The Tower (41 page)

Most of the library was organized according to date and origin, with the newest items nearest the entrance. But the contents of the Crypta Revelatio were drawn from every culture, every century and every part of the world. It was a collection with one unique subject in common: all of the texts and references gathered there contained prophetic accounts of the end of the world.

He made his way over to the far side of the vault and held his dying candle to a fresh one until the new wick caught and wavering orange light rippled across a desk entirely buried beneath books and sheets of paper filled with Malachi’s dense handwriting. Collapsing in the seat at his desk, he grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and took up his pen. His hand shook as he wrote, his lips moving as he recalled the symbols he had seen. He had not been able to memorize them all in the short time, but he had seen enough. He drew the symbols from memory, writing his interpretation of each next to it so he could capture as much of it as he could remember: one sign for a rider – a warrior on horseback; one sign for the Citadel, which occurred more than once; and at the very end of the prophecy the symbol of a skull – meaning death or an end – followed by the moon in the sun, representing a day.

End of Days.

He pulled the candle over and his magnified eyes moved behind the lenses of his spectacles, his skittish hands extensions of his tumbling thoughts as they searched through the accumulated mass of doom that spilled across the table top and down to the floor, looking for one item in particular. He had read and re-read the documents so many times that the terrible imagery and predictions they contained bled into his dreams as he slept here each night in his nest of prophesies.

He found what he was looking for buried beneath the handwritten, original manuscript of the
Poetic Edda
and a first edition of
Les Propheties
by Michel de Nostredame. The text was written on papyrus in Ancient Greek and bound into a codex with thin strips of leather. Such binding was usually reserved for pristine texts but these pages were filled with crossings out and additions crammed in the borders and between every line.

Malachi turned the pages, his hands touching only the edge of each page in recognition of the great delicacy of the book. It had arrived in the Citadel barely a hundred years after the death of Christ, shortly after it was written on the island of Patmos. Any Christian scholar with a passing knowledge of Greek would have instantly recognized the apocalyptic imagery of dragons and lambs that whispered up from the dry pages. It was the Book of Revelation of Saint John the Divine, the last book of the Holy Bible, written in the saint’s own hand.

The first copies of the Bible had been compiled and written in this very library, using the original texts as reference. But not everything had been copied into the official, public version everyone now knew. Under the supervision of the earliest scholars whole books had been omitted in order to help clarify God’s meanings. And anything that alluded too closely to the Citadel or the Sacrament was also omitted so the secrets would remain so. But the complete visions and prophecies of Saint John had been preserved in this, the one remaining copy of the original work. Malachi found the page he was looking for and scanned the confusion of crossings out and notes until he found the seventh verse:

The same version was written in every Bible on the face of the earth. But in this Codex there was an additional part that had been marked for exclusion by one of the fathers of the Church because of the direct reference to the Citadel.

And what had Athanasius – that fool – told him about the man who had cheated death and recovered from the blight? That he had ridden to the Citadel on a horse, and that his name was Gabriel.

What had they done?

The Revelation of St John the Divine and the prophecy etched on the stone both predicted the end of days – and Athanasius had made it all happen. He had lit the fuse to something that would blow everything apart.

Malachi closed his eyes and tried to think. There had been constellations etched onto the stone too and moon symbols denoting a time frame. Maybe the end was not here yet, Maybe it could be avoided. He re-read the words of the Saint, looking for fresh meaning in them, his eyes drawn to one phrase in particular:

What had Athanasius said about the demon, the one who called itself Gabriel? That it was recovering from the blight, and that they had taken it to the Abbot’s private chambers to recover while they conducted their tests and pandered to it, slaves already without even knowing it – the fools. But Athanasius had also said something else – that it was still weak, not fully recovered. And he knew a way to the Abbot’s private chambers through the stairways and corridors leading up from the locked reading room of the Sancti. And Malachi had the key. There was yet time to vanquish it, but he would have to strike quickly, before it grew too strong.

Franklin drove back into Charleston the same way he’d driven out. He had borrowed Sinead’s car, preferring the indignity of turning up to an arrest in a Hyundai Elantra to the pain and probable rejection of asking Marie if he could borrow her Chevy Malibu.

Jackson met him with two other uniforms as arranged at a gas station twenty miles outside the city limits. They drove back into town the wrong way on the empty lanes of the outbound interstate, lights flashing and sirens blaring in case they met anything coming the other way. The traffic on the inbound lane was as bad as it had been before and they drew envious glances as they blew past from all the people behind wheels, still waiting patiently in line and inching their way back home.

They killed the sirens and lights when they made it downtown and the traffic started to thin again. They weaved through the snow-softened streets and parked round the corner from Cooper’s church where Franklin went through his strategy for the take- down, the layout of the building, the number of people likely to be inside. He even called up a picture of Cooper on his phone to show them. The cops barely looked at it. Everybody knew who Fulton Cooper was.

They checked their weapons and put on body armour vests. Due to some mess-up they had only brought three so Franklin decided to do without. He couldn’t imagine Cooper was going to put up any kind of a fight. They went through it all one last time then split up, the two uniforms heading round the back to cover the rear entrance just in case the good Reverend lost his faith in the Lord and decided to make a run for it.

Franklin and Jackson took the front. Franklin yanked hard on the bell pull and heard it ring somewhere inside the building. There were lights on and the most recent update from the Eavesdropper log suggested that Cooper, or his phone at least, had still been in the building as of ten minutes ago. Franklin reached into the gap between the mailbox and the wall to retrieve the crumpled pack of cigarettes with the bug inside.

