Not the End of the World

by Christopher Brookmyre

  Madeleine said nothing, but for a woman with such a petite head, her bottom jaw was getting impressively close to the carpet as her father’s idea was outlined.

  ‘That’s not what I’m concerned with,’ he countered, getting slightly heated. ‘I don’t know who the heck you are, mister, but that girl there is my daughter, and it’s her that I care about. Think about it, Madeleine. It’s possible for the example you’ve set, the sacrifice you’ve made, to remain, to become true. Think what an impact that would have on this country of ours, spiritually, how it would change our values, our philosophies. What it would teach people about humility, selflessness and repentance, the true meaning of Christianity. By keeping them in the belief that this suffering and sacrifice was real, think what a gift you would give to the people of America. To the people of the whole world.’

  ‘You mean like the Crucifixion?’ she asked, seemingly interested.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding enthusiastically.

  ‘Well Daddy,’ she sighed, ‘far as I can see, the main thing the suffering and sacrifice of the Crucifixion ever gave to this world was its biggest and most enduring excuse for more suffering and sacrifice. Jesus suffered, so should you. Jesus sacrificed, so should you. That’s pretty much been the logic. So if you think I’m going to help anyone give that vicious circle another spin, then you know where you can kiss.

  ‘Lenny Bruce was right. Jackie Kennedy didn’t dive across that back seat to protect her husband – she was trying to get away. Princess Di didn’t cure cancer or bring world peace – she was just a pretty lady with a warm heart who died too young. And I didn’t commit sacrificial suicide to make America repent its sins – I just pulled off a stunt so eighty-eight people didn’t get blown to pieces. The last thing this world needs is more mythologised lives and fake ideals, so that hypocrites like you can blame people for not living up to them.’

  She lifted her head, at last looking directly into her father’s face. He didn’t enjoy it.

  ‘I don’t want any new name or new identity, because apart from having a fuck like you for a father, I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t want to leave my past behind, because that’s who I am. All of it is who I am. You don’t like the idea of being in porn movies? Fine – don’t audition. But I don’t have a problem with what I did. I’m repenting nothing. And I’m not letting you, or Luther fucking St John, or anyone else use what happened out there today to further your bullshit crusades, because that’s what caused this thing in the first place. I have nothing to repent because I don’t accept your idea of sin, and I certainly don’t accept your fucking God.

  ‘My conscience is clear, Daddy,’ she told him, getting to her feet. ‘How’s yours?’ The Senator averted his eyes, suddenly finding the carpet the most fascinating thing in the room. It was way past time for Steff to guess.

  ‘Come on, then,’ she chided. ‘It was your idea for Madeleine Witherson’s life and death to become a shining example to America. Funny, I don’t remember seeing a Norman Rockwell painting where the smiling fifties father’s got his dick in the daughter’s mouth. And I guess I missed the episode of Little House on the Prairie when Michael Landon got Melissa Gilbert to jerk him off.’

  ‘What on God’s earth are you talking about?’ the Senator asked, his eyes squinting in puzzlement. It seemed a method performance to Steff. Brisko looked like a one-man hung jury, but you could see the cogs whirring and the pieces falling into place.

  ‘Oh spare me another encore of your river-in-Egypt number. You’d be better saving it for the cameras – or better yet, the court.’

  The Senator stood up, looking very shaken.

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ he blurted. ‘There isn’t a newspaper or TV station in this country that would risk its reputation or its finances on giving time to your – your sick allegations.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about a libel court, Daddy – I’m going to get you busted,’ she told him with smiling delight. ‘I’m going to press charges of child abuse. The only reason I never did it before was I was too fucked up and didn’t think I had the strength. Well, now that I’ve been blown up, ritually sacrificed and risen from the dead, I have to say I’m feeling a lot fucking stronger. And on top of that, I’m a national goddamn hero. I don’t have to worry about nobody listening to me any more. After this morning, they’re gonna be lining up around the block to hear my side of the story.’

