The Tower (24 page)

Cooper chuckled. ‘I don’t think I am the only one who has read the Bible and paid heed to the teachings of the good book. Let me ask you something, gentlemen. If you were aware that a heinous crime was being committed would you not seek to prevent it from taking place? Are you not, as law enforcement officers, duty bound to uphold the law? Well I follow the highest law there is, a law that is second to none. So, yes, I will admit I did send those cards, I saw it as my duty to remind those people of the danger of what they were doing, but I did not threaten anyone, as God is my witness I did not do that. Nor am I responsible for the events that have succeeded in toppling these towers.’

Franklin stiffened. ‘What events?’

Cooper looked surprised. ‘Well now, surely you know.’

‘Know what?’

Cooper leaned forward and tapped something into the laptop. ‘I don’t know if you were trying to keep a lid on it but I’m sure you are aware, news travels awful fast these days.’ He turned the screen round for them to see. It showed a Twitter feed, new tweets appearing almost every second, all using the same hashtags:

WDW Kate
@WebbieWorld349

Explosion at Marshall Space Center. James Webb telescope destroyed? Latest. ow.ly/c5mK #NASA #HUBBLE_WEBB

Letitia Potorac
@metaevolve

#NASA $8bn space telescope sabotaged? fb.me/1B49ZI2yW

Ira Upinski
@eyeupinsky

#NASA #HUBBLE Space Telescope knocked out of orbit, several sources confirm: bit.ly/wRNi0c

‘It appears my prayers have been answered and the good Lord has once again confounded the vain attempts of mankind to know His mystery. Your prompt appearance here and the nature of your questions merely confirms to me that these rumours must be true. They are true I take it – the Hubble telescope has been disabled and its successor destroyed?’

‘Yes,’ Shepherd said.

‘Well how about that. Thank you, gentlemen, thank you kindly. You have just given me the theme for the second part of today’s show. Now if you have no further questions I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to take your coffee elsewhere. I am in the middle of a live broadcast here.’ He began to rise.

‘I have a question,’ Shepherd said. ‘Why didn’t you sign the cards?’

‘Because I was quoting the Bible: I would not presume to sign my name after the words of the Lord.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Also I’m wondering why the cards all have different postmarks?’

Cooper shrugged. ‘I travel a lot. I guess I must have posted them wherever I found myself to be.’

‘Could we see a copy of your schedule going back to May?’

‘For what purpose exactly?’

‘It would help us match your whereabouts with the postmarks and confirm your story.’

Cooper hesitated. ‘I’ll get the office to send you over a copy.’ Franklin produced a card and handed it over. The Reverend took it and flipped it over in his soft, manicured hands then fixed the smile back in place and gestured towards the door.

‘It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen. I’m sorry I could not be more helpful.’

The gate clanged shut behind them on the snow-covered street. ‘You think he sent the letter?’ Shepherd asked.

Franklin reached into his pocket, pulled out his rumpled packet of Marlboros and tapped out a cigarette. He cupped his hand against the cold and fired up a battered Zippo that looked like it had been rescued from a car wreck, sucked the flame into the cigarette then let out a long stream of smoke. Despite everything they had been through in the last twelve hours or so this was the first time Shepherd had seen him smoke. ‘If it wasn’t him then he knows who did.’ Franklin took another deep draw, the cherry glowing bright and red against the soft, silent white of the street. ‘I got an instinct for these things. That’s why I wanted to come here and look the man in the eye. That was a nice touch at the end there, by the way, asking him about the cards.’

Shepherd shrugged. ‘I was just yanking his chain a little.’

‘It showed good instincts. Pushing a man’s buttons, knocking him off centre, sometimes that’s all it takes to start cracks forming, and the cracks show you where the weaknesses are.’

Shepherd looked out into the street. ‘Didn’t get us anywhere though, did it?’

