The Tower (22 page)

‘Your staffing situation got anything to do with that floating traffic jam out in the river?’

‘You got that right, sir. We’ve had unauthorized ships arriving here for the past twenty-four hours. The Port Authority is in meltdown. They’ve drafted us in to help deal with the situation but it seems to be getting worse. We put out a general call twelve hours ago advising all shipping that the port is now embargoed but no one seems to be taking any notice. They just keep on coming.’ The PO eased out onto a broad boulevard lined with piles of greying snow. ‘Did you see the carrier when you came in?’

‘Hard to miss it.’

‘That’s the
USS Ronald Reagan
. It’s supposed to be out on patrol in the Atlantic but it showed up here about an hour ago. There’s all hell breaking loose over at command. They’re talking mutiny and all kinds of stuff.’

‘Anyone spoken to the captain?’

‘If they have, I don’t know about it. What I do know is that none of the ships – military or civilian – have responded to communications. We can track them coming in on radar so we know they’re headed here, but all attempts to contact them and divert them elsewhere have been met with radio silence. It’s like a fleet of ghost ships coming in to anchor.’

‘What about the crews, they sick or something?’

‘They’re all fine. Everything’s fine. There’s no engine failure or nothing like that. They get here, drop anchor and start disembarking. That’s why we’re short-staffed, everyone’s on double duty trying to deal with all the paperwork. By rights all the military personnel should be arrested for dereliction of duty and held in the brig but we haven’t even got the capacity for that. The brig holds around three hundred men and it’s full already. There’s six thousand on the
Reagan alone
. We also got a cruiser and a destroyer out there and a coupla frigates heading this way. I heard talk they were gonna commandeer Fort Sumter out in the bay and use it as a holding pen, but then the National Park Service got all bent out of shape because it’s a civil war monument and all. You ask me, the whole thing’s a mess. A big crazy mess.’ He shook his head.

Shepherd watched the PO’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. They were edgy, flicking left and right, fixing on the road then checking the mirrors like someone might be following them. His fingers tapped on the wheel as he drove, like he was nervous or scared. ‘Can’t you send some of these ships off to another port, take the pressure off here a little?’ he asked.

‘Well that’s the thing, sir – we got Kings Bay and Jacksonville south of here but they’re having the same problem. They got ships showing up there too.’

‘Any port in a storm,’ Shepherd muttered, looking out of the window at the frozen edges of the city as it started to snow again.

‘What’s that, sir?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I tell you one thing.’ The PO’s hands continued to drum anxiously on the wheel. ‘The one thing all the ships have in common.’ He checked the rear-view mirror one last time before whispering his secret. ‘They’re all American. American registered and American crews. And the funny thing is, when we interview the crews, and ask ’em why they put in here, they all keep saying the same thing: “We just needed to get home”, that’s what they’re saying – “We need to get home”.’

Home

That word again, taunting Shepherd with a meaning he had never really known. Outside his window the parking lots and business units of northern Charleston began to disappear as they headed Downtown. The PO had been right about the traffic. Lines of cars packed solid with people and possessions, inching forward through the drifting snow. The vast majority of them were from out of state. Shepherd even spotted one with Canadian tags.

Shepherd’s phone buzzed and he checked the caller ID before answering.

‘Hello, Merriweather.’

‘I just heard about the explosion at Marshall. Is it true?’ He sounded about as tired as Shepherd felt.

Shepherd glanced at Franklin before answering. ‘Unofficially, yes. We’re trying to keep a lid on it at the moment, though, so don’t repeat that to anyone.’

‘What about James Webb? Was it badly damaged?’

Shepherd looked out of the window at the frozen city. ‘It was totally destroyed, or at least all the components in the cryo testing lab were.’

The phone went silent and Shepherd watched the lines of traffic slip by as the PO made good use of his lights and siren to thread his way through it.

‘What about Professor Douglas?’ Merriweather said. ‘Is he – was he?’

