Chaos Theory (35 page)

There was instant pandemonium. The President’s bodyguards immediately clustered around him, pulling out their guns, and hurried him out of the room, slamming the double doors behind him. The Ethiopian security men grabbed hold of His Excellency Ato Ketona Aklilu’s robes and dragged him out of the side door so roughly that he lost one of his golden slippers.

Rick ducked down and rolled across the carpet twice, out of the door and into the corridor. A hotel security guard came towards him, shouting, ‘Hey!
Hey!
’ The man tried to snatch at his suit, but Rick barged him out of the way with his shoulder and sprinted along the corridor towards the stairs.

He crashed through the door to the stairwell and began to leap down the stairs five and six at a time. He knew from his own Secret Service experience that the hotel elevators would all be stopped, to prevent anybody from escaping.

He ran down all sixteen flights to the ground floor, his footsteps rattling and echoing on the concrete stairs. When he reached the lobby level, however, he stopped for a moment, and took several deep breaths, and calmed himself down.

He opened the door to the lobby. It was pandemonium here, too. The reception area was crowded with police and media and guests, and everybody was shouting and pushing. He started to walk across to the front doors. The police were preventing anybody from leaving, but they might let him out if he showed them his Ethiopian security pass, and gave them some story about going to find His Excellency’s car.

He was halfway across the lobby, however, when he saw the blond man in the grey suit pushing his way through the crowd. The blond man was grinning at him, and walking towards him almost as if he were going to ask him to dance.

‘Going somewhere?’ the blond man asked him, as he approached.

‘I needed some air,’ said Rick.

‘Oh, yes? Things didn’t go too well, from what I hear. Seems like your aim was a little off.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Rick told him.

‘Well, nobody’s very happy with you, Mr Flynn, let’s put it that way. I think you and I should go to the restroom and have a discussion about this.’

He took hold of Rick’s left elbow and tried to steer him away from the hotel’s front doors. As he looked around, Rick took out his APS and shot him in the back of the head.

The blond man spun around on one heel and fell heavily on to the carpet. All around them, people were shouting and screaming and trying to get away. Rick backed two or three steps away from the blond man’s body. He tossed the APS on to the floor and held up both hands high.

‘Ex-Secret Service!’ he shouted. ‘My name is Rick Kavanagh and I’m ex-Secret Service!’

He was surrounded by police and FBI and Secret Service agents, all with their guns drawn.

‘I’m ex-Secret Service!’ he repeated. ‘Ex-Secret Service undercover!’

‘Down on the floor!’ ordered one of the Secret Service agents, a grey-haired man with a face like an angry bulldog. ‘Down on the floor and don’t move a muscle!’

Rick lay face down on the carpet. The grey-haired men knelt down beside him, and stared at him.

‘Kevin?’ said Rick. ‘Kevin Pritchard? Look at me. You know me. We spent two weeks in Philly together. Remember that night at McGillin’s Old Ale House?’

‘The Rick Kavanagh I knew was white,’ the agent retorted, in a rasping voice.

‘Go get a cloth,’ Rick told him. ‘A napkin, a bar towel – anything.’

The Secret Service agent took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket. ‘This do?’

‘Sure. Now wipe my forehead with it.’

The agent rubbed Rick’s forehead and then looked at the smears of black make-up on his handkerchief.

‘You are,’ he said. ‘You
are
Rick Kavanagh. What the hell are you doing, all blacked up like Morgan Freeman?’

 

Leon walked up the steps of Professor Halflight’s house and rang the doorbell. It was past midday now, and very hot, and he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

After almost a minute, Berta opened the door.

‘Yes?’

‘I want to talk to Professor Halflight.’

‘Is he expect you?’

‘Kind of.’

‘What shall I say name?’

‘Leon – Leon Speller. I’m one of his students.’

Berta said, ‘Wait here please.’ But as she turned to go back inside, Professor Halflight appeared, wearing a pink polo shirt and crumpled khaki pants.

‘Who is it, Berta? Oh –
Leon
. This is quite a surprise!’

‘That’s funny, Professor. I thought you would have been expecting me.’

‘Now, why should I have been doing that?’

