Boxing Day, Saturday, December 26, 2020
Sisle gave a start when she heard the relay click and the elevator going up.
Equal measure of confusion and doubt made her freeze momentarily. Was there a fault with the elevator—and if there was, how could she stop it? She leaped away from the table and kept pressing the elevator button. It had to be a fault, but if it went all the way to the top before stopping, would she be able to call it back down?
She pushed and pushed but to no avail.
She took a step back. If this was not a fault on the elevator control, it meant there was someone up there waiting for it. But who?
I set the house on fire, and I closed Debora’s eyes. But did I check if Adam still had a pulse? she tried to recall. She was unsure.
Was it really possible that Adam had survived the blow? And was it possible that he had woken up in time before the flames consumed all the oxygen in the room?
Sisle put her ear to the elevator door. Adam was the only other person in the world who knew about this place and that she would be here just now. They had found the place together and no one—not even Debora—was told where it was. When Sisle drove out here, she never parked in her own parking lot. Better to walk five hundred meters and keep an eye out before running to the back of the building through the scrap heap and into the ground floor.
But despite her precautions, could it still be someone from one of the neighboring buildings? No, that was impossible. And calling the elevator also required a key, and who had that apart from her? Only Adam.
He’ll kill me if he gets the chance, she thought. He had so much to avenge and was so good at taking lives. She was sure it must be him.
Sisle turned to the two men. Gordon Taylor was closest to her and she noticed the smirk on his face. He must have grasped what was about to happen.
“They’re coming now,” said Gordon, turning halfway around toward his fellow hostage. “Maurits, listen! They’re coming to save us now. I knew it.” He began laughing hysterically, and Sisle was disgusted. She had always loathed when people facing their fate made a scene. Why not just accept your fate with dignity?
“Shut up, Gordon Taylor, or I’ll make you.”
Maybe he did not understand that a battle is not won until your opponent has given up. It certainly wiped the smile off his face when she succeeded in pushing the heavy table in front of the elevator door.
“I’ll deal with you two first, and then I can give Adam a shot with one of the used syringes. Thankfully, there’s enough in them for the three of you. I’ll stick the syringe in him the very moment he manages to push the table aside. Don’t doubt that. So, dear friends, all in all you’ll be an entire team on your way to hell.”
The syringes were ready to use. She checked them quickly and then went over to place one on the floor in front of each man. Now all she needed to do was read the sentence and complete the ritual. Due to the circumstances, it would have to be quick. But as the clicks from the relays reminded her that Adam would be on this floor in less than a minute, this was a case of force majeure.
She stepped over to Maurits van Bierbek and looked him in the eye. There was no doubt he knew what was about to happen, but he had already given up.
“Maurits van Bierbek, you have lived a life of sin. You have in every imaginable way violated the rules and order that God in Heaven created for us humans to live by. Again and again, you have embodied the fall that since the Garden of Eden has tainted humanity. And now it is time for you to die, Maurits van Bierbek.”
“WE’RE IN HERE! HELP!” shouted Gordon behind her at the top of his lungs. She had also heard the metallic sound from the elevator when it reached the bottom of the shaft, and the elevator automatically tried to open with a couple of bumps against the table.
Keep trying, Adam. I’ll come to you when you manage to force it open, she thought.
“GORDON!” shouted an unexpected female voice, which made him scream with excitement and shout back for them to hurry up.
Sisle was shocked. Not because of the surprise, not because she had been caught red-handed. She was shocked because she had no idea what to do. What was her emergency plan?
She turned back to Maurits van Bierbek, who had tilted his head with an expression of nothing but sorrow.
“Maurits van Bierbek, do you repent your life and actions?” she asked, bringing the syringe closer to his heart.
“STOP IT, SISLE!” shouted Gordon behind her. “In the name of God, stop it!”
“In the name of God?” She smiled while Gordon kept shouting behind her. “In the name of God, I will follow my calling.” She leaned forward and plunged the syringe into van Bierbek’s chest with the full force of her weight.
“NOOOOO!” shouted Gordon.
Van Bierbek spasmed and opened his eyes wide. The pain of the thick needle plunged into the heart had a tendency to dumbfound her victims momentarily. Sisle recognized it from the two previous times.
“Maurits van Bierbek, thank your creator for the years he gave you to live on this earth,” she said and injected the liquid.
The following seconds were chaotic. Van Bierbek cramped up and fell sideways from the chair with the chains rattling over him. Gordon screamed hysterically, and there were sounds of people shouting and knocking on the elevator door, which increased as the table slowly inched away.
And as Maurits van Bierbek’s life slowly ebbed, his mouth frothing and his body convulsing, she turned to Gordon Taylor and bent down to pick up the syringe by his feet.
