Whirlwind

by Hilary Norman

  ‘Fifty-six,’ Reaper interjected. ‘Fifty-six, mostly innocent, people.’

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Liza’s voice shook a little. ‘Reaper clarified that there are fifty-six people here. “Mostly innocent”, he said, whatever that means.’

  Remember the explosives.

  ‘But – and this is terribly important – whoever arrives here first will need to be very careful’ – Liza panned back to the fire exit – ‘because all the doors are wired, and I’ve been assured that those explosives are real, and I don’t know much about weapons …’

  She swiveled the camera across to Joel, zoomed in first on his balaclava-covered face, then on the gun in his hands.

  ‘But those shotguns look real to me.’

  Up at the pulpit, Reaper raised his hand.

  ‘It looks as if something’s about to start happening, because Reaper has just signaled to me to stop.’ She took a swift breath. ‘This is Saint Matthew’s Church in the village of Shiloh, Rhode Island, where the Christmas Eve service was hijacked by gunmen over three hours ago. My name is Liza Plain, and I’m hoping that this live streaming is being picked up by the New England news stations and CNN, because this is breaking news, and we need your help now.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Her legs were shaking, adrenalin coursing through her, sweat trickling between her breasts, and she longed to sit down, shut down before she had to return to the drama – and that was how it felt, as if she were playing the part of a journalist caught up in this.

  Not playing a part. The real thing.

  Reaper was speaking, and she’d missed the beginning of it.

  Concentrate, Liza.

  ‘We have no demands,’ Reaper said, ‘other than to ask you to listen. Two members of Whirlwind are here mainly because that’s what they need, to be heard, because no one has listened to them.’

  All through the church, people shifted uncomfortably, William Osborn’s grunt of disgust audible, and Liza thought she heard Stephen grumbling, but did not allow herself to look at him. The general level of fear had subsided, she felt, at least temporarily, a greater awareness of discomfort taking over after more than three hours of sitting on hard pews under constant threat.

  The man called Jeremiah moved to the pulpit and Reaper stepped aside, sat down, Michael standing just a few feet away.

  ‘I guess you could call me the warm-up act,’ Jeremiah said.

  No one laughed.

  ‘Put down your gun and take off that mask,’ Eleanor Tilden called out boldly, ‘and maybe we’ll listen to you.’

  ‘It’s been ten years since this thing happened to me,’ Jeremiah told her, ‘and I never resorted to any kind of violence in all that time. I was just an ordinary man trying to get some simple justice for his dead daughter, but that didn’t work because, as Reaper said, no one was listening.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ John Tilden said, ‘get on with it then, so we can all go home.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Betty Hackett said from the third row.

  Jeremiah told his tale of loss and grievance, and in other circumstances, people might have been moved, Liza thought, but this was a man holding them prisoner, hiding his face from the outside world with a balaclava, and anyway, how could he imagine that his obsession with laying blame gave him the right to do this?

  No compassion being felt either for the next man, she thought, the one called Joel, a former MD with HIV contracted in the line of duty, his life fallen apart ever since.

  Hard luck stories not going to wash with this captive audience.

  ‘So what do you get out of taking us hostage?’ a man in the fourth row demanded as Joel stepped down from the chancel. ‘We all know life can stink – we don’t need to be threatened with bombs and guns to be told that.’

  ‘It’ll be money,’ Osborn said from the front. ‘It always is.’

  ‘They just wanted to be heard, one last time, Mr Osborn,’ Reaper said.

  And introduced Isaiah.

  Liza, chilled by the finality of ‘one last time’, watched Michael moving back to the pulpit.

  ‘Real name Michael Rider,’ she said into the mike. ‘The man who told us before we began this broadcast about that so-called miscarriage of justice. Rider told us there were people here tonight who were key witnesses, and Reaper asked those people, whoever they may be, to search their consciences.’

  ‘And now it’s time’ – Michael took over – ‘to ask if anyone here, whether they gave testimony or not back then, has remembered anything else relating to Alice Millicent’s murder. Anything significant enough to cast new light on the case?’