‘You killed my dad. You killed my stepmother. What did you think – I was just going to forget about it?’

‘I killed your dad?’ said Professor Halflight. He shook his head and kept on shaking it. ‘I think you’re labouring under some kind of misapprehension here, Leon. I’m a professor of ancient history, not a professional killer.’

‘I know what you are,’ said Leon. He pulled Rick’s SIG-Sauer from out of his windbreaker.

‘Now, Leon,’ said Professor Halflight, ‘let’s be reasonable, shall we? Violence never solved anybody’s problems.’

‘You don’t believe that,’ Leon retorted. ‘You believe the exact opposite. You believe that violence solves everybody’s problems, and you don’t care who gets killed or who gets hurt.’

‘Leon –’ said Professor Halflight ‘– Leon, I’m very sorry about your father and your stepmother. But you really have to understand—’

Leon shot him in the chest, and Professor Halflight staggered backwards into the hallway. Leon shot him again, somewhere in the abdomen, and he pitched over sideways, his cane clattering on the polished mahogany floor.

‘You don’t know what you’ve done,’ gasped Professor Halflight. ‘You stupid little shit, you don’t know what you’ve done!’

Leon stepped into the hallway and pointed the automatic right between the professor’s eyes. The professor looked up at him and licked his lips, as if he were thirsty.

‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘Go on, if you’re going to.’

Leon pulled the trigger and Professor Halflight’s brain, with all of its ancient languages and all of its philosophical knowledge, not to mention all of his personal memories, was splattered in lumps across the floor.

Leon stood up straight. Somebody was wailing – a hoarse, unearthly wail. He hesitated for a moment, and then he walked through to the living room.

Fariah was sitting there, in her wheelchair. The wailing was coming from out of her celluloid mask. Leon stood and stared at her for a long time. Then he approached her, and levelled the automatic at her head.

She kept on wailing, her single three-fingered hand tugging at her brown blanket. She didn’t try to beg him for mercy. She didn’t even try to curse him.

He shot her, once, in the face. The celluloid mask instantly turned red.

Berta was watching him, fearfully, from the door on the opposite side of the living room. He ignored her and walked out of the house, stepping over Professor Halflight’s body as went.

 

They walked away, across the factory yard. Hubert Tocsin stood outside the office door, his arms folded, watching them, with the spidery man standing beside him.

They had nearly reached the main gate when the security guard came out of his sentry box, and he was carrying a pump-action rifle. He lifted it up and pointed it at them.

‘I told you!’ Hubert Tocsin called out, in a mocking voice. ‘You’re not going anywhere!’

Adeola stopped and looked back at him. ‘He’s not going to let us go, is he? He can’t.’

‘You think so?’ said Noah. ‘We’ll see about that.’

The security guard came closer, aiming his rifle at Noah’s chest. ‘Take out your weapon, fella, and toss it!’

Noah lifted out the Colt between finger and thumb and held it up so that the security guard could see it. Then he threw it on to the ground.

‘OK – now turn around and walk back towards the office!’

Noah turned around. As he did so, he lifted his cellphone out of his pocket, and pressed 5.

There was a pause. He thought,
Please Lord, don’t tell me that it’s not going to work
. But then there was a bellowing explosion from inside the factory building, and a thirty-foot section of the aluminium roof was blown upward, like a skeletal hand.

‘Stop him!’ shrieked Hubert Tocsin. He sounded like a hysterical woman. ‘Stop him!’

Noah pressed 6 and 7, and there were two more explosions. The aluminium sides of the factory building were dented outwards, as if the Incredible Hulk were inside, punching at the walls.

The security guard came running up to them, still pointing his rifle at Noah’s chest. He didn’t understand what was happening, or how Noah could be causing all these explosions, and all he could do was shout, ‘Stop it! Whatever the fuck you’re doing, stop it!’

The black smoke that was pouring from the factory building’s roof was suddenly interlaced with orange flames. The thermite had ignited, and soon the inside of the factory building would reach 2,500 degrees Kelvin, and everything that was made of metal would become molten.