‘He’s fine so far as we know. We haven’t found him yet. He wasn’t at the facility. We’re trying to track him down now. But no-one was hurt, which is the only good news. Well, that and the fact that your job probably just got a little more secure. It will probably be cheaper to fix Hubble now than rebuild James Webb, so I guess every storm cloud has a silver lining.’

‘Yeah I guess.’ He didn’t sound particularly happy.

Outside, the lines of cars thinned a little as they reached the older part of town with its grander, prettier architecture: Colonial- style mansions, Federal, Georgian – all sliding past behind a veil of snow like ghosts of the city’s history.

‘How is Hubble – any change?’ Shepherd asked, trying to lift Merriweather’s mood.

‘Yes actually there is.’ He brightened a little. ‘It’s still pointing straight down to Earth but at least it hasn’t started losing altitude or anything worrying like that. If anything, it appears to be settling into a new orbit.’

‘What about Taurus, anything new appearing there?’

‘Not that I know of but I’m a bit blind at the moment. I’ll do some asking around with some people I know with telescopes that still work.’

‘Thanks, Merriweather. I appreciate it. Try and get some sleep.’

‘Ah, sleep is overrated. I can sleep when I’m old.’

Shepherd smiled. ‘Take care, Merriweather.’ He hung up.

The tyres rumbled as they hit the old cobbled roads built with discarded ballast stones from British sailing ships when Charleston was part of its expanding Empire.

‘Take a right over there,’ Franklin said, pointing to a turn up ahead, ‘otherwise you’ll get caught up in the one-way system.’

‘You been here before, sir?’ the driver said, making the turn.

‘Coupla of times.’

They were in the heart of the tourist district now and every store served either food or nostalgia. The driver slowed as they passed a mule-drawn carriage with a few brave tourists huddled in the back, heads down against the driving snow, looking back to where the harbour was framed at the end of the long street. You could just see the ships through the snow, clustered together in the same waters where sails once billowed and cannons boomed as the British were driven out.

‘Here you go, gentlemen.’

The Crown Vic turned a corner and pulled up to the kerb by a classic red-brick Charleston Single House with chocolate-brown shutters framing tall sash windows. Bright lights burned inside making the windows glow, and steam rose from a vent in the basement. On street level two broad steps led up through an arch to an iron gate that served as the front entrance. A Christmas wreath was hanging above a rectangle of polished brass with the church of christ’s salvation engraved on it.

‘Sorry I got to dump you,’ the PO said, like a cab driver desperate to get rid of his last fare before home. ‘Just bad timing with all the craziness.’

‘Don’t worry about it and thanks for the ride.’ They got out of the car and Shepherd felt the cold wrap itself round him as it drove off, the snow swallowing the sound of its engine and leaving them in crystal silence. Franklin pressed a button by the side of the locked gate but if it made a sound inside the house the snow swallowed that too. ‘You think we should sing Christmas carols?’ he said.

The sound of a bolt cracked through the silence, making Shepherd jump.

Halfway along the side of the house a door opened and a woman stepped out and started making her way towards them. She looked to be about thirty or so, her black hair cut short and matched by a black two-piece trouser suit worn over a grey turtle-neck sweater. She didn’t smile as she covered the ten or so feet between them, merely looked at them both, sizing them up, her breath clouding in the cold air. Shepherd noticed she had a slight limp and, as she drew closer, he saw a thin pale scar cutting across her left cheek. She stopped a foot short of the closed gate and regarded them through the bars. ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ The scar puckered a little when she spoke.

‘Yes, I think you probably can,’ Franklin held up his ID. ‘Is the good Reverend at home?’

Her grey eyes flicked to the badge then back again.

‘The Reverend Cooper is on air at the moment.’

‘That’s OK, we can wait.’ Franklin smiled. The woman did not. Neither did she make any move to open the gate.

‘What’s your name, miss?’

‘Boerman. Caroline Boerman.’

‘Well, Miss Caroline from the Carolinas we can wait out here if you’d like.’ He kicked his shoe against the wall to clear the snow from it. ‘But I should tell you I’m a Southern boy and the cold makes me awful grouchy.’