Franklin took a final deep pull on his cigarette then dropped it to the ground, crushing it with his shoe. ‘Not yet.’ He studied the building, spotted a gap between the mailbox and the wall and crammed his empty pack of cigarettes into it. ‘But you can’t just toss in a line and expect to haul out a fish straight away. You need to learn a little patience, Agent Shepherd.’ He stepped into the snow, heading for the corner.

Shepherd followed, tilting his head down against the weather. ‘Where we headed now?’

‘Police station up on Westside, but we’ll need a ride there. You got your phone handy?’ Shepherd pulled it out of his jacket pocket. ‘Call a cab and get it to pick us up at the Fast and French on Broad Street in twenty minutes.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The nearest place we can get some goddam coffee.’

Reverend Cooper watched them leave, following them with his eyes until they disappeared in the snow. Behind him he heard the door to his private office open and he listened to the approaching footsteps. He waited until they were close enough then turned suddenly, shooting out his arm to catch Miss Boerman’s face hard with the back of his hand. She was knocked sideways by the force, crashing against his desk and knocking a phone to the floor as she scrambled to recover. Cooper was already on her, grabbing her throat with one hand and pulling the other back to strike her once more.

‘Don’t you EVER do something like that again.’

She closed her eyes but made no move to get away. Cooper’s hand curled into a fist as his rage balled up inside him. He wanted to break her nose and see her spitting teeth through split lips. He wanted to hear the snap of her fingers and her cries of pain. He wanted to …

He stepped away, breathing heavily as he fought to master the demons that used to be the master of him. Now was not the time to let the devil back in.

‘Get out,’ he said. She stood up, straightening her suit jacket, the red marks of his fingers already rising up on her white cheek. ‘Tell the studio to be ready to broadcast in five minutes and close the door on your way out.’

He waited until she had gone, then picked the phone up off the floor and dialled a number from memory. Outside in the street the footprints of the FBI agents were already being rubbed out by the steady fall of snow. If only the men who had made them and the threat they posed were as easy to erase. Then again – maybe they were.

The phone clicked as it connected. Then Carrie’s brittle, little-girl voice answered.

Gabriel was one of the last to be evacuated from the Public Church. Arkadian had stood by his bed the whole time, a guardian angel in a spacesuit, giving a running commentary on what was happening: equipment being packed up and shipped out, patients being transferred from beds to stretchers so they would fit on the ascension platform and be easier to carry through the narrow tunnels once they were inside the mountain. He kept laying his gloved hand on Gabriel’s chest, like a father reassuring his son, finding the one spot where there were no electrodes or tubes coming in or out of him.

And then it was Gabriel’s turn to go.

Arkadian stepped back as four suited orderlies got to work on him. They gave him a shot to settle him and undid the straps that bound him to the bed, clearly in a rush to get this thing over with. Gabriel felt himself slipping into a half slumber.

‘You hang in there, OK.’ Arkadian’s face appeared over him, his voice muffled by his contamination suit. ‘I’ll buy you lunch when you come out.’

Gabriel tried to respond, say something flippant and brave like they did in the movies but his mouth was no longer working and his eyes flickered shut.

He felt and heard the clatter of wheels over the flagstoned floor as they moved him then the air cooling as he neared the door. He forced his eyes open and saw the vaulted ceiling and ecclesiastical paintings slide away above him to be replaced by night skies and stars. He picked out Draco, the constellation that had led him and Liv to the lost place in the desert, the place where he had last seen her. He wondered if she was still there, waiting for him, looking up at the same stars. As he stared up he spotted something else, a new star, brighter than all the rest, travelling across the sky. He watched it sliding across the night then a beam shot out from it, blinding him, and making his stretcher-bearers turn their heads away. It held on them for a few seconds, long enough for the news cameraman in the helicopter to get a good shot, then it moved away, the sound of the rotors chopping the air and sending cold air down onto Gabriel’s burning skin.