The spidery man was running across to the factory door. He tugged at it, but it must have been distorted by the blast, because he couldn’t get it open. Hubert Tocsin hurried across and joined him, and they pulled at the door together.

There was another explosion from the inside of the factory, and then another, and another. The sunburst warheads were starting to blow up.

‘Oh, Christ,’ said the security guard. He took his eyes away from Noah and stared at the factory building in mounting horror. ‘If that all goes up—’

He was still staring at the smoke and the flames when Silja swung around in a circle, with one leg extended, and kicked him in the back of the head. He dropped his rifle and fell to the ground, stunned.

‘Time to get out of here,’ said Noah. ‘Come on, this is going to be one hell of a bang.’

They ran towards the main gate. Behind them, they heard a rippling series of half a dozen explosions, like a giant firecracker.

Hubert Tocsin and the spidery man were still pulling at the door. Suddenly, it opened. A white-hot river of molten steel and aluminium poured out of it, like lava, and engulfed them both.

The spidery man vanished instantly. They heard him scream and saw one arm raised, but then he was gone. Hubert Tocsin tried to run, but the flood of incandescent metal was too fast for him, and in seconds it was up to his knees.

He let out a noise that didn’t even sound human. He was still trying to run, but his lower legs had been vaporized, and he was stumping along on his knees.

‘Help me!’ he cried out. ‘Oh God in heaven, help me!’

But then he fell forward. His hands and his forearms disappeared into the shimmering metal with a crackle of incinerated flesh. His white suit caught fire. For a split second his head remained, his face blackened, his mouth stretched open in a silent scream. Then he was swallowed up, and he was gone, with nothing more than a hiss and a faint sizzling of steam.

Noah and Silja and Adeola hurried away through the main entrance and along the road. They had only just reached the Grand Prix when the factory blew up. There was an explosion like a huge iron door slamming and a massive fireball rolled up into the sky, a monstrous fiery jellyfish, trailing tentacles of white smoke. Leaves flew off the trees and shrubs all around them in a rattling storm, and the bushes closest to the factory caught fire.

They climbed into the car and Noah swerved away from the factory as fast as he could. There was another explosion, and another, and then dozens of smaller explosions. In his rear-view mirror, Noah could see that a column of dark smoke was billowing into the air, blotting out the sun.

He passed his cellphone to Adeola. ‘Call Rick for me. Call Leon. I’m just praying that they’re safe.’

He turned on the car radio, too, to hear if there was any news about the President. The first station he turned to was playing
Satisfaction
.

 

Somebody whispered, ‘
Chaos and Old Night
.’

Noah sat up. He was lying on the couch at Dave McCray’s house, with Silja sleeping next to him. There was nobody else in the room.

He watched Silja sleeping for a while. Her breathing was so quiet and so shallow that she could have been dead. The waning moonlight cast a sharp shadow on her cheekbone, and her blonde hair glistened. He couldn’t decide if he loved her or not, or even if he ought to. There was no future in it, was there? But after everything that had happened in the past few days, who could tell if any of them had any future at all?

The one thing he was sure of was that he would do everything he could to look after her and keep her safe, and maybe that was a kind of love.

He reached across to the nightstand and picked up the medallion that Professor Halflight had given him. He held it up, and the moon caught it. Cuneiform characters on one side, F L Y N N on the other.

He eased himself off the couch and went to the bathroom. When he came out, he went out on to the veranda, taking his cigarettes with him. He was surprised to find Adeola out there, sitting in the basketwork chair.

‘Couldn’t sleep?’ he asked her.

‘I’m worried about Rick.’

‘Oh, Rick’s going to be OK. You heard what they said on the news. He’s a hero.’

‘Actually, I’m worried about all of us.’

Noah lit his cigarette and blew out smoke. ‘You think they’ll still come after us? I guess they probably will. They’ve been murdering people for two and a half thousand years, to keep themselves secret. I doubt if they’re going to stop now.’

He smoked for a while in silence. Then he said, ‘Leon sounded OK, all things considered. A little tired, you know. A little mumbly. He’s going to stay with his uncle Saul in Pasadena for a while, and then he’s probably going to go up to Monterey. He has cousins there.’