by Simon Toyne
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?’
42
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.
43
By the time the sun dipped low enough to touch the horizon, Liv and Tariq were ready to leave. Following the discovery of Kasim’s theft everyone had decided they should try and get to Al-Hillah as planned, food or no food. They didn’t really have much choice.
They filled as many canteens as they could carry and drank freely from the pool to fully hydrate themselves before the long march ahead. One small consolation of Kasim’s clandestine departure was that he had not been able to take much water as filling the canteens at the pool would have been too obvious. As a result Liv and Tariq had plenty of spare water containers for their journey. They were heavy but Liv consoled herself with the thought that the more they drank, the lighter they would become.
The two of them set off with the sky still bright but the sun now gone, rising out of the depression in the ground like the dead coming back to life. Tariq led the way, past the dam and along the line of the river back towards the compound. Al-Hillah lay directly beyond. They had talked about taking a wide route to avoid the compound entirely, but with hunger already gnawing at their stomachs and the extra miles this would add to their journey they had decided to risk taking the direct route instead, timing their march so they could creep past it as close as they dared under cover of darkness.
Night fell quickly and so did the temperature. Liv pulled her clothes tight against the creeping cold but could still feel it slowly taking hold of her feet, numbing them as they trudged forward. Ahead of them the compound glowed into life as the battery-powered security lights switched on automatically, using power collected by solar panels during the day. She felt drawn to them, a moth to the light. ‘They seem brighter tonight,’ she said.
‘It’s because they’re getting closer,’ Tariq whispered, then pressed his finger to his lips. ‘We should keep quiet. Sound travels further in the still of a desert night.’ It felt good to be moving again and she found the tightness that had tugged at her as she walked away from the compound was lessening again with every step she took back to it.
For the next hour they walked in silence, settling into a steady pace, stopping occasionally to adjust anything on their packs that made a noise. It was in the soft silence of one of these stops that they heard it, a steady, rhythmic sound, rising and falling as the night breezes shifted it around. Liv titled her head towards it and Tariq did the same. Through the whisper of the wind they heard it again, the unmistakable thrum of a diesel engine.
‘Generator,’ Tariq whispered. ‘That’s why the lights are so bright. They must have fresh supplies of fuel and have switched on the main perimeter lights. Someone else must be there.’
Liv listened harder, trying to pick out any other sounds of life. She was listening so hard that when the new sound came, close and loud, it made her spin round in alarm. It had come from behind, a haunted, moaning sound from over by the river. The sound came again, rattling and wet and she saw what had made it. It was a man, shuffling up the bank, his breath coming in gasping, laborious moans.
Kasim.
Liv started to back away as his eyes locked onto her, so wide and staring that they seemed to glow in the night. A thick, viscous rope of dark drool leaked from his mouth and he raised an arm to point directly at her, his hand bent into a claw.
SaHeira, he said, his voice ragged and raw.
Witch.
Then he coughed, a fierce racking sound that brought him to his knees and sent him into convulsions. He rolled onto his back, fighting for air. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he started to spasm. Liv jumped as a hand fell on her shoulder. ‘Don’t look,’ Tariq said, trying to turn her away from the death throes.
Liv shrugged away, her eyes transfixed by Kasim, bucking and twitching on the ground, fighting for his final breath. He gave one last long shudder then was still.
‘Look,’ Tariq said, pointing past his body, ‘you were right.’
Kasim’s canteen drifted in the water where he had stopped to drink, driven by thirst and lack of supplies. Tariq stepped over the body and retrieved his backpack lying on the bank. Inside were the missing rations. ‘We need to get away from here,’ Tariq said, shouldering the bag. ‘He made too much noise. People will be coming to see what it was.’
Liv turned to the compound glowing brightly in the night, close enough now to pick out details. She could see the spindly structures of the guard towers, the shiny-sided buildings, the drill tower in the centre still throwing water high into the air; but no movement, and no people. She started walking towards it, following the line of the widening stream to its source at the centre of the compound. She did not want to look upon the agonized death mask of Kasim any more. But most of all she did not want Tariq to see the tears that had started to run down her cheeks. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying. Maybe it was exhaustion – or guilt. Wherever she went it seemed, people died – and she was weary of death. It seemed to walk alongside her, taking the lives of everyone she touched and driving others away. She couldn’t shake the growing feeling that it was she who was at the heart of all this misery – that she was the cause and the curse.
‘What are you doing?’ Tariq said, drawing level with her, his voice a low whisper so it would not carry.
‘I’m going back,’ she said, her eyes fixed on the compound. ‘And if they shoot me then they’ll be doing me and everyone else a favour. You go on to Al-Hillah if you want. I’m tired of running scared.’
She marched on, feeling relieved more than anything as the tension continued to unwind inside her. The ad
renalin of the incident with Kasim burned away leaving a gnawing sickness in the pit of her empty stomach and her muscles feeling heavy and weak. Ahead of her the compound opened up a little as her perspective shifted. She could see past the main building now into the wide central area where the derrick rose from the main pool of water. There was still no sign of life, no horses, no people. Maybe they had realized the water was poisoned and ridden away.
The compound opened up a little more and she saw two vehicles parked by the main transport hanger that hadn’t been there before: a jeep and a transport truck. It explained the fresh supplies of fuel. She was close enough now to read the registration plates and make out the logo on the side of the truck – a flower with the earth at its centre. The heat of hope warmed her exhausted muscles and she broke into a shambling run. It was the symbol of the international aid agency ORTUS – the charity Gabriel worked for. He had said he would come back. He had promised. Maybe he had …
She made it to the gate too exhausted from her sprint even to call out his name. She rattled the gate then found a stone on the ground and started banging it against the steel frame. The anvil clang echoed in the night like a chapel bell and she kept at it, beating the stone against the metal until it splintered in her hands.
A door opened on the side of the transport hangar, framing the silhouette of a man and Liv crumpled to her knees, all her energy spent. The figure hurried out of the door towards her and another followed. She could not make out details of their faces because of the bright lights shining behind them. She watched them draw closer, clinging to the gate to keep herself vaguely upright as hope drained steadily out of her. The way they moved, the slope of their shoulders, other tiny things told her, long before they reached the gate to open it, that neither man was Gabriel.