Snow fell. They waited.

A light came on above them, lifting them from the dark and throwing their shadows out onto the blank whiteness of the road. Miss Boerman appeared in the doorway and regarded them with a look as cold as the ground they stood upon. ‘Yes?’

‘Is the Reverend in?’ Franklin asked.

‘Can’t this – whatever it is – wait until tomorrow?’

‘No.’ Franklin noticed her shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, a small thing but on her it seemed as though he’d caught her half-dressed. Her hand rose to her shirt collar and her face hardened. ‘I’m afraid he’s unavailable.’ The fine scar on her face wrinkled as she spoke. Franklin wondered if it was the reason she never smiled.

‘Mind if we come in and see for ourselves?’

‘Do you have a warrant?’

‘What, you mean like this?’

Jackson held up the signed paperwork he had managed to hustle out of the one judge who was still in town and answering his phone and Franklin enjoyed the surprise that registered on the blank mask of her face. She looked up, still making no further move to unlock the gate.

‘OK, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.’ Franklin opened his hands in his I’m-being-reasonable-here manner. ‘You have exactly three seconds to open this gate or I’m going to shoot the lock off and arrest you for obstruction of justice, sound fair?’

He held up three fingers.

Then two.

He reached into his jacket for his gun.

She stepped forward and jabbed a key into the lock, twisting it open and standing aside to let them in.

‘Where is he?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Well take a guess and make it a good one.’

‘He’s probably at prayer, in the chapel.’

‘You think so or you know so?’

Her hand went to her collar again. ‘He’s there.’

‘Where is it?’

‘In the basement, down the side stairs you went up earlier.’

‘Is he alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anyone else in the building I should know about?’

‘The church is closed.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘No. There’s no one here but Fulton and myself.’

Franklin smiled. ‘Thank you, miss. You have been most helpful. Why don’t you wait here until we’re done.’

He pushed through the front door and into the warmth of the entrance hall with Jackson following close behind. The phone room was empty and so was the post room. They continued through to the narrow stairs and headed down, Franklin’s steps loud on the bare boards, announcing his approach to whoever might be listening in the basement. He reached the bottom and waited for Jackson to join him. ‘You set?’

A short nod.

‘OK, let’s do it.’

They moved together through the gloom towards a solid wooden door that swung open easily on well-oiled hinges to reveal a small chapel beyond lit by sunlight miraculously pouring through a large stained-glass window. Cooper was on his knees in front of it, head bowed, hands in front of him where they couldn’t be seen.

‘Hello, Reverend,’ Franklin said, moving to the centre of the room. ‘Sorry to burst in on you like this but I was just dying to introduce you to a friend of mine. Detective Jackson of the Charleston PD, meet the man we’re here to arrest for conspiracy to murder.’

Cooper didn’t move. Franklin glanced over at Jackson. ‘You want to Mirandize him while he’s saying his goodbyes to the Lord?’

Franklin sat down on one of the benches while Jackson read Cooper his rights. He felt suddenly tired from the long and event-filled day. Driving away from Marie and Sinead had taken more out of him than he thought. At least Cooper wasn’t kicking and screaming. He watched the Reverend lower his hands and look up at the cross built into the design of the window. ‘Might I ask on what evidence you are arresting me?’

‘You might.’ Franklin produced his phone and played the intercepted phone message, Cooper’s voice sounding thin and tinny on the small speaker. He switched it off before it got to the end.

‘You really have no idea what all of us are facing here, do you?’ Cooper said.

Franklin smiled. ‘Feel free to enlighten me,’ he said wearily, ‘though you would be advised to keep it short as everything you now say constitutes evidence that can be used against you in a court of law.’

‘Whose law – the law of man? The law of governments? What fear I of such flawed and inadequate things?’

‘Well now, let’s see, they still have the death penalty in this state, so that’s one thing. Then there’s the lengthy custodial sentence you’ll get either way where you may well be stuck in a tiny jail cell with a huge, horny dude by the name of Bubba or somesuch, that would certainly put the fear of God into me.’

‘There is only one law I answer to, and that is the law of Jesus Christ the Saviour, and He is close at hand. He knows who serves Him and who does not. And He will gather the righteous to His side when the time comes.’

The suddenness and speed of Cooper’s movement took Franklin totally by surprise. One moment he was kneeling on the floor, the next he was across the floor and behind the solid wooden lectern. Franklin automatically dropped down, snatching his gun from his shoulder holster and using the bench as cover. Out of his peripheral vision he saw Jackson break right and do the same.

‘We know about the rear exit, Cooper, and it’s covered, ‘Franklin shouted. ‘There’s no way out of this.’

‘That, my friend, is where you are wrong.’ Cooper rose from behind the lectern, a gun in his hand, pointing straight at Franklin.

Instincts honed over a lifetime of service flooded Franklin’s brain, producing the slow, hyper-sensory state that existed in the middle of a live gunfight.

He saw Cooper’s knuckle glow white as it tightened on the trigger.

Vest. He wasn’t wearing a vest.

He heard his own breathing, loud and slow as he took a breath and held it. Felt the re-coil jolt his arm, saw the flash of his gun firing, then again, along with the slow, deep boom of both shots as they echoed in the chapel. He watched through the smoke as Cooper spun away and fell, his gun falling from his hand as he hit the stone floor. Franklin was already moving, driven forward by muscle memory, leading with his gun to make sure Cooper was properly down while part of his brain checked for any signs that he had been hit.