  ‘Last chance for honesty,’ Reaper said.

  And sat down.

  Last chance.

  Before what? Liza wondered.

  Chilled again.

  ‘Anyone?’ Reaper said, ironically, from his seat beside the pulpit.

  ‘Why can’t you let the dead rest in peace?’ Ann Jackson cried out.

  ‘Or at least let the younger people go,’ Jill Barrow called, ‘since they can’t have anything to do with this?’

  ‘Let the children out,’ Simon Keenan said. ‘Show some compassion.’

  ‘Can’t be done,’ Reaper said, implacably.

  ‘I was one of your so-called “key witnesses”.’

  The voice came from the front pew, on the north side of the aisle, and old Seth Glover was getting to his feet, and though Liza’s angle was poor, as he turned toward the pulpit she found a partial view of his craggy face.

  ‘And let me tell you I still know what I saw and why I gave evidence in court. I saw that poor child’ – his right forefinger stabbed the air – ‘climbing into Donald Cromwell’s Cadillac. It may be a long time ago, and I may be an old man now, but there’s nothing wrong with my mind, and if I close my eyes right now I can still see Alice as clearly as if it happened yesterday, and I still blame myself too, every single day, for not stopping her.’

  ‘You couldn’t have known,’ Osborn said, two seats away. ‘None of us could.’

  ‘That’s William Osborn,’ Liza said quickly, her voice low, ‘former editor, still proprietor, of the local newspaper. And the gentleman before that was Seth Glover, a Shiloh storekeeper at the time.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Glover,’ Michael said.

  ‘You’re not welcome,’ Glover said, and sat down.

  ‘Mr Osborn,’ Michael said. ‘The letter that Susan Cromwell, my grandmother, wrote to you.’

  ‘That again?’ Osborn shook his head impatiently. ‘Ramblings of an unstable woman, as I said.’

  ‘Did you really expect my husband to help a man he knew had murdered a little child?’ Freya Osborn demanded.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ Stephen Plain got to his feet.

  Liza panned back to the fifth row. ‘For the record, Dr Stephen Plain is my grandfather, and was Shiloh’s MD back at that time.’

  ‘And for your record’– Stephen was scathing – ‘Susan Cromwell wrote to me, too. After her husband’s suicide, in the midst of her appalling grief, and like Bill Osborn, I placed little credence in what she said, not least because Susan was on heavy medication.’

  ‘What did she say in her letter, Dr Plain?’ Michael asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t tell you even if I could,’ Stephen said. ‘I’m sure even you must have heard of patient confidentiality. Which still applies, especially given that your grandmother is still living.’

  ‘I can tell you what my letter said,’ Osborn said. ‘Anything to put an end to this. Susan got it into her head that the murder was her fault, that she felt she might have driven her husband to do such a terrible thing. I knew that was demented nonsense, so I took no notice.’

  ‘Do you know why she might have thought such a thing?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Because she’d lost her mind,’ Osborn said. ‘Maybe it runs in your family.’

  ‘Actually,’ Janet Yore said from the sixth row, ‘I think I might know.’

  Michael aske
d her name, and she gave it, her cheeks hot.

  ‘Though I’m not really sure,’ she said. ‘Oh, Lord, I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  ‘It could be crucial,’ Michael persisted. ‘I don’t want to push you, but—’

  ‘The hell you don’t,’ John Tilden erupted from the front row, south side of the aisle. ‘Any minute now you’ll be apologizing for the inconvenience. Am I the only person here who remembers that this is the night before Christmas, and we’re all being held against our will by a bunch of terrorists?’

  ‘But isn’t that what they always do?’ Mark Jackson said. ‘Get all buddy-buddy with hostages, make them think they’re on the same side.’

  ‘Stockholm Syndrome,’ Patty Jackson supplied.

  ‘I don’t care what they call it,’ Jackson said. ‘All I care about is getting out of here and home in time for my Christmas dinner.’

  ‘You’ll have a long wait,’ Ann Jackson said dryly, ‘since it’s still in the freezer.’

  The sound of laughter rippling through the church was like balm.

  Then the screaming started.

