The hands yanked at Jonah’s cowl, pulling away his disguise. Jonah grabbed hold of the bony wrists, twisted them aside.
‘Jonah, it’s me!’ protested a voice beneath the cowl.
He stared, let go of her wrists. ‘Maya?’
She pulled off her own hood and beamed, her fine red hair in disarray. ‘Nice disguise,’ she said, embracing him tightly. ‘We really do think alike, don’t we?’
Jonah broke free of her grip, turning to the people in their seats and backing off, expecting a real fight on their hands. But still no one moved, just slumped there staring at the screen.
‘They’ll sleep for some time,’ said Maya briskly. ‘I’d just taken care of them when you showed up. I thought you were a real guard till I saw your trainers.’
‘What did you use?’ asked Jonah.
‘A kind of knock-out gas – odourless, invisible – a cocktail of halothane and fentanyl, most likely. Motti had a small canister with him.’
‘He must have taken it from that booby-trap on board the Aswang,’ Jonah muttered. ‘So he escaped? Is Con with him?’
‘I set them both free,’ Maya assured him. ‘Now they’re looking out for Coldhardt.’
Jonah stared at her, suddenly suspicious. ‘How the hell did you get in here, anyway?’
Maya gestured to the big screen – Saitou and the Scribe were skirting the circular pool in different directions to converge on Coldhardt. ‘That sinkhole is connected to a nearby cave. A tough swim, but an excellent means of access when you’re not expected.’ She shrugged. ‘I found Motti and Con quite quickly, but I didn’t see you and Tye.’
‘Tye was taken away, and Patch has – well, Patch is …’ He glowered. ‘Hang on, when you say Motti and Con are looking out for Coldhardt, d’you mean they’re trying to find him or trying to protect the old bastard?’ The words fell out of Jonah’s mouth in a gabble. ‘After what he did to –’
Maya put a hand over his mouth. ‘Just two things you need to know, Jonah,’ she said, quietly and urgently. ‘First of all, Patch is in a bad way but he’s not dead. Not yet, anyway.’
Jonah stared. Time seemed to stand still in the air about him. ‘Not dead?’
‘You saved him. You and Con.’
‘We what –?’
As his mouth started to flap open she closed it with her palm. ‘And the second thing you need to know?’ She looked at him, something hard and glinting in her eyes. ‘This is such a long way from being over. Now, move.’
Tye stared down at Coldhardt as the litany of goddesses and demi-goddesses to whom he had to swear service finally ended. She wanted to look away; it was like waiting for a car crash you knew was going to happen. But whenever she looked down, the jab of Sadie’s bolt in her back forced her eyes back to the drama unfolding in the arena.
‘Now, Coldhardt,’ the Scribe announced, ‘in the presence of our brethren, in the gaze of scholar and novice alike, let it be known you have made a great gift to our Mage.’
‘I have fulfilled that which was asked of me,’ said Coldhardt simply. Tye searched his face for any flicker of emotion. Nothing.
‘Your gift has been well received.’ The Scribe paused impressively and smiled. ‘And now the Mage shall receive you …’
An absolute hush seemed to descend on the arena; the audience holding their breaths, the birds wheeling away into the deep sky, even the sea seeming to calm in anticipation.
What was that the Scribe had just said, she thought dumbly, her own heart thumping in her throat? The silences of hell are disposed.
Saitou, still safely disguised in mask and costume, remained seated in his chair as Heidel rose from the throne and stepped slowly forward, walking round the periphery of the sinkhole towards Coldhardt, head bowed beneath the blue hood to conceal his face, his dark silks brushing the floor.
‘Kneel,’ the Scribe commanded. ‘Avert your eyes.’
Coldhardt did as he was bid, sinking to his knees slowly and carefully.
Heidel let the silks hiding him fall away. Then he cleared his throat.
As Coldhardt looked up, Heidel kicked him in the jaw and knocked him sprawling on to his back. There was a breathless pause as the sight sank in, then someone started drily to applaud. Tye stared around, disgusted, as the lone clap was taken up and suddenly everyone in the gallery was joining in, clapping, jeering, laughing. Coldhardt stared round in confusion, a trickle of blood leaking from the side of his mouth. His two guard escorts pulled automatic weapons from beneath their robes and trained them at his head.
Saitou held up his arm for silence, and reluctantly the crowd piped down. Tye watched Coldhardt down there, looking suddenly pathetic, and wanted so much not to care. She’d always believed the whole world lied to you, and yet she’d been so desperate to be proved wrong. Coldhardt had become her world, but he’d turned his back on her and the others. So screw him. He’d made this bed of nails for himself, now he could just lie on it, get what was coming. And yet despite it all, still she wanted to run to him, to fend off the jackals and vultures, to help him escape.
The only thing that stays the same is that everything must change, she’d thought, that perfect picnic day. But some things didn’t change easily.
‘Heidel?’ she heard Coldhardt whisper, the arena amplifying the slightest breath. ‘How did you … what does this …?’
