Tuesday, 22 December 2015
5:04 P.M.
“Police! Move!” yelled Baxter, as the heaving throng inched gradually toward the blocked stairway. She scanned the crowd for Keaton. After a moment, she spotted him. He was already at the foot of the stairs, glancing back anxiously, looking for her.
As he began his scramble above ground, she could see that he was holding something.
“Eyes on Keaton!” she shouted into her radio. “Bakerloo stairway, heading up. Be advised: suspect has something in his hand. Treat as a trigger until we confirm otherwise.”
A gap opened up in front of her. She pushed through, gaining several meters in just a couple of seconds.
“Disarm by any means necessary.”
“Baxter, can you hear me?” wheezed Rouche as he ascended the emergency stairwell at the far end of the platform, his damaged microphone screeching back at him uselessly.
He was still able to hear the rest of the team’s transmissions as he joined the hordes rushing toward fresh air. Holding his wounded shoulder, he struggled against the current, searching for where the endless river of people was emerging from.
There was a loud crackle of distortion in his ear.
A moment later, he spotted a dark shape on the ground up ahead. Flickering between hurrying legs, he could make out the shape of a body-armored officer lying facedown at the top of the escalators.
“Shit!” He looked back at the sea of people disappearing through exits all around him.
With slightly more space to maneuver, the evacuees were now moving at walking pace toward the waiting night.
They were running out of time.
He ran blindly into the crowd, barging a route through the crush as he searched in desperation for Keaton.
“Officer down! Officer down! Top of the Bakerloo escalator,” Baxter announced into the radio, only realizing that it was Special Agent Chase as she checked for a pulse.
She didn’t find one.
At each of the exits, a lone FBI agent faced the impossible task of locating a single face among the army of people advancing toward them. Meanwhile, London Underground staff struggled to hold a swarm of inconvenienced commuters at bay outside the station’s entrance.
Out of the hundreds of people hurrying away from her, just one glanced back.
“Keaton’s ten meters from Exit 3!” she updated the team. “Do . . . not . . . let him out!”
She started pushing forward, relief washing over her when she spotted Rouche beyond the open ticket barriers, making a beeline for Keaton.
“Rouche!” she called after him.
He was too far away to hear her.
Rouche had noticed the man with the scar looking back every few seconds.
The man, however, had failed to notice Rouche.
Following directions to Regent Street, St. James’s, and Eros, he was only a few congested meters behind as they started to pass the threshold into the building storm.
“Keaton!” Rouche tried to yell, pointing toward him, his hoarse whisper almost inaudible. “It’s Keaton!”
The agent hadn’t heard him, but Keaton had, looking back to discover just how close his pursuers were.
Rouche caught sight of the black device in his hand as Keaton lowered his head and passed within inches of the FBI agent, breaking into a run the moment he emerged into the freezing night.
Rouche clambered up the stairs to join the mayhem on the street, the metal wings of Anteros silhouetted against the iconic neon signage. The evacuation of the station had spilled out onto the road, bringing the heart of the city to a complete standstill, car headlights stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Beneath the starless sky, the blue snow fell unabated, lit by the flashing lights of emergency-service vehicles. The sudden drop in temperature burned his lungs. A stabbing, short, sharp coughing fit deposited watery blood into his hand as he spotted Keaton running southeast along Regent Street.
Rouche took off after him along the busy pavement, weaving between the oversized jackets and armfuls of shopping bags, the warm blood trickling down his sleeve painting a meandering trail for Baxter to follow.
Baxter waited for a break in the frantic transmissions.
It sounded as though every siren in the city was wailing, her earpiece crackling with harried updates from SO15 as they closed in on another of the bombers:
“Requesting air support,” she panted into the radio. “DCI Baxter in pursuit of . . . Lucas Keaton . . . along Regent Street . . . towards the park.”
Nearly twenty meters behind, she reached the crossroads with Pall Mall, almost colliding with a scooter that was darting in and out of the stationary traffic. She continued along Waterloo Place, the bronze figures that reside there emerging ominously out of the blizzard.
Baxter sprinted between them, her radio buzzing in her ear, fighting to make itself heard over the howling wind as she reached the steps that descended toward the dark void that was St. James’s Park.
“Lost sight of suspect,” one of the assorted voices announced in her ear as she eavesdropped in on their operation. “Does anyone have eyes? Does anybody have eyes on suspect?”
“Confirmed: northeast corner of the square . . . No clear shot.”
Rouche couldn’t breathe and he was losing ground, Keaton’s spectral silhouette flickering on the far borders of his vision.
Suddenly, the roar of helicopter rotor blades sliced through the night air, a searchlight blinding him before sweeping toward the entrance of the park, illuminating the monument standing guard—a dark angel, rendered in blackened bronze. Azazel.
And then it was gone, the circle of light chasing blindly after Keaton as Rouche stamped dark footprints across the pristine frozen scene. Ahead of him, the snow-laden weeping willows were bent double over the icy water, as if the lake had lured them in, only to freeze while they drunk greedily from it.