“WHY?” he screamed.
She spun around to face the elevator door and the table that suddenly tilted and fell over with a bang, sending the container of saline solution smashing against the floor, the liquid splashing everywhere.
The three devils from Department Q pushed their way out as one, each holding a steel pole, which they clearly intended to fight her with. The Middle Eastern one was closest and held the pole above his head, evidently intent on using it.
She breathed deeply and pointed the syringe at Gordon Taylor’s heart. She was overcome by a strange feeling of peace. Was she not still the one with the upper hand?
“If you throw those poles at me, I’ll plunge this in your friend’s heart. Look what it’ll do to him,” she said with a nod to Maurits van Bierbek’s final gasps for air.
“Put down the poles and stand against the far wall. If you stay calm, I’ll cut Gordon loose and take him with me up in the elevator. But if you make even a single move, I’ll inject him. And if he puts up a fight, I’ll also inject him. You know I’m serious.”
She gave them a threatening look, but they did not move. Then she pressed the needle a little into Gordon directly below his breastbone, and Gordon’s scream made Carl and the woman drop their poles. But the third did not.
The woman in the group tried to talk him around, but he remained steadfast.
“Don’t, Assad,” moaned Gordon.
“No, she’ll kill you in the elevator, Gordon. Believe me,” said the man who must be Assad.
Sisle laughed. “You don’t have much faith in me, do you, little man?”
Carl Mørck took a step forward.
“You won’t kill him—and that’s because he’s innocent. Isn’t that right, Sisle?”
She did not react.
“But you are an angel of justice, aren’t you?”
“I’m an angel of vengeance and justice. Chosen by God.”
“Then prove it, because I don’t believe you,” he said. “You killed a small boy and his name was Max. Today he would’ve been around Gordon’s age, and, like Gordon, he was completely innocent. You also indirectly killed his mother, Maja. And she wasn’t guilty either. Finally, you killed Pauline Rasmussen and, just like the other two, she was also innocent. So prove to me that you have God on your side and I’ll listen to your demands.”
“I’m not accountable to you, only to God, and He’s marked me for all eternity,” she said, pressing the needle a little deeper into Gordon.
Gordon’s screams made the Department Q woman react. “Can we see your mark, Sisle? Then we’ll leave you alone.”
Sisle smiled. Since she had been discharged from the burns unit, only that bastard Palle Rasmussen had seen it. They had met each other and she had flirted with him to gain his trust. And without any warning or hesitation, he had ripped her blouse clean open.
He had gasped when he saw the scars, and Sisle had punched him hard. To her surprise, he had enjoyed both the scars and the punch.
“The mark that God has given me is here,” she said, unbuttoning her blouse. The three of them were fixated on her body, and she enjoyed how their eyes caressed it. She always reacted the same when she saw herself naked in the mirror.
The rough white and red scars that dug their way into the flesh of most of her upper body were the suffering, and the middle of the scar that formed an unharmed cross was God’s mercy. Could they not see that? Yes, she had been burned by lightning, but it had been sent directly from God’s outstretched finger of justice. A holy symbol of her invincibility and mission.
She did not notice Assad tossing the pole, but she felt it penetrating through her lower back, throwing her to the ground. She immediately tried to get up but sensed it was futile.
Sisle looked down at herself and saw the pole protruding from her at one end, while the other end had penetrated Maurits van Bierbek’s dead body as she fell. In other words, she was nailed to her own victim.
She watched as Assad rushed over and then squatted next to her while the woman cut her exhausted colleague loose.
“For the rest of your life you’ll feel the punishment dealt by God to his false prophets,” said Carl Mørck. “You’ll be incarcerated in a place where you can’t influence others with your sick ideas. You’ll be isolated from the world until you can’t remember it anymore. And every day you will pray for God’s forgiveness for your madness, but he will never grant it, Sisle Park. You can count on that.”
Sisle smiled. How wrong they were, these ignorant, stupid people. How pathetic and small. No mission, no aim. No fear of God and no hope of the salvation that was hers. The time had come for her to reap; finally, with peace of mind, she would be free from this unbearable and godless world. She raised her arm with a firm grip on the syringe. The needle had broken, and most of it was probably lodged under Gordon Taylor’s breastbone, but it was still long enough for its intended purpose.
“Drop it,” said Assad, quick-witted enough to take a step backward so she could not plunge it into his leg.
“None of your prophesies will come true, Carl Mørck. God is awaiting me, and he will take care of me for all eternity.”
Then she closed her eyes, lifted her arm as high as she could, and plunged the syringe directly into the exposed skin above her heart where the white cross was visible.
When she pressed the shaft down to the bottom, everything inside her opened.