Saitou crossed to join the Scribe and Heidel, facing Coldhardt as he knelt among his scattered orchids. ‘I’m glad you’re on your knees,’ he announced. ‘My friends and I have waited a very long time for this moment.’
‘Karl?’ As the mask came off, for a few moments Coldhardt stared up in naked astonishment at his former associate. Then he seemed to recover himself, forcing a small, resigned smile to his face. ‘The man-at-arms in Chamonix. It was you … You killed the boy, Sorin.’
‘That’s right.’ Saitou let the mask slip to the floor with a clatter, and smiled like the cat who’d got the cream. ‘You are on my island. It belongs to me – not to some shadowy, crackpot cult.’
‘And so this is an impostor …’ Coldhardt stared at Heidel. ‘And yet I tested your belongings, your fingerprints …’
‘Genetic detritus from thirty years ago.’ Saitou could barely contain himself. ‘Your doctor was Heidel’s doctor too, remember? And such an old hoarder, kept a souvenir of all his patients … He was very cooperative in helping us create the illusion.’ He stabbed a finger up at someone on the balcony opposite Tye. ‘Weren’t you, Draith?’
Tye saw Draith reluctantly pull back the folds of his gown to reveal his drawn, bony face, like a tortoise poking its head from its shell.
‘Et tu, doctor?’ Coldhardt stared up and around at his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. Then he smiled – but it seemed to Tye the smile of a little man trying to be bigger, of a fool trying to save face. ‘So. All a trick. I really must hand it to you, Karl – it’s a brilliant, meticulously planned set-up.’
‘I’m glad you appreciate it,’ said Saitou. He gestured again to the balcony. ‘It’s taken a lot of people a good deal of time and investment to make it work.’
‘And how delightfully barbaric of you to invite them to join you for the kill.’ Some of the people on the balconies had removed their disguises, clearly revelling in seeing Coldhardt so cut down to size, and wanting him to see who had helped make it possible. ‘Well, well … All the old faces.’ Coldhardt held up a hand to his enemies in salutation, and this time his smile was wider, stronger. ‘I detect Bree Matthews’ organisational flair in this, do I not?’
‘Mine too.’ David Street swaggered out from the tunnel to Coldhardt’s right, Bree following on a couple of steps behind. ‘Payback’s been a long time coming, Coldhardt. You cheated us.’
Coldhardt tried to rise. ‘I never cheated either of –’
‘Shut up.’ Saitou kicked him this time, the point of his boot cracking against Coldhardt’s ribs. ‘We’re speaking.’ Tye winced as Coldhardt fell hard again on to the rocky ground. She looked away but Sadie hissed warningly in her ear, pressed the point of her bolt hard up against Tye’s spine.
Bree held back, observing as Street took his place between Saitou and Heidel. He looked sweaty and edgy, not quite all there. ‘You cheated us, Coldhardt. I’m not talking about Heidel’s money or contacts, none of that crap. You cheated us of family.’
Coldhardt shook his head feebly. ‘No.’
‘Yes.’
Without warning, Street pulled a handgun from his pocket, jammed it to the side of Heidel’s head and jerked on the trigger. Tye gasped as the bang thundered round the arena, as blood spattered into the sinkhole and Heidel’s body collapsed to the ground. She shut her eyes, willed herself not to be sick. The crowd wasn’t laughing now. A heavy silence had fallen over the amphitheatre.
Street hadn’t even bothered to watch what he’d done, too busy glaring at Coldhardt. Tye focused on Coldhardt too. He was still kneeling on the floor, his face bloody but his eyes bright.
‘Was that how easy it was for you, thirty-two years ago?’ Street shouted, spraying spit in Coldhardt’s face. ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead, move along? The man who pulled us out of the gutter, who had faith in us … A bloody genius who made us better than we ever could have been …’
He ranted on, and whispers started up again around the gallery. Tye saw Bree swap looks with Saitou and the Scribe, caught the unease in her face. She got the impression that killing Heidel hadn’t been part of the plan. Street had gone off-script, he was ranting like a maniac.
‘… so you tell me, Coldhardt,’ Street raged on, ‘you ever learn to live with yourself? You ever look back and feel good for what you did?’
Coldhardt stared back at him, his voice measured, eyes placid. ‘To be honest, Street, I’m wishing I’d killed you when I had the chance instead of giving you a flesh wound.’
Street swung the gun round and aimed at Coldhardt’s head. ‘Don’t give me that. You meant to kill me.’
‘You fired the first shot,’ said Coldhardt, frighteningly calm. ‘And Saitou fired the second. I shot back to save my own life but I had no desire then to take yours.’
The whispers and gasps in the gallery grew louder; someone called out in protest. Saitou quickly hit Street on a pressure point in the small of his back, striking a nerve so that the gun clattered from his fingers. Street cried out, then rounded on his partner. ‘What the hell was that?’
‘You need to step back,’ said Saitou tersely. ‘We didn’t spend all this time planning for you to ruin everything with your goddamn temper.’
