YES, SISTER MARTHA. SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY IS GOING TO happen. I feel it, too.
I’m on the second level when I hear what sounds like bell ropes vibrating in the breeze. I stop and listen, straining to hear over the hum of traffic in the valley. It’s coming from somewhere above me.
I move up one more story, clasping the Beretta with both hands, stop and listen again. This time, it’s more distinct. Not the bell ropes. A low murmur. A voice.
I look at my watch. The second hand has stopped. I must have damaged it when I jumped off the wall. What do I do when I get to the top? Do I shoot him? I look at the gun and place my foot on the step that will take me up to the final level – the level from which the murmur has become the sound of a man at prayer.
When hope is lost, Joshua, faith can still be found.
I set the gun down. It makes the slightest of clinks, metal on stone.
The murmuring stops.
I reach a doorway, take a breath and step through it, into the bell chamber.
A warm wind blows through the eastern arch. A man, taller than me, is standing in the far left corner. He is wearing the black robe of a monk or a priest. His back is to me. His head is bowed.
A backpack sits on the floor in front of him.
‘You’re here,’ he says in English. His accent is somewhere between Russian and Arabic.
‘I’m not armed.’
‘I know.’
He turns.
Pale skin, bearded, framed by flowing black hair. His blue eyes have an intensity Gapes’s sketch captured precisely. They seem to look right through me, into the depths of my soul.
I glance at the backpack.
‘You’re afraid,’ he says.
‘Of course.’
‘Fear kills our ability to think – but you don’t need me to tell you that.’ He inhales deeply. ‘So let us agree not to be.’
He leans back against the wall and lowers himself to the floor. ‘This isn’t going to end the way you think it is.’ He gestures in front of him.
I hesitate.
‘Itfadl,’ he urges. Please.
I sit too.
We are less than a meter and a half apart. He turns and gazes out across the city.
‘The fifth surah of Verse 32 of the Holy Qur’an tells us: Whoever saves a life, it is as though he has saved the world.’ He looks at me. ‘Do you know this verse?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘From Iraq.’
He studies me.
‘I’m a doctor. I was supposed to save lives there.’
‘And did you?’
‘Not enough.’
The breeze rises. He turns his face toward the arch and breathes it in.
‘What do you know about me?’
‘Your name. Where you’re from.’
‘What they made me do?’
‘Yes.’
‘And why I am here?’
I hesitate. The backpack is sitting between us. I can’t take my eyes off of it. ‘What does it take to trigger the bomb?’
‘The same energy it takes to save a life.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means there comes a time when the two go hand in hand,’ he says. ‘It means also that I am here for you.’
‘Me?’
He stares beyond the arch again. The silence starts to vibrate in the space between us.
‘You said you are a doctor.’
‘Yes.’
‘And yet it is very clear to me you are the one in need of healing.’
‘My wife … I …’
He raises his hand and holds his thumb and forefinger fractionally apart. ‘You know, don’t you, not even this much separates you.’
I nod. Yes. But without her, life has lost all meaning.
He shakes his head. ‘No, Joshua, it hasn’t.’
I hadn’t told him my name. I hadn’t even articulated the thought. ‘Mind games, Danilovsky?’ I glance again at the backpack.
‘Close your eyes,’ he says.
‘Is this the end?’
‘No. The beginning. Close your eyes. For Hope. Pray.’
My skin prickles. The wind drops.
I do as he says.
‘What do you hear?’
Nothing, except the rush of blood in my ears.
‘Listen,’ he says.
I breathe in and hear it: a heartbeat that’s not mine.
I open my eyes.
I’m standing on the porch of our beach house. Hope is beside me, her head tilted to one side as she considers the brushstrokes she’s just applied to her canvas. The portrait of Jack. Not the work in progress in my guest room, but the finished portrait from the cabin.
There are tears in her eyes. She turns to me, smiles and brushes the hair from her cheek.
I breathe in her perfume, a gentle undertone to the scent of the ocean. Feel the breeze on my face.
Oh my God. Am I dreaming?
‘No, Josh.’ She takes my hand and lifts it to her face. ‘I’ve been here all along. You just haven’t been able to see me clearly.’
‘Jack’s portrait?’
‘You knew what it meant as soon as you opened your mind.’
‘The voice?’
‘Of course.’
‘In the V-22?’
‘And all the other times you’ve needed it.’
I don’t dare move. If I take my eyes off of her, even for a second, I’m going to wake up.
‘What is this place?’
She smiles. ‘What does it feel like?’
‘Home.’
She touches my face. ‘It is home.’
‘The little girl holding the balloon. On the peace march in Stockholm. Is she …?’
‘Beautiful. Just beautiful. Her father’s daughter.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Out playing. With friends. We’re together. You, me, her. And we’re happy. I promise. Where we were – where you are – is where we learn, where we grow. And it’s so very nearly over.’
‘What is?’
‘What you have to do.’
‘I don’t want to leave. I want to stay. With you.’
‘You don’t need me, Josh. Not anymore. Not in the way you think.’
‘You’re wrong.’ My voice catches.
‘You have the courage to do this,’ she says.
‘Do what?’
‘To finish it.’
I shake my head. ‘No …’
‘It’s OK.’
‘We haven’t talked enough. I—’
‘What is there to say?’
‘I’m so … sorry …’
‘What for?’
‘For the crash. For … everything.’
‘None of that matters. Really.’
‘It matters to me.’