  Everyone froze, staring around.

  And then Liza saw.

  Young Grace Glover – no more than six or seven – was up on her feet at the front, clutching at her reindeer-embroidered green sweater, her face white.

  ‘I can’t breathe!’ she shrieked, and gasped for air. ‘I have to get out of here!’

  ‘It’s OK, honey.’ Adam Glover, her father, put his arms around her, pulled her close. ‘It’s going to be fine, sweetheart.’

  ‘But I can’t breathe!’ she sobbed.

  ‘Grace, calm down, baby,’ Claire Glover told her. ‘Come sit back down.’

  Liza’s eyes flicked to Michael, caught his upset, saw Reaper signal to Joel, the former doctor, already on his way, tracked him approaching the Glovers.

  ‘You stay away from us,’ Adam Glover told him.

  ‘I’d like to help,’ Joel said. ‘Does she have asthma?’

  ‘You’re making her worse,’ Claire Glover cried. ‘That mask’s terrifying her!’

  Joel stood stock-still for a second, and then he pulled off the balaclava and dropped it on the floor.

  ‘I can’t breathe, Mommy!’

  ‘We need a real doctor!’ Adam Glover shouted.

  Stephen Plain got up again, began to move.

  ‘Doc Plain’s coming,’ Glover told the child. ‘He’ll help you.’

  ‘No!’ Grace pulled away, panic overwhelming her. ‘I need to get out!’

  Liza saw, with horror, where she was heading.

  The fire exit left of the Stars and Stripes. The wired door.

  ‘Stop her!’ Michael yelled from the pulpit.

  Liza kept on recording, lifted the tripod with one hand, moving forward, working on automatic even while her heart was slamming in her chest, because this was all she could do, go on filming Grace Glover’s outstretched arms, her mother’s open-mouthed scream drowned in the shrieking mayhem all around her, Stephen Plain and Joel both stopped in their tracks, rigid with alarm—

  Adam Glover going after his daughter.

  ‘No!’ Michael bellowed. ‘The door’s going to blow!’

  The gunman named Luke stepped forward, right into the child’s path, but she evaded him, and he threw himself at her, brought her down less than three inches from the wired door.

  Shock silenced Grace for about two seconds, and then she began to struggle.

  ‘Let me go! Let me go!’

  ‘You’re OK, sweetheart,’ Luke told her. ‘Calm down so I can let you go.’

  ‘But I have to get out!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Claire Glover whispered, aghast. ‘The gun.’

  Liza zoomed closer, realized what the anguished mother had seen.

  The shotgun was wedged between the scarred man and the child.

  ‘Grace, you have to stop this now, honey.’ Adam Glover, right behind Luke, bent down, started to reach for her.

  Liza saw the unthinkable through the viewfinder.

  Grace Glover’s small right hand clutching at the shotgun.

  Heard Luke’s low sound of horror. ‘Honey, no – don’t touch that.’

  Liza saw the little fingers hook around the trigger, felt her heart stop.

  Saw which way the barrel was pointing.

  ‘No!’ the mother screamed. ‘Grace, no!’

  ‘Jesus,’ Luke cried, grappling for the weapon. ‘Honey, let go!’

  The shot reverberated all the way up to the vaulted ceiling, echoed around the nave.

  Liza ripped off her earphones and others covered their ears, deafened and disbelieving as the child collapsed back onto the floor, motionless, blood spreading over the embroidered reindeer on her sweater.

  Liza forgot about commentary, about the camera, her heart a sledgehammer now, her mind scarcely able to register the horror.

  Claire Glover screamed again. A drawn-out, piercing, heartbreaking sound.

  And the man called Luke stared down at the child, gave a long howl of purest anguish, extricated the shotgun from Grace’s limp grasp, released the trigger, turned the muzzle to his own scarred temple.

  And fired.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Moments passed.

  Outside, the storm still pounded.

  Inside, the longest, most terrible silence Liza had ever known.