  She walked to the window and pulled the curtains back a little, looking down at the scene outside. ‘Come on, Stephen,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘It’s time to roll the stone away. I’m sorry, Agent Brisko, but I’ll take my chances with the Militia men.’ Steff stood up and they began walking towards the door.

  ‘NO!’ the Senator shouted, bounding to the doorway to block their path. ‘You have to stop them,’ he ordered, staring across impatiently at Brisko.

  ‘Miss Witherson is free to do whatever she wants right now, Senator,’ he explained, standing up with his hands behind his back. ‘And she has my best wishes for whatever that might be.’

  Madeleine smiled a thank-you. Brisko just lowered his head and gave a little nod, his eyes closed.

  ‘I’d get oot the fuckin’ way if I was you, Jim,’ Steff advised the Senator. ‘I’ve not had the best couple of days and I’m still lookin’ for somebody to take it out on.’

  ‘You lay one finger on me, mister, and I’ll have you – ugh!’

  He flew back into the corridor and hit the wall with a wallop, slumping down and holding his hands to a messily bleeding nose.

  ‘You forgot to say anything about foreheads,’ Steff told him as they walked past, heading for the stairs.

  The camera crew looked like they were starting to pack up, having filed their last on-the-spot postscript report. All around the police cordons and beyond, there were other news crews and photographers also calling it a day, loading equipment into vans, litter blowing about their feet. The crowds having deserted when the show was over, the scene reminded Steff of the aftermath of a rock festival.

  The reporter, a slim and predictably blonde woman in a blue jacket, was chatting to her cameraman as they approached, turning around when she noticed him do a double-take.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ the reporter gasped.

  ‘No, not quite,’ said Madeleine, ‘but we’ve got a lot in common. Look, if you can get me live in two minutes, you got the scoop of the century, otherwise I keep walking and let the next crew spot me.’

  ‘James, get on to Brackley, make it happen, now,’ the reporter ordered. She turned back to Madeleine. ‘Can’t we start recording just now and then—’

  ‘I said live. And no seven-second delay, either.’

  They got the go-ahead from one of the technicians in a little less than ninety seconds.

  ‘Okay, we’re on in twenty,’ the reporter told Maddy. ‘Incidentally, why does it need to be live?’

  ‘Because I’m going to swear.’

  The reporter got the signal from her producer, who counted her down from five. She got as far as ‘Hi, this is Katie Law—’ before Maddy snatched the mike and stepped in front of the camera.

  ‘Let’s dispense with the foreplay, shall we? Because time is short and people may actually be drowning in the self-righteous bullshit that’s piling up around the country right now. So surprise, surprise, kids, I’m still here. That’s the scoop. We faked it, all right? We faked it. I want everybody to know I’m alive and well, and that no act of ultimate sacrifice took place here today, so I guess you can start retracting all the nice things you’ve been saying about me and I can go back to being a slut or a whore or whatever else you thought I was yesterday.

  ‘But the main thing I want everybody to hear is that what happened today was a necessary response to a terrorist threat, nothing more, so let’s all put the Bibles down for a minute and listen up. It’s the Piaf rap from now on, okay? My confession, my repentance, was as fake as my suicide.’

  The other camera crews had been alerted as
to who the woman in the bathrobe was, and began rushing across the grass, lugging equipment with them like prized possessions from a tenement fire. Cops began tearing after them, trying to form a makeshift human barrier so that no one got between Madeleine and the hotel.

  ‘I want everybody to know that I meant none of that crap,’ she resumed. ‘The bomber asked for it, he got it. I’m not a sinner, the people who were hostage on that boat weren’t sinners, and the people who died inside that building yesterday weren’t sinners either. You want to talk about morality? Let’s talk about the morality of the Reverend Luther fucking St John. Because whoever planted those bombs wasn’t influenced by watching porno videos or action movies or anything else that came out of Hollywood. He was influenced by watching CFC, by the hatred and bigotry that’s been pouring out of it towards me, towards the AFFM and in fact towards pretty much anything Luther takes a personal dislike to. You start telling people someone is the enemy of God and the enemy of America - that’s not a sermon, that’s a fatwah.