‘Let it go. It wasn’t you.’ She pauses. ‘And it wasn’t me.’
‘Then … what …?’
‘It was something we had to do.’ She leans forward and kisses me. ‘Trust, my darling. Everything is going to be all right, because it was meant. You. Me. All of it. Didn’t I always tell you about the people who were going to live because of you? Well, now’s the time.’
She looks around us.
‘This will be here – we will be here – waiting for you. But right now you have to go back.’
She reaches out to me. ‘It’s all right, Josh. It’s all right.’
I take her hand and the world slews.
When I open my eyes, everything rushes at me in high definition.
The Engineer is standing in the corner of the room.
The component parts of the ballotechnic are stacked neatly on the backpack by his feet. It resembles a child’s puzzle. There’s hardly anything to it.
‘Do you understand now?’ he says. ‘That’s how much she loves you, Joshua. That’s how much I …’
He stops, listens, his head cocked to one side.
‘What is it?’
‘They’re here.’
‘Who?’
‘The people who are preparing to storm the tower.’ He looks at me. ‘It’s time to go.’
I glance at the disassembled pieces.
‘You’re giving yourself up?’
‘Yes,’ he says. An unearthly light shines in his eyes and the wind rushes in, bringing with it the chant of the mu’ezzin.
And something else.
The music of the bells. Church bells.
‘Come,’ he says. ‘Take me to them. Before the killing begins.’
The breeze stays on my back as we start down the steps. The Engineer is beside me, a pace or two to my right. I am aware of the rising temperature outside, but in the tower, it remains cool. The shooting pains in my side have gone. And I know they won’t be back.
On the third level, I glance down. The gun is exactly where I left it. As I step over it, I glance at my watch. It’s working again.
The sounds of the city grow louder the further we descend.
When we reach ground level, the Engineer is about to step outside.
I place my hand on his shoulder. ‘Best I go first.’
‘And if they shoot?’
‘They’re less likely to shoot me than you.’
I tell him to shed his robes. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt underneath.
‘Lose the T-shirt too.’
He takes it off. I place his clothes in a pile at the bottom of the steps. I then open the door a crack and shout for Hetta.
‘Josh?’
Her voice is muffled. She must be thirty, maybe forty meters away.
‘Yes.’
I still can’t see her.
‘I’m coming out, Hetta. I have Danilovsky with me. He’s unarmed. The bomb is at the top of the tower. He’s disassembled it. Send somebody up. He’s coming with me.’
I fully open the door and lead the Engineer outside.
A guttural command crackles across the courtyard: ‘Down! Fuckin’ down!’
My momentary hesitation is met by a chorus of yells. ‘Down! Or we shoot!’
‘On your knees!’
‘Do it now!’
‘Now!’
A second later, my face is in the dirt. I hear the crunch of their feet on the gravel.
‘Stay still!’
‘Don’t fucking move!’
Somebody kicks my hand away from Danilovsky’s.
The muzzle of an assault rifle is drilled into the back of my neck, and I’m yanked to my feet. There are around ten of them, in black tactical gear.
I glance right as the butt of an M4 catches the Engineer in the side of the head. He drops to his knees. Somebody rabbit-punches him in the kidneys. He gasps for air.
I’m head-locked. I can’t move.
I hear boots tearing up the tower behind me.
‘Hey!’
Hetta’s voice. She chambers a round and the effect is instantaneous. The guy who has my neck in a vise lets me go.
To my right, the Engineer has curled into a ball. Hetta is standing a meter and a half away, her aim alternating between the head of the black-clad SEAL who’s been kicking the shit out of him and the head of the guy who’s been holding me.
‘Secure the prisoner,’ she says. ‘Any of you sons of bitches so much as lays a finger on him, I swear I’ll shoot you myself.’
One of the SEALs pulls Danilovsky to his feet.
Another takes his arms and pulls them behind his back.
A third cuffs him.
I take several steps back to a low wall. I watch them take the Engineer away. A minute later, Hetta comes and sits beside me. ‘What happened up there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘He was waiting for me.’
‘On the first level?’
‘No. At the top.’
‘That’s not possible, Josh. You were in there for barely a minute. We got lucky. One of the SEALs’ patrols was passing at the bottom of the Mount when I made the call. They showed up seconds after I left you.’
She looks at me. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
I’m spared from answering by her radio.
She glances up at the tower and says: ‘Go ahead.’
‘Agent Hart?’
‘Yes.’
‘The deuterium–tritium pellet. It’s missing.’
The Suburbans are parked up outside the gates, no more than fifty meters away. Hetta launches herself toward them. I’m right behind her. As we round the corner, five agents, alerted by the same message, are leaping out of two of the other three vehicles.
The middle one’s doors are closed. Nothing is visible behind its blacked-out windows.
The lead agent tugs on the rear nearside handle. It won’t give. Hetta is five meters behind him. I’m three paces behind her.
There’s a flash from inside, so bright the agent is hurled to the ground.
I see what looks like a photographic negative of Hetta by the door, weapon drawn. She puts two rounds into the lock and pulls it open.
‘That is not possible,’ she says. ‘That is not fucking possible.’
The interior of the Suburban is clear. Not a trace of flash burn. Not so much as a wisp of smoke. The two escorts are on the rear seat, heads in their hands. Both of them are yelling they can’t see. I glance down. A pair of locked cuffs sits between them.
And Danilovsky has vanished.