last howl that sounded like the life was being physically torn from her, then was still.

The three medics stood for a moment, staring down at the body. Then one drifted away to calm another patient, and so did another, leaving only one remaining at her bedside, loosening and unwrapping the tight canvas bindings that were no longer needed.

‘Ten,’ Gabriel said.

Arkadian looked down at him and nodded. ‘Who shall I contact in the Citadel?’

Gabriel closed his eyes, exhausted from the sheer effort of keeping it all together. ‘A monk called Brother Athanasius. He helped me get inside the last time. He is the one who will help us again.’ He opened his bloodshot eyes and stared up at Arkadian. ‘Always assuming he’s still alive.’

For the second time that day the propellers of the C-130 clawed their way into the cold air and slung the plane up into the low, buffeting clouds.

Inside, strapped in the same painful jump seat as before, Shepherd’s battered body felt every judder and lurch. He consoled himself with the knowledge that the flight to Charleston would be marginally shorter than the inbound journey had been.

He and Franklin were studying the background files on the Reverend Fulton R. Cooper, fruits of Shepherd’s first real test-drive of the laptop and its ability to probe deeply and effortlessly into the databases of the FBI. He hadn’t had long but even so the speed and range of information it had managed to spit out had been impressive. Of course it didn’t hurt that Fulton Cooper was a public figure.

Shepherd read through the documents chronologically, starting with Cooper’s humble beginnings in the seventies selling bibles on the road alongside his father after his mother ran out on them. It was his father who had encouraged his son to preach at fairs and small town chapels, realizing that his son had a rare gift to engage a crowd and that business was always brisker whenever he spoke. At fifteen, Cooper had already started preaching on TV, first as a guest of other televangelists then on his own show where his lively blend of infomercial techniques, personal appeals and assertion that modern Christianity was exemplified in the American dream caught on so fast he was nationwide in less than three years and pulling in half a million dollars worth of pledges per show. Then it all came tumbling down.

His wife suddenly left him and appeared on a
Primetime Live
exposé accusing him of being a habitual drunk and wife beater. The file contained copies of photographs and medical records going back years showing the black eyes and broken fingers Cooper had inflicted on her, as well as screen grabs taken from a security camera, which showed him kicking her repeatedly in the driveway of their house after returning home from a fundraiser. She filed criminal charges, his TV shows were immediately cancelled, and he ended up going to jail for criminal assault.

Cooper staged a press conference the day he was released re-pledging his life to Jesus and begging forgiveness for all the sins he had committed while Satan had taken possession of him. He had spent his time in the wilderness, he claimed, and had put the temptations of the devil behind him now the Lord had revealed a new path for him as a modern crusader. The last few pages of the file showed exactly how this had manifested itself. There were extracts from his sermons against other religions, details of his various media campaigns outlining his opposition to the construction of non-Christian places of worship anywhere in America and his call to pass a law making Christianity the only religion that could be legally taught in American schools. But by far the most powerful component of his new mission was a charitable initiative called ‘
Operation Saviour’
which, according to the literature, gave ‘spiritual help and healing for warriors on the frontline of the holy wars’. It raised money to send medical help and psychiatric counsellors to servicemen and women fighting in religiously sensitive war zones such as Afghanistan and the Middle East and helped them get jobs when they returned home again. It had won Cooper some very high-powered admirers. There were pictures of Cooper smiling and waving on stage at various political rallies, standing shoulder to shoulder with senators, congressmen and members of the cabinet from several administrations.

The buzz of static cut straight through Shepherd’s head as Franklin flicked on the comms. ‘What d’you think?’

Shepherd stared at the most recent photograph of Cooper, beaming for the cameras at a Presidential primary. ‘He seems an unlikely terrorist.’

‘They’re generally the most effective sort.’

‘Also, Dr Kinderman and Professor Douglas are two of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I’m not sure I buy it that someone like Cooper could persuade them to sabotage their life’s work.’

‘Maybe he had something on them, every man has his weak spot and every man has his price. Or perhaps they found the Lord and then Cooper found them.’

‘Professor Douglas had already found Him.’

‘Really?’

‘Not all scientists are Godless heathens. I heard him deliver a lecture once on the relationship between religion and science where he said studying the stars was just another way of trying to get closer to God. He equated it with saying a prayer. So I’m having trouble seeing how he could destroy the very thing that enables him to do that. It would be like persuading the Pope to blow up St Peter’s.’

Franklin chewed over this last piece of information. ‘How much do you know about Operation Fish?’

Shepherd flicked back to the top sheet and re-read the Questioned Documents results that had thrown up Cooper’s name in the first place. ‘Wasn’t it some kind of religiously motivated witch-hunt?’

‘It was if you believe certain sections of the press. It was an inter-departmental internal investigation prompted by whispers that various offices of government had been infiltrated and were now being run by a large Christian network whose agenda didn’t necessarily coincide with the national interest. Part of the investigation was a data-catching initiative to flush out radical Christians: it’s not just the extreme Islamists the government wants to keep its eye on, dangerous and crazy is still dangerous and crazy no matter which God you bend your knee to. Anyway we put out a story that Darwinian evolution was going to be made a mandatory subject of study in all schools then set up a petition to collect the names of people who were violently opposed to it, which is how Cooper fell into the net. Guess he sees himself more of a “made in the image of God” kind of way than just some high-functioning monkey.’

‘What happened to the investigation – did they ever make any arrests?’

Franklin shook his head. ‘A combination of pressure from both houses and an effective press campaign claiming it was an attack on the first amendment got it shut down before it could bear any fruit.’

‘But isn’t that exactly what a powerful secret network working inside government would do to prevent itself from being discovered?’

Franklin shrugged. ‘I just obey orders, and there was no political desire to keep the investigation going. Targeting Christians in an overwhelmingly Christian country is never going to win many votes, particularly post 9/11 with Islam becoming the new communism. The average guy on the street would probably be quite happy to discover a group of powerful Christians were quietly running the country. But here’s a thought for you, this network was supposed to extend far and wide, not only in central government but also in law enforcement, the judiciary – NASA. So if, as you say, Professor Douglas was a man of faith maybe he was part of this network, maybe Kinderman was too. And people of strong faith will do anything if they believe it’s God’s will. So whatever preconceptions you have about the Reverend Cooper, or your Professor Douglas, you need to be under no illusion that whoever we are chasing down here are powerful and very motivated people. We need to tread carefully, Agent Shepherd, there’s nothing more frightening than an enemy who thinks death is just a gateway to something better.’

The Postillion Gate swung wide and the slow clip of hooves on cobbles echoed across the Public Square as the tribute cart emerged from the seminary complex in the Old Town of Ruin.

Riding up front were two seminaries, dressed all in black apart from the white of their surgical masks. Usually the weekly spectacle of delivering provisions to the Citadel was witnessed by large crowds of tourists who would gather along the route, cameras in hand, ready to get the best view of this timeless ceremony. Today there was no one.

The cart passed through the stone arch onto the embankment encircling the base of the Citadel, heading towards the wooden bridge spanning the moat of waving grass that grew where water once rippled. The wind flapped and tugged at the black cassocks of the two seminarians, ruffling the cellophane round the many floral tributes that still covered the spot on the flagstones where the monk had fallen.