  And then the sounds began again, the stunned congregation returning to life. Awful sounds of loud sobbing and soft weeping, a sense of utmost shock and renewed terror, pockets of intense anger rolling like waves from pew to pew, swiftly suppressed by fear, because what might rage achieve except more bloodshed?

  Around Grace Glover there was quiet, frantic activity, Stephen Plain on his knees, Rosie Keenan giving first-aid assistance. The retired doctor alternating chest compressions with mouth-to-mouth rescue breaths, the vicar’s wife fighting to stem the blood flow with pressure from clean handkerchiefs folded beneath her right hand.

  ‘You get away from her,’ Adam Glover snarled at Joel, the ashen-faced Whirlwind man standing by helplessly.

  Liza watched the gunman step away, shaking his head over and over, staring down at Luke’s body, and then, finally able to react, she averted the lens from the huddle on the floor, looked up at the chancel, saw that Reaper was back in the pulpit and that Michael was sitting on the floor, his face in his hands.

  She realized, abruptly, that she had not spoken since the first gunshot, knew that if there was anyone watching, they’d have seen and heard what had happened, but still, she had to make sure they had fully comprehended it.

  She put the earphones back on, checked her settings.

  ‘Two people have been shot,’ she said. ‘A child panicked and ran toward one of the wired exits. One of the gang members tried to stop her and she struggled and grabbed at his shotgun, which went off. She is critically injured, and two people are working on her right now.’ Liza’s voice choked and she cleared her throat. ‘The shooter, who was trying to help the child, then shot himself in the head and is almost certainly dead.’ She paused. ‘To anyone who’s listening to this, please, we’re in Saint Matthew’s Church, Shiloh Village, Rhode Island, and a child needs urgent medical attention now.’

  Stephen and Rosie Keenan were still working on Grace Glover, the vicar there too now, one arm around Claire Glover, who was rocking back and forth, both hands clasped over her mouth.

  ‘But please remember,’ Liza went on, and panned to the door, zoomed in on the cables and wiring, ‘if anyone is already outside, that all the exits have been booby-trapped with explosives and—’

  ‘No!’ Claire Glover’s cry was agonized. ‘You can’t just stop!’

  Liza’s heart turned over.

  Because Adam Glover had turned away from the group on the floor, his face contorted with grief, and Liza realized that he was making a move toward the shotgun still lying on the floor beside Luke’s body.

  The man called Jo
el saw too, got to it first.

  No violence in him, Liza saw that clearly, just common sense, and was grateful to him, because if Glover had reached the gun, what could he have done except maybe get himself shot?

  Keep talking.

  She did so, quietly but clearly.

  ‘And to the best of our knowledge, that means that as of’ – she checked the time – ‘two-twenty this Christmas morning, there are still at least six armed gang members inside this church.’

  ‘You’re doing great,’ Nemesis said, behind her. ‘Are you OK?’

  Liza wanted to hit her.

  ‘Get back in your position, Nemesis,’ Reaper said. ‘You too, please, Ms Plain.’

  The big man named Amos passed both women on his way to the front, retrieved Luke’s shotgun from Joel, directed him back to the south-east exit, then walked up the chancel steps and handed the spare weapon to Reaper.

  Liza panned across, canceled out her own voice on the mike switch and listened intently to Amos’s low, harsh voice.

  ‘How in hell could that have happened? The guy was a marine, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘He’s paid the price,’ Reaper said. ‘And now we have to go on.’ He began to cough, then mastered it. ‘The girl’s dead?’

  Liza caught the question, stared at them in the viewfinder, saw Amos nod, felt the thump of the tragedy deep inside herself.

  ‘Bad scene,’ Amos said. ‘A fucking mess.’

  ‘Nonetheless,’ Reaper said, ‘we go on.’

  Cold as stone, Liza knew now, for sure.

  No chance of reprieve for any of them.

  ‘Sir.’ Simon Keenan was facing the pulpit. ‘Do you have any objection to our moving this child into my parlor?’

  ‘By all means.’ Reaper turned around and found Jeremiah. ‘Go with them.’

  ‘Surely you can grant her family privacy now?’ Keenan’s face was hot with outrage.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Reaper said. ‘For their own safety.’