Holy Terror (47 page)

There was a reluctant clatter; a Colt .45 automatic, a Beretta, two combat knives and a ninja flail. The snow began to bury them almost immediately.

‘Back off,' Conor demanded, and they stepped away, their hands in the air. ‘Back off and stay backed off.'

Dennis Evelyn Branch remained where he was,
with his hands still jammed in his pockets. The snow blew between them like a plague of albino locusts. ‘I'm not going to pretend this is some kind of pleasure, Mr O'Neil. What the hell do you think you're doing here?'

Conor came even closer. ‘I'm your nemesis, reverend. I'm the person who was sent by God to make sure that you didn't take His name in vain.'

Dennis Evelyn Branch looked at him narrowly. ‘I warn you, mister, you've done enough interfering in my business, and when you're interfering in my business you're interfering in the Lord's business, and the Lord don't have any truck with unbelievers or those who choose a wayward path.'

‘Walk toward the Jeep,' said Conor.

Branch stayed where he was, but Conor stiffened his arm and took a deliberate bead on his head. ‘Let me tell you something: if I kill you here and now, it's not going to make my life any worse than it is already. And at least it'll give me the satisfaction of rubbing out the lunatic who made it that way.'

Dennis Evelyn Branch gradually broke into a smile. ‘I should have guessed that you were after me, now, shouldn't I, when Toralf didn't show up? And I suppose it was you who burned out all of my vehicles, back in Tromso? Am I right? Go on, tell me, am I right?'

Conor said, ‘Walk toward the Jeep.'

‘Oh, come on, now. I can understand that you're
aggrieved
. I mean, maybe I went too far with the cockroaches and I apologize for that. But you can understand why we had to take your lady friend, can't you? And after all, you've had your revenge for
that. The last I heard, Victor won't be talking again, not without a synthesizer. You're angry, for sure. But we can come to some kind of arrangement, can't we? After all, I respect you. I respect you very much. You came all the way to Spitsbergen to hunt me down, that's something else. Seventy-eight degrees north, Jesus. You must have faith in yourself. And – you know – once you have faith in yourself – that's just the first step. Faith in yourself leads to faith in the Lord.'

‘Walk toward the Jeep,' Conor repeated. ‘If you don't walk toward the Jeep now, I swear to God that I will kill you where you stand.'

‘OK,' said Branch. ‘You want me to walk, I'll walk.'

As soon as Branch had turned around, Conor said, ‘Hands out of your pockets. Slow, wide, where I can see them.'

‘I'm not carrying a weapon, Captain O'Neil. I'm a minister of religion. Besides that, my hands are cold. I left my gloves in the vehicle.'

‘Lift your hands out where I can see them. I'm not going to tell you again.'

Branch did as he was told, holding his hands high up in the air, as if he were making a benediction. Conor came close up behind him and quickly patted his pockets. ‘OK … you can put them back now.'

Branch continued to walk toward the Jeep and Conor followed him only a foot behind. There were still half a dozen construction workers noisily slinging the last pieces of framework into the backs of their Mercedes trucks, but none of them took any
particular notice of Conor and Branch. Like all of the vehicles, the Jeep's engine was idling, and its windows were misted up – not on the inside, but the outside.

‘OK, climb in,' Conor ordered, opening the passenger door. Branch gave him a long meaningful look and said, ‘You're sure you want to do this? I mean, if you're going to stop, now's the time to do it.'

‘Climb in,' Conor repeated. Branch made a
moue
and did what he was told. ‘Right now – slide over to the driver's seat. You do know how to drive, don't you?'

‘Only since I was five years old. My daddy taught me.'

‘In that case, drive back down into town. I'll tell you what to do, once we're there.'

Branch shifted the Jeep into gear. ‘You realize how hopeless this is. I don't personally carry a weapon but my adherents – well, they like to make sure that nothing untoward is going to happen to me. When they know that you've taken me hostage, they're going to be mighty wrathful.'