The city had disappeared, nothing but the storm existed beyond the borders of the park. As they reached an open space, Rouche released the magazine from his gun and reloaded.
He ceased his pursuit and took aim, the frozen lake reflecting the spotlight back up at the heavens.
Keaton was no more than a shadow, growing smaller with every passing second.
Trying to suppress the pain in his chest, Rouche extended his arm, lining the sight dead center on the figure’s back. He embraced the wind against his face, judging its speed and direction, adjusting accordingly, waiting until the beam bathed his target in light.
He exhaled to steady his limbs and then very, very gently squeezed the trigger.
“Take the shot!”
“Civilian down! Target wounded . . . No visual. Repeat: I no longer have a visual.”
Baxter had been distracted both by SO15’s transmissions as they hunted their prey and by the trail of bright red blood staining the ground when the crack of the gunshot cut through the snowstorm. She could see that Rouche had stopped up ahead, but Keaton had been engulfed by the whiteout.
Her throat burning, she caught her breath and continued after them.
Keaton had dropped to the ground instantly, framed in the unsteady circle of light.
Rouche walked over to the injured man, who was reaching desperately for the device a few feet away; long, gasping breaths rose up from his prone form like clouds of smoke.
“Rouche!” Baxter shouted in the distance, her voice barely audible.
He looked up to see her running toward them.
As Keaton dragged himself over to the small black box, Rouche stooped down to pick it up, discovering that it was a mobile phone.
A little disconcerted, he flipped it over to look at the screen. A moment later, he tossed it away from him and turned to Keaton with a murderous expression.
Six feet away, the uploaded video, destined to be viewed by tens of millions of people across the world, entertained itself as flake by flake it was claimed by the snow.
During the forty-six-second film, a tearful but unremorseful Keaton claimed responsibility for everything, all the while holding up photographs of his family crudely annotated with their names and the dates on which they died . . . Not once did he make any mention of Alexei Green or his beloved lost fiancée.
“Rouche! We need him! We need him!” yelled Baxter as she watched her partner press his gun into their prisoner’s temple.
A spotlit performance on a dark stage.
“Where is it?” she heard him shout over the noise of the helicopter somewhere overhead, suggesting that the recovered device had not been what they had hoped.
She had almost reached them.
“Shots fired! Shots fired!” her earpiece buzzed. “Suspect down.”
Rouche struck Keaton viciously with the heavy weapon, but the man simply smiled up at him through bloodied teeth as the snow turned crimson beneath him.
“Rouche!” Baxter shouted, sliding up to them.
She dropped to her knees, sinking into the powder, then pulled at Keaton’s clothing as she searched desperately for the source of the blood loss. Her fingers found the gaping exit wound beneath his shoulder before her eyes did. Sliding the sleeve of her jacket up over her hand, she pushed it deep into the wound.
“What’s the target?!” Rouche demanded.
Baxter could see the utter desperation on her colleague’s face, the realization that his one chance to redeem himself was slipping away from him:
“He can’t tell us if he’s dead, Rouche! Help me.”
Sat on the wet floor of the filthy Underground toilets, Green’s last remaining Puppet began to weep to the relentless hum of the helicopter circling overhead.
He had never felt so alone.
He could hear them above him, scurrying around the entrance as they repositioned themselves, their overladen footfalls like the padding feet of a hound whose quarry had gone to ground.
He cried out in frustration and pulled at the chunky vest that he had been entrusted with, the wires and components pressing uncomfortably into his back.
Despite all that Dr. Green had told him, had taught him, he had allowed himself to be herded into a deserted street and, like a timid animal, had taken the only refuge available to him . . . had taken their bait.
“Aiden Fallon!” an amplified voice boomed, all distortion and malice. “You are completely surrounded.”
Aiden put his hands over his ears, but he couldn’t block out the voice:
“Remove the vest and come out slowly or we will have no choice but to force detonation. You have thirty seconds.”
Aiden looked around the rancid room that would serve as his tomb, an appropriate memorial for someone who had failed as utterly as he. He only wished that he could see Dr. Green one last time, to tell him that he was the greatest friend he’d ever had and that he was so sorry for letting him down.
“Fifteen seconds!”
Aiden slowly got to his feet, wiping his hands on the fabric of his trousers.
“Ten seconds!”
He caught sight of himself in the dirty mirror. He really was the most pathetic excuse for a man. Maintaining eye contact with his reflected twin, a smile formed on his face as he tugged on the short cord dangling from his chest . . . and felt the fire engulf him.
“Rouche, help me here!” winced Baxter, shoving more of her jacket sleeve into the life-threatening wound.
There was an explosion somewhere in the distance.
Rouche staggered away from Baxter and their dying prisoner to stare out over the trees, the spotlight abandoning them as the helicopter was rerouted toward an orange glow in the sky. He wore an expression of confusion and disbelief, unable to comprehend that they had failed, that he’d never had any greater purpose . . . that there really was no plan.