They passed through another stone arch onto the embankment and the Citadel came into view, a monumental darkness that blocked out the stars as they drew closer. The hollow bang of wooden boards replaced the scuff of feet on stone as they reached the bridge leading to the ascension platform. The mountain was so close now it blocked out half the sky. Tears leaked from Gabriel's eyes as they placed him on the platform. Arkadian appeared above him, his mouth forming words that he couldn’t hear, then he disappeared, ushered away by the orderlies.

The sound of wooden battens banging into place echoed through the night as the guardrails on the edge of the platform were put back in place then a bell rang high in the mountain. The ropes securing each corner of the platform creaked then the platform lurched and lifted off the ground.

Gabriel looked straight up at the night, half-filled with stars and half black. He could see the tribute cave high above, dark and wide like a huge black mouth, growing larger as it sucked them closer. He thought of what he was leaving behind, all the sorrow and regret: his father found and gone, his mother gone too, and the woman he cared most for in the world, the one he felt bound to protect at all costs, abandoned and alone like he was. And all because of this mountain, this hateful mountain.

The ascension platform rose higher, lit from time to time by the searchlight from the hovering news helicopter, then it passed into darkness as it entered the tribute cave and banged to a halt.

The last time Gabriel had been here was in the dead of night, alone, unannounced and armed. Now he was strapped tight to a stretcher, his senses dulled by the sedative, his body wracked with a disease that had robbed him of both strength and freedom. And there were people everywhere.

Two monks loomed over him, their surgical masks looking sinister against their cowled and bearded faces.

‘Bring the patients this way,’ a voice commanded from somewhere inside the cave. ‘We have a place prepared.’

The two monks hoisted him up and carried him off the platform, the air closing in on him and the sound deadening as they moved out of the cave and deeper into the mountain.

They began to descend, bumping down narrow corridors. Gabriel could feel his temperature climbing in the trapped, stuffy air and sweat trickled down inside the tight bindings, further torturing his already screaming skin. Something started to disconnect inside him. He had held on for so long, using the focus of getting here to drive him; now that he had finally made it he had nothing left. A small part of his lucid mind registered the relief of it. He took a breath and whispered something, too quiet for anyone else to hear: ‘Goodbye, Liv.’ Then a howl erupted from him as he finally let go and was carried screaming into the heart of the mountain.

… and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

Revelation 6:8

Brother Athanasius stiffened as the first stretcher appeared out of the darkness and was carried through the door. He was standing in the centre of the cathedral cave, the largest chamber in the Citadel and the only one large enough for the entire population of the mountain to congregate in one place – though this had not happened for some time now to minimize contact and help prevent the spread of the Lamentation.

The monks walked the stretcher down the central aisle towards the huge window set high into the wall behind the altar. Brother Gardener had walked this same path, dragging the dead branch from the garden and unwittingly spreading the infection among the congregation. It was one of the last times they had all gathered together: one of the last times the mountain had been whole.

He turned and looked at the beds stretching away where the monks who had once stood here to worship now lay suffering and dying.

More people were emerging through the door, carrying stretchers and crates of medical supplies. He locked eyes with one of the newcomers, easily distinguishable from the monks by his anti-contamination suit, and walked over holding his hand up in greeting.

‘Welcome,’ he said, smiling though his mouth was hidden behind a surgical mask, ‘my name is Brother Athanasius.’

‘Dr Kaplan,’ the man replied, raising his own hand to return the non-contact greeting.

Athanasius gestured towards lines of beds filled with the infected. ‘I have arranged our sick on this side of the aisle. Those you have brought with you can be housed in the empty beds on the other side. Not much of a gap, I grant you, but it seems pointless to try and separate everyone in an enclosed environment such as this. We have certainly had no success in containing it ourselves.’

The doctor surveyed the large space, the beds, the patients, the monks moving around between them, busily guiding the newcomers in. ‘Is this everyone?’ he said, surprise evident in his voice.

‘Not quite all, some of our number did not agree with letting outsiders inside the mountain. The traditionalists have locked themselves away in another part of the mountain. What you see here is what remains. There are fifty-seven sick and thirty-two still unaffected. As you can see we are somewhat overwhelmed.’