‘Have you forgotten how it felt?’ Street turned from him and addressed the gallery now as if trying to win the audience over to his side. ‘Thirty-two years ago Coldhardt shoots the real Heidel, not some shite imitation … then he helps himself to the boss man’s money and screws us out of every penny. Blows up the systems, wipes out every last file, every last trace of him …’
‘And that’s precisely what we’re going to do to you, Coldhardt,’ Saitou interjected. Tye sensed how anxious he was to regain control of both Street and his big event. ‘Computers have come a fair way since the 1970s, but we’re inside your networks right now. We’ll be helping ourselves to all those little offshore bank accounts of yours, and splitting the proceeds between the members of the consortium …’
‘And I suppose you’ll be getting that information from the microprocessor you concealed in that rather splendid gold ring of mine,’ Coldhardt surmised. ‘Is that so?’
Tye felt her insides twitch as Coldhardt climbed determinedly to his feet. Nervous mutterings started to build around the arena, and judging by Bree’s frown and the look Saitou and Street shared, things were once again going not-as-rehearsed.
‘Don’t make out you knew about it,’ Street began savagely. ‘It was hidden –’
‘– beneath the enamel, yes,’ said Coldhardt, wiping the blood from his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Naturally, I’ve moved any sensitive files to a non-networked computer. My experiences with you both taught me never to take anything at face value.’ He straightened to his full height, nodded to Heidel’s gory corpse. ‘Take him, for instance. I’ve known for certain he was a fake ever since you and your “Scribe” visited my safe house at Chamonix.’
‘Sure you did.’ Saitou sneered, but Tye saw him glance nervously up at the displeased crowds above.
‘The footage my Talent took of your impostor in action only made me more certain,’ Coldhardt went on. ‘But I couldn’t tell them that because I knew that Jonah Wish and Maya Marisova had been bugged – despite dear Dr Draith assuring me of their rude health.’
‘Sure, you knew all that,’ said Street, ‘and still you came blundering in here.’
‘Once I saw you in the surveillance footage outside the auction house, of course I realised you were involved. But, like Saitou, you lack the imagination to contrive such a splendidly sordid affair on your own. You would have needed help and funding.’ Coldhardt straightened his collar and glanced round at the onlookers. ‘I was intrigued to know who my greatest enemies were. Though I must admit I didn’t expect to find quite so many of you in attendance …’
‘That’s enough,’ snapped Saitou. He gestured to Bree, who spoke into a tiny radio, and a few moments later Tye saw two robed guards enter the arena from two different tunnels. Each was armed with electric shock prods. ‘Whatever you claim you knew,’ Saitou went on, ‘you were still a fool to come here alone.’
‘But I’m not alone, am I?’
Tye was still concealed beneath her robes but Coldhardt looked straight at her and smiled.
‘I sent my Talent here ahead of me.’
‘You betrayed them!’ Bree objected.
No, thought Tye, the hairs on her neck rising, that’s what you said he did. She wondered for a moment if she were dreaming, if should pinch herself at this point; but the arrow point in her back was pinch enough, and already Tye’s every muscle was tensing for action. She shrugged off her hood and he nodded to her – a nod she took to mean Be ready.
Coldhardt seemed to have taken control of this little gathering – and the onlookers weren’t liking it. The guards with the prods stepped closer to him uncertainly.
‘Kill him now,’ someone shouted.
‘Gloating’s getting us nowhere,’ a woman added.
‘She has a point,’ said Coldhardt drily. ‘And I’m a busy man, so –’
‘Just shut it, Coldhardt.’ Saitou flexed his fingers as if getting ready to put them to use. ‘You’re mine now.’
‘Ours,’ said Street thickly, picking up his gun. ‘You know what, Coldhardt? You’re going to apologise to us for all you’ve done.’
Saitou looked up at Tye. ‘And you’d better mean it.’
Coldhardt looked down at the crushed orchids at his feet, stooped to pick up one that was intact. ‘I’ll always be sorry for what I did that day,’ he said quietly, and Tye could see at once he did mean it. ‘More sorry than you could know.’
‘Oh, we can know a lot of sorry,’ Saitou’s smile was chilling as his fingers curled to dangerous points.
Coldhardt nodded. ‘But if I hadn’t killed Heidel, he would have killed me.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Street sneered.
Facing up to the gun, still gripping the orchid, Coldhardt stepped towards them. ‘How’d you think I knew for certain your Heidel replacement wasn’t for real? If Nomen Oblitum had him in their care for thirty years, if he’d talked about me every day, if his thirst for revenge was so very unquenchable … don’t you think he’d have told them what he never told you? The same thing I tried to tell you that day it all fell apart … only you were too busy trying to kill me for all that you believed I’d done.’
‘He’s tapped!’ jeered Street, but Tye could tell he was speaking angrily to mask his nerves. ‘Trying to talk his way out of –’
‘Heidel wasn’t just my boss,’ Coldhardt snapped, his words ringing out around the ancient rock. ‘He was my father.’