A small smile finally cracked the mask of her face, puckering the scar even more but going nowhere near her eyes. ‘Of course,’ she said, unlocking the gate and stepping back to allow them past. ‘Where are my manners?’

The front door of the Church of Christ’s Salvation opened into a warm, high-ceilinged entrance hall running the entire width of the building. It was plainly decorated in white that caught the glare from the tall windows looking out onto the snow-covered street. Three sofas, also white, were arranged in a horseshoe around a low coffee table with leaflets and small booklets on the surface next to a jar filled with multicoloured plastic key rings. The only real clue as to what went on in the building was coming from the television fixed above the bare brick fireplace.

Now you have watched me on TV today.

The Reverend Fulton Cooper said, his eyes burning from the screen.

I’ve taken my own step of faith to come in front of the camera and talk to you across America. But now you need to take a step of your own. YOU need to do something for Him.

‘Please take a seat,’ Miss Carolina said, ‘the Reverend will be with you soon. Can I get you some coffee?’

‘That would be fine,’ Franklin settled into the sofa opposite the TV.

I want you to look out of your window. Do it right now and see what is happening in the world. I know you have terrible floods out there in Texas and in New Mexico. I know you have drought in Illinois and Indiana. These are the signs of His coming.

The Reverend moved across the screen to a window and the camera followed showing the swirling blizzard over the rooftops and the distant ships in the bay.

Here in the holy city of Charleston we have snow where no snow ought to be. Maybe Hell has frozen over too, my friends, because Carolina sure has. And so has Florida. And so has Georgia.
Is this not evidence that mankind’s sins have sorely displeased the Lord and that His great reckoning is upon us?

The camera swept back to him, eyes still blazing down the lens, challenging the viewer.

You need to make a vow of faith to make your peace with the Lord and you need to make it fast. If you have wandered from the flock then now is the time to return. Be reconciled with your Lord and do it now, for time is running out. The true Church will always welcome you. Call the number on the screen right now. Salvation is waiting.

A graphic of a dove flew across the screen, wiping the Reverend from view and dragging an infomercial in on its tail.

Franklin reached forward and fished a key ring from the jar. It had a phone number stamped on it next to a website address, the same ones that were now scrolling across the screen beneath images of American soldiers marching on dry foreign soil. The picture changed to a group of wounded servicemen and women gathering together in a field hospital, some with bandages round their heads, others with limbs missing – all of them praying.

A caption crashed onto the screen:

OPERATION SAVIOUR

Saving the souls and rebuilding the lives of those destroyed in the Holy wars

The door opened behind them and Miss Boerman reappeared. ‘Reverend Cooper can see you now if you’d like to follow me.’

The first room they passed through was divided into small cubicles, each containing a computer terminal, a phone and an operator. There must have been twenty of them, all fairly young, all talking and tapping, filling the room with the hum of overlapping conversations.

The next room contained two parallel lines of people stuffing envelopes with the same books and key rings they had seen on the coffee table. One was in a wheelchair, another had a prosthetic hand and Shepherd put it all together – the youthful demographic, the discipline and order, even the limp and the scar on Miss Carolina’s face – these must be some of Cooper’s Christian soldiers, rescued from wherever they’d been fighting and now doing the Lord’s work for the Church that had saved them.

They followed Miss Boerman up some narrow stairs and through a heavy door into a different world. Gone were the utility desks and bare brick walls. Everything on the upper floor was plush and expensive. They were in some kind of salon with deep red velvet furniture and wood panelling on the walls that had been painted a soft, expensive, chalky grey. There was a fire in the hearth and split logs piled neatly to one side of a carved marble surround.

‘Let me see if he’s ready,’ Miss Boerman said, disappearing through a hidden door in the panelling.

Franklin leaned in to Shepherd, keeping his voice low. ‘Looks like the good Reverend lives above the shop, you know why he does that?’ Shepherd shook his head. ‘Because in the state of South Carolina religious organizations are exempt from property tax. It means he can live in all this luxury, right in the heart of town, without paying a dime to do it.’

He stood back up as Miss Boerman stuck her head round the edge of the hidden door.

‘The Reverend Cooper will see you now,’ she said.