Conor looked back toward Branch's two bodyguards. Neither of them had moved; and their hands were still raised. ‘Your so-called adherents have to catch up with us first,' he said. ‘Now drive.'

He reached around for his seatbelt. As he did so, he heard a disturbance in the back of the Jeep. He tried to turn to see what it was, but then something whipped over the top of his head and caught him around the neck. He dropped the gun and tried to tug it away, but it was a thin braided wire, a garrotte,
and it cut so fiercely into his Adam's apple that he couldn't even cry out.

He was pulled back against the headrest, choking and gasping. He pulled at the wire again and again but his fingertips couldn't get any purchase. Branch leaned over toward him with his pink eyes wide and a grin on his face. ‘You didn't think that you could interfere with a mission ordained by the Lord thy God, did you, Mr O'Neil? You didn't think that you could stand in the way of the Apocalypse?'

Conor struggled and twisted but the garrotte was thin and unrelenting and he knew that he was going to die. Waves of black light moved in front of his eyes. He could see that Branch was still talking but he couldn't hear him any more. He didn't even have enough breath to ask for absolution for all of his sins, and to beg God to take him into Heaven.

He opened his eyes. The ceiling above him was white and blank. Artificial light was falling on him from his left-hand side, and he could see shadows flickering to and fro.

His throat felt agonizing, like the worst tonsillitis that he had ever suffered. He reached his hand up and felt a thin indentation all the way across his larynx, so that his skin was ridged. He coughed, and he had to sit up when he coughed, in case he choked.

The door opened while he was still coughing, and Dennis Evelyn Branch came in. He was wearing a black skinny-ribbed polo-neck sweater and tight black pants. He must have showered quite recently because his white hair was wet and his skin looked damp. He stood a few feet away from Conor, his over-large head looking like an eerily handsome Mardi Gras mask.

‘Did you really think you were dead?' he asked him.

Conor couldn't answer, just kept on coughing.

‘You kept calling out for a priest, do you know that? As if one of your priests could absolve you.'

Conor lay back on the bed. It was plain, with an iron frame and no pillows or blankets. Branch walked around and stood over him, and Conor couldn't help thinking that he had never seen an expression like that on anybody's face before. Wild, beatific, destructive – so convinced of the reality of a life beyond life that he was prepared to do anything to get what he wanted.

‘What time is it?' asked Conor.

Branch checked his wristwatch. ‘Around seven p.m.'

‘What day?'

‘Sunday. You've been sleeping for a while.'

Conor tried to prop himself up on one elbow, but the room tilted so wildly that he had to lie back down again in case he fell off the bed. ‘You've drugged me,' he said.

‘Of course we've drugged you. We didn't want any trouble, did we? You did the same thing to poor old Knut, so what do you expect?'

‘Burundanga?'

‘That's the stuff. Total obedience in a bottle.'

Conor didn't say anything for a while, but waited for the beating in his head to subside. ‘So where am I?' he asked, at last.

‘You don't recognize this place? You're back in Tromso, in GMM's laboratory. Most of my adherents were all for shooting you and burying you in one of those graves in Longyearbyen cemetery, but I had a much better idea. I thought, let's use him as an experiment. Let him be the first to try out the Spanish flu virus. I mean, what an honor that would be, wouldn't it? To be the first person infected by a
virus that died out over eight decades ago. A virus that's going to change to spiritual life of every man, woman and child on the planet Earth.'

‘You're crazy if you think you can get away with this.'

‘Oh no I'm not. I may be a whole lot of things and – boy – doesn't the Lord keep reminding me that I'm less than perfect? But when you have a vision like mine directly from God, and I'm talking
directly
from God here, speaking intimately in my ear while I'm standing there shaving – when you have a vision like that you can get away with anything. And I mean
anything
.'

He suddenly stopped, frowned, and said, ‘Would you like a drink of water? You sound like you could use a drink of water.' He went over to the stainless-steel washbasin and poured one out. Then he sat on the bed next to Conor and helped him with his scaly hand to lift up his head so that he could drink it.

‘I'm sorry you were personally hurt,' he said. ‘That wasn't my intention. But you can't divert the waters of time, my friend. You can't question the ordinance of God. This great revolution is going to happen and nobody on earth can stop it.'

Conor croaked, ‘You're really going to let this virus loose?'

Branch looked serious. ‘I hope not. I mean that most sincerely from the bottom of my heart. It is not my intention to cast the shadow of death all across the face of the earth; but I promise you sincerely that I will if I have to. It's a plague, but it's the plague of angels. I'm going to ask the leaders of all the false religions in the world to acknowledge the purity and
the supremacy of the Global Message Movement, the one way to God, and if they freely and willingly do that, well, that'll be an end to it.'

‘You mean you'll destroy the virus?'

‘Not exactly destroy it
as such
. After all, it's a living thing sent from God to work His will. So we'll just put it back on ice in case anybody starts getting any wild ideas about going back to their erring ways.'

‘So you're going to impose your religious bigotry on the whole world by blackmail? Do you really think that's what God wants you to do?'

‘Religious bigotry? What are you talking about, religious bigotry? The Global Message Movement is the only true way! Nobody is going to get to Heaven by any other path! Do you drive to Shreveport to get to Austin? Every nation on this earth speaks in different tongues, but there's only one true tongue, the Word of God. Look at our so-called United Nations! It's nothing but the Tower of Babel!'

Conor didn't know what to say. Dennis Evelyn Branch was obviously beyond any kind of logic; but then he had come across so many people who were just the same. How could he argue with Luigi Guttuso when he wistfully wished that crime wasn't against the law? How could he tell officers like Drew Slyman that extorting money from extortioners didn't amount to justice?

‘What are you going to do now?' he asked.

Branch paced from one side of the room to the other. ‘We've isolated the whole Spanish influenza virus. At least we believe we have. Now we're ready to try it out. You understand that we have to try it out. We can't threaten the entire population of the
earth with something that doesn't work, can we? And you'll be living proof that it does. Well, hunh,
dead
proof. We can ship your body to New York and they'll be able to see for themselves what killed you. Then, it's up to them.'

He was still talking when the door opened again and a tall dark figure stepped into the room. Conor raised himself up, shielding his eyes against the light. The figure came toward him and stroked his cheek. He recognized the perfume; and then he recognized the zinc-white face.

‘Hello, Conor,' she said, in the silkiest of voices.

‘
Magda
?'

‘Oh, you mustn't be upset, Conor. I was never very good with allegiances. I didn't go back to Oslo with Eleanor. I knew that you wouldn't be able to stop Dennis on your own. He has too many loyal followers; too much money; and a vision from God. It's hard to argue with a vision from God.'

‘I thought you said that he wanted to kill you.'

‘Only when I wasn't being compliant. Dennis will never hurt you, if you're compliant.'

Branch nodded, and nodded again. ‘
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ
.'

‘Amen,' smiled Magda.

‘I thought you wanted your revenge on this man,' said Conor. ‘I thought you wanted your million dollars.'

Magda stood up straight, ‘I realized that there are more important things in this world, Conor, than revenge, and dollars. Each of us has a duty to God.'

Branch opened the door and beckoned. Two men in white biohazard suits came in, although neither wore a helmet. Branch said, ‘You can strip him and strap him down now.'

Conor rolled off the bed onto the floor but he was far too woozy from the effects of the burundanga. The two men heaved him back onto it and immediately started to wrench open his shirt and unbuckle his belt. Magda watched with a tilted smile on her face as they pulled off his shirt and his T-shirt and dragged down his pants and his undershorts. When he was naked, except for his socks, they strapped his wrists and his ankles onto the bed-rails so that he was unable to move.

‘Fuck you,' he said, panting.

Magda leaned over him and gave him a dreamless smile. Her long black satin sleeves trailed against his penis, making him shiver. ‘You always wanted me, didn't you?' she breathed. ‘And I always wanted you. It wasn't to be, was it? But at least I've been able to see what I've been missing.'