  ‘Luther’s been pretty happy to eulogise about me today, to turn me into some kind of latter-day parable for the consumption of his brain-dead flock. Well bad news, asshole, because I’m still here and your parable’s gonna have a new punchline. You want to talk about the morality of my life, Reverend? You want to talk about the morality of what I’ve done and what I believe? Then you come ahead and talk to me about it, head to head, face to face, before the cameras. I’ll meet you any place, any time. But until you do that, you keep your fucking mouth shut about Madeleine Witherson.’

  She handed the mike back to Katie Law, who seemed temporarily to have forgotten what it was for. The reporters clustered around the ring of cops began shouting questions, but Maddy was already walking away back to the hotel.

  ‘Golly,’ Steff said.

  She winked at him and smiled. ‘How would you put it back home Stephen? Get that up you?’

  ‘Close enough.’

  Luther had expected there would be frights and scares right up until the waters hit the coast, but in truth he’d thought Corby’s shenanigans must be the final shot out of left-field. Then Witherson’s ‘resurrection’ had pitched its own late curve-ball and forced him back up on to his toes. He had been so riveted to the TV screen after this deception was revealed - sitting rapt through the reaction, comment and bleeped-out re-runs — that he lost track of time, and when he was through reeling from the impact he remembered himself with a start and looked down nervously at his watch for reassurance. Fortunately, he was still on time. It wouldn’t have made a huge difference if he’d been a few minutes late, but he didn’t want Liskey thinking he had experienced any degree of cold feet.

  Luther felt nothing when he pressed the button, but nor had he expected to: no sense of moment, no surge of power. For his true hours of destiny were in the past and in the future, and such technical implementations were not gateways, but steps on the journey. If they entailed an option, then it was as emergency exits, points at which to bail out for those not strong enough to carry God’s burden to the finish.

  There was, in any case, no opportunity to dally over the action - for reasons either of relish or vacillation - as it had to be done at a precisely appointed time, and there was other vital work to follow. If his hand had wavered then it was only to double-check that his finger lay upon the correct button on the device, its keys and switches covered messily with black punch-tape to mask the original Cyrillic markings, the clumsy translations bearing their own sharp irony.

  There were times when he could almost hear God chuckle along at His own little jokes. ‘Termination,’ it said below the red execute button. Across from it was a yellow one marked ‘Abortion’. They had very different functions on the Ukrainian device, but were both terms for the same thing in Luther’s country, and very soon they’d both be redundant in that particularly distasteful context. By pushing that keypad he was terminating all abortions, aborting all terminations.

  With the button pressed there was no time for reflection, as his thoughts needed to turn immediately to how he should handle this new problem. He looked back at the television screen, turning up the volume with his remote control.

  ‘You have to say, Jack, this young lady has really turned the tables on Luther St John and the entire puritanical lobby, laying a big chunk of the responsibility for what has happened at their door. She’s effectively accused CFC of being a bad influence, pointing the finger at it the way St John has been pointing the finger at mainstream movies and TV channels.’

  ‘Yes, Barbara, she’s certainly thrown a gauntlet down, and it’s going to be very difficult for Luther St John to have any credibility on these subjects unless he picks it up. What’s happened this afternoon has left a lot of people out on a limb they thought it was pretty safe to climb before Maddy Witherson reappeared, none more than the good Reverend. And now if he wants to talk about Hollywood, or pornography, or any of the issues arising from this, he’s got to talk to her first or he’s going to look chicken.’

  ‘Thanks, Jack. And now, back to Don Arnold at the scene in Glendale. Don, have the police . . .’

  His first instinct was to agree to a debate with her in a couple of days, even tomorrow night; this was one of the rare occasions in life when he could ignore something and it would go away. Same time tomorrow she’d probably be dead, especially if she was still in Santa Monica, and it would be a long while before anyone started talking about her again.

  But it wouldn’t be for ever, and that was the problem. Over the past twenty-four hours the eyes of America had been focused on that girl like they’d never been on a single person before, and her ‘suicide’ would be etched on people’s minds as deeply as the JFK assassination. After tomorrow, whenever people thought of the tidal wave, they’d think also of the events and the words that preceded it. Dead or alive, Madeleine Witherson would hang over him like a cloud, casting a shadow of doubt on all he had to say.

  Unless he took her on.

  Faith turns every obstacle into an opportunity, the Lord had taught him. He shouldn’t view it as a pitfall, but a platform: the perfect curtain-raiser ahead of the main event. Witherson was the one who had said ‘any place, any time’. Then let her come here, to the CFC studios, where he could literally call the shots.

  He would be statesmanlike, deferential and utterly magnanimous. Instead of snatching back his compliments, he would treat her with the reverence appropriate to his earlier words, as a brave, strong and ultimately good person. As though, despite her fury, he knew that deep in her heart she had seen the light. He would extend her every courtesy. He’d fly her to Arizona in his private Lear, treat her as a visiting dignitary, not an opponent. Under the studio lights, he would discuss, not argue; posit, not pronounce. If still she raged, he’d depict her as someone with every reason to be angry, but whose energies were — equally understandably — misdirected.

  He’d get to say his piece, she’d get to say hers. They would talk about Hollywood. They would talk about pornography. They would talk about morality.

  He would dispense the Lear to fly her home again.

  And then the Lord would pass His verdict on who was right.

  Three red windows lit up without warning on the warhead’s display panel, then two of them blinked off again. Liskey felt like his entire circulation system had been put on hold for a second, and he’d come uncomfortably close to crapping in his wetsuit. He hoped Rooke hadn’t come any nearer himself; they’d be long enough in the decompression chamber without one of them smelling of shit.

  ‘Jesus, I thought . . .’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Liskey said with a dry laugh. ‘It’s okay. Just St John’s signal arming the bombs.’

  ‘Too bad about Vern buyin’ it,’ Rooke observed. ‘Fucker bet me a hundred that cometh the hour the preacherman wouldn’t have the balls.’

  ‘Too bad, yeah. Shit, I’d have taken some of that action myself. Look at this, he’s bang on time - which makes us behind schedule.
Let’s finish this thing off A-sap.’

  Liskey looked at his watch again and shook his head. Damn right he’d have fronted Vern a hundred on that one, poor bastard. He’d known Luther St John for a good few years now, and since this plan’s inception he’d never doubted for a second that the man would go through with it. St John traded on his faith in God, but it was his faith in himself that was his engine. He was so cool, with the restraint of a man who doesn’t have to strive because he knows he’s in control. Like the way he handled the whole prediction thing, resisting the temptation to get too specific, even in recent days when they knew the precise timetable. Liskey had asked him why he didn’t up the ante, tell America the catastrophe was at hand, name the goddamn day.

  ‘People will feel awe if I give them the impression I know God’s mind,’ he told him, ‘but God must remain an unfathomable entity. If I give the impression I know God’s appointment schedule, they’ll just feel suspicious.’

  Motherfucker never skipped a beat, no matter what came up. There was no point in even asking him whether Nately and Vernon’s deaths changed anything. It hadn’t been the ideal outcome, losing two men and possibly connecting Corby to the Militia, but the op’s basic purposes were served: kill the bomber, wipe the computers, erase all links to St John.

  Liskey wasn’t worried about the Feds thinking the Militia had been in on the Pacific Vista thing. Apart from the stark fact that they hadn’t, all evidence pointing either direction was about to be washed away for ever. And if some day, after everything that was about to happen, someone ever remembered about the two other bodies found at Corby’s place, ‘Well, officer, we had no idea these upstanding Militia members were consorting with such a dangerous individual, and it certainly wasn’t in any capacity representative of our organisation.’

  He looked through the window again at the warhead, gripped by the sub’s mechanised arms in front of the vehicle, powerful twin floodlights peering into the depths before it. This was the last one to be positioned.