All any of them could do was watch the sky fall and catch snowflakes.
“Rouche!” Baxter called as she struggled to stem the bleed beneath her hands. Her earpiece distorted with overlapping transmissions. “Rouche! We don’t know what’s happened yet.”
“What more could we have possibly done?” he asked, his back still to her.
She couldn’t be sure whether he was talking to her or to somebody else.
Anxiously, she watched him raise and lower the gun in his hand.
“Rouche,” said Baxter as calmly as she could over the confusion crackling in her ear, her sleeve sodden and cold with Keaton’s blood. “I need you to leave . . . for me . . . please.”
He turned back to her with tearful eyes.
“Just go, Rouche . . . Walk away,” she pleaded.
She glanced nervously at the weapon in his hand.
She couldn’t lose him, couldn’t lose another friend to the undeniable allure of a glorious and violent retribution.
“Are you going to kill me, Rouche?” Keaton wheezed weakly, having heard Baxter use his name.
“Keep quiet!” Baxter hissed. She needed to call in for an ambulance but couldn’t move her hands any more than she could interrupt the urgent radio traffic.
“Do you honestly think I care?” Keaton continued, slurring a little from the blood loss. “I’ve achieved what I needed to in this world. There is nothing left for me here.”
“I said, shut up!” Baxter snapped, but Rouche was already making his way back over to them.
“My family are with God, and wherever I’m heading, it can only be better than here,” Keaton told them. He looked up at Rouche expectantly as he kneeled down beside him.
Sensing the situation rapidly deteriorating, Baxter risked removing a hand from Keaton’s chest to push the transmit button on her radio:
“DCI Baxter requesting an emergency ambulance to St. James’s Park. Over.”
She looked across at Rouche with imploring eyes as she returned her hand to the wounded man’s chest.
“I wonder if He’s here . . .” Keaton spluttered on noticing the silver cross dangling around Rouche’s neck, “. . . right now . . . listening to us,” he said, watching the night sky for any sign. “I wonder if He’s finally paying some fucking attention!”
Rouche couldn’t help but recall the literal translation of Azazel’s name: Strength over God.
He forced it from his thoughts.
“A year and a half . . .” coughed Keaton, half laughing, half crying. He adjusted position in the snow to make himself more comfortable. “A year and a half I visited that hospital room to sit at my son’s side, much as you are now. A year and a half I quietly prayed for help . . . but it never came. You see, He doesn’t hear you when you whisper, but He can hear me now.”
Rouche watched the man beneath him dispassionately.
They were alone, the park silent bar the tinny buzzing of Baxter’s earpiece, Keaton’s labored breathing, and the wind.
“Rouche?” Baxter whispered, unable to decipher the look in his eyes.
Slowly, he reached around and unclipped the metal crucifix from around his neck, the silver cross spinning on its chain as he held it out.
“Rouche?” she repeated. “Rouche!”
He looked at her.
“We still don’t know what’s happened, but whatever it was, none of this is your fault. You do know that, don’t you?” she asked.
To her surprise, he smiled as if a crippling weight had been lifted from his shoulders:
“I know.”
He let the necklace slip through his fingers and fall into the discolored snow.
“Are we OK here?” she asked him, her eyes flicking back down to Keaton.
Rouche nodded.
“Call it in,” she told him with a relieved sigh, her friend proving, yet again, just how strong he really was.
Looking down at the man one final time, he removed his phone from his pocket and struggled to his feet.
As he began to walk away, snippets of MI5’s transmissions filled Baxter’s ears.
“Rouche, I think it’s OK!” she called after him excitedly, the bleed between her fingers slowing. “They’re saying they got him! They’re saying it was contained! . . . One fatality . . . the bomber!”
Unable to help herself, Baxter smiled down at Keaton triumphantly:
“Did you hear that, you fucker?” she whispered. “They got him. He’s dead.”
Keaton rested his head back and closed his eyes in defeat, habit prompting him to recite the words bestowed to him on too many occasions during his cursed time on this earth: “I guess God just needed another angel.”
Rouche froze midstride.
Baxter hadn’t even realized that she’d removed her bloody hands from his chest, her eyes blurring with tears—Curtis’s beautiful face all she could think of.
She never heard the crunch of snow underfoot.
She didn’t feel the warm blood spray across her face in time to the muffled gunshot, didn’t understand why the body should shake so violently . . . as three more bullets tore through it.
Rouche was standing over Keaton, tears streaming down his face.
She looked up at him blankly as he pulled the trigger again . . . and again . . . and again . . . until he’d reduced the corpse to no more than a fleshy mess in the dirty snow, into nonexistence, until the weapon clicked with empty rounds.
“There is no God,” he whispered.
Baxter just sat there, staring openmouthed at her friend, who took a few unsteady steps and then collapsed to the ground.
A sigh of relief escaped Rouche’s broken lungs.
He could hear Baxter calling his name as she scrambled over to him.
But he just smiled sadly, raised his head to the falling heavens . . .
. . . and